The O.C. Voss Site: Reassessing What We Know About the Fort Ancient Occupation of the Central Scioto Drainage and Its Tributaries
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THE O.C. VOSS SITE: REASSESSING WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE FORT ANCIENT OCCUPATION OF THE CENTRAL SCIOTO DRAINAGE AND ITS TRIBUTARIES DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Kathleen Brady-Rawlins, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2007 Dissertation Committee: Dr. William S. Dancey, Advisor Approved by Dr. Kristen J. Gremillion ________________________ Advisor Dr. Paul Sciulli Graduate Program in Anthropology Copyright by Kathleen Brady-Rawlins 2007 ABSTRACT In this dissertation I present newly acquired data concerning the prehistoric occupation of the O.C. Voss site in Franklin County, Ohio, and provide a contemporary analysis of the results of archaeological investigation conducted at the site more than forty years ago by the Ohio Historical Society. Results of the research suggest Fort Ancient occupation of the central Scioto River drainage and its tributaries was not confined to the early period ca. A.D. 1000-1200 nor is a depopulation of the sub-region ca. A.D. 1350 supported. The Voss site is located on a second terrace above Big Darby Creek in the Battelle-Darby Metro Park. After excavation of the Voss Mound in 1963, the original investigators placed the Voss site within the Late Woodland Cole Complex, a newly defined taxonomic unit. Within a few years of discovery of the village site associated with the mound, other archaeologists began to question the classification of the Voss site as Late Woodland and suggested attributes of the artifact assemblage indicated a Late Prehistoric Fort Ancient affiliation. Because details of the artifact assemblage, feature type, and village organization existed mostly in the gray literature, the Voss site has retained an incipient Late Prehistoric status in the minds of many researchers in the forty- plus years since discovery of the site. The 1966 village excavations uncovered numerous ii pit features and two structural patterns in a configuration that suggested a circular settlement. Yet, questions remained concerning the size of the village, its internal structure, subsistence patterns, and timing of occupation. Recent investigation of the site utilized geophysical survey in the form of magnetic survey as the paramount method of data recovery. Additional data recovery techniques included magnetic anomaly testing through removal of the plowzone, anomaly coring, limited feature excavation, and shovel testing to determine patterns of artifact density within the village site. An analysis of ceramic and lithic attributes on previously and recently excavated materials is presented and discussed in relation to established temporal indicators. Because little information has been compiled on characteristics of mound construction within the Fort Ancient community, a review and analysis of excavated and reasonably well-documented Fort Ancient mounds was undertaken to assess characteristics of the Voss Mound. The location of the Voss site is unique as it lies at the northern margin of the Fort Ancient Culture area and is located more than 60 km north of any excavated Fort Ancient site within the Scioto River drainage. Despite its location on the northern boundary and within the dissected valleys of the Big Darby Creek, it will be argued that occupation of the site occurred during the Late Prehistoric period by Fort Ancient populations who adhered to a well-established intra-site settlement pattern of a circular village organized around a central, community-oriented plaza. The Voss site does not represent an incipient stage of the Fort Ancient Tradition of the Late Prehistoric period but rather a site utilized by Fort Ancient populations into the early 15th century. iii To all those who encouraged me to see it through my husband, my family, friends, and mentors iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my advisor, William Dancey, for his guidance in organizing and articulating the results of my fieldwork and research, and for his patience. I wish to thank Tim Taylor and the maintenance crew of the Battelle-Darby Metro Park for their interest and help in making recent archaeological investigation of the site possible. I also wish to thank Bob Voss for providing information about the historic use of the site and surrounding area. I would like to thank Larry Wickliff for his unlimited enthusiasm for archaeological fieldwork through it all, poison ivy, limited supplies, and having to be satisfied with recovering lithics manufactured from “gunky” local chert. I am very grateful for his many hours of volunteer labor and support. I also wish to thank Dan Rawlins and Karen Royce for their help in conducting fieldwork at the site. I wish to thank Martha Otto of the Ohio Historical Society, one of the original investigators of the site, for providing access to the Voss Collections whenever requested and for a welcomed visit to the site during recent excavations. I would like to thank the Ohio Archaeological Council for providing grant money through the Patricia Essenpreis Grant, allowing AMS dating of nutshell samples v recovered during recent excavations. I also wish to thank Rob Cook and William Dancey for their guidance in making the best use of the grant funds. I wish to thank John Hart for entertaining a request from a stranger to date a bean fragment from a reportedly early site. He graciously agreed to analyze and date a bean recovered from Voss according to protocols established during creation of the database of bean dates from sites in the northern Eastern Woodlands. I also wish to thank Kristen Gremillion for her time in initially identifying the bean fragments and David Asch for his analysis, at the request of John Hart, of the bean fragment submitted for dating. I am grateful to Steve Howard and Kristen Gremillion for time spent analyzing the Voss paleoethnobotanical remains recovered during recent excavations. I also wish to thank Anne Lee for her analysis of the faunal material at such short notice. I wish to thank Bill Kennedy, Rob Cook, Jennifer Pederson, Karen Royce, Jarrod Burks, Jeb Bowen, and Ted Sunderhaus for their insights into aspects of the dissertation and fieldwork. I am grateful to Paul Sciulli and Kristen Gremillion for their review of the dissertation document and content. Lastly, I wish to thank my husband, my parents, my brothers and sisters, as well as my extended family for their love and encouragement. vi VITA December 26, 1970………………………Born – Fairview Park, Ohio 1993………………………………………B.S. Economics, The Ohio State University 1999………………………………………M.A. Anthropology, The Ohio State University 1998-2001………………………………..Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University 2002-2006………………………………..Archaeologist Hopewell Culture National Historical Park 2006-present………………………………Curator Hopewell Culture National Historical Park FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Anthropology North American Archaeology - Eastern Woodlands Prehistory vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract............................................................................................................................... ii Dedication……………………...…………………………………………………………iv Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... v Vita ............................................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... xi List of Figures..................................................................................................................xiii Chapters: 1. Introduction............................................................................................................. 1 The Fort Ancient Tradition ..................................................................................... 1 The Voss Site .......................................................................................................... 6 Research Questions................................................................................................. 9 2. Baum Phase and Affiliated Sites: A Discussion of their Spatial and Temporal Extent .................................................................................................................... 12 Origins of Fort Ancient......................................................................................... 13 Models of Fort Ancient in the Scioto, Hocking, and Brush Creek Drainages...... 17 Spatial and Temporal Extent of Baum Series Ceramics....................................... 21 Percentage of Shell-Tempered Sherds as a Temporal Indicator........................... 24 Radiocarbon Dates................................................................................................ 28 3. The Darby Creek Drainage and Past Archaeological Investigation of the Area .. 33 Environmental Setting .......................................................................................... 33 Glacial Geology and Bedrock .......................................................................... 34 viii Physiography.................................................................................................... 35 Soils ................................................................................................................ 36 Flora and Fauna...............................................................................................