Castalian Springs Mound Site
Encyclopedia
The Castalian Springs Mound Site (40SU14) (also known as Bledsoe's Lick Mound and Cheskiki Mound) is a Mississippian culture
archaeological site
located near the small unincorporated community of Castalian Springs
in Sumner County, Tennessee
. The site was first excavated in the 1890s and again as recently as the 2005 to 2011 archaeological field school led by Dr. Kevin E. Smith. A number of important finds have been associated with the site, most particularly several examples of Mississippian stone statuary
and the Castalian Springs shell gorget held by the National Museum of the American Indian
.
. It was occupied from 1100 to 1450 CE. The palisade
d village and surrounding habitation area was approximately 40 acre (0.1618744 km²) in size and consisted of a dozen platform mound
s, a burial mound, plaza
and a number of dwellings and civic structures. The site was first noted in the early 1820s by Ralph E.W. Earl, who did extensive digging at the site. He described a low earthen embankment with raised earthen towers enclosing 16 acre (0.06474976 km²), the remnants of what is now known to have been a wooden palisade. Earl also described the principal mound ( Mound 1) inside the enclosure as being a compound structure consisting of a rectangular platform 600 feet (182.9 m) long by 200 feet (61 m) wide and 13 feet (4 m) to 15 feet (4.6 m) in height and aligned in an east-west direction. On the western end of the platform was a conical shaped mound with a flattened top, approximately 18 feet (5.5 m) to 20 feet (6.1 m) in height. On the southern side of the mound was a plaza, which was bordered on its eastern edge by a 120 feet (36.6 m) in diameter 8 feet (2.4 m) tall burial mound (Mound 2) and on its western edge by another large platform mound (Mound 3). Outside of the palisade to southwest on the banks of Lick Creek was a stone mound (Mound 4) 60 feet (18.3 m) in diameter and 5.5 feet (1.7 m), similar examples of which have been found at the Beasley Mounds
and Sellars Indian Mound
sites. Over the years since Earls first description Euro-Americans have plowed the area for agricultural purposes and consequently the main platform mound and a few raised impressions are all that are still visible of the embankment and the 12 platform mounds once contained within it. Scattered throughout the area archaeologists have also found stone box grave
s, mortuary caves and other features thought to be associated with the Castalian Springs site. The karst
terrain of the area produced numerous small caves, one of which is located a few hundred yards west of the Castalian Springs site. Known locally as the "Cave of the Skulls" (40SU126), this small cave was explored by Myer at sometime during one of his three excavation of the site.
The State of Tennessee purchased the site in 2005, and modern excavations were instituted by the Middle Tennessee State University
. Dr. Kevin E. Smith conducted an archaeological dig school at the village site from 2005 through 2011. The Castalian Springs Archaeological Project is a multi-year research project sponsored by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Middle Tennessee State University, the Bledsoe's Lick Historical Association and the Tennessee Division of Archaeology. Its stated objectives are to develop an initial understanding of the size and extent of the site, to develop trails and other facilities on the site without negatively impacting archaeological deposits, to give university students training in the methods and techniques of professional field and laboratory archaeology, and to emphasize to the public the value of archaeological research.
have been dug up at the site, the first being sometime before 1823 when it is first mentioned. Since then several others have been found, including one believed to have been dug from the platform section of the main mound and several from one of the associated village areas. In 1892 an etched stone tablet was discovered at the site by Myer. The 9 inches (22.9 cm) by 12 inches (30.5 cm) limestone tablet is engraved with symbolic imagery associated with the S.E.C.C.
, specifically the upper torso of a human figure ceremonially dressed as a raptorial bird with a sun symbol on its chest. The iconography is very similar to depictions of the falcon dancer found on repoussé
copper plates excavated from locations across the Midwest and Southeast. The tablet was the second of only six such tablets that have been found in the Central Tennessee area. Myer also found over thirty engraved shell gorget
s, several of which are now held by the N.M.A.I. The most important of the gorgets is carved in what is known as the Eddyville or Braden style, believed to have been associated with the Cahokia
polity near Collinsville, Illinois
. The gorget depicts a warrior figure holding a mace in his left hand and severed head in his right. The figure also has the Forked Eye Surround Motif, the Bellows apron motif and the Bi-Lobed Arrow Motif, all of which are associated with the S.E.C.C. Falcon dancer. Although the design is often shown with the figure upright, holes drilled in the edge of the gorget for its suspension as a neck ornament show it was meant to be seen with the figure oriented sideways, although it is as yet unclear what this may signify. In 2005 a waterline replacement crew working on the right of way of U.S. Route 25
discovered an intact Cox style gorget carved from a dark gray shale
. This artifact is one of a very few Cox style motifs utilized on a material other than marine shell. The Castalian Springs site is also one of only three sites in Middle Tennessee where ceramic sherds of a type known as Angel negative painted have been found. This type of Mississippian culture pottery
is typically associated with Angel Phase
sites along the Ohio River
.
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....
archaeological site
Archaeological site
An archaeological site is a place in which evidence of past activity is preserved , and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology and represents a part of the archaeological record.Beyond this, the definition and geographical extent of a 'site' can vary widely,...
located near the small unincorporated community of Castalian Springs
Castalian Springs, Tennessee
Castalian Springs is an unincorporated community in Sumner County, Tennessee, United States. It is located along Tennessee State Route 25 about seven miles east of Gallatin, Tennessee. The area has its own post office. The Zip Code for Castalian Springs is 37031...
in Sumner County, Tennessee
Sumner County, Tennessee
Sumner County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of 2000, the population was 130,449. Its county seat is Gallatin, but its largest town is Hendersonville...
. The site was first excavated in the 1890s and again as recently as the 2005 to 2011 archaeological field school led by Dr. Kevin E. Smith. A number of important finds have been associated with the site, most particularly several examples of Mississippian stone statuary
Mississippian stone statuary
The Mississippian stone statuary are artifacts of polished stone in the shape of human figurines made by members of the Mississippian culture and found in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast...
and the Castalian Springs shell gorget held by the National Museum of the American Indian
National Museum of the American Indian
The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum operated under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution that is dedicated to the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of the native Americans of the Western Hemisphere...
.
Site
The Castalian Springs site is the largest of four Mississippian mound centers on the eastern edge of the Nashville basin, located on a flood terrace of a tributary creek of the Cumberland RiverCumberland River
The Cumberland River is a waterway in the Southern United States. It is long. It starts in Harlan County in far southeastern Kentucky between Pine and Cumberland mountains, flows through southern Kentucky, crosses into northern Tennessee, and then curves back up into western Kentucky before...
. It was occupied from 1100 to 1450 CE. The palisade
Palisade
A palisade is a steel or wooden fence or wall of variable height, usually used as a defensive structure.- Typical construction :Typical construction consisted of small or mid sized tree trunks aligned vertically, with no spacing in between. The trunks were sharpened or pointed at the top, and were...
d village and surrounding habitation area was approximately 40 acre (0.1618744 km²) in size and consisted of a dozen platform mound
Platform mound
A platform mound is any earthwork or mound intended to support a structure or activity.-Eastern North America:The indigenous peoples of North America built substructure mounds for well over a thousand years starting in the Archaic period and continuing through the Woodland period...
s, a burial mound, plaza
Plaza
Plaza is a Spanish word related to "field" which describes an open urban public space, such as a city square. All through Spanish America, the plaza mayor of each center of administration held three closely related institutions: the cathedral, the cabildo or administrative center, which might be...
and a number of dwellings and civic structures. The site was first noted in the early 1820s by Ralph E.W. Earl, who did extensive digging at the site. He described a low earthen embankment with raised earthen towers enclosing 16 acre (0.06474976 km²), the remnants of what is now known to have been a wooden palisade. Earl also described the principal mound ( Mound 1) inside the enclosure as being a compound structure consisting of a rectangular platform 600 feet (182.9 m) long by 200 feet (61 m) wide and 13 feet (4 m) to 15 feet (4.6 m) in height and aligned in an east-west direction. On the western end of the platform was a conical shaped mound with a flattened top, approximately 18 feet (5.5 m) to 20 feet (6.1 m) in height. On the southern side of the mound was a plaza, which was bordered on its eastern edge by a 120 feet (36.6 m) in diameter 8 feet (2.4 m) tall burial mound (Mound 2) and on its western edge by another large platform mound (Mound 3). Outside of the palisade to southwest on the banks of Lick Creek was a stone mound (Mound 4) 60 feet (18.3 m) in diameter and 5.5 feet (1.7 m), similar examples of which have been found at the Beasley Mounds
Beasley Mounds Site
The Beasley Mounds Site is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located at the confluence of Dixon Creek and the Cumberland River near the unincorporated community of Dixon Springs in Smith County, Tennessee. The site was first excavated by amateur archaeologists in the 1890s...
and Sellars Indian Mound
Sellars Indian Mound
Sellars Indian Mound is a Mississippian culture archaeological site located in Wilson County, Tennessee near Lebanon. The mound was the site of a settlement from about 1000 to 1300 CE. Today, the site is a satellite unit of Long Hunter State Park...
sites. Over the years since Earls first description Euro-Americans have plowed the area for agricultural purposes and consequently the main platform mound and a few raised impressions are all that are still visible of the embankment and the 12 platform mounds once contained within it. Scattered throughout the area archaeologists have also found stone box grave
Stone box grave
Stone box graves were a method of burial employed by Native Americans of the Mississippian culture in the American Midwest and Southeast. Their construction was especially common in the Cumberland River Basin around Nashville, Tennessee-Construction:...
s, mortuary caves and other features thought to be associated with the Castalian Springs site. The karst
KARST
Kilometer-square Area Radio Synthesis Telescope is a Chinese telescope project to which FAST is a forerunner. KARST is a set of large spherical reflectors on karst landforms, which are bowlshaped limestone sinkholes named after the Kras region in Slovenia and Northern Italy. It will consist of...
terrain of the area produced numerous small caves, one of which is located a few hundred yards west of the Castalian Springs site. Known locally as the "Cave of the Skulls" (40SU126), this small cave was explored by Myer at sometime during one of his three excavation of the site.
Excavations
In the early 1890s and again in 1916-1917, amateur archaeologist William E. Myer (later a “special archeologist” with the Smithsonian) excavated parts of the site, including the stone box graves. He also excavated the large burial mound, which contained well over a hundred graves. Myer discovered several artifacts containing S.E.C.C. imagery, including many shell gorgets which were later acquired by the Museum of the American Indian in 1926.The State of Tennessee purchased the site in 2005, and modern excavations were instituted by the Middle Tennessee State University
Middle Tennessee State University
Middle Tennessee State University, commonly abbreviated as MTSU, is a public university located in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, United States....
. Dr. Kevin E. Smith conducted an archaeological dig school at the village site from 2005 through 2011. The Castalian Springs Archaeological Project is a multi-year research project sponsored by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Middle Tennessee State University, the Bledsoe's Lick Historical Association and the Tennessee Division of Archaeology. Its stated objectives are to develop an initial understanding of the size and extent of the site, to develop trails and other facilities on the site without negatively impacting archaeological deposits, to give university students training in the methods and techniques of professional field and laboratory archaeology, and to emphasize to the public the value of archaeological research.
Important finds
A number of stone statuesMississippian stone statuary
The Mississippian stone statuary are artifacts of polished stone in the shape of human figurines made by members of the Mississippian culture and found in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast...
have been dug up at the site, the first being sometime before 1823 when it is first mentioned. Since then several others have been found, including one believed to have been dug from the platform section of the main mound and several from one of the associated village areas. In 1892 an etched stone tablet was discovered at the site by Myer. The 9 inches (22.9 cm) by 12 inches (30.5 cm) limestone tablet is engraved with symbolic imagery associated with the S.E.C.C.
Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex is the name given to the regional stylistic similarity of artifacts, iconography, ceremonies, and mythology of the Mississippian culture that coincided with their adoption of maize agriculture and chiefdom-level complex social organization from...
, specifically the upper torso of a human figure ceremonially dressed as a raptorial bird with a sun symbol on its chest. The iconography is very similar to depictions of the falcon dancer found on repoussé
Repoussé and chasing
Repoussé or repoussage is a metalworking technique in which a malleable metal is ornamented or shaped by hammering from the reverse side to create a design in low relief. There are few techniques that offer such diversity of expression while still being relatively economical...
copper plates excavated from locations across the Midwest and Southeast. The tablet was the second of only six such tablets that have been found in the Central Tennessee area. Myer also found over thirty engraved shell gorget
Shell gorget
A shell gorget is a Native American art form of polished, carved shell pendants worn around the neck. The gorgets are frequently engraved, and are sometimes highlighted with pigments, or fenestrated ....
s, several of which are now held by the N.M.A.I. The most important of the gorgets is carved in what is known as the Eddyville or Braden style, believed to have been associated with the Cahokia
Cahokia
Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site is the area of an ancient indigenous city located in the American Bottom floodplain, between East Saint Louis and Collinsville in south-western Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri. The site included 120 human-built earthwork mounds...
polity near Collinsville, Illinois
Collinsville, Illinois
Collinsville is a city located mainly in Madison County, and partially in St. Clair County, both in Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 26,016. Collinsville is approximately 12 miles from St. Louis, Missouri and is considered part of that city's Metro-East area...
. The gorget depicts a warrior figure holding a mace in his left hand and severed head in his right. The figure also has the Forked Eye Surround Motif, the Bellows apron motif and the Bi-Lobed Arrow Motif, all of which are associated with the S.E.C.C. Falcon dancer. Although the design is often shown with the figure upright, holes drilled in the edge of the gorget for its suspension as a neck ornament show it was meant to be seen with the figure oriented sideways, although it is as yet unclear what this may signify. In 2005 a waterline replacement crew working on the right of way of U.S. Route 25
U.S. Route 25
U.S. Route 25 is a north–south United States highway that runs for from Brunswick, Georgia to the Ohio state line in Covington, Kentucky.-Georgia:...
discovered an intact Cox style gorget carved from a dark gray shale
Shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...
. This artifact is one of a very few Cox style motifs utilized on a material other than marine shell. The Castalian Springs site is also one of only three sites in Middle Tennessee where ceramic sherds of a type known as Angel negative painted have been found. This type of Mississippian culture pottery
Mississippian culture pottery
Mississippian culture pottery is the ceramic tradition of the Mississippian culture found as artifacts in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. It is often characterized by the adoption and use of riverine shell-tempering agents in the clay paste. Shell tempering is one of...
is typically associated with Angel Phase
Angel Phase
The Angel Phase describes a 300-400-year cultural manifestation of the Mississippian culture of the central portions of the United States of America, as defined in the discipline of archaeology. Angel Phase archaeological sites date from c...
sites along the Ohio River
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
.
See also
- Bledsoe's StationBledsoe's StationBledsoe's Station was an 18th-century frontier fort located in what is now Castalian Springs, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The fort was built by long hunter and Sumner County pioneer Isaac Bledsoe in the early 1780s to protect Upper Cumberland settlers and migrants from hostile...
- List of Mississippian sites
- Southeastern Ceremonial ComplexSoutheastern Ceremonial ComplexThe Southeastern Ceremonial Complex is the name given to the regional stylistic similarity of artifacts, iconography, ceremonies, and mythology of the Mississippian culture that coincided with their adoption of maize agriculture and chiefdom-level complex social organization from...
External links
- Daily journal entries by Dr Kevin E. Smith from excavations at Castalian Springs 2009-2011
- Three shell gorgetShell gorgetA shell gorget is a Native American art form of polished, carved shell pendants worn around the neck. The gorgets are frequently engraved, and are sometimes highlighted with pigments, or fenestrated ....
s found at the site and on display at the N.M.A.I.National Museum of the American IndianThe National Museum of the American Indian is a museum operated under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution that is dedicated to the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of the native Americans of the Western Hemisphere...
-NMAI gorget 1, NMAI gorget 2, and NMAI gorget 3 - 1878 Castalian Springs map
- Ancient slabs unearthed in Midstate tell history of area
- Grant preserves ancient village in Castalian Springs
- Poster
