Jacqueline Pozza Reisner

This thesis explores Oneota use of native copper in the Lake Koshkonong locality between A.D. 1100 and 1400. Over 600 pieces of Oneota copper artifacts originating from four sites were documented and analyzed in order to investigate distribution, production, utilization, and the ideological and social significance behind this raw material. The artifacts analyzed for this study were recovered from Oneota sites adjacent to Lake Koshkonong in Jefferson County, Wisconsin: Crabapple Point (47JE93), Schmeling (47JE833), Koshkonong Creek Village (47JE379), and Crescent Bay Hunt Club (47JE904). These assemblages primarily included awls, beads, pendants, and fragmented material. The data set also includes unique items, such as adzes and a copper mace.
Data collected through this project supported multiple conclusions surrounding Lake Koshkonong Oneota copper use. Manufacturing marks on beads provide arguments for multiple manufacturing traditions in the area. The use-wear observed on awls both support and question previous assumptions of their use. Additionally, the distribution of these artifacts among the sites and the iconographic symbols present among the collections suggest larger ideological and social significance of copper within Oneota groups. It also appears that the Lake Koshkonong locality has a prolonged tradition of metalworking that extends from Archaic to Historic period, implying a cultural association with metal production and the physical setting of these sites. Overall, these conclusions suggest that the Oneota viewed copper as a prestige good. These valued items both established and reaffirmed social order and legitimized the ideological, economic, military, and political power of certain individuals or kin groups living along the northwest shores of Lake Koshkonong at this time.

Over 600 pieces of Oneota copper artifacts were documented and analyzed over the course of the past year in order to assess copper production, utilization, and the ideological and social significance behind this raw material. Artifacts from this study were recovered from four Oneota sites adjacent to Lake Koshkonong in Jefferson County, Wisconsin: Crabapple Point (47Je93), Schmeling (47Je833), Koshkonong Creek Village (47Je379), and Crescent Bay Hunt Club (47Je904). Manufacturing marks and use wear on these artifacts provide arguments for multiple manufacturing traditions in the area and calls into questions our previous assumptions of their technical utility. Additionally, the distribution of these artifacts and the iconographic symbols present among the collections suggest larger ideological and social significance of copper within Oneota groups. Overall, this research presents standardized methods for future Oneota copper studies and a wealth of information that further illuminates prehistoric copper traditions and Oneota lifeways.

The 2015 WHM summer exhibit interns were charged with creating an exhibit about contemporary Native Americans of Wisconsin. Initially, they desired to collaborate with Native groups, but felt that it would be impossible due to a short two-month timeline. After overcoming initial doubts, the interns reached out to Oneida artist Karen Ann Hoffman and Menominee Cultural Representative Michael Hoffman, which lead to a day trip to meet with them in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

The trip and continued correspondence gave the interns a renewed sense of inspiration and influenced drastic improvements to the tone, point of view, and content of the exhibit. The brief and inexpensive collaborations between WHM interns and Native representatives are testimony to the ease in which museum professionals can include cultural communities in exhibit creation and enjoy the benefits of such partnerships.

One serpentine pendant, two rolled beads, and three fragments comprise the copper assemblage of the 2012 and 2014 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee excavations of the Oneota occupation (AD 1000 to 1400) at Koshkonong Creek Village site (KCV). The violent social environment during the Oneota occupation of KCV resulted in restricted access to resources and tribalization of cultural groups. The scarcity of copper at KCV and the ideological power of this raw material suggests that these personal adornments had the potential to be used by individuals to display and reiterate their power within the community during an era of intensifying social stratification.

Archaeological collections of many institutions have not been reexamined since their excavation and are still housed in their original field bags. This state of limited documentation and improper storage restricts the accessibility of these collections, causing researchers to be hesitant of their use. Recently, there have been efforts to inventory and re-house these objects to improve accessibility. In implementing an inventory and re-housal project, archaeological theory and research methods should be understood and incorporated in order to create collection management practices that are conducive to access and research.

The archaeological collection at the University of Wisconsin-Madison originating from the 1956 salvage excavations in Mobridge, South Dakota was in this inaccessible and deteriorating condition. In the summer of 2014, the South Dakota Archaeological Rehousing Project aimed to implement current collections management methods to improve the accessibility and preservation of this collection. By understanding archaeological theory and methodology, collections management methods that facilitate archaeological research could be generated and implemented. These methods included organization of the collection according to archaeological priorities (provenience and material culture), dividing and grouping objects for probable loans (diagnostics versus non-diagnostics), and creating a database that uses archaeological terminology and statistics common in artifact analysis. The Mobridge collection was also transferred from its original, corrosive storage (acidic field bags) to archival materials that meet current standards (polyethylene bags, pH-neutral blueboard and coroplast boxes). This project is an example of modern archaeological collections management that is being or can be implemented to improve accessibility and preservation of these artifacts.

Presented to the University of Wisconsin Department of Anthropology Course 696: Museum Methods of Anthropological Collections. This presentation covers the original state of the United States Corps of Army Engineers collection from Mobridge, South Dakota stored in UW-Madison's Department of Anthropology Collections [note: this collection has since been moved to the South Dakota Archaeological Research Center], some of the materials that were part of the collection, the process of documenting and rehousing over 50,000 artifacts, and the final condition of the rehabilitated collection.

The Old Copper Complex and its hefty, utilitarian, copper artifacts have been a focus of North American archaeological research for almost a century. The Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) holds the largest collection of Old Copper Complex material culture, including a copper crescent with unique provenience. Previous research has indicated that Archaic exportation of Old Copper Complex copper tools extended as far south as St. Louis, however the MPM crescent was unearthed near Chattanooga, Tennessee. While Archaic trade routes crisscrossed North America, the presence of Old Copper Complex material culture is extremely rare to the archaeological record of Tennessee. Burials at Old Copper Complex and Late Archaic Tennessee sites have included copper from the Lake Superior area and marine shell from the Gulf Coast, which indicates that these social groups were involved in similar trade routes and may have had direct or down-the-line political and trade relationships.

The presence of this rare trade good in the Late Archaic archaeological record of Tennessee is indicative of a changing social environment. Once becoming involved with extensive trade routes and the exotic goods they bring, this Tennessean egalitarian society began to take on a transegalitarian structure. During this transitional period between an egalitarian and ranked social models, aggrandizers would have used exotic goods such as the copper crescent to gain influence within the community.  The existence of the Old Copper Complex crescent and other exotic trade goods in Archaic Tennessee sites point to the increasing importance on wealth goods in this changing social environment.

Over 600 pieces of Oneota copper artifacts were documented and analyzed over the course of the past year in order to assess copper production, utilization, and the ideological and social significance behind this raw material. Artifacts from this study were recovered from four Oneota sites adjacent to Lake Koshkonong in Jefferson County, Wisconsin: Crabapple Point (47Je93), Schmeling (47Je833), Koshkonong Creek Village (47Je379), and Crescent Bay Hunt Club (47Je904). Manufacturing marks and use wear on these artifacts provide arguments for multiple manufacturing traditions in the area and calls into questions our previous assumptions of their technical utility. Additionally, the distribution of these artifacts and the iconographic symbols present among the collections suggest larger ideological and social significance of copper within Oneota groups. Overall, this research presents standardized methods for future Oneota copper studies and a wealth of information that further illuminates prehistoric copper traditions and Oneota lifeways.

The 2015 WHM summer exhibit interns were charged with creating an exhibit about contemporary Native Americans of Wisconsin. Initially, they desired to collaborate with Native groups, but felt that it would be impossible due to a short two-month timeline. After overcoming initial doubts, the interns reached out to Oneida artist Karen Ann Hoffman and Menominee Cultural Representative Michael Hoffman, which lead to a day trip to meet with them in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. The trip and continued correspondence gave the interns a renewed sense of inspiration and influenced drastic improvements to the tone, point of view, and content of the exhibit. The brief and inexpensive collaborations between WHM interns and Native representatives are testimony to the ease in which museum professionals can include cultural communities in exhibit creation and enjoy the benefits of such partnerships.

Tillmont is a deeply stratified multi-component site located in Crawford County, Wisconsin. The site is owned by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and was excavated as a university field school under the direction of Dr. James Stoltman in 1995. In the summer of 2016, personnel at UW-Madison undertook an extensive re-curation of the Tillmont site collections under contract with the USFWS Midwest Regional Office. This poster provides an overview of the rehabilitation, including the processes, challenges, solutions, and end results. Furthermore, it illustrates the substandard state of many under-funded university field school collections, and offers an effective process that may be used to curate collections long-term.

Despite almost two centuries of North American prehistoric copper research, intensive archaeological investigations focusing specifically on Oneota copper are less abundant. Building upon previous studies, this project documented and analyzed over 600 Oneota copper artifacts to assess the production, utilization, and ideological and social significance of this raw material. The artifacts of this study were recovered from four Oneota sites adjacent to Lake Koshkonong in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, which date to 1100 to 1400 CE: Crabapple Point (47Je93), Schmeling (47Je833), Koshkonong Creek Village (47Je379), and Crescent Bay Hunt Club (47Je904).

Methods for analyzing North American prehistoric copper artifacts are presented in this paper, as well as the results of investigating object form, damage, and general depositional context. The data support multiple conclusions about Koshkonong Oneota copper use: manufacturing marks on beads provide arguments for multiple manufacturing traditions, use-wear both supports and questions previous assumptions of artifact use, and object distribution among sites and iconographic symbols present in the collections suggest a larger ideological and social significance of the material. These conclusions indicate that the Oneota viewed and used copper as a prestige good that established and reaffirmed social order and legitimized the ideological, economic, militaristic, and political power of certain individuals or kin groups living along the northwest shores of Lake Koshkonong at this time. Overall, this research provides possible standardized methods for future prehistoric copper studies and hopes to inspire additional Oneota copper research.