University of Arkansas Press Publishes Pinson Mounds

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The University of Arkansas Press has published Pinson Mounds: Middle Woodland Ceremonialism in the Midsouth by Robert C. Mainfort Jr. (paper, $59.95). Mainfort retired recently from a long career as an archaeologist with the Arkansas Archeological Survey and professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas. He is author of Sam Dellinger: Raiders of the Lost Arkansas and coeditor of Mississippian Mortuary Practices: Beyond Hierarchy and the Representationist Perspective .

This new book is a comprehensive overview and reinterpretation of Pinson Mounds, the largest Middle Woodland mound complex in the Southeastern United States. Around A.D. 100, Pinson Mounds, which is located in west Tennessee about 10 miles south of Jackson, was a pilgrimage center that drew visitors from well beyond the local population and accommodated many distinct cultural groups and people of varied social stations. Stylistically nonlocal ceramics have been found in virtually every excavated locality, all together representing a large portion of the Southeast.

Along with an overview of this important and unique mound complex, Pinson Mounds also provides a reassessment of roughly contemporary centers in the greater Midsouth and Lower Mississippi Valley. Ian Brown, professor of anthropology at the University of Alabama, said that Pinson Mounds is “truly a masterpiece” and “belongs in every Southeastern archaeologist’s library.” David G. Anderson, professor of anthropology at University of Tennessee, said the book is “the magnum opus of a scholar who has spent decades documenting what happened at the site and who, with a team of talented colleagues, has produced a volume that will serve as a benchmark for many years to come.”

The University of Arkansas Press was founded in 1980 as the book publishing division of the University of Arkansas. A member of the Association of American University Presses, it has as its central and continuing mission the publication of books that serve both the broader academic community and Arkansas and the region.