A free Sunday at the Bluff program June 7 at the Plymouth Bluff Center will feature Dr. Evan Peacock, professor in Mississippi State University’s Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Culture. “A Time to Build: Seasonality of House Construction for Prehistoric Farmers in the Tombigbee River Drainage” begins at 2 p.m. at the center located at 2200 Old West Point Road, Columbus.
Beginning around A.D. 1000, the native inhabitants of Mississippi became reliant on maize, beans, squash and other plant food for the bulk of their diets. As many current-day inhabitants of Mississippi know, farming means scheduling. How did these prehistoric farmers schedule their daily lives, including building the substantial houses needed for agriculturalists who lived at sites year-round?
Peacock and colleagues have investigated this question following the lead of archaeologists who worked at the Yarbrough site, the remains of a single-family dwelling constructed on the banks of Tibbee Creek centuries ago. This house was of the wattle and daub type, with a thick clay “plaster” applied to walls of upright posts and split cane mats. When the house burned, the clay became hardened by the fire, leaving a remarkable record of the building’s existence.
Included within the daub are the impressions of many nuts and leaves, incidental inclusions scooped up with the mud when the house was being constructed. Analysis of these plant impressions in daub from Yarbrough and other sites has revealed important information related to the time of year when houses were built.
Peacock received his Ph.D. in archaeology from the University of Sheffield, England, in 1999. Since the fall of 1999, he has been a member of the anthropology faculty at MSU. He is a native of French Camp and the author of “Mississippi Archaeology Q&A” (University Press of Mississippi, 2005).
All Sunday at the Bluff programs are open to the public at no charge.
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