THE SHELBY FOREST SITE IN SOUTHWEST TENNESSEE AND EARLY MISSISSIPPIAN RED-FILMED POTTERY IN THE CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI VALLEY

Abstract

The Shelby Forest site in southwest Tennessee is an Early Mississippian component characterized by Varney Red Filmed ceramics. Comparison to other sites in the Reelfoot Lake area of west Tennessee and the Upper St. Francis Basin of Missouri and Arkansas allows refinement of the direction, timing, and characteristics of influences from these areas northeastward to American Bottom and southward into the Yazoo Basin of Mississippi. Subsequent influences from the Cahokia area into the southern Yazoo Basin and northeast Louisiana are also discussed.

Keywords:

• Central Mississippi Valley
• Nodena phase
• Varney Red Filmed
• Yazoo 1 subset

Notes

1 Major tributaries of the Mississippi River in its lower alluvial valley include the Ohio and Arkansas, dividing the valley into three segments. Late prehistoric culture followed different trajectories in each of these regions. Recent syntheses of prehistory in the central segment, between the Ohio and Arkansas rivers (McNutt 1996; Morse and Morse 1983), have employed the archaeological term “Central Mississippi Valley,” at odds with proper geological usage but with archaeological precedent from Holmes (1903) and Griffin (1952).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Charles H. McNutt

Correspondence to: Charles H. McNutt, Department of Earth Sciences, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152, USA. E-mail: [email protected]