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Catawba Valley Mississippian: Ceramics, Chronology, and Catawba Indians

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 27; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

2168-4723

John T. Penman,

American Environmental and Regional History

Catawba Valley Mississippian: Ceramics, Chronology, and Catawba Indians. DAVTD G. MOORE. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, 2002. 359 pp., 30 figs., 41 plates, 62 tables, 6 appendices, biblio., index. $60.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8173-1256-0; $34.95 (paper), ISBN 08173-1163-7. Reviewed by Dawn Reid In his opening acknowledgments, the author explains that this book is a revision of his 1999 dissertation. His revisions focused on including the most up-to-date data available and ultimately presents well over a decade of research. Moore begins this book by stating what his goals were in writing it. These goals include establishing a preliminary cultural chronology for the Catawba River Valley in North Carolina and outlining the process of identifying and defining late prehistoric and historic period Catawba Indians. Moore highlights the lack of recent work and indepth investigation into the Native Americans living in the Catawba River Valley during the late prehistoric and historic periods. This is evident in chapter 1, in which the most recent reference is 1992 - a decade old at the time of publication - a problem he notes in his introduction. The author begins chapter 1 by discussing John Lawson's eighteenth-century trek through the Catawba River Valley then reverts to Pardo's sixteenth-century travels. A presentation of various views on the migration of the Catawbas to North Carolina, comparing several migration models, follows. He then discusses the social and political organization in place with the Catawba and closes by stating that he believes the Catawbas influenced and were influenced by the Mississippian cultures to the south, such as those at the mound center at Cofitachequi in South Carolina. While there is some jumping around in time, chapter 1 provides a solid introduction to the background of the Catawba River Valley's Native Americans and establishes them as a vital group of Mississippian communities. The next several chapters focus on geographic distinctions in material culture. In chapter 2, Moore summarizes the upper Catawba River Valley, discussing specific sites and their artifact assemblages. The artifact discussions focus almost solely on ceramics and detail the Pisgah and Burke types. He closes the chapter by briefly discussing the distribution of the Pisgah and Burke wares, and settlement patterns evidenced in the upper river valley. Chapter 3 builds on chapter 2, as it explores similar distributions of Pisgah and Burke ceramics in the upper Yadkin River Valley. As in chapter 2, chapter 3 presents summaries of late prehistoric sites that have undergone some degree of archaeological investigation. Most of the sites discussed in this chapter are Mississippian burial mounds that were investigated in the late nineteenth century. Moore examined the site collections at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, and is therefore able to present a comprehensive discussion of the artifacts recovered from these early excavations, as well as noting problems in identifying the contexts from which many of the artifacts were recovered. Regardless, he concludes that, like the upper Catawba River Valley, the upper Yadkin River Valley was occupied by people producing primarily Burke series ceramics. …