Joe Bell site

Joe Bell Site
9 MG 28
	Shown within Georgia
Location	Morgan County, Georgia, USA
Region	Morgan County, Georgia
Site notes
Excavation dates	1969

The Joe Bell Site (9MG28) is an archaeological site located in Morgan County, Georgia underneath Lake Oconee, but prior to the 1970s, it was located south of the mouth of the Apalachee River on the western bank of the Oconee River. The junction of these two rivers could be seen from the site. This site was first visited by Marshall Williams in 1968 at the suggestion of the site’s landowner, Joe Bell, who had discovered various artifacts while the site was being regularly plowed. Because of Interstate construction, Marshall Williams and Mark Williams discovered this site during surface surveys and excavations of the plowed areas. The site was excavated and analyzed by Mark Williams as part of his PhD dissertation. During the 1969 excavations, four areas within the site were designated for excavation. In Areas 1-3 various five foot square units were excavated. No excavations were done in Area 4 in 1969. Large quantities of small potsherds were discovered during these excavations, and they ranged from the Duvall Phase in Area 1 to Bell Phase in Areas 2-4. As part of the 1969 excavations, a road grading machine took off the topsoil of twelve strips on the site. This uncovered Features 1 and 2, and they were completely excavated. In 1977, the site was revisited by Marshall Williams and Mark Williams. Since various plans threatened this site, major excavations took place from June 15, 1977 until September 16, 1977 by Mark Williams. Most of the work centered on Area 2 or the Bell Phase portion of the site. The Bell Phase portion of this site was probably no more the 1.5 acres (1 ha). Because of time constraints, only 17 of 55 features were excavated, and no more than a handful of the 1100 posts were excavated. A few trips were made back to the site the following year with the help of volunteers, and approximately 80% of the area stripped by heavy machinery was mapped. Some of the features were trash features that consisted of a circular pit filled with food residues and pottery sherds. Evidence of a large circular structure or rotunda was found at the site. It was the social, political, and religious center for the inhabitants. A large quantity of the features was small, circular, semi-subterranean structures that were probably used as sleeping quarters on cold nights. Another structure found was warm weather structures. One major trash feature was found that had been deposited in a single episode and was burned during or after deposition. Numerous sherds were found in this pit, and a large number of reconstructable vessels were present. Ethnohistoric literature of the Southeast suggests that this feature was formed during a Busk or Green Corn ceremony. The ceremony has been described as the physical cleansing of the town.^[1]

References

^ Williams, John Mark. The Joe Bell Site: Seventeenth Century Lifeways on the Oconee River. Diss. U of Georgia, 1983

External links

Historic Period Indian Archaeology of Northern Georgia

[1] Williams, John Mark. The Joe Bell Site: Seventeenth Century Lifeways on the Oconee River. Diss. U of Georgia, 1983

[1]

v t e Pre-Columbian North America
Periods Lithic Archaic Formative Classic Post-Classic
Archaeological cultures	Adena Alachua Ancient Beringian Ancestral Pueblo (Anasazi) Anishinaabe Avonlea Baytown Belle Glade Buttermilk Creek complex Caborn-Welborn Cades Pond Calf Creek Caloosahatchee Clovis Coles Creek Comondú Deptford Folsom Fort Ancient Fort Walton Fremont Glacial Kame Glades Hohokam Hopewell List of Hopewell sites La Jolla Las Palmas Maritime Archaic Mississippian List of Mississippian sites Mogollon Monongahela Old Cordilleran Oneota Paleo-Arctic Paleo-Indians Patayan Plano Plaquemine Poverty Point Red Ocher Safety Harbor Santa Rosa-Swift Creek St. Johns Steed-Kisker Suwannee Valley Tchefuncte Troyville Weeden Island
Archaeological sites	Angel Mounds Anzick site Bandelier National Monument Bastian Benson Blue Spring Shelter Bluefish Caves The Bluff Point Stoneworks Brewster Cahokia Candelaria Cave Casa Grande Chaco Canyon Coso Rock Art District Crystal River Cuarenta Casas Cueva de la Olla Cutler Eaker El Fin del Mundo El Vallecito Effigy Mounds Etowah Indian Mounds Eva Folsom Fort Ancient Fort Center Fort Juelson Four Mounds Gila Cliff Dwellings Glenwood Grimes Point Helen Blazes Holly Bluff Hopewell Culture National Historical Park Horr's Island Huápoca Key Marco Kimball Village Kincaid Mounds Kolomoki Mounds Lake Jackson Mounds Lehner Mammoth-Kill Site L'Anse aux Meadows Lynch Quarry Site Marksville Marmes Rockshelter Meadowcroft Rockshelter Mesa Verde Moaning Cavern Moorehead Circle Morrison Mounds Moundville Mummy Cave Nodena site Ocmulgee Mounds Old Stone Fort Orwell site Paquime Painted Bluff Parkin Park Pinson Mounds Plum Bayou Mounds Portsmouth Earthworks Poverty Point Pueblo Bonito Rassawek Recapture Canyon River Styx Roberts Island Rock Eagle Rock Hawk Rosenstock Village Russell Cave Salmon Ruins Serpent Mound Sierra de San Francisco Shell ring sites Spiro Mounds Stallings Island SunWatch Taos Pueblo Town Creek Indian Mound Turkey River Mounds Upward Sun River Velda Mound West Oak Forest Earthlodge Wickiup Hill Windover Winterville Wupatki
Human remains	Anzick-1 Arlington Springs Man Buhl Woman Kennewick Man La Brea Woman Leanderthal Lady Melbourne Man Minnesota Woman Peñon woman Spirit Cave mummy Vero man
Miscellaneous	Aridoamerica Ballgame Black drink Ceremonial pipe Chanunpa Chunkey Clovis point Container Revolution Eastern Agricultural Complex Eden point Effigy mound Falcon dancer Folsom point Green Corn Ceremony Horned Serpent Kiva Medicine wheel Metallurgy Mi'kmaq hieroglyphic writing Mound Builders N.A.G.P.R.A. Norse colonization of North America Oasisamerica Piasa Projectile point Southeastern Ceremonial Complex Stickball Three Sisters agriculture Thunderbird Transoceanic contact Underwater panther Water glyphs
Related Genetic history Pre-Columbian era

See also

References

External links