Anyone into American Indian Archaeology?

[Maddy McCall]

Check out this ground-stone alligator effigy that I recently photographed. It was in a collection I documented. This is the only alligator-head effigy yet uncovered in Southeast Indian research. Cool, isn't it?

[BurtWorm]

1. That's beautiful, jchild!

How old is it? Who made it? Where is it from?

[Maddy McCall]

3. It is Middle Archaic....

probably 5000-7000 years old. It was made by Indians here, who would certainly be the predecessors to Choctaws.

Isn't it the coolest thing??? The person who made it was quite an artisan, wasn't he/she?

[BurtWorm]

5. Wow!

I love those eyes! Where can you see more pieces from that era in NA history? I wasn't aware that art in the Americas was that sophisticated then.

[Maddy McCall]

9. Let me think awhile about it and I will PM some book titles and web

sites to you.

Actually, by comparison, this is quite unsophistocated as far as technique. Go look at some of the stuff that was taken out of Poverty Point, in Louisiana; Moundville, in Alabama; or Cahokia, in Illinois. You will be amazed at the level of artisanship that was being done a thousand years before the first Euro set foot here.

[BurtWorm]

11. I know what you mean about sophistication.

It's the eyes, I'm talking about, though. To my uneducated eyes, there seems to be a kind of humor about them. Maybe that's just due to the lack of accomplishment of the artist?

[Maddy McCall]

13. Actually, when you hold this...

it is as smooth as glass. And it is no bigger than the end of your thumb...so it took a great deal of technological know how to make it.

The eyes are CAPTIVATING! They are mesmerizing! I kid you not. And although it doesn't show up in the photo, they are crosshatched which even makes one more spellbound to look at it.

I guarantee you, I don't know anyone who could make one of these :-) .

I have a friend who knaps flint, and he has been practicing for ten years and can't yet produce a good projectile point.

Thanks for all you comments :-)

[cally]

2. Great

So where was this found, how old, and what do you know about the culture that produced that?

I love all of this type of stuff.

[Maddy McCall]

4. I could go on for hours about the cultural predecessor...

In my area, though, there has been little to no archaeological investigation, even though the area is rife with sites.

But what this probably represents is a Middle Archaic Indian's attempt to grind himself or herself a totem stone.

By the Middle Archaic, Indians were settling into semi-permanent settlements, only relocating households for subsistence purposes. They would live in one permanent resident, and then move about in seasonal subsistence patterns.

We have huge mounds here too. Also, I found a Clovis projectile point in a collection here. So what that tells me is that American Indians were here from 12,000 years ago (when anthropologists claim they first entered the southeast--I actually think it was very very earlier, but I am a rebel who challenges the standard paradigm...but that is another thread.) until protohistoric times (the Mississippian period).

And we still have a Choctaw community here.

[cally]

17. Interesting

I would like the links that you send to Burtworm, also. I would enjoy your other thread. From the little I've read, AI may have come long before most now believe.

Thanks for the info.

[SpiralHawk]

6. This totem is still charged with Manitou

And therefore warrants respect. You can feel it even from the photograph.


Meegwich, SH

[Maddy McCall]

10. Yes, I agree...

And when I found it it was lying in a bowl with lithic flakes, a pack of cigarettes, and some keys.

I told the owner that she needed to have a glass box made for it, and it deserved to be displayed properly and respected, that it is was a very significant item to whomever held it.

[bobja]

7. Love it!

You didn't say what state this is from.

Conincidently I was just in Florida last week visiting some mounds there, but that location beyond Mississippian influence.

[Maddy McCall]

14. Actually, Mississippian is a time period more than a spatial limitation...

refers to the time from 1000 to 1500 CE (or AD) when American Indians were involved in intensive corn agriculture and huge mound building. So, actually, mounds in Florida are in the fringe of Mississippian culture.

This gator is from a site in Mississippi.

[oneighty]

8. South Carolina

On the property where my future wife lived on a salt creek on the mainland, behind the barrier Islands there was found many pieces of pottery. There are many "Oyster mounds" in the area also. The oldest date I have heard quoted is 5000 BC. (cohumbee indians sp)??
180

[Maddy McCall]

12. I am sure that South Carolina was inhabited...

albeit quite temporarily or spasmodically by paleohunters of megafauna, perhaps even 12,000 years ago.

There was no significant permanent settlement in the Southeast, nor really anywhere on the continent, until a couple thousand years ago, when they started vesting their time in plant domestication.

In the rich forests of the Carolinas, however, the game and wild plants were so abundant that it is highly likely they held on to gathering long after others were settling in to agriculture.

Still, though, paleohunters were all over this continent at LEAST 12,000 years ago.

I am one of the few archaeologists who believe that American Indians were here at the very least 40,000 years ago. Too many sites have been dated at least that old for it to be any other way.

[Maddy McCall]

15. Gratuitous kick for the afternoon crowd...

:kick:

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

16. Very cool!

I am not as familiar with the Indians in your areas but have been to quite a few of the sites both here and in Arizona and New Mexico..particularly the petroglyphs in Tuscon and outside Sedona.