Mississippi Administrative Code
Title 16 - History, Humanities and Arts
Part 3 - Historic Preservation Division
Chapter 12 - Mississippi Standards and Guidelines for Archaeological Investigations
Rule 16-3-12.5.2 - Archaeological Site Types

Current through September 24, 2024

Site types presented here are to provide conformity in descriptive terminology and are by no means meant to be exhaustive in scope. Site types are to be used in text descriptions on site cards and within the body of reports/documents.

Architectural Scatter (Construction Materials)

An architectural scatter represents cultural artifacts and debris that consist entirely of structural and/or construction materials. This includes: architectural marble, brick, cement/concrete, cinderblock, fencing (e.g. barbed wire, staples, etc.), flooring (e.g. linoleum), nails/nail fragments, sewer and water pipes, spikes, roofing tiles, and window glass.

Ceramic Scatter

A ceramic scatter represents cultural artifacts that consist solely of prehistoric ceramics.

Commercial/Industrial

Commercial/industrial sites refer to sites associated with the production, manufacture, extraction, transport, marketing, sale/exchange, or storage of a service/goods/product or range of services/goods/products, in essence the material culture aspects of commerce and industry. As such, site types can include a wide range of activities, from banking, early ironworks, and water-powered mills to large modern factories, as well as ancillary sites and structures such as worker housing, warehouses, and infrastructure.

Mining and other extractive industries

Mining and other extractive industries (Phase I, II, and III) are made up of multiple components and may have different functions/technological uses to utilize the natural resource being required. For this reason, not only would this section include mining resources such as rock, ore, or coal, but should also include activities such as silviculture, oil and gas, cotton, indigo, catfish industry, and lumber industry. Mississippi historically has had a multitude of extractive industries that utilize clays found around the state, such as bentonite, ball clays, fullers earth, and shale. Historic property types under this classification include: extraction (such as silviculture, gravel pits, mines, natural gas fields and pipelines, etc), benefication (such as a procession plant to make cement or brick), and refining (such as lumber mills, oil refineries, natural gas processing plants, etc.) These types of landscapes make it possible to learn about its historical contribution and answer questions about regional agriculture, business, commerce, settlement patterns, ethnic heritage, engineering, labor and laws. The property may be associated with a significant person in the past, such as LO Crosby with Picayune's lumber industry) or it may have a distinctive engineering or architecture associated with it. (See NRHP Bulletin #42 for further information.)

Domestic Scatter

A domestic scatter represents cultural artifacts and debris that consists entirely of household items. This includes: arms (e.g. bullets, gun parts, etc.), cans, clothing items (e.g. buttons, buckles, clothing fasteners, etc.), ceramics (e.g. coarse and refined earthenware, stoneware, porcelain, semi- and porcelaneous wares), currency, electrical (e.g. battery cores, light bulbs, insulators, sockets, etc.), flora/fauna, furniture items (e.g. mirror glass, upholstery tacks, etc.), glass (e.g. bottle, container, dish, flask, jar, medicinal/cosmetic, stemware, tableware, tumbler, vase, etc.), household hardware (e.g. doorknob, key, lock, hinge, hook, etc.), lids, personal items (e.g. brushes, eyeglasses, jewelry, pipes, etc.), sewing items (e.g. needle, thimble, etc.), tack (livestock items - horseshoes, bridle, bit, etc.), tools, toys/gaming (e.g. dice, doll parts, marbles, etc.), utensils (e.g. forks, knives, spoon, etc.), and writing items (inkwell, pencil, slate, etc.).

Domestic and Architectural Scatter

A domestic and architectural scatter represents cultural artifacts and debris consisting of both domestic and architectural material as defined above.

Linear Resources (Phase I, II, and III)

Linear resources are those that manifest as long, narrow individual structures, or as lined structures (classified by the National Parks Service as districts). These can include those that are designed to convey something (people, goods, power, communications, etc.) across long distances, such as roads, railroads, trails, canals, irrigation and mining ditches, and transmission lines, and those that are designed to bound or separate areas or contain something, such as fence lines, walls, and levees. They frequently (but not always) occur within a right-of-way spanning many individual properties, communities, counties, states, or even nations.

Lithic Scatter

A lithic scatter represents cultural artifacts and debris that consist entirely of lithic (i.e., stone) tools and chipped stone debris.

Lithic and Ceramic Scatter

A lithic and ceramic scatter represents cultural artifacts and debris consisting of both lithic and prehistoric ceramic material as defined above.

Lithic and/or Ceramic Scatter with Daub

A lithic and/or ceramic scatter with daub/fired clay represents cultural artifacts and debris consisting of either lithic material and daub/fired clay, ceramics and daub/fired clay, or both lithics and ceramics with daub/fired clay. Daub and fired clay are created when clay is hardened by fire. Daub represents mud plaster used to construct wattle-and-daub houses and normally exhibits stick impressions from the wattle. Conversely, fired clay lacks the stick impressions and may represent daub, plaster from around the smoke hole in the roof, or pieces of a hearth.

Military

Military sites refer to archaeological sites associated with military operations, such as barracks/living quarters, battlefields, encampments, fortifications, foxholes, prisons/POW camps, staging areas, training areas, trenches, etc. Military sites are easily defined archaeologically, existing as relatively compact social, cultural, and physical units. These sites and their occupants exhibit a cultural behavior that is highly structural and stratified. As a result, they are functionally unique in that they provide a unique perspective on the behavioral aspects of a culture or cultures in conflict (i.e. at war). For more information, see The Historical Archaeology of Military Sites: Method and Topic (2010 - Texas A&M University Press) edited by Clarence Raymond Geier, Lawrence E. Babits, Douglas Dowell Scott, and David G. Orr.

Battlefields (Phase I, II, and III)

Battlefields are made up of two components- battlefield land and associated sites. Battlefield land refers to sites where armed conflict, fighting, or warfare occurred between two opposing military organization or forces recognized as such by their respective cultures (not civil unrest). Associated sites refers to sites occupied before, during, or after a battle at which events occurred that had a direct influence on the tactical development of the battle or the outcome of the battle. A site must be associated with a battle in order to be considered an associated site.

Mound Sites

A mound is a deliberately constructed elevated earthen structure or earthwork, intended for a range of potential uses. Native Americans built a variety of mounds, including flat-topped/ platform mounds, rounded cones, and ridge-shaped mounds. Some mounds took on unusual shapes, such as the outline of cosmologically significant animals, or effigy mounds. Some mounds, such as a few in Wisconsin, have rock formations, or petroforms within them, on them, or near them.

Other Site Types

Landscapes (Phase I, II, and III)

It is relatively simple to determine when a building or structure has lost its structural integrity and any potential significance lies in its value as an archaeological site. More difficult, however, is deciding when to treat a landscape as an archaeological site. Abandoned land, when undisturbed by later development or construction, may retain surface or subsurface features that can provide information important to an understanding of historic or prehistoric activities. When land historically cleared and cultivated is reforested, visual qualities of the historic period are lost, yet landscape characteristics, such as walls, ditches, roadways, streams, and canals, may still be in place and capable of indicating important patterns of land use or organization.

Landscape archaeology may involve the examination of characteristics, such as walls, road remnants, trail ruts, foundations, and refuse sites. It may also draw information from observable patterns of erosion and vegetation. A number of techniques may be used: analysis of soil stratigraphy; analysis of pollens and other sediments through flotation and core sampling to determine planting patterns; surficial surveys to identify remnant vegetation, boundary demarcations, and evidence of land use; analyses of existing vegetation or plant succession; remote sensing to detect buried walls, foundations, and roadways; and excavation to uncover buried irrigation systems, canals, or planting beds.

Assessments of significance are based on well-formulated research design that considers the historic contexts for the study area. The research design needs to indicate the landscape characteristics that are represented in the site and the information the site is likely to provide about the landscape characteristics that shaped an area in history or prehistory. It must explain how the information will add to an understanding of the property. The lack of other sources of information, such as written records or intact properties, generally increases the importance of an archaeological site. Please refer to NRHP Bulletin #30.

Plantations, Tenant Farms, and Farmsteads (Phase I, II, and III)

Plantations, Tenant Farms, and Farmsteads are made up of many components (natural and man-made)- houses, outbuildings, ancillary/dependency buildings (carriage houses blacksmith shops, commissaries/stores, etc.), gardens, fields, fence lines, tree lines, roadways, creeks, hills, etc. They can also include churches, schools, and cemeteries. These components when combined with one another into a landscape, start to develop context for the human behavior and ideas of that time period. This category of landscapes includes antebellum plantations, tenant farms (and communities), urban farmsteads, etc. From this type of landscape it is possible to learn more about issues of gender, ethnicity, multiculturalism, etc. These landscapes have a "macro view" when talking about the entire landscape (i.e.: the entire antebellum plantation and/or the associated community/similar estates and plantations in the region) and a "micro-view" that can focus on individual elements of that landscape (i.e.: slave quarters). Each one of these "views" of a landscape can help to answer different questions about human life.

Traditional Cultural Properties (TCP)

The term "traditional cultural property" (TCP) is not contained in NHPA, nor in the ACHP's regulations. Rather, it was officially coined in 1990 when the National Register published Bulletin 38 to provide guidance that interpreted the NHPA as applying to properties that had traditional cultural significance to communities. Bulletin 38 is widely utilized as guidance in identification, evaluation, and consideration of effects of federal decisions on historic properties with traditional cultural significance (i.e., TCPs), including those of cultural importance to Indian tribes as well as other traditional communities. Bulletin 38 defines a TCP as an historic property "that is eligible for inclusion in the National Register because of its association with cultural practices or beliefs of a living community that (a) are rooted in that community's history, and (b) are important in maintaining the continuing cultural identity of the community" (Parker and King 1998:1).

Like all historic properties, to be eligible for listing in the NRHP, a TCP must generally be at least 50 years old, and meet at least one of the following four evaluation criteria found at 36 CFR Section 60.4. In addition to these criteria, the NHPA also contains seven criteria considerations that may render a property eligible that is ordinarily considered ineligible for the NRHP.

Some examples of traditional cultural properties would include: