Mississippian Feasting Strategies In the Lower Mississippi Valley: Archaeobotanical Analysis of Two Features From Winterville Mounds (22WS500)

<p>Winterville Mounds (22WS500), a multi-mound site in the Yazoo Basin located just north of Greenville, Mississippi, is representative of Mississippian culture in the lower Mississippi River valley. Botanical macroremains from flotation samples from two large pit features from the Winterville site have been chosen for this study: Feature 113, a large midden, and Feature 5, a refuse pit. Both pits appear to have been created through the disposal of leftovers generated from ritual feasting events, and their proximity to their respective mounds may indicate these events were hosted by the mound summit residents. Temporally, the two pits bracket the occupation of the site, with Feature 113 dating to the beginning of mound building at Winterville and Feature 5 dating near the end of site occpation. Native starcy and oily seed crops were used both early and late in the Winterville occupation, although nuts, particularly acorns, remained an important resource for the inhabitants. Comparisons of the two features indicate that although maize was a staple item early in the Winterville site occupation, it may well have increased with time, supplanting native seed crops and acorns to some extent, but never completely replacing either. It is worth nothing that a significant portion of the information obtained in this study is the result of processing the samples using flotation, including the recovery of more than 1700 coneflower seeds (<em>Rudbeckia amplexicaulis</em>), the significance of which is undetermined.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Anthropology and Sociology

Year dc:date.available

2010

Author dc:creator

• Flosenzier, Diana Boney

Contributors dc:contributor

• H. Edwin Jackson
• Bridget Hayden
• Mac H. Alford

Repository record dc:identifier

https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/977

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:aquila.usm.edu:masters_theses-2073