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Archaeology at Shiloh Indian Mounds, 1899-1999
310 pages, 6 x 9
Illus.
Paperback
Release Date:23 Oct 2005
ISBN:9780817352530
One hundred years of archaeological excavations at an important American landmark, the Shiloh Indian Mounds archaeological site, a National Historic Landmark
The Shiloh Indian Mounds archaeological site, a National Historic Landmark, is a late prehistoric community within the boundaries of the Shiloh National Military Park on the banks of the Tennessee River, where one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War was fought in April 1862. Dating between AD 1000 and 1450, the archaeological site includes at least eight mounds and more than 100 houses. It is unique in that the land has never been plowed, so visitors can walk around the area and find the collapsed remains of 800-year-old houses and the 900-meter-long palisade with bastions that protected the village in prehistoric times. Although its location within a National Park boundary has protected the area from the recent ravages of man, riverbank erosion began to undermine the site in the 1970s. In the mid-1990s, Paul Welch began a four-year investigation culminating in a comprehensive report to the National Park Service on the Shiloh Indian Mounds.
These published findings confirm that the Shiloh site was one of at least fourteen Mississippian mound sites located within a 50 km area and that Shiloh was abandoned in approximately AD 1450. It also establishes other parameters for the Shiloh archaeological phase. This current volume is intended to make information about the first 100 years of excavations at the Shiloh site available to the archaeological community.
The Shiloh Indian Mounds archaeological site, a National Historic Landmark, is a late prehistoric community within the boundaries of the Shiloh National Military Park on the banks of the Tennessee River, where one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War was fought in April 1862. Dating between AD 1000 and 1450, the archaeological site includes at least eight mounds and more than 100 houses. It is unique in that the land has never been plowed, so visitors can walk around the area and find the collapsed remains of 800-year-old houses and the 900-meter-long palisade with bastions that protected the village in prehistoric times. Although its location within a National Park boundary has protected the area from the recent ravages of man, riverbank erosion began to undermine the site in the 1970s. In the mid-1990s, Paul Welch began a four-year investigation culminating in a comprehensive report to the National Park Service on the Shiloh Indian Mounds.
These published findings confirm that the Shiloh site was one of at least fourteen Mississippian mound sites located within a 50 km area and that Shiloh was abandoned in approximately AD 1450. It also establishes other parameters for the Shiloh archaeological phase. This current volume is intended to make information about the first 100 years of excavations at the Shiloh site available to the archaeological community.
For archaeologists whose primary research focus is the Mississippian period in the southeastern US, Welch provides an essential reference for the site of Shiloh Indian Mounds, at Shiloh National Military Park in southwest Tennessee. Summing Up: Highly recommended.’
—CHOICE
‘In this book, the mysterious Shiloh Indian mounds site begins to reveal its many mysteries. Here, for the first time, Paul Welch gives us the all-important details of previously unpublished archaeological excavations from this most significant of pre-Columbian places in the American mid-South. Any complete accounting of ancient American Indian history must come to grips with the contents of Welch's important book.’
—Tim Pauketat, author of The Ascent of Chiefs
There is no other comprehensive book on the Shiloh Indian mounds site [in southwestern Tennessee], so publication of this volume enables scholars, for the first time, to include Shiloh in larger-scale discussions and interpretations of southeastern prehistory. Dating the main occupation of the site to AD 1000-1450 and establishing links to Moundville and Cahokia, this book is a major contribution to southeastern archaeology.’
—Lynne P. Sullivan, editor of The Prehistory of the Chickamauga Basin in Tennessee
Paul D. Welch is associate professor of Anthropology at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, and is author of Moundville’s Economy.
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