Hilgeman, Sherri L. (Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, Indiana University)
A MISSISSIPIAN HOUSE BASIN AT THE STEPHAN-STEINKAMP SITE
(12 PO 33), POSEY COUNTY, INDIANA
Figure: Schematic of aboriginal floor level
of Mississipian house at 12 PO 33
The excavation program of the 1987 Indiana University, Glenn A. Black Laboratory
of Archaeology Field School at the Stephan-Steinkamp site (12 Po 33) continued
the excavation of a Mississippian house basin (Feature 8? begun during the 1986
field school. The basin fill was excavated in four arbitrary 0.2 ft. levels, designated
Levels 2 through 5, from the base of plowzone to the house floor. Within each
level, excavation units were 2.5 by 2.5 ft. Because of inclement weather, a portion
of the lower basin fill was left unexcavated in the southern half of the house,
and none of the subfloor features was excavated completely .
Feature 8 measured about 22.5 ft NNE-SSW by 20.0 ft ESEWNW, magnitudes which yield
a maximum floor space of ca. 450 sq. ft. within the postholes marking the outer
walls. "Fragments" of wall trenches were observed along the northern edge of the
basin and as a discontinuous band of mottled soil around a series of postholes
in the southwestern corner of the basin. Thus, it is probable that the wall posts
were set in trenches, but these trenches generally were not observed during excavation,
because they were for the most part filled with sterile soil. A set of cut-off
hearths, or a hearth and associated fired floor areas were centered just east
of the basin center, and to the east of this feature were what would probably
have been one or two subfloor pits. The edges of the basin were fairly sharp in
the northern half and sloping and shallow in the southern half of this structure.
This shallow area of the basin may have formed 2 low earthen bench or a "porch"
area.
Two samples of wood charcoal from Feature 8, one a large log lying horizontally
approximately 0.2 ft. above the basin floor and probably a wall timber or rafter
and one of what appeared to be a vertically-set post, gave radiocarbon dates of
670 +/-90 BP (Beta-22087), corrected to AD 1315 +/-95, and 640 +/-100 BP (Beta-22088),
corrected to AD 1325 +/-90. These dates are about 2S0 years later than thermoluminescense
dates on two shell-tempered sherds from a large, basinshaped pit (Feature 2) located
north of Feature 8 and excavated in 1986. We believe that both sets of dates accurately
date each feature, and the 250-year difference represents overlapping but temporally
distinct Angel phase components in this portion of the site.
The distributions of artifacts on the floor level
(Level 5) of Feature 8 at the Stephan-Steinkamp site is different
from that in two minimally-disturbed houses at a second Angel
phase village, the Southwind site (12 Po 265). Artifacts in
Feature 8 tended to be clustered in the central floor area around
the hearth. Artifacts in the Southwind houses tended to be
clustered along the walls, not in the central floor area, which
as a major activity area was kept relatively free of debris.
Based on the interpretations of the Southwind houses and
observations made during the excavation of the Stephan-Steinkamp
house, it is posited that these differences reflect the differences
between a primary floor assemblage (in the Southwind houses)
and a secondary erosional deposit (Feature 8). The spatial
distributions for total grams of shell-tempered ceramics, > 1/2inch
screened residue, fire-cracked rock, and total number of chert
flakes in Levels 3, 4, and 5 were evaluated using Moran's I, an
areal spatial statistic which evaluates spatial autocorrelation
in ordinal or interval areal data. Within Feature 8, artifacts
tend to be more clustered in Level 5 and generally increasingly
dispersed, approaching a random pattern in two cases, as one
moves up through Level 4 to Level 3. This trend is interpreted
as the result of erosion of artifacts into a basin which was slowly
filling.
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