- Dept. of Physics & Earth-Space Sciences
University of Indianapolis
1400 E Hanna Ave
Indianapolis, IN 46227 - (317) 788-3534
Christopher Moore
University of Indianapolis, Department of Anthropology, Faculty Member
- Indiana Archaeology Council, Members, Department MemberUniversity of Indianapolis, Archaeology, Faculty Member, and 2 moreadd
- Ceramics (Archaeology), Archaeology of Gender, Anthropology of Shamanism, Hunter-Gatherers (Anthropology), Identity (Anthropology), Ceramic Analysis (Archaeology), and 124 moreBone and Antler, Southeastern Archaic (Archaeology in North America), Origins of Agriculture (Archaeology), Bone Technology (Archaeology), Archaeology, Lithic analysis and organization of technology, Lithics, Mission Period Archaeology, Indiana (Prehistoric Archaeology), Archaeological Theory, Hunters, Fishers and Gatherers' Archaeology, Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology, Southeastern Archaeology (Archaeology in North America), Gender Archaeology, Archaeology, Midwest Archaeology, Ohio Valley, Boundaries (Archaeology), Historical Archaeology, Ancient economies (Archaeology), Material Culture Studies, Culture Contact, Origins of Agriculture, Shamanism, Archaeological Method & Theory, North American (Archaeology), Agency (Archaeological Theory), Archaeological Science, Actor Network Theory (ANT), New Deal Archaeology, Bone and tooth, Fort Ancient (Archaeology), Spanish Colonial Archaeology, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Shell Mound Archaic, Tim Ingold, Animism, Prehistoric Archaeology, Archaeology of shell middens, Sapelo Island, Experimental Archaeology, Death and Burial (Archaeology), Lew Wallace, Contact Period Archaeology, Late Archaic Archaeology, Coastal and Island Archaeology, Green River Archaic, Persistent places, Fishing Gears, Ancient Fishing, Fishing, Fishing in antiquity, Fishing Technology, Ertebølle, Midwestern Archaeology, Social Complexity (Archaeology), Burial Practices (Archaeology), Island archaeology, Dwelling, Space and Place, Conflict Archaeology, Archaeological Fieldwork, Archaeological field survey, Archaeological field Theory, Philosophy of Archaeology, Archaeological field methods, Archaeological Pedagogy, Medieval Spain, Spanish Florida, Spanish Florida (Archaeology), Florida Archaeology, Guale, Florida archeology, Ethnogenesis (archaeology), Woodland (Archaeology in Northeastern North America), Late Woodland (Archaeology in Northeastern North America), Mississippian Societies (Archaeology), Upper Mississippian Societies (Archaeology), Plant domestication (Prehistoric Archaeology), Early Woodland (Archaeology in Northeastern North America), Archaeology of children, LiDAR for Landscape Archaeology, Marxism & Archaeology, Northeastern North America (Archaeology), French Colonial Archaeology, History of Technology, Bone Mechanics, Landscapes in prehistory, Yamasee, Shaman, Archaeology of shamanism, Amerindian Perspectivism, Amerindian Cosmologies, Soils in Archaeology, Flint (Archaeology), Chert Source Provenance Studies, Raw materials (stone and ceramic), Archaeological Education, Georgia (U.S.) Archaeology, Personhood, Philosophy of Anthropology, Social Interaction, Shell middens, Anthropology, Bioarchaeology, Public Archaeology, Dental Anthropology, North American archaeology, Gender Archeology, Fort Ancient Culture, Indiana Chert Types, Liston Creek Chert, Technological Style, Chiggerville Site, Landscape Archaeology, Archaeological GIS, Zooarchaeology, Geoarchaeology, Environmental Archaeology, Lithic Technology, Radiocarbon Dating (Earth Sciences), Lithic Sourcing, Lithic Raw Material Sourcing, Archaeology of Colonialism, and Clay Raw Materials Survey and sourcingedit
- My research interests are diverse but boil down to a desire to understand the social, political, and material co... moreMy research interests are diverse but boil down to a desire to understand the social, political, and material consequences of human interactions. I am currently involved in a number of research endeavors, including the study of Mission period Spanish - Guale interactions on Sapelo Island, Georgia, analysis of Archaic bone and antler technological styles in the Ohio River valley, and the study of the success and failure of early 19th century small towns in northern Indiana.
Since 2005 I have been working with Dr. Richard Jefferies of the University of Kentucky on Sapelo Island, Georgia, where we have been searching for the Mission San Joseph de Sapala. The Sapelo mission was abandoned in 1684 and since that time historians, explorers, and archaeologists have discussed a number of potential locations for the site. Currently, we are working in an area at the north end of the island that has yielded numerous examples of Spanish artifacts and Mission period Guale pottery. My study of the ceramics from the site is geared toward understanding the material consequences of the development of multiethnic communities at mission towns.
Over the past several years, I have been analyzing bone tools from Indiana and Kentucky in an effort to understand variation in bone and antler tool production and use during the Archaic. I am using microscopic analysis of bone and antler tool production techniques (i.e., technological styles) to evaluate the social implications of regional distributions of particular kinds of bone tools. A great deal of variability exists in the ways in which peoples in the Ohio River valley manufactured bone and antler tools through time. Recording and analyzing this variability is helping me interpret diachronic trends in bone and antler tool production and relationships among regionally and/or temporally distinct populations.
Recently, my wife Anne and I began a public archaeology program at the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Lew Wallace was a Civil War general, inventor, and politician, but is most famous for having written the book Ben Hur. Wallace is an important historical figure and an important component of the collective memory of the Crawfordsville community. Our archaeological research is guided by the Museum's needs and is providing the community an opportunity to participate in the rediscovery of aspects of Wallace's life.
In the summer of 2011 I began investigating the town of Xenia in Carroll County, Indiana. Largely abandoned in the 1870s, the town represents a time capsule of the pioneer through early postbellum periods in northern Indiana. The major aim of the research is to investigate how small towns in northern Indiana were connected (or not) with larger communities and how these connections change as regional populations grew and economic opportunities expanded. I am also concerned with understanding the conditions by which some small communities have maintained their distinct identities while many others have since disappeared.edit
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
A nuanced understanding of the western Kentucky Green River Archaic requires reconciling the region’s rich archaeological record with the growing literature pertaining to how hunter-gatherers perceive their worlds. A dwelling perspective... more
A nuanced understanding of the western Kentucky Green River Archaic requires reconciling the region’s rich archaeological record with the growing literature pertaining to how hunter-gatherers perceive their worlds. A dwelling perspective of the Green River Archaic involves interpreting the region’s large middens as components of animated lifeworlds saturated with meaning and composed of numerous constantly maintained relationships among people and between people and various other beings. This article explores how Green River Archaic hunter-gatherers constructed the middens through daily practices and periodic emotionally charged mortuary rites, thereby giving them meaning as persistent places and contributing to an ever-evolving, historically constituted landscape.
Research Interests: History, Geography, Archaeology, Anthropology, Landscape Archaeology, and 11 moreSpace and Place, Ecology, Social Archaeology, Archaeology of Ritual and Magic, Animism, Tim Ingold, Late Archaic Archaeology, Persistent places, Shell Mound Archaeology, Anthropology of Religion, and Green River Archaic
For the past 10 years, the Sapelo Island Mission Period Archaeological Project (SIMPAP) has been surveying and testing the site of the Mission San Joseph de Sapala on Sapelo Island, Georgia. Over this time we have learned a great deal... more
For the past 10 years, the Sapelo Island Mission Period Archaeological Project (SIMPAP) has been surveying and testing the site of the Mission San Joseph de Sapala on Sapelo Island, Georgia. Over this time we have learned a great deal about the site’s Guale Indian and Spanish inhabitants. Among the most interesting contexts investigated is a Spanish structure with a likely military function. Architectural and other features associated with the structure yielded a relatively high frequency of Euroamerican ceramics and porcelain, and the areas in and around the structure have yielded the majority of the site’s military hardware. In this paper we investigate the possibility that this structure was occupied by a high-status Spanish officer, perhaps the captain of the island’s military garrison.
Research Interests:
Beginning in the late 16th century, Franciscan brothers established missions among the Guale and a number of other indigenous groups living along the Georgia coast. Mission San Joseph de Sapala, located in the Guale town of Sapala on... more
Beginning in the late 16th century, Franciscan brothers established missions among the Guale and a number of other indigenous groups living along the Georgia coast. Mission San Joseph de Sapala, located in the Guale town of Sapala on Sapelo Island, was the last of the missions in Guale Province to be abandoned. Between 1661 and 1684, Sapelo Island served as an aggregation point for mainland and island Guale communities displaced by English-backed Native American slave raids. By the 1680s, refugees from at least four different Guale towns crowded onto Sapelo Island, including much of the population from Santa Catalina de Guale, the former capital of Guale Province. Ongoing archaeological investigations strongly suggest that the town of Sapala and its mission were located on the island’s north end. This paper summarizes the results of 10 years of archaeological investigations and historical research designed to determine the location, size, and organization of this community and assess the extent and intensity of interaction between the Guale and the small number of Franciscans and Spanish soldiers who occupied this island setting.
Research Interests:
Deer, fish, turkeys and other mobile animal species were central to Middle Archaic lifeways. Not only were these animals major contributors to Middle Archaic diets, they also provided the sources for the clothing, tools, ritual objects... more
Deer, fish, turkeys and other mobile animal species were central to Middle Archaic lifeways. Not only were these animals major contributors to Middle Archaic diets, they also provided the sources for the clothing, tools, ritual objects and other products of material culture that structured and facilitated Middle Archaic life. While on the surface the Middle Archaic archaeological record may appear to indicate a culture of exploitation, decades of hunter-gatherer ethnography indicate a more likely scenario of mutual entanglements between Archaic peoples and the animals they hunted and trapped. In this paper we engage Middle Archaic material culture and hunter-gatherer ethnography to draft a narrative of Middle Archaic human-animal relations and provide a plausible “day-in-the-life” scenario illustrating these processes.
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Archaic period studies in Eastern North America typically address resource availability and abundance in environmental terms. Patches or ecotones are considered resource rich if they exhibit a high diversity of available resources or... more
Archaic period studies in Eastern North America typically address resource availability and abundance in environmental terms. Patches or ecotones are considered resource rich if they exhibit a high diversity of available resources or relatively high yields of particularly productive resources. Explanations of Archaic settlement patterns often juxtapose these ‘rich’ zones with areas characterized by fewer or less diverse (i.e., scarcer) resources, arguing that hunter-gatherers were either pushed out of these zones or pulled toward the resource rich zones by changing climatic conditions. In this paper we examine hunter-gatherer sites in and around the lower Ohio River valley and argue that the material and biocultural records of Archaic peoples in this region indicate healthy populations and little to no evidence of scarcity in either subsistence resources or material goods. Rather, hunter-gatherers appear to be well stocked with abundant foodstuffs, raw materials, and tools. Contrasting the assumption of scarcity common in many Archaic period studies, this paper adopts a dwelling perspective and examines the degree to which Archaic hunter-gatherers in the lower Ohio valley experienced a ‘giving environment’ and how this interpretation of the Archaic lifeworld contributes to more nuanced understandings of site use, health, and artifact distribution patterns.
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The Firehouse site (12D563) is a Terminal Archaic Riverton culture site located on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the Ohio and Great Miami Rivers in Dearborn County, Indiana. Excavations at the site in 2003 and 2004 yielded a... more
The Firehouse site (12D563) is a Terminal Archaic Riverton culture site located on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the Ohio and Great Miami Rivers in Dearborn County, Indiana. Excavations at the site in 2003 and 2004 yielded a highly diverse assemblage of around 300 bone and antler implements. Such large assemblages of organic tools are rare outside of wet sites, rockshelters, and shell middens and provide a unique opportunity for the study of tool forms not typically recovered in the Midwest. A typological analysis of the Firehouse assemblage indicates some similarities between these tools and Riverton culture bone and antler implements from the type sites in Illinois. Additionally, a microscopic analysis of manufacturing microtraces indicates that most tools were made using a lithic shaving (rather than an abrasion) technique.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Archaeologists have been aware of the presence of a significant Fort Ancient occupation in southeastern Indiana since Warren K. Moorehead’s excavation of a burial mound at the Laughery Creek site (12O18) in Ohio County in 1897.... more
Archaeologists have been aware of the presence of a significant Fort Ancient occupation in southeastern Indiana since Warren K. Moorehead’s excavation of a burial mound at the Laughery Creek site (12O18) in Ohio County in 1897. Investigations in Dearborn and Ohio counties by Glenn A. Black in the early 1930s confirmed the Fort Ancient affiliation of this site and made the archaeological community aware of such important villages as Haag, State Line, Guard, and Laughery Creek. Aside from excavations at Haag in the 1970s, professional investigations of the region’s Fort Ancient sites have been limited to surveys and small-scale cultural resource management mitigations. While Fort Ancient research has expanded rapidly in Kentucky and Ohio, our knowledge of comparable groups in southeastern Indiana has remained limited. The purpose of this paper is to summarize what information is available pertaining to non-Oliver Fort Ancient groups in southeastern Indiana as a means of facilitating future research into this important component of Indiana prehistory.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
A nuanced understanding of the western Kentucky Green River Archaic requires reconciling the region’s rich archaeological record with the growing literature pertaining to how hunter-gatherers perceive their worlds. A dwelling... more
A nuanced understanding of the western Kentucky Green River Archaic requires reconciling
the region’s rich archaeological record with the growing literature pertaining to
how hunter-gatherers perceive their worlds. A dwelling perspective of the Green River
Archaic involves interpreting the region’s large middens as components of animated
lifeworlds saturated with meaning and composed of numerous constantly maintained
relationships among people and between people and various other beings. This article
explores how Green River Archaic hunter-gatherers constructed the middens through
daily practices and periodic emotionally charged mortuary rites, thereby giving them
meaning as persistent places and contributing to an ever-evolving, historically constituted
landscape.
the region’s rich archaeological record with the growing literature pertaining to
how hunter-gatherers perceive their worlds. A dwelling perspective of the Green River
Archaic involves interpreting the region’s large middens as components of animated
lifeworlds saturated with meaning and composed of numerous constantly maintained
relationships among people and between people and various other beings. This article
explores how Green River Archaic hunter-gatherers constructed the middens through
daily practices and periodic emotionally charged mortuary rites, thereby giving them
meaning as persistent places and contributing to an ever-evolving, historically constituted
landscape.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Archaeologists have been aware of the presence of a significant Fort Ancient occupation in southeastern Indiana since Warren K. Moorehead‘s excavation of a burial mound at the Laughery Creek site (12O18) in Ohio County in 1897 (Moorehead... more
Archaeologists have been aware of the presence of a significant Fort Ancient occupation in southeastern Indiana since Warren K. Moorehead‘s excavation of a burial mound at the Laughery Creek site (12O18) in Ohio County in 1897 (Moorehead 1906). Investigations in Dearborn and Ohio counties by Glenn A. Black in the early 1930s confirmed the Fort Ancient affiliation of this site and made the archaeological community aware of such important villages as Haag, State Line, Guard, and Laughery Creek (Black 1934). Aside from excavations at Haag in the 1970s (e.g., Reidhead and Limp 1974), professional investigations of the region‘s Fort Ancient sites have been limited to surveys and small-scale cultural resource management mitigations. While Fort Ancient research has expanded rapidly in Kentucky and Ohio, our knowledge of comparable groups in southeastern Indiana has remained limited. The purpose of this article is to summarize what information is available pertaining to non-Oliver Fort Ancient groups in southeastern Indiana as a means of facilitating future research into this important component of Indiana prehistory.
Research Interests:
Employing a dwelling perspective, this paper reinterprets the adoption of horticulture during the terminal Late Archaic in eastern North America as an unintended consequence of changing human-animal-plant relations and the invention of... more
Employing a dwelling perspective, this paper reinterprets the adoption of horticulture during the terminal Late Archaic in eastern North America as an unintended consequence of changing human-animal-plant relations and the invention of bulk processing techniques during the Middle and Late Archaic. The incorporation of immobile plant and animal species into the lifeworlds of Archaic individuals by 7000 BP was part of a dynamic series of changes that greatly altered the taskscapes of these hunter-gatherers. The activities characteristic of these new taskscapes were group oriented and included the bulk processing of nuts and mussels to buffer against risk of winter food shortages. Changing social relations during the terminal Late Archaic dissociated certain groups from important riverine resources; however, the adoption of bulk wild-food-processing techniques provided a technological foundation for the replacement of aquatic immobile resources with upland garden crops, leading to the advent of a stable upland horticultural complex.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Archaeology, Anthropology, Historical Archaeology, Colonialism, Mission Studies, and 10 moreNorth American archaeology, Coastal and Island Archaeology, Spanish archaeology, Southeastern Archaeology (Archaeology in North America), Spanish Colonial Archaeology, Mission Period Archaeology, Sapelo Island, Archaeology of Colonialism, Georgia (U.S.) Archaeology, and Archeology
White light confocal microscopy creates detailed 3D representations of microsurfaces that can be qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. The study describes its application to the analysis of cut marks on bone, particularly when... more
White light confocal microscopy creates detailed 3D representations of microsurfaces that can be qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. The study describes its application to the analysis of cut marks on bone, particularly when discerning cuts made by steel tools from those made by stone. The process described comes from a study where cuts were manually made on a cow rib with seven cutting tools, four stone (an unmodified chert flake, a chert biface, a bifacially ground slate fragment, and an unsharpened piece of slate), and three steel (a Swiss Army Knife, a serrate steak knife, and a serrate saw). Kerfs were magnified ×20 and 3D data clouds were generated using a Sensofar® White Light Confocal Profiler (WLCP). Kerf profiles and surface areas, volumes, mean depths, and maximum depths were calculated with proprietary software (SensoScan® and SolarMap®). For the most part, the stone tools make shallower and wider cuts. Kerf floors can be studied at higher magnifications; they were viewed at ×100. When comparing the kerf floors of the unsharpened slate and the serrate steak knife it was found that the slate floor was more uneven, but the serrate steak knife generated more overall relief. Although preliminary, the approach described here successfully distinguishes stone and steel tools; the authors conclude that the WLCP is a promising technology for cut mark analysis because of the very detailed 3D representations it creates and the numerous avenues of analysis it provides.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
A nuanced understanding of the western Kentucky Green River Archaic requires reconciling the region’s rich archaeological record with the growing literature pertaining to how hunter-gatherers perceive their worlds. A dwelling perspective... more
A nuanced understanding of the western Kentucky Green River Archaic requires reconciling the region’s rich archaeological record with the growing literature pertaining to how hunter-gatherers perceive their worlds. A dwelling perspective of the Green River Archaic involves interpreting the region’s large middens as components of animated lifeworlds saturated with meaning and composed of numerous constantly maintained relationships among people and between people and various other beings. This paper explores how Green River Archaic hunter-gatherers constructed the middens through daily practices and periodic emotionally charged mortuary rites, thereby giving them meaning as persistent places and contributing to an ever-evolving, historically constituted landscape.
Research Interests:
Archaeological investigations at Site 9Mc23 on Sapelo Island, Georgia have uncovered evidence that this location is the site of the 17th century Mission San Joseph de Sapala. A history of the mission and its Guale inhabitants is followed... more
Archaeological investigations at Site 9Mc23 on Sapelo Island, Georgia have uncovered evidence that this location is the site of the 17th century Mission San Joseph de Sapala. A history of the mission and its Guale inhabitants is followed by descriptions of site excavations and artifacts recovered.
Research Interests:
This paper presents an analysis of a small sample (n = 360) of diagnostic hafted bifaces from southern Carroll County, Indiana. Placed within a regional framework and rooted in hunter-gatherer theory, the results of this analysis offer... more
This paper presents an analysis of a small sample (n = 360) of diagnostic hafted bifaces from southern Carroll County, Indiana. Placed within a regional framework and rooted in hunter-gatherer theory, the results of this analysis offer some important insights into diachronic patterns of chert utilization in this region. Although the usage of Attica, Kenneth, and Wyandotte cherts is the specific subject of this study, other chert types are also discussed. In addition, examination of patterns of chert utilization by projectile point cluster offers support for established models of settlement and exchange through time and presents new problems to be addressed by future archaeological investigations. Insights provided by hunter-gatherer theory and recent studies of hunter-gatherer social organization and home ranges in Eastern North America suggest that the patterns identified herein and in other similar studies are the result of several interacting social and economic variables (e.g., exchange, mobility) that operated at various scales and durations throughout prehistory.
Research Interests:
A literature review indicates that many Paleoindian and Early Archaic bone, antler, and ivory implements have been recovered from sites across North America. Unfortunately, few of these early organic objects have been described with the... more
A literature review indicates that many Paleoindian and Early Archaic bone, antler, and ivory implements have been recovered from sites across North America. Unfortunately, few of these early organic objects have been described with the detail necessary for comparative analyses of tool functions and manufacturing trajectories. This paper represents an attempt to stimulate the reporting of such detailed microtrace data by presenting the results of a study of a transitional Paleoindian/Early Archaic bone pointed implement from the Flora Mastodon site in Carroll County, Indiana. Given appropriate attention, organic implements can provide a more than adequate means of developing and testing hypotheses concerning prehistoric technological organization, social interaction, and settlement distributions.
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The identification of Dalton cluster projectile points in the WPA Chiggerville stone tool assemblage suggests that Paleoindian projectile points are more common at Green River shell middens than commonly thought.
Research Interests:
In order to provide a clearer picture of the availability of chert raw material resources in glaciated north-central Indiana, the author collected chert cobbles from three gravel bars along a short stretch of the Wildcat Creek in southern... more
In order to provide a clearer picture of the availability of chert raw material resources in glaciated north-central Indiana, the author collected chert cobbles from three gravel bars along a short stretch of the Wildcat Creek in southern Carroll County. As a result, 6032 grams of workable Kenneth, Liston Creek, and other unidentified glacial cherts (some of high quality) were recovered from these gravel bars. In addition, the author was able to locate Kenneth and other glacial cherts eroding from poorly sorted till deposits located upstream from the collection sites. This would seem to indicate that glaciated landscapes lacking bedrock outcrops are not characterized by a dearth of chert raw material. Furthermore, prehistoric trade and mobility models that are based on raw material types recovered from sites in the area may need to be reconceptualized in light of the fact that many, if not all, of these cherts may be locally available in the glacial till. Archaeologists attempting to interpret prehistoric settlement and subsistence patterns in glaciated landscapes, therefore, need to be cognizant of local resource availability in the form of gravel and till deposits and to incorporate these underappreciated resources into their models.
Research Interests:
Manufacturing trajectories represent a series of choices made by artisans in the process of transforming a raw material into a useful object. In some cases these choices explicitly communicate a message; in others, patterned behaviors may... more
Manufacturing trajectories represent a series of choices made by artisans in the process of transforming a raw material into a useful object. In some cases these choices explicitly communicate a message; in others, patterned behaviors may result in a kind of technological style that can be used to make inferences about the manufacturer’s identities. Investigation of bone tools from the Chiggerville, Read, and Baker sites in the Green River region of western Kentucky has resulted in the identification of four distinct methods of manufacturing single-piece fishhooks. Additionally, small pointed implements may represent the barbs of composite fishhooks, indicating the use of a technologically distinct fifth style. These fishhook types are interpreted as evidence for the movement of individuals throughout the Midsouth in the process of social interaction and exchange and support the hypothesis that Shell Mound Archaic groups in western Kentucky were complex hunter-gatherers.
Research Interests: Archaeology, Social Interaction, Hunters, Fishers and Gatherers' Archaeology, Southeastern Archaeology (Archaeology in North America), Fishing Gears, and 11 moreBone Technology (Archaeology), Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology, Archaeology of shell middens, Fishing in antiquity, Fishing, Late Archaic Archaeology, Ancient Fishing, Shell Mound Archaic, Fishing Technology, Shell middens, and Green River Archaic
"Employing a dwelling perspective, this paper reinterprets the adoption of horticulture during the terminal Late Archaic in eastern North America as an unintended consequence of changing humananimal-plant relations and the invention of... more
"Employing a dwelling perspective, this paper reinterprets the adoption of horticulture during the terminal Late Archaic in eastern North America as an unintended consequence of changing humananimal-plant relations and the invention of bulk processing techniques during the Middle and Late Archaic. The incorporation of immobile plant and animal species into the lifeworlds of Archaic individuals by 7000 BP was part of a dynamic series of changes that greatly altered the taskscapes of these hunter-gatherers. The activities characteristic of these new taskscapes were group oriented and included the bulk processing of nuts and mussels to buffer against risk of winter food shortages. Changing social relations during the terminal Late Archaic dissociated certain groups from important riverine resources; however, the adoption of bulk wild-food-processing techniques provided a technological foundation for the replacement of aquatic immobile resources with upland
garden crops, leading to the advent of a stable upland horticultural complex."
garden crops, leading to the advent of a stable upland horticultural complex."
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
According to local folklore, the House of Blue Lights was more than just the home of an eccentric millionaire; it was also the final resting place of his wife. When the man's beloved wife died, he could not bear the thought of burying... more
According to local folklore, the House of Blue Lights was more than just the home of an eccentric millionaire; it was also the final resting place of his wife. When the man's beloved wife died, he could not bear the thought of burying her. Instead, he had her embalmed and placed inside a glass coffin which he kept inside the house. The coffin and the property were surrounded by blue lights as blue was the deceased woman's favorite color. People who snuck onto the property were said to possibly encounter more than a glass coffin; they might also meet her ghost.
Research Interests:
Local folklore surrounds the House of Blue Lights, the estate of Indianapolis millionaire, Skiles Test. As an archaeological tool, spatial analysis illustrates human behavioral patterns through recorded GPS coordinates of in situ... more
Local folklore surrounds the House of Blue Lights, the estate of Indianapolis millionaire, Skiles Test. As an archaeological tool, spatial analysis illustrates human behavioral patterns through recorded GPS coordinates of in situ artifacts, which define a site’s overall structure. We used spatial analysis to overlay GPS coordinates of artifacts onto a geographical memory map, as well as historical, aerial photographs of the site. A memory map was constructed to define these points and associate them with the original and documented structures of Skiles Test’s land. GPS points from pedestrian surveys were taken from living areas around the main house, garage, and swimming pool. By preserving the remaining artifacts and creating digital representations of this historical site, we are able to preserve more than the physical, allowing public interest and local legend continue.
Research Interests:
For the past 10 years, the Sapelo Island Mission Period Archaeological Project (SIMPAP) has been surveying and testing the site of the Mission San Joseph de Sapala on Sapelo Island, Georgia. Over this time we have learned a great deal... more
For the past 10 years, the Sapelo Island Mission Period Archaeological Project (SIMPAP) has been surveying and testing the site of the Mission San Joseph de Sapala on Sapelo Island, Georgia. Over this time we have learned a great deal about the site's Guale Indian and Spanish inhabitants. Among the most interesting contexts investigated is a Spanish structure with a likely military function. Architectural and other features associated with the structure yielded a relatively high frequency of Euroamerican ceramics and porcelain, and the areas in and around the structure have yielded the majority of the site's military hardware. In this paper we investigate the possibility that this structure was occupied by a high-status Spanish officer, perhaps the captain of the island's military garrison.
Research Interests: Archaeology, Anthropology, Historical Archaeology, Southeastern Archaeology (Archaeology in North America), Spanish Florida (Archaeology), and 14 moreMilitary Archaeology, Southeastern Archaeology, Archaeology of Southeastern United States, Historical archeology, Sapelo Island, Spanish period Mission studies, Spanish missions, Florida Spanish Missions, Georgia Spanish Missions, Georgia (U.S.) Archaeology, Spanish Colonial Missions, Archaeology of the Southeastern U.S, Southeastern US Archaeology, and Historical Archaeology
Poor preservation usually precludes the recovery of bone and antler tools at most Midwestern archaeological sites; however, these kinds of organic implements are common at rockshelters and shell middens. When they are recovered, analysis... more
Poor preservation usually precludes the recovery of bone and antler tools at most Midwestern archaeological sites; however, these kinds of organic implements are common at rockshelters and shell middens. When they are recovered, analysis is often limited to simple morphofunctional classification based on typologies developed in the 1930s and 40s. Detailed studies of large bone tool assemblages illustrate the utility of more rigorous analyses of these under-appreciated artifact types. In this paper I will illustrate and discuss common bone and antler tool types recovered from Archaic sites in the Midcontinent and outline some basic kinds of descriptive analyses that can be performed to help build a database of bone and antler tool variability. I will also discuss some of the pitfalls of facile morphofunctional classifications and promote a standardized approach to basic descriptive analysis.
Research Interests:
For the past 10 years, the Sapelo Island Mission Period Archaeological Project (SIMPAP) has been surveying and testing the site of the Mission San Joseph de Sapala on Sapelo Island, Georgia. Over this time we have learned a great deal... more
For the past 10 years, the Sapelo Island Mission Period Archaeological Project (SIMPAP) has been surveying and testing the site of the Mission San Joseph de Sapala on Sapelo Island, Georgia. Over this time we have learned a great deal about the site’s Guale Indian and Spanish inhabitants. Among the most interesting contexts investigated is a Spanish structure with a likely military function. Architectural and other features associated with the structure yielded a relatively high frequency of Euroamerican ceramics and porcelain, and the areas in and around the structure have yielded the majority of the site’s military hardware. In this paper we investigate the possibility that this structure was occupied by a high-status Spanish officer, perhaps the captain of the island’s military garrison.
Research Interests:
While Anderson ceramic assemblages from Fort Ancient sites in southwestern Ohio have been thoroughly examined and discussed in the literature, ceramics from contemporary sites along the southern and western periphery of the Anderson... more
While Anderson ceramic assemblages from Fort Ancient sites in southwestern Ohio have been thoroughly examined and discussed in the literature, ceramics from contemporary sites along the southern and western periphery of the Anderson tradition in Indiana and Kentucky have received less attention. In this paper we describe and compare the Site 12D123 assemblage with four other Anderson ceramic assemblages from Dearborn County, Indiana and one from across the Ohio River in Boone County, Kentucky. While no chronometric dates are available for Site 12D123, radiocarbon dates are available from the Boone County site and most of the Dearborn County sites allowing an evaluation of the relative chronological position of Site 12D123 through detailed ceramic attribute analysis. When considered with chronometric dates and settlement patterns, ceramic attribute analyses extend ceramic studies beyond their traditional chronology building roles and permit analysts to evaluate temporally microscalar activities like village relocation practices and identity formation.
Research Interests:
We are currently in the process of developing an online guide to Midwestern ceramics with broad public and professional utility. In this paper we outline our vision for the website, illustrate this vision with a mock-up, and provide short... more
We are currently in the process of developing an online guide to Midwestern ceramics with broad public and professional utility. In this paper we outline our vision for the website, illustrate this vision with a mock-up, and provide short discussions of the information that will be made available on the site. The site will be searchable and will showcase ceramic types and variability using full descriptions as well as 2D and 3D images. Entries for each type will include full citations of original type descriptions and substantive studies of the types, while user-generated content will permit researchers to add raw data from completed analyses and descriptions of new types to the database. We illustrate the site’s potential using the type Yankeetown Incised.
Research Interests:
The last few years have witnessed an upsurge in literature on shamanic practices among native North Americans. Archaeological studies have cited evidence of shamans in a variety of contexts dating from the Late Archaic to Contact, and... more
The last few years have witnessed an upsurge in literature on shamanic practices among native North Americans. Archaeological studies have cited evidence of shamans in a variety of contexts dating from the Late Archaic to Contact, and detailed ethnographic and ethnohistoric research is continuing to provide middle range linking arguments for interpreting the residues of shamanic practices. This paper provides a preliminary evaluation of the evidence for shamanic activities during the Middle to Late Archaic along the Green River, as well as suggestions for how this research can be augmented by future investigations.
Research Interests: Archaeology, Anthropology, Shamanism, Southeastern Archaeology (Archaeology in North America), Anthropology of Shamanism, and 9 moreAnimism, Amerindian Perspectivism, Archaeology of shell middens, Late Archaic Archaeology, Archaeology of shamanism, Shell middens, Midwestern Archaeology, Archeaology, shell middens, and Green River Archaic
Archaic shell middens like those located along the Green River in western Kentucky are well known for their large assemblages of well preserved bone and antler tools. Included in these assemblages are numerous bone fishhooks and fishhook... more
Archaic shell middens like those located along the Green River in western Kentucky are well known for their large assemblages of well preserved bone and antler tools. Included in these assemblages are numerous bone fishhooks and fishhook production debitage indicative of several manufacturing strategies. In his 1950 report on the Carlston Annis site, William Webb addressed some of this variability, attributing it to diachronic changes in fishhook manufacturing techniques. My recent reanalysis of fishhooks from the Chiggerville, Read, and Baker sites suggests that Webb’s temporal hypothesis is in need of revision and that the distribution of various fishhook manufacturing types across the Mid-South provides evidence for increased cultural complexity during the Middle to Late Archaic. Additional testing of Webb’s hypothesis requires a broader scale of analysis. This paper provides the preliminary results of a literature review that is beginning to piece together changing trends in fishhook manufacturing in eastern North American prehistory.
Research Interests: Archaeology, Bone and Antler, Southeastern Archaeology (Archaeology in North America), Fishing Gears, Bone Technology (Archaeology), and 10 moreArchaeology of shell middens, Fishing in antiquity, Fishing, Late Archaic Archaeology, Ancient Fishing, Bone Tools, Fishing Technology, Shell middens, Ivory and bone technology, and Green River Archaic
The Chiggerville site, 15Oh1, is a late Middle to Late Archaic shell midden located within the floodplain of the Green River in Ohio County, Kentucky. Major excavations at the site were conducted in 1938 but, like many of the smaller... more
The Chiggerville site, 15Oh1, is a late Middle to Late Archaic shell midden located within the floodplain of the Green River in Ohio County, Kentucky. Major excavations at the site were conducted in 1938 but, like many of the smaller Green River shell middens, the curated materials from Chiggerville have received little attention from subsequent researchers. Reanalysis of the hafted bifaces from Chiggerville indicates the assemblage consists predominately of Late Archaic stemmed forms resembling various established types including those of the Saratoga, Rowlett/McWhinney, and Pickwick/Ledbetter varieties. The purpose of this paper is to characterize the hafted bifaces from Chiggerville in order to better position the site within a spatio-temporal framework of Midwestern and Mid-southern culture history.
Research Interests:
Test excavations at the Middle Archaic Baker and Late Archaic Chiggerville shell midden sites in western Kentucky confirm previous observations that chipped stone tool production debitage occurs at these sites in relatively low... more
Test excavations at the Middle Archaic Baker and Late Archaic Chiggerville shell midden sites in western Kentucky confirm previous observations that chipped stone tool production debitage occurs at these sites in relatively low frequencies. Analysis of debitage present in soil flotation heavy fractions indicates that most flakes at these sites are too small to be recovered by standard 1/4 inch mesh recovery techniques. Comparisons of relative frequencies of debitage of various size classes indicate significant differences between the two assemblages that may relate to temporal, organizational, or site use differences. Comparative studies such as this one have important implications for how archaeologists interpret shell midden sites and incorporate data from these sites into regional syntheses.
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The middle Green River region of western Kentucky is one of the best documented but most misunderstood archaeological regions in eastern North America. Despite 100 years of study, most researchers continue to perceive the Green River... more
The middle Green River region of western Kentucky is one of the best documented but most misunderstood archaeological regions in eastern North America. Despite 100 years of study, most researchers continue to perceive the Green River Shell Mound Archaic as a homogeneous cultural entity. A closer inspection, however, reveals a much more complicated picture of changing technologies, social institutions, and interpersonal relations leading to a more complex form of social organization. In this paper, I place the Green River Archaic within a diachronic framework in order to provide a perspective on these groups that better contextualizes these changes through time.
Research Interests:
The Firehouse site is a Terminal Archaic Riverton culture site located on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the Ohio and Great Miami Rivers in Dearborn County, Indiana. Excavations at the site in 2003 and 2004 yielded a highly... more
The Firehouse site is a Terminal Archaic Riverton culture site located on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the Ohio and Great Miami Rivers in Dearborn County, Indiana. Excavations at the site in 2003 and 2004 yielded a highly diverse assemblage of around 300 bone and antler implements. Such large assemblages of organic tools are rare outside of wet sites, rockshelters, and shell middens and provide a unique opportunity for study of tool forms that are not typically recovered in the Midwest. A typological analysis of the Firehouse assemblage indicates some similarities between these tools and Riverton culture bone and antler implements from the type sites in Illinois. Additionally, a microscopic analysis of manufacturing microtrace permits comparison of bone and antler tool manufacturing strategies at Firehouse and the Baker and Chiggerville shell middens from the Green River region of western Kentucky.
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Approximately 1350 bone and antler tools were recovered by Works Progress Administration crews working at the Chiggerville site in Ohio County, Kentucky. Published in 1939 as the first of William S. Webb’s reports on the Shell Mound... more
Approximately 1350 bone and antler tools were recovered by Works Progress Administration crews working at the Chiggerville site in Ohio County, Kentucky. Published in 1939 as the first of William S. Webb’s reports on the Shell Mound Archaic, Chiggerville materials have seen little study since the 1940s. In this paper I will revisit these bone and antler tools using a technological perspective, which will emphasize the material evidence for the production of select kinds of tools at the site. Descriptions and counts of all tool types will be provided and hypothesized manufacturing trajectories of select tools will be illustrated and discussed.
Research Interests:
During the spring and early summer of 2006, Landmark Archaeological and Environmental Services, Inc. conducted salvage excavations at 12D123, a Middle Fort Ancient Anderson Phase site in Dearborn County, Indiana. Although archaeological... more
During the spring and early summer of 2006, Landmark Archaeological and Environmental Services, Inc. conducted salvage excavations at 12D123, a Middle Fort Ancient Anderson Phase site in Dearborn County, Indiana. Although archaeological investigations were restricted to surface survey and excavation of a small portion of exposed midden and a single feature, a total of 270 analyzable sherds and numerous lithic tools were recovered. Analysis of these materials suggests that site 12D123 may represent a relatively undisturbed component related to the Middle Fort Ancient occupations at the Petersburg site, located across the Ohio River in Boone County, Kentucky. Comparisons of 12D123 with other Middle Fort Ancient sites in the region are presented.
