Local Fieldwork Reveals 4,000-year-old Clay Floors
This summer, Curator of Archaeology Dr. Brian Redmond unearthed two Late Archaic clay floors at a prehistoric site in Lorain County, Ohio. These rare man-made features are the first structures of their kind discovered in Ohio.
Redmond led the archaeological excavation at the ancient Native American settlement in Sheffield Village. In addition to the unique three-inch-thick clay floors, his team of staff and volunteers uncovered evidence of cooking and storage pits, and post molds (marks in the soil made by organic material where wooden posts were positioned) outlining the former walls of houses. They also recovered dozens of stone tools, including spear points, drills or awls, bone and antler implements, and grinding stones, as well as hundreds of deer and other animal bones.
These artifacts and bones indicate that the early people who inhabited the site were hunters and gatherers. The floors and the variety and age of artifacts recovered during previous excavations signify that the native peoples occupied the site for months at a time for a period over 200 to 300 years.
The discovery made headlines in local news outlets including The Plain Dealer and was reported on Archaeology magazine’s website. Redmond also discussed his findings in a radio interview with WKSU's Exploradio. Redmond chronicled this season's "Archaeology in Action" field school in his ongoing blog, Blogging Archaeology.
For more information about this field site, watch this short video: