There is always a possibility that any sample, particularly a small one, may not be fully representative. The collection from the Lawhorn site consists of fragments of seven cobs, all either 10 or 12 rowed. Three of the cobs have cupule widths ranging from 7.7 to 8.6 mm. It differs from a larger sample from the Banks site, which is in nearby Crittenden County and which may have been occupied at about the same time ([Table 6]), in having a higher mean row number and greater median cupule width. Corn from both these sites shows evidence of a mixture with low rowed varieties to a lesser extent than that from the other sites shown in [Table 6], except that from Mound 34 at Cahokia, which is presumably earlier ([Table 7]).
Previous work on corn from the Northern Mississippi Valley indicates that row number tended to decrease and cupule width to increase in that area in time in the protohistoric and historic periods. This has been interpreted as being the result of an increasing mixture of predominantly 8 rowed Northern Flint with wide cupules with earlier 14 rowed Tropical Flints slightly modified by possible traces of Mexican Pyramidal Dent. It is reasonable to expect that the proportion of the hardier Northern Flints would increase more rapidly in the Northern part of the valley than in the Southern, particularly, if there was a minor climatic cooling trend in the period of about 1200-1700 A.D., as Griffin (1960, p. 27) has suggested.
Northern Flint was present in the Southeast as well as in the North before European settlement. Brown and Anderson (1947, pp. 8-13) found Northern Flint in collections of corn from archaeological sites in Northeastern Alabama, Eastern Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia as well as in greater concentrations in Western New York and the Upper Ohio Valley. Actually, a lot of corn at the Missouri Botanical Garden from a Georgia site poses some of the same problems as that from Lawhorn. Mean row number is just under 11 and there are no 14 rowed ears. Cupule width of all but a few of the cobs ranges from 7 to 11 mm. with a median of 9 mm. It is suspected that the wide cupules on the three Lawhorn cobs might be attributed to diffusion of Northern Flint from the Southeast as readily as from the North, possibly in diluted form. In the case of the Banks site, Cutler and Blake (1961) suggested that the influence of Northern Flint may have reached there in the form of a mixture rather than directly or, alternatively, that low row numbered corn may have entered from the Southwest where 8 and 10 rowed corn was dominant after 700 A.D.
| TABLE 6—COMPARATIVE ANALYSES OF CORN FROM LAWHORN AND FOUR AREA SITES | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Row No. % total Cobs | Median (in mm.) | ||||||||
| Site | No. Cobs | 8 | 10 | 12 | 14 | 16 | Mean Row No. | K. Th. | C.W.[1] |
| Lawhorn | 7 | — | 28.6 | 71.4 | — | — | 11.4 | 3.3 | 6.8 |
| Banks | 51 | 3.9 | 47.1 | 43.1 | 5.9 | — | 11.0 | 3.3 | 5.4 |
| Mound 34 | 27 | 7.4 | 18.5 | 48.2 | 22.2 | 3.7 | 11.9 | 3.6 | 6.4 |
| Crosno | 16 | 31.3 | 43.7 | 25.0 | — | — | 9.9 | 3.4 | 7.0 |
| Plum Island | 17 | 35.3 | 29.4 | 35.3 | — | — | 10.0 | 3.8 | 7.4 |
[1]K. Th. = Kernel Thickness
C.W. = Cupule Width, a measure of the cob cavity in which a pair of grains is borne.
| TABLE 7—COMPARATIVE DATES FROM LAWHORN AND FOUR AREA SITES | ||
|---|---|---|
| Site | Location | Estimated Date |
| Lawhorn | Craighead Co., Ark. | On Channel B, 1550 A.D. Plus. (Phillips et al., 1951, p. 304) |
| Banks | Crittenden Co., Ark. | C14, 1535 A.D. ± 150 years. (Letter G. Perino, Oct. 27, 1959) |
| Crosno | Mississippi Co., Mo. | Middle Mississippi. (Date?) |
| Mound 34 | Madison Co., Ill. | Submound pit, C14, 700-900 B.P. ± 300 years. (Griffin, 1952, p. 367) |
| Plum Island | LaSalle Co., Ill. | Protohistoric |
| (11LS2) | Circa 1600-1650 A.D. | |
APPENDIX C
BURIALS AT THE LAWHORN SITE
by
Charles H. Nash
Memphis, Tennessee
The 35 burials from which we can get some data concerning sex and age groups seem to represent a relatively homogeneous group. Over half of the 26 adult burials were either too fragmentary for any further determination or the bone was not recovered during the course of excavation. In such instances, age group associations were made in the field. Burial determinations in Tables [8-11] were made in the laboratory.
Of the 35 burials, twelve, or 34% had grave goods which included, in all cases, pottery vessels. Two burials had single beads with them but these were probably items of dress and not mortuary offerings. The only other object found was a questionable association of a flint drill. There were only three burials, 9%, which had more than one vessel in association and, of these, one had two bowls, another had a bottle and a bowl and the third had a bottle, a bowl and a small jar. Twenty three, or 66%, of the burials had no grave goods with them. The pottery vessels were divided about evenly between bottles and bowls.