Mapping Never-Never Land: An Examination of Pinson Mounds Cartography

Beyond Never-Never Land: Integrating LiDAR and Geophysical Surveys at the Johnston Site, Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park, Tennessee, USA

“…It was not uncommon for some well-funded researchers to hire local surveyors to conduct mapping projects. Today, archaeologists using modern technologies like GIS software and aerial and terrestrial remote sensing methods are documenting the mixed successes of these early site surveys [2,22,58,59]. LiDAR, and geophysical surveys across eastern North America have shown that sites mapped more than 150 years ago were sometimes quite accurate.…”

“…Like Pinson, the Johnston site was initially investigated by William Myer, an associate researcher of the Smithsonian Institution, who hired local civil engineer E. G. Buck to produce maps of both sites in 1917 [30] (p. 32), [49] (p. 52). However, unlike Pinson, the early map of Johnston arranged by Myer [60] has not been sufficiently reexamined using modern methods (e.g., [49,59]) to determine what this landform looked like at the time of early European expansion into West Tennessee. This is important to understand the broader Middle Woodland landscape along the SFFDR because the work of Mainfort and colleagues [59] identified numerous discrepancies in Myer's 1922 map of Pinson.…”

“…However, unlike Pinson, the early map of Johnston arranged by Myer [60] has not been sufficiently reexamined using modern methods (e.g., [49,59]) to determine what this landform looked like at the time of early European expansion into West Tennessee. This is important to understand the broader Middle Woodland landscape along the SFFDR because the work of Mainfort and colleagues [59] identified numerous discrepancies in Myer's 1922 map of Pinson. For instance, they argue the elaborate enclosure walls that span the exterior boundaries of Pinson, as well as the "Inner Citadel" and their associated intersecting mounds, might not have existed, and thus may have been embellished or severely impacted by plowing.…”

Local and “Global” Perspectives on the Middle Woodland Southeast

“…Over the last three decades, Mainfort's research at Pinson has tackled several of these dimensions of Middle Woodland monumentality (Kwas and Mainfort 1986;Mainfort , 1988aMainfort , b, 2013Mainfort and McNutt 2004;Mainfort and Walling 1992;Mainfort et al 1997Mainfort et al , 2011. Following more than a century of antiquarian interest (Kwas 1996(Kwas , 2013, systematic fieldwork at the site began in the 1960s and continued through the 1980s (Broster and Schneider 1976;Fischer and McNutt 1962;Morse 1986;Thunen 1998).…”

“…The same technique revealed a new earthwork in association with the well-known Great Circle at Fort Center (Thompson and Pluckhahn 2012). In Tennessee, gradiometer survey at Pinson has clarified the spatial arrangement of mounds and earthworks recorded in the early 20th century (Mainfort et al 2011), while multiple geophysical techniques have revealed anomalies suggestive of prehistoric activity within the enclosure at Old Stone Fort (Yerka 2010) and in off-mound areas at Johnston (Sherwood et al 2015). In every one of these examples, geophysical surveys revealed architectural elements and activity areas that decades of traditional archaeological investigations had failed to identify.…”