[...]... is little doubt that Plaquemine will continue to serve on one level as a valuable heuristic in examining and making sense of that variability This chapter examines the origins and de¤nitions of Plaquemine, summarizes some of the history and themes of Plaquemine archaeology, and introduces some ongoing problems and directions for future research Historical Genesis and Adjustments Plaquemine ¤rst appeared... A Rees and Patrick C Livingood The town of Plaquemine, Louisiana, seems an unassuming southern community for which to designate an entire culture Of course names can be misleading and Plaquemine is no exception Like Mississippian culture of southeastern North America, of which Plaquemine has been described as a regional focus or variant (Grif¤n 1946, 1967), Plaquemine was devised by archaeologists to... possesses” ( Jennings 1952:267) Archaeological understanding of Plaquemine components and assemblages advanced slowly during the ensuing decades, despite the fact that it was never “adequately de¤ned” as a culture (Williams and Brain 1983:373) As it turns out, 1951 was a seminal year for publications on Plaquemine as well as Mississippian archaeology (e.g., Cotter 1951a; Ford 1951; Phillips et al 1951;... for both Plaquemine culture and a Plaquemine period (e.g., Ford 1952:327; Jeter and Williams 1989:206; Phillips 1970:950) Quimby argued that speci¤c ceramic types such as Addis Plain (Baytown Plain, var Addis), Plaquemine Brushed, L’Eau Noire Incised, Manchac Incised (Mazique Incised, var Manchac), Hardy Incised (Coles Creek Incised, var Hardy), and others are integral to the de¤nition of the Plaquemine. .. chronology Plaquemine was preceded according to some by a Coles Creek transition (a.d 1000–1200; Jeter and Williams 1989:172; Weinstein and Kelley 1992:31, 38) Medora, the type site for Plaquemine culture, in fact appears to date in large part from this transitional era (Brown 1985b:256; Weinstein 1987a:87–90) Plaquemine culture is now also usually placed within the Mississippi period (rather than Quimby’s Plaquemine. .. separating Plaquemine from Mississippian (Kidder 1998b:131; Williams and Brain 1983:337, 340) The de¤nition of Plaquemine we inherit from Phillips (1970:30, 34) thus hinges almost entirely on ceramics He stipulated that Plaquemine is de¤ned by a cluster of ceramic types and forms, the absence of signi¤cant shell tempering being the most important characteristic that ties these complexes together Plaquemine. .. Williams and Brain further amended the de¤nition of Plaquemine by reclassifying the Crippen Point phase as terminal Coles Creek instead of early introduction a nd historic a l ov erv iew 9 Plaquemine, thus moving the Coles Creek Plaquemine transition from about a.d 1000 to a.d 1200 Phillips (1970:558–560) had originally classi¤ed Crippen Point as Plaquemine because it was associated with the appearance... 1989:133; Kidder 1993a) However, Plaquemine culture maintains a distinct LMV ®avor, and differences between Plaquemine and Mississippian iconography and technology continue in some areas into historic times (Kidder 2004b) The local ancestor of Plaquemine culture is the Late Woodland Coles Creek culture (ca a.d 700– 1200) While there is continuity between Coles Creek and Plaquemine culture, important changes... variability in respect to pottery types and the rede¤nition of Plaquemine- related phases (Phillips 1970:950) Ironically, it would also in®uence consideration of similarities between regional variants of Plaquemine culture and Coles Creek, Mississippian, Natchez, and Caddo cultures, or precisely what had made it necessary to differentiate Plaquemine in the ¤rst place (e.g., Brain 1978; Brown 1985a, 1985b;... problems with Plaquemine? Like the town for which it was named, it has seemed at times on the verge of washing into the Mississippi River (Riffel 1985:38–41) Unlike its more wellknown and extroverted Mississippian cousin, Plaquemine seems to have been fraught with dif¤culties since early on No sooner had the concept been de¤ned than the exigencies of archaeological research required that it be deconstructed . y0 w0 h0" alt="" Plaquemine Archaeology A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication Plaquemine Archaeology Edited by Mark A. Rees and Patrick C. Livingood the university of alabama press Tuscaloosa Copyright. paper) 1. Plaquemine culture. 2. Mounds—Louisiana. 3. Mounds—Mississippi. 4. Plaquemine pottery—Louisiana. 5. Plaquemine pottery—Mississippi. 6. Excavations (Archaeology) — Louisiana. 7. Excavations (Archaeology) —Mississippi C. Livingood the university of alabama press Tuscaloosa Copyright © 2007 The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380 All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of