Kings Crossing site is an archaeological site that is a type site for the Kings Crossing Phase (950-1050 CE) of the Lower Yazoo Basin Coles Creek chronology.

Location

The site is located four miles north of the center of Vicksburg, between Chickasaw Bayou and the Illinois Central railroad tracks.

Kings Crossing site

Site importance

Clarence B. Moore, who visited the site in 1908, described Mound A as being tall, although by the 1950s it had been significantly reduced in height. Mound B has been almost completely leveled, although a small rise can be discerned. Mound C is roughly tall. Mounds A and C are both roughly sq. Pottery sampling in the 1950s from Mound A gave the site a historical importance out of all proportion to its size. Test pits from a 1949 excavation of the Holly Bluff site produced an important glimpse of a late "transitional" Coles Creek to Plaquemine assemblage featuring thin tapered rims of polished plain ware and carefully executed varieties of Coles Creek incised and associated types. Although intriguing as pottery, it was not sufficiently integrated strategraphically to postulate a distinct phase. Site sampling from the Kings Crossing site in 1954 supplied the integration and gave the phase a name. Since then, especially in the Tensas Basin, it has become one of the firmest and most easily identifiable ceramic complexes in the Lower Mississippi area.

Kings Crossing site

In 2005 the Kings Crossing site was portrayed on the Vicksburg Floodwall Mural project to represent the American Indian heritage of the region.

Kings Crossing site

See also

Culture, phase, and chronological table for the Mississippi Valley

References

External links

Animation: Towns and Temples of the Mississippian Culture-5 Sites

Vicksburg Riverfront Murals

Archaeological sites of the Coles Creek culture

Mounds in Mississippi

Geography of Warren County, Mississippi

Archaeological type sites

1908 archaeological discoveries