Preliminary Findings Relevant to the Botanical Remains
at 12 Or 1
by Leslie L. Bush
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Introduction
Appendices on botanical remains usually focus on subsistence practices -- a
tradition which is entirely appropriate, since botanical remains provide absolutely
fundamental information about vegetable diet. Although data relevant to subsistence
are reported here, subsistence is not the primary focus of this appendix. Paleoethnobotanists
are increasingly finding that well-scrutinized botanical data provide information
not only about diet, but also about stratigraphy (Asch and Sidell 1988), site
cachements, class structure (Welch and Scarry 1995; Johannessen in Pauketat
1994), gender relations (Hastorf 1991) and, as I hope to show here, site structure
and patterns of refuse disposal.
The Site
The Cox's Woods site is located in the Hoosier National Forest in Orange County,
Indiana. It sits in the unglaciated Crawford Uplands physiographic zone, on
the floodplain of Lick Creek, which is a tributary of the Lost River, itself
a tributary of the East Fork White River. Vegetation in the area is primarily
oak-hickory forest, with beech-maple associations in the more humid areas (Schneider
1966).
The site has been known for more than 100 years, primarily because of its double-walled
earthen enclosure, a portion of which is still visible on the unplowed area
of the site. When post molds are visible along the embankments -- and post molds
were not consistently visible during excavation -- they are associated with
the inner embankment only. In addition, midden associated with the embankments
tends to occur in greater quantities on the inner slope of the inner embankment,
although midden is found in other parts of the embankments as well. The high
visibility of the site led to many non-professional investigations prior to
1976, when David Sonner conducted the first modern archaeological investigations
(Redmond and McCullough 1995). The data for this report come from investigations
by the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, Indiana University with support
from the United States Forest Service that took place in 1993 and 1994 under
the direction of Brian Redmond and Bobby McCullough.
Methods
Not all botanical remains recovered from the site have yet been examined. This
analysis is drawn from a carefully selected and -- we hope -- representative
sample of sixteen flotation contexts (see Table
1).Three are from midden unequivocally associated with the stockade line
and two from midden that I argue here are also associated with the stockade;
four are associated with House Structure 1 architecture; one is from a hearth
or burned area; and six are from various pits -- two of which (Features 28 and
31) may pre-date the Oliver phase and so have been excluded from analysis unless
otherwise noted.
Fourteen of the flotation samples included in the analysis were processed in
a SMAP-type flotation machine (Pearsall 1989) in July 1994 by Tim Wright of
the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, Indiana University. The other
two samples (Features 2 and 7) were processed in the same machine by the same
operator in August 1993. Visual inspection of heavy fractions revealed few or
no charred remains, so only light fractions were subjected to microscopic inspection.
Poppy seed tests indicate that light fraction recovery rates averaged 95-100
percent.
After drying, light fractions were examined under a dissection microscope at
7-45x magnification. All remains greater than 2mm were completely sorted, counted,
weighed, and recorded. Seeds and seed fragments were removed from the material
that passed through a 2mm screen and also counted, weighed, and recorded. As
is customary, maize and nutshell fragments smaller than 2mm were not removed.
Although some investigators (e.g., Asch and Asch 1985) adjust their data to
reflect estimated maize and nutshell smaller than 2mm, most do not. Therefore,
the data in Table 2 represent raw counts and weights, without estimated adjustments.
Although all identifications were checked by the author, thanks are due to two
individuals, Leslie Frazee and Jon Norris, who provided assistance in sorting
flotation materials. Jon spent many hours sorting out larger botanical remains
from the lithics, bones and modern rootlets that also appeared in the light
fractions of flotation samples. Leslie, who volunteered to sort completely the
remains from Feature 7, ended up with the unenviable task of plucking 254 tiny
pepperweed seeds from our microscope tray. Her great patience and keen eyes
are much appreciated.
Results
Cultigens and possible cultigens
Figure 1 shows the Oliver phase botanical
remains in pie chart summary, by raw counts. Figure 2 (see desk copy) provides
the same information, plus the data for features 28 and 31, in full. Most of the
recorded weights registered at less than .1 gram, the lowest sensitivity of our
scale, and so have been omitted here. Nutshell is relatively sparse and consists
of hickories, walnut and hazelnut. The tropical cultigens are spread out over
three of the categories given in Figure 1 and consist of maize (kernels and cupules),
one possible domesticated bean among the legumes, and two tobacco seeds from a
pit feature.
The "Eastern Agricultural Complex starchy-seeded plants" in Figure
1 consist of weedy plants that were sometimes cultivated in the eastern woodlands,
although not usually by Fort Ancient peoples. Remains of these plants at Cox's
Woods are overwhelmingly maygrass (Phalaris caroliniana) and little barley (Hordeum
pusillum) with a few goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri) seeds. Erect knotweed
(Polygonum erectum), the fourth member of this starchy seed complex, is absent
from Cox's Woods, although other members of the genus are present. To date, morphological
correlates of domestication have been identified only for chenopodium. The statistical
nature of such correlates means that we cannot say with certainty whether the
two chenopodium seeds at Cox's Woods represent the fruits of deliberate cultivation.
Evidence from other sites in the region, however, suggests that while maygrass,
little barley, goosefoot and knotweed were cultivated by Middle Woodland peoples,
their Fort Ancient descendants cultivated the plants in decreasing frequencies
and by A.D. 1400 had ceased cultivation entirely (see Wymer 1993).
Wild plants
The seeds of the fleshy fruits in Figure 1
are grape (Vitis sp.), blueberry (Vaccinium sp.), raspberry or blackberry (Rubus
spp.), sumac (Rhus sp.), elderberry (Sambucus sp.) and plum or cherry (Prunus
spp.). The grasses include mannagrass (Glyceria sp.), goosegrass (Eleusine sp.)
and a panicoid grass. The "miscellaneous" category is less miscellaneous
than it might appear. As the name implies, it comprises all those seeds that do
not fit into the other categories. More significantly, these seeds are those of
purslane (Portulaca oleracea), wood lily-of-the-valley (Maianthemum canadense),
vervain (Verbena sp.), peppergrass (Lepidium sp.), nightshade (Solanum ssp.),
wood sorrel (Oxalis sp.), spurge (Euphorbia sp.) and knotweed/smartweed (Polygonum
spp.). Except for the nightshade and knotweed/smartweed, all of these are plants
where the primary plant part used historically by native peoples was something
other than the seeds. Thus, the "miscellaneous" category can be said
to represent processing waste, rather than use-waste (which would have been primarily
cooking and eating waste). Some non-economic taxa such as fungus and spore capsules
were identified in the botanical assemblage but are not included in the analysis.
The count data supports the preliminary information on Oliver phase subsistence
from the Clampitt site (12 Lr 329), specifically that Oliver phase peoples were
Fort Ancient-like horticulturalists who also gathered wild plants for a significant
portion of their diet (see Bush 1994; Rossen 1992; Wagner 1987; Rossen and Edging
1987). Cox's Woods does contain more varieties of wild plant foods than do other,
similar villages, mostly likely because of the Cox's Woods location: Most villages
that have been investigated so far are on more major river channels that have
much wider floodplains. It is likely that Cox's Woods villagers relied on wild
plants for a greater percentage of their diets simply because the landscape in
their immediate locality did not permit production of large amounts of crops.
Wood charcoal analysis
At this time, identification of wood charcoal has been completed only for PH 1,
the post mold associated with House Structure 1. All twenty randomly-selected
wood charcoal samples from the post mold were soft maple. Soft maples are those
trees of the genus Acer whose specific gravity ranges from .46 to .54. While maple
wood charcoal can usually be assigned to the soft or hard maple groups, species
within the group cannot be identified with certainty on the basis of wood tissue
alone. The most common species of the soft maple group is red maple (A. rubrum),
but silver maple (A. saccharinnum) and boxelder (A. negundo) are also found (Hoadley
1990:121). Both hard and soft maples would have been readily available to the
inhabitants of Cox's Woods, but the soft maples, which tend to grow at lower elevations
than the hard maples, might have been more immediately accessible.
Maples are not terribly decay-resistant woods. Bruce Hoadley divides woods into
four categories of decay-resistance (Hoadley 1990:61). All of the maples -- both
soft and hard -- fall into the least resistant category. This bit of maple trivia
is consistent with the observation that the post seems to suffered substantial
decay before it burned.
Patterning
The Oliver phase features at Cox's Woods display a definite pattern of refuse
disposal. The four flotation samples from House Structure 1 totalled 39 liters
of soil and yielded identifiable botanical remains that amounted to three small
seeds, one maize kernel fragment and nine hickory shell fragments. House areas
-- or at least those parts of the house areas that exist below plow zone today
-- thus do not seem to have been major venues for trash disposal in this village
and will not be discussed further here.
Figure 3 shows the botanical remains found
in each type of feature, by percentage of total counts. These are composite patterns,
but the stockade pattern, especially, is very consistent from sample to sample.
Three things are of interest:
*nutshell accounts for a greater percentage of items in the stockade than in the
interior pits
*maize cupules are similarly associated with the stockade, kernels with the pits
*grasses and fleshy fruits are associated with the pits rather than the stockade
In short, processing waste, in the form of nutshell and maize cupules, tends be
deposited along the edges of the site, where the stockade line is located. Refuse
from cooking and eating, in the form of maize kernels and seeds of fleshy fruits,
appears in the interior pits. That grass seeds appear in association with interior
pits makes a certain amount of sense as well, if grasses or grass mats are being
used as pit liners.
Figure 4
Sumac
One other pattern of interest has to do with the distribution of sumac. Figure
2 follows Margaret Scarry's categorization of plants in the eastern woodlands
and places sumac among the fleshy fruits. The figure reveals that 19 of the 21
sumac seeds on the site are associated with the stockade line, while the other
three appear in a single interior pit (Feature 34). Sumac has interested Fort
Ancient paleoethnobotanists for years because it tends to appear in relatively
large quantities on Fort Ancient sites, yet why it appears so consistently and
in quantity is unclear (Rossen and Edging 1987). At a site like Cox's Woods where
the distinction between processing waste and cooking waste is so strong, sumac
tends to be deposited with processing waste. This finding suggests that sumac
plants might have been used for something other than food at Cox's Woods. Because
sumac contains high levels of tannins, sumac leaves and bark are known historically
to have been used in tanning hides (Little 1980:551). Based on the limited data
from Cox's Woods I would offer as a hypothesis (not a conclusion!) that sumac
was used not for food but for tanning hides on many Fort Ancient sites.
The stockade system
One aspect of the site's structure that was unclear during the early phases of
investigation was whether the stockade line was circular (O-shaped) or open to
the creek (U-shaped). An early report of the site (Goodspeed 1884 in Redmond and
McCullough 1995) describes the original earthen embankments at Cox's Woods as
"U-shaped" and about three feet high. The two of the 50 x 50 cm test
units that were placed in the northern area of the site had low artifact densities,
supporting Goodspeed's report. Other Oliver villages, however, had circular, not
U-shaped, stockade walls. In addition, the son-in-law of the man who last farmed
the area reported that his father-in-law remembered plowing down a linear embankment
along the creek.
In the eastern, southern and western portions of the site, the stockade line was
situated exactly where magnetic and shovel testing predicted. It was inevitably
associated with dark, rich midden fill. Units C, N and QQ, in the northern area
of the site, revealed dark, rich midden deposits and unusually complex stratigraphy
that resulted from several causes: frequent flooding of Lick Creek, slope slump
from higher areas of the site to the south, and, apparently, Oliver Phase earth-moving
activities in the area.
The patterns of botanical refuse disposal established for the site in Figure
3 can be used to help determine whether or not the stockade line cuts through
the northern areas of the site. Two samples have been analyzed from this area:
one from a feature (Feature 38) in the lowest elevation of the site, and one from
midden (Feature 3, Zone J) higher above. As Figure 4 shows, both exhibit a pattern
very much like the stockade line. Feature 38 has large amounts of nutshell and
maize cupules. It also contains many of the miscellaneous seeds that are probably
processing waste, such as nutshell and maize cupules. Further, Feature 38 contains
few of the grass seeds that characterize the pits. While not as nice a match as
Feature 38, Feature 3 Zone J still clearly belongs to the stockade pattern, especially
in the presence of large amounts of nutshell, moderate amounts of maize cupules
and few grass seeds.
The stratigraphy in the units from which these samples were taken indicates that
the situation is more complex than a simple equation among Feature 38, Feature
3 Zone J and the stockade line. Feature 38 precedes Feature 3 Zone J temporally,
although probably not by much time, since there is such strong continuity in the
cultural material from the site. Feature 3 Zone J is part of the stockade midden
proper, and the cultural zones between Zone J and Feature 38 are disturbed, but
not sorted as one would expect from an alluvial episode. The disturbance probably
reflects construction of the stockade itself. The fact that both exhibit a stockade-like
botanical pattern indicates that the outer margins of the site were being used
for disposal of processing waste even prior to construction of the stockade. In
short, the botanical materials do not so much indicate "stockade" as
"edge of site" -- which happens to correspond to the stockade line at
Cox's Woods.
Given the botanical data from Feature 3 Zone J and Feature 38 alone, I would feel
fairly confident in postulating a circular or D-shaped stockade for the Cox's
Woods site. But since botanical remains alone only point to the edge of the site,
rather than an actual stockade line, how do we know that the stockade line did
in fact exist on the northern edge of the site? There are three other lines of
evidence to support such a conclusion. First is evidence from the northern part
of the site: limestone, found here, is associated with the stockade in other excavated
parts of the site. In addition, there was a possible, though not terribly convincing,
post mold in this unit. The second line of evidence comes from looters' pits.
As indicated by the crossed picks in Figure 5,
looters seem in general to have confined their destruction to the stockade line.
Further, they seem to have been reasonably accurate in hitting it. The looters'
pits to the east of Feature 38 and Feature 3 Zone J suggest that earlier diggers,
too, believed that the stockade was circular -- or at least that interesting cultural
materials were distributed in a circular pattern. More systematic support for
the circular stockade hypothesis comes from Tim Wright's study of soil pH (Wright
1995). Wright took pH readings in two transects across the site. At each point,
holes were drilled with a bucket auger and pH readings were taken at 10 centimeter
intervals. In the southeast-northwest transect, two areas of "static,"
or increased variability, appeared. Wright argues that increased variability reflects
extensive disturbance of the soils, almost certainly by humans. The first reading
appeared along the known stockade line in the southeastern part of the site while
the other appeared at between N518 E442 and N524 E435 . Thus the pH study, the
looters pits, and the botanical remains suggest identical projections of the stockade
line as a circular or D-shaped structure at Cox's Woods.
Conclusion
The botanical assemblage at Cox's Woods provides information not only about plant-related
subsistence practices but also about patterns of refuse disposal, site layout
and building materials. In many ways, the conclusion to be drawn from this preliminary
investigation of the archaeobotanical remains from Cox's Woods is methodological
one: The set of cultural activities that result in charred plant remains is a
fairly arbitrary group of activities in most cultures, and it should not be surprising
that analysis results in a broad and eclectic set of results.
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