Irene Mound site

Irene Mound
History
Location	Near Savannah, Georgia
Founded	1,150-1,300 AD
Cultures	Mississippian culture

The Irene Mound is a historical site in North Carolina associated with the Mississippian culture.

Description

The Irene Mound site was located on the western bluff of the Savannah River. Its location is about 5 miles from Savannah city center.^[1] Pipemakers Creek ran along one side and a ditch enclosed the other.^[2] It previously consisted of a collection of temple mounds and residences, a burial mound and a rotunda. It was about 2.4 hectares in size,^[3] and is the largest Mississippian site on the Georgia coast.^[4]

History

The site went through seven phases of construction while it was occupied, between 1,150 AD and 1,300 AD.^[5] It is believed to have housed the local chief and his family, no more than 30 or 40 people total.^[6] Different types of ware, including cordmarked, stamped and burnished ware.^[5] Food waste like shell middens was also found there.^[3]

Excavations

The Works Progress Administration, Chatham County commissioners and Savannah chamber of commerce organized an archaeological project which excavated the Irene Mound site between 1937 and 1940.^[7] Many women, especially black women, took part in the excavations of the Irene Mound site in the 1930s.^[8] Gussie White is one of the most prominent examples of these women archaeologists.

References

^ Fewkes, Vladimir J. (1938). W.P.A. Excavations at Irene Mound. Savannah Chamber of Commerce. p. 6.
^ "Irene Mounds". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2024-07-09.
^ ^a ^b Reitz, Elizabeth J.; Williams, Mark; Dalton, Katie B. (2020-05-03). "Rare animals at a Mississippian chiefly compound: the Irene Mound site (9CH1), Georgia, USA". Southeastern Archaeology. 39 (2): 89–108. doi:10.1080/0734578X.2019.1702489. ISSN 0734-578X.
^ Giles, Bretton T.; Lambert, Shawn P. (2021-10-19). New Methods and Theories for Analyzing Mississippian Imagery. University Press of Florida. pp. 41–42. ISBN 978-1-68340-246-6.
^ ^a ^b Ward, H. Trawick; Jr, R. P. Stephen Davis (2018-06-15). Time before History: The Archaeology of North Carolina. UNC Press Books. p. 129. ISBN 978-1-4696-4777-7.
^ Murphree, Daniel S. (2012-03-09). Native America: A State-by-State Historical Encyclopedia [3 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 979-8-216-12142-8.
^ Banks, Kimball M.; Czaplicki, Jon S. (2016-06-16). Dam Projects and the Growth of American Archaeology: The River Basin Surveys and the Interagency Archeological Salvage Program. Routledge. p. 100. ISBN 978-1-315-43072-0.
^ Varela, Sandra L. López (2023-07-12). Women in Archaeology: Intersectionalities in Practice Worldwide. Springer Nature. p. 78. ISBN 978-3-031-27650-7.

Mississippian and related cultures

List of Mississippian sites
Timeline of Mississippi valley

Middle
Mississippian

American Bottom and Upper Mississippi	Aztalan Big Eddy Cahokia Monks Mound Mound 34 Mound 72 Ramey state Woodhenge Cloverdale Dickson Mounds Emerald Acropolis Emmons Cemetery Horseshoe Lake John Chapman Kuhn Station Larson Lunsford-Pulcher McCune Mitchell Orendorf Sleeth Starr Steed-Kisker culture Sugarloaf Mound
Lower Ohio River and Confluence area	Adams site Dogtooth Bend Mounds Kincaid Mounds Marshall Site Millstone Bluff Orr-Herl Rowlandton Mound Towosahgy Turk Site Twin Mounds Ware Mounds Wickliffe Mounds
Middle Ohio River	Angel Mounds Angel phase Annis Mound Bone Bank Caborn-Welborn culture Ellerbusch Hovey Lake-Klein Hovey Lake District Murphy Prather Slack Farm Tolu Welborn Village Yankeetown
Tennessee and Cumberland	Backusburg Beasley Mounds Brentwood Library Brick Church Castalian Springs Dunbar Cave Fewkes Group Hiwassee Island Link Farm Mound Bottom Riverview Sellars Obion Old Town Swallow Bluff
Central and Lower Mississippi	Belle Meade Boone's Boyd Campbell Carson Chucalissa Denmark Eaker Janet's Menard-Hodges Murphy Nodena Nodena phase Owl Creek Parkin Quigualtam Tipton phase Tunica Koroa Yazoo Walls phase

South Appalachian
Mississippian

Fort Walton culture

Pensacola culture

Plaquemine
Mississippian

Caddoan
Mississippian

Upper Mississippian
cultures

Oneota	Anker Beattie Park Blood Run Carcajou Point Fifield Fisher Mound Group Gentleman Farm Grand Village of the Illinois Griesmer Hartley Fort Hotel Plaza Hoxie Farm Huber Juntunen Knoll Spring Mero site Moccasin Bluff Oak Forest Palos Plum Island Roche-a-Cri Petroglyphs Schwerdt Summer Island
Fort Ancient culture	Alligator Effigy Mound Clover Dodge Leo Petroglyph Serpent Mound SunWatch Indian Village

Culture

Agriculture	Beans Chenopodium Little barley Maize Marshelder Pumpkin Squash Sunflower Three Sisters Tobacco
Artwork	Emmons mask Copper plates Rogan plates Spiro plates Wulfing cache Duck River cache Long-nosed god maskette Mill Creek chert Pottery Shell gorget Stone statuary
Languages	Caddoan Central Algonquian Cherokee Mobilian Jargon Muskogean Natchez Taensa Siouan Timucuan Tunican Yuchi
Religion	Ballgame (Southeastern) Northern Black drink Burial mound Ceremonial pipe Chanunpa Chunkey Earth/fertility cult Green Corn Ceremony Horned Serpent Platform mound Red Horn Sacred bundle Village bundle Southeastern Ceremonial Complex Stone box grave Thunderbird Underwater panther

Related topics: Chevron bead; Clarksdale bell; Mound Builders; de Soto Expedition

v t e Pre-Columbian North America
Periods Lithic Archaic Formative Classic Post-Classic
Archaeological cultures	Adena Alachua Ancient Beringian Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi) Avonlea Baytown Belle Glade Buttermilk Creek complex Caborn-Welborn Cades Pond Calf Creek Caloosahatchee Clovis Coles Creek Comondú Deptford Folsom Fort Ancient Fort Walton Fremont Glacial Kame Glades Hohokam Hopewell List of Hopewell sites La Jolla Las Palmas Maritime Archaic Mississippian List of Mississippian sites Mogollon Monongahela Old Cordilleran Oneota Paleo-Arctic Paleo-Indians Patayan Plano Plaquemine Poverty Point Red Ocher Safety Harbor Santa Rosa-Swift Creek St. Johns Steed-Kisker Suwannee Valley Tchefuncte Troyville Weeden Island
Archaeological sites	Angel Mounds Anzick site Bandelier National Monument Bastian Benson Blue Spring Shelter Bluefish Caves The Bluff Point Stoneworks Brewster Cahokia Candelaria Cave Casa Grande Chaco Canyon Coso Rock Art District Crystal River Cuarenta Casas Cueva de la Olla Cutler Eaker El Fin del Mundo El Vallecito Effigy Mounds Etowah Indian Mounds Eva Folsom Fort Ancient Fort Center Fort Juelson Four Mounds Gila Cliff Dwellings Glenwood Grimes Point Helen Blazes Holly Bluff Hopewell Culture National Historical Park Horr's Island Huápoca Key Marco Kimball Village Kincaid Mounds Kolomoki Mounds Lake Jackson Mounds Lehner Mammoth-Kill Site L'Anse aux Meadows Lynch Quarry Site Marksville Marmes Rockshelter Meadowcroft Rockshelter Mesa Verde Moaning Cavern Moorehead Circle Morrison Mounds Moundville Mummy Cave Nodena site Ocmulgee Mounds Old Stone Fort Orwell site Paquime Painted Bluff Parkin Park Pinson Mounds Plum Bayou Mounds Portsmouth Earthworks Poverty Point Pueblo Bonito Rassawek Recapture Canyon River Styx Roberts Island Rock Eagle Rock Hawk Rosenstock Village Russell Cave Salmon Ruins Serpent Mound Sierra de San Francisco Shell ring sites Spiro Mounds Stallings Island SunWatch Taos Pueblo Town Creek Indian Mound Turkey River Mounds Upward Sun River Velda Mound West Oak Forest Earthlodge Wickiup Hill Windover Winterville Wupatki
Human remains	Anzick-1 Arlington Springs Man Buhl Woman Kennewick Man La Brea Woman Leanderthal Lady Melbourne Man Minnesota Woman Peñon woman Spirit Cave mummy Vero man
Miscellaneous	Aridoamerica Ballgame Black drink Ceremonial pipe Chanunpa Chunkey Clovis point Container Revolution Eastern Agricultural Complex Eden point Effigy mound Falcon dancer Folsom point Green Corn Ceremony Horned Serpent Kiva Medicine wheel Metallurgy Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing Mound Builders N.A.G.P.R.A. Norse colonization of North America Oasisamerica Piasa Projectile point Southeastern Ceremonial Complex Stickball Three Sisters agriculture Thunderbird Transoceanic contact Underwater panther Water glyphs
Related Genetic history Pre-Columbian era