Location | Jeffersonville, Indiana, Clark County, Indiana, USA |
---|---|
Region | Clark County, Indiana |
Coordinates | 38°22′40.80″N85°41′41.82″W / 38.3780000°N 85.6949500°W |
History | |
Founded | 1000 CE |
Abandoned | 1180 CE |
Cultures | Middle Mississippian culture |
Architecture | |
Architectural styles | platform mounds, palisade, |
The Prather Site (12CL4) is a Middle Mississippian culture archaeological site located in the Falls of the Ohio region in Clark County, Indiana. It was the principal ceremonial center of the Prather Complex, the northeasternmost regional variant of the Mississippian cultures. It also bordered on several Upper Mississippian cultures, including the Fort Ancient peoples of Southern Indiana, Southern Ohio and Northeastern Kentucky.
The Prather Site is located 4.9 kilometres (3.0 mi) west of the Ohio River and 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi) east of Silver Creek [1] on a loess-capped upland ridge. It is unusual for a Mississippian mound center to be located in the upland area rather than the alluvial valley closer to the river, but the site is watered by permanent natural springs and shallow streams. Other sites in the complex to the northeast of the site are also situated primarily in the uplands, while those to the south and southwest are located in the alluvial valley. This implies the inhabitants of the area may have settle farther back from the river in an attempt to avoid contact with people traveling on the river, trading the richer soils and marine resources for this added safety. [1] [2]
The site itself consists of a 5.2 hectares (0.052 km2) residential village area surrounding four platform mounds arranged in a roughly rectangular pattern around a central plaza area. Dating done from samples obtained from the largest mound indicate it was used from approximately 1000 to 1180 CE. It is possible this area was surrounded by a palisade, although currently one has not been located. [2] [3]
The site is located next to Indiana State Road 62, immediately west of the former Indiana Army Ammunition Plant. Until relatively recently the area was rural but residential and industrial encroachment is rapidly changing the area. Multiple modern development are planned for the area, including a new bridge over the Ohio River and new housing developments, that could have significant impact on the site and currently threaten its preservation as a viable archaeological site. [4]
The site has undergone several site surveys and some excavations during its modern history. Eli Lilly and the Indiana Historical Society employed E.Y. Guernsey to carry out surveys and excavations at Clark County sites in the early 1930s. He noted three of the mounds at the site, the smallest of which he partially excavated and the largest he examined. Guernsey noted several different types of mortuary practices at the sites, including stone box graves and several flexed and extended burials beneath a fired clay floor. He also discovered typical Mississippian culture pottery, known for its use of crushed marine shells as a tempering agent, a stone discoidal associated with the game of chunkey, a shell gorget and a copper-covered, carved wooden raptorial bird covered in beaten copper. The present whereabouts of all of the artifacts he collected are not currently known, but some are curated at the Glenn Black Laboratory of Archaeology at Indiana University-Bloomington, and at the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology. [2]
Several amateur archaeologists occasionally dug at the site over the years after Guernsey, but the next major professional archaeological work at the site was a field school held by Donald Janzen in 1971. He reported one large single mound at the site. He also found sections of a wall trench structure dating ton approximately 1045 CE, and examples Mississippian pottery. Among ceramics found were Mississippian plain pottery, some rare decorated examples with incised lines and red filming, and a fragment of a black-on-buff negative painted bottle. [2]
The next major excavations at the site were undertaken in 2003 by Cheryl Munson and Robert McCullough, with funding provided by the National Park Service and administered by the Indiana Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology. [2]
The Prather complex (or "Falls Mississippian" [2] ) is the northeasternmost variant of the Middle Mississippian culture. It is a group of sites located in the Falls of the Ohio region of central Kentucky and southern Indiana. It is separated from the next closest Mississippian variant, the Angel phase centered on the Angel Mounds site near Evansville, Indiana, down the Ohio River approximately 85 kilometres (53 mi) to the southwest. The section of the river between the two was an empty buffer zone. Another empty buffer zone stretched 95 kilometres (59 mi) up the Ohio River to the northeast, separating the peoples of the Prather complex from Fort Ancient culture populations. Although it is possible these empty zones were for social or political reasons, it may also be because the narrowing of the alluvial valley upstream and downstream of the Falls region made it less suitable for the intensive maize agriculture practiced by the societies. [2] The Falls region is the only wide expanse of bottom land flood terrace in between the Little Miami River at Cincinnati, Ohio (occupied by Fort Ancient peoples) and the Anderson River near Evansville, Indiana (occupied by the Angel phase). This expanse of flood plain is similar to areas occupied by classic Mississippian sites in the Midwest and Southeast. [2]
The Prather, Willey, Spangler-Koons, and Newcomb/Elrod/Hale are the largest sites of the complex. Other smaller sites include the Ellingsworth, Smith, Clark's Point, Devil's Backbone, Eva Bandman, and Shippingport sites. [2]
Although the Prather site may have been the center of ceremony and politics for the complex, the presence of stone box graves at several of the sites in the complex such as Willey and Spangler-Koons suggest that mortuary rituals may not have been centralized at the site. [1] [2]
The Hopewell tradition, also called the Hopewell culture and Hopewellian exchange, describes a network of precontact Native American cultures that flourished in settlements along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern Eastern Woodlands from 100 BCE to 500 CE, in the Middle Woodland period. The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society but a widely dispersed set of populations connected by a common network of trade routes.
Fort Ancient is a name for a Native American culture that flourished from Ca. 1000-1750 CE and predominantly inhabited land near the Ohio River valley in the areas of modern-day southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, southeastern Indiana and western West Virginia. Although a contemporary of the Mississippian culture, they are often considered a "sister culture" and distinguished from the Mississippian culture. Although far from agreed upon, there is evidence to suggest that the Fort Ancient Culture were not the direct descendants of the Hopewellian Culture. It is suspected that the Fort Ancient Culture introduced maize agriculture to Ohio. The Fort Ancient Culture were most likely the builders of the Great Serpent Mound. Recent archeological study and carbon dating suggests that Alligator Mound in Granville also dates to the Fort Ancient era, rather than the assumed Hopewell era. It is believed that neither the Serpent or Alligator Mounds are burial locations, but rather served as ceremonial effigy sites.
Angel Mounds State Historic Site, an expression of the Mississippian culture, is an archaeological site managed by the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites that includes more than 600 acres of land about 8 miles (13 km) southeast of present-day Evansville, in Vanderburgh and Warrick counties in Indiana. The large residential and agricultural community was constructed and inhabited from AD 1100 to AD 1450, and served as the political, cultural, and economic center of the Angel chiefdom. It extended within 120 miles (190 km) of the Ohio River valley to the Green River in present-day Kentucky. The town had as many as 1,000 inhabitants inside the walls at its peak, and included a complex of thirteen earthen mounds, hundreds of home sites, a palisade (stockade), and other structures.
The Mississippian culture was a Native American civilization that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1600 CE, varying regionally. It was known for building large, earthen platform mounds, and often other shaped mounds as well. It was composed of a series of urban settlements and satellite villages linked together by loose trading networks. The largest city was Cahokia, believed to be a major religious center located in what is present-day southern Illinois.
Wickliffe Mounds is a prehistoric, Mississippian culture archaeological site located in Ballard County, Kentucky, just outside the town of Wickliffe, about 3 miles (4.8 km) from the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Archaeological investigations have linked the site with others along the Ohio River in Illinois and Kentucky as part of the Angel phase of Mississippian culture. Wickliffe Mounds is controlled by the State Parks Service, which operates a museum at the site for interpretation of the ancient community. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it is also a Kentucky Archeological Landmark and State Historic Site.
Caborn-Welborn was a precontact and proto-historic North American culture defined by archaeologists as a Late Mississippian cultural manifestation that grew out of – or built upon the demise of – the Angel chiefdom located in present-day southern Indiana. Caborn-Welborn developed around 1400 and seems to have disappeared around 1700 CE. The Caborn-Welborn culture was the last Native American occupation of southern Indiana prior to European contact. It remains unclear which post-contact Native group, if any, are their descendants.
Moundville Archaeological Site, also known as the Moundville Archaeological Park, is a Mississippian culture archaeological site on the Black Warrior River in Hale County, near the modern city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Extensive archaeological investigation has shown that the site was the political and ceremonial center of a regionally organized Mississippian culture chiefdom polity between the 11th and 16th centuries. The archaeological park portion of the site is administered by the University of Alabama Museums and encompasses 185 acres (75 ha), consisting of 29 platform mounds around a rectangular plaza.
The Angel phase describes a 300–400-year cultural manifestation of the Mississippian culture of the central portions of the United States of America, as defined in the discipline of archaeology. Angel phase archaeological sites date from c. 1050 - 1350 CE and are located on the northern and southern sides of the Ohio River in southern Indiana, such as National Historic Landmark Angel Mounds near present-day Evansville; northwestern Kentucky, with Wickliffe Mounds and the Tolu Site; and Kincaid Mounds State Historic Site in Illinois. Additional sites range from the mouth of Anderson River in Perry County, Indiana, west to the mouth of the Wabash in Posey County, Indiana.
The Kincaid Mounds Historic Site c. 1050–1400 CE, is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located at the southern tip of present-day U.S. state of Illinois, along the Ohio River. Kincaid Mounds has been notable for both its significant role in native North American prehistory and for the central role the site has played in the development of modern archaeological techniques. The site had at least 11 substructure platform mounds, and 8 other monuments.
The Plaquemine culture was an archaeological culture centered on the Lower Mississippi River valley. It had a deep history in the area stretching back through the earlier Coles Creek and Troyville cultures to the Marksville culture. The Natchez and related Taensa peoples were their historic period descendants. The type site for the culture is the Medora site in Louisiana; while other examples include the Anna, Emerald, Holly Bluff, and Winterville sites in Mississippi.
The Upper Mississippian cultures were located in the Upper Mississippi basin and Great Lakes region of the American Midwest. They were in existence from approximately A.D. 1000 until the Protohistoric and early Historic periods.
Stone box graves were a method of burial used by Native Americans of the Mississippian culture in the Midwestern United States and the Southeastern United States. Their construction was especially common in the Cumberland River Basin, in settlements found around present-day Nashville, Tennessee.
The Sims site (16SC2), also known as Sims Place site, is an archaeological site located in Saint Charles Parish, Louisiana, near the town of Paradis. The location is a multi-component mound and village complex with platform mounds and extensive midden deposits. The site habitations are divided into three periods. It was first inhabited about 800 CE by peoples of the Coastal Coles Creek culture. By 1100 CE the culture of the site had transitioned into the Mississippianized Plaquemine culture that lasted until 1450 CE. A little later was a Late Mississippian/protohistoric period that lasted from 1500 until about 1700 or 1800.
The Duffy site is a substantial archaeological site along the Wabash River in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Illinois. Located near the village of New Haven in Gallatin County, it is the type site for the Duffy Complex, a group of similar sites on the Illinois side of the Wabash near its confluence with the Ohio River. Duffy is distinctive largely because of its pottery: the site's inhabitants typically produced ceramics of various thicknesses and comparatively few decorative elements, tempered with grog. What decorations exist are typically limited to one or two rows of simple lines or bars that have been incised or stamped on the side of the piece of pottery. Projectile points found at the site are small triangular "Mounds Stemless" points, and the inhabitants produced celts of a vaguely rectangular shape. The site is believed to have been inhabited circa AD 1000.
The Ellerbusch site (12-W-56) is a small but significant archaeological site in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Indiana. Unlike many sites created by people of the same culture, it occupies an upland site near a major river floodplain. Its existence appears to have been the result of the coincidence of periods of peace and growth in the related Angel site, which led some townspeople to leave their homes for new villages that were more convenient for resource gathering. Researched partly because of its small size, Ellerbusch has produced information that greatly increases present awareness of other small sites and of its culture's overall patterns of settlement in the region. Because of its archaeological value, the site was declared a historic site in the late twentieth century.
The Yankeetown site (12W1) is a substantial archaeological site along the Ohio River in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Indiana. Inhabited during the prehistoric Woodland period, the site has yielded important information about Woodland-era peoples in the region, but it has been damaged by substantial erosion. Despite the damage, it has been a historic site for more than thirty years.
The Griesmer site (La-3) is located on the Kankakee River in Lake County, Indiana, about a mile southeast of Schneider, in Northwestern Indiana. It is classified as a Prehistoric, multi-component site with Middle Woodland, Late Woodland and Upper Mississippian occupations. The deposits were not stratified, but observation of the types of artifacts present, together with radiocarbon dates, helped to define the sequence of occupations at the site.
The Fifield Site (Pr-55) is located on Damon Run Creek in Porter County, north-western Indiana. It is classified as a late prehistoric, single-component Upper Mississippian Fisher village.
The Palos site (Ck-26) is located on the Cal-Sag Canal in Cook County, Illinois, United States, near the city of Chicago. It is classified as a Protohistoric to early Historic site with Upper Mississippian affiliation.