OCTOBER IS ARCHAEOLOGY MONTH!

Sneak Peak Tours: Behind the Scenes at the Ohio Historical Society

Visit the Ohio Historical Society's Archaeology Collections in Storage and See What’s Not on Exhibit
 

Have you ever wondered where we keep all the things in our collection when they’re not on display in the museum?

Find out on an exclusive tour with Ohio Historical Society curators who will take you behind the scenes.

The Ohio Historical Society’s archaeology collection includes more than 1.6 million artifacts representing more than 13,000 years of Ohio's past. According to David Hurst Thomas, a curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History and a founding trustee of the National Museumof the American Indian, the Ohio Historical Society has "arguably the best collection of pre-contact American Indian objects from eastern North America" in the world!

In addition to all those artifacts, the Archaeology Collections Facility also houses 625 linear feet of documentation related to the collections in filing cabinets and archival boxes, an additional 74 linear feet of photographic documentation, and 100 cubic feet of large format documents such as maps. In addition, there is a referencelibrary of more than 3,500 volumes.

On Saturday, October 6th you can tour the exhibit Following in Ancient Footsteps and then visit the Archaeology Collections Facility with Curator Brad Lepper and the rest of our archaeology staff for a look at some of the many objects that aren't on display.

This special opportunity to see the facility where we store our extensive archaeology collection, conduct research and process in-coming collections is limited to 15 people. You’ll have a special opportunity to meet the staff who collect, catalog, study and — most importantly — educate us about these remarkable materials. To register for this exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of Ohio Historical Society archaeology collections, $149, click here or call 1-800-686-1541.

The fee helps to support the Ohio Historical Society's efforts to care for our world-class collections!

The tour begins at the Ohio History Center at I-71 and 17^th Avenue in Columbus and it lasts from 1:30 to 4 p.m. For more information, call 800.686.1541 or e-mail collections@ohiohistory.org.

 

Other tours in the works for spring 2013 will feature popular culture collections in the archives and the Ohio Historical Society’s extensive collection of Ohio-made, hand-crafted quilts.

Ohio's Natural History: Fighting Emerald Ash Borers at Cedar Bog Nature Preserve

Near the end of August, Matt Schullek of our OHS staff joined me at Cedar Bog to shoot some video and interview me about our project to try and save ash trees. Between May 24^th and September 13^th of this year we have released more than 16,000 parasitic wasps from three different species. All of these wasps are tiny, non-stinging insects whose only drive in life is to parasitize the exotic introduced Emerald Ash Borer (EAB for short). Millions of ash trees in 17 states have been killed since 2002 when the EAB was introduced from untreated wooden pallets at a seaport in Detroit. Scientists with the USDA searched in China to find  critters that attack and control the EAB in their home range. After careful research to assure that they attack nothing other than EAB, they made the wasps available for introductions in this country.

 

If you have any specific questions about this project, contact me at bglotzhober@ohiohistory.org .

Bob Glotzhober, Senior Curator of Natural History

BALL STATE UNIVERSITY RECEIVES AMERICAN BATTLEFIELD PROTECTION PROGRAM GRANT

Congratulations to our partners at Ball State University for their successful grant application to the National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program!

 

Ball State University, in partnership with the Fort Recovery Historical Society and the Ohio Historical Society, has conducted an archaeological exploration of the Fort Recovery and Battle of the Wabash battlefields. This work has added considerably to our understanding of the battles and the extent to which their archaeological traces are still discernible across the landscape of the modern city of Fort Recovery.

On November 4, 1791, at the Battle of the Wabash, a coalition of American Indian tribes led by the Miami chief Little Turtle and the Shawnee chief Blue Jacket destroyed an American army sent against their people. This was the most catastrophic defeat ever suffered by the United States at the hands of American Indians. In 1773, General Anthony Wayne built Fort Recovery on the site of this epic, but surprisingly little known, battle. On June 30, 1794, 2,000 American Indians attacked the fort, but were repulsed after a two day battle. As part of the NPS grant, Ball State University and its partners intend to hold a series of public consensus meetings in support of Fort Recovery. This project also will support the creation of a more complete and comprehensive National Register nomination.

 

According to the NPS website, "The American Battlefield Protection Program funds projects conducted by federal, state, local, and tribal governments, nonprofit organizations, and educational institutions. The ABPP’s mission is to safeguard and preserve significant American battlefield lands for present and future generations as symbols of individual sacrifice and national heritage."

 

Brad Lepper

CELEBRATE FOSSILS ON OCTOBER 17TH!

UPCOMING LECTURE ON THE NEWARK EARTHWORKS AND THE NAZCA LINES

A NEW STUDY REVEALS INSIGHTS ON THE NATURE OF LEADERSHIP IN OHIO HOPEWELL SOCIETIES

Michael G. Koot recently earned a Ph.D. at Michigan State University with his analysis of leadership and biological status in the Ohio Hopewell culture. His research "examined the relationship between social positions of both leadership and prestige and the biological status of two Ohio Hopewell skeletal collections from the Middle Woodland period (ca. 100 BC to 400 AD)." He determined biological status through "an analysis of skeletal markers of nonspecific systemic physiological stress, dietary nutritional stress, nonspecific infection and/or disease, or trauma to the skeletal system."

 

Utilizing the collections held by the Ohio Historical Society, the Field Museum in Chicago, and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, Koot compared sets of human remains from two separate regions: Southwestern and South-Central Ohio. The Southwestern region was represented by 46 adult burials from the Turner Mound Group curated by the Peabody Museum. The South-Central region included 91 adult burials from six separate sites: the Hopewell Mound Group, including remains curated by both the Ohio Historical Society and the Field Museum, and the Seip Earthworks, Raymond Ater Mound, Edwin Harness Mound and Rockhold Mound all of which are curated by the Ohio Historical Society.

 

Koot's results confirm the now accepted view of Hopewell society as strongly egalitarian with no inherited leadership positions. There certainly were leaders who were honored at their deaths with elaborate burials, but that honor evidently was earned either by the lifetime achievements of individual men and women or by the special circumstances of their deaths. There were no Hopewell kings or chiefs that held their leadership positions simply because of the families into which they were born. Moreover, according to Koot, whatever status differences existed in Hopewell societies, they were "not dramatic enough" to show up at all in an individual's biological status. So, apparently, the benefits of high status didn't include access to more and better food or relief from the ordinary labors of the less exalted folks.

 

Koot was able to show that there were few or no differences in biological status between men and women in either region. This indicates that women were not subordinate to men in Hopewell societies. In fact, at the Turner Mound Group, female leadership appears to have predominated. One exception to this pattern is that women at Turner had a higher frequency of linear enamel hypoplasias (LEH) than did the men. LEHs are growth lines in the teeth that indicate periods of stress during the time that the teeth were growing (before age 7). If women were the important leaders in this region, why would girls have suffered more dietary stress than boys?

 

When Koot compared all the people from Turner with the people from the South-Central region, he found that the overall frequency of LEH was higher at Turner. Koot interprets these regional differences as relating either to "environmental changes and resulting food shortages" at Turner, or possibly to variations in diet between the two regions.

 

Finally, based on the differences between Turner and the South-Central Hopewell sites, Koot suggests there may have been no "pan-Hopewellian interaction sphere that resulted in similar cultural features across Hopewell regional traditions, or even in local regions within the same regional tradition. Perhaps calling these groups of people the Scioto Hopewell and the Little Miami Hopewell would better recognize the biological and cultural variation that existed between Hopewell groups from different river drainage areas in Ohio."

 

Koot's important conclusions demonstrate the value of museum collections for archaeology. Data curated in museums can be studied again and again as new analytical techniques are developed or as scholars come up with new questions to ask of the old data. In particular, this study speaks to the importance of curating ancient human remains: " the analysis of skeletal stress provides insight into Ohio Hopewell interregional differences regarding subsistence and habitation lifeways that cannot be addressed by analyzing archaeological artifacts and material culture alone."

 

For further reading:

 

Koot, Michael G.

2012 Ohio Hopewell leadership and biological status: interregional and intraregional variation. Unpublished dissertation, Michigan State University.

Brad Lepper

C-SPAN TOUR OF THE NEWARK EARTHWORKS

This month, C-SPAN3's American History TV is exploring Columbus, Ohio. Among the featured stories is the Newark Earthworks and Ohio's Hopewell culture.

 

C-SPAN's Local Conent Vehicle staff visited Ohio last month to conduct interviews and shoot video of historic sites within a 50 mile radius of Columbus and the Newark Earthworks -- on the United States Department of the Interior's short list of sites to be nominated for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage list -- was an obvious place to tell the story of the first Ohioans!

I spent the morning sharing Newark's Great Circle Earthworks and Octagon Earthworks with the C-SPAN staff and now you can go along for the ride.

In addition to taking you to each of the sites, I also talk about the ancient Native American culture that created this amazing architectural masterpiece and consider such questions as "Why Ohio? Why were the Newark Earthworks built here?"

I hope you enjoy the tour and that it inspires you to come and see the sites in person.


Brad Lepper

PERSISTENT PLACES

Archaeological landscapes have been compared to palimpsests -- parchment pages from which the text has been scraped away to allow new layers of text to be added. With careful study, however, those old layers often can be recovered.

 

Some pages of Ohio's landscape can appear to be blank -- perhaps because not much happened there (I am reminded of the brass plaque my Dad attached to our house that read "On this site in 1897, nothing happened") or possibly because geological processes have scoured away the traces of past human activity.

 

There are, however, certain places that, because of some special quality, have been written upon again and again throughout the millennia. The archaeologist Sarah Schlanger has written that the special qualities that draw people back again and again to, what she describes as, "persistent places" can be the result of either a feature of the natural landscape, such as the reliable presence of fresh water, or cultural modifications to a landscape that leave a lasting imprint and are, for whatever reasons, attractive to later generations.

 

Matthew Purtill's new book, A Persistent Place: a landscape approach to the prehistoric archaeology of the Greenlee Tract in southern Ohio, presents the rich prehistory of an 85 acre swath of Adams County situated between the Ohio River and the steep-sided bluffs to the north. I summarize a bit of this prehistory in my September column in the Columbus Dispatch.

 

Purtill is an archaeologist who works for Gray and Pape, Inc., a Cincinnati-based Cultural Resource Management (CRM) firm. CRM archaeology refers to archaeological investigations conducted when projects that, at some level, include the involvement of the federal government potentially threaten archaeological sites that might prove to be nationally significant.

 

In the case of the Greenlee Tract, the property owner, Dayton Power and Light proposed to expand its fly-ash disposal fields beginning in the early 1990s. Archaeological investigations were undertaken presumably because the planned construction would take place along the Ohio River, a navigable waterway, and so U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permits were required.

 

Kevin Pape, the President of Gray and Pape, Inc., wrote in the Foreward to Purtill's book that since around 1993, Gray and Pape has been working together with Dayton Power and Light "to balance the requirements of on-going power generation with the company's commitment to stewardship of archaeological resources on station property." The result, according to Pape, was "an opportunity seldom available to archaeologists working in the context of cultural resource management: singular focus on a suite of archaeological resources set in a location occupied across the span of 12,000 years."

 

Purtill's book represents the fruit of this partnership and everyone involved deserves to be congratulated. Most CRM archaeology reports are seldom seen by anyone outside a small circle of CRM professionals, but this book is accessible to a wide audience and deserves to be read by anyone interested in Ohio's ancient history.

 

Curiously, Purtill concludes that "no single unifying quality or characteristic completely accounts for why groups persistently utilized this property. Instead, throughout its industrious prehistory, multiple factors account for why the Greenlee Tract was a destination for various groups."

 

All of us should be grateful for the fortuitous confluence of factors that not only produced this persistent place, but also placed it in the hands of responsible corporate stewards and dedicated archaeologists who recovered these pages of unwritten history and who now share them in the pages of this splendid book.

 

I hope it serves as an example for other CRM firms and their clients -- and not just in Ohio!

 

Brad Lepper