Divers learn Nautical Archaeology Techniques

On April 21 - 22, 2007 approximately 50 divers from Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Canada came together to learn about nautical archaeology (figure 1). The event was put on by the Peachman Lake Erie Shipwreck Research Center (PLESRC) of the Great Lakes Historical Society in Vermilion Ohio, along with assistance from the Maritime Archaeological Survey Team (MAST), and was made possible through a grant from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Office of Coastal Management.

The goal of the workshop was to give divers skills to help document Ohio’s underwater cultural resources, otherwise known as shipwrecks. By creating final products such as site maps, reports and dive slates they can educate the general and diving public about the multitude (between 1000-8000) of wrecks that are in our “backyard”. Of those, four (Adventure, W.R. Hanna, F.H. Prince, The Craftsman and the Dundee) have been surveyed and recorded as archaeological sites, all by MAST divers working with PLESRC.

Topics for the weekend included historical research, Ohio, Federal and International shipwreck laws, report writing, diving/boat safety, survey logistics and equipment, trilateration, drawing techniques, among many others. Of special note was Dr. Kevin Crisman from Texas A & M University who spoke on how each site was different and how flexibility and ingenuity are key for a successful project.

The Saturday seminars were broken into sections. First time students learned basic survey techniques. Second year students learned more advanced techniques and mentored first time students. And third year students were given a small budget and taught additional skills that would need to plan and run their own shipwreck survey in 2007.

On Sunday, the second year students were responsible for running the survey of the S.S. Vermilion (picture 2), a simulated shipwreck conveniently located just outside the classroom on the shore of Lake Erie. The ship was divided into survey sections and the first year students were assigned tasks (figure 3). On the first "dive" the surveyors could talk to each other and ask questions of the second year students. On subsequent dives they were to remain silent (there is no talking under water after all) and were to communicate using signals, tugs and by writing notes to their dive buddy. After the assigned measurements were taken, the divers went inside to plot their data (figure 4). Upon finishing that task, they "re-entered the water" and took additional measurements until their section was completed. After all the sections were finished they were collected and put together so the students could see how the whole site plan looked after just a few hours of work (figures 5 & 6).

The next step for these divers will be to do a practice survey in White Star Quarry in Fremont, OH on May 19-20. This will be the first time they will use their newly acquired skills underwater. Upon completing this portion of the workshop, the students will be official MAST members and can then participate in the many projects coming this year.

For additional information on the Peachman Lake Erie Shipwreck Research Center (PLESRC) go to http://www.inlandseas.org/plesrc/index.html

For more on MAST go to http://www.ohiomast.org

Thanks to Mark Pansing for providing the photos for this blog.

Moorehead Circle

There was a lot of excitement at the Fort Ancient Earthworks in 2005. Dr. Jarrod Burks, an archaeologist with Ohio Valley Archaeological Consultants, was conducting a remote sensing survey of portions of the interior of the great enclosure in preparation for an erosion control project at the site. We wanted to make sure that the construction activities involved with repairing the damage to the site did not cause more damage to important archaeological traces buried beneath the surface.

Unexpectedly, a dramatic circular pattern appeared in Burks' data that didn't reflect the location of any feature documented on any 19th or 20th century map of the site. The circle was more than 200 feet in diameter. According to a widely circulated press release, issued at the time by the Ohio Historical Society, it was "the first major architectural feature discovered at the Fort Ancient Earthworks since the site was first explored and mapped" and it had "the potential to add considerably to our understanding of how ancient Ohioans used this important site." (See http://www.ohiohistory.org/places/ftancien/fa-01.html).

From the remote sensing data, we couldn't tell whether it was the remains of a circular earthwork, or ditch, that had been leveled, or if it might be the remains a giant "woodhenge" such as had been uncovered at the Stubbs Earthworks, also in Warren County, by Dr. Frank Cowan and the Cincinnati Museum Center (see Dr. Cowan's article "Stubbs Earthworks: an Ohio Hopewell 'Woodhenge'" in Ohio Archaeology: an illustrated chronicle of Ohio's ancient American Indian heritage).

In 2006, Dr. Robert Riordan and his students at Wright State University came to Fort Ancient to investigate this mysterious circle. Dr. Riordan and his team excavated a trench across the edge of the circle in order to determine how it had been constructed. They labeled this Trench A.

The team also excavated an 8 by 8 meter (26 by 26 feet) block at the center of the circle to explore a particularly dramatic anomaly discovered during the remote sensing phase of work. They referred to this as Unit B.

Dr. Riordan christened the large circular feature the "Moorehead Circle" to honor Warren K. Moorehead, the first curator of archaeology for the Ohio Historical Society and the person most responsible for the preservation of the Fort Ancient site as a State Memorial. Moorehead never knew this particular circle existed, but he did conduct some of the earliest systematic excavations at Fort Ancient and the name is an appropriate recognition of his many contributions to our understanding of the site.

Trench A

Trench A was 16 meters (52 feet) long and four meters (13 feet) wide. It cut across the edge of the circle and revealed that it was made up of two concentric circular rings of postmolds. (Postmolds are stains in the soil that mark the former locations of posts.) The outer circle was made up of a series of large post holes, about 9 inches in diameter, set into the ground at about 30 inch intervals. The posts were set more than three feet deep in the ground and had been chinked with stones. This suggests the posts had been quite tall and so needed the support of the stone. Riordan estimates the posts originally were 10 to 15 feet in height. And if the 30 inch interval was maintained all the way around, he states the circle would have included more than 200 individual posts.

The inner ring of posts was about 15 feet inside the outer ring. The posts were about the same diameter, but they had not been set as deep and the holes had not been chinked with stone, suggesting that they were not as tall as the posts of the outer ring.

A radiocarbon date on charcoal from a postmold associated with the Moorehead Circle "woodhenge" suggests it was built sometime between 40 BC and AD 130. (The range is due to the statistical vagaries of radiocarbon dating.)

Dr. Riordan and his students show OHS archaeologists Martha Otto

and Bill Pickard the mapped pattern of postmolds in Trench A.

Unit B

Excavations in the center of the Moorehead Circle revealed a deposit of bright red, burned soil that had been used to fill in a pit. The original pit was 15 feet long by 13 feet wide and 2 ½ feet deep. Around the outside of the pit there was a shallow trough in which some large timbers of red oak had been burned, at least on one side of the pit. The Wright State team found very little ash in the pit, so Dr. Riordan figures the large quantity of burned soil must have been brought from somewhere else. The red color likely had a special meaning that was connected to the ceremonies relating to the use and filling-in of this pit.


Burned fragments of the red oak timbers from the trough on the side of the pit suggest this fire burned between AD 250 and 420. This is significantly later than the date for the woodhenge, suggesting to Dr. Riordan that the circle of posts may have been built long before the creation of the central pit in Unit B. He cautions, however, that "one radiocarbon date constitutes shaky ground upon which to erect one's reconstruction." Nevertheless, it is certainly possible that the circle had a long history of use and re-use and the two concentric circles of posts may represent two separate phases of construction rather than one circle with a double set of posts.


The Wright State University excavations at the Moorehead Circle turned up a large number of typical Hopewell culture artifacts, including 86 bladelet fragments, almost half of which were made from Flint Ridge flint, some mica scraps, a couple of textile fragments, and more than a thousand pottery sherds. These finds confirm that the Circle was the focus of a variety of activities for the people who built and used the Fort Ancient Earthworks.


Dr. Riordan concluded his report on the 2006 excavations and the subsequent analyses with the following observation:
"With a bit less than 5 percent of the area of the Moorehead Circle having been excavated, it is premature to spell out many hard conclusions." There are many questions remaining to be answered and, in fact, many new questions have arisen in the wake of the new discoveries. Dr. Riordan goes on to say that this "is the way of scientific inquiry."


Stay tuned to this blog, because Dr. Riordan expects to be back at Fort Ancient this summer continuing his investigation of this remarkable circle. We'll do our best to keep you posted on the latest developments.

Archaeology Day at Fort Ancient State Memorial, 2007

On Saturday April 14, 2007 Fort Ancient State Memorial sponsored its annual Archaeology and Artifact Identification Day. In spite of it being a rather drab and rainy day, the event was well attended. Archaeology Day is held at Ft Ancient in the spring of every year and it is a chance for the public to bring in their ancient artifacts, minerals and fossils for identification. The items can range from isolated finds made while gardening to a collection of flakes and points from a site in their corn field to that “old shoebox” full of things grandfather collected years ago. The event isn’t altogether unlike an Antiques Road Show light but no monetary values are assigned or appraisals given. Objects are identified as to age and material and how rare an object it may or may not be. If possible participants are encouraged to fill out an OAI or Ohio Archaeological Inventory form to register their find locations with the State Historic Preservation Office. Advice is also give on how to catalog their finds and create maps of the find locations as part of documenting their collection and how their collection should be properly stored This year Bill Pickard, OHS Assistant Curator of Archaeology and Jack Blosser, Ft Ancient Site Manager were on hand to look at archaeological items and Doug Shrake of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Geological Survey was there to share his expertise of fossils and minerals. If you missed this event and you have a projectile point or some strangely shaped rock that you would like to have identified there will be another Artifact Identification Day on September 1, 2007 in conjunction with the Knap-In and Stone tool Show at Flint Ridge State Memorial near Brownsville, Ohio. The identification event will be located in front of the museum at Flint Ridge. Check the OHS web site at http://www.ohiohistory.org/index.html later in the year for further information. Below ar a few images from the event.

To the right Jack Blosser (l) and Bill Pickard (r) listen to an event participant talk about his grandfather's artifact collection. He and hiswife and children made the drive down to Fort Ancient from near Columbus. They found out about the event through the OHS website.

(left) Bill Pickard points out some details on one the items in the collection. The material was collected over a number of years on his grandfather's farm near Findlay

(right) Perhaps the most outstanding piece in the collection was this very large Flint Ridge Flint Hopewell Point dating to the Middle Woodland period of about 2,000 years ago. Such pieces arevery rare and it was pointed out that perhaps a shoe box is not really the best means of storage.

(left) Doug Shrake of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Geological Survey explains to a very bright young visitor that his fossils were the remains of plants and animals that once lived

at the bottom of a sea that covered Ohio in the very distant past.

Never Ending Field Work

When it comes down to it, for every hour spent in the field doing archaeology, several hours are spent in the lab processing and analyzing the data. It would seem that field work is never done. A case in point is a number of soil samples collected at Ft Meigs during the 2001-2002 renovation. When General Harrison built Ft Meigs in 1813, he selected the site for a number of reasons including its location on a high bluff facing the Maumee River that was well above annual spring floods. It was also a somewhat more protected site being inland from the open shores of Lake Erie. Harrison chose well in picking this location, and it was probably for many of these same reasons that a group of Late- Prehistoric Native Americans would establish a large village there in the mid to late 1500’s. These people were the last two or three generations before contact with Europeans and were still living a traditional lifestyle. Knowing how they made a living is important in order to see just how much their culture changed after Europeans made their way into Ohio. When the stockade was replaced during the most recent reconstruction it exposed a number of prehistoric midden or trash deposits and other features along the bluff edge generated by the site’s original inhabitants. It isn’t every day that anyone gets a close look at such deposits at a protected site like Ft. Meigs, so when the opportunity availed itself, several gallons of midden soil were collected for future analysis. The collection procedure was as follows. After a cross section of the deposit was mapped and photographed, samples of soil were removed and put into heavy plastic bags inside 5 gallon buckets. The bags were sealed and tagged with the exact location (as above) of where the soil came from. These locations were also noted on the cross-section map of the deposit. Without recording this information it is just another bucket of dirt and not of any particular scientific use. The samples were then brought to Columbus and stored in the archaeology collection facility.
Midden deposits are characterized by rich, dark, organic soils often interspersed with ash layers. Middens contain the stuff of everyday life of the people that made them including plant and faunal remains, broken bone and stone tools and pottery shards – a time capsule of sorts. Continual dumping in the same location effectively seals off the core of the midden from the atmosphere and over time the deposit tends to become anaerobic or without oxygen. This provides an excellent preservation environment for organic materials and other fragile items buried in the midden. If left in the open on the surface, this same material would completely deteriorate in a very short time. While “great discoveries” in them are rare, midden deposits provide insight into how people long ago made their living, what they ate and what types of plants and animals were available in their local environment. There is no doubt that people in the future will be analyzing the contents of trash dumps being generated today to see just how people lived in the 21st century. The problem is to extract and properly analyze the data.
Taking advantage of the recent warm weather it was decided to reduce the backlog of soil samples in storage and process them by water screening. Water screening uses a lot of water and produces a lot of mud, so it is an activity that is better undertaken out of doors in warm weather. It is actually a simple operation, as seen in the accompanying images. The soil is poured into a series of 1/8 inch mesh sieve boxes and after hand picking the larger items from the screen the samples are sprayed with a hose until all the soil is washed away. Fortunately midden soil is typically loose and organic, almost like potting mix and as a result it doesn’t take long for water to do its “thing”. The Ft. Meigs samples produced a rather mundane looking residue of fish scales, charcoal, small pottery shards, animal bone fragments and broken or exhausted stone tools. Generally speaking about 1 quart or less of this material was extracted from 4 gallons of raw soil. Although volume-wise the returns may not seem that great, they do represent excellent research potential. It should also be noted that as a part of this operation an unsorted measure of about 1 gallon of raw soil was taken from each sample prior to water screening and saved for flotation. Floatation is a more refined process often used to recover very small seeds and other minute materials that would normally pass through even a fine mesh screen.
It seems to be a general rule that people only throw away stuff that is broken, worn out or of no further use. However, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure and in the hands of a knowledgeable researcher it can provide a wealth of information. For example, through C14 dating, charcoal found in the same deposit as a projectile point or pottery shard of a particular style can be used to date that item to just when it was used or at least discarded. When similar items are found on other sites this information can provide a ready-made time frame for the second location. Or it may show that certain plants were a mainstay of their diet, perhaps species that were never considered before. To the casual observer very little if any of this might appear particularly exciting, but it all represents small parts of the bigger picture and as such is a necessary step if archaeology is to be done correctly.

Ohio Archaeological Council Spring Meeting

Ohio Archaeological Council Spring Meeting


The Ohio Archaeological Council (OAC) will hold its annual Spring Meeting on Friday, May 18, 2007 at the Cedar Ridge Lodge, Battelle Darby Creek Metro Park, Galloway, Ohio (for directions see www.metroparks.net/ParksBattelleDarbyCreek.aspx). At the session several papers will be presented including a session highlighting recent archaeological investigations on Ohio Historical Society sites. It is an opportunity to hear some very good professional presentations in a somewhat relaxed setting. There is no charge for admission. See below for a meeting schedule and a selection of abstracts for what should be some very interesting presentations on current archaeological research in Ohio.




Meeting Schedule


9:30-10:00 Refreshments

Solicited Paper:

10:00-10:20 Bruce Aument - Variations in Late Woodland Upland Sites of Central Ohio

Ohio Historical Society (OHS) Archaeological Research:

10:20-10:40 Martha Otto - OHS Archaeology in the Twenty-first Century

10:40-11:00 Bill Pickard - Recent Investigations at Pickawillany, Miami County, Ohio: Making Sense of the First Thing to Happen in Ohio

11:00-12:10 OAC Business Meeting

12:10-1:15 Lunch (on your own)

Ohio Historical Society (OHS) Archaeological Research (continued):

1:15-1:35 Jarrod Burks - Geophysics at Fort Ancient

1:35-1:55 Bob Riordan – The Moorehead Circle at Fort Ancient

1:55-2:15 Linda Pansing - Fort Laurens Musketball Concentration: Evidence of a Fight or Fiasco?

2:15-2:35 Bill Pickard - The Occurrence of a War of 1812 Double Horse Burial at Ft. Meigs, Wood County, Ohio

2:35-2:55 Mike Striker – Recent Archaeological Investigations at the Rankin House

2:55-3:15 Q&A

3:15 Meeting Adjourned


Selected Abstracts



Glimpses of Late Woodland Activities
in the Uplands of Central Ohio

Bruce W. Aument, Ph.D


Away from the main tributary valleys of the Scioto drainage, dense multicomponent lithic scatters commonly occur along upland creek bluff/terrace edges. Usually interpreted as lithic workshops, some of these sites contain features datable to the early and late Late Woodland periods, which suggest activities other than lithic tool production. CRM investigative results from three sites: 33LO86 (Spring Site A) along Otter Creek a tributary of Mill Creek and eventually the Scioto River, 33FR883 (Trueman Site 1) along Hayden Run a tributary of the upper Scioto River, and 33FR2600, along York Run a tributary of the Olentangy River, document Late Woodland site variability. Even though the sites are from upland creek bluff/terrace edges, each lies within a particular and different local setting. Since multicomponency partially masks the Late Woodland components, documenting specific activities related to this time period at each site replaces definitive functional site type interpretations.



Recent Investigations at Pickawillany, Miami County, Ohio
or
Making Sense of the First Thing to Happen in Ohio

William Pickard
Ohio Historical Society


Between 1748 and 1752 Pickawillany was a thriving English trade center and Miami Indian village in the heart of the French held Ohio country. In many ways its existence there epitomized the nearly century long war for empire between France and England in North America. The French sacked Pickawillany in 1752 to drive English interests from the Ohio country. The site lay relatively undeveloped for more than two centuries until incorporated into the Piqua Historical Area State Memorial in 1999. Recent fieldwork combining metal detection and other forms of remote sensing has begun to bring a degree of order to the site and delineate possible activity areas of particular interest.



Fort Ancient’s Moorehead Circle

Robert Riordan
Wright State University

Remote sensing by Jarrod Burks in 2005, conducted in Fort Ancient’s North Fort, detected a large and previously unknown circular feature. Groundtruthing excavations were conducted there in the summer of 2006 by Wright State’s Field School in Archaeology. Results suggest that the feature, since dubbed the Moorehead Circle, was constituted by more than 200 posts set vertically in the ground in slip trenches and a secondary circle of smaller posts located a few meters toward the interior. The strong magnetic response at the Circle’s center is caused by a pit filled with burned soil, possibly set within a structure. These features, which have been radiocarbon-dated to the Middle Woodland period, and the artifacts recovered from our two excavation units will be reviewed. Work will resume at the site in the summer of 2007.


Fort Laurens Musket Ball Concentration:
Evidence of a Fight or Fiasco?

Linda Pansing
Ohio Historical Society

In 2004, Ohio Historical Society archaeologists conducted an excavation of a musket ball concentration at Fort Laurens State Memorial, Ohio’s only Revolutionary War period fort. The concentration was located during a 1999-2000 survey of the Memorial property conducted by the Center for Historic and Military Archaeology (CHMA), Heidelberg University, Tiffin, Ohio. The purpose of the OHS project was to discover the nature of the musket ball concentration and possibly determine if it was the result of the February 23, 1779 ambush, a March 23, 1779 pack animal stampede or some other event in the forts short history.



The Occurrence of a War of 1812 Double Horse Burial,
Ft. Meigs, Wood County, Ohio

William Pickard
Ohio Historical Society


Between 2001 and 2003, a total renovation of Fort Meigs State Memorial that included the construction of a new visitor center/museum was undertaken by the Ohio Historical Society. Fort Meigs is a 10 acre War of 1812 stronghold situated on a high bluff facing the Maumee River just outside the city of Perrysburg in Wood County, Ohio. While monitoring of construction work during the most recent renovation a number of interesting features were located including what may be a unique double interment of horses more than likely causalities of one of the brutal sieges of Fort Meigs in the spring and summer of 1813. Positioning of the remains as well as a number of other factors would seem to indicate there was more to the horse burial other than the simple, expedient disposal of fallen animals.

Geophysics at Fort Ancient

Jarrod Burks
Ohio Valley Archaeology, Inc.

Geophysics is transforming the way we do archaeology in Ohio, as well as the kinds of things we find. In 2005 and 2006 I conducted geophysical surveys (magnetics and electrical resistance) for the Ohio Historical Society at Fort Ancient in a variety of small and large areas in the South, Middle, and North Forts in advance of some erosion control work to take place near the walls. The geophysical surveys were to help identify any unknown features that could be impacted by heavy equipment moving from the park roads back to the embankment walls. Potentially significant archaeological remains were found in all areas surveyed. However, the most dramatic results include finding a new enclosure in the North Fort (dubbed the Moorehead Circle by Riordan) and clarifying the outlines of small, previously documented enclosures in the Middle Fort. Despite 100+ years of archaeology at Fort Ancient, these geophysical surveys show that there is much left to learn about Ohio’s largest hilltop enclosure