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The Strawtown Research Program

The IPFW-AS is currently involved in a multi-year, grant-supported research program at several nucleated village sites in Indiana dating to the Late Prehistoric/Mississippian periods (ca. AD 1100-1450). The majority of our work over the past four years has been devoted to survey and excavations near Strawtown, Indiana, just north of Indianapolis. Several Late Prehistoric settlement sites are present in the immediate vicinity of Strawtown, at least two of which (the Strawtown enclosure and the Castor Farm site) are clearly eligible for the National Register of Historic Places based on IPFW-AS’s work. Hamilton County recently purchased 750 acres (containing at least 115 archaeological sites) in the vicinity of Strawtown to be developed as an archaeological research/tourism park. In the past four years, the IPFW-AS has held two field school excavations, three publicly accessible excavation projects run during Indiana Archaeology Month, and three survey efforts at Strawtown. We have also been involved in ensuring that all applicable cultural resources laws are followed during development of the park.

The IPFW-AS’s work at Strawtown is being carried out in the context of a larger research agenda focused on processes of ethnogenesis among frontier societies. From a theoretical and methodological standpoint, these processes present a complex set of archaeological problems. In recent years, archaeologists have recognized that interaction among distinct groups and the emergence of new cultural patterns is not necessarily the result of acculturation (Deagan 1998), or the unilateral acceptance of a dominant culture, but is a complex, multidirectional process of selective borrowing, rejection, resistance, and accommodation. When ethnogenesis, sometimes called “transculturation” (Ortiz 1995) or creolization (Deagan 1998:35), occurs, the outcome is shaped by a variety of factors, ranging from the relative power of the groups in contact, their technologies, the environment, gender, and prior notions of ethnicity. The examination of ethnogenesis has particluar relevance for the study of borderlands, such as central Indiana during the Late Prehistoric, when it was on the periphery, or frontier, of three major groups: the Fort Ancient peoples of east and south-central Ohio; the Oneota groups of northern Illinois, Wisconsin, and upper Mississippi River valley; and the Western Basin peoples of Michigan and northern Ohio.

Not only was central Indiana a borderlands during the Late Prehistoric, but the Late Prehistoric period itself was an era of considerable instability, with evidence of territorial abandonment, large population dispersals, and violent conflict throughout the midcontinent. Warfare within Mississippian and Oneota contexts has been documented archaeologically by the widespread appearance of fortifications and ditches, shifts to defensible locations, and malnutrition (Benn 1995:125; Emerson 1999; Gibbon 1995:191; Hollinger 1995:162-163; Muller and Stephens 1991; Overstreet 1995:44; Sasso 1993; Strezewski 2003:255-260), as well as by skeletal remains showing indications of violent death, such as mutilation, decapitation, and scalping (Carter et al. 1998; Emerson 1999:37-38; Milner et al. 1991; Strezewski and Carlson 2003). Along the western edge of Lake Erie, a forced dispersal of the Western Basin tradition (Stothers and Pratt 1981) populations by the Wolf phase of the Sandusky tradition reportedly occurred about the middle of the thirteenth century (Stothers and Bechtel 1994; Stothers 1995; Stothers and Schneider 2003). Biodistance studies on skeletal material have confirmed archaeological models which suggest population dispersal during the Late Prehistoric (Steadman 1998). In such a turbulent period, the emergence of the Oliver phase peoples from the interaction of several groups in a frontier zone such as Strawtown is an ideal test case to follow the processes of an ethnogenesis and to examine the variables that shaped its outcome.

In the vicinity of Strawtown, ceramics representing a number of Late Prehistoric cultures have been found in varying concentrations across the bottoms and high terrace edges. These ceramics represent Fort Ancient, Oneota, and Western Basin, or Springwells-like cultures (White et al. 2002; White et al. 2003; McCullough et al. 2004), all of which were non-indigenous to the central Indiana area. In Griffin’s (1943) pioneering description of the Fort Ancient “aspect,” or cultural tradition, he took note of the admixture of Late Prehistoric ceramic styles in central Indiana, calling it “a cultural problem of considerable complexity” (Griffin 1943:266). Describing the Fort Ancient styles among Oneota and Great Lakes styles recovered from the Strawtown site and from the Oliver farm site in Marion County, Griffin suggested that “it is possible to interpret this cultural assemblage as an original grouping from which later cultural centers developed” (Griffin 1943:266). On the basis of Griffin’s remarks, the Oliver site became the type site for the “Oliver Phase,” which was characterized by the co-occurrence of Fort Ancient and Springwells-like pottery, settlement in nucleated villages, a reliance on maize agriculture, and a generalized Late Prehistoric lithic technology (Dorwin 1971; Griffin 1967; Helmen 1950). Over the past decade or so, research on the Oliver phase (McCullough 2000, 2003; McCullough et al. 2004; McCullough and Wright 1997a, 1997b; Redmond 1994, Redmond and McCullough 1993, 1996, 2000; Strezewski 2002) has contributed to a better understanding of the temporal and spatial placement of Oliver phase peoples in Indiana prehistory.

Currently, Oliver groups can best be described as a sedentary, village-dwelling peoples that settled along the drainages of the east and west forks of the White River between about AD 1200 and 1450. These people were farmers with a heavy reliance on maize (for wider discussions on subsistence, see Bush 1997, 2001; Garniewicz 1997; and Schmidt 1998), utilizing the more easily-worked, sandy-loamy alluvial soils within or immediately adjacent to larger floodplains. Settlements are variable, ranging from nucleated, circular villages (some surrounded by closely spaced wooden post stockade walls and ditches), to small, dispersed farmsteads distributed across the low terraces and higher floodplain elevations, to linear settlements along natural levees (McCullough and Wright 1997a, 1997b; Redmond 1991; Redmond and McCullough 1993, 1996). A recent seriation analysis of Oliver phase ceramics (McCullough 2000, 2004) established that sites in central Indiana are earlier than those in south-central Indiana, especially those along the East Fork of the White River, where nucleated, palisaded villages have been excavated in Lawrence and Orange counties (Redmond 1994; Redmond and McCullough 1996).

Despite this increased understanding of the dynamics of the Oliver phase, the Strawtown sites that Griffin included in his discussion of Fort Ancient were not available for professional archaeological investigations until recently. Recognized as a significant prehistoric earthwork since the nineteenth century (Cox 1879; Helm 1880), the Strawtown enclosure area was reported to have included a circular earthen embankment and ditch construction, possibly palisaded and approximately 90m across, a smaller “circle, about fifty feet (15m) in diameter” (Helm 1880:28), a “burial mound” (Brown 1884:28), and a village site. Limited professional investigations were conducted at the site in the 1930s (Eggan 1930; Lilly 1937). By mid-century, access to the enclosure and related sites was denied to both amateurs and professional archaeologists by the property’s owner. This left a significant gap in our knowledge of Late Prehistoric farming communities, specifically, and the population dynamics of the Late Prehistoric period in central Indiana more generally. Only with the purchase of the 750-acre Taylor property by the Hamilton County Parks and Recreation Department in 2000 has it been possible to initiate archaeological investigations of these key Late Prehistoric sites.

Archaeological surveys and excavations in portions of the bottomlands as well as excavations at the large earthen enclosure (12-H-883) have greatly increased both our understanding of and appreciation for the complexity of the archaeological record at Strawtown (White et al. 2002; White et al. 2003; McCullough et al. 2004). Within the Strawtown enclosure (White et al. 2002; White et al. 2003; McCullough et al. 2004) investigations have revealed a complex profusion of cultural deposits, including several storage/refuse pits extending over 2m below the current ground surface (one of which, partially excavated, contains a basal deposit of approximately 25-35 liters of carbonized maize). Typical Middle Fort Ancient ceramics were recovered from the enclosure, along with cord-impressed, Springwells pottery. The co-occurrences of these two wares in feature contexts is characteristic of Oliver ceramic assemblages. Current data suggest that this distinctive co-occurrence of the two ceramic types may represent a Middle Fort Ancient population migration interacting with a Western Basin group. Cohabitation of distinct ethnic groups was a common occurrence during the turbulent times of the historic period (Temple 1977) and is only now beginning to be appreciated within prehistoric contexts as well (e.g., Esarey and Conrad 1998). The Fort Ancient/Springwells co-occupation of the enclosure may represent the genesis of the Oliver phase in central Indiana—a new cultural expression that would spread along both forks of the White River during the next two centuries. Carbon samples from features within the enclosure returned dates ranging from AD 1150-1400 (White et al. 2002; White et al. 2003), suggesting that the enclosure is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, Oliver phase site in Indiana. However the nature of the interaction of the Fort Ancient peoples with others present in the Strawtown area is unknown.

In addition to the earthen enclosure at Strawtown, recent archaeological surveys have identified several village sites in the bottomlands around the enclosure. The Castor Farm site (12-H-3) was the focus of the 2003 and 2004 IPFW-AS field schools. A large block excavation in 2003 revealed significant archaeological deposits at the site, including the remains of structures, storage pits, food processing pits, hearths, and human burials. A small-scale magnetometry survey successfully detected many of the features excavated during the 2003 excavations. Larger-scale geophysical investigations are currently underway. Resistivity survey has revealed the presence of two semi-subterranean house basin structures. One of these was exposed and partially excavated during the 2004 field school. Preliminary analysis of GPR data suggests that the house basin structures will be visible using this technique, also. The presence of a stockade was also confirmed through excavation in 2004. This feature was partially defined using magnetometry.

As of 2003, only cord-impressed, Western Basin-related pottery had been recovered from Castor Farm. The lack of Fort Ancient ceramics suggests that Castor Farm may have been occupied prior to construction and occupation of the enclosure. Radiocarbon assays suggest also that the occupation of Castor Farm dates to circa AD 1100 or possibly earlier, prior to the Fort Ancient/Springwells co-occupation of the enclosure.

The Castor Farm site not only offers a unique opportunity to examine the pre-Fort Ancient component of the Oliver phase, but also raises a number of questions about the nature of the Fort Ancient intrusion and relationships between distinct groups in the area: 1) When and where did these groups originate?; 2) Was maintenance of a separate ethnic identity important to the people using cord-impressed ceramic styles?; and 3) Were boundaries maintained using traditional styles in other areas that can be examined archaeologically, such as house styles, settlement structure, feature morphology, or floral, faunal, or lithic assemblages, or were there pre-existing similarities between the groups that made interaction and convergence possible? In addition, there is some evidence that Western Basin peoples also built earthen enclosures (White et al. 2002), and the smaller enclosure near the larger one may be another example. To understand the outcome of the interaction between Fort Ancient peoples and the groups using cord-impressed ceramics that led to the Oliver phase, it is necessary to know a great deal more about the non-Fort Ancient peoples of the area and their relationships.

Strawtown, as we understand it to date, bears intriguing similarities to another Late Prehistoric site, Aztalan, in southeastern Wisconsin, where an intrusive Middle Mississippian population coexisted with an indigenous tradition called Kekoskee (Peters 1976; Richards 1992; Salkin 2000). There, although Aztalan was palisaded, outlying Kekoskee villages were not, prompting Richards (1992:418) to suggest that an outpost of Mississippian strength was placed to protect Kekoskee peoples and Mississippian interests against a rising Oneota threat from the west. One researcher (Peters 1976:3) hypothesizes that the mixture of styles may be a result of intermarriage between Mississippian males from the palisaded enclosure and the indigenous inhabitants. Whether a similar dynamic is occurring at Strawtown cannot be answered without an understanding of the other peoples present in the vicinity of the large enclosure and how their settlements and material culture compare to that of the Fort Ancient/Oliver phase peoples in the enclosure. These questions will be addressed in subsequent field seasons.

Excavations in 2002, 2003, and 2004 have also revealed the presence of a third Late Prehistoric culture, both within the enclosure and on other areas of the Strawtown property. Ceramic styles indicate that these people were also non-local, and were closely related to Oneota groups from Wisconsin or Iowa. This Oneota intrusion into central Indiana coincides with a similar appearance of Oneota migrants in central Illinois (Esarey and Conrad 1998), suggesting a mass-migration of peoples from the northwest. Available radiocarbon dates place the Oneota occupation at Strawtown during the fourteenth century, partly overlapping with the latest Oliver phase dates from the enclosure. It appears likely that the Oneota presence at Strawtown post-dates the Oliver phase occupation (White et al. 2003), although the precise relationship between these two components has not yet been conclusively determined. Overall, the presence of at least four Late Prehistoric village sites of varying (and mixed) cultural affiliation within less than 2 square kilometers suggests that understanding the use of the Strawtown area during this period will be a complex task.

An adequate understanding of the sites at Strawtown can only be achieved via additional fieldwork. The enclosure and adjacent areas are known to contain and/or have the potential to contain prehistoric human interments, exterior village areas, and additional enclosures and mounds. Adequate information about community layout (e.g., the number and placement of domestic structures, defensive structures and their openings, and communal areas), is essential to the interpretation of large, complex sites, but is nearly impossible to carefully, cost-effectively collect using traditional excavation techniques alone. Geophysical instruments are used to collect data about the locations and nature of near-surface archaeological deposits in an efficient and non-invasive manner. Given the complexities and importance of the site and the surrounding area, geophysical survey methods will be invaluable for site mapping, and will allow future excavations to be appropriately targeted as research questions are clarified. Incorporation of geophysical data collection and analysis into archaeological research designs is becoming increasingly common in a variety of settings around the world.

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