Irene Mound site

Irene Mound

Location	Near Savannah, Georgia
History
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

1. Fewkes, Vladimir J. (1938). W.P.A. Excavations at Irene Mound. Savannah Chamber of Commerce. p. 6.
2. "Irene Mounds". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2024-07-09.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. Varela, Sandra L. López (2023-07-12). Women in Archaeology: Intersectionalities in Practice Worldwide. Springer Nature. p. 78. ISBN 978-3-031-27650-7.