Prehistoric Earthworks Research Articles

Survivorship of Earthworks Mapped by T. H. Lewis in Iowa 1884–1894

ABSTRACTBetween 1884 and 1894, Theodore Hayes Lewis mapped 370 prehistoric American Indian mounds and earthworks in Iowa as part of a larger survey of mounds in the upper Midwest. Georeferencing re...

Combining ER and GPR surveys for evidence of prehistoric landscape construction: case study at Mound City, Ohio, USA

Mound City, located at the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in south-central Ohio, USA, is a prehistoric earthwork (200 BC–500 AD) that consists of 24 mounds enclosed in a square embankment wall and is surrounded by eight pits. Recent excavation of two of these pits resulted in the discovery of a clay loam liner that appears to have been placed on the floor of the pits by a prehistoric society known as the Hopewell. The aim of this study was to determine the spatial pattern of this liner in one of the pits using non-invasive geophysical techniques, specifically electrical resistivity and ground-penetrating radar. Minimally invasive soil augers and a test trench yielded information that was used to corroborate interpretations of the geophysical data. The geophysical methods proved to be useful in locating and defining the remnants of the prehistoric clay loam liner, and the results of our investigation indicate that almost 50% of the liner still remains in the pit today. This discovery supports a new interpretation that the Hopewell excavated and preserved the pits at the Mound City site because they served as cultural landscape features.

Labor Costs for Prehistoric Earthwork Construction: Experimental and Archaeological Insights from the Lower Yangzi Basin, China

AbstractThis paper examines choices of earth-working tools made by Neolithic Chinese populations. In the Hemudu Culture (7000–5000 B.P.), bone (scapula) digging tools were used from the earliest times, whereas peoples in surrounding areas used stone spades. A range of experiments on manufacturing costs, durability, and use efficiency under realistic conditions show that bone and stone spades are functionally equivalent when soils are soft, but that stone implements provide significant and easily perceived advantages when working harder soils. The persistence of scapular spades in the Hemudu Culture would have constrained decisions about undertaking large construction projects under normal soil conditions. Our results show that, in addition to generalized labor for construction, labor demands for producing earth-working implements for large-scale prehistoric earthworks could have also been substantial. These findings not only help explain the processes of intensifying rice-agriculture and sedentary settlements in the Lower Yangzi Basin, but also create a solid foundation for further investigation of how the recruitment of both generalized and specialized laborers, the organization of craft production, and the relevant logistics for large-scale earthworks may have paralleled concentrations of political power in prehistory.

Constructing Eighteenth-century Meaning in a Prehistoric Landscape: Charles Bridgeman’s Design for Amesbury Abbey

It is commonly assumed that impressive prehistoric monuments influence the construction of subsequent landscapes in the same place. The work of the English garden designer Charles Bridgeman (1690–1738), characterised by his attention to genius loci and the large scales at which he worked, might be expected to exemplify this. This article explores this contention in the context of his 1738 design for an ornamental landscape at Amesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, containing the remains of an Iron Age hillfort and Bronze Age barrows, and in close proximity to Stonehenge. It finds that superficially the incorporation of Iron Age ramparts into Bridgeman’s design, and the construction of a quasi-Roman grotto known locally as Gay’s Cave, suggests some attempt to echo Amesbury’s prehistoric origins, and it is likely that Bridgeman’s response, and that of his patrons, was influenced by the new findings of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century antiquarian research. Yet Bridgeman’s design mutilates some prehistoric earthworks and its sight-lines ignore significant prehistoric elements in the wider landscape. This article therefore concludes that Bridgeman’s design was mainly driven by topographical and practical considerations, with any apparent echoing of prehistory being strongly filtered through an eighteenth-century Augustan aesthetic.

The Social and Ecological Trajectory of Prehistoric Cambodian Earthworks

This article moves discussion of prehistoric earthworks in Cambodia from normative archaeology into an ecological landscape structure, based on archaeological data sets. Discussions provide a synthesis of archaeological and newly borne-out ecological explanations for original site construction, occupation, landscape use, sustainability of occupation for the earthwork culture over a 2000-year period and terminal use of the sites. A model is presented to assess site abandonment and post-earthwork region settlement patterns.

The C. H. Nash Museum at Chucalissa

Over the past decade, the C. H. Nash Museum at Chucalissa, located on the grounds of a prehistoric earthwork complex in Memphis, Tennessee, initiated an outreach program to the surrounding African-American community. The archaeological site was first investigated and the Museum founded as a byproduct of the 1930s Jim Crow era segregation policies. Since its inception, the archaeological site and Museum functioned as a place of academic privilege that ignored the surrounding community. Key to the Museum's outreach program is a transparency and commitment to community engagement. Highlights of the Museum's outreach engagement to date include the installation of an African-American Cultural Heritage exhibit, hosting community events, establishment of a community garden, and the collaborative efforts with community partners to carry out service projects. Based in a participatory model, the Museum moved to take its place as a social asset and stakeholder in the Southwest Memphis community.

Beyond Squier and Davis: Rediscovering Ohio's Earthworks Using Geophysical Remote Sensing

The prehistoric earthworks of Ohio have played a major role in the development of American archaeology and they continue to figure prominently in archaeological research. However, while a select group of larger earthwork sites have been intensively studied and resurveyed with geophysical survey instruments, much of the ongoing earthwork research, and reference to less-well-known sites, still relies on nineteenth-and early twentieth-century maps. In this article, we present the results of magnetic gradient surveys at three earthwork complexes in south central Ohio. Though much degraded by agricultural plowing and other historic impacts, our survey results show that despite near invisibility at the surface, Ohio's earthwork sites are (1) readily detected in geophysical surveys, (2) more complex than most early maps suggest, and (3) more numerous and varied than once thought. Given the major role these sites have taken on in studies that explore topics ranging from community structure and burial ceremonialism to population mobility and the development of socioeconomic complexity, a radical redrafting of the nineteenth-century maps could have far-reaching implications in the study of Woodland period (specifically, ca. 300 B.C.-A.D. 500) cultures in the Midwest U.S.

A TOWN AT THE CROSSROADS: SITE-WIDE GRADIOMETRY SURVEYING AND MAPPING AT OLD TOWN RIDGE SITE (3CG41) IN NORTHEASTERN ARKANSAS

Gradiometry survey at the Old Town Ridge (3CG41) site, a stockaded Middle Mississippian period town in the central Mississippi River Valley of Arkansas, demonstrates the efficacy of a broad-coverage, site-encompassing remote sensing methodology for initial interpretation of intrasite organization and complexity. Site access, time constraints, deep plow furrows, and cotton plant “stubble” associated with ongoing agriculture at the site defer the efficient use of a site-wide multisensor prospection methodology. However, a gradiometry survey identified multiple anomalies consistent with prehistoric structures, earthworks, earthquake liquefaction, and other interpreted features encompassed within the remains of a 7-ha, rectangular enclosure. Aerial photography, topography, and preliminary archaeological ground truthing provided additional information for analysis and interpretation.

The effect of disturbance on the bryophyte flora of Salisbury Plain, western Europe's largest chalk grassland

The military training area on Salisbury Plain contains the largest area of chalk grassland in western Europe. The grassland swards, though relatively tall, are often rich in flowering plant species. The bryophyte flora of areas disturbed in five different ways (prehistoric earthworks, twentieth century rifle ranges, ant-hills, vehicle tracks and shell-holes) was compared to that of adjacent, relatively undisturbed grassland. There was no significant difference in bryophyte cover between quadrats on disturbed ground and the controls, but the disturbed sites supported more bryophyte species per quadrat. Of the 55 taxa recorded, 38 species were at least three times more frequent in the disturbed than the undisturbed sites, compared to four which were at least three times more frequent in the control sites. The species favouring disturbed conditions included several bryophytes characteristically associated with chalk soils in southern England, including some that fruit freely (e.g. Microbryum curvicollum, Tortula lanceola) and others that fruit very rarely (e.g. Abietinella abietina, Entodon concinnus). These results are discussed in relation to the conservation of bryophytes and other disturbance-tolerant and disturbance-dependent species on Salisbury Plain and in the wider context of the protection of the bryophytes of chalkland habitats.

Bear's Journey and the Study of Ritual in Archaeology

This paper considers the archaeological study of ritual and explores the interrelationships that exist between ideologically meaningful accounts of ritual and the material representations of ritual practice that remain for archaeological evaluation. Specifically, the paper addresses the development and antiquity of the Midewiwin ritual, a ceremonial complex that is known historically throughout the Great Lakes region. The serendipitous discovery of a linkage between the Mide origin tale of Bear's Journey and the layout of the Late Prehistoric earthwork enclosures of northern Michigan provides an opportunity to document how a ritual system is represented in the archaeological record and to evaluate how the understanding of the archaeology is altered by having access to the meaning underpinning the ritual performance. The research provides unambiguous evidence for the prehistoric antiquity of the Mide ceremony and illustrates the contribution archaeology can make to understanding the long-term processes of ritual practice and change.

Recent British research on prehistoric territorial boundaries

The British Isles are very rich, compared to the rest of Europe, in prehistoric boundary earthworks. There are difficulties in deducing prehistoric territories from them, mainly because of the incompleteness of other evidence of settlement patterns. Fortunately, in the past two decades there have been major advances in territorial studies, in particular, of the pattern defined by the “reaves” (long walls) on Dartmoor in Southwest England and in the Anglo-Saxon pattern in Southern England defined by boundaries in legal documents (charters). These studies enable some general principles of early land divisions to be deduced, particularly the relations of boundaries to the natural features of the terrain. These principles can be applied to the study of other early boundary earthworks, and, in some cases, reasonable deductions on the nature of the prehistoric “estates” can be made. The paper concludes with a discussion of major problems, namely, the dating of earthworks, the continuity of boundaries between prehistoric and historic eras, the functions of boundary markers, their chronological development, and their social implications.

Hillforts. Later Prehistoric Earthworks in Britain and Ireland. Edited by D. W. Harding. 10⅛ × 7¾. Pp. xiv + 579 + 121 figs. + 54 pls. London: Academic Press, 1976. £24·00.

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Pollen Analysis as an Aid to the Dating of Prehistoric Monuments

In the course of enquiries into the nature of the primary vegetation of Britain and its associated soils, the soils buried under prehistoric earthworks have provided valuable material. Such work is usually carried out on barrows which can be dated by the archaeological finds in them, but occasionally samples have been examined from undated barrows. Pollen analysis of the old land surface under an earthwork gives a broad picture of the vegetation extant on the site up to the time that earthwork was built, and it has been found that this picture varies according to the impact of prehistoric man upon the vegetation. This effect is, of course, progressive and it is possible to show that the later the earthwork the further removed is the flora from the forest conditions which once prevailed. Once such a sequence has been established, it should be possible, by pollen analysis alone, to allot an undated construction to its approximate position in the sequence.

Tumuli in Southwestern Pennsylvania

In the spring of 1791 a soldier in the army of Major General Arthur St. Clair, pausing on his march through western Pennsylvania to view a prehistoric earthwork along the Monongahela, wrote in his journal This ancient work, from appearances, must have been built many hundreds of years ago, but who were the people at that time inhabiting this country? for what causes were they built? Here I am at a loss, yet I am not alone: still that can be of no satisfaction to me; but on enquiries of this nature, the mind is not satisfied with mere conjecture; it requires more substantial food, the food of certainty…[The ruins] must, I think, be attributed to the workmanship of man…but who they were, from whence they came, at what period they arrived, or where they have passed to, I believe we must ever remain in ignorance (Anonymous, 1810, p. 23-4).

Devil's Dyke, Wheathampstead

THE presentation to the public of land at Wheathampstead, which has been made by Lord Brocket, chairman of the Hertfordshire Society of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, as a personal gift commemorating the coronation of King George and Queen Elizabeth, preserves as an open space in perpetuity a site which, as has been shown by the excavations of Dr. R. E. Mortimer Wheeler, is of outstanding archæological and historical significance. For in addition to the four acres of the prehistoric earthwork, known locally as the Devil's Dyke, as Lord Brocket announced in handing over the 999 years' lease to the Wheathampstead Parish Council on October 23, the adjacent area of one hundred acres will also be preserved as an open space under an arrangement he proposes to make with the Hertfordshire County Council and the National Trust. It was here, Dr. Wheeler has shown, that there was situated the fortress, or oppidum, of more than a hundred acres in extent, the largest and strongest in Britain as yet known in its period, which was held by the Belgic tribes who had settled in Britain not long before, and of which the capture as the headquarters of the British forces was the climax of the campaign, in the second of Cæsar's invasions of Britain ; while almost immediately after that event, it would seem, it became the parent city of the British stronghold, also excavated by Dr. Wheeler, at Veralamium, which preceded the Roman occupation. The importance of the site for the history of pre-Roman Britain lays a debt of gratitude to the donor for his gift upon circles far wider than those immediately affected by its preservation of local amenities in the future development of the district.

Excavations at Maiden Castle

EXCAVATIONS which have been planned to cover three year's work, have been begun on the prehistoric earthwork of Maiden Castle, near Dorchester. The responsibility for the excavation has been undertaken by the Society of Antiquaries, and the field-director is Dr. R. E. Mortimer Wheeler, of the London Museum. According to a report of the work to date which appears in the Times of August 10, it has now become evident that a building unearthed by Mr. A. Cunnington in 1882 and again brought to light by the present operations is a temple and not a villa as was at first believed. It is a Roman building which can be definitely identified as the type of temple peculiar to the Celtic regions of France, Germany and Great Britain during the Roman period. It was square in plan with a raised central shrine and a surrounding verandah. Behind the temple is a little two-roomed bungalow which probably served as the residence of the priest. Near these buildings an interesting discovery was a pit-dwelling cut into the chalk to a depth of more than 10 ft. The sides curve towards the top and originally it was covered with a lid-like roof. The floors of rammed chalk were inserted at various periods and the pit would seem to have been inhabited in the later stages of its history. By the Roman period it was filled up. In cutting through a crossbank dividing off the eastern third of the fortress, in which the temple is situated, pottery and a quern of prehistoric date have been discovered, proving that the hill was occupied as a village before Maiden Castle at its earliest stage came into existence.

Research Items

Roman Britain.—An account by Dr. R. E. Mortimer Wheeler of the first season's excavations at St. Albans, which appears in Discovery for December, admirably summarises the chief points of interest. It was thought that Verulamium, which at one time was the nearest approach to a metropolitan city and the only town in Britain dignified with the title of municipium, might well supply evidence of exceptional importance in its bearing upon Romano-British culture and organisation. This has been confirmed already in a striking manner. The ‘London Gate’, for its size and what must have been imposing appearance, is compared by Dr. Wheeler to the great continental gateways or triumphal arches such as have been found at Aries and Autun. The defences of the city are also impressive, consisting of fosse, wall, and reinforcing bank totalling a width of some 165 ft., and even in one part running to 265 feet. Light is thrown upon economic Conditions in the city and its possible relations with Germany by the excavation of a dwelling-house and another building, probably a shop. The house was rebuilt at least thrice during the Roman occupation, and its successive phases show the rise to prosperity and the subsequent decline of the town. Exploration outside the city wall has revealed a cemetery and a prehistoric earthwork. The purpose of the latter is not yet clear, but one of the alternatives suggested is that it may be the site of the settlement of Cassivelaunus, the most important centre of southern Britain in the first century A.D. These latter discoveries have added thirty acres to the area to be investigated, the site within the Roman walls being 200 acres.

A PREHISTORIC EARTHWORK IN THE HAIDA INDIAN AREA

American AnthropologistVolume 29, Issue 1 p. 109-111 Free Access A PREHISTORIC EARTHWORK IN THE HAIDA INDIAN AREA HARLAN I. SMITH, HARLAN I. SMITH Victoria Memorial Museum, Ottawa, Canada.Search for more papers by this author HARLAN I. SMITH, HARLAN I. SMITH Victoria Memorial Museum, Ottawa, Canada.Search for more papers by this author First published: January‐March 1927 https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1927.29.1.02a00080AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume29, Issue1January‐March 1927Pages 109-111 RelatedInformation

Geography and Prehistoric Earthworks in the New Forest District

Geography and Prehistoric Earthworks in the New Forest District

The Culture Problem in Ohio Archaeology

American AnthropologistVolume 22, Issue 2 p. 144-172 Free Access THE CULTURE PROBLEM IN OHIO ARCHAEOLOGY H. C. SHETRONE, H. C. SHETRONE Columbus, Ohio.Search for more papers by this author H. C. SHETRONE, H. C. SHETRONE Columbus, Ohio.Search for more papers by this author First published: April‐June 1920 https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1920.22.2.02a00030Citations: 7AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat REFERENCES CITED Fowke, Gerard, “ Archaeological History of Ohio,” Ohio Stale Archaeological and Historical Society. Columbus, 1902. Holmes, W. H., (1) “ Aboriginal Pottery of the Eastern United States,” Twentieth Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, 1898–99. Washington, 1903. Holmes, W. H., (2) “Areas of American Culture Characterization Tentatively Outlined,” American Anthropologist, N. S., vol. xvi, 1914. “ The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents.” (Edited by Reuben Gold Thwaites.) Burrows Brothers Company, Cleveland, 18961901. Vols. 1–73. Low, Charles F., “ Archaeological Explorations near Madisonville, Ohio,” Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History, vol. iii. Cincinnati, 1880. Mills, William C., (1) “Report of Field-Work—The Lorimer Group of Mounds,” Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Report, vol. viii, 1900. Mills, William C., (2) From Certain Mounds and Village Sites in Ohio, vols. i, ii, and iii. Columbus, 1907, 1917, and 1919:. Mills, William C., (3) Excavations of the Adena Mound, vol. i, pt. 1. Mills, William C., (4) Explorations of the Baum Prehistoric Village Site, vol. i, pt. 3. Mills, William C., (5) Exploration of the Tremper Mound, vol. ii, pt. 3. Mills, William C., (6) Explorations of the Westenhaver Mound, vol. ii, pt. 4. Mills, William C., Exploration of the Fuert Mounds and Village Site, vol. iii, pt. 1. Mooney, James, “ Algonquian Family,” Handbook of American Indians, Bulletin 30, Bureau of American Ethnology. Washington, 1907. Moorehead, W. K., Fort Ancient, the Great Prehistoric Earthwork of Warren county, Ohio. Cincinnati, 1890. Also, somewhat revised and augmented in Bulletin 4, pt. 2, Phillips Academy, Department of Archaeology. Andover, 1908. Moorehead, W. K., (2) Primitive Man in Ohio. New York, 1892. Moorehead, W. K., (3) “ A Study of Primitive Culture in Ohio,” Putnam Anniversary Volume. New York, 1909. Parker, Arthur C., (1) “ An Erie Indian Village and Burial Site at Ripley, New York,” New York State Museum Bulletin 117. Albany, 1917. Parker, Arthur C., (2) The Origin of the Iroquois as Suggested by Their Archaeology,” American Anthropologist, n. s., vol. xviii, no. 4, 1916. Powell, J. W., “ Linguistic Families of American Indians North of Mexico,” Map, Bulletin 30, Bureau of American Ethnology, 1907. Smith, Harlan I., “ Prehistoric Ethnology of a Kentucky Site,” Anthropological Papers, American Museum of Natural History, vol. vi, pt. 2. New York, 1911. Thomas, Cyrus, (6) “ Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology,” Twelfth Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology. 1891. Tomlinson, A. B., “The Grave Creek Mound,” American Pioneer, vol. ii, 1843. Willoughby, C. C., “ Pottery of the New England Indians,” Putnam Anniversary Volume, New York, 1909. Wissler, Clark. The American Indian. New York, 1917. Citing Literature Volume22, Issue2April‐June 1920Pages 144-172 ReferencesRelatedInformation