SEVENTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT 13 



However, additional work is certainly indicated for that location arid 

 will be scheduled for the early part of the new field season. 



Several lots of midden excavated in the central 20-x-20-foot pit 

 contain a high frequency of a carefully finished plain ware with 

 thickened rims and no handles. This does not seem to be the local 

 Weeden Island type, but may be evidence of contacts with or an actual 

 occupation of the site by Early Mississippian peoples carrying a 

 culture somewhat like that which becomes Coles Creek and Mound- 

 ville farther west. If such were the case, the overlying rectangular 

 structure would then relate to the later Fort Walton-Lamar period 

 which seems to account for the greater part of the pottery from this 

 site. The one recognizable structural pattern found, other than the 

 mound, was located in the nearby village and consisted of large post 

 holes at spaced intervals, outlining a corner and two adjacent walls 

 of what was probably a house of the later period. 



Additional work was done at 9QU5, a site referred to locally as the 

 "Mound on the Lower Lampley Place" or the "Mound below Cool 

 Branch." For brevity the site and mound will be referred to as the 

 "Cool Branch Mound Site." This site had been tested previously by 

 a 5-foot trench from the east margin to the approximate center of the 

 mound. The mound proper was built of basket-loaded clay, appar- 

 ently at one single stage of building, and there was a submound post- 

 hole pattern indicating some sort of premound building. 



Thirteen additional 10-x-lO-foot test pits were dug at this site, 

 eight in an east- west line across the north margin, paralleling the edge 

 of the terrace, and five bracketing the mound proper. Using a tractor 

 scraper, the surface of the mound was stripped, revealing the approxi- 

 mate edges of a regular rectangular clay-platform mound, with the 

 corners oriented to the cardinal points. The mound was then bull- 

 dozed away to a level approximately 0.5 foot above the contact of the 

 clay mound with the underlying river-silt surface of the terrace, as 

 determined in the previous trenching. The center of the mound was 

 then cleared by hand shoveling, revealing the post holes of a rectangu- 

 lar submound structure of closely set posts, corners closed, approxi- 

 mately 27-X-36 feet over all. This building was oriented with the 

 overlying mound, though lying partly outside the baseline on the 

 northwest side. As nearly as could be determined from the bulldozed 

 surface without actually tracing out the lines by shoveling, the south- 

 west margin being the least certain, the original base dimensions of 

 the mound were about 55-X-55 feet. At the center of the submound 

 structure was a pile of red iron ore (hematite) probably representing 

 a symbolic ceremonial fire. The sand beneath was stained red but did 

 not seem actually to have been burned. Two beautiful spud celts, one 

 of a fine-grained greenstone, were found together in the mound fill 

 about a foot above the contact. Both had been broken by the bull- 



