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In a poorly understood yet recurring phenomenon, communities occupying diverse settings within a region may undertake large-scale migrations that cannot be easily attributed to single variables such as climate change. As a result, the study of these movements has increasingly focused on the distinct histories of localities to address how they may have articulated as large-scale abandonments. We adopt this micro-history perspective on the fourteenth to fifteenth century depopulation of a large portion of the North American Midwest and Southeast, popularly referred to as the Vacant Quarter. Our research on the Middle Cumberland drainage within the Vacant Quarter suggests that a significant exodus began slowly ca. 1300 CE; then, it accelerated extremely rapidly in the first half of the fifteenth century CE. This genesis of this trajectory seems to be related to a pattern of severe droughts, but it was brought to a close by social and demographic challenges such as endemic conflict and adverse health conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report offers updated information from crystalline artifact research results initially presented in 2014 by Michael C. Moore and colleagues. At that time, worked and raw crystal items from four Mississippian sites in the Middle Cumberland Region of Tennessee were assessed by the Tennessee Geological Survey as calcite through visual techniques. Subsequent analysis using Fiber Optic Reflectance Spectroscopy (FORS) has determined these specimens are, in fact, fluorite. The known sample of six worked crystal artifacts in 2014 has also increased by 50% through the recent discovery of two earplugs and one bead from three Mississippian period sites. FORS analysis determined these three artifacts to be fluorite as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the finding of the three shell gorgets masterpieces between the 1930s and 1950s in a cave near the confluence of the Caney Fork and Cumberland Rivers in Smith County, Tennessee. The article also mentions about the collection of antique guns as well as antique statues collection of Lillard D. Yeaman.

Antiquarian and modern explorations within the Middle Cumberland region of Tennessee have uncovered vast quantities of ceramic, stone, bone, and shell artifacts. Objects made from mineral resources represent a modest percentage of the overall artifact assemblage. Specimens manufactured from crystals comprise a very small portion of the mineral sample, as only six worked crystalline artifacts are documented to date for the Middle Cumberland region. These specimens of fluorite and calcite consist of four earplugs, one bird effigy pendant, and one bead from four different Mississippian period sites. Fluorite and calcite deposits occur within the study area, but additional research is needed to determine whether these sources were used to make the Middle Cumberland items. The recovery of three earplugs (two of which are very unusual) and raw calcite crystals from the Castalian Springs mound complex comprises intriguing evidence for the production of crystal-line objects as a site activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of rare shell and copper earrings shaped like human heads with long noses traditionally referred to as "Long-Nosed God Masks" have featured prominently in discussions of influences radiating from the Cahokian polity across a significant portion of the Southeastern United States. Archival research indicates that the widely published provenance for one of these objects should be corrected from near Rogana, Tennessee, to near Rowena, Kentucky. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological research on Mississippian culture in Tennessee's Middle Cumberland region during recent years has provided a revised chronological sequence as well as new information about settlement shifts. Excavations at one fortified Mississippian town, Gordontown, and a reanalysis of past site investigations from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries indicate the site area included one platform mound, a substantial burial mound, and a sizable habitation zone enclosed by a palisade with bastions. Radiocarbon assays and ceramics conclusively date this site occupation to the Thruston regional period (A.D. 1250-1450). Mortuary and other analysis results reveal a dynamic, yet somewhat stressed, native population within the middle Cumberland River Valley. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]