GEOARCHAEOLOGY OF AN ERODED EARTHEN MOUND: THE BELMONT NECK SITE (38KE06), WATEREE RIVER VALLEY, SOUTH CAROLINA

The Belmont Neck site (38KE6) is a small platform mound and village site in the Wateree Valley, Kershaw County, South Carolina. It dates to the Early Mississippian cultural period, circa A.D. 900-1200. The small human-built earthen mound at the site has decreased in size during the past few centuries. The objectives were to determine (1) geomorphology in the study area, (2) the sources of mound fills, and (3) the nature and extent of site formation processes. The objectives were carried out with methodology involving geomorphology, pedology, stratigraphy, and soil micromorphology.

Results include the following. The site itself is situated on a scroll bar ridge landform. This ridge is located on a low geomorphic first terrace (T1) that is in the hydromorphic five-year (or less) floodplain, but it is allostratigraphically separated from the historic sedimentation in the large swale and on higher elevations closer to the river bank. To the north of the archaeological site, both the large swale and the modern natural levee are situated in the geomorphic and hydromorphic floodplains.

Micromorphology can be quite successful for detecting redistributed material from a destroyed mound or other earthwork, and the resulting data is useful for finding the maximum original possible size of a mound. According to the evidence, the mound's maximum original height was 2 m high, disproving a nineteenth century account of 3.5 m high. The existence of a thin redistributed mound layer, at least 49 m in diameter, was confirmed with micromorphology. Small clods of mound material were found in soil thin sections taken from the upper soil on and away from the mound. The main cause of erosion/destruction/height reduction of the mound is interpreted to be tillage erosion.