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Beginnings of the
Mid-South Archaeological Conference

David H. Dye

The genesis of the Mid-South Archaeological Conference began with a series of informal archaeological meetings held during the middle to late 1960s. The emphasis of these gathering was on the crisis of land-levelling and highway salvage work in northeastern Arkansas and southeastern Missouri. Charles R. McGimsey and Hester A. Davis organized one of these meetings in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, in June 1968 to discuss an overview of Central Mississippi Valley prehistory. In all, some 60 people were present. Those who attended realized the need for such meetings to be held on a regular basis.

On October 25, 1969, the first Mid-South Archaeological conference was hosted by Gerald P. Smith at the C.H. Nash Museum -- Chucalissa in Memphis, Tennessee. Those in attendance were: Lou C. Adair, Ronald C. Brister, John M. Connaway, John Cox, Roger Dan, David H. Dye, William H. Hancock, John A. Hesse, William R. Hony, Thomas H. Koehler, Richard A. Marshall, Samuel O. McGahey, Charles H. McNutt, Dan Morse M.D., Dan F. Morse, Charles H. Newton, James E. Price, Martha A. Rolingson, Paul Schmidt, Bruce D. Smith, Gerald P. Smith, Augustus J. Sordinas, and Owen W. Sutton

This meeting was taped and partially transcribed by Owen W. Sutton at Chucalissa. An overview of current research in the Central Mississippi Valley was emphasized in this meeting through round table discussions.

Dan F. Morse organized and chaired the second Mid-South Archaeological Conference in Jonesboro, Arkansas on July 31 and August 1, 1971. This was the first meeting to have formally presented papers organized around topical sessions: new techniques, the Powers Phase, Paleoindian, Poverty Point, and miscellaneous papers. Twenty-six papers were either presented or distributed in absentia to an audience of up to 72 persons.

Several participants at the 1971 Jonesboro meeting suggested holding the next Mid-South Archaeological Conference in southeastern Missouri the following summer. The meeting was not convened and the third Mid-South Archaeological Conference was postponed until the summer of 1973. The 1973 meeting was organized by John M. Connaway and was scheduled to be held in Clarksdale, Mississippi, but the conference was cancelled due to a lack of contributed papers and the inability of many of the participants to attend the meeting. The presented paper sessions of this meeting were intended to be organized around environmental studies in the Mid-South. Presumably many of these papers were presented at the thirtieth annual meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference held October 5-6, 1973, in Memphis, Tennessee, as its conference them also included environmental studies.

On February 1 and 2, 1975, archaeologists working in the Central Mississippi Valley organized an informal gathering in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to discuss chronological alignments, local sequences, research designs in contract archaeology, origins of Mississippian culture, and problems of communication in the Central Mississippi Valley. The inability of the Mid-South Archaeological Conference to sustain the necessary interest to hold annual meetings may have fostered the need for another type of format or focus for an archaeological organization in the Central Mississippi Valley.

At this 1975 meeting the Central Lowland Archaeological Seminar and Symposium (CLASS) was formed. As was the case with the Mid-South Archaeological Conference, CLASS was an informal, non-funded, and egalitarian organization that sought to enhance and contribute cooperation and communication among colleagues at various institutions within the Central Mississippi Valley. One improvement over the previous organization was the creation of a newsletter that would "stimulate a free exchange of information and ideas between those people who have dedicated much of their career to Mississippi Valley archaeology" (CLASS Newsletter Vol. 1:1). The first newsletter was issued May 15, 1975, and encouraged the submission of short articles, news items, and notes. CLASS, as was the case with the earlier Mid-South Archaeological Conference, did not exact dues from its members, nor establish officers of the organization.

A CLASS meeting was held August 2 and 3, 1975 at the Zebree site at the Big Lake National Wildlife Headquarters near Manila, Arkansas. The focus of the meeting was to review and discuss the excavations that were then in progress.

On April 13, 1976 a CLASS meeting was held at the headquarters of the Village Creek Archaeological Survey near Walnut, Arkansas. Reports and discussion on the Village Creek Survey, the Fourche Creek Watershed survey, and regional research designs were emphasized.

Five years later attempts were made to organize another meeting of the Mid-South Archaeological Conference. Conversations with several individuals concerned with the archaeology of the Mid-South resulted in renewed interest in reviving such a meeting, but with the emphasis of specific topics guiding the conference. Thus, the idea of an annual regional conference devoted specifically to the archaeology of the Mid-South was again established in the hopes that such a conference would encourage the continuation of syntheses of Mid-Southern archaeology, increase cooperation between interested archaeologists and institutions, and produce a published account of the current knowledge of specific topics pertinent to Mid-Southern prehistory.

The first "rejuvenated" meeting, the third "annual" Mid-South Archaeological Conference was held at the Memphis Pink Palace Museum on June 15, 1982. The Tchula period was chosen as the topic for the meeting by Ronald C. Brister and David H. Dye, the meeting organizers, because it was a convenient beginning for discussions concerning the initial appearance of ceramics in the Central and Lower Mississippi Valley, little had been written on the particular time period since Phillips' (1970) Yazoo Basin report, and recent but unpublished information was currently available as a result of the rapid growth of federally sponsored archaeology.

Rather than opening the meeting to a round-table discussion format, the organizers believed papers solicited and prepared in advance would result in better syntheses and more rightly focused discussions.

Reproduced with permission of the author from: The Tchula Period in the Mid-South and Lower Mississippi Valley, edited by David H. Dye and Ronald C. Brister, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archaeological Report No. 17, Jackson, Mississippi. 1986.