The archaeological site on the Clampitt property has been known to local artifact collectors for many years. The first published description of the site occurred as the result of a survey of Lawrence County by E.Y. Guernsey of Bedford, Indiana. In his 1924 report, Guernsey gave the following description of a site " ...on the south bank of Guthrie' s Creek, near its mouth,..." where he observed:
...numerous flint flakes of the character of those above noted [i.e. made from local fossiliferous cherts]; and, in addition a very considerable quantity of pottery fragments. These show no specialization, and represent small vessels, without handles, feet or places for the attachment of bails. The bottoms were evidently rounded. All of the sherds examined show the impressions of woven cloth with the exception of two or three which show the use of basket, or perhaps of the "quilled work" noted by Prod Holmes, for surface ornamentation or support in the process of modeling. None of the pottery so far found in the county exhibits a stamped design. The interior surface here as elsewhere, is invariably blackened (Guernsey 1924:29) [clarification added].
In 1982, Paleoindian artifacts found at this location were reported to personnel at the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology by Mr. Robert Edler, a local avocational archaeologist. A brief inspection of the site was made that same year by Edward Smith of the Laboratory. The site was next visited by the author in the summer of 1990 on the basis of information provided by Mr. Bill Meadows, then an archaeology student at Indiana University (see Redmond 1991). Over the years, several members of the Meadows family had accumulated an impressive collection of prehistoric artifacts from the surface of the Clampitt site which included decorated, Oliver phase pottery.
In 1990, the site was covered by crop stubble and weeds, but sufficient area of the surface was exposed to reveal a dense accumulation of grit-tempered pottery sherds, projectile points, lithic debitage, fire- cracked rock, and animal bone. A preliminary pedestrian survey of the area of surface debris indicated that the site was between one and two hectares in size (Redmond 1991). Information provided by local informants (and confirmed by the landowner, Mr. James Clampitt) suggested that the dense scatter of surface material was the result of agricultural disturbance of subsurface pit features. These observations, as well as an examination of decorated pottery sherds and triangular projectile points collected during the survey, indicated that this location was the former site of a large nucleated village which was culturally affiliated with the Oliver phase.
The encouraging results of the 1990 survey contributed to the selection of the Clampitt site as the location for the 1991 Indiana University field school. With the landowner's consent, a comprehensive research plan involving remote sensing, controlled surface collection, and selective excavation was formulated in order to investigate the lifeways of the village inhabitants The project was designed to acquire contextual data pertaining to the cultural aspects of diet, house form, food storage, village configuration, material culture, and chronology. Prior to this time, only one other Oliver phase village site, the Bowen site in Marion County, had been extensively excavated (Dorwin 1971), and almost nothing was known about Oliver phase settlements outside central Indiana. The Clampitt site provided an ideal opportunity to investigate late prehistoric settled village life in a location far removed from the (supposed) central Indiana Encore area of Marion and Hamilton counties. An equally important goal of this project was the training of undergraduate students in the technical aspects of field research. In fact, such important environmental characteristics as ready access by vehicle, sandy, well-drained soils, and an open landscape, recommended the Clampitt site as an ideal location for the summer field school.