Worth, John E. (author)

Fiftieth Anniversary Meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference, New Orleans, 19-22 October 1988

October 22, 1988

Southeastern archaeologists have long recognized the attractiveness of the Fall Line zone to Mississippian societies of the South Appalachian Slope. Although explicit statements in published literature are comparatively uncommon, an informal acceptance of this feature seems widespread. This recognition is fundamentally based on the known distribution of Mississippian mound centers, in particular the observed presence of mound clusters at the Fall Line of virtually every major river in this region. Examples include Mulberry and Adamson on the Wateree River in South Carolina, Hollywood on the Savannah River, Shinholser on the Oconee, Macon Plateau, Lamar, and Stubbs on the Ocmulgee, Neisler and Hartley-Posey on the Flint, and Bull Creek, Abercrombie, Cooper, and Engineer's Landing on the Chattahoochee. While many of these mound sites have been the subject of at least limited archaeological testing, regional survey aimed at discerning the spatial distribution of contemporaneous non-mound sites associated with the mound centers is virtually nonexistent. Our knowledge of these Fall-Line societies is therefore largely restricted to the mounds themselves, with almost no regard for the populations which presumably provided the labor to construct them. It seems clear that any understanding of the origin and nature of these Fall Line chiefdoms must emerge from a more regional perspective, incorporating data on the geographical dimensions and internal settlement distribution of Mississippian occupation associated with the political and ceremonial centers of each society.