This study was proposed to collect contextual and settlement distribution archaeological data pertaining to the cultural dynamics of the Late Prehistoric (A.D. 1000-1600) horticultural societies that inhabited the West Fork of the White River drainage in central Indiana. The primary archaeological manifestation that occurred here during this time period is known as the Oliver Phase. However, there are other Late Prehistoric components reported within the study area. Some are most closely associated with Huber-Fisher sites in northwestern Indiana (Griffin 1943; Faulkner 1972; McCullough 1991; Cochran et al. 1993); others with the Springwells Phase of the Western Basin Tradition in northeastern Indiana and northwest Ohio (Stothers and Pratt 1981; McCullough 1991); and there are Vincennes Phase components (Winters 1967; Barth 1982, 1991; Sonner n.d.b).

The Oliver Phase can best be described as village dwelling horticulturalists inhabiting the White River drainage of central Indiana during the Late Prehistoric period. This geographical location places it between the cultures centered around the lower Great Lakes and the Fort Ancient and Middle Mississippian occupations of the middle and lower Ohio Valley. Based on the limited evidence to date, the Oliver Phase subsistence-settlement system and material culture is most similar to the Early and Middle Fort Ancient populations (Redmond and McCullough 1992) along tributary streams of the middle Ohio Valley (Essenpries 1982:249-53; Brose and White 1983; Nass 1988).

This phase is characterized by considerable diversity both in settlement size, form, and location and in ceramic style. Redmond's (1991) survey of the East Fork of the White River valley identified a distribution of sedentary, nucleated village sites located on terraces or on the floodplain of the White River. Smaller habitation sites were located both in the lowlands of the river valley and along the upland drainages, while small campsites (indicated by lithic scatters with triangular projectile points) were found mostly in the upland areas.

Prior to Redmond's survey (1991), the Oliver Phase was believed to be centered around Indianapolis, with an anomaly along Lick Creek in Orange County in south central Indiana (Sieber, Smith, and Munson 1989). Concentrations of Late Prehistoric sites were reported along Lick Creek (Sonner n.d.a), including a double-walled earthen embankment with an exterior ditch (Elrod and McIntire, 1876; Goodspeed 1884) that produced ceramics typically associated with the Oliver Phase.

Vessels from Oliver Phase sites exhibit both globular and subglobular jars with straight to excurvate and cambered (recurve) rim profiles. Bowls are infrequent, but exhibit thick walls and are deeper than they are wide. Crude miniature vessels have also been recovered from some sites. Temper is mostly grit, but sand and, more rarely, shell are also present. Surface treatment consists of fine, parallel cordmarking and fabric roughening. Rims are often thickened and commonly exhibit rim bands that appear as either rim folds (rim strips) or collars. Appendages consist of vertical nodes on cambered rim vessels and, more commonly, constricted, or v-shaped, strap handles.

Ceramic decoration is similarly diverse. On rim strips, oblique or chevron lines executed with a plain or cordwrapped dowel are common. Typically, necks are often smoothed, with curvilinear or rectilinear designs (often underlying chevron-impressed rim strips) executed in broad trailed lines. Also, a line-filled triangular motif, executed with either cord-impressed or trailed lines, is present on smoothed jar necks. Cord impression is the typical method of decorative execution on cambered and straight rims, and on vessels with collared rims. The motif on these vessels can be chevrons, oblique lines, line-filled triangles, or zoned triangles. For the purpose of this report, the vessels decorated with cord-impressed designs (on collared, cambered, and straight rims) are referred to as the Great Lakes Late Woodland type of pottery.

The Bowen site (Dorwin 1971) near Indianapolis became the representative type site for ceramics used to define the Oliver Phase. Dorwin (1971) extended the phase to include other sites in Marion and Hamilton counties: Strawtown (Griffin 1943; Lilly 1937); Haueisen (Weer 1935); Bosson (Griffin 1943; Householder 1941); and Jose, Conner Trading Post, and the Oliver farm site (Griffin 1943; Helmen 1950; Householder 1941, 1945). The ceramics once included in this phase represent a mixed association of Fort Ancient-like vessels and a very wide range of Late Woodland vessel forms. Reanalysis (McCullough 1991) of a sample of the ceramics from the Bowen site demonstrated that multiple occupations had been combined into a single assemblage: one component consisted of Late Prehistoric materials similar to those found in northeastern Indiana and the Lake Erie basin (Stothers and Pratt 1981), while another component consisted of an association of Late Prehistoric and Fort Ancient-like vessels. Some of the other sites assigned to the Oliver Phase by Dorwin also do not exhibit the full range of ceramics originally identified at the Bowen Site.

Radiocarbon dating from the Oliver farm and the Bowen sites, north of Indianapolis, produced an uncorrected date of AD 1060 +/- 100 (Dorwin 1971:382) for the Oliver farm site. Uncorrected dates from the Bowen Site were taken from two features: dates for Feature 46 were AD 580 +/- 130 (M-2421) and 1060 +/- 130 (I.U. 121); dates for Feature 88 were AD 1210 +/- 110 (M-2422) and 1110 +/- 130 (I.U. 122) (Dorwin 1971:383; Crane and Griffin 1972:209). The AD 580 date is probably too early for the associated material.

South of Indianapolis in Morgan County, the Martinsville Plaza site was excavated by John Richardson of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources in the late 1970s. Ceramics were similar to those found at other Oliver Phase sites and an uncorrected date of AD 1190 +/- 65 was obtained. However, the excavated materials have not been analyzed, nor has a description of the excavation been written.

Curtis Tomak, Indiana Department of Transportation, described some aspects of Oliver Phase ceramics (1984) from the East Fork of the White River in Bartholomew County but was unspecific as to the number and location of these sites. He compared them to the related "Heaton Phase" (Tomak 1983) of Morgan and Greene counties along the West Fork. The ceramics are distinguished by a sandier paste than most other Oliver ceramics, but Tomak placed them within a broader "Oliver Tradition". Test excavations by avocational archaeologists were also conducted in Bartholomew County in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Melvin site (12 B 401) produced Oliver Phase pottery associated with a burial dating to AD 955 +/- 90 years (Wolfal and McClure 1982). The Whipper site (Wolfal and McClure 1981), although not dated, produced similar ceramics and triangular projectile points. The Lykins site (12 B 184) produced a date of AD 1345 +/- 85 (from surface carbon), but the ceramics were too fragmentary to identify. Both the Whipper site and the Lykins site are reported to have contained maize fragments as well (Redmond 1991:8).

The first comprehensive study dealing with Late Prehistoric horticulturalist settlement in central and south central Indiana is Redmond's (1991) survey of Late Woodland (Late Woodland here refers to Oliver Phase sites) settlement in Jackson, Martin, and Lawrence counties. Through collector interviews, a site file search at the GBL, and limited field surveys, Redmond identified a total of 99 sites with Late Prehistoric components, based on the presence of triangular points and/or Oliver Phase ceramics. Redmond organized his sites into three hypothetical types: "large habitation sites (villages greater than 1 ha in size), small habitation sites, and extractive camps" (Redmond 1991:20). A special-use mortuary facility was noted at 12 B 85 and may represent a fourth type, but its association with the other sites is unclear at this time. He concluded that settlement location exhibited patterns of site distribution very similar to those described by Essenpreis (1982:248-53) for the Anderson Phase of the Fort Ancient Tradition. According to Essenpreis, the Anderson Phase included summer horticultural villages and winter hunting camps (1982:249) similar to the later Miami-Potawatomi settlement pattern noted in early historic accounts of the Great Lakes region.

After Redmond's study (1991), in the summers of 1991 and 1992, Indiana University archaeological field school personnel excavated portions of the Clampitt site (12 Lr 329) in Lawrence County. The Clampitt site represented a Late Prehistoric horticultural village nucleated within a 3,000 square meter area. This site exhibited similarities to the Anderson Phase Sunwatch, or Incinerator, site in Dayton, Ohio (Heilman et al, 1990). Although the Clampitt site (Redmond 1994b) was about one-half the area of Sunwatch, both sites exhibited a circular village plan with a stockade wall, large storage pits (Heilman and Hoefer 1981), and similar subsistence remains such as maize and beans (Bush 1993), as well as other related artifacts.

Following the Clampitt site excavations, personnel from the GBL intensively collected a series of smaller habitation sites (less then 0.5 ha) and conducted limited test excavations on four sites with Oliver components (Redmond and McCullough 1993) as a way to collect additional data on site size and structure. The four sites included two extractive camps, one small habitation site, and one village site. The village, known as Cox's Woods (12 Or 1), at one time exhibited a double-walled earthen embankment that circled the village on three sides, leaving the fourth side bordered by a small upland creek (Elrod and McIntire 1876; Goodspeed 1884). Only the eastern edge of the enclosure is currently intact (Redmond 1991; Redmond and McCullough 1993); the western two-thirds of the site had been cultivated prior to 1950. During the summers of 1993 and 1994, the Indiana University archaeological field school excavated approximately 2 percent of Cox's Woods and discovered that a wooden post stockade once enclosed the village on all sides (Redmond and McCullough 1996). The area enclosed by the palisade is similar in size and shape to that identified at the Clampitt site. Both of these sites produced the Oliver-type ceramics described above. Five corrected radiocarbon dates (Stuiver and Pearson 1987) ranging between AD 1300 and 1400 were recovered from the Clampitt Site; two additional fourteenth-century dates were obtained from Cox's Woods.

This more recent research conducted on sites with Oliver components (Redmond 1994a, 1994b, 1991, 1993; Redmond and McCullough 1993, 1996; McCullough 1991, 1992) has demonstrated that this phase persisted for at least 400, and perhaps 600, years and encompassed a region from Madison County in the north to southern Orange County.

Since primary goals of the current research were to account for Late Prehistoric settlement diversity in a diachronic framework and to assess the relationship among the Oliver Phase groups and other Late Prehistoric peoples, this study focused on selected sites with Late Prehistoric components in the central core counties of Hamilton, Hancock, Johnson, Morgan, and Marion (McCullough n.d.a). Most of the large Oliver Phase sites that were a target of early investigations have been destroyed by sand or gravel quarry operations or by urban expansion, indicating the need to document as many more locations as possible and to recover some contextual information. It was essential that contextual information be collected using modern excavation techniques, since examining materials from appropriate archaeological contexts can provide the data necessary to identify the dynamic aspects of the Late Prehistoric period.

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