Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park - Connection To The S.E.C.C.

Connection To The S.E.C.C.

Artifacts found at the Lake Jackson site include plain and repoussé copper plates, copper headdress badges, engraved shell gorgets, pearl beads, copper axes, and stone and ceramic pipes. Many of these pieces had motifs representative of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex or SECC. Similar artifacts have been found at the Spiro Site in Oklahoma, the Moundville Site in Alabama and Etowah Mounds in northwestern Georgia. Stylistic analysis has shown that of the three Lake Jackson had the closest ties with Etowah. The burials found in Mound 3 were ranked into 3 levels, the elite who were buried with the most elaborate copper items, pearl beads and shark teeth adorned clothing, the middle rank who were interred with stone axes or shell bead necklaces, and the low ranked who did not have any high status grave goods. The iconography of the items also slowly changes with time, growing more complex and numerous and thought by archaeologists to be evidence of influences from other elite polities and the development of a full fledged local warrior class. At least ten of the burials unearthed at the mound were of "elite war leaders". The most elaborate embossed copper plate found in Mound C greatly resembles the two Rogan plates found in Mound C at the Etowah Site. The three plates are in the Classic Braden style associated with Cahokia, and it is generally thought that the plates were manufactured there before ending up at sites in the Southeast. The Lake Jackson plate depicts a winged dancing figure holding a ceremonial mace in one hand and a severed head in the other. The figure wears an elaborate headdress with an ogee symbol and a bi-lobed arrow motif. Actual copper ogee plates used as headdress were found in burials at Etowah. These motifs are also found on sculptures and shell engravings from the Spiro site, such as the ogee headdress wearing "Resting Warrior or Big Boy statue". The ogee is usually associated with underworld figures. The figure also appears to be wearing a Long-nosed god maskette (an object thought to be associated with ritual adoption and also worn as ear-rings by the Resting Warrior) and clothing which are all motifs associated with the falcon dancer/warrior/chunkey player including the columnella pendant, large shell beads, bellows apron(scalp motif), and the long waist sash. This plate was one of 14 recovered from the mound, along with 11 copper axes, many copper headdress ornaments, a few polished stone celts, marine shell drinking cups of the type historically used for the black drink ritual, and pottery vessels and a few non-local materials such as mica, graphite pigment, red ocher and stone discoidals. All of the copper pieces came to Lake Jackson by way of the Etowah site which shows that the two sites had a long running relationship, trading their specific local prestige products to each other. The Etowahans prized the whelk shells from the Gulf Coast for the making of shell gorgets and ritual drinking cups and the Lake Jackson elites valued the prestigious Etowah plates and other copper objects. This monopoly on the shell trade by the Etowahans lasted until the fall of the chiefdom in about 1375, after which the elite status goods used in burials in Mound 3 come from other locations, mostly the northern Georgia and eastern Tennessee area.