I'm in the process of getting back to paying more attention to the EWHADP.  Unfortunately, the research assistant that I hired last semester was not able to continue for very long (she got a better offer . . . oh well), and I was too busy trying to get myself up and running on number of other fronts to be able to devote any time to this project. I still have money left to pay someone to help with the database, but I think my better strategy now might be to just start to chip away it myself.  There is plenty of work to be done before the database is updated to the point where I'm ready for another release, so don't hold your breath. But the project is not dead.

The first new thing I'm adding is information about a pair of Mississippian wall trench structures from the Knoebel site in Saint Clair County, Illinois.  I stumbled across this 2012 paper by Jeffery Kruchten while I was seeing if I could find a copy of Charles Bareis' (1976) report online. No dice on the Bareis report, but Kruchten discusses two structures excavated in 2005-2006. In Kruchten's paper, the structures are designated Features 1 and 2, repeating feature designations that were used in the Bareis report.  To avoid confusion in the EWHADP database, I have designated them "Feature 1 (2005)" and "Feature 2 (2005)."  They will be Structures 2263 and 2264 when the new database comes out.

I hope to be able to announce the latest iteration of the database soon.  The last database release (containing information on over 2100 structures) was all the way back in March of 2014.  Gah!

​The project got off to a quick start in February of 2014, but stalled when I had to direct my energies elsewhere later that year.  I spent the 2014-2015 academic year teaching a 4-4 at Grand Valley State University, and it was difficult to find time to do anything with the EWHADP other than teach look at the box of files and participate in a trial linking of the EWHADP database with DINAA. GVSU undergraduate Emily Gilhooly did make some progress on the database, continuing the process of consulting the original records in order to re-code some fields and add new data to others.  

With donated cash in hand from a successful GoFundMe campaign, I was able to hire University of South Carolina doctoral student Laura Clifford to work on the project this semester.  Laura's first job is to finish the checking and re-coding of all the records currently in the database. She's working on that now.  When that task is complete, we'll make the new database available and she'll move on to the next job: adding new records.  That will involve tracking down leads from publications we've already seen as well as finding new sources of data in print publications and online. Eventually  I hope to give Laura the the keys to this website so that she can write the "What's New" blurbs as she adds new structures, update the maps, and keep the online bibliography up to date. 

I would like to keep this project going next semester, but I'm not going to ask for more money until I have some results from this semester to demonstrate success.  

I would like to again thank those made a cash contribution to help get the EWHADP out of mothballs and running again: David Cusack, Ken Kosidlo, Josh Wells, and a donor who wishes to remain anonymous. In addition to my sincere gratitude, I have (as promised) a limited edition sticker for each of you. And I owe you beers.

I haven't spent much time adding new data to the database lately, but I am working on some changes.  I have a backlog of "new" data to add - I will get to it as I can.

The change I am most excited about is linking the EWHADP database to the DINAA (Digitial Index of North American Archaeology) project.  I wrote a little bit about that here this morning.

I'm also attempting to add some search functionality to the database.  If you look at the Database Search page you'll see some messy, unformatted, non-functional stuff. I've never attempted to incorporate a searchable database into a webpage before, so I'm learning (and seeing if it is possible here given the limitations of weebly) the way that I learn: trial and error.  My original hope was that both this website and DINAA could access and return records from a single database file (e.g., located at GitHub) containing the most recent data, but it doesn't look like that is going to work.  But I haven't given up yet.

I'm also going back and checking/recoding information from all the structures currently in the database.  I came up with what I think are improvements in the ways I was classifying shape, summarizing architectural information, and representing temporal period.  So I'm taking another look at everything and trying to get all the records on the same footing.  That is taking some time.

I hope to be working on adding new data again soon and putting up a newer, larger, cleaner, and more consistent version of the database.

Among many other claims to fame, the Koster site in Greene County, Illinois, is often said to have produced some of the earliest evidence for "substantial" (i.e., not temporary) domestic residential architecture in the Eastern Woodlands.  The Koster site excavations were a massive undertaking, revealing thousands of years of complicated stratigraphy.  While information from different aspects of the Koster excavations has appeared in dissertations, theses, monographs, papers, and books, a comprehensive report of the investigations has never been produced.  Data on the residential architecture from Koster are, unfortunately, scattered and sometimes in conflict.

Brown and Vierra (1983:184) state that Horizon 8C, dating to around 7000 RCYBP, contained

"house platforms partially dug into the slope of occupational surface . . . Well-preserved examples measure about 4.5 x 5.0 m.  Rectangular structures are indicated by the deep post pits for the heavy wall supports.  These structures are not lightly built shelters but represent a substantial investment in permanent shelter." 

The figure to the right shows what Brown and Vierra (1983:184) identify as a "well-preserved structure" defined by seven postholes (all of which appear to be within pit features?) and apparently extending into an unexcavated area.  The dashed lines indicate the limits of the "platform" that was apparently created in the slope to better accommodate the structure.

The claim for substantial houses at Koster was also made by Stuart Struever and Felicia Antonelli Holton in their popular book Koster: Americans in Search of Their Prehistoric Past (1979, Anchor Press): 

"Each structure as about twenty or twenty-five feet long, by about twelve or fifteen feet wide. . . .  To form the framework of a house, the Horizon 8 people dug foundations about two feet deep with sloping walls, and then set large posts in these.  The posts were wedged with chunks of limestone to stabilize them. Posts were set about eight to ten feet apart, and there is no evidence for smaller posts having been set between these.  The Horizon 8 people also cut terraces into the slope to set their house floors on level ground" (Stuever and Holton 1979:172).

The confidence with which Brown and Vierra (1983) and Struever and Holton (1979) assert the presence, shape, and dimensions of substantial structures contrasts somewhat with interpretations in two dissertations written about the excavations.  David Carlson (1979:352) wrote:

"Horizon 8C is also interesting because of the presence of man-made terraces cut into the natural slope of the site.  Whether these represent house floors or merely areas leveled for repeated use is not clear.  The lack of more than a few post molds suggests the latter.  The size of these terraces is often substantial.  The exposed portion of the westernmost one is some 30 x 18 feet and contains at least four fire hearths or pits (Figure 51).  The number of features in 8C is also substantially larger than any other component."

Carlson's (1979:Figure 52) map of the Horizon 8C excavations is shown to the right.  His map shows several terraced areas and a scattering of posts/features.  The "well-preserved" house shown by Brown and Vierra in the figure above is located along the southern boundary of the excavation area.

Renata Wolynec also considered the architectural remains at Koster in her dissertation (1977).  She discussed structures in both Horizon 8C and lower Horizon 6:

"Each shelter area consisted of a platform apparently intentionally cut into the slope of the land which extended onto the adjoining terrace.  The depth of these cuts ranged from 4 to 15 inches. The size of each shelter appeared to be similar, although exact determinations of area and dimensions are impossible because of the inability to determine exactly the boundaries of each structure.  Their shape appeared to be rectangular, although again, boundaries were indeterminable" (Wolynec 1977:274-275).

Wolynec described the single definable structure from lower Horizon 6 and provided a map (shown to right).  The structure (Feature 927) is the rectangular area in Area 16 that extends into the southern excavation boundary.  It is described (Wolynec 1977:304) as a "possible shelter platform (given the variety of scattered remains within the platform, areas of burning represented in groups D-H may be fires used for light, heat, food preparation, or stone tool manufacture . . .)".

I think it is pretty clear that the Middle and Late Archaic deposits at Koster contain evidence for some form(s) of domestic architecture.  I'm not sure what to think, however, about the size and construction of "houses" there.  I wonder if there are other sites with examples of permanent houses that were similarly constructed (i.e., with a relatively small number of relatively large posts)? Are there other sites where terraces were constructed to serve as house platforms? In their review of Archaic period archaeology in the Lower Illinois Basin in the Archaic Societies volume, Michael Wiant and colleagues acknowledge the existence of "some debate about the interpretation of these features" (Wiant et al. 2009:252).  I hope somebody out there is up for the challenge of addressing these issues by taking a thorough, systematic look at the early domestic architecture at Koster sooner rather than later.  It would be a really useful thing to do.