Carlston Annis Shell Mound facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Carlston Annis Shell Mound (15BT5)
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 Location in Kentucky
Location in the United States
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| Location | Eastern side of the Green River off Kentucky Route 403 |
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| Nearest city | Schulztown, Kentucky |
| Area | 2.4 acres (0.97 ha) |
| MPS | Green River Shell Middens of Kentucky TR |
| NRHP reference No. | 86000632 |
| Added to NRHP | April 1, 1986 |
The Carlston Annis Shell Mound (also known as 15 BT 5) is an important archaeological site in Kentucky, a state in the United States. It is located along the Green River in Butler County. This site is a shell midden, which means it's a large pile of shells and other waste left behind by ancient people. It has been named a historic site because of its great value for understanding the past.
Contents
Where is the Carlston Annis Shell Mound?
The Carlston Annis Shell Mound is on the eastern side of the Green River. It is about 300 feet (91 meters) east of the river's edge. This mound is the highest spot in the area because it sits in the river's floodplain (an area that can flood). Its top usually stays dry, even when the land around it is flooded.
The mound is made of dark, rich soil. However, its edges have lighter soil mixed with sand and clay. Over time, the river has changed its path. It seems the river once flowed right next to the mound when it was being formed. When settlers first arrived in the early 1800s, they found the floodplain good for farming. The mound was a safe place during floods, so people often built their farmhouses on its top.
The mound is about 350 feet (107 meters) long from north to south and 300 feet (91 meters) wide from east to west. It rises about 6 feet (1.8 meters) above the land around it. The shells go down about 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) from the center of the mound's surface. The difference in height is because floods have added layers of earth around the base since the mound was created.
Discovering the Past: Excavations
In 1939, archaeologists from the University of Kentucky started digging at the Annis Mound. This work was led by W.D. Funkhouser and W.S. Webb. Early checks showed that the site had not been too damaged. A well had been dug in the middle, and building foundations on top had slightly affected the surface. Also, local people often dug shells from the edges to use as chicken feed.
The digging started with a trench through the southern part of the mound. Then, the mound was divided into blocks, each 30 by 40 feet (9.1 by 12.2 meters). This helped the archaeologists accurately map where artifacts were found. The first dig uncovered 129 different "features." Features are signs of human activity, like old fireplaces or storage pits.
- Hearths (old fireplaces) — 71
- Fire basins (places where fires were made) — 21
- Burned clay patches — 4
- Pits (holes dug in the ground) — 12
- Hidden groups of stone tools — 10
- Hidden groups of lithic flakes (small pieces of stone from tool-making) — 8
- Hidden groups of other objects — 3
This many features was similar to what was found at other shell middens from the Archaic period in the area. This showed that the people who built the mound were similar to other groups nearby. They lived in the area, ate a lot of shellfish, used the site as a place to throw away shells, and buried their dead there.
Archaeologists found 390 human bodies and 28 dog skeletons that had been buried. Many of the bones were very old and had broken down. So, detailed studies of the bones, like those done at the Indian Knoll site, could not be fully repeated here. Still, some information was learned from the bodies. People of all ages, from babies to adults, were buried there. More than half of the bodies (215) had artifacts buried with them. Most of these (73%) were personal items like shell gorgets (necklaces), beads, or hairpins. Some bodies showed signs of injury, suggesting conflicts might have happened. For example, a group of four bodies were buried together with projectile points (like arrowheads) found in some of their bones.
Earlier studies focused on these embedded projectile points. But more recent research shows that bodies might have been hurt in other ways, like by clubs. Injuries that don't affect the skeleton could also have caused some deaths. Studies of other sites in the region suggest that some resources were so plentiful that populations could grow quickly. This likely led to competition for other resources, which could sometimes cause conflicts between groups. The average life expectancy at birth was a little over twenty years. About 29.7% of the skeletons were of children under five years old, with most of these being infants. However, there was no evidence of violence on these young skeletons.
Besides bodies and the objects buried with them, the dig found 19,733 artifacts. These were made from different materials:
- Flint — 4,228 pieces
- Ground stone — 977 pieces
- Copper — 2 pieces
- Bone — 3,523 pieces
- Antler — 1,324 pieces
- Shell — 9,679 pieces
Also, 65 pieces of prehistoric pottery were found at the top of the mound. The Archaic people who lived at the site did not make their own pottery. So, these pieces are believed to have been left by later groups of people. The presence of pottery from European settlers also supports this idea. European settlers used the site because it was high above floodwaters. It is thought that later prehistoric groups also camped there and left behind broken pottery.
Of the more than 4,000 flint pieces found, almost half (1,997) were projectile points of different kinds. Common shapes included corner-notched and long-shallow-notched points. Other flint tools included about 500 knives, 23 lithic cores (stones from which flakes were removed), over 500 drills, and about 1,000 scrapers. Ground stone artifacts included almost 50 axes, 70 atlatl weights (parts of spear-throwers), over 100 mauls (heavy hammers), over 100 sandstone discs, over 200 hammerstones, and almost 300 pestles (tools for grinding). The two copper pieces were one bead and one awl (a pointed tool). Bone artifacts included over 1,000 awls, 900 fishhooks, some projectile points and flakers (tools for shaping stone), and even a few human bones that had been made into tools. Most of the antler pieces were projectile points or had unknown uses. Nearly all the shells were discs used as beads. Besides the many pieces of pottery from European settlers, most of the other pottery pieces found at Annis were made with grit or shell mixed in, typical of the Mississippian culture.
While Carlston Annis and many other Green River shell middens were first checked in the 1920s, much more detailed work happened in the 1930s. A lot of information was discovered by workers from the Works Progress Administration between 1937 and 1941.
What We Learned from the Mound
Radiocarbon dating (a way to find out how old something is) suggests that some artifacts at Carlston Annis are from as far back as 5424 BC. However, most artifacts date between 3200 and 1400 BC. Most of the projectile points were clearly from the Archaic period. But some points from the Adena culture and Mississippian culture were also found. These were likely left by later groups of people, just like the pottery pieces. Two very old fluted points from the Paleoindian period were found under the mound. They are thought to have been on the riverside before the shell mound even started.
Like other shell mound sites in Kentucky, Carlston Annis had pieces of three stone pipes and one stone cup. These objects might have been religious items used by shamans (spiritual healers) to try and cure illnesses. The amount of shell waste at Kentucky's larger river sites varies a lot. The much larger amount of shells at sites like Carlston-Annis and Indian Knoll is probably because there were many bivalve (like clams and mussels) beds nearby. The types and numbers of animal bones found at the mound were typical for Archaic shell middens in the region. The number of antler pieces was also typical. However, tools made from human bone were found more often here than usual.
Archaeologists found that at least three different ways were used to make fishhooks from bones. Some were made from deer toes. Others were made from bird bones of all sizes, a common method at Kentucky shell middens. A few were made by drilling large bones. Carlston Annis was the first Kentucky shell midden where fishhooks made using this drilling technique were found. Evidence of this technique is common at the later Fort Ancient-period Madisonville Site near Cincinnati. Many animal bones seem to have been used as ceremonial "medicine bags." In later centuries, these were often made by skinning an animal but leaving some bones inside.
The diets of Archaic people at many Green River sites have been studied using information from sites like Carlston Annis. It seems that their plant-based diet was mostly nuts, especially hickory nuts. Both Carlston-Annis and the Bowles Site in Ohio County showed that 80% of the identifiable plant remains were hickory nuts, and 85% of the rest were acorns. There is also some evidence at these sites for plants like squash, little barley, and wild rice.
Studies of the burials at Carlston-Annis and other Green River sites show that the people's population patterns were similar to other comparable sites and to modern hunter-gatherer societies. Besides how fishhooks were made, Archaic technology can also be seen from the atlatl (spear-thrower) parts found at Carlston Annis. While no direct evidence of specific making techniques was clear, there was a lot of indirect evidence. Because very few burials had stone atlatls, it is thought that many people were buried with wooden atlatls (like those used by modern Eskimo people) that have not survived over time. Comparing this site to Indian Knoll suggests that early people at Annis used all-wooden atlatls more often than the people at Indian Knoll.
Protecting the Site
In April 1986, the Carlston Annis Shell Mound was added to the National Register of Historic Places. This was because of its important archaeological value. It was one of twenty-four shell middens along the Green River, known together as the "Green River Shell Middens of Kentucky," that were listed at the same time. Eight years later, some of these Green River middens were named a historic district, called the Green River Shell Middens Archeological District. They were also made a National Historic Landmark, which is a very high level of historical importance.
