JUNE 18 & 19, 2005

From: Scott Beld
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005
To: Oxbow Archaeologists
Subject: Workshop and Riverbank Testing - 6-18 & 19-05

Hi Oxbow Archaeologists,

The second part of our workshop was held last weekend.

On Saturday (June 18), Terry Martin (Illinois State Museum) held a faunal identification workshop in the morning and afternoon (see Photo 1). We identified bones from the Cater site midden and found several bear bones, including a humerus chopped by an ax, as well as deer, raccoon, beaver, turtle, some birds, several kinds of fish, etc., etc. In the evening Terry gave a slide presentation on excavations at New Philadelphia in Pikes County, Illinois. New Philadelphia was a historic town from the mid-1830’s to the 1880’s (contemporary with the Cater and Ponton sites) that was founded by a freed slave (Free Frank). They are currently conducting their second season of excavations at the site (in fact Terry had to be at the site at 7:00 A.M. this morning).

Yesterday (Sunday, June 19), we continued excavating test units on the riverbank at 60 West. John, Nik, Ashley, Greg, Lia, Terry and I were at the site. Terry identified bones as we found them. We found a muskrat tooth and tibia fragment, some carnivore incisors (bear or canid and possibly raccoon) as well as various bones too small or fragmentary to identify in the field. We excavated unit 60W-South2 from 10 to 80 cm (we got through the second A-horizon) and unit 60W-South from 40 to 70 cm (we’re near the bottom of the second A-horizon). I’ll describe what we found by the soil horizons (see Photo 3 for a picture of the layers we excavated yesterday).

At 15-40 (or 45) cm (A1 – top or first A-horizon) we recovered several bone fragments, a half dozen or so Upper Mercer flakes, one Flint Ridge flake, and a cordmarked bodysherd (see Photo 2). There is little or no fire cracked rock at this level. The cordmarked bodysherd is relatively thin and is similar to Wayne Ware or “Saginaw Thin.” It was found at 40 cm like the pottery we found in Unit 60W-South a week ago. Based on the Upper Mercer flakes and pottery we can safely argue that this level dates from the early Late Woodland (A.D. 600-900) to the present (we find nails etc. in the top 5 cm).

At 40-65 cm (B1 in Photo 3) we recovered scattered bone fragments and flakes. 40-50 cm was sterile except for a very tiny Upper Mercer flake (worked down from above?) and a very tiny piece of fire cracked rock. At 50-60 cm we found 3 deer teeth (small from a fawn?), a bone fragment and a Bayport flake. At 60-65 cm, just above the second A-horizon we found one bone fragment.

At 65-75 cm we encountered the second A-horizon (A2 in Photo 3). We found fire cracked rock particularly at about 70 cm.

At 75-80 cm (B2 in Photo 3) I found one bone fragment.

This Wednesday we’ll try to dig at the Riverbank – it’s supposed to be nice weather. I probably won’t be at the site before 5:00 P.M. We’ll probably be working at the riverbank on Saturday also. I drove down to the Ponton site yesterday and it is still quiet wet. If it dries out we’ll try to get back to it soon, maybe the Fourth of July weekend.

Hope to see you at the site.

Scott

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Scott G. Beld, Ph.D.
Research Associate II
The University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology
1109 Geddes Road
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1079
Phone: 734-764-0489 (UMMP Main Office)
734-763-9253 (My Office)
Fax: 734-936-1380
Email: sbeld@umich.edu
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