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Research notes

Image evidence: Mississippian (about 1000–1550 CE, western Kentucky)

Maize-farming towns of western Kentucky with platform mounds, plazas and stockades, such as Wickliffe, Jonathan Creek and Tolu, and later Caborn-Welborn villages like Slack Farm.

Updated

Physical build

  • [Speculative] Slack Farm forensic study counted at least 850 individuals, later reinterred; [Speculative] build and stature figures were not confirmed from open sources. Show ordinary farmers' builds. SF

Hair and adornment

  • Bone hair pins and pottery ear plugs, shell ear pins and copper or brass ear ornaments occur in Kentucky Mississippian and Caborn-Welborn graves. V2

Clothing and materials

  • [Speculative] Garments are not described in these sources; woven fiber and hide clothing is an inference. Fabric-impressed salt pans show textile use. V2

Ornaments

  • Engraved marine-shell gorgets (e.g. cross-and-circle and triskele designs), shell beads and ear plugs; cross-and-circle symbol painted on Wickliffe pottery. V2 WK

Tools carried

  • Bow and small triangular arrow points; shell- and stone-bladed hoes; shell-tempered jars and bowls. V2 SF

Setting and landscape

  • Bluffs and floodplains of the Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee rivers; platform mounds around a plaza; bastioned stockades at Jonathan Creek; big corn-storage pits at Slack Farm. WK JC SF

Image brief

  • A farmer on a bluff above the Mississippi–Ohio confluence, a flat-topped earthen mound and thatched houses around a plaza behind, wearing an engraved shell gorget with a cross-and-circle design and shell ear plugs, holding a hoe beside ripe corn. Hot humid floodplain light and wide brown rivers distinguish it from eastern settings. WK V2

Display note (draft)

  • This picture is an AI illustration reconstructed from the available archaeological evidence for the Mississippian period in Kentucky; details without direct evidence are informed guesses. AI illustration · Kentucky History Drive.

Open questions

  • Confirm stature and build figures from the original skeletal reports before stating any numbers in captions.
  • Items marked [Speculative] should stay generic in the image.
  • Re-add /research/culture-mississippian-image-evidence/ link after #254.

Sources

state agency site page

state archaeology plan