Charles H. McNutt

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON MISSISSIPPIAN OCCUPATIONS IN WESTERN TENNESSEE AND NORTHWESTERN MISSISSIPPI: RECENT CHRONOLOGICAL AND GEOPHYSICAL INVESTIGATIONS AT CHUCALISSA (40SY1), SHELBY COUNTY, TENNESSEE

Abstract Investigations at Chucalissa (40SY1) in Shelby County, Tennessee, have been instrumental in establishing Mississippian period chronology for southwestern Tennessee and much of the surrounding region. Excavations conducted in 2003 produced a suite of new radiocarbon dates that has provided a refined developmental lineage of occupations in West Tennessee and northwestern Mississippi, while geophysical investigations in 2011 have clarified our understanding of the late prehistoric occupation of the site and validated suggestions of distinctive mound architecture in a region extending over a large portion of the Southeast.

The Fisk channels and the De Soto crossing (A.D. 1541): A clarification

Students of the Hernando De Soto expedition are in general agreement that he crossed the Mississippi River at Quizquiz on June 18, 1541. There has been considerable debate about the location of Quizquiz, but not a great deal about the location of the Mississippi River when De Soto crossed it. Following the conclusion of Phillips in the Phillips, Ford, and Griffin volume it was generally assumed that Fisk’s River Stage 15 approximated the location of the river in 1541. This conclusion is questioned and more appropriate channel correlations are suggested.

Sandia cave reconsidered

Review of the controversy surrounding the excavation of Sandia cave, New Mexico, and infrared Raman laser studies of the existing specimens from the site suggests the probability of a pre-Clovis occupation at the site. Pleistocene fauna attributed by Hibben to his Folsom layer quite probably belong to Haynes and Agogino’s more recently defined Unit F. This was apparently the original locus of the Sandia points, and it has produced pre-Clovis dates.

THE SHELBY FOREST SITE IN SOUTHWEST TENNESSEE AND EARLY MISSISSIPPIAN RED-FILMED POTTERY IN THE CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI VALLEY

Abstract The Shelby Forest site in southwest Tennessee is an Early Mississippian component characterized by Varney Red Filmed ceramics. Comparison to other sites in the Reelfoot Lake area of west Tennessee and the Upper St. Francis Basin of Missouri and Arkansas allows refinement of the direction, timing, and characteristics of influences from these areas northeastward to American Bottom and southward into the Yazoo Basin of Mississippi. Subsequent influences from the Cahokia area into the southern Yazoo Basin and northeast Louisiana are also discussed.

Carson Lake Punctated Sociological implications of a ceramic motif from the Central Mississippi Valley

A distinctive ceramic motif, a series of punctations within a pendant triangular field, has a limited distribution within the central portion of the Nodena phase region of northeastern Arkansas and southeastern Missouri. Based on the presence of key horizon markers, the ceramic crafting took place within a generation or two during the protohistoric period. The motif’s distribution is suggestive of a localized group of potters engaged in some type of religious or social interaction. In this article, we briefly outline a model to interpret this distinctive cluster of a ceramic motif.