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Mississippian lithics from the Walls phase Few explicit studies of lithics from the Walls phase region or "district" have been attempted, but several summary statements have been made by local workers (Nash, Smith 1996, Lumb and McNutt). This lack of attention to lithics is indeed the case with most Central Valley Mississippian phases. An additional complication is the fact that most collections are from multicomponent sites where it is difficult or impossible to segregate the Woodland materials from those with a Mississippian date. Chucalissa (Fulmer, 40SY---) is one of the only Walls phase sites to have been extensively studied, so it must stand as the "typical" Walls phase site, despite some objections that the site perhaps should not even be considered as a Walls phase site, or at the least, that it is not a "typical" site, the sites in DeSoto County, Mississippi, being perhaps more "typical". Calvin Brown illustrates a number of Mississippian lithic artifacts from sites in the area of Walls, Mississippi, but seldom provides specific context or site provenience. Most come from the far northwest corner of DeSoto County, especially a cemetery with many scattered bones, flakes, and sherds (Brown:123) but also from the 5 or 6 mounds around Lake Cormorant, including the "rise along the railroad" (Brown:124) now known as the Lake Cormorant (22DE---) site. These tend to be the more spectacular artifacts, but they do provide an adequate starting point for the discussion of these sites. Most of Brown's specimens come from two collections, those of Schubach and Davies. Three forms of large stone hoes (rounded and notched, flaring bit with contracting poll, and flaring bit with flattened poll) are attributed to the Walls site complex (Brown:209). Brown (192-:159) describes celts or chisels of flaked yellow jasper, only partly polished. These are the typical Mississippian chisel or pebble celt. He also describes a thick red celt from Walls, 5.25" long, with a v or u-shaped "figure" engraved on one side; this could be an earlier artifact, as a magnetite plummet and a reel-shaped gorget are also shown from these collections (Brown 19--:156, 206). A somewhat related form, the spatulate celt (unperforated) is also reported from the Davies collection, reportedly from a grave. It is described as "fine heavy stone"; weighing 1 ½ pounds; and being 1" thick; with a blunt, unused edge. It is shown to have a semicircular bit and a slightly contracting, flattened poll (Brown:171-172). One of the more interesting items described by Brown:250-251) is a frog pipe of "dark heavy sandstone", weighing 5.75 pounds and measuring 6.25 x 4.6". He cites a January 18, 1914 article in the Commercial Appeal concerning this find from the Lake Cormorant site. The newspaper article shows this massive pipe to be a large, slightly shaped stone, with bulging eye, incised mouth and indication of folded limbs (Commercial Appeal 1914). The stem and bowl holes are in the upper and lower back of the creature. The pipe is said to come from one of several small mounds on the farm of R.L. Bartholomew near Lake Cormorant. Bartholomew entered it into his collection of pottery and other relics after it was found as the mound was being plowed down. There is also a conglomerate discoidal, rather crude and rough, rather than circular and bi-convex (Brown :167). Of other essentially local ferruginous sandstone products, Brown (:221-223) cites three "paint cups"; fragments of the geode-like formations often found in this sandstone, sometimes surrounding hematitic and limonitic clays and claystones. It is impossible to offer any temporal placement for these artifacts, but Brown does note the availability of conglometate along the bluff near Walls (Brown:168). Likewise two scrapers of a form very roughly like the Early Archaic and protohistoric end-scrapers and a lunate chipped stone item, 4.2" long, are reported, but no date can be offered (Brown:134, 135). A pestle or mortar described as "a primitive corn grinder", 12 x 9 x 4" with pits on both faces, appears to be white quartzitic sandstone; this artifact is also likely attributable to the Woodland period (Brown:215). In summary, from this early work Mississippian lithics are seen to include: Mill Creek/Dover hoes, pebble celts, and single examples of the chunkey stone (discoidal), spatulate celt, and frog-effigy pipe forms. Mortars, minimally modified sandstone, chipped chert forms, and rectangular celts are of less certain attribution. Smith (in Nash 1972:iv) notes that various triangular point forms are found in both Boxtown and Walls phase contexts, as well as "both bipointed and squared base varieties of Nodena" in Walls contexts. Boxtown phase arrow points are characterized as small equilateral triangles, 1.5-2 cm on a side as well as small isosceles and larger (3-4 cm long) isosceles triangles. Lumb and McNutt (1988:80) tabulate 50 projectile points from Unit 6 at Chucalissa, describing them as thin arrows, the majority with a straight base and edges (N=40), with the somewhat longer isosceles triangles concentrated in the lower levels, Levels 3, 4, and 5. Seven Nodena points, with a variety of sizes and bases (pointed, rounded, squared) and one elongate Nodena point, come from Level 1 and the plowzone (Lumb and McNutt 1988:81). Unit 6 produced 9 projectile points: 1 sidenotched, 2 "real" or bipointed Nodenas, 3 excavate/rounded base Nodenas or Nodena var. Banks, and the remainder triangular, including 1 Guntersville point (Lumb and McNutt 1988:81). Later, McNutt (1996:179) repeated that the "later" Walls phase has Nodena points, based on their co-occurrence with late (but not protohistoric) ceramic modes as well as the high stratigraphic position at Chucalissa. The Nodena form is found in adjacent parts of Arkansas by the 1400s, but it is generally rare and restricted to low-frequency occurrence at Late Mississippian sites. Other generalizations about Walls area lithics include the attribution of small chipped and ground chisels, adzes, or celts and chunky stones to the Walls phase, while sandstone abraders and chipped stone scrapers "appear to be absent" (Smith in Nash 1972:iv). While the Boxtown middens have " three to four times as much chipping debris" as the Walls contexts, no other lithics are specifically attributable to the earlier context. Likewise, Boxtown middens have "almost as much ferruginous sandstone, ferruginous shale, and red ochre" as chert debitage, but "these stone categories are absent in the Walls midden" (Smith in Nash 1972:v). Smith (1996) has offered further generalizations about Walls phase lithics. He believes that at the beginning of the Mississippian period Madison triangular points coexisted with and gradually replaced stemmed and corner-notched forms such as the Alba-Bonham-Scallorn cluster of the lower Mid-South (Smith 1996:110). As he had stated earlier about Boxtown lithics, he repeats that "such artifact types as projectile points, drills, celts, and chisels, if present at Chucalissa [in the AD 900-1200 interval] are undistinguished from those of later components (Smith 1996:111). In discussing settlement patterns, Smith (1996:114) notes that small (Madison) triangular and Nodena points are found in the creek country as far as 20 miles/33 km east from the bluffs, indications of many late Mississippian hunting encampments in western Tennessee, although, perhaps somewhat contradictorily, he notes that there are "farmsteads" as far inland as Pinson, more than 60 miles from the Chickasaw Bluffs and so surely not confidently attributable to the Boxtown or Walls phases. Two Lake County sites are also discussed by Smith under this highly generalized Walls phase: 40LA11 and 40LA19. The 40LA19 lithic complex includes Nodena and isosceles points and chipped and polished celts, while 40LA11, interpreted as a seasonal lithic preparation camp on a bluff crest, had abundant fire-shattered grave, failed heat-treated pebble cores, and unfinished projectile points, of unspecified form (Smith 1996:117). Lumb and McNutt (1988) provide the most systematic description of Chucalissa lithics. Most of these are still from general midden contexts, but a few items come from graves and other tighter contexts. Lithics from burials at Chucalissa offer some further insight into Mississippian lithics in the region. Burial 20, Unit 3, an adult with flattened skull, had a projectile point in the mouth while Burial 55, Unit 3, and adult with flattened forehead, had an awl and a "knife at left arm" in association (Nash: Burial Data Table). Burial 44, Unit 3, radiocarbon dated around A.D. 1000, also contained a shell spoon and a "pile of red ocher" (Nash:13). Two completely disarticulated and "scattered" burials, and adult and a juvenile, Burial 10, Unit 4, were associated with "red ochre". A grave in late mound fill contained an extended male with the skulls of another man, a woman, and two children. The skull of the woman had the occipital cut away, the skull was painted red and a ball or hematite was placed in the left eye socket (Nash:20). In addition, a grave from the "ash bed", female by attribution, had with it a chunky stone, a broken projectile point, and more red ochre. Hematite appears to have played an important part in Walls district death-imagery during the Early Mississippian period.
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Contact: Mary Evelyn StarrBox 39, Sledge MS 38670Phone (662) 444-5254
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