Mazique (22AD502): Late Woodland Village or Vacant Ceremonial Center?
Overlooking the bank of Second Creek near Natchez, Mississippi, the Mazique (22AD502) site is a Coles Creek period (AD 750-1000) mound and plaza center that once featured three mounds surrounding an open central plaza. Mounds A and B still sit prominently along the southern and eastern edges of Mazique’s plaza. The location of Mound C remains unclear. Historic agricultural and construction activities have left no visible trace of the monument. The 2021 University of Southern Mississippi archaeological field school set out to investigate potential locations for Mound C and to explore the site's functionality. Did the Mazique site support a permanent residential population or function as a vacant ceremonial center? That is the primary research question I explored in my thesis using artifact density maps, excavations, and ceramic and lithic analysis. Artifact density maps show that the range of activities at Mazique, with both ceramics and lithics, was not restricted to one area. Through excavation, we know that the deposition of these artifacts reflects a long-term, steady process, not the episodic artifact grouping of a vacant ceremonial center. The ceramic evidence, through the distribution and identification of discernible vessel forms and sizes, supports permanent occupancy. The lithic assemblage also supports this assertion, as evidence of tool manufacturing is found throughout the midden ring surrounding the plaza. Taking all available information into account, I conclude that Mazique functioned as a hypertrophic village supporting a permanent residential population. Late Woodland sites such as Mazique have much to add to the archaeological record of the Lower Mississippi Valley. The Coles Creek people were a complex society who practiced redistributive buffering without intensive agriculture and built civic ceremonial centers capable of supporting permanent residential populations that consistently followed a prescriptive site plan.
Coles Creek, Lower Mississippi Valley, Late Woodland, Anthropology, Archaeological Anthropology
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