GEOMORPHOLOGY AND FORMATION PROCESSES OF THE BELMONT NECK SITE IN THE WATEREE VALLEY, SOUTH CAROLINA

The Belmont Neck site is an early Mississippian-period mound site situated on the Upper Coastal Plain in the Wateree Valley of South Carolina. This platform mound has been substantially reduced in size during historic time. The objectives of this geoarchaeological research were (1.) to determine the subsurface and surface geomorphology in the vicinity of the site, (2.) to determine the source of the mound fill, and (3.) to determine the nature and extent of site formation and destruction processes. A 0.8-km-long transect of excavation units, soil cores, and backhoe trenches traversed the site and extended beyond the site boundaries. Methods involved pedology, allostratigraphy, and soil micromorphology.

An excavation unit in the center of the mound revealed the following soil profile (from top to bottom): a plow zone with artifacts; an anthropogenic stratum of basket-laid, multi-colored mound fill without artifacts; an artifact-rich midden layer; a black buried “A” horizon with artifacts; an artifact-free subsoil; and a typical coarsening downward fluvial sedimentary sequence. Several possible borrow pits or palisade ditches were located. Various post-depositional site formation processes have occurred at the site. These include plowing, incision and alteration by historic house construction, slopewash, pedoturbation, bioturbation, and destruction by looters. Efforts were made to determine the extent of a hypothetical redistributed mound layer by searching for clods of the basket-laid mound fill in thin sections taken from soil cores, which were placed in an X-pattern radiating outward from the mound center.

This research is a valuable aid for future archaeological work at the site because it allows for understanding of both the geomorphic environment in which the Mississippian people lived and of the construction and subsequent destruction of the mound. Methods developed for this research may also be useful for studies at other archaeological mound sites.