Excavating an Indian Mound Trash Midden with Archaeologists

We not had a couple of hours to try to find Spanish contact metal items. This is not a burial mound. We had to go through the layers quickly as we only had a small window of opportunity for to search while the city installed a water line.

[@artifactsantlersoh]

The piece in the beginning that you say is a chisel is from the interior part of a conch shell

[@stpeterburgartifactrecovery]

Yes, that was a columnella.

[@artifactsantlersoh]

@@stpeterburgartifactrecovery what ever came of that spot, did you guys locate much there?

[@stpeterburgartifactrecovery]

@@artifactsantlersoh A few pieces from the early 1800’s, musket parts, a musketball, some rim fire casings. No native artifacts really. We were excavating there because the city was running a water line underground, this is where the line was emerging from the ground. I was there to metal detect any possible Spanish contact items. We didn’t find anything that early, but the site has produced a couple Spanish reales from 1788, a Seminole Kaskaskia projectile point, a dropped pouch of musket balls and flints, some civil war stuff like pewter infantry buttons.

[@artifactsantlersoh]

@@stpeterburgartifactrecovery very cool stuff!

[@benjaminharold5154]

Great....you found my shell collection.

[@dboogeman2002]

Wow all the shells

[@stpeterburgartifactrecovery]

Not much in there but food shell. The city was putting in some water lines, so we were excavating the entry and exit points of the lines. I was there to metal detect, looking for Spanish contact artifacts. Didn’t find any Spanish contact pieces, but did find some rim fire shells from the late 1800’s. This spot is a few feet from where I found two 1788 silver reales.

[@chrisstaylor8377]

That’s a food midden

[@paulmcanally9310]

Did they burn fires on top of burial mounds in Alabama?

[@stpeterburgartifactrecovery]

More than likely they had fires going all over the place.

[@williamlake6151]

What about shells for pottery temper

[@stpeterburgartifactrecovery]

They definitely used shell for tempering pottery, but this area was garbage midden. The only reason we were able to excavate this area is because the city was running a new water pipe for the park, and this was where the pipe would be exiting.

[@SasukeUchiha-ql5jg]

Chisel looks more like a drill bit

[@stpeterburgartifactrecovery]

It looks like a drill bit because it is a columnella from a conch. The inner spiral of shell that constitutes the center of the conch.

[@SasukeUchiha-ql5jg]

@@stpeterburgartifactrecovery thanks! Don’t know much about that at all, what’s a midden

[@SasukeUchiha-ql5jg]

@@stpeterburgartifactrecovery only know that word from Skyrim

[@stpeterburgartifactrecovery]

@@SasukeUchiha-ql5jg a midden is basically a trash heap consisting of food waste. In this case shellfish.

[@seafruit.]

Awesome shell midden. There is no way this is a burial ground because they don’t put burials in there trash pit. I could talk all day why what there are doing is fine

[@stpeterburgartifactrecovery]

Ethan Seufert thank you, really nice to see some educated people out there! Garbage midden are indeed not burial mounds 😃

[@soundsforthesoul2892]

They did actually...the would put a layer of shells at the top to prevent erosion

[@robertmartinez1582]

Right, and I’d bet you have a nice arrow head collection as well?
I find fault in the label of this piece. “Indian mound” the term “Indian” draws the views, what about the Indians reading and watching this piece. By label it reads, looks and sounds like an excavation of a burial. In my opinion the term Indian should only be used by Indians whom have bore the ignorance of hundreds of years of genocide, grave robbing and the blatant disregard of their burial grounds/mounds and ancestral homes by the those armed with metal detectors and picks and shovels.
I’m an enrolled member of a Federally Recognized Tribe, the Northern Cheyenne, and in my efforts to sway good, honest people away from this type of ignorance, I try my best to understand the agendas by those choosing to add the word “Indian” into their headline. It’s a poor choice of words to start with and it implies the exact type of ignorance I’m speaking of.

[@Ihearyoucawing]

@@robertmartinez1582 Thank you. What would be the more respectful word.

[@amytroncone6161]

Is this in Mississippi?

[@stpeterburgartifactrecovery]

In Florida

[@billymac9650]

This is a midden, a dump for waste, that was not a small scallop, but a Queeny, a completely different shell fish. Sorry but you guys are not clued up.

[@stpeterburgartifactrecovery]

I never said I’m an archaeologist, or a malacologist. I was there to metal detect Spanish contact items.

[@jrolinjr]

Pretty sketchy Phase 3 test unit excavation method. Be pretty hard to define a level with that picking and gouging midden removal technique. Why is there a need to run a water line through a burial mound when it can be routed around? None of this adds up to the title...

[@stpeterburgartifactrecovery]

First, it’s not a burial mound but a trash heap midden. We weren’t there to do a full excavation, but to determine if there was any Spanish contact metal in the ground. We only had a couple hours to use my metal detector to try to pinpoint any items.