Robert J. Scott, ARAS-UAPB Research Station
Artifact of the Month - May 2020
We are changing things up for the month of May. Instead of an artifact we are highlighting ecofacts (biological remains such as bone, shell, and charred plant remains found in archeological contexts). Specifically, shells of a species of freshwater mussel, Epioblasma triquetra (snuffbox) (Figure 1), from the prehistoric Heber Springs site (3CE68) located on the Little Red River in Cleburne County, Arkansas.
The Heber Springs site was excavated by the Arkansas Archeological Survey in 1979 to investigate a conspicuous, but little understood, category of sites found in the floodplains of most major Ozark streams. These sites consist of dense accumulations of food remains, artifacts, and dark soil. A distinctive characteristic of many of these sites is their extensive shell middens—layers of moderately to densely packed shell (Figure 2, see below). The excavations encountered rich midden deposits and mussel shell accumulations that extended to a depth of just over one meter. The site yielded a significant quantity of artifacts, animal bone, and plant remains, as well as over 60 kg of shell. Artifacts from test units included grog- and shell-tempered pottery, arrow points, and pitted cobbles. Among the shell-tempered ceramics were sherds of flat-bottomed vessels characteristic of the Early Mississippi period (AD 700–1000).
Unstudied since 1979, the mussel shell recovered from Heber Springs was recently analyzed to address some research questions: What season(s) of the year was the site occupied? What was the dietary contribution of freshwater mussels? Did local ecological conditions change significantly during prehistory? We also wanted to find out if taxonomic analysis of archeological shell (i.e., identifying the genus and species of each mussel shell found at the site) is justified from an applied or resource management standpoint.
Freshwater mussels (Bivalvia: Unionidae) are one of the most endangered groups of organisms in the world today. An important component of conservation efforts is to identify the original ranges of mussels and how they have changed over time. Studies of prehistoric mussel assemblages contribute to this effort by providing data on the geographic distribution and relative abundance of mussel taxa in streams prior to modern (Historic period) human environmental impacts (channelization, impoundment, agricultural run-off, chemical pollution, and so on). A number of applied zooarcheological studies of prehistoric mussels have resulted in new stream records of species, which in some cases led to major range extensions of mussel taxa (e.g., Gordon 1983; Mitchell and Peacock 2014; Peacock et al. 2013; Peacock et al. 2017). For example, Cyprogenia aberti (western fanshell), once thought to have been endemic to rivers in the Interior Highlands (Ozarks and Ouachita Mountains), has been identified at archeological sites located along eastern tributaries of the Mississippi River (Peacock and Jenkins 2002). In northwest Arkansas, a new stream record, Alasmidonta viridis (slippershell), was identified for the Buffalo National River from mussel shell recovered at looted rock shelter sites (Clark et al. 2008).
