Mississippian Occupation

(circa A.D. 1200-1500)

Pamplico, Florence County, South Carolina.

This site in Pamplico, South Carolina was identified by a team of archaeologists from Gilbert Commonwealth in its 1984 survey of the location proposed for the South Carolina Public Service Authority's Pee Dee Generating Station.

 According to Gilbert Commonwealth's report, limited shovel testing indicated a significant Mississippian component to the site. Notably, artifacts from this Mississippian component included middens (refuse pits) containing shells of freshwater mussels, indicating possible extensive occupation of the site. The presence of shell in such deposits might help to preserve animal and plant remains and other organic artifacts that normally do not survive in the acidic soils of the Coastal Plain. Additional research on the site was conducted by MacTec in 2007.

 The Mississippian period in the Pee Dee Region is not well understood, and no Mississippian site in what is now Florence County has ever been extensively excavated.

As demonstrated by Cable (2020), there is scant evidence that the classic Mississippian culture of intensive agriculture, hierarchical political organization, collective ritual, and social consolidation around towns and ceremonial centers ever came into existence east of the Wateree River, making the Pee Dee unusual among the large river systems in the Southeast. To date, no consensus explanation of this phenomenon has emerged, and there has been little opportunity to explore the questions it presents through archaeology.

 Through the financial support of Florence County, work will begin in May of 2022.