NATCHEZ TRACE PARKWAY Excavations at the Pharr Mounds and the Bear Creek Site

Two sites on the Natchez Trace Parkway, both located on Section 3-A in northeastern Mississippi, were excavated by the author for the National Park Service during the summer of 1965. These sites had been proposed as interpretive features, and their investigation was undertaken to provide information for this purpose. The first, called the Bear Creek Site, consists of the damaged remnant of a small temple mound and a village area. The other, the Cave Springs Site, is situated approximately one-half mile to the west of the Bear Creek mound. This locale is a large oval sinkhole with overhanging ledges at each end forming shallow rock shelters. Test excavations at the Cave Springs Site revealed only a small patch of darkened soil, containing a handful of flakes and two crudely chipped and apparently unfinished, stemmed dart points, in the rock shelter in front of the southeast cave.

I would like to thank Dr. Elizabeth S. Wing of the Florida State Museum, for identifying the faunal remains; James W. Cambron, who identified the projectile points; and John W. Cottier of the museum at Moundville, Alabama, for examining some of the pottery from the Bear Creek Site.

C.F.B.

August 1966