Date of Graduation

7-2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Anthropology (MA)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Anthropology

Advisor/Mentor

Sabo, George III

Committee Member

Early, Ann M.

Second Committee Member

Kay, Marvin

Keywords

Social sciences; Archaeology; Arkansas; Caddo; Prehistoric architecture; Southeast archaeology

Abstract

Since the earliest excavations in Arkansas and the Southeast, prehistoric architecture related to mound building societies has been of particular interest. The Caddo of the Trans-Mississippi South are a Mississippian period mound building culture that emerged as early as A.D. 1000 and persisted to and beyond European contact. Many Caddo structures are found under and on mounds. Some of these structures, identified as special-purpose or non-domestic in function, were burned and buried. Often structures were purposefully burned and buried forming a conical or platform mound. The Ferguson site (3HE63), located in the Little Missouri River basin of Southwest Arkansas, contains architectural remains in Middle Caddo contexts. Many of the structures excavated from within the large platform Mound A and the smaller conical Mound B were burned and buried, resulting in a complex mound building sequence. The larger mound, Mound A, contained the “A-6 house,” which was extremely well preserved in the stratigraphic record as a result of the burning and burying process, which carbonizes organic material. This thesis provides an analysis of the A-6 structure, which has had no formal analysis since its excavation in 1974. This thesis focuses on identifying the architectural characteristics of this special-purpose building in order to gain better understanding of the characteristics of buildings of its variety in the Caddo archaeological area.

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