Archeological Evaluation of the Gooseneck and Owls Bend Sites, Ozark National Scenic Riverways, Southeast Missouri

摘要

Archeological testing at the Gooseneck site in 1971, 1979, 1980, and 1985, and at the Owls Bend site in 1983, has produced substantial information about the Emergent Mississippian occupation of the Upper Current River Valley. Limited testing at these two sites has demonstrated that people making two very different forms of shell tempered ceramics were living in the Upper Current River drainage between A.D. 700 and A.D. 1000. The lithic assemblages at these two sites are generally similar, and subsistence data indicates that the occupants of both sites were aware of tropical cultigens but appear to have based their economy on hunting, gathering, and some limited cultivation of native plants. The information gathered from these two sites documents that people living in the Eastern Ozark Highlands during the eighth through the tenth centuries participated in the cultural changes which were to eventually culminate in the development of the Mississippian complex.