University of Mississippi

The University of Mississippi will catalog, inventory, digitize, and rehouse a collection of archaeological materials and associated records from nearly 700 sites throughout the state of Mississippi. Acquired via surveys and excavations conducted between 1917 and today, the collections comprise ceramics, stone, bone, shell, charcoal, metal, and glass spanning 14,000 years of human occupation in the Southeast. Particularly well represented are Archaic Period assemblages, Woodland Period mound and village sites, Mississippian mound sites and villages, and assemblages from the Black Prairie region associated with Historic Chickasaw and their Late Mississippian to Early Contact period ancestors. The project will ensure the long-term preservation of these materials and improve access to them as a resource for scholarly research, student training, museum exhibitions, and public programs.