Pinson Cave

Pinson Cave is a small natural limestone cave, technically a "dissolution chamber", located near Blackoak Mountain, off Dewey Heights Road in Pinson.

The cave was used as a burial site or ossuary by an indigenous culture dating to around the 11th century. Remains of 46 people, some bearing visible wounds from projectiles, have been found in excavations of about half of the cave. Most of the remains had apparently been dropped down a vertical shaft into the chamber. A few bodies were carried in from a second grade-level entrance and placed on a natural shelf. One of the burials followed an apparent cremation, while the others are presumed to have been interred "in the flesh." The remains represented both sexes and a wide range of ages. Seven individuals had projectile points embedded in bone while a total of 50 points were recovered from the chamber.

Dating of the projectile points and other small artifacts, including marine shell ornaments, indicated that the site was used at some time between 960 and 1120 CE. The date, along with the number and type of projectile points found, suggests that the burials could have coincided with violence marking a shift from the Late Woodland settlement to an Emergent Mississippian culture in central Alabama, which has come to be known as the West Jefferson phase (875 to 1050 CE). Evidence from other sites seems to indicate that the West Jefferson culture consisted of relatively small bands of people who moved from place to place during the course of the year. The Pinson Cave is the only ossuary of its type to be studied, and therefore the degree to which it represented typical mortuary practice remains a matter of conjecture. There are similarities with Cofferdam and Gainesville phase sites in the Tombigbee Valley, and clear distinctions from practices associated with the Bessemer phase (1015-1125 CE). The burials certainly predate mature Mississippian period sites such as Moundville (1150-1450 CE).

Human bones were discovered at the Pinson Cave site by the owner of the property in early 1969. Investigators from the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office determined that the sheer number of bones exceeded any known missing persons cases and contacted archaeologists at the University of Alabama. It was quickly determined that the cave was, in fact, a native American site, and it was recorded as 1 Je 20. Study of the cave came before the interpretation of other West Jefferson phase sites, so lead investigator Carey Oakley originally proposed that it was more closely connected to Late Woodland culture. It was unclear whether the site was used over a long period of time or represented an unusual number of deaths occurring in a short time.

After the initial exploration, Oakley and his assistants sealed the entrance with a padlocked oak plank door mortared into the stone opening. By that summer trespassers had broken the lock and rooted through the remains.

According to an impact study conducted in 1997 for the proposed Northern Beltline, the Pinson Cave site is the only archaeological site within the highway's potential impact area that was considered eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. The actual planned route of the beltline lies well north of the cave site.

References

• Brown, Ed (April 7, 1971) "Of 'Bama Indians -- Pinson Cave Bones Show Violent Past" Florence Times-Tri-Cities Daily
• Oakley, Carey B. (1971) "An Archaeological Investigation of Pinson Cave." Unpublished master's thesis. University of Alabama, Department of Anthropology
• Welch, Paul D. & Bruce D. Smith. "Mississippian Emergence in West-Central Alabama" in Bruce D. Smith, editor (1990) Mississippian Emergence. Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 197-225, reprinted 2007 by the University of Alabama Press ISBN 0817354522
• Walthall, John A. (1990) Prehistoric Indians of the Southeast: Archaeology of Alabama and the Middle South. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press ISBN 0817305521 pp. 210-211
• Richardson, R. Lance (June-December 2003) Journal of Alabama Archaeology. Vol. 49, No. 1-2, pp. 84-92
• Federal Highway Administration (1997) "Final Environmental Impact Statement, Project AFS-350(1) Birmingham Northern Beltline"
• Campbell, Skip (April 17, 2013) "Exploring Pinson's Legacy: Native-American Settlements" Turkey Creek Nature Preserve - accessed May 18, 2016