- Highway 82 Bypass Archaeology - Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, USA In February 1997 Janet Rafferty and S. Homes Hogue began work as co-principal investigators on a project of test excavations at three sites (22Ok902, 22Ok904, and 22Ok905) in Oktibbeha County that were scheduled to be destroyed by construction of the Highway 82 bypass north of Starkville. Hannah Echols served as field assistant. An initial contract award of $39,866 was made by the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT). Additional excavation at 22Ok904 was funded by MDOT with a contract award of $86.959. After five more sites (22Ok975-979) were found along the right-of-way, MDOT provided an additional $29,467 for their investigation and evaluation. In the spring of 1999, one final site (22Ok902N) was found during construction and work there was funded with a further augmentation of $21,497 to the contract for a total of $177,789. The will be complete by late 2003 or early 2004. It involved archaeological work at a total of nine sites. The sites represent use from Late Woodland (A.D. 550 - 1100) through Protohistoric (A.D. 1550 - 1650) times. The archaeological work at them included controlled surface collection at four sites, excavation of 1x1 meter and 2x2 meter units at three sites, excavation of features and burials at four sites, and stripping away the plowzone with heavy equipment at all nine sites. In the course of the fieldwork, more than 30 human burials were excavated. They occurred as single and multiple interments, the latter in the form of multiple bundle burials. Four large pits, about two meters (6 feet) in diameter, were excavated. They contained quantities of broken pottery and discarded animal bones, especially deer and turtle. Into one of the pits had been intruded a smaller pit containing a dog burial. Many Mississippi State University anthropology majors have worked in the field on this project. They include Jeffrey Alvey, Jean Carpenter, Jennifer Dean, Jason Eager, Heather Gray, Cori Kaplan, Brad Kavan, Brad Lieb, Jessica Miller, Shane Reed, and Shane Townsend. Students also have worked part-time in the lab, washing, cataloging, and sorting artifacts and doing flotation and artifact analysis. They include Sherman Chow, Madison Collins, Vincent Dongarra, Jennifer Long, Rebecca Melsheimer, and Lance Stewart.   Related research associates:   Janet Rafferty,   S. Homes Hogue,   Evan Peacock Images from 22Ok904 Click on any of the thumbnail images below to view a page that contains all of the images full-size with captions. Note: page will take some time to load. Images from 22Ok905 Click on any of the thumbnail images below to view a page that contains all of the images full-size with captions. Note: page will take some time to load.

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Last modified Monday, 13-Oct-2003 14:13:29 CDT.