The Green River Shell Mound Archaic: Conclusions

We discuss Howard Winters' innovative contributions to the study of the Green River shell mounds and compare them to our own current understandings of what Winters called the "Indian Knoll Culture."

A nuanced understanding of the western Kentucky Green River Archaic requires reconciling the region’s rich archaeological record with the growing literature pertaining to how hunter-gatherers perceive their worlds. A dwelling perspective of the Green River Archaic involves interpreting the region’s large middens as components of animated lifeworlds saturated with meaning and composed of numerous constantly maintained relationships among people and between people and various other beings. This article explores how Green River Archaic hunter-gatherers constructed the middens through daily practices and periodic emotionally charged mortuary rites, thereby giving them meaning as persistent places and contributing to an ever-evolving, historically constituted landscape.

2016

The Middle Cumberland River Valley of Tennessee comprises a unique regional environment that has continually supported human occupation along the natural river levees and adjacent terrace landforms since the Late Pleistocene. Over thousands of years Archaic period inhabitants of the Middle Cumberland River Valley harvested the invertebrate species that populated the streams and waterways of the region, using them for subsistence and raw materials and taking an active role in managing the riverine resources. The cumulative result of this process appears in the archaeological record as abundant and often-dense deposits of invertebrate zooarchaeological remains. However, few formal archaeological investigations have been conducted on Archaic shell-bearing sites in the region. In this field report we present initial results of site file analysis, radiocarbon dating, and species composition research in order to introduce the Middle Cumberland River Valley manifestation of the cultural phase traditionally known as the Shell Mound Archaic.

2015

The Middle Cumberland River Valley of Tennessee comprises a unique regional environment that has supported human occupation for at least 14,000 years. Consistent human occupation and reuse of natural river levees and adjacent terrace landforms from the late Pleistocene epoch (ca. 12,000 BC) through the 15th century AD resulted in the formation of numerous archaeological sites along the Cumberland River and its tributaries. The occupants of these sites relied on the abundant natural resources of the region, and particularly vertebrate and invertebrate species that inhabited the streams and waterways for subsistence and raw materials. Over thousands of years the inhabitants of the Middle Cumberland River Valley harvested these various species and took an active role in managing riverine resources. The cumulative result of this process appears in the archaeological record of the region as abundant zooarchaeological remains, principally consisting of animal bone and shellfish. One visually-striking archaeological facet of the Middle Cumberland River Valley is the densely deposited remains of freshwater shellfish that appear at Archaic sites throughout the region. These deposits span the period from approximately 6500 to 1000 BC, and comprise a regional manifestation of the cultural phase traditionally known as the Shell Mound Archaic. Recent survey and excavation efforts along with site file research have identified 22 sites within the Middle Cumberland Valley that exhibit intact Archaic shell-bearing components. An additional 59 sites in the region also exhibit a high probability for containing intact Archaic shell-bearing deposits, but require additional testing to determine their integrity. The Archaic shell-bearing sites in the Middle Cumberland River Valley provide unique opportunities to examine research topics including how mid-Holocene occupants of the region adapted to changing environments, modified the natural landscape, and altered the local ecology both deliberately and indirectly. In addition, data preserved within these sites has the potential to address numerous research questions regarding settlement patterning, regional population density, social structure, initial plant domestication, the development of regional trade networks, and environmental change within the Middle Cumberland River Valley, and more broadly in the American Southeast, between approximately 6500 and 1000 BC. Because of this information potential, the archaic shell-bearing sites of the Middle Cumberland River Valley are worthy of acknowledgement, protection, and preservation under Criterion D of 36 CFR 60.4.

2015

Large accumulations of ancient shells on coastlines and riverbanks were long considered the result of garbage disposal during repeated food gatherings by early inhabitants of the southeastern United States. In this volume, Asa R. Randall presents the first synthesis of the St. Johns freshwater shell sites since the late nineteenth century. Drawing on social theory, he convincingly posits that these ancient “garbage dumps” were actually burial mounds, ceremonial gathering places, and often habitation spaces central to the histories and social geography of the hunter-gatherer societies who built them. Integrating more than 150 years of shell mound investigations, including Ripley Bullen’s crucial work, climatological records, and modern remote sensing data, Randall rejects the long-standing ecological interpretation and redefines these sites as socially significant places that reveal previously unknown complexities about the hunter-gatherer societies of the Mount Taylor period (ca. 7400–4600 cal. B.P.). Affected by climate change and increased scales of social interaction, the region’s inhabitants modified the landscape in surprising and meaningful ways. This pioneering volume presents an alternate history from which emerge rich details about the daily activities, ceremonies, and burial rituals of the St. Johns River Archaic cultures.

discusses the several types of made ritual sites with and without freshwater shell found in different sections of the lower Ohio Valley. Material is contained in book Feasting with Shellfish in the Southern Ohio Valley: Archaic Rituals and Sacred Sites 2010

The middle Green River region of western Kentucky is one of the best documented but most misunderstood archaeological regions in eastern North America. Despite 100 years of study, most researchers continue to perceive the Green River Shell Mound Archaic as a homogeneous cultural entity. A closer inspection, however, reveals a much more complicated picture of changing technologies, social institutions, and interpersonal relations leading to a more complex form of social organization. In this paper, I place the Green River Archaic within a diachronic framework in order to provide a perspective on these groups that better contextualizes these changes through time.

Archaeological Society of Connecticut Newsletter, 2023

ed.). Archaeology of the Middle Green River Region, Kentucky (Institute of Archaeology and Palaeoenvironmental Studies Monograph 5). xxii+658 pages, 242 illustrations, 171 tables. 2005. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida; 1-881448-14-2 hardback 65.