UA Honors Students to Excavate Mississippian Indian Residences Near Warrior River

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Exercisers enjoying the Riverwalk will soon find themselves only steps away from a potential archaeology lesson, courtesy of a University of Alabama Honors College class.

Beginning Aug. 28, some 15 students taking an Honors class taught by Dr. Jim Knight, professor of anthropology, will excavate portions of a small Mississippian Indian settlement occupied some 800 years ago. At least two residences once stood at the site, located on the south bank of the Black Warrior River, Knight said. Today, the site lies close to a gazebo within River Road Park West, near Jack Warner Parkway.

Those who once lived at the site were, Knight said, part of the same tribe that built Moundville, the former bustling economic and ceremonial center some 14 miles away and which was once the largest city north of Mexico.

“Most people who belonged to the Moundville chiefdom didn’t live in Moundville,” said Knight, an archaeologist who has studied the Mississippian Indians for more than 30 years. “They lived, instead, in very small settlements like this one. Over the years, archaeologists have typically been drawn to Moundville, itself, because it’s such a big, spectacular site and such an obviously rich site. Very little work has been done on smaller sites. There is not a single completely excavated smaller site in the entire valley.”

By the dig’s conclusion in early December, Knight hopes the group will have gained better insight into such questions as how many houses once stood at the site, how many people lived there and how long they lived there.

The site, named Pride Place after the Pride family who lived there when it was first discovered in January 1933, was the first archaeological site identified in Tuscaloosa County, Knight said. In addition to the research done nearly 75 years ago, a small portion of the site was excavated by archaeologists in 1998 in advance of a city infrastructure project.

Prevalent at the site is a particular type of sandstone that was frequently used by the Mississippian Indians in constructing “paint palettes,” an important craft item largely associated with Moundville.

“It’s possible,” Knight said, “that this little Pride Place site had something to do with procuring the sandstone that ends up going to Moundville to make those palettes. This is just a working hypothesis, but it’s something we need to explore more.”

Knight said the reality of an archaeology excavation has special appeal to many students.

“They feel like this isn’t being made up for them. This is the real deal. The notes that they take are not for them, they are for posterity. Everything they do counts. It matters. It’s research, and it’s real research, and I think they appreciate that.”

It can also be an exciting, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for these non-anthropology majors.

“It’s pretty enjoyable to a lot of people who have never personally excavated something that’s a thousand years old. They pick up something and ask you, ‘how old is that?’ And you say, ‘it’s a thousand years old,’ and…it’s kind of hard to believe. No one has seen that in a thousand years. It’s a little bit of a thrill.”

The mission of the UA Honors College is to recruit, educate and promote the best and brightest students at The University of Alabama. The creation of the Honors College in September 2003 affirms the University’s commitment to empower students to achieve the very top of their potential, and then be rewarded for their achievement.

UA’s department of anthropology is part of the College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the “USA Today” Academic All American Teams.