Mississippian copper plates
The plates, found as far afield as Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Wisconsin, were instrumental in the development of the archaeological concept known as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex.
Copper trade routes throughout the Eastern Woodlands were established during the Archaic period (3000 - 1000 BCE)[1] and continued into historic times.
Elites at major political and religious centers during the Mississippian period used copper ornamentation as a sign of their status by crafting the sacred material into representations connected with the Chiefly Warrior cult of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex.
Among 19th century Muscogee (Creek), a group of copper plates carried along the Trail of Tears are regarded as some of the tribe's most sacred items.
[5] Researchers at Northwestern's School of Engineering and Applied Science used an electron microscope to analyze pieces of the flat copper sheets found during excavations at the Mound 34 site at Cahokia.
[7] After the flat sheets of copper were produced, designs were then embossed into the surfaces probably with stone, bone or wooden tools.
He hammered raw nuggets of copper smooth and removed imperfections by scouring the surface with a piece of sandstone.
[8] Avian themed plates are thought to depict aspects of the Birdman, a major figure in Mississippian iconography closely associated with warfare, ritual dancing, and the game of chunkey.
[4] Numerous examples of similar avian themed plates have been found in locations across the Midwest and Southeast, from the large cache found in Malden near the bootheel region in Dunklin County, Missouri to others from Mangum in Mississippi,[9] Spiro in Oklahoma, Etowah in Georgia, Lake Jackson Mounds in Florida and other sites in Missouri, Illinois, and Alabama.
[4] Years of study by archaeologists, ethnologists and historians of artifacts of different materials found at many sites throughout the midwestern and southeastern United States has led many of these researchers to conclude that the cosmology associated with the avian imagery of this artwork originated at Cahokia (the largest Mississippian culture site, in western Illinois near St Louis, Missouri) between 1100 - 1300 CE.
The area contains the remains of three tree stumps thought to have been used to hold anvil stones used for beating out the flattened sheets of copper.
These finds include copper feather and flame-like shapes believed to have been part of headdresses, a human head cutout wearing similar "feathers", 13 inches (33 cm) square sheets with Forked Eye motifs and concentric circle designs, and several copper covered wooden plaques also with Forked Eye motifs and circles.
At least three of the Arkansas examples (Rose Mound, Scott Place, and Clay Hill) and two others (a 32.6 centimeters (12.8 in) found in a Dallas phase burial at the Henry Farm Site (40 LO 53) in Loudon County, Tennessee in 1975 and a specimen unexamined by archaeologists thought to come either from the Neeley's Ferry (3 CS 24) or Rose Mound sites in Cross County) have stylistic similarities that indicate they may have all been made by the same artist.
The plate was found in an Armorel Phase burial that also contained a Clarksdale bell, an item of European manufacture that is a hallmark of the 1541 Hernando de Soto excursion through the southeast.
This does not date the era for the production of the plate though as such items were often kept as heirlooms for long periods, even many generations, before they ended up becoming grave goods.
[21] In 1910 Clarence Bloomfield Moore found a stylized hawk or eagle plate while excavating graves at the Rose Mound Site (3 CS 27) in Cross County, Arkansas.
[21] In the 1970s a copper bird 28 centimeters (11 in) in length was found by looters at the Scott Site (3 MS 24), also known as Big Lake Bridge, in Mississippi County, Arkansas.
[21] A possible partial avian style plate was found at the Magness Site (3 IN 8) in Independence County, Arkansas along with several engraved shell cups.
Other grave goods found in the burial included a marine shell dipper and a 6 inches (15 cm) chert knife.
It has even been proposed that the Fort Walton culture founders of the Lake Jackson Mounds site moved east and founded the settlement in approximately 1100 CE to strategically position themselves in this trade network.
Lake Jackson trade for copper pieces seems to have taken place almost exclusively with the Etowah polity of north central Georgia.
[24] Further east and south into Florida were non-Mississippian culture peoples who were involved in long-distance trade of local high status items such as busycon shells for gorgets and yaupon holly for the black drink.
Analysis of the metal in the plaques has connected them to locations in the Great Lakes region, Wisconsin and the Appalachian Mountains.
[27] A little further down the Atlantic coast was the Mount Royal Mound (8 PU 35), a site occupied on and off since 4000 BCE, and during the historic period a Timucua settlement.
The design is almost identical to two examples known from Spiro and a site in Jackson County, Alabama, although of the three it is the only one to show a figure wielding a knife.
It was discovered somewhere near Waldo, Florida in Levy County in the 1880s, where it was purchased from a local doctor by Joseph Wilcox for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
[4] Spiro Mounds is a Caddoan Mississippian culture archaeological site located in present-day LeFlore County, Oklahoma.
Minerals percolating through the mound hardened the chamber's log walls, making them resistant to decay and shielding the perishable artifacts inside from direct contact with the earth.
The Reed Mound in Oklahoma produced a fragmentary Malden style plate thought to be from the same workshop as the Wulfing set.
A matching pair of large thin sheet copper cutout human hands were also found at Gahagan.
