Highlighting Hoosier Archaeological Sites: Northeast

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While Indiana may not be thought of as a state with deep, abiding maritime connections, it was, in fact, home to the longest shipping canal ever constructed in North America—the Wabash and Erie Canal. Construction on the canal began in 1832 and linked Lake Erie to the Ohio River via 460 miles of man-made waterways, thus making possible for traders and travelers alike a continuous route from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. The canal was a combination of four canals: the Miami and Erie Canal, which ran from the Maumee River, near Toledo, Ohio, to Junction, Ohio; the original Wabash and Erie Canal, from Junction, Ohio to Terre Haute, Indiana; the Cross Cut Canal, from Terre Haute to Worthington (“Point Commerce”); and the Central Canal, from Worthington to Evansville.

 Gronauer Lock (also known as Gronauer Lock Number Two, or Wabash and Erie Canal Lock Number Two) was built in an area located east of the City of Fort Wayne, Indiana, by Henry Lotz in 1839 and 1840. The lock was named after the lock keeper, Joseph Gronauer, whose house was located nearby (Laswell 2015:7).

 In 1991, the archaeological remnants of Gronauer Lock were discovered (Figure 1) during the initial construction phase of the Federal Highway Administration (“FHWA”)/Indiana Department of Transportation (“INDOT”) US 24 and I-469 Interchange Project. Additionally, remains of the Gronauer canal house were identified. Ball State University conducted Phase III archaeological investigations at that time, concentrating upon collecting data that would be used to determine construction methods and materials, to identify rebuilding and demolition episodes, and to guide analyses of artifact functions (Laswell 2015). Archaeologists determined that the lock had measured about 185 feet in length, about 65 feet in width (which included crib bracing/cross walls at the western end), and about 12 feet in height; their estimation was that the lock had been in operation from 1842 until 1875 (Parish 1993:49). The tow path, which ran along the southern bank of the canal, was from 15 feet to 18 feet in width (Parish 1993:49).  Additionally, archaeologists identified two road construction-related demolition episodes to which the lock had been subjected—one in the 1930s, and another in the 1940s. Although up to two-thirds of the lock structure was removed during project-related mitigation efforts, the northern cribbing was left intact and in situ beneath the original US 24 alignment, largely driven by safety concerns about potential wall collapses (Laswell 2015; Parish 1993). Timbers recovered from the lock underwent preservation, and subsequently were included in an Indiana State Museum exhibit.

The archaeological deposits that had been left in situ from the earlier project were once again threatened by a transportation-related project in 2003. In response to an INDOT project partner’s assertion that previous Phase III archaeological investigations, as mitigation for the demolition of any remainder of the site, had collected all of the important data from the site, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology (DHPA), expressed the opinion that the extant portions of the Gronauer Lock in fact retained the potential to yield important information, and thus the site was eligible, under Criterion D, for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The DHPA also recommended that the site must either be avoided by ground-disturbing project activities or be subjected to further archaeological investigations (Laswell 2015:9-10).

 In 2016, another FHWA/INDOT project in the immediate vicinity of the lock was proposed. The DHPA staff reiterated that it was understood that portions of the lock, which previously had been determined eligible for inclusion in the NRHP under Criterion D, remained in situ beneath the US 24 alignment east of I-469 and recommended that the remaining portions of the Gronauer Lock be clearly marked and avoided by all project-related ground-disturbing activities. If avoidance was not feasible, the DHPA recommended that a plan for subsurface archaeological investigations be submitted.

 Every so often, the DHPA receives telephone calls and e-mail messages from excited Hoosiers who believe that they have found missing pieces of the famed Wabash and Erie Canal—a filled-in canal prism, perhaps, or structural members or gates that once were parts of a demolished canal lock. The future of the Gronauer Lock, one of the few partially extant archaeological features of the historic Wabash and Erie Canal (which itself was a mere memory after about 1874) remains unclear. Although future development may not leave it untouched forever, with careful stewardship of the resource and sensitive guidance in project planning, archaeologists and preservationists might be able to further investigate this feature far into the future.

References

Laswell, Jeffrey (2015). Gronauer Lock (12-Al-1674) Archaeological Treatment: I-469 Interchange Modification at US 24 in New Haven, Allen County, Indiana (Des. No. 1383675). Indiana Department of Transportation, Environmental Services, Cultural Resources Office, Indianapolis, Indiana.  

Parish, Cindy (1993). Archaeological Investigations at the Gronauer Lock #2, Allen County, Indiana. Report of Investigation 39. Archaeological Management Service, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Site 12BL34 is identified as a possible burial hill in Licking Township, Blackford County, first recorded in 1983 by Ball State University (BSU). The site had originally been reported to BSU by an artifact collector who had discovered a Late Archaic tubular pipe, an anvil stone, a quartzite Adena-like point, a graver spur, an Archaic point, an unclassified point and point fragment and a biface described as a “chisel.” BSU recovered an additional 63 precontact artifacts, including unidentified bone, during an archaeological survey of a 25 x 25-yard (23 x 23-meters) area (0.13 acres) near the collector reported site in 1983.

Research results and observations from both the collector and BSU archaeologists led to the conclusion that site 12BL34 may have been a burial hill, but the exact location was unknown (Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology 2007). The story of this site provides a good example of how archaeological sites reported by collectors and/or with incomplete records, many discovered decades ago, can be the basis of reinvestigation and provide additional archaeological data far beyond the original site data.

As part of a 2012 Historic Preservation Fund grant (18-12-41921-3), the Applied Anthropology Laboratories (AAL) at BSU investigated a 137-acre parcel (known as Survey Area 8) containing two reported locations of 12BL34. The State Historic Architecture and Archaeological Research Database (SHAARD) and original site form indicate one location for the burial hill (Location 1), while the topographic map at AAL indicated the site was on another hill within that same agricultural field (Location 2). The original site form and SHAARD both include the investigator’s 1983 comments, “Have been told that a burial is on adjacent hill. Am inclined to believe that it is this hill!” referring to an “X” on a crude sketch map as seen in Figure 1 (Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology 2007). Because of this discrepancy, AAL investigated Survey Area 8 to attempt to locate the burial hill and to collect more data concerning 12BL34 and the surrounding area (Miller 2013).

Based on field conditions, the intended survey method for Survey Area 8 was a Phase Ia pedestrian survey, collecting artifacts from the ground surface in transects spaced at 10-meter intervals. However, a preliminary field visit to Survey Area 8 resulted in the observation of a high density of precontact artifacts. Accordingly, the survey method was modified to a more intensive surface collection. To ensure as much archaeological data as possible was collected in an efficient and effective manner during the field survey, a grid of 20 x 5-meter blocks was established across the entire survey area. The field crew surveyed in transects spaced at 5-meter intervals with flags identifying the transect and block number placed every 20 meters along each transect. All artifacts collected from that block were placed in a bag along with a pre-printed label identifying the transect and block number. A master artifact log was used to track the progress of the blocks in the field, and for documentation and reconciliation purposes in the laboratory (Figure 2). Over 5,500 specific “blocks” on the landscape were surveyed using this methodology (Miller 2013). 

A total of 72 archaeological sites were defined in Survey Area 8 during two days of survey in November 2012. No artifacts were found that were diagnostic of the Late Archaic period or that gave any indication of a burial context or a “burial hill.” Archaeological sites and artifact clusters near 12BL34 Location 1 and Location 2 were closely examined, and none could be definitively related to site 12BL34. Therefore, the exact location of the reported 12BL34 burial hill remains inconclusive.

However, much new and significant archaeological data was gathered in the area surrounding site 12BL34. A total of 557 artifacts were recovered from the 72 sites in Survey Area 8, including 351 precontact artifacts. Four precontact diagnostic artifacts identified include two Late Woodland “humpback” knives (Justice 1987:230; Munson and Munson 1972) and two Middle Woodland bladelets (Greber et al. 1981; Nolan 2005). Additional precontact artifacts include 9 bifaces (both hafted and unhafted), 43 cores and core tools, 1 drill, 1 spokeshave, 9 endscrapers, 5 sidescrapers, 25 groundstone tools, 1 hammerstone and numerous flakes (including edge modified, utilized, and retouched). The survey produced several large precontact scatters that are recommended for further archaeological testing. The entire 137-acre Survey Area 8 surrounding the two possible locations of 12BL34 is worthy of further study, as it represents the densest concentration of precontact artifacts recovered to date in Blackford County (Miller 2013).

References

Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology (2007). Archaeological site form for 12Bl34. In State Historic Architectural and Archaeology Research Database (SHAARD). Electronic Database,  https://secure.in.gov/apps/dnr/shaard/welcome.html , accessed June 29, 2020.

Greber, N’omi, Richard S. Davis, and Ann S. DuFresne (1981). The Micro Component of the Ohio Hopewell Lithic Technology: Bladelets. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 376:489-528.

 Justice, Noel D. (1987). Stone Age Spear and Arrow Points of the Midcontinental and Eastern United States. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana.

Miller, Joseph (2013). A Distributional Archaeological Survey of the Southern Portion of Blackford County. Reports of Investigation 80. Applied Anthropology Laboratories, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Munson, Patrick J., and Cheryl Ann Munson (1972). Unfinished Triangular Projectile Points, or ‘Humpbacked’ Knives Revisited. Pennsylvania Archaeologist 42(3):31-36.

Nolan, Kevin C. (2005). The Ohio Hopewell Blade Industry and Craft Specialization: A Comparative Analysis. Unpublished Master’s thesis. Kent State University, Kent, Ohio.

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The Ehler site (12HU1022) is a portion of the early nineteenth century Miami (Myaamia) village in present-day Huntington County, Indiana. The village was abandoned by the Miami in September of 1812, shortly before being destroyed by U.S. troops under the command of William Henry Harrison. Although the Miami returned to the area following the War of 1812, the portion of the village known today as the Ehler site was never reoccupied. In the 1830s it was unwittingly covered over, and hence protected, by the towpath and berm of the Wabash and Erie Canal. Archaeological investigations of the site and its environs have revealed evidence of Native American occupations spanning the precolonial history of the region (Evans and Mann 1991; Mann 1996). 

Brief History of the Forks of Wabash Miami Village

Both ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence indicate that the historic period materials recovered at the Ehler site stem solely from the early nineteenth century Miami occupation (Mann 1996, 1999). The Forks of the Wabash was part of myaamionki, the cultural landscape of the Myaamiaki – the Miami people (Glenn 1991; Mann 2018; Sutterfield 2009). By the end of the eighteenth century, the Miami were the most powerful group in the Wabash River (waapaahšiiki siipiiwi) valley. For much of that time Kekionga (or Kiskakon) along the Maumee River was the main village of the Miami. Following the American defeat of the Miami Confederacy and the construction of Fort Wayne in 1794, many Miami left and established villages on the upper Wabash and its tributaries.

Sometime around 1809 a band of Miami led by Pakaana (variously spelled Pacanne or Pacane and translates to “the Nut”), formerly the hereditary civil chief at Kekionga and his sister Tahkamwa (also known as Maria Louisa Richerville), an akimaahkwiaki, or female village leader (Green and Marrero 2014), established a settlement at the Forks of the Wabash. Pakaana and Tahkamwa were part of the leadership of the Crane clan, which according to traditional Miami practice, controlled access to the Maumee-Wabash Portage and claimed the right to live near it (Green and Marrero 2014).

During the War of 1812 Chapine (Chappune, Chappim), a war chief from the Forks of the Wabash village, led a group of Miami warriors up the Maumee-Wabash portage and joined with other Algonquian forces to attack and lay siege to Fort Wayne (Mann 1999:413). William Henry Harrison led a relief force into the fort and dispersed the warriors without firing a shot. Based on testimony from officers at the fort, Harrison determined that the Miami were involved in the siege and ordered the destruction of Miami villages on the Wabash and its tributaries (Mann 1999). Upon learning that Harrison’s army was on its way, the Miami abandoned the Forks of the Wabash. On the evening of September 15, 1812 American forces entered and encamped at the deserted Miami settlement. The next day the soldiers proceeded to completely destroy the village, torching the houses and burning the crops in the fields (Mann 1996:88-89).

Archaeology at the Ehler Site

In 1994 archaeological excavations were undertaken at the Ehler site per an agreement between the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) and Landmark Archaeological and Environmental Services. Following the mechanical removal of the plow zone and most of the towpath, 35.5 2 × 2 m units were hand excavated. These excavations uncovered several subsurface features, including an extensive sheet midden, storage and refuse pits, and the structural remains of a burned Miami cabin. The largest midden (Feature 6) covered approximately 85.63 square meters. It was an organically rich artifact-bearing layer of very dark grayish-brown silt loam. It ranged in thickness from 11 cm to 25 cm. The charred remains of at least 15 timbers were found resting on top of the midden (Figure 1). This indicated that no [JA(1] midden deposition occurred following the charring of these timbers and that they represented the remains of a Miami cabin burned by American forces in September 1812. The larger of these timbers roughly delineated the outline of a rectangular cabin. Within the walls of this cabin were the remains of a large hearth. The hearth consisted of a round fire pit surrounded on three sides by a dense and purposefully placed concentration of unmodified dolomite. A large pit feature was found just outside of what would have been the east wall of the cabin (Figure 2). The pit was filled with daily refuse by the Miami occupants of the cabin and had been filled in and capped over by the midden prior to the abandonment of the site in 1812. The excavations recovered more than 400 artifacts, over 3,000 faunal remains, and an extensive assortment of archaeobotanical materials related to the Miami occupation of the site (Bush 1996; Mann 1996; Martin and Richmond 1995).

There is also strong evidence to show that Pakaana and the conservative Miami had rekindled their relations with the British in Canada by 1809. Although American military installations and government agencies were regularly supplied with French-made gunflints at this time, the Miami at the Forks of the Wabash were well supplied with British-made gunflints (Mann 1999). A similar pattern of gunflint procurement is found at British-allied Potawatomi and Kickapoo villages occupied during the War of 1812 era (Wagner 2010:123-124, 2011:125). The archaeological evidence for Miami practices of dress, diet, and alliance at the Forks of the Wabash suggests that these Miami sought to reestablish and reproduce a conservative version of Miami lifeways at a time when the legitimacy of those practices was being contested both within Miami society and by outsiders.

References

Bush, Leslie L. (1996).  Botanical Analysis. In Archaeological Excavations at the Ehler Site (12Hu1022): An Early 19th Century Miami Indian Habitation Site near the Forks of the Wabash, Huntington County, Indiana. Report of Investigation 95IN0062-P3ror. Landmark Archaeological and Environmental Services, Sheridan, Indiana.

Evans, Dallas, and Rob Mann (1991).  Addendum to Archaeological Field Reconnaissance, U.S. 24 Bypass, Project MAF-146-0 0, Wabash/ Huntington Counties, Indiana. On file at Archaeological Resources Management Service, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Glenn, Elizabeth (199l). The Fur Trade, the Long Portage and the Forks of the Wabash. In The Forks of the Wabash: An Historical Survey, edited by Dwight Ericsson and Ann Ericsson, pp. 7-26. Historic Forks of the Wabash, Huntington, Indiana.

Green, Adrianna Greci, and Karen Marrero (2014).  “Fixing Their Camp in Their Own Manner”: The Critical Role of the Miami in British Operations in the Revolutionary War Era. Gateway: The Magazine of the Missouri History Museum 34:30-41.

Mann, Rob (1996). Archaeological Excavations at the Ehler Site (12-Hu-1022): An Early 19th Century Miami Indian Habitation Site near the Forks of the Wabash, Huntington County, Indiana. Report of Investigation 95IN0062-P3ror. Landmark Archaeological and Environmental Services, Sheridan, Indiana.

Mann, Rob (1999). The Silenced Miami: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Evidence for Miami-British Relations, 1795-1812. Ethnohistory 46:399-427.

Mann, Rob (2018).  People, Portages, and Powerful Places: Miami Indians at the Forks of the Wabash during the War of 1812 Era. In Midwest Archaeological Conference Occasional Papers No. 2, edited by Heather Walder and Jessica Yann, pp. 87-104.

Martin, Terrance J., and J. C. Richmond (1995). Animal Remains from 12Hu1022, an Early 19th Century Aboriginal Habitation Site Near the Forks of the Wabash in Northeastern Indiana. Quaternary Studies Program Technical Report 95, pp. 986-32. Illinois State Museum Society, Springfield.

Sutterfield, Joshua (2009).  aciipihkahki: iši kati mihtohseeniwiyankwi myaamionki. Roots of Place: Experiencing a Miami Landscape. Unpublished master’s thesis, Department of Geography, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.

Wagner, Mark J. (2010).  A Prophet Has Arisen: The Archaeology of Nativism among the Nineteenth-Century Algonquian Peoples of Illinois. In Across a Great Divide: Continuity and Change in Native North American Societies, 1400-1900, edited by Laura L. Scheiber and Mark D. Mitchell, pp. 107-127. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Wagner, Mark J. (2011). The Rhodes Site: A Historic Kickapoo Village on the Illinois Prairie. Studies in Archaeology No. 5. Illinois State Archaeological Survey, University of Illinois, Urbana.

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Dams on America’s waterways spurred industrialization and settlement throughout the United States by allowing people to harness the power of these waterways for various types of mills, which in turn provided the materials needed for settlements to grow and trade. Some dams were also used to provide better water supplies for growing settlements or to provide habitat for species that would be used in sport or as a food source. Over time, the reasons for building many of these dams have disappeared, and now they are no longer serving their original function. Many of these dams are deteriorating and lay derelict. This has led to a growing movement to remove some dams to restore the streams to their natural habitat. Dams were an important part of our collective history, yet they have also had a negative impact on some of the waterways.

Building dams on America’s waterways was a defining chapter in the growth and settlement of the United States, and now the reopening of these waterways is a new chapter in our history. How, then, do we account for these cultural resources as they are systematically removed? The Division of Historic Preservation & Archaeology (DHPA) has determined that these historical dams are important cultural resources requiring surveying and documentation prior to removal. One such dam in Steuben County is the Fawn River Fish Hatchery dam in Orland (Figure 1).

In 2015, Orbis Environmental Consulting began a cultural resources investigation of the Fawn River Fish Hatchery. The Division of Engineering (DE) proposed restoring this section of the Fawn River, including removing the earthen dam. The dam and impoundment provided water for the fish hatchery ponds, but the condition of the earthen dam had deteriorated since it was built in the 1930s. The restoration consisted of work in the stream channel and at the earthen dam embankment, as well as two nearby parcels for the soil spoils.

The fish hatchery, site 12SN215, consisted of multiple ponds and a dam and impoundment. The property also included a house (which served as a converted office building) and additional outbuildings.

As is common practice, the earthen dam was built on an earlier dam and mill site which was established in the early nineteenth century by Timothy Kimball. This was the first gristmill on the river. The mill proved a boom to the community and was patronized by farmers for miles and counties around. The mill was still in use in 1891 (Stevens 1920). It is uncertain when the mill was removed, but it was likely in the early twentieth century.

On April 25, 1935, the Orland town board purchased a tract of land adjacent to a non-extant mill race. Part of the land was to be used for the construction of a fish hatchery and the balance set aside for a park and recreation area. The hatchery, completed in 1937, was called the Orland Fish Hatchery and consisted of four earthen ponds ranging in size from 2.07 to 3.37 acres. On November 6, 1939, the town board and the Orland Conservation Club donated the hatchery to the state of Indiana, and it was immediately expanded on land purchased by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Six more rearing ponds were constructed, bringing the total water area to 23.54 acres (IDNR 2016). The Fawn River Fish Hatchery (NR-1326) was listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1996 as a significant example of a facility constructed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as part of the New Deal work programs of the late 1930s and early 1940s (Greiff 1996).

The scope of archaeology for this project first involved a Phase Ia survey. Orbis staff performed the survey in 2015-2016 and used professional shovel testing methods to systematically sample the project area (Duddleson and Rutter 2016). The purpose of the survey was to locate any buried cultural resources and focused in particular on WPA era artifacts and artifacts that could be associated with the old mill. This survey, however, did not encounter any buried archaeological materials.

The next step of the investigation was a Minimum Architectural Documentation of the earthen dam prior to its removal. The goal was to create a final documentation of the cultural resource prior to alteration. A qualified professional historian documented the architectural elements of the dam and its associated features.

In 2017, Orbis staff measured and photographed these elements to create a comprehensive sketch (Martin 2017). The documentation noted that the earthen dam is oriented north-south with a concrete spillway on the north and a sluice with a sluice gate on the south side of the dam. The south sluice has chain-link fencing around both sides of the dam with a concrete walkway between them. On the east side of this sluice there is a sluice gate system to control water flow. The west side of the sluice has concrete extension walls and wing walls that extend into the river to control the path of the discharged water and deter erosion of the riverbank. The north spillway does not have any fencing, however there is a metal pedestrian bridge to cross the flow of water. The north spillway has a headwall extension wall on the southeast side of the spillway. Lowered water levels revealed two remnants of wooden posts to the east of the north spillway, in the river approximately five feet from the spillway inflow and located approximately four feet apart. Courses of dry-hand-laid stones were placed along the west bank on the west side of earthen dam for erosion control of the riverbank. These stones are original to the WPA construction of the dam. In total, the dam was documented as consisting of two spillways, an earthen dam, and the impoundment pond. The information gathered was incorporated into a comprehensive document prior to the removal of the dam.

The final stage of the investigation was the monitoring during the removal of the dam. The purpose of the monitoring was to observe the construction details of the dam, including materials and design, and to also monitor for any unexpected cultural resources. Orbis staff conducted the archaeological monitoring in 2017 (Duddleson et al. 2018).

The monitoring revealed that the dam consisted of a cap of turf grass and loamy soils (approximately 1-2 feet), above a layer of sand with small, natural gravels (approximately 6-7 feet deep), above a natural gleied clay base. Both the upstream and downstream faces of the dam contained a row of large stones/boulders (8-20 inches in diameter), likely functioning as armoring or erosion control. These stones lacked mortar and appeared to be dry-hand-laid. The stones were generally buried below the surface of the turf, but some were visible at the surface along the upstream side near the former waterline. The stones lined each side of the dam approximately 3-4 feet below the crest of the dam. The northern 1/3 of the dam, however, lacked any such stones. The Fawn River staff notified Orbis that the north spillway was overtopped by a flood event in the 1970s, causing the northern 1/3 of the dam to collapse. This slumped material was visible during the monitoring as a “bulge” at the toe of the dam. The dam was quickly rebuilt with similar sandy soils and a turf cap, but without using the large stones for armoring.

Apart from this reconstructed portion, the uniform nature of the dam suggests it was installed in a single event rather than incorporating components of any previous earthen dam or of the historic mill. While historic records suggest that the initial plan was to reconstruct the earthen dam using materials from the former mill, it appears this was ultimately not the case.

 As part of the Memorandum of Agreement (the legal agreement between project consulting parties to determine necessary mitigation of the “Adverse Effects” to the resource), the dam removal only impacted the center of the earthen dam. This opened the river flow to a more historical level and allowed for stream restoration. The north and south spillways were left in place as part of the mitigation of negative effects to the historic resource. This kept the setting and feel to the historic district. 

The Fawn River Fish Hatchery dam removal resulted in the partial removal of the earthen dam in order to allow for stream restoration. The fish hatchery is still functioning, and now receives water through a newly installed well after the dam removal. Portions of the dam, namely the north and south spillways, were kept in place to retain the setting and feel of the historic district. The Phase Ia archaeological survey did not encounter any cultural resources to add to the history of the site. The Minimum Architectural Documentation provided a complete record of the resource prior to alteration and removal. The archaeological monitoring added considerable knowledge and understanding of the history and construction of the dam. It did so through confirming events in the dam’s history, such as the partial breakdown in 1970, and confirmed that the dam was not constructed of materials associated with the old mill. 

References

Duddleson, J Ryan, Alycia Giedd, and James Martin (2018).  Archaeological Monitoring for the Proposed Dam Removal Project at the Fawn River Fish Hatchery near Orland, Steuben County, Indiana. Orbis Environmental Consulting, South Bend, Indiana.

Duddleson, J Ryan and William Rutter (2016). Phase Ia Archeological Reconnaissance for the Proposed Dam Removal Project at the Fawn River Fish Hatchery near Orland, Steuben County, Indiana. Orbis Environmental Consulting, South Bend, Indiana.              

Greiff, Glory-June (1996). National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Fawn River State Fish Hatchery. Manuscript on file, Indiana Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Indianapolis.

Indiana Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) (2016). Fish Production Facilities. Fawn River State Fish Hatchery. Indiana Department of Natural Resources web site,  http://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/5464.htm .

Martin, James L. (2017). Minimal Architectural Documentation of the Proposed Dam Removal Project at the Fawn River Fish Hatchery near Orland, Steuben County, Indiana. Orbis Environmental Consulting, South Bend, Indiana.             

Stevens, Orville, ed. (1920). Steuben County, History of Northeast Indiana, LaGrange, Steuben, Noble and Dekalb Counties. Lewis Publishing Co., New York. Electronic document,  https://archive.org/details/historyofnorthea02ford ,  accessed December 2015.

The landscape of Wabash County, like the rest of central Indiana, is a relic of the last ice age. Most of the county is covered by a thick layer of glacial till deposited by the melting ice as the climate warmed. The landscape of the county differs, however, from other central Indiana counties due to the extensive outcrops of limestone bedrock exposed by erosion of the Wabash and Mississinewa rivers. The exposed bedrock reveals notable Wabash County landmarks such as Hanging Rock, Seven Pillars and Shanty Falls. During Euro-American settlement, the limestone furnished building materials for construction, crushed stone for road gravel, and lime. However, use of the limestone for construction is limited by the presence of chert which can be deleterious for some applications. For the Native American inhabitants of the county and surrounding areas, the chert was a valuable resource that was the basis of native lifeways for thousands of years (Cumings and Shrock 1928; Shrock 1928; Wayne and Thornbury 1951; Wepler 1982; Wepler and Cochran 1983).

 For societies without metal for tools, stone is of vital importance because it is the material used in the manufacture of other tools of wood, bone, and antler. Chert, flint, and chalcedony are some of the terms applied to brittle rocks with a glass-like structure that form in limestone and chalk. The glass-like structure allows these rocks to be broken in predictable ways and shaped into specific forms. Freshly broken pieces of these rocks have very sharp cutting edges, but the sharpness dulls quickly. The brittleness of the stone also leads to easy breakage. Resharpening and replacing dulled and broken tools is a constant day-to-day requirement for societies dependent on stone tools for survival. Access to a reliable source of raw material is imperative. The outcrops of chert in the limestone in Wabash and other counties in central Indiana furnished this need and were the predominant local sources for Native societies in the region.

The limestone in Wabash County is defined as the Liston Creek Limestone member of the Wabash Formation, and the type site is at the mouth of Liston Creek at it its junction with the Mississinewa River (Cumings and Shrock 1928). The chert is named for its geological context. The outcrop area for the Liston Creek Limestone extends from the Wabash River to southern Madison County, although the most extensive outcrops occur along the Wabash Valley in Huntington, Wabash, and Miami counties (Figure 1). Archaeological surveys of the Mississinewa, Salamonie, and Huntington [Roush Lake] reservoirs recorded the focus on the local chert and its dominance as a source material in regional artifacts (Wepler 1982; Wepler and Cochran 1983). Liston Creek chert is commonly included in compilations of Indiana cherts (Cantin 2008; DeRegnaucourt and Georgiady 1998; Holland and Ashton 2008; Tankersley 1989).

Liston Creek chert occurs in nodules and beds in the limestone. Color is generally described as tan to grey (Cantin 2008) although milk white, dark brown and shades of blue-grey are reported (Shaver 1961). The lighter tan and brown chert is more common along the Mississinewa River (Figure 2) while grey colored variations are more common above the mouth of the Salamonie River (Wepler and Cochran 1983). The chert is characterized as medium to low quality because of variations in texture, the presence of relict limestone, fossil casts, and quartz filled cavities (Cantin 2008). The inconsistent texture makes the chert more difficult to make into tools because texture changes can result in step fractures and broken artifacts. The lighter colored chert tends to be the best quality.  Heat treatment makes the chert more brittle and improves the flaking qualities. Some varieties turn color to shades of red when heated while the grey chert takes on darker grey colors (Anuszczyk and Cochran 1984:19-20) (Figure 2). Heat treatment adds a glossy sheen to the chert as well. Selection for consistency in texture rather than quality is apparent in artifacts (Wepler and Cochran 1983). Artifacts reflecting the entire precontact history of central Indiana are manufactured from this material (Smith and Klabacka 2009; Wepler 1982; Wepler and Cochran 1983).

The importance of the chert to local Native societies is exemplified by the archaeological sites associated with the Liston Creek limestone outcrops in Wabash County. Many of these sites represent habitations where people carried out daily activities including making stone tools. Some sites differ from habitations in that they appear to be focused on acquiring chert from the outcrops and making tools or reducing it to portable forms. Site 12WB90, in Wabash County, is a good example of these sites.

Site 12WB90 was recorded during the Mississinewa Reservoir survey (Wepler 1982). The site was located on a ridge spur on the east side of the Mississinewa Valley above an outcrop of limestone and chert. Surface erosion had exposed almost 1,500 artifacts. The artifacts were made from chert from the adjacent outcrop and were primarily waste material from the early stages of chipped stone manufacturing. These included blocky pieces of chert,  flakes, cores, bifaces and projectile points. Diagnostic artifacts documented occupation during the Middle to Late Archaic (5000 – 1500 BC) and Middle Woodland (200 BC – AD 600) periods. A surface survey, controlled surface collection, and limited testing revealed that the surface was badly eroded, and no features were found. The importance of the site was highlighted by its location in an area that had not been cultivated combined with its potential for containing significant information on Native American use of the local chert (Goldstein 1984; Swartz 1983; Wepler 1982). 

 Sites like 12WB90 are recorded adjacent to limestone and chert bedrock along the south side of the Wabash River Valley from Huntington to Miami counties. The sites primarily relate to collecting chert and making bifaces and other tools from it. Collectively they can be defined as workshops, sites that “yield quantities of exhausted and unsuitable partially worked cores, broken or misshapen flakes and preforms, and great quantities of debris resulting from the reduction of cores and /or preforms” (Jelinek 1976:21). Diagnostic artifacts show that the chert sources in Wabash and adjacent counties were used for thousands of years (DeRegnaucourt and Georgiady 1998: Plate 25; Wepler and Cochran 1983). At these sites, broken and worn out tools found made from raw materials from far away sources such as Attica from Warren County or Vanport chert from the Flint Ridge, Ohio area suggest that tools were being replaced by new ones made from Liston Creek chert. The large number of bifaces in the sites suggests that for some occupants, the chert was reduced to a portable form and taken elsewhere for finishing. Given that bedrock north of the Wabash River is covered by deep deposits of glacial drift with few if any surface exposures (Carr et al. 1971), some groups made trips to the Liston Creek chert sources for transport to the north (Richey 1992) and probably elsewhere (Wepler 1982; Wepler and Cochran 1983). 

 Of interest here is that other sites in the river valleys near the outcrops also contain dense concentrations of chert processing artifacts along with more typical materials associated with habitations. While the chert outcrops are more extensively exposed along the Wabash Valley in Huntington, Wabash, and Miami counties, they do occur across a wider area of central Indiana, but sites similar to 12WB90 are not known outside of the immediate area of the extensive outcrops adjacent to the Wabash Valley. Diagnostic artifacts show that all the sites were in use during the same time periods although variations in the ways that the outcrops were exploited within those periods could occur.  It is probable that the samples of tools from all the sites are biased by prior uncontrolled artifact collecting in spite of state and federal statutes prohibiting it (Wepler 1982).  

 So, what do sites like 12WB90 represent? Why are they situated above the chert source which would require moving chert uphill? Clearly the sites are intentionally segregated from other habitations. Do they represent locations where novices learn chert processing techniques or possibly visits by nonlocal groups who reduce the chert to a portable form? Whatever the purpose(s) of the sites, the artifacts within them can reveal much about Native American strategies for the acquisition of chert raw material, chipped stone technology, and movements of artifacts within central Indiana and surrounding regions (Wepler 1982; Wepler and Cochran 1983).

While the outcrop area of Liston Creek chert encompasses a large area in central Indiana, the extent of the outcrops and associated archaeological sites in Wabash County exemplifies Native American acquisition and manufacture of artifacts from it. Analysis of the chert from outcrops in the area provides important information on the ways Native American groups acquired, modified and used it, including information on settlement patterns, particularly the movement of artifacts made from it and by extension, the movement of people or exchange. Sites like 12WB90 represent a specific type of site associated with the chert outcrops in Wabash County.  The county is the location of the type site for Liston creek chert, a vital resource for the Native American inhabitants of central Indiana and most likely for people across a broader area without a reliable chert source. The archaeological sites and artifacts demonstrate the importance of the chert to past lifeways over thousands of years. While Liston Creek chert lacked the quality of other Indiana cherts such as Wyandotte from Harrison County, or the unique appearance of Attica from Warren County, Native people in central Indiana adapted it to their need for a dependable raw material for chipped stone tools. While sites and artifacts from Wabash County reveal the importance of this local chert source to the Native inhabitants, additional studies are needed to realize the potential of the sites and artifacts for addressing questions concerning the thousands of years represented in the precontact occupation of central Indiana.

References

Anuszczyk, Edmond, and Donald R. Cochran (1984). An Archaeological Survey of the Upper Wabash Valley. Reports of Investigation 13. Archaeological Resources Management Service, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Cantin, Mark (2008). Provenience, Description, and Archaeological Use of Selected Chert Types of Indiana. Anthropology Laboratory. Technical Report 05-01. Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana. 

Carr, Donald D., Robert R. French, and Curtis H. Ault (1971). Crushed Stone Aggregate Resources of Indiana.  Indiana Geological Survey Bulletin 42-H.   

Cumings, Edgar R., and Robert R. Shrock (1928). The Geology of the Silurian Rocks of Northern Indiana. Indiana Department of Conservation Publication 75.  Indiana Department of Conservation, Indianapolis, Indiana.

DeRegnaucourt, Tony, and Jeff Georgiady (1998). Prehistoric Chert Types of the Midwest. Occasional Monographs in Archaeology 7. Upper Miami Valley Archaeological Research Museum, Arcanum, Ohio.

Goldstein, Lynne (1984). Current Research. American Antiquity 49(3):836.

Holland, J. D., and W. Ashton (2008). Indiana Chert Types. Illinois Antiquity 43:18-26.

Jelinek, Arthur (1976). Form, Function, and Style in Lithic Analysis. In Culture Change and Continuity, edited by Charles Cleland, pp. 19-33. Academic Press, New York New York.

Richey, Kris D. (1992). Life Along the Kenepocomoco: Archaeological Resources of the Upper Eel River Valley. Archaeological Resources Management Service, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Shaver, Robert H. (1961). The Stratigraphy of the Silurian Rocks of Northern Indiana. Field Conference Guidebook No. 10.   Geological Survey, Indiana Department of Conservation, Bloomington, Indiana.

Shrock, Robert R. (1928). Some Interesting Physiographic Features of the Upper Wabash Drainage Basin in Indiana. Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science 37:125-139.

Smith, Andrew, and Rachel Klabacka (2009). Archaeological Investigations in the Upper Wabash River Valley: A 2009 Survey in Huntington, Miami and Wabash Counties, Indiana. Reports of Investigation 76. Archaeological Resources Management Service, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Swartz, B.K. (1983). Archaeological Investigations at the Mississinewa, Salamonie and Huntington Lakes: 1983 Summer Field School. Request for Archaeological Permit, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Department of Anthropology, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Tankersley, K.B. (1989). A Close Look at the Big Picture: Early Paleoindian Lithic Procurement in the Midwestern United States. In Paleoindian Lithic Resource Use, edited by C. Ellis and J. Lothrop, pp. 259-292. Westview, Boulder, Colorado.

Wayne, William J., and William D. Thornbury (1951). Glacial Geology of Wabash County, Indiana. Indiana Department of Conservation Geological Survey Bulletin 5. Indiana Department of Conservation, Bloomington, Indiana.

Wepler, William R. (1982). Final Report on the 1980-81 Mississinewa Reservoir Survey. Reports of Investigation 5. Archaeological Resources Management Service, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

Wepler, William, and Donald Cochran (1983). An Archaeological Assessment of Huntington Reservoir: Identification, Prediction, Impact. Reports of   Investigation 10. Archaeological Resources Management Service, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

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