Month-long Dig Researches Mississippi Archaeological Gem

“It’s kind of a big deal for Mississippi archaeology, and a lot of student projects are coming out of this,” said Dr. Shane Miller, an associate professor for MSU’s Cobb Institute of Archaeology.

As part of the dig, students did shovel testing to determine where deposits are and what’s preserved. Old projectile points dating back to 10,000 years ago have been found in excavation blocks at the Hester Site.

“We have a couple of different kinds of archaeological layers. There was a Depression Era sharecropper house that was here, and we found ceramics, nails, glass and things like that. Below that, we have a culture from a time period we call the Late Woodland, which is a little over 1,000 years ago. We have pottery and big round pits they were digging, but we’re not sure why they were digging. Below that, we have a time period called the Middle Holocene, and we’ve got some points that are from 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. If you go back from the Early Holocene to the end of the last ice age, points date back to 11,000, 12,000 years ago and we’ve got radiocarbon dates from that, which makes this the oldest radiocarbon dated site in Mississippi in this block,” Miller said.

Ole Miss’ excavation site, which was several yards away and built upon previous MSU research, where Early Holocene projectile points were found.

“We wanted to know what was happening with this rise of dirt in the landscape and the relationship of this area and where the other excavation area is with Mississippi State because they’re in a really similar land form. We know the lowest levels of archaeology where we’re working are 9,000 to 10,000 years ago. There have been rumors of earlier artifacts found in this general vicinity as well. We’re also learning about what has happened with the landscape over time,” said Dr. Jesse Tune, director of the Ole Miss Center of Archaeology Research.

He said the area, which is between the Tombigbee River and Standifer Creek, would have been a place for humans to camp as they moved through the landscape hunting wildlife and gathering plant resources.

“We want to see how this compares to the Hester Site, which is the earliest site we know of in Mississippi, and it looks like they’re similar,” Tune said.

He said modern ground disturbances were found, and no ceramics or artifacts from time periods thousands of years ago were found on Ole Miss’ site.

“Our goal is to think about how this site was formed and created to tell us how people were using that landscape and how it compares to Hester,” he said.

Jim Strawn, a research affiliate with MSU’s archaeology program, said the Hester Site was an important place from a human standpoint, especially with its proximity to the old Tombigbee River.

“As far as we know, we can put people on the landscape in Monroe County at at least 12,000 years ago, based on radiocarbon data. That’s pretty exciting when you think about it today. That is a long period of occupation,” he said. “We think this place was important because it was a natural levy of the Tombigbee. You don’t want to put your house in water so you’re going to set up somewhere that’s high and dry. We also think about the vegetation shifts in the Early Holocene or the Early Archaic periods 10,000 to 12,000 years ago and see a lot of oak and hickory moving in. Not only do people like it, but so do whitetail deer and other small game. We’ll never be able to know for sure, but those are pieces of the puzzle we’re putting together.”

Painting a picture of the past

With the dig, students dug 1-by-1-meter units at five-centimeter levels and mapped everything greater than two centimeters.

“It’s kind of like detective work in a way to reconstruct what people were doing here,” Miller said.

A site for a fire from 9,000 years ago was found, and students pieced together a map of burnt flakes, burnt artifacts and charcoal clustered in an area of the Hester Site through radiocarbon dating.

“It dates to a time period when people were making corner notched points, and we found one right there. It’s cool that we can reconstruct it to a time when people were sitting around a fire probably smashing hickory nut shells and doing other tasks based off the tools around it. It’s the kind of high precision excavation you have to do when you’re working on sites this old,” Miller said.

Strawn said there was a lot of stonework evident at the Hester Site, but he’s unsure if there were several people doing it or rather a few people doing a lot of work.

“We’re taking a lot of rock lithic material that has come out of this site and making it fit together like a puzzle. From that, we’ll be able to see where people were concentrated at the site and what they were doing at different parts,” said MSU graduate student Kendall Docherty of her thesis.

Several students from both schools are using research from the excavation for their master’s thesis projects.

“My thesis is aimed at what kind of tasks went on at the site and what tools were used for particularly. A lot of times, people look at the shape of the tools, but I’m learning how to conduct use wear. Basically if something is used on a particular material in a particular motion, sometimes that will leave polish or will break specific ways really small, so I’ll be working a lot with a microscope. I’m going to try to figure out stone tools based on past experimental data and compare it to see if it was something harder like wood or something intermediate like bone or antler. That will help us know if they were doing one thing or something different on this part of the site. Just looking at the shape of the tool alone wouldn’t tell you. Maybe with that, if we get some good data, we’ll be able to see if there was any division of labor by gender,” said MSU graduate student Tori Lovelace.

She will have to go tool-by-tool to analyze.

MSU graduate student Kailee Rogers’ thesis focuses on a pit feature discovered during a previous dig from years ago.

“It was a big hole with pottery in it, and we don’t really know why. I’m going to try to figure out if it was put there for a reason or if it was just a trash pit. I’m going to try to do some residue analysis and some refit to see if the pieces fit together,” she said.

Even though it’s roughly 25 miles away from home, Rogers, who is a Tremont native, didn’t know anything about the Hester Site before enrolling at MSU.

Ole Miss graduate incoming student Sonya Gentile has been on other digs while an undergrad.

"The biggest dig I was on was last summer for a month with the University of South Florida, which was a burial site from the medieval era and we were excavating skeletons in Romania. Obviously, we’re not dealing with anything that sensitive at this site – it’s more artifacts and lithics,” she said.

Towards the end of the dig, the Ole Miss site was more on the top level, but rocks and projectile points were found in a deeper layer.

“There was a layer we had to dig through, which was the plow zone. All of it was jumbled and not in place because it had been moved by more recent people,” Gentile said.

Students also said the hands-on experience was valuable, especially with career preparedness.

“You can teach a lesson and say it, but there is no greater teacher than actual experience. It was important to learn about being careful to get down to the specifics. It’s not just about sticking a shovel in the ground, digging out a few pounds of dirt and rifling through it. You have to be careful, really systematic with it and know how far down you need to go down. It’s been really scientific knowing the intricacies,” said Ole Miss student Wesley Newton of Guntown.

Docherty said the field exposure gave her a better understanding for both the lab work and archaeological site processes.

Rogers said several graduates go on to work for cultural research management firms, and anything requiring federal funding must be surveyed to determine if there was an archaeological site.

“My thesis and working here is giving me experience, especially with pottery. I think there’s a need for people with southeastern pottery experience,” she said.

Fighting against the odds

Located in Black Cat Bottom, the Hester Site has withstood the test of time and what Miller described as odds stacked against it.

“This site shouldn’t exist because there’s a lot working against it. First off, this dates back to the end of the last ice age, and the earliest stuff here is 11,000 to 12,000 years old,” he said.

He said years ago, two collectors – Glenn Beachum and Alan Harrison – figured out there were several artifacts in the area and began to dig and screen. Several pieces they found are on display at the Amory Regional Museum.

Miller said the landowner contacted the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, which helped preserve the site.

“Where we’re standing, if you imagine how a river creates levies and periodically busts through a levy and the sediment spills out, it’s called a crevasse splay and we’re on two lobes of one. Where we’re digging is on one lobe, and Ole Miss is digging on another. We think the ice age Tombigbee River was somewhere to the south,” Miller said.

He also understood gravel mining operations in the area ceased just before they reached the Hester Site.

“You think about how much time has passed and how many opportunities there were for this site to be blown apart, and history threaded a needle and kind of preserved this special spot. The landowner also put in a no-digging clause on the lease for the Standifer Creek Hunting and Fishing Club, which has taken it seriously. The lucky thing is they took over managing this, and they are wonderful stewards of this property and this site. Because of this, this has been untouched and they’re super supportive and nice to work with,” Miller said.

He thanked the hunting and fishing club and landowner for their support for the universities’ research.

“We treat it as a privilege and not a right to be able to come out here and work because it’s a special spot,” he said.

He credited Strawn, who took one of his graduate classes years ago, for learning more about the Hester Site and making a connection with the hunting club through his father, who is Watco’s terminal manager, for the archaeology students to research the area.

“He found out the Mississippi Department of Archives and History dug a 150-foot trench and excavated 5-by-5-meter blocks and put an excavation block back in,” he said. “He figured out through ground penetrating radar where the trench was.”

Strawn, who was a student at MSU from 2016-2019, said aerial views of gravel mining operations in that part of Monroe County created the look of several craters.

“One big question was if the Hester Site was there, is it still there?,” he said of the time. “My thesis was really looking at if it’s been disturbed, how disturbed is it? What we found with my data is this site is a rarity and it’s been minimally disturbed by natural formation processes. Sometimes you may find a tree root that came up through the ground or animal or insect burrows but for the most part, this is a very stratigraphically intact site.”