Kogers Island Moundville-Style Palette Pendants	by Dr. Sandy B. Carter, Jr.
Central States Archaeological Societies 2026 April Journal	Big Canoe, Georgia

Figure 1. Both faces of the 3.75” (W) x 4.15” (L) teardrop sandstone palette pendant. Curation by the author. Photography by Steven R. Cooper

Kogers Island is located in the Tennessee River in Lauderdale County, Alabama. In late 1937, Bernard C. Refshuage, under the direction of David L. DeJarnette, conducted professional salvage excavations at the Mississippian site located on the island. The Mississippian occupation dates from approximately AD 1250 to 1400. (Ref. 1). The site was strongly influenced by Moundville, which is 140 miles to the south in Hale County, Alabama (Ref. 2). The Moundville palette is a unique artifact genre and reflects Moundville’s interaction with the Kogers Island culture. Moundville, a major religious, ritual and political center, was more or less contemporary with the Kogers Island polity (Ref. 3, pp. 1-3).

Tabular flat gray micaceous sandstone palettes are unique to Moundville, in contrast to the tapered phyllite stone palettes from Etowah (Ref. 4). Moundville palettes are typically circular and rarely rectangular, contain a notched petaloid border, and average 9.84” in diameter (3.54-13.78”) and 0.24-1.18” in thickness. Also,they often have one or two concentric incisions near the periphery on the top/obverse face and infrequently exhibit elaborate representational engravings on the reverse face (Ref. 5, pp. 234-235 and Ref. 6, p. 102-103).

At Moundville, palettes are known to have been associated with elite adult female and male burials who were accompanied by “elaborate ritual gear” (Ref. 5, p. 253) and “more objects as well as with more kinds of objects…they (were) richer” (Ref. 7, p. 38). Palettes typically had white, red and/or black pigments on their obverse face. Vincas Steponaitis posits that palettes were “portable altars on which spiritual medicines were prepared” by sacred bundle keepers and shamans (Ref. 8, pp.128-132).

Four sandstone Moundville palettes (Figs. 1-4) have been found at the Kogers Island site (1Lu92). They are unique in that they are small and have biconically drilled perforation holes for suspension. Three of the palettes were excavated by Refshauge (Ref. 1) and have subsequently been described in detail as follows (Refs. 9 and 10): Figure 2 shows a gray micaceous sandstone palette; it has a 4.5” diameter and is 0.3” thick; two concentric circles are inscribed on its face, and one circle is inscribed on the reverse side with thirteen notches on the border (Ref. 1, plate 254, #1); in proximity to the palette were three turkey bone awls and yellow pigment in a bundled setting. Figure 3 shows a ...

 

Read the complete "Kogers Island Moundville-Style Palette Pendants" column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2026 April Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2026