Turk Site

Turk Site
15 CE 6

Looking toward the site from the south
Location within Kentucky today
Location	Bardwell, Kentucky, Carlisle County, Kentucky, US
Region	Jackson Purchase
Coordinates	36°53′41.17″N89°5′6.79″W / 36.8947694°N 89.0852194°W / 36.8947694; -89.0852194
History
Cultures	Mississippian culture
Site notes
Architecture
Architectural styles	Platform mounds, Plaza
Responsible body: private

The Turk Site (15CE6) is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located near Bardwell in Carlisle County, Kentucky, on a bluff spur overlooking the Mississippi River floodplain.

Site

The 2.5 hectares (6.2 acres) site was occupied primarily during the Dorena Phase (1100 to 1300 CE) and into the Medley Phase (1300-1500 CE) of the local chronology. ^[1] Its inhabitants may have moved from the Marshall Site, which is a slightly older settlement located on the nearest adjacent bluff spur.

For a regional administrative center, Turk is a small site, but this is because of constraints placed on it by the geography of the bluff spur it sits on. The layout of the site is characteristically Mississippian, with a number of platform mounds surrounding a central plaza. ^{[2] [3]}

The earliest published investigation at the site was that of Robert Loughridge, published in 1888; the most extensive work at the site was conducted under Richard Edging and published in 1985. ^[4]

See also

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Carlisle County, Kentucky
• Mississippian stone statuary
• Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
• List of Mississippian sites

References

1. Lewis, R. Barry (1996). "Chapter 2:The Western Kentucky border and the Cairo lowland". In McNutt, Charles H. (ed.). Prehistory of the Central Mississippi Valley. University of Alabama Press. pp. 67–70. ISBN   978-0817308070.
2. Lewis, R. Barry (1996). "Chapter 5:Mississippian Farmers". Kentucky Archaeology. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 128–130. ISBN   0-8131-1907-3.
3. Pollack, David (2008), "Chapter 6:Mississippi Period" (PDF), in David Pollack (ed.), The Archaeology of Kentucky:An update, Kentucky Heritage Council, pp. 614–615, retrieved October 29, 2010
4. Sussenbach, Tom, and R. Barry Lewis. Archaeological Investigations in Carlisle, Hickman, and Fulton Counties, Kentucky: Site Survey and Excavations. Western Kentucky Project Report #4. Champaign: U of Illinois Department of Anthropology, 1987, 41.

External links

• Early shell tempering in far Western Kentucky