Abstract:
During the 1930s, Dr. Walter B. Jones of the University of Alabama uncovered evidence at the Haney site (1Tu52), near the town of Moundville, Alabama, which indicated an unexpected Native settlement in the lower Black Warrior River valley during the historic period. The ethnohistorical documentation as well as the archaeological record for that area produced no other signs of Native settlement in the area, with the lower Black Warrior river valley serving instead as a violently contested buffer zone between the Choctaws and Creeks. Though subsequent researchers have attempted to locate and investigate this anomaly, mislabeled site files made these attempts futile. Fieldwork and archival research in the fall of 2010 resulted in the relocation and further investigation of the site, confirming the historic Native presence in the area. This confirmation begged the question why would a group of historic Natives settle in this violently contested area? Employing a landscape perspective, this thesis aims to illuminate this anomaly by placing the site and the activities that took place there within the ethnohistorical framework in order to determine possible agendas for settlement in this dangerous and liminal area.
