Reexamination of Research Site Yields Rare Insight
The Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s Curator & John Otis Hower Chair of Archaeology, Dr. Brian Redmond, has reexamined the results of an archaeological dig conducted between 1995 and 2002, right here in Northeast Ohio. He worked with 2018 Museum intern Alyssa Davis Traster, M.A., who is now the Curatorial Assistant at the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College. The pair’s findings suggest that habitants of the White Fort village site in Lorain County practiced ritualism, most likely associated with shamanic activities. Dr. Redmond describes his findings in a new paper titled “‘The Place of Solemne Prayer’: Intrasettlement Post-and-Trench Mortuary-Ritual Structures in the Precontact Era of Northern Ohio,” which was published in a recent issue of the Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology.
The White Fort site, located off the banks of the Black River, is approximately 600 years old, dating back to the late precontact period (the time before European colonization). Six pit burials arranged around a C-shaped post-and-ditch enclosure formed what was likely an open-air structure. With a single gap facing due west (which was, as the authors describe, “the direction of the setting sun and the path on which released souls of the deceased made their way to the spirit world”), the construction of the enclosure indicates that this culture probably looked to its deceased ancestors to sanctify its practices at the site. These architectural decisions reveal some interesting clues about the ways in which this group intertwined the sacred with the everyday.
“We know very little about this group’s ritualism,” says Dr. Redmond. “These findings provide some rare insights into ritual activities that may not have been associated with death or burial.”
Artifacts found near the structure provide more evidence for this idea. A bird-bone awl and freshwater mussel shell found together at the site point to the possibility of ceremonial tattooing. And carved beads and animal bones nearby may similarly have been ritual accoutrements. Evidence of fire was also found, though it was likely intentionally set for ritualistic purposes. The authors argue that these artifacts, along with the trench-and-post enclosure, should be considered as a single monument.
But as Dr. Redmond described in a
recent blog post, because these native cultures migrated out of Ohio before the Europeans colonized the area, what we know about the first peoples of Ohio is limited to what we can find on these archaeological expeditions. Follow @goCMNH on social media to keep up with Dr. Redmond’s research.