An Introduction to the Libben Site

AI N NTRODUCTION TO THE LIBBEN SITE by Thomas R. Pigott Phalanx Mills, Ohio The Libben Site was primarily a Late the end of the dig, which was then followed of six additional individuals. Some of these Woodland cemetery located on the north up to disclose an important and unforeseen appear to be quite bizarre to our modern bank of the Portage River in Ottawa County, discovery that would have otherwise been Western sensibilities. Dr. C. Owen Lovejoy Ohio, approximately four and one-half miles missed. No graves were revealed in this of Kent State University and his associates upstream from the river’s mouth at Port scraped area, but it did reveal long straight have published a number of papers dealing Clinton on Lake Erie. The lower reaches of lines of postmolds to be discussed below. with other aspects of the physiology, pathol- the river are basically a long embayment of Prufer, who had undertaken the second ogy and demography of the burial popula- the lake and it is still half a mile wide in front season of excavation with the goal of 100% tion, which Prufer claimed to be the largest of the site. The site was discovered late in recovery, estimated that the excavated area discrete prehistoric population excavated in the 1966 field season by Orrin C. Shane, encompassed 85% to 90% of the available the United States. III, then a doctoral candidate at Case Insti- site. Romain (1979), taking into account A substantial amount of cultural material tute of Technology, who was doing field unexcavated areas, land lost to erosion by was also retrieved during the excavations. survey in the area at the behest of Dr. Olaf the river and a set-aside along the river’s Prufer reported that he counted the pot- H. Prufer. Shane found human bones on edge required by the landowner, Arthur Lib- sherds recovered from the site in 1970–71, the surface and, recognizing the potential ben, to protect against future erosion, cal- stopping when he reached 75,000 but of the site, notified Prufer, who immediately culated the excavated area as being 66% of estimating the total to be in the vicinity of gathered a small field crew to conduct test the original site, with 12% of the site having 80,000. He commented that the extreme excavations, during which several burials been washed away. fragmentation of the ceramics gave them were uncovered. Prufer then organized and The skeletal remains of “about 1,300” the appearance of having been “trampled.” conducted a full summer field season of (Meindl, Mensforth and Lovejoy, 2008) There are approximately thirty-five complete excavation with a crew of twenty-five from human beings, of both sexes and ranging in or nearly complete ceramic vessels extant April to September of 1967, followed by a age from unborn fetuses to the elderly, were from the excavations, most of which accom- second full season in 1968 with a crew of disinterred. Most of the graves were shallow panied burials, as well as some 2,400 rim- sixty-four, supplemented at times by oth- and so highly concentrated over much of the sherds that were primarily from non-burial ers. He sought financial backing for the dig site that many of them had been disturbed or disturbed contexts. Only a very few shell- but was unsuccessful in obtaining it, so prehistorically by the intrusion of later burials tempered potsherds were recovered; 99+% Prufer paid for the excavations out of his into earlier ones. The first known historical of the ceramics recovered from the site are own pocket; neither federal nor state gov- disturbance to the site was from the peach from grit-tempered Late Woodland vessels. ernment funds were involved. orchard mentioned by Sarge Smith. The I was only peripherally involved in the While he didn’t know it at the time of the orchard was gone by the 1960’s, but Prufer ceramic analysis and can only give my excavations, Prufer reported that he later reported that the excavators encountered impressions, not a statistical analysis. There learned that his good friend, Arthur George concentrations of peach pits and root molds are at least eight thick, interior-exterior cord- “The Old Sarge” Smith (1891 - 1964), a where the trees had stood. Later the site marked Early Woodland rimsherds repre- well known and highly respected amateur was used to grow annual grain crops, which senting a minimum of two vessels. There archaeologist (Prufer delivered the eulogy disturbed more of the burials. are a few rimsherds, probably less than a at his funeral), had previously conducted The vast majority (93.6%) of the bodies hundred, whose only decoration is cord- excavations at the site. Sarge knew the site for which the mode of burial could be deter- marking over the entire exterior surface, that as the Montgomery Burial Site and reported mined had been laid out in an extended should date to the earliest part of the Late that it was located in “a semi-abandoned position, primarily on their backs. Other Woodland Period. There is also an interest- peach orchard” on a “sand knoll” beside the modes of interment are represented by 41 ing group of 46 small pieces of fired clay, all Portage River. “One Sunday morning early in bundle burials (4.4%), fourteen flexed burials less than an inch and a quarter in maximum June, 1917,” he and a companion conducted (1.6%), and four cremations (0.4%). Other dimension, with most being less than an an expedition to the site on horseback from than the cremations and bundle burials, inch. A few pieces look as if they could have nearly Camp Perry, where they were serving only articulated remains, although they need been daub, but most of them seem to have in the U.S. Army with an artillery unit in train- not have been complete skeletons, were been symmetrically shaped, although it is ing for World War I. They found bones on the assigned numbers and tallied as part of the hard to say to what end. Two appear to be surface and excavated seven graves. Arti- 1,300 burials. Nearly 22% of the numbered rather elegant representations of the heads facts, including projectile points, a crushed burials were described as disturbed and did and necks of birds. ceramic “cup”, a complete clay elbow pipe not have a burial mode assigned to them. The vast majority of the pots that were left and marine shell ornaments, accompanied Whether from being thrown out prehistori- at the Libben Site, however, bear some form three of the burials. Some of these artifacts cally, plowed out historically, or disturbed by of decoration, the style of which is quite dis- are illustrated in Smith’s report of the exca- woodchuck or other burrowing, a large num- tinctive and impressive. The decorations are vation published in the Ohio Archaeologist in ber of “stray” skeletal elements were recov- much more elaborate, even ornate, in com- 1964, shortly before his death. ered in the dig. Romain (1979) reported that parison to the plain, utilitarian look typical Romain (1979) reported that the excavated these bones came from an additional 170 of the Late Woodland ceramics from north- area of Prufer’s digs covered 30,000 square people, bringing the total number of bodies eastern Ohio with which I am more familiar. feet, breaking it down to 22,300 sq. ft., or represented by the human remains exca- Not having seen such, to me, exotic pot- 892 five-foot-square excavation units, man- vated from the site closer to 1,500. tery before and knowing that it came from ually excavated, with an additional 7,700 sq. Romain, in his 1979 masters thesis on the a cemetery, I wondered upon first sight if it ft. immediately to the north of the manual subject, also details an interesting number might be mortuary pottery made to be used excavations examined after being scraped of post-mortem skeletal modifications on for honoring the dead. by a bulldozer. My understanding is that this forty-five of the numbered burials as well Switching from archaeology to art for a resulted from the accidental discovery of as on an additional sixty-three “scattered moment, most of the decoration on the postmolds during the backfilling process at skeletal fragments” representing a minimum ceramics is geometrical, and if the designs 50 Ohio Archaeologist 51 Vol. 61, No. 4, Fall 2011 have meaning, we are incapable of discern- Palaeo lanceolates; a cache, likely the a stockade. What was being interpreted as ing what it is. There is one pot, however, smallest cache on record, of four Turkey- a stockade consisted of long straight lines whose decorations convey meaning to me. tail fragments, each manufactured from a of postmolds. However, according to Prufer, It spoke of death and despair, the emptiness different piece of Wyandotte chert (Indi- the postmolds were only three inches or so that can wash over one in the immediate ana hornstone); nineteen corner-notched in diameter and were spaced a foot or two aftermath of a loved one’s death. This nearly points; eleven side-notched points; fifteen apart. Revisiting the data in the 21st century, complete vessel (Fig. 1) was decorated with stemmed points; and 100 non-diagnostic Prufer’s opinion was that their interpretation what I interpret to have been four stylized projectile point fragments, consisting of as a stockade “doesn’t make sense.” human faces, one of which has been lost. 46 tip fragments, 32 mid-sections and 22 They were much more likely to have been Fig.

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