Ashworth Archaeological Site
Encyclopedia
The Ashworth Archaeological Site is a significant archaeological site
in the extreme southwestern corner of the U.S. state
of Indiana
. Located near the confluence
of the Ohio
and Wabash
Rivers, it lies near several similar archaeological sites. It was first examined by archaeologists in the middle of the twentieth century and found to be the site of a relatively recent Native American village. It has been designated a historic site
because of its archaeological value.
1, Township
8S, Range
14W, in the northeastern portion of Point Township
, the southwesternmost township in Posey County
, the southwesternmost county in Indiana. Another archaeological site, designated 12PO11, is located further south in the same section; both sites are approximately 1 miles (1.6 km) north of the northern end of Hovey Lake
and an equal distance west of a bend of the Ohio River. It lies in a field on the eastern side of State Road 69
atop a bluff overlooking a slough
.
Due to its location at the southern extremity of the state, Posey County experiences fewer frost
days than most of the rest of Indiana. This favorable weather, combined with its place as the first portion of Indiana to be reached by one ascending the Ohio River, caused the land within the boundaries of the modern county to have one of Indiana's heaviest concentrations of Pre-Columbian
populations; an archaeological field survey
published in 1949 found evidence of fifteen different prehistoric villages in Point Township, which has yielded artifacts
as old as a Folsom point
, and as recent as the Mississippian
period.
voted a substantial appropriation
to the Indiana Historical Bureau. As the Corps of Engineers
was considering the construction of a massive levee
along Posey County's Ohio River shoreline for flood control purposes, Indiana archaeologists feared the destruction of many riverside sites, and the Historical Bureau accordingly funded an extensive field survey that investigated the county from April to December of the following year. Follow-up surveys continued into 1947, and the results were published in 1949.
In early 1947, the surveyors visited northeastern Point Township and obtained permission to investigate a field that had a reputation of producing a wide range of archaeological material. Because the owner had just disked
the field in preparation for planting corn, many artifacts had recently been brought to the surface and were readily apparent to the surveyors, such as lithic flake
s, bits of human bone, and sherd
s of pottery. By intensively examining the surface of the field, the surveyors collected forty-three pottery sherds (including thirty-six that were shell-tempered
), a projectile point
, seven scrapers, four other stone tool
s, and a phalanx bone originating from a bovine species, either Bos taurus
or Bison bison
.
Having found this significant collection of artifacts, the surveyors sought and obtained the owner's permission to excavate any human burials they discovered. Having found a cluster of three skeletons during one day's research, they covered them as evening approached, planning to remove them and to continue their excavations on the following day. The three bodies were those of a child and two adults (one male and one female); they were found because the adult male's tibia
and fibula had been unearthed when the owner had disked his field. They had been buried in a rectangular shallow grave dug into a slope; the bodies' heads pointed at a bearing
of approximately 305°. The following day the archaeologists learned that the owner had decided overnight that for religious reasons no more excavations should take place. The surveyors finished sketching the skeletons and followed the owner's instructions by reburying
them.
, and the inhabitants are now believed to have been members of the Caborn-Welborn culture, a Mississippian subgroup. Very similar results were found at the nearby site 12PO11, the other former village site in Section 1; as a result of the sites' similar artifacts and the extremely small distance between them, 12PO11 was thought perhaps to be an outlying portion of Ashworth.
In 1985, approximately 50 acres (20.2 ha) of the Ashworth Archaeological Site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
because of its archaeological value. It is one of five Posey County archaeological sites on the Register and one of three in Point Township, along with an archaeological district near Hovey Lake and the major Murphy Site very close to the mouth of the Wabash.
Archaeological site
An archaeological site is a place in which evidence of past activity is preserved , and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology and represents a part of the archaeological record.Beyond this, the definition and geographical extent of a 'site' can vary widely,...
in the extreme southwestern corner of the U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
of Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
. Located near the confluence
Confluence
Confluence, in geography, describes the meeting of two or more bodies of water.Confluence may also refer to:* Confluence , a property of term rewriting systems...
of the Ohio
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
and Wabash
Wabash River
The Wabash River is a river in the Midwestern United States that flows southwest from northwest Ohio near Fort Recovery across northern Indiana to southern Illinois, where it forms the Illinois-Indiana border before draining into the Ohio River, of which it is the largest northern tributary...
Rivers, it lies near several similar archaeological sites. It was first examined by archaeologists in the middle of the twentieth century and found to be the site of a relatively recent Native American village. It has been designated a historic site
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
because of its archaeological value.
Geography
The Ashworth Archaeological Site is located in the southern portion of SectionSection (United States land surveying)
In U.S. land surveying under the Public Land Survey System , a section is an area nominally one square mile, containing , with 36 sections making up one survey township on a rectangular grid....
1, Township
Public Land Survey System
The Public Land Survey System is a method used in the United States to survey and identify land parcels, particularly for titles and deeds of rural, wild or undeveloped land. Its basic units of area are the township and section. It is sometimes referred to as the rectangular survey system,...
8S, Range
Public Land Survey System
The Public Land Survey System is a method used in the United States to survey and identify land parcels, particularly for titles and deeds of rural, wild or undeveloped land. Its basic units of area are the township and section. It is sometimes referred to as the rectangular survey system,...
14W, in the northeastern portion of Point Township
Point Township, Posey County, Indiana
Point Township is one of ten townships in Posey County, Indiana. As of the 2000 census, its population was 497. Both the lowest point in Indiana and the southernmost point in Indiana are located at the southern tip of the township.-Adjacent Townships:...
, the southwesternmost township in Posey County
Posey County, Indiana
As of the census of 2000, there were 27,061 people, 10,205 households, and 7,612 families residing in the county. The population density was 66 people per square mile . There were 11,076 housing units at an average density of 27 per square mile...
, the southwesternmost county in Indiana. Another archaeological site, designated 12PO11, is located further south in the same section; both sites are approximately 1 miles (1.6 km) north of the northern end of Hovey Lake
Hovey Lake Fish and Wildlife Area
Hovey Lake Fish and Wildlife Area is a nearly recreational area operated by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources near Mt. Vernon, Indiana....
and an equal distance west of a bend of the Ohio River. It lies in a field on the eastern side of State Road 69
Indiana State Road 69
State Road 69 is a route that runs from south to north through western Posey County in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Indiana.-Route description:...
atop a bluff overlooking a slough
Slough
Slough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...
.
Due to its location at the southern extremity of the state, Posey County experiences fewer frost
Frost
Frost is the solid deposition of water vapor from saturated air. It is formed when solid surfaces are cooled to below the dew point of the adjacent air as well as below the freezing point of water. Frost crystals' size differ depending on time and water vapour available. Frost is also usually...
days than most of the rest of Indiana. This favorable weather, combined with its place as the first portion of Indiana to be reached by one ascending the Ohio River, caused the land within the boundaries of the modern county to have one of Indiana's heaviest concentrations of Pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian era
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
populations; an archaeological field survey
Archaeological field survey
Archaeological field survey is the method by which archaeologists search for archaeological sites and collect information about the location, distribution and organization of past human cultures across a large area...
published in 1949 found evidence of fifteen different prehistoric villages in Point Township, which has yielded artifacts
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
as old as a Folsom point
Folsom point
Folsom points are a distinct form of chipped stone projectile points associated with the Folsom Tradition of North America. The style of toolmaking was named after Folsom, New Mexico where the first sample was found within the bone structure of a bison in 1927....
, and as recent as the Mississippian
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....
period.
Excavation
In 1945, the state legislatureIndiana General Assembly
The Indiana General Assembly is the state legislature, or legislative branch, of the state of Indiana. It is a bicameral legislature that consists of a lower house, the Indiana House of Representatives, and an upper house, the Indiana Senate...
voted a substantial appropriation
Appropriation (law)
In law and government, appropriation is the act of setting apart something for its application to a particular usage, to the exclusion of all other uses....
to the Indiana Historical Bureau. As the Corps of Engineers
United States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...
was considering the construction of a massive levee
Levee
A levee, levée, dike , embankment, floodbank or stopbank is an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels...
along Posey County's Ohio River shoreline for flood control purposes, Indiana archaeologists feared the destruction of many riverside sites, and the Historical Bureau accordingly funded an extensive field survey that investigated the county from April to December of the following year. Follow-up surveys continued into 1947, and the results were published in 1949.
In early 1947, the surveyors visited northeastern Point Township and obtained permission to investigate a field that had a reputation of producing a wide range of archaeological material. Because the owner had just disked
Disc harrow
A disc harrow is a farm implement that is used to cultivate the soil where crops are to be planted. It is also used to chop up unwanted weeds or crop remainders. It consists of many iron or steel discs which have slight concavity and are arranged into two or four sections...
the field in preparation for planting corn, many artifacts had recently been brought to the surface and were readily apparent to the surveyors, such as lithic flake
Lithic flake
In archaeology, a lithic flake is a "portion of rock removed from an objective piece by percussion or pressure," and may also be referred to as a chip or spall, or collectively as debitage. The objective piece, or the rock being reduced by the removal of flakes, is known as a core. Once the proper...
s, bits of human bone, and sherd
Sherd
In archaeology, a sherd is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery, although the term is occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone and glass vessels as well....
s of pottery. By intensively examining the surface of the field, the surveyors collected forty-three pottery sherds (including thirty-six that were shell-tempered
Mississippian culture pottery
Mississippian culture pottery is the ceramic tradition of the Mississippian culture found as artifacts in archaeological sites in the American Midwest and Southeast. It is often characterized by the adoption and use of riverine shell-tempering agents in the clay paste. Shell tempering is one of...
), a projectile point
Projectile point
In archaeological terms, a projectile point is an object that was hafted to a projectile, such as a spear, dart, or arrow, or perhaps used as a knife....
, seven scrapers, four other stone tool
Stone tool
A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric, particularly Stone Age cultures that have become extinct...
s, and a phalanx bone originating from a bovine species, either Bos taurus
Cattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
or Bison bison
American Bison
The American bison , also commonly known as the American buffalo, is a North American species of bison that once roamed the grasslands of North America in massive herds...
.
Having found this significant collection of artifacts, the surveyors sought and obtained the owner's permission to excavate any human burials they discovered. Having found a cluster of three skeletons during one day's research, they covered them as evening approached, planning to remove them and to continue their excavations on the following day. The three bodies were those of a child and two adults (one male and one female); they were found because the adult male's tibia
Tibia
The tibia , shinbone, or shankbone is the larger and stronger of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates , and connects the knee with the ankle bones....
and fibula had been unearthed when the owner had disked his field. They had been buried in a rectangular shallow grave dug into a slope; the bodies' heads pointed at a bearing
Bearing (navigation)
In marine navigation, a bearing is the direction one object is from another object, usually, the direction of an object from one's own vessel. In aircraft navigation, a bearing is the actual compass direction of the forward course of the aircraft...
of approximately 305°. The following day the archaeologists learned that the owner had decided overnight that for religious reasons no more excavations should take place. The surveyors finished sketching the skeletons and followed the owner's instructions by reburying
Repatriation and reburial of human remains
The repatriation and reburial of human remains is a current debate in archaeology. Various indigenous peoples around the world, such as Native Americans and Indigenous Australians have requested that human remains from their respective communities be repatriated for reburial. A famous case is that...
them.
Conclusions
Based on the evidence it uncovered, the 1940s survey concluded that Ashworth was the site of a prehistoric village. The artifacts found during this survey are useful for identifying the people who lived at Ashworth: shell-tempered pottery is a hallmark of the Mississippian cultureMississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....
, and the inhabitants are now believed to have been members of the Caborn-Welborn culture, a Mississippian subgroup. Very similar results were found at the nearby site 12PO11, the other former village site in Section 1; as a result of the sites' similar artifacts and the extremely small distance between them, 12PO11 was thought perhaps to be an outlying portion of Ashworth.
In 1985, approximately 50 acres (20.2 ha) of the Ashworth Archaeological Site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
because of its archaeological value. It is one of five Posey County archaeological sites on the Register and one of three in Point Township, along with an archaeological district near Hovey Lake and the major Murphy Site very close to the mouth of the Wabash.