THE PALEO-LANDSCAPE AT JAKETOWN AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR UNDERSTANDING THE OCCUPATIONAL HISTORY OF THE SITE

The Jaketown site, situated in the Yazoo Basin in west-central Mississippi, is the second largest settlement of the Late Archaic (ca. 3800 to 3000 cal. BP) Poverty Point culture of the Lower Mississippi River Valley. Previous archaeological investigations at Jaketown suffered from a deficient knowledge of the site’s stratigraphy and a lack of reliable chronometric data. These shortcomings subsequently led to erroneous interpretations of the site’s cultural and geomorphologic history. Recent archaeological excavations at Jaketown, however, have yielded new information about the site’s complex stratigraphy. This new stratigraphic data, in addition to new radiometric dates, has helped reveal the nature of the paleo-landscape during the initial occupation of the site and has led to the discovery of a previously unidentified earthwork which was completely buried and obscured by subsequent alluvial deposition. These overlying alluvial deposits may be the result of flood-related events associated with the end of the Late Archaic occupation at Jaketown. This recent research has also led to a newly refined understanding of the origin and development of the Poverty Point culture.