Prehistoric Village Research Articles

Prehistoric Village Distribution in the Illinois River Valley

In the summer of 1954 the University of Illinois undertook an extensive archaeological village site survey of the Illinois River valley. The Illinois River, more than 250 miles long, is located in the heart of the great Central Plains, an essentially uneroded region of drift covered uplands, with a billowy surface and less than 1000 feet altitude above sea level. The river is the largest, except for the Ohio, draining into the Mississippi from the east. It gathers rainfall from about 25,000 square miles, almost half the total area of the state of Illinois, and flows into the Mississippi about midway between its head and mouth. It is located centrally on a venation of waterways stretching from the foothills of the Rockies to the Appalachians, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf.

An Authentic “Problematical” from the Ozarks

In the spring of 1948 during an archaeological survey of the headwaters of the Lake Norfork Reservoir Area on the North Fork of White River in Ozark County, Missouri, an unusual flint object was found. This artifact, illustrated as Figure 35A, was picked up on the surface of a prehistoric Indian village on the left bank of the North Fork of the White River about 1/4 mile below Tecumseh, Missouri. The only other object found on this site, other than flint chips, flakes, and spalls, was what appears to be a long slender projectile point, B in Figure 35. The owner of the land, since deceased, had picked up a fragment of a full-grooved limestone ax while cultivating the field many years before.The problematical form appears to have been made from a short, stubby projectile point of quartzite, a stone commonly utilized by the prehistoric Indians of Ozark County.

: Two Prehistoric Village Sites at Brewerton, New York. Type Components of the Brewerton Focus, Laurentian Aspect . William A. Ritchie.

American AnthropologistVolume 45, Issue 4 p. 612-614 Free Access NORTH AMERICA: Two Prehistoric Village Sites at Brewerton, New York. Type Components of the Brewerton Focus, Laurentian Aspect. William A. Ritchie. Frederick Johnson, Frederick Johnson R. S. Peabody Foundation Andover, MassSearch for more papers by this author Frederick Johnson, Frederick Johnson R. S. Peabody Foundation Andover, MassSearch for more papers by this author First published: October‐December 1943 https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1943.45.4.02a00110AboutPDF 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. Volume45, Issue4October‐December 1943Pages 612-614 RelatedInformation

Roebuck Prehistoric Village Site, Grenville County, Ontario. W. J. Wintemberg. (National Museum of Canada, Bulletin 83, Anthropological Series, No. 19, 178 pp., 19 plates, 2 maps. Ottawa, 1936.)

Roebuck Prehistoric Village Site, Grenville County, Ontario. W. J. Wintemberg. (National Museum of Canada, Bulletin 83, Anthropological Series, No. 19, 178 pp., 19 plates, 2 maps. Ottawa, 1936.) - Volume 6 Issue 3

Ceramic Stratigraphy in a Georgia Village Site

This paper is limited to the presentation of the stratigraphic relationships of certain pottery types which are found in a pre-historic village site in central Georgia. These types are site markers of two established cultural horizons in the southeast, and it is evident that their wide distribution and relationships to the chronological framework of the area are of major archaeological importance. In a recently published report of investigations centering in and around Macon, Georgia, A. R. Kelly demonstrates that the Lamar and Swift Creek horizons are differentiated from each other and from other cultural complexes in the region by distinctive traits. Foremost among these traits, for each complex, is pottery.

Excavation in Alaska

DURING the past summer an expedition of the University Museum of Pennsylvania, conducted by Miss Frederika de Laguna, has been at work on the coasts of Alaska in conformity with the policy of American anthropology for the intensive study of this area in relation to the problem of the early peopling of America. The expedition was engaged in the excavation of a prehistoric village site in Kachemak Bay, Cook Inlet. Of the finds of the season, Science Service (Washington D.C.) reports that Miss de Laguna regards the outstanding object to be a carved stone lamp. In the bowl of the lamp is a human figure in an attitude of prayer carved in full relief. Four other examples of such lamps are known; but this is the only example to be found by a scientific explorer in situ. It is said to come from the last phase of four prehistoric Eskimo settlements; but although the early phase of the ‘archaic’ culture of the area is remarkable for its carved ivories, stone carving is not known as an Eskimo technique. The lamp was found in a shell-heap close to the sea, which is washed by high tide. Other cultural features of the same settlement were slate mirrors, slate blades for lances, bone harpoons and dart heads, grinding stones, awls, drills, dolls, beads and needles. Rock-paintings were found in caves. Such paintings are known only in southern Cook Inlet and on Kodiak Island, where the culture is similar. The Indians of to-day believe that these pictures were painted by ‘whale killers’, much feared medicine men who poisoned their lances with human fat. If there were any foundation for this belief, it might be related to the traces of cannibalism found in prehistoric settlements by the Smithsonian Alaskan expeditions.

Prehistoric Timber Structures associated with a Briquetage Site in Lincolnshire

I visited the briquetage sites of the Lincolnshire coast, described by Professor Swinnerton, on many occasions during the years 1906 to 1909. On one visit, which was in September 1907, I chanced to see, in a hollow of the shifting sands, the remains of a group of timber structures on the northern side of Ingoldmells Point. There was a considerable number of what appeared to be wooden hut-circles, and I thought that it might be the prehistoric village connected with the briquetage industry.

Prehistoric Cornish Village

RECENT excavations in the prehistoric village of Chrysauster, ten miles from Penzance, under the Ancient Monuments Branch of the Board of Works, have added considerably to the evidence bearing on the age and character of one of the most interesting of ‘British’ settlements. The exploration of the large house opened up by Mr. T. D. Kendrick in 1928 has been completed; two houses untouched by previous explorers have been completely excavated, and the round walls and floors uncovered by Borlase in 1873 and J. B. Cornish in 1897 have been cleared. This settlement, of which eight houses remain overground, with the remnant of its covered pathway of approach, entered by a granite arch, strongly recalls Skara Brae in the Orkneys, which has recently been excavated by Prof. Gordon Childe. The resemblance of the structures to those of Skara Brae is noted by the writer of an article on Chrysauster which appeared in the Times of Jan. 23; but the author would appear to be imperfectly acquainted with the character of the former site. He is in error in regarding Chrysauster as the only known example of prehistoric houses filing along either side of what is apparently a village street, for this arrangement is one of the most characteristic features of Skara Brae. The northern site is more primitive in character, and undoubtedly earlier than Chrysauster, of which the occupation is now dated by the pottery at from about the first century B.C. to the second century A.D. Some of the pottery suggests coarse imitation of contemporary Roman ware. The inhabitants were in part agriculturists, as is indicated by the lynchets behind the village, and, in all probability, tin-streamers. Tin-slag and lumps of shapeless iron have been found, but little else indicative of the character of the material culture.

Excavations at a prehistoric Indian village site in Mississippi

Excavations at a prehistoric Indian village site in Mississippi

Philippine Archæology

PROF. H. OTLEY BEYER, head of the Anthropological Department of the University of the Philippines, has collected important archaeological material during the last four years. In 1926 the construction of a dam on the Novaliches River brought to light a prehistoric village and cemetery which within the space of four months yielded some eighteen thousand specimens. During the next three years extended reconnaissance and excavation in the neighbourhood, mostly within the province of Rizal, brought to light nearly a hundred sites and an enormous amount of material, running into scores of thousands of objects.

A prehistoric pit house village site on the Columbia River at Wahluke, Grant County, Wash

A prehistoric pit house village site on the Columbia River at Wahluke, Grant County, Wash

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

Prehistoric Village Sites of Harrison County, Iowa

Prehistoric Village Sites of Harrison County, Iowa

XVI.—On a Late-Celtic Village near Dumpton Gap, Broadstairs

In the summer of 1907, during the construction of a new road (called South Cliff Parade) situated on top of the cliffs, at a distance of about 40 yards from the sea, between Dumpton Gap and East Cliff Lodge, there was found a number of V-shaped trenches cut in the chalk subsoil, and running transversely across the site of the road. They came into view as soon as the loamy soil, which was about 12 inches in depth, was removed from the surface of the ground. Prior to the construction of the road the land had been in cultivation, and there was no evidence whatever on the surface, in the shape of mounds or depressions, to indicate the presence of any earthworks beneath. The new road above referred to begins at Dumpton Gap, and proceeds in a southerly direction for about 600 yards. (Plate LV.) It is slightly undulating, and rises to a height of about 100 feet above sea level at its highest point, while the land gently slopes towards the sea from west to east. At about 150 yards from the starting point there was found the first indication of the ground having been previously excavated, and here was met with what appears to be the fosse which surrounded the prehistoric village. It ran in a diagonal direction from south-west to north-east, across the line of the new road in course of construction. It was 22 feet wide, about 4 feet 6 inches deep, and had been excavated in the chalk.

Mammal remains from two prehistoric village sites in New Mexico and Arizona

Mammal remains from two prehistoric village sites in New Mexico and Arizona

76. Prehistoric Villages in Thessaly.

76. Prehistoric Villages in Thessaly.