Kevin C. Nolan, under the supervision of Dr. William S. Dancey, will examine the pattern of environmental exploitation and the village structure at the Fort Ancient (AD 1000-1650) Reinhardt site. Recent investigations shed light on important aspects of local variability for the Fort Ancient Tradition and other Ohio Valley Late Prehistoric groups. However, there is a paucity of investigated Late Prehistoric sites in the Central Scioto Valley. This investigation will add valuable knowledge about the variability of the human condition during the Fort Ancient period.
First, Nolan will examine the availability and use of resources by the Reinhardt inhabitants. The subsistence choices of the villagers will be reconstructed by recovery of floral and faunal remains from a sample of remote-sensing identified features. The recovered material will be compared against expectations based on the distribution of habitat types and the availability of specific resource types. This will allow examination of relative procurement costs incurred by the village inhabitants for specific resources and may give clues as to resource stress.
Second, this project will contribute to understanding the range of variability in Fort Ancient settlement organization. Knowledge of community organization is important for evaluating intra-community social relations. Fort Ancient sites have been argued to exhibit variability in settlement structure through time. However, many investigations expose only small portions of sites. Specifically, previous studies in the Central Scioto Valley have either exposed small portions of the village or were conducted prior to modern excavation and recording methods. As a result, there is little data on the organization of Fort Ancient communities in the Central Scioto Valley and no concept of variability. This project provides an opportunity to document the site structure of an Early Fort Ancient site in the Central Scioto Valley through a combination of geophysical survey, intensive surface collection, shovel test sampling, and feature excavation.
This project contributes to current trends towards documenting local cultural variability. The appropriate starting point for such an analysis is the individual site. This project will build a model of Fort Ancient subsistence and settlement structure that captures spatial and temporal variability. This model is built from the site outwards, combining the Reinhardt site results and several recent projects utilizing the digital state site records database. Understanding of variability and persistence are crucial to building theoretically informed narratives of cultural change over time.
In addition to helping Nolan to complete his doctoral degree, this project will inform local educational outreach efforts. Nolan already incorporates current archaeological knowledge into public outreach presentations and has funding to facilitate the production of pamphlets to accompany these outreach presentations. The pamphlets and the future presentations will present a nuanced illustration of Ohio Late Prehistory that is understandable by the general public and embraces the goals of public education. In addition, this project will facilitate preservation planning by and for the City of Columbus, Ohio. NSF support, coupled with funding already obtained, will aid in the preservation, education, and presentation of significant cultural remains for the people of Ohio.
