Prior to the beginning of the 1995 field school, the Bundy-Voyles site area was covered with bean stubble from "no till" cultivation techniques, giving a surface visibility of only 15 to 20 percent. Personnel from the GBL arranged to have the site disced to facilitate a controlled collection. Discing improved surface visibility to about 80 percent, but the ground surface was not well washed, and the surface conditions were considered less than ideal. However, the relative densities of the artifact concentrations were still discernible, even though the absolute numbers of artifacts collected were lower than expected.

Artifacts from the 5.0 m-by-5.0 m collection units were taken to the GBL and sorted into five major artifact classes: lithic, sherd, shell, bone/antler, and fire-cracked rock. The frequencies of each of the collection units were used to construct artifact contour maps for each of the five artifact classes. (For surface material distributions, see figures 3.6 through 3.10.)

While the clusters of artifact densities were an initial indication of the presence of subsurface features, the distribution of materials also was useful in tentative identification of the site structure. In general, the artifact distribution was linear, running east to west, with the highest density of prehistoric artifacts located between N140 and N165 and between E110 and E160. (For the clearest demonstration, see the pottery distribution map, Figure 3.7.) The size of the artifact distribution suggested that the Bundy-Voyles site was a village site lacking the typical Oliver Phase circular distribution of midden remains. Two recently investigated Oliver Phase village sites, the Cox's Wood site (Redmond and McCullough 1996) and the Clampitt site (Redmond 1994b), revealed midden deposits with high densities of pottery sherds placed in a circular pattern. At each site, the higher frequencies of pottery stopped abruptly near the outer perimeter of the village, immediately outside the location of the stockade walls. The density of the ceramic distribution also decreased toward the center of the village, although the scatter of materials within this "middle ring" was not always continuous. At the Bundy-Voyles site, however, the thickness of the midden and the density of the cultural material around the edges exhibited areas of higher and lower densities, or peaks. Even though several areas of artifact peaks were evident from the surface collected material, these areas of high artifact density did not appear to surround a circular village shape. As confirmed in the excavation, these areas represented discrete features and a large midden area placed in a linear orientation.