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July 10, 2006
Archeological dig offers new view of historic life
By Susan Guibert
A cluster of ancient roasting pits packed closely together on a
bank along the Kankakee River in northwest
Indiana
may have been the celebratory gathering place of early Native
Americans - with remains of mussel shells in the pits pointing to an
ancient version of a modern clam bake.
"We estimate the pits were used between 1400 and 1450 or so,
just before Europeans began moving into the New World," said
Mark Schurr
, a University of Notre Dame anthropologist and lead researcher of a
recent archeological dig near
Kouts
,
Ind.
.
"The ancestors of historic Native Americans gathered at this
site because it was a good place to cross the marsh and harvest
wild resources when they were in season, and we have some
really good charcoal samples from the pits that we will send to a
botanist at the University of Texas to see if we can find out more
about what was roasted in them."
Schurr has led archeological digs for the past four summers on
the grounds of the Collier Lodge, a 19th-century hunting lodge
located on the banks of the Kankakee River - once home to
marshlands so rich in waterfowl that the area was known as the
"
Everglades
of the North." The work has yielded some surprising finds,
including the discovery this year of several rare artifacts that
help shed light on ancient life in the area.
Schurr, with the help of Notre Dame anthropology students and
some 40 volunteers from the Kankakee Valley Historical Society
(KVHS), have unearthed hundreds of clues to the area's rich past,
from a prehistoric tool dating to 7,000 B.C., to hand-blown
glass from an early 19th-century European settlement.
Schurr noted that prehistory is defined locally as any time prior
to 1679, the time of the first written history of the area.
This year, piecing together some unearthed shards of pottery from
the Early Woodland period (800 to 200 B.C.) helped Schurr and his
colleagues understand a portion of the area's history as well.
"Pottery from this time period has been well-described from
surrounding regions, but we never have found those types in this
area, leading anthropologists to believe that our area was
uninhabited during the Early Woodland period," said Schurr.
"We now have enough samples from the Collier Lodge that we
can see that the Early Woodland people of the
Kankakee
made a distinctive and unique type of pottery, and they must have
had contact with neighboring regions."
Other notable features discovered this year included post molds
(places where posts once stood) from an 1830s-era log cabin buried
beneath the ground, perhaps owned by the first
Kankakee River
ferry owner, George Eaton. A concentration of animal bones
discovered next to the cabin gives an interesting picture of early
life along the
Kankakee
.
"The first settlers in the area probably made a living by
doing a little bit of everything, from running a ferry to fur
trading," Schurr said. "This is quite a bit different
that the typical pioneer, who was usually heavily involved with
farming."
One of the most noteworthy artifacts discovered this year was an
ancient, intact point, or the sharp end of a spear or tool, judged
to be nearly 10,000 years old - evidence that the land near the
Collier Lodge has been used for thousands of years as a site for
camps or settlements.
"This knife, with a somewhat unusual shape, dates to the
period known as the Early Archaic." Schurr said. "It was
probably made around 7,000 B.C., and it provides our earliest date
for the use of the site. It appears to have been re-sharpened
many times and finally discarded when it was worn out."
"The environment back then was still changing from a glacial
one to the modern one we see today, so people living then had to
learn to use not only the newly forested world that was appearing
around them, but also how to adapt to an environmental change."
With the help of students, volunteers from the KVHS and residents
of the area, Schurr and his team will sort and catalog the
collection unearthed at this year's dig, and will present a public
lecture on his findings in September. Schurr also plans to
nominate the site for the National Register of Historic Places, the
nation's official list of cultural resources worthy of preservation.
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