Structures
Webb used several lines of evidence for his inferences about two occupations at the site, most of which are equivocal or have not been confirmed by a thorough reinspection of the field notes, maps, and photographs. Webb treated the wall-trench buildings as a diagnostic trait of the first occupants of the site and associated the single-post structures with the second occupants. (40) However, very few examples of overlapping buildings of different types exist. When I reexamined the field maps and notes, I identified at least two wall-trench structures that were built over abandoned single-post structures. Other attempts to distinguish consistent sequences in architectural style have been unsuccessful. (41) The evidence for significant temporal differences in structure style at the site is ambiguous, and explanations for architectural variability need to be sought elsewhere.

Different building styles may instead reflect functional distinctions such as seasonal occupations, menstrual huts, public buildings, and small structures used to store corn and other resources. (42) However, at Jonathan Creek different styles that might represent summer (single-post) and winter houses (wall-trench and pithouses) are not clearly paired together as is the case at other Mississippian sites like Chota-Tanasee, Toqua, and Ledford Island in Tennessee. (43) Alternatively, some of the distinctive architecture may symbolize membership in a particular social group or represent ethnic or other differences among contemporaneous occupants of the site.

Stockades
Webb asserted that each of the stockade lines with long bastions (44) was constructed across undisturbed areas and argued that such a pattern would result only from sequential expansion of the village. I have found one exception to his observation of a village expanding across previously unused land—a wall-trench structure on the western margins of the site that had been abandoned before one of the long bastioned stockades was constructed across the same area. It is possible that a few houses were located outside the early stockaded community, (45) and the people who lived there were expected to raise a cry of warning when enemies were approaching the village. However, in all other cases where structures overlap long-bastioned stockade lines and the chronological ordering of the features can be teased apart, the structures were built after the stockades had been dismantled, confirming Webb’s conclusion about a community that had grown over time.

In contrast to the walls with the long bastions, the stockades with small bastions (46) were constructed over many features and structures. Because of the different design of these bastions, Webb reasoned that they were built by other people who, he argued, were responsible for the second occupation of the site. After reviewing the maps and field notes, it is clear that one stockade line with small bastions (Feature 6) was definitely constructed after one of the long bastioned stockades, but it is not possible to determine the temporal relationships among the other small-bastioned stockade lines and any of the long-bastioned stockades.

Webb also argued that the three stockades with small bastions were the last three walls to be erected. While I agree that they probably postdate most of the long-bastioned stockades, I think that the outermost wall (Feature 3), which has both long and short bastions, was the final stockade. (47) It is the only wall with no evidence for rebuilding, post replacement, or intentional dismantlement. It was constructed of the largest posts of any stockade at the site, and the posts were sunk deeper into the ground. In short, the construction sequence for the stockades at Jonathan Creek is probably more complex than recognized by Webb, the shifting placement of walls reflects either community growth or a southward shift in the center of the community, and the bastion styles cannot be used reliably to distinguish a temporal order for the stockades.

Cultural Affiliation
In making inferences about the source of variability in architecture, Webb stressed ethnicity and time. The association between the first occupation, represented by wall-trench structures and long-bastioned stockades, and the Chickasaw was based in part on an assumption, common before World War II, of continuity between late prehistoric and early historic times in terms of the geographic distribution of tribes. An 1818 treaty between the United States Government and the Chickasaw Nation recognized the Chickasaw claim to territory that included western Kentucky where the Jonathan Creek site is located. In addition, Webb had been involved in the excavation of a Creek village in Guntersville Basin in Alabama where a stockade with long bastions was uncovered. Because both the Chickasaw and the Creek are Muskhogean speakers, Webb located the origin of the stockade construction in the common history of these two tribes. (48)

Webb’s suggestion that the Natchez were responsible for the second occupation of the site, represented by single-post structures and short-bastioned palisades, is based on an 18th-century account of a Natchez fort built of wooden logs and “at every forty paces along the wall a circular tower jets out.” (49) Webb found this an apt description of the Jonathan Creek stockades with small bastions, including the distance between bastions, which, at 125 feet (38 m), is roughly equal to 40 paces. As was common in the mid-20th century, Webb assumed that similar material traits between archeological contexts and ethnohistoric and ethnographic descriptions reflected “common origins, history, and ethnicity,” failing to recognize, as we do today, that evolutionary convergence and independent invention can produce material similarities. (50) Furthermore, he noted that when the Natchez were defeated and displaced by the French in 1730-1731, some survivors joined with the Chickasaw, reflecting in his view, a deep history of association between the two tribes. (51)

Interpretive Frameworks
Webb’s interpretive framework, strongly influenced by his interest in connecting prehistory and history and common in Americanist archeology before World War II, has since been strongly criticized and fallen out of favor. (52) His inference of a historical link between Jonathan Creek and the Chickasaw was predicated on assumptions of regional settlement continuity and cultural stability that are not confirmed by the archeological record.

Archeologists working in the confluence region of the lower Ohio River Valley and western Kentucky have found few sites with radiometric evidence of occupations after about A.D. 1400 or 1450. (53) Radiocarbon dates from Jonathan Creek place a substantial portion of the occupation history of the site between A.D. 1200 and 1300. (54) These data support the notion of regional settlement abandonment in the Mississippi-Ohio confluence area and western Kentucky after circa A.D. 1450 and weaken Webb’s direct historic analogies with the Chickasaw. In recent decades, Mississippian societies have been recognized as inherently dynamic and unstable political organizations prone to formation, expansion, cycling back and forth between different levels of complexity, fission-fusion, collapse, migration, and settlement and regional abandonment. (55) This view of Mississippian societies and the regional radiocarbon data is incompatible with the assumption of cultural stability that underlies Webb’s approach to connecting prehistory with the historic ethnographic record. Along with the possible multi-ethnic composition of these ancient communities, this poses considerable challenges for scholars and others concerned with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) who are interested in determining specific tribal affiliations for archeological materials from sites that predate European contact.

Implications of Stockades
Most scholars presume that stockades are equated with concerns for security and war,(56) but it is important to consider alternative explanations of variation in wall construction that go beyond those focused strictly on military engineering. Webb, building on the evidence for a heavily fortified site, asserted that the people who established the community were recent migrants into the region. The differences between his first and second occupations can also be attributed to migration.

In the mid-20th century, it was common for archeologists to ascribe major change to migration. (57) However, in the case of Jonathan Creek, the migration question cannot be adequately addressed with the available evidence. The stylistic attributes of the ceramics from the site, although incompletely analyzed, are typical for Mississippian assemblages in western Kentucky and do not hint at an influx of people from a place distant enough to be ceramically distinctive. The investment in stockade construction certainly indicates a great concern for security, but the reasons that lie behind this are more difficult to identify. At their most fundamental level, the stockades demonstrate a serious concern for controlling access to and from the community. These substantial exterior walls, with narrow and protected entryways, enabled community members to control the movement of resources and people in and out of the town.

The substantial walls that surround entire communities, like Jonathan Creek, may have been another way of displaying status. A leader must have the resources and access to labor necessary to construct such an awe-inspiring feature. (58) Such planned and massive constructions also may have been a strategic response to conflict and threats of war. The constructions would have provided a measure of protection against siege attacks and may have been an offensive strategy to intimidate the enemy.

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