Determining Duration at Prehistoric Sites: Short-Term Sedentary Settlement at Josey Farm NE Mississippi

Abstract

Frequency and duration of site use can be studied through analysis of artifact clusters and by using careful chronological arguments. Four occupations were discerned at the Josey Farm site (220k793) in Oktibbeha County, NE Mississippi: Late Archaic, Middle Mississippian, and early and late Protohistoric periods, ranging in date from 1000 B.C. to A.C. 1650. Two of these represent small, short-term sedentary habitation such as seen elsewhere on upland ridges in the area, beginning in Middle Woodland and continuing through the Protohistoric period. Dispersed sedentary settlement patterns form an important part of the record of change in landscape use in many parts of the world. A suite of detailed spatial and chronological analyses allow such phenomena to be discerned and their variability documented.