Investigation of Fort Ancient Settlement and Community Patterns: An Archaeological Survey of Dearborn County, Indiana By: Matthew R. Swihart and Kevin C. Nolan Edited by Kevin C. Nolan Principal Investigators: Kevin C. Nolan, Robert A. Cook, and S. Homes Hogue Reports of Investigation 83 Volume 1 April 2014 Figure 1: Location of Dearbom County within Indiana Figure 3: Physiographic Zones of Indiana These two physiographic units are also the two bedrock physiographic units that Dearbom County is located on (Schneider 1966:42-44). All of the previous information applies to these bedrock physiographic units, with the addition that the Dearborn Upland is “underlain by virtually flat-lying limestones and shales of late Ordovician age that outcrop along the crest of the Cincinnati Arch” (Schneider 1966:42-43). Figure 5: Slope Class of Soil Map Units. Figure 6: Drainage Class of Soil Map Units Figure 7: Parent Material of Soil Map Units Table 2: Summary of Previous CRM investigations by Civil Township in Dearborn County Figure 13: 12D25 as seen on Samuel Morrison’s 1816 drawing; Copied from MacPherson (1879:125). “hill fortifications” in the area, which are now recognized as the hi od. Only one such site is located te (a.k.a. Oberting-Glen so, not much professional archaeological worl rch ly based publications and reports. site. This includes a d Woodland pen the Oberting Fort si A majority of the a archaeological an 1878 Geological in Shaw’s His extensive evidences of aeological informati rawing made by Sa tory of Dearborn County, I 0 mu ndi the existence of th a e€. a in Dearbom Coun in the 1800s is actual ty, 12D25, ly referenc A majority of these discuss t Morrison in 1816 0 na, is p re-historic people... f 12D25, w Iltop enclosures of the Middle known formally as n site, PA-D-019). Within the next hundred years or k was completed or reported in Dearborn County. ed to in non- he Oberting Fort hich also appears in Report for Indiana (MacPherson 1879:125). The site appears one more time where it is stated to be “One of the most ” (Shaw 1915:73). Table 4: Survey Acreage Totals by Soil Map Units Table 5: Mass Analysis Attribute Categories for Survey Area 2 The fifth step, the actual analysis of the artifacts, includes defining the artifacts, recordin all artifact attributes, determining FSID labeling order of the artifacts, as well as expanding upor the sources used to give chronological dates to diagnostic artifacts. Most definitions of artifacts used in the Dearborn County Project come from Andrefsky’s second edition of “Lithics: Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis” (Andrefsky 2005). For determining typology of prehistoric flaked stone artifacts, a flow chart was retained from the Hamilton County FY 2012 HPF Project (Swihart and Nolan 2013) for use in the Dearborn County Project (Figure 15). Diagnostic determinations of projectile points, bifaces, etc. for this project were determined by studying examples from Justice (1987), Prufer and McKenzie (1967), Griffin (1966), Henderson (1992), and Cook and Comstock (2014:In Press). One specific type of unifacial flake tool encountered were bladelets. Multiple blade-core industries exist around the Dearbom County Project, or t tween other catalogs, as we n the actual artifacts. This ration bag that it can be rep u 1 for conve aced witho id after analysis has determi constitute an artifact. In these to s. p of artifacts collected (~ al di E @) al SAs (Table 5). he first artifact f ce as the FSID is re that if the artifacts are ever separated f ce. Since this process analysis, some sites m nien is done to ensu ut losin meration begins before the actual, in depth ned a site to co instances, tl he si how on the final GIS markup of each survey rocess was completed for all survey areas w p Le ith 12,000) and the amou rtifacts from survey area two were analyzed seq scussion on transects, see the pedestrian survey secti ach artifact type within a finds bag was given a spec ne and working consecutively until completion. Within the catalog counts and weigh h provenience (e.g., t5-62) and ide not used in the remaining type of artifact were recorded for each catalog number ny diagnostic information. SA2 used a unique mass an g its prove n material area which nt of tim the excepti uential ) hysical artifact ntai is marked as void but tl e availab y by tran n of nien collected th collection | on of SA2. e for an sect n ific n along witl alysis gu umber (€.g., rom Sal-1). This is done to maintain conti at does not ac inuity the number sequence inscribed from their of | ay tual he number is still retained oci became nu lified. This Due to the large number 13.65.2683), alysis to be co umber (fora fu the methods section of thi mpleted, rther S report). starting at ts for each A) Diagnostic Hafted Bifaces (Projectile Points). B) Not Diagnostic Hafted Bifaces (Hafted Blades/Knives). C) Not Hafted Blades (Unhafted Blades/Knives). D) Core Typologies (Unidirectional Cores; Multidirectional cores; Blade Cores). | Bimarginal Flake Tools. Ey) Unimarginal Flake Tools. F Figure 16: Locations of SA1, SA2, SA3, and various previously reported archaeological sites. survey in SA 1, yet we encountered 47 in SA 2 (see Table 7). Whether thay originates from 12D 491 within SA2 or 12D480 within SA1 is unknown. Figure 18: Survey Area 1 Sites over 2005 Aerial Photograph. Table 7: SA2 Artifacts by Category Figure 23: SA2 Historic Artifacts Figure 24: SA2 Groundstone Tools Figure 25: SA2 Diagnostic Lithic Artifacts (Part 1) Figure 26: SA2 Diagnostic Lithic Artifacts (Part 2) Figure 27: SA2 Biface Tools Figure 28: Representative examples of SA2 flake tools Figure 29: Examples of SA 2 cores Figure 30: Representative examples of SA2 burnt angular shatter Figure 31: Representative examples of SA2 flake debitage Figure 32: Additional representative examples of SA 2 flake debitage Figure 33: Examples of SA 2 rim sherds Figure 34: Additional examples of SA2 rim sherds Figure 36: Decorated body sherds from SA2 Figure 35: Shell tempered rim sherd from SA2 Figure 37: Additional decorated body sherds from SA2 Figure 38: Additional decorated body sherds from SA 2, as well as red slipped sherd (top left) Figure 39: Representative examples of shell tempered body sherds from SA2. Figure 40: Example of historic yellowware from SA 2 Figure 41: Examples of cordmarked body sherds from SA2 Figure 42: Representative Sample of Mammalian Fauna from SA 2 Figure 43: Representative Sample of Mammalian Fauna from SA2. Figure 44: Representative Sample of Mammalian Fauna from SA2. Figure 45: Representative Sample of Mammalian Faunal Remain Recovered from SA2. Figure 46: Representative Sample of Mammalian Faunal Remains from SA2 Figure 47: Representative Sample of Non-mammalian and Miscellaneous/Unidentified Fauna from SA2. Figure 48: Representative Sample of Mussel Shell Recovered from SA 2. Figure 50: Survey Area 2 Sites over 2012 Aerial Photograph. “igure 56: Composite interpolation of all SA 2 lithics Figure 58: Density of all SA2 ceramic sherds Figure 65: Density of all SA2 faunal material Figure 68: Presence of all SA 2 historic artifacts Figure 69: Presence of all SA2 Middle Woodland diagnostic artifacts and lithic density Table 8: SA3 Artifacts by Category Figure 73: Diagnostic Historic Artifacts Recovered from SA3. ~ Multiple temporally diagnostic historic artifacts were recovered from SA3. At site 12D661, three historic ceramics were recovered. One body fragment of yellowware dating to a range of 1840 — 1940 has been docume nted (Stelle 2001). Also recovered were two body fragments of whiteware. One of these body fragments also contains a blue transfer pattern. Whiteware ceramics date to a range of pattern dates “from the first half of the would presumably place the historic co 820 — Present (Feldhues 1995:6). The blue transfer 19™ Century” (IMACS 1992:473). These combined dates mponent at 12D661 to the early — mid-19" Century. Figure 75: Survey Area 3 Sites over 2012 Aerial Photograph. Figure 86: Temporally diagnostic historic ceramics from SA7, SA8, SA9, SA10, and SA11 Figure 87: Non-diagnostic artifacts from SA7 and SA8 Figure 89: Survey Area 7 Sites over 2012 Aerial Photograph. Table 10: SA8 Artifacts by Category. Figure 95: Survey Area 10 Sites over 2012 Aerial Photograph. Figure 97: Survey Area 11 Sites over 2012 Aerial Photograph. Table 14: Trench A Sample from 12D19 Table 16: Preferred Habitats for Small Mammals Identified at 12D19 and 12D491 Figure 98: Percentages of animal class represented at each site by weight. Figure 99: Average fragment sizes for animal class identified at the two sites. compared to other animals and miscellaneous specimens present at the 12D 491 site. When bone fragmentation is considered, larger fragments are associated with the fauna recovered from 12D 19 back dirt. This finding is expected given that heavy machinery associated with modern agricultural activities and weathering likely damaged much of the bone recovered at 12D491. Figure 99 compares the different average sizes for each class and unidentified category. Fragmentation for the two sites is similar for both aves and miscellaneous unidentified. Bird bones, because of their hollow structure, are more likely to splinter and fragment relative to arger animals especially mammals. One interesting finding is that site 12D 19 yielded far more miscellaneous unidentified bones (62.16%) than 12D491 (13.8%). This difference is undoubtedly due to the 4 screening which would recover greater amounts of smaller fragmented bone than pedestrian survey. Figure 100: Comparisons of burned and unburned bone at 12D19 and 12D491. bone. Interestingly the percentage by weight is n numbers of burned bones is compared between the sites, 12D Burning tends to increase the frequency of fracturing in a bone by increasing brittleness Lyman 1994). Because of this, bummed bone is Some research has shown that carbonized remai total mic high roorganism feed on organic matter (Lyman er frequency of bummed bone represented in withi in the ground and on the surface would not same way as unburned bone. early identical for ns are more resistal 994). This may in 9 has no ess likely to be identified th nt to degradation because part exp the surface collecti the two si tes bu ticeab an un ain w t when the y less. modified bone. hy there is a on at 12D 491 as burned bone have been affected by microorgani sms in the Conclusions Figure 101: The Scammyhorn Collection at the Cincinnati Museum Center Curation Facility. A) shows documentation bins and file folders in forefront and to the right including several binders of slides and field photos, fieldnotes, and surveyor maps. B) show the auction lot boxes from the back which include soil samples Figure 102: Clearing of the West Wall Area in 1980(?). Original photograph by R. Scammyhorn. Figure 103: Clearing of the Western Enclosure Area and Possible Surface Survey Grid Establishment. Note pin flags in the central photograph. The individual pictured is R. Scammyhor in all three photos. Figure 104: Examples of Artifacts from the Glenn Collection for the Oberting-Glenn Site Original photos by R. Scammyhorn. Figure 105: Sample of Artifacts Collected from the Surface of the Oberting-Glenn Site by R. Scammyhorn Original photographs by R. Scammyhorn. Figure 106: Sample of Artifacts Collected from the Surface of the Oberting-Glenn Site by R. Scammyhorn. Original photographs by R. Scammyhorn. Figure 107: Sample of Artifacts Collected from the Surface of the Oberting-Glenn Site by R. Scammyhorn. Original photographs by R. Scammyhorn. Figure 108: Sample of Artifacts Collected from the Surface of the Oberting-Glenn Site by R. Scammyhorn. Original photographs by R. Scammyhorn. Figure 110: Sample of Artifacts Collected from the Surface of the Oberting-Glenn Site by R. Scammyhor Original photographs by R. Scammyhorn. Figure 111: Sample of Artifacts Collected from the Surface of the Oberting-Glenn Site by R. Scammyhorn. Original photographs by R. Scammyhorn. Figure 113: Rim Sherd from the Point Mound Burial Feature. Figure 115: Body Sherd from the Point Mound Burial Feature. Figure 114: Body Sherd from the Point Mound Burial Feature. Figure 116: Interior Cordmarked Body Sherd with Red Exterior Layer from Point Mound Burial Feature. Figure 117: Rim Sherd from Refit A dena Vessel Figure 119: Exterior of the Refit Adena Vessel Section. Note reddish orange color on the bottom left. See Figure 120 for close up. Figure 118: Profile of Refit Section of Adena Vessel Figure 121: Spring Trench Excavations. Original photographs by from R. Scammyhorn Collection. Figure 120: Close-up of Reddish Coloration on Refit Adena Vessel. See Figure 119 for context. Figure 122: Artifacts Recovered from Spring Trench Excavation. Top row is a single rimsherd recovered from the west wall of the trench on November 24", 1985 at a depth of 4.5 ft (~1.4 m). Bottom is a biface recovered May 17", 1986 at a depth of 7.84 ft (~2.4 m), possibly Wyandotte chert.
