Abstract An analysis of ceramics and other material culture from two sites along the Boone River in Hamilton County, Iowa, led to a reevaluation of Great Oasis ceramic taxonomy and an expanded view of Great Oasis–Mississippian contact. The Angstrom Village site (13HM8) consists of surface collections made over several years, and in 1938 Wedel collected and tested the Humble Village site (13HM2). Both are Great Oasis culture sites and components of the Boone River aspect, now termed the “Boone River phase.” A proposed new pottery type, Keyes Collared, is part of the Boone River phase ceramic assemblage.
Abstract The Hartley Fort (13AM103) is a rectangular earthwork along the Upper Iowa River near its confluence with the Mississippi River in far northeast Iowa. This enclosure is a Stirling horizon Mill Creek–affiliated Terminal Late Woodland site with a ditch and stockade embankment. The site was later used as an Oneota burial site. The ceramics are overwhelmingly locally made Hartley ware and French Creek Cord-Impressed ceramics. Ceramics show direct interaction with the Initial Middle Missouri variant Mill Creek culture of northwest Iowa, as well as contact with the Cahokia site and contemporaneous sites in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Hartley ware appears to derive from Mill Creek ceramic types with local potters strongly influenced by Mill Creek ceramics. The Hartley Fort enclosure is like Mill Creek enclosures found in northwest Iowa, and one excavated small structure at the Hartley Fort resembles small Mill Creek structures. The Hartley Fort was an important, if brief, hub of Mississippian contact and interaction and exchange with regional Terminal Late Woodland sites during the Stirling horizon at Cahokia in the upper Mississippi Valley and with cultures of the prairie-plains border in the Missouri Valley.
Abstract The IFC Lost Creek site (13LE914) is a small Late Woodland Weaver variant habitation in the upper Mississippi River valley of southeastern Iowa. This study presents an analysis of the site's feature assemblage, ceramic collection, macrobotanical data, and radiocarbon dates to reconstruct the occupational history of the site. Specific attention is given to the 30 radiocarbon determinations, constituting the largest single-site Weaver radiocarbon dataset yet published. Storage features, other spatially discrete household features, local pottery production, and restricted botanical harvest windows demonstrate that IFC Lost Creek represents a favored locality revisited across multiple episodes of use during warm-season months. Considered within the broader settlement system of Weaver populations in the upper Mississippi River valley, these findings provide new insights into the tempo of site use and the need for more rigorous and larger radiocarbon datasets for resolving occupational histories at early Late Woodland sites.
Between 5,000 and 3,000 years ago, during the Late Archaic, Native groups in the midcontinent began experimenting with growing and encouraging certain plants for food, fiber, and technological materials. While much attention has been focused on the charred and fragmentary remnants of the plants, little attention has been focused on the stone tools used to modify landscapes to facilitate their growth. The authors argue that the wear patterns on the stone tools used by these groups are an important line of largely untapped information regarding methods of plant husbandry. A sample of 30 flaked-stone tools from seven sites in Missouri and Illinois assigned to the Titterington, Sedalia, and Nebo Hill phases was analyzed. Previous researchers have classified some of the tools as "diggers" and "hoes" based on visible use polish. Obversely, this analysis shows that almost all the use polish is not from digging/cultivating but rather from working wood. These woodworking tools, however, played a key role in plant husbandry by undoubtedly having been used to modify landscapes (cut trees and clear brush) and manufacture wooden tools (including digging sticks).
