Kings Crossing Site

Kings Crossing Site is an archaeological site that is a type sitefor the Kings Crossing phase of the prehistoric Temple Mound period of the area. The site is on the southern margin of the Mississippian cultural advance down the Mississippi River and on the northern edge of that of the Coles Creek and Plaquemine cultures of the South."

Location

The site is located four miles north of the center of Vicksburg, between Chickasaw Bayou and the Illinois Central railroad tracks.

ite importance

Clarence B. Moore, who visited the site in 1908, described Mound A as being 25 ft tall, although by the 1950's it had been significantly shortened. Mound B has been almost completely leveled, although a small rise can be discerned. Mound C is roughly 12 ft tall. Mounds A and C are both roughly 120 ft sq. Pottery sampling in the 1950's from Mound A gave the site a historical importance out of all proportion to its size. Test pits from a 1949 excavation of Holly Bluff produced an important glimpse of a late "transitional" Coles Creek to Plaquemine asemblage featuring thin tapered rims of polished plain ware and carefully executed varieties of Coles Creek incised and associated types. Although intriguing as pottery, it was not sufficiently integrated strategraphically to postulate a distinct phase. Site sampling from the Kings Crossing Site in 1954 supplied the integration and gave the phase a name. Since then, especially in the Tensas Basin, it has became one of the firmest and easily identifiable ceramic complexes in the Lower Mississippi area. [cite book | last = Phillips | first = Philip | title = "Archaeological Survey in the Lower Yazoo Basin, Mississippi, 1949-1955" | publisher = Peabody Museum | date = 1970 | pages = pp. 435]

A table showing the archaeological period that the Kings Crossing Site fits into can be found here.

In 2005 the Kings Crossing Site was portrayed on the Vicksburg Floodwall Mural project to represent the American Indian heritage of the region. [http://www.riverfrontmurals.com/indian.htm]

References

External links

* [http://www.riverfrontmurals.com/ Vicksburg Riverfront Murals]