Reassessing Middle Archaic Stratigraphy and Chronology of the Anderson Site

Abstract

The Anderson site (40WM9) is located on the Harpeth River in Williamson County, Tennessee, and is the only shell-bearing Archaic site off the main channel of the Cumberland River in the Middle Cumberland River Valley to have undergone controlled archaeological testing. The site is further significant in that it is the oldest known shell-bearing Archaic site in the region and despite its size and depth presents a mid- to lateMiddle Archaic component with no direct evidence of occupation before or after that time. In addition, the Anderson sitehas produced some of the earliest evidence from the interior Southeastern United States for long-distance trade of marine shell. However, while the Anderson site has been widely cited in the literature on Archaic adaptations in the interior Southeastern United States, much of the data from the site have never been synthesized in a modern professional setting. This chapter presents a modern reexamination of the data from Anderson, for the first time fully correlating the site stratigraphy and associated cultural phases. When combined with Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon data, this effort clarifies the duration and sequence of site occupation and places it within the framework of more recent data from the region.