A Western Stockade?

During our first week of the 2010 season, we made several interesting, and potentially very important, discoveries. The most revealing was the exposure of two parallel lines of what appear to be stockade posts situated just to the west of the oval enclosure. One of our objectives for this season was to look for any post structures that might have been associated with the oval ditch. Numerous Early Woodland enclosures in the Ohio Valley and elsewhere commonly consisted of a ditch and earthen wall embankment. Sometimes, an embankment was surmounted by a wooden post fence or screen which left behind one or more arcs of post molds. Strangely, the post mold lines we encountered on Monday appeared to run straight and at a northeast-southwest orientation. The two post lines are spaced at three meters apart, too close to represent house walls, and do not appear to be associated with the oval enclosure. The eastern line was most clear, and a section of it is shown in the image below. Selected post molds are indicated by the arrows.


As it turns out, this eastern line corresponds with a short section of very similar posts which were recorded last season in our most northwestern unit of the oval enclosure excavation. Exposure of more post molds on Tuesday filled the gap between these two segments to reveal a six meter-long line of posts. Near the center of this line, we discovered an oval pit (Feature 10-02) which contained one Madison triangular point and a Mixter Festooned type rim sherd (shown below).


Both these artifacts are indicative of the Late Prehistoric period and most likely date to around A.D. 1350. Excavation of this pit revealed no additional post molds from the eastern line, which indicates that this pit intruded into the already present post line and, thus, post-dates it. The precise time gap between the building of the line of posts and the digging of Feature 10-02 is unknown; however, it is certain that the posts themselves would have already been removed when the pit was constructed. When this occurred, we can't yet say. In any case, this discovery provides evidence of a wooden post enclosure that appears to be independent in time from the oval enclosure. Could this be a defensive enclosure for a later village occupation? More on this in a later post.

2010 Season Underway

On Monday, we began the 2010 field season in earnest by stripping a six meter wide by forty-five meter long transect across the location of the oval enclosure. We hired a local bulldozer operator to carefully strip the upper 15 to 20 cm of plow zone sediments across this transect in order to more efficiently look for features related to the enclosure.


Our plan is to shovel-shave the remaining plow zone deposits to expose the underlying subsoil, then search for features. Immediately after stripping, we covered the transect with sheet plastic to prevent the soil from drying out over the next few weeks.

Once the plow zone was completely removed, two three-meter by three-meter excavation units were laid out side by side at the west end of the transect. The floors of each excavation square were carefully troweled flat to reveal any organic feature stains.


Our first discovery was a clear line of post molds which ran in an oblique line across the eastern half of unit 508N 503E. This line could represent the wall of a structure or perhaps a stockade line. We were even more surprised to find a second line of post molds, running parallel to the first, in unit 511N 503 east. The image below shows the eastern line. More about these post lines later. Not a bad start for Week 1!

New Dates on Heckleman Features

Over the winter, we submitted five organic samples from the 2009 excavations at Heckleman for radiocarbon dating. Each sample was selected from features that were thought to date to different occupations of the site, and this proved to be the case, for the most part. We were particularly interested in the age of the oval enclosure trench. Based on the rather thick, flat-bottomed vessel fragment and one knob handle that were found during excavation, we concluded that the trench was filled sometime during the Early Woodland period. A fragment of deer bone from this trench (Feature 09-10) returned a calibrated median date of 195 B.C., which is right on the mark. We also dated some deer bone from the nearby Feature 09-20, which contained similar forms of pottery and also a bladelet, and the result was nearly the same at 185 B.C.

I also was very interested in getting a date on Feature 09-19 which intruded into the fill of the enclosure trench. We dated a fragment of deer astragalus or ankle bone from this pit to 110 B.C., not terribly later than the other features but perhaps a generation or two later. So, based on this information, we have a good general sequence of events which began with the digging of the enclosure trench by about 200 B.C.—but who knows how much earlier—followed by a rather quick filling of the trench with debris (pottery sherds, a few used-up stone tools, a bit of animal bone, charcoal, and fire-cracked rock). The fill of the pit showed two to three distinct fill layers or strata which indicates that the filling took place in several episodes. Once the trench was filled, the folks that followed used the space for the construction of storage pits and other features. Perhaps this sequence reflects the use and then abandonment of the enclosure by Early Woodland people, but as yet, we still don’t know what the enclosure was used for or even when it was constructed.

The fourth radiocarbon date was run on a sample of charcoal from Feature 09-31, a small basin-shaped pit found inside the enclosure during the last week of the 2009 season. This is the pit that contained the fragmented siltstone gorget (see earlier post). The thick charcoal layer from which the dated sample was taken can be seen in the profile image shown below.



To my mild surprise, the median calibrated date on this sample was A.D. 525, significantly later than the Early Woodland occupation. This date marks the transition from Middle to Late Woodland societies in the region and shows that the former enclosure space was reused by much later inhabitants. The pit itself showed evidence of burning and, perhaps, use as a cooking pit. Numerous large and small post molds were recorded in the vicinity of this pit, which may indicate the presence of a structure; however, we cannot say at this time.

Finally, we dated the pit structure (Feature 09-04) using a carbonized hickory nut hull from a small concentration found near the floor of the house. The result was about what we expected, dating the structure to a mean calibrated date of A.D. 1535. The thin, well-made, grit-tempered pottery found in the fill of this structure, along with the Madison triangular points, could easily date to this era, the latter half of the Late Prehistoric period in northern Ohio. This final date most likely provides evidence of the last occupation of the Heckleman site, since no other sites in the Huron Valley date any later in time.