AN ANALYSIS OF TEXTILE-IMPRESSED CERAMICS

This thesis represents a study of textile-impressed ceramics from Slack Farm, a Late Mississippian Caborn-Welborn phase site in Union County, Kentucky. The goal of this study was to use the textile impressions to provide additional insight into Caborn-Welborn social organization. The Caborn-Welborn phase represents the reconfiguration of communities in the Lower Ohio River Valley after the collapse of the Angel chiefdom and other nearby Mississippian polities. Results indicate that there was an increase in textile structural variation in the fabric used for the impressions at Slack Farm and other Caborn-Welborn sites from earlier Mississippian assemblages. Increased textile structural variation may be associated with the reconfiguring of the Caborn-Welborn social organization during this phase. Textile types associated with Oneota tribal groups were also identified at Slack Farm and suggest Oneota women were in residence at the site. Textile patterns assumed to be associated with an elite status were not identified in this study. Overall, the textile-impressed assemblage reflects the respons