Eastern Woodlands Household Archaeology Data Project
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A Late Woodland Structure from the DeArmond Site, Roane County, Tennessee

5/20/2014

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In a 2010 paper (available here and here and here), Lynne Sullivan and Shannon Koerner describe a circular post structure at the DeArmond Site (40-Re-12), Roane County, Tennessee.  WPA excavations at the site produced features, debris, and architectural remains, much of which was attributable to Mississippian occupations.  Sullivan and Koerner argue that the single circular structure from the site (Feature 30) predates the Mississippian occupation and is Late Woodland in age.  As shown in the illustration to the right (from Sullivan and Koerner 2010:39), the structure was of single post construction and measured approximately 8.2 m in diameter.  The structure will be added to the database as Structure 2255.  I thank Dr. Sullivan for bringing the paper to my attention.

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Keyhole Structures from the Rosenstock Village Site, Frederick County, Maryland

5/20/2014

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A 2004 paper by Dennis Curry and Maureen Kavanagh (available online here) describes excavations at the Rosenstock Village site (18-Fr-18) in Frederick County, Maryland.  The main deposits at the site are associated with the Late Woodland Montgomery Complex, dating to the fourteenth century AD.  Again I thank Dr. Dennis Curry for bringing the site and report to my attention.

Two "keyhole" structures (Features 2 and 27) were identifed.  Feature 27 is shown in the illustration to the right (from Curry and Kavanagh 2004:14, Figure 19).  At the Rosenstock site, these small (< 5 square meters) elliptical, semi-subterranean structures were interpreted as the probable remains of sweat lodges.  While similar structures have been interpreted as sweat lodges at other sites, there has been some debate about whether "keyhole" structures may be the remains of houses or storage features (see MacDonald 2008; Smith 1976).

The two structures from Rosenstock will be added to the database as Structures 2253 and 2254.

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Woodland Structures from the Winslow Site, Montgomery County, Maryland

5/20/2014

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Excavations in 2002 and 2003 exposed two domestic post structures at the Winslow Site (18-Mo-9) in Montgomery County, Maryland.  These structures are described in a 2005 report by Richard Dent in Maryland Archaeology.  I thank Dr. Dennis Curry for making me aware of the structures and sending me a copy of the paper.

The outlines of both structures can be seen in the illustration to the right (Figure 5 from Dent 2005:11).  Various features and segments of a palisade were also exposed.  The structures were attributed to the Montgomery Complex and believed to date to the mid-fourteenth century AD.  They will be added to the database as Structures 2251 and 2252.

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Late Woodland Structures from the Little River site, Goochland County, Virginia

3/29/2014

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Martin Gallivan's (1999) dissertation describes a block excavation at the Little River site (44-Go-30b) in that exposed portions of two Late Woodland structures (figure to right from Gallivan 1999:221).  One of the structures appeared to an elliptical post structure.  The pit feature inside the structure (Feature 1) was radiocarbon dated to around AD 1200-1300 (Gallivan 1999:220).

Goochland County, Virginia, lays claim to, among other things, the early schooling of Thomas Jefferson.  The historical society has a nice collection of photographs by W. Edwin Booth.  I am more than a little jealous that their drive-in theater opens this weekend:  that's a sign of Spring that certainly trumps the four north-going geese I saw this morning.  And if that wasn't enough, there is a Rock & Roll Jubilee Show this evening at the high school. No wonder Justin Verlander lives there.

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Late Woodland Structures from the Wood Site, Nelson County, Virginia

3/29/2014

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Martin Gallivan's (1999) dissertation includes information on several Woodland and Late Prehistoric sites in Virginia with structural remains (see also his later paper in American Antiquity).  The figure to the right (from Gallivan 1999:197) shows the distribution of postmolds and features exposed in excavations at the Wood site (44-Ne-143), Nelson County.  Gallivan used multiple approaches to analyze the distribution of posts, identifying the outlines of five elliptical structures (Structures A, B, C, D, and E) of varying size.  Radiocarbon dates from features at the site suggest the structures were constructed around AD 1000-1050.  The Wood site structures will be Structures 2237-2241 in the database.

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Selkirk Structures from the Spruce Point site, Western Ontario

3/28/2014

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Grace Rajnovich's (1983) thesis describes excavation of two Selkirk (Late Woodland) habitation structures at the Spruce Point site (DjKq-1) in the Kenora District of western Ontario.  The structures were defined by a color and texture contrast between the interior and exterior sediments.  Both had interior features.  Neither structure was completely exposed.  Rajnovich provided inferred outlines of the structures.  She estimated their dimensions to have been about 4m in width x 6 or 7m in length.  The plan view of Structure A is shown to the right.  The plan view of Structure B is here.
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Above: Structure A (from Figure 8 of Rajnovich 1983:98).  This will be Structure 2235 in the database.
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Woodland Structures from the Ballynacree Site, Kenora District, Ontario

3/22/2014

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I stumbled upon a paper by Reid and Rajnovich (1991) that describes three Woodland structures from the Ballynacree site in the Kenora District of western Ontario.  The structures are about 8m x 4m, defined by both postmolds and contrasts between interior and exterior sediments.  At the time the paper was written, the three structures from the site constituted the majority of known, excavated Laurel houses.  I do not know if that is still the case.

Three radiocarbon determinations suggest that House 1 dates to about AD 1250. This is, of course, a relatively late age for something that is called "Middle Woodland."  These houses, like others that strain the Midwest/Southeast-centered cultural-historical framework that I'm currently using, are encouraging me to rethink the organization of the database.  Since the relationships between our temporal and cultural chronologies are not consistent across the eastern woodlands, it may be a good move to separate them in the organization of the database. I'm considering simply dividing "time" into discrete blocks (say 200, 500, or 1000 years in duration) and then several columns to categorize the cultural-historical placement of the site (e.g., Archaic - Late Archaic - Brewerton).  This would allow one to plot groups of contemporaneous structures within thicker or thinner slices of time.  Something to think about.
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Above:  Figure 3 from Reid and Rajnovich 1991:196.  The caption is "The Ballynacree site excavations revealed three houses with their associated features--a complete Laurel village.
The Reid and Rajnovich (1991) paper contains pointers to publications with data on several Woodland and Archaic structures in the region.  I've never been there, but based on its entry in Large Canadian Roadside Attractions it looks like a nice place to visit.
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Middle-Late Woodland Structures from Zencor Village, Franklin County, Ohio

3/18/2014

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Daniel Zulandt's M.A. thesis (Zulandt 2010 - available online here) contains plan maps of the 1957 and 1958 excavations at the Zencor Village site (33-Fr-8) in Franklin County, Ohio.  Those excavations exposed the remains of at least three post structures dating to somewhere in the period A.D. 500-1000.  Raymond Baby and colleagues mentioned the existence of these structures in several short papers (e.g., Baby 1971; Baby and Shaffer 1957; Mays and Baby 1958), but with scant details:

"The remains of at least three houses . . . The structures represented by the postmolds were 25 to 36 feet in diameter, with an overlapping wall serving as an entrance.  The postmolds averaged 0.6 feet in diameter and were set in the ground 1.5 feet deep and 2.5 feet apart"
(Baby 1971:196).

The plan maps reproduced by Zulandt (2010:Figures 5, 6, and 7) show the post structures and their relationships to features at the site.  I don't know that these maps were not available elsewhere prior to Zulandt's thesis, but this is the first place I have seen them and I think it is useful to point out their existence. 

I already had an entry for the Zencor Village site in the database.  In the next issues of the database, however, there will be one entry for each structure.  The dimensions of each structure will be estimated from these drawings.
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Figure 7 from Daniel Zulandt's thesis (Zulandt 2010:25), showing remains of structure in Area A' (this will be Structure 2227 in the database).
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Figure 6 from Daniel Zulandt's thesis (Zulandt 2010:24) showing remains of structures in Area B (Structure 670 in the database) and Trench 1 (Structure 2212 in the database).
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Middle-Late Woodland Household Remains at the Strait Site, Fairfield County, Ohio

3/4/2014

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Jarrod Burks' dissertation, entitled Identifying Household Cluster and Refuse Disposal Patterns at the Strait Site: A Third Century A.D. Nucleated Settlement in the Middle Ohio River Valley (Burks 2004), considers how patterns of trash disposal can be used to assess the contemporaneity of residential structures.  Jarrod examines artifact density data from shovel probes in  light of a model of household-level trash disposal developed from ethnoarchaeological data, then compares the results to geophysical and excavation results.  Portions of two structures were exposed.  I have added a listing for the Strait site to the inventory for Ohio, and will include the site in the next version of the Database. 

The Strait site (33-Fa-156-158) is one of only a handful of "Middle Woodland - Late Woodland Transitional" sites in the Database.  Sites of this age (i.e., arguably post-Hopewell, generally associated with projectile points belonging to the Lowe Cluster) are sometimes referred to in the literature as "late Middle Woodland" and other times as "early Late Woodland."  Hence my decision to give them their own category.  These sites represent a time of important change in the organizational structure of settlement during the Woodland period in the Ohio Valley.  Read Jarrod's dissertation to find out more.
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Above:  Artifact cluster interpretations and proposed household clusters at the Strait site (Burks 2004: Figure B.64).
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    Author

    Andrew A. White
    aawhite@mailbox.sc.edu

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