Nodena is an archaeological site in the United States, located in Mississippi County, Arkansas , east of Wilson, Arkansas, and northeast of Revery, Tennessee . Around 1400–1650 there was an Indian settlement, surrounded by a palisade, at the bend of the Mississippi River . In 1964, Nodena was included in the list of National Historic Landmarks of the United States, and in 1966, in the National Register of Historic Places.
Nodedenu was discovered and first documented by amateur archaeologist James K. Hampson, the owner of the plantation where this monument was located. The artifacts found by him are represented in the Hampson State Park Museum in Wilson, Arkansas. [1] [2]
Monument Nodena is typical for the Nodean phase of North American history. According to a number of historians, it was here that the Pakaha tribe lived , with whom the Spanish traveler Hernando de Soto met in 1542.
In 1900, the skeleton of a mastodon was discovered south of Nodedene. [3]
Content
The culture of the inhabitants of the Nodena
The Nodena is a typical monument of the late stage of the Mississippi culture component, which is named after it the “Nodena phase” (circa 1400-1700). During this period, a group of settlements emerged (for example, Iker en: Eaker Site ) along the Mississippi River between the border of the state of Arkansas and Lake Vampanokka . The Naudén culture existed simultaneously with the Menard-Hodges complex, the Walls Phase culture and the Parkin Park culture. In the early 1540s, the Spanish expedition, Hernando de Soto , is supposed to have visited several settlements in the vicinity of Naudén, belonging to the Pakah tribe [4] , and also Parkin , where the competing helmet tribe lived. [5] [6] The inhabitants of the Nodena were part of the southeastern ceremonial complex — a wide network of religious traditions and trade ties, through which siliceous slate, shells of gastropod mollusks, and some other exotic goods fell into the Nodedenes.
Ceramics
Most of the Native American ceramics found in Naudin are of the Missisippian Bell Plain type . It had a light brown “buff” color), contained a large number of snail shells, and was not as smooth and polished as other varieties of local pottery. Other, more rare types of ceramics, have much better quality, shells are added to the clay as a means for annealing, they are ground so finely that it looks unannealed.
The inhabitants of the Nodenes placed a bowl and a bottle in the grave, together with the bodies, usually of glossy ceramics. The forms and paintings of funerary ceramics varied from bright abstract decorations to complex figured vessels in the form of human heads, animals, and scenes of “hunter and prey”. Noden pottery was made of clay strips, which were then smoothed, because the potter's wheel was not known to the pre-Columbian potters . For the coloring of ceramics, galena (white), hematite (red) and sometimes graphite (black) smears were used; A popular white motif on a red background was among the most popular decorative motifs. Sometimes cuts were made on ceramics in the form of cuts (an example is the image of a hawk on a figured vessel in the form of a head), although this method of decorating ceramics is rarely found in Noden. [four]
Skull deformity
People from the Nodena practiced the artificial deformation of the skull . Soon after the birth of the child, a special device was tied to his head, which led to the deformation of the skull as the child grew. Many skeletal remains, found in Noden, had deformed skulls, with a beveled forehead and nape. Of the 123 skulls that were discovered by the archaeologist Hampson, only 6 can be considered “normal”, that is, without signs of deformation. The deformation of the skull did not affect the functioning of the brain, but only on the shape of the cranial bones. [4] The same practice was supported by a number of Indian tribes in historical times, including Chocto , who later lived in the same places, although this custom has largely lost its popularity.
Agriculture and Diet
The inhabitants of the Nodena engaged in intensive cultivation of corn and other local crops, such as bob , pumpkin , and sunflower . They also collected wild plants, such as pecans and persimmons . Members of the Soto expedition wrote that there were a lot of agricultural fields in the area, and that it was the most densely populated of all the areas they visited in Florida (in the southeast of the modern United States). The Spaniards wrote about the groves of wild fruit and nut trees, which the inhabitants of Nodin left, clearing the terrain from other plants for planting maize. [5] Hunting for white-tailed deer , squirrel , rabbit , turkey and wild duck was also common. The shellfish , catfish , croaker and mussel were extracted from aquatic inhabitants. [four]
Language
The population of Nodin most likely spoke one of the Tunic or Siouan languages. It is known that the Indians of the tunic tribe lived in these places during the expedition of de Soto, therefore the inhabitants of Nodena and other local settlements of the de Soto era could relate to speakers of Tunic languages surrounded by native Kaddoan languages from the west and south. On the other hand, during the arrival of Jacques Marquette in the 1670s, he discovered here the Kwapo tribe, who spoke one of the Siwanese languages. Attempts to link local pottery styles, as well as Native American words mentioned in the de Soto report to historical tribes, have so far been unsuccessful. [7]
Notes
- ↑ The Virtual Hampson Museum . Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies . University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas . The date of circulation is February 21, 2009. Archived April 1, 2012.
- ↑ Hampson Archeological Museum State Park . Archeological Collection of Nodena Artifacts . Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism, Division of State Parks. The date of circulation is February 21, 2009. Archived April 1, 2012.
- ↑ Williams, Steven. The Island of Mastodon: The Island of Archaic Cultures in the East. - American Antiquity, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 359-372, Apr., 1957. - ISBN doi: 10.2307 / 276134.
- 2 1 2 3 4 Morse, Dan F. Nodena-An account of 90 years of archaeological investigation in the southeast of Mississippi County, Arkansas. - Arkansas Archaeological Survery Research Series, 1973. - ISBN 1-56349-057-9 .
- 2 1 2 Hudson, Charles M. Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun. - University of Georgia Press, 1997.
- ↑ Morse, Phyllis A. Parkin. - Arkansas Archaeological Survey, 1981. - ISBN 0882-4591.
- ↑ Michael P. Hoffman. Towns and Temples Along the Mississippi / David H. Dye and Cheryl Ann Cox. - University of Alabama Press , 1990. - ISBN 0-8173-0455-X .