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Location | Jacksonville, Florida, Duval County, Florida, USA |
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Region | Duval County, Florida |
Coordinates | 30°22′21.68″N81°34′8.4″W / 30.3726889°N 81.569000°W |
History | |
Cultures | St. Johns culture |
Site notes | |
Excavation dates | 1894, 1895, 1999–2002 |
Archaeologists | Clarence Bloomfield Moore |
Architecture | |
Architectural styles | burial mound |
Architectural details | Number of monuments: 2 |
The Mill Cove Complex is a group of prehistoric archaeological sites located in Duval County, Florida built by people of the St. Johns culture approximately 900 to 1250 CE. The site encompasses two sand mounds, Grant Mound (8DU14) and the contemporaneous Shields Mound (8DU12) located 750 metres (0.47 mi) away, and an area in between the two which is full of St. Johns culture midden deposits.
The mound is a mortuary structure first excavated in 1894 and 1895 by Clarence Bloomfield Moore. At the time Moore described the mound as being a slightly oblong shaped rectangular platform mound 65.2 metres (214 ft) in diameter and 5.5 metres (18 ft) in height with a summit measuring 40.5 metres (133 ft) by 35.1 metres (115 ft). There was a ramp running to the top on the north face that measured 38.2 metres (125 ft) in length by 26.7 metres (88 ft) wide. Later archaeological work in 1999-2002 determined that the mound is a burial mound and not a substructure platform mound with burials as Moore assumed. Moore found a number of exotic grave goods in the mound, including copper artifacts and several spatulate celts similar to ones found in Mississippian culture sites in other parts of the southeastern US and generally seen as elite status symbols. [1] He also found one copper plate similar to others he'd found when he excavated the Grant Mound and Mount Royal Mound, another nearby St. Johns culture sites. [2]
In 1894 C. B. Moore described the mound as being a truncated cone mound 8.1 metres (27 ft) in height, with a base diameter of 65.8 metres (216 ft) a summit diameter of 7.3 metres (24 ft). When he excavated the mound he found a large number of graves and many artifacts, although all of the artifacts do not seem to be associated with burials as grave goods. The artifacts were of both local and nonlocal manufacture and included 147 polished stone celts, chipped stone tools, soapstone smoking pipes, shell drinking cups of the type used for the black drink ritual, bone pins, pottery and a variety of items made from or covered with copper. The copper items included embossed plaques, beads, two bi-conical ear spools and two long-nosed god maskettes. [1] Both the copper covered earspools and long-nosed god maskettes are rare items that have associations with the Cahokia site in western Illinois and the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. [2]
The presence of exotic copper items in the two mounds along with busycon shells has led archaeologists to believe the peoples of the Mill Cove Complex were involved in long distance trade with Mississippian culture peoples to their west. Whelk shells and yaupon holly, two local products, were valuable elite commodities to the peoples of the Mississippian cultures, used to make shell gorgets, ritual drinking vessels, beads and columnella pendants and the ingredient for the black drink. [2]
The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city directly across the Mississippi River from present-day St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south-western Illinois between East St. Louis and Collinsville. The park covers 2,200 acres (890 ha), or about 3.5 square miles (9 km2), and contains about 80 manmade mounds, but the ancient city was much larger. At its apex around 1100 CE, the city covered about 6 square miles (16 km2), included about 120 earthworks in a wide range of sizes, shapes, and functions, and had a population of between 15,000 and 20,000 people.
Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park (8LE1) is one of the most important archaeological sites in Florida, the capital of chiefdom and ceremonial center of the Fort Walton Culture inhabited from 1050–1500. The complex originally included seven earthwork mounds, a public plaza and numerous individual village residences.
The Weeden Island cultures are a group of related archaeological cultures that existed during the Late Woodland period of the North American Southeast. The name for this group of cultures was derived from the Weedon Island site in Old Tampa Bay in Pinellas County.
Spiro Mounds is an Indigenous archaeological site located in present-day eastern Oklahoma. The site was built by people from the Arkansas Valley Caddoan culture. that remains from an American Indian culture that was part of the major northern Caddoan Mississippian culture. The 80-acre site is located within a floodplain on the southern side of the Arkansas River. The modern town of Spiro developed approximately seven miles to the south.
The Nacoochee Mound is an archaeological site on the banks of the Chattahoochee River in White County, in the northeast part of the U.S. state of Georgia. Georgia State Route 17 and Georgia State Route 75 have a junction near here.
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Long-nosed god maskettes are artifacts made from bone, copper and marine shells associated with the Mississippian culture and found in archaeological sites in the Midwestern United States and the Southeastern United States. They are small shield-shaped faces with squared-off foreheads, circular eyes, and large noses of various lengths. They are often shown on Southeastern Ceremonial Complex representations of falcon impersonators as ear ornaments. Long and short nosed versions of the masks have been found in ten different states, with the majority found at sites in Illinois. Many archaeologists now associate them with the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) stories of the mythological being Red Horn.
The Castalian Springs Mound State Historic Site (40SU14) is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located near the small unincorporated community of Castalian Springs in Sumner County, Tennessee. The site was first excavated in the 1890s and again as recently as the 2005 to 2011 archaeological field school led by Dr. Kevin E. Smith. A number of important finds have been associated with the site, most particularly several examples of Mississippian stone statuary and the Castalian Springs shell gorget held by the National Museum of the American Indian. The site is owned by the State of Tennessee and is a State Historic Site managed by the Bledsoe's Lick Association for the Tennessee Historical Commission. The site is not currently open to the public.
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The Chauga Mound (38OC1) is an archaeological site once located on the northern bank of the Tugaloo River, about 1,200 feet (370 m) north of the mouth of the Chauga River in present-day Oconee County, South Carolina. The earthen platform mound and former village site were inundated by creation of Lake Hartwell after construction of the Hartwell Dam on the Savannah River, which was completed in 1962.
The Beaverdam Creek Archaeological Site,, is an archaeological site located on a floodplain of Beaverdam Creek in Elbert County, Georgia approximately 0.8 km from the creek's confluence with the Savannah River, and is currently inundated by the Richard B. Russell Lake. The site consisted of a platform mound and an associated village site.
The Etowah plates, including the Rogan Plates, are a collection of Mississippian copper plates discovered in Mound C at the Etowah Indian Mounds near Cartersville, Georgia. Many of the plates display iconography that archaeologists have classified as part of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (S.E.C.C.), specifically "Birdman" imagery associated with warriors and the priestly elite. The plates are a combination of foreign imports and local items manufactured in emulation of the imported style. The designs of the Rogan plates are in the Classic Braden style from the American Bottom area. It is generally thought that some of the plates were manufactured at Cahokia before ending up at sites in the Southeast.
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The River Styx archaeological site is the site of a village and burial mound in North Central Florida that was occupied during the development of the Cades Pond culture out of the Deptford culture early in the Current Era (CE).
The Anker Site (11Ck-21) is located on the Little Calumet River near Chicago, Illinois. It is classified as a late prehistoric site with Upper Mississippian Huber affiliation.
The Fisher Mound Group is a group of burial mounds with an associated village site located on the DesPlaines River near its convergence with the Kankakee River where they combine to form the Illinois River, in Will County, Illinois, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago. It is a multi-component stratified site representing several Prehistoric Upper Mississippian occupations as well as minor Late Woodland and Early Historic components.