Wright State Field School Week 1

As you will come to realize in my Wright State University field school updates, I am a big proponent of "a picture is worth a thousand words". :)


Last week a handful WSU field school students came to Fort Ancient to look at the site and establish their research grid.


This week, with a full force of 15 students and a few volunteers, they continued their grid set up and began excavating. They opened three units. Two units are investigating the enclosure walls in order to identify how the circular enclosure was constructed, and one unit is in the very center.

Very soon afterward they started finding flint flakes (a.k.a. debitage) and bladelets . These finds charged the students (who range in age from 18 to 66) and helped keep them working through the hot, sunny day.

Visitors are coming by daily. The kids especially get a kick out of walking through the "entrance" of the circle which we have marked on the ground by using pin flags and holding something in their hands that no one else (except the excavator of course) has held for 2000 years. Their excitement is something to see! So far there have been people from Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida come by to see the excavation.

Until next week,

Linda

Fort Ancient Discovery/Wright State University

Hello all!

If you haven't heard, in 2005 OHS staff Bill Pickard and Linda Pansing along with Geophysical Specialist Dr Jarrod Burks from Ohio Valley Archaeology were conducting research in conjunction with a Save America's Treasures Grant which was awarded to OHS to help address erosion issues impacting several sections of the earthen walls of Fort Ancient. A brief synopsis of the research and subsequent find can be seen at http://www.ohiohistory.org/places/ftancien/fa-01.html.

We are very excited to announce that Wright State University, under the direction of Dr. Robert Riordan, will be conducting a field school this summer to investigate the find.

We plan to keeping you up to date on the investigation through the blog, so please pop back from time to time to see the latest information.

Have a great holiday weekend!

Linda

Probing into the night of the unknown ages

"Mythologies of our aborigines"

The following statement by a distinguished Winnebago Indian is a bit dated by the use of the term "Red Man of America," which some may find offensive, but the article is wonderful. Henry Roe Cloud argues that evidence from archaeological investigations is of vital importance, but it should be supplemented with information from Native American oral traditions.

"It is my conviction that it is in the power of just such groups of scientists as this [the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society] to bring to light and to perpetuate something of the achievements, the nobility and dignity of the Red Man of America - that by the intensive and patient study of the physical remains of unrecorded history, 'probing into the night of the unknown ages' that antiquity which rightfully belongs to our American Indians and correspondingly to our infant nation, may some day be unmistakably established..."

Henry Roe Cloud

Nebraska Winnebago educator, political leader, Indian Service employee.



From: "Mythologies of our aborigines." Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society (now the Ohio Historical Society), Saturday, May 4, 1929.
Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society Publications 38 (1929) .

This article is available in its entirety on the Ohio Historical Society's website.

Early pleas for preservation

“A veneration for antiquity seems to be natural to man; hence we consider as barbarians those who demolish the relics of antiquity. …

…but do we display a juster taste, with regard to the only relics with which our country is honored? When those relics shall have disappeared, and nothing but their history shall remain, will not future generations pronounce us barbarians for having demolished them? Those venerable sepulchral mounds ought to be religiously preserved, and even planted with evergreens. They would figure well in our grave yards, public squares and public walks; but what is likely to be their fate? If in fields, for the sake of a few additional ears of corn, or sheaves of wheat, they are plowed down. If within the limits of a town, demolished to afford a site for a house, or garden, or to fill up some sunken spot, while the walls which inclosed the town or fort of the ancients are made into brick. Such is man! Such are the enlightened Americans!”

Episcopal minister and author Joseph Doddridge (1912, original printing 1824)



“Everyone is interested in the early inhabitants of America… and yet in nearly every state and township, we are rapidly destroying every vestige of Indian life.

Imagine a valuable, illustrated historic book of 655 pages placed in your county courthouse. Person after person comes in and looks it over. One rips out a leaf and stuffs it in his pocket. Another, somewhat more careful, takes out his penknife and removes an illustration, but in so doing destroys the reading matter on the opposite side of the page. Some one mildly protests, saying that the pictures and pages will soon be scattered and of no value to anyone; but he is met with the reply that the book belongs to all the people and if one does not get his share now, another will. And so the destruction goes on until only fifty pages of the book are left. Then suddenly the people of the county come to realize that they have allowed the destruction of a priceless historical document, a volume which would have brought thousands of visitors to the county and thus added to its fame and to its revenue.

The destruction of this book is not fancy but fact. In one county in Illinois there have been located 655 Indian mounds varying from simple burial plots to pyramids of considerable size; from earthworks to effigy mounds. And all but fifty of these have been dug into and for the most part looted, and their historical significance lost. …

The looted mounds bear eloquent testimony to the fact that the volume was beautifully illustrated, but today the county possesses only a few battered remains.”

Archaeologist Fay-Cooper Cole (1929)

Why is Archaeology important?

Archaeology is the scientific study of the human past. It is the means whereby we are able to extend our knowledge of human history beyond the limits of written records. In eastern North America, written history goes back only a few centuries; and, throughout the world, inscriptions on stone and clay tablets are only a few millennia old. Such meager records encompass only a small fraction of the human story. Archaeology gives us access to the entire spectrum of human experience, spanning more than 14,000 years in North America and several million years in Africa. This enormous time depth offers the potential to study long-term cultural processes, such as the rise and fall of civilizations, and the opportunity to learn the lessons of countless cultures. Recovering this knowledge may prove vital to our own survival. For examples, see Jared Diamond’s book Collapse and David Stuart’s book Anasazi America.

Even if the lessons learned do not turn out to have such an immediate and practical value, filling in the blank pages of Ohio's and the world's history is an intrinsically worthwhile endeavor. Moreover, historical archaeology can supplement or clarify the knowledge gleaned from more traditional histories. Finally, by increasing our understanding and appreciation of the achievements of ancient cultures archaeology can provide a significant boost to heritage tourism.

For a defense of archaeology as a career, check out my blog post on Retrieving Lost Stories.

Brad Lepper

Ancient DNA from the Ohio Hopewell

Amazing results of a study of ancient DNA from the Hopewell site!

Lisa A. Mills conducted a study of ancient DNA recovered from human remains from mounds at the Hopewell site, Ross County, Ohio. The results of her work are presented in her doctoral dissertation:

Mitochondrial DNA analysis of the Ohio Hopewell of the Hopewell Mound Group. PhD Dissertation by Lisa A. Mills, Department of Anthropology, Ohio State University, 2003.

The Hopewell Mound Group is located in Ross County along the North Fork of Paint Creek, about four miles northwest of Chillicothe. It is part of the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park [http://www.nps.gov/hocu/].

The Hopewell culture [http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1283] extended across much of eastern North America, but its heartland was here in central and southern Ohio. Hopewell culture sites range in age from 100 BC to around AD 500. For more about the Hopewell culture, see http://www.heathohio.org/about/hopewell.html.

Mills successfully extracted mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from the teeth of 34 individuals originally excavated by H. C. Shetrone who was, at the time, Curator of Archaeology for the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society (now called the Ohio Historical Society). These human remains were excavated from mounds of the Hopewell Mound Group between 1922 and 1925 and subsequently have been curated by the Ohio Historical Society. Mills sampled a total of 49 individuals so her success rate at recovering DNA was 69%. This rate of success indicates excellent preservation of DNA. Although based on a relatively small sample of individuals, the results are promising and provocative.

First, Mills noted that the people she studied from the Hopewell site represented a very diverse group. The sample included 4 out of the 5 documented Native American lineages (haplotypes) [see http://www.centerfirstamericans.com/mt.php?a=203 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_X_(mtDNA) for more information about Native American DNA]. This apparent diversity might suggest that individuals from different groups were buried together in these mounds.

Second, comparisons between the mtDNA from individuals from the Hopewell site and a database of mtDNA from groups from all over the world, demonstrated that these ancient Native Americans shared close ties with Asia – especially, China, Korea, Japan, and Mongolia. This offers strong support for the already well-supported conclusion that Native Americans originated in Asia and migrated to the Americas in the past 15,000 years.

Third, comparisons between the mtDNA from these individuals from the Hopewell site and a database of mtDNA samples from 50 ancient and modern Native American groups provided evidence of some biological relationships. There were clear links between these people and individuals from two Adena culture [http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1287] sites as well as individuals from the even earlier Glacial Kame culture [http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=2049]. This confirms the inference that the people of the Hopewell culture were the descendants of people of the Adena culture (circa 800 BC to AD 1) who were, in turn, descended from the local Archaic cultures (circa 3000-500 BC). Interestingly, however, the Hopewell site individuals did not show a close relationship to the Fort Ancient culture samples [http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1285]. Perhaps, as some scholars have suggested, some Fort Ancient-era groups (circa AD 1000-1650) moved into Ohio from elsewhere.

The most closely related ancient groups outside of Ohio included individuals buried at the 700-year-old Norris Farm mound in central Illinois. Also, Mills found that one particular female buried at Mound 25 at the Hopewell site had a rare mutation that she shared with several elite individuals buried at the 1000-year-old Cahokia site [http://www.cahokiamounds.com/cahokia.html].

Modern groups with whom the individuals at the Hopewell site shared some degree of relatedness include the Chippewa/Ojibwa [http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=2090] and Kickapoo of the Great Lakes region. Some genetic links also are indicated between one or more of the individuals from the Hopewell site and tribes as diverse and widespread as the Apache, Iowa, Micmac, Pawnee, Pima, Seri, Southwest Sioux, and Yakima.

Mills looked, in particular, for evidence of ancestral ties between the individuals at the Hopewell site and Cherokee Indians, since some oral traditions have suggested a relationship between them. She found that Cherokee mtDNA samples “do not cluster close to the Ohio Hopewell.”

Finally, Mills found that multiple burials at the Hopewell site included individuals with different mtDNA profiles, indicating they did not share a recent female ancestor (since mtDNA is passed from mother to child). This further indicates that the people at this Hopewell culture site did not base their burial practices on principles of matrilineal descent.

Due to the small sample size, the conclusions are tentative. Mills’ work, however, confirms that DNA is recoverable from 2,000-year-old bones and that it can be used to make inferences about biological relationships between and among ancient populations and their descendants. It also demonstrates the importance of museum collections, including ancient human remains.

State Prehistoric Monument

Ohio has a new state symbol!

If you’re from Ohio, you can probably name our official state bird and tree. You probably even know our official state rock song. You might not know that our state has other symbols as well, such as a state fossil, insect, reptile and gemstone. Check out Ohio History Central for a complete listing of symbols: http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/category.php?c=SS .

On June 7th, 2006 Gov. Bob Taft signed into law a bill making the Newark Earthworks the state’s prehistoric monument. The 4th grade class of William E. Miller Elementary School in Newark came up with the idea after spending a year learning about the site, which already had been recognized as one of the 70 wonders of the ancient world by Cambridge University archaeologist Chris Scarre, who worked with an international committee of archaeologists to select sites for this honor. Only two other sites in the United States made this list. These were Chaco Canyon in New Mexico [see http://www.nps.gov/chcu/ and http://www.exploratorium.edu/chaco/] and Cahokia Mounds in Illinois [see http://www.cahokiamounds.com/cahokia.html and http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=198].

The kids from Miller Elementary worked with their teachers Mary Borgia and Linda Woolard and with Sen. Jay Hottinger to craft the bill. They traveled to the State House on several occasions to give testimony on the bill before various committees and to the full House and Senate. They shared what they learned and, more importantly, conveyed their passion for this amazing site. One of the students told the House committee, "The earthworks … talk to us. And we really do believe we have so much more to learn about them."

As a result of the hard work of these students and their teachers, Ohio becomes only the third state to honor America’s indigenous peoples with a state symbol and the first to designate a state prehistoric monument. In 1991, California named a 7,000-year-old chipped stone bear effigy as that state’s prehistoric artifact. In 1995, Nevada named a 2,000-year-old duck decoy, made from reeds and feathers, as its state artifact.

Ohio has many magnificent prehistoric monuments, any of which might have been considered for such an honor. For example, Serpent Mound, in Adams County, is one of the largest effigy mounds in the world and it’s probably Ohio’s most famous mound [http://www.ohiohistory.org/places/serpent/]. So did the Legislature make a mistake by naming the Newark Earthworks the state prehistoric monument?

Although less renowned than Serpent Mound, the Newark Earthworks are an amazing site [www.ohiohistory.org/places/newarkearthworks]! It is the largest connected set of geometric earthworks ever built. Two monumental circular enclosures, an enormous oval, a square, and a huge octagon originally covered an area of more than four square miles. These geometric earthworks were interconnected by a series of parallel walls that may have served as sacred roads for the participants in periodic rituals. One of these roads may have extended more than sixty miles to the southwest, connecting the Newark Earthworks with the many contemporary earthworks located in the Scioto River Valley, north and south of modern Chillicothe. For more information about this Great Hopewell Road, see http://www.ohiojunction.net/hopewell/research.html.

The Newark Earthworks were built by the ancient people whom archaeologists have called the Hopewell culture [http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1283]. The Hopewell culture lived in southern and central Ohio from about 100 B.C. to A.D. 500. They were farmers, fishers, hunters, and gatherers of wild plant foods. They lived in small villages scattered along the major tributaries of the Ohio River.

The Hopewell culture built many monumental ceremonial centers. The most notable examples were found at Marietta, Portsmouth, and near Cincinnati; and nowhere was there a greater abundance and diversity of mounds and enclosures than along the Scioto River and Paint Creek valleys near Chillicothe. The Newark Earthworks, however, are the grandest architectural achievement of the Hopewell culture.

The Octagon Earthworks are one of the best-preserved and most remarkable components of the Newark Earthworks. It consists of a circular enclosure connected to an octagon by a short section of parallel walls. Professors Ray Hively and Robert Horn, of Earlham College in Indiana, discovered that the Hopewell builders aligned these earthworks to the complicated cycle of risings and settings of the moon. A total of four moonrise alignments and four corresponding moonset alignments define the intricate 18.6-year-long lunar cycle. Hively and Horn found all of these alignments in the architecture of Newark's Octagon Earthworks. These earthworks are a sort of cosmic alarm clock, set to go off every 18.6 years [see http://www.OctagonMoonrise.org for more information].

For all these reasons, Stephen Oravecz, writing in the June 9th Tribune Chronicle newspaper, expressed his opinion that “the Legislature got it right when it designated the Newark Earthworks” as the state’s prehistoric monument.

In 2006 there will be a rare opportunity to participate in the special magic of the Newark Earthworks! This is the year in which the moon will rise at its northernmost point on the horizon. The Ohio Historical Society is hosting a moonrise celebration at the Octagon Earthworks on October 11th. Please join us as we watch the moon rise along the avenue defined by the parallel walls that connect the circle to the octagon. For more information about this incredible once-in-a-generation event, see http://www.ohiohistory.org/about/pr/08502206128/release.html.

Welcome to the Ohio Archaeology Blog!

This blog can be used for discussion of Ohio archaeology topics, event listings, and questions. Stay tuned!