USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Madisonville > Indian Village Site and Cemetery Near Madisonville, Ohio > Part 13
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133
NEAR MADISONVILLE, OHIO
of serious bilateral inflammatory conditions in the tibiae that oc- casioned such suspicion. Probably these conditions were brought about by syphilis, but it is extremely difficult to distinguish be- tween bone lesions due to that disease and those that result from the systemic conditions which prevail in osteoarthritis. On the whole the author does not feel qualified to make a positive decision in this matter on the basis of the evidence.
Arthritis and arthritis deformans were present, as were also Periostitis and osteoperiostitis. Rachitis seems also to have been Present in a mild form, although the only bones which showed it were tibiae. There is the possibility of a tuberculous condition in the Spine of one individual, but here, again, the condition may be simply arthritic.
Fractures and injuries of the bones are rare, except in the skulls, of which the pathological and traumatic features have been dis- cussed above.
General Summary of Observations. The characters of the Madisonville crania examined have been summarized above in some detail. In general they are three-fourths brachycephalic and the rest mesocephalic, with the exception of two dolichocephalic specimens. The height of the skull vault is somewhat low, but the cranial capacity is well up to the average for Indians. The faces are broad and very short, the orbits, low and broad, the nasal apertures prevailingly platyrrhine, with poorly developed nasal spine and indistinct lower borders. . There is little prognathism, and the jaws are short and broad. The mandibles are somewhat deficient in symphyseal height.
The femora indicate a stature of about 167 cm. for males and 155 cm. for females, which is a little above average for Indians but not tall. The long bones do not indicate especially pronounced muscular development, but about average for Indians. The limb proportions approximate to those generally observed in American Indians. Platymeria and platycnemia are not pronounced except in individual cases.
The Madisonville crania are less strong and rugged than those of the Tennessee Stone Grave group and differ from them in many respects, but particularly in lessened height of the cranial vault, of the face, and of the mandible, in our series. The Tennessee group also contains a large majority of brachycephals. There is
134 INDIAN VILLAGE SITE AND CEMETERY
little doubt that the Madisonville site was inhabited by a people in whom a preponderance of physical characters belonging to the southern and eastern brachycephalic group of Indians was united with an admixture of modified characters originating in the eastern dolichocephalic group. This group seems to have been the result of long contact rather than a primary mixture. Probably its physical affinities with groups, as yet unstudied, in Ohio and Indiana, are closer than with the Tennessee Stone Grave group, or with the Iroquois and other eastern groups.
1
CONCLUSION
BY CHARLES C. WILLOUGHBY
Period of Occupation of the Madisonville Site. It is evident from the foregoing pages that the occupation of this site covered an interval immediately preceding the first intercourse of the Indians of the region with Europeans, and extended into the protohistoric period, at which time the inhabitants were able to secure a small amount of European iron, brass and copper, together with a few glass beads, either directly from the early missionaries or traders, or indirectly through their Indian neighbors.
That these later inhabitants were of the same group as the earlier dwellers upon the site is evident from the finding of a cross and other trinkets of brass in a grave containing also a pottery vessel of a type common throughout this cemetery. The site, however, appears to have been abandoned long before the arrival of European settlers in the Ohio Valley.
Relation of the Madisonville Culture to that of the Surrounding Tribes. The Madisonville culture in prehistoric times extended over a considerable portion of southern Ohio. This is shown by the work of Mr. Mills of the Ohio State Archaeological Society, in Warren, Scioto and Ross Counties,1 and by the explorations of the Peabody Museum in Hamilton County, but these sites were ap- parently abandoned at an earlier date than the one at Madison- ville, for so far as the present writer has been able to learn no objects of European origin have been found associated with the burials or cache-pits in any of them. This seems to indicate a southern migration of the northern outposts of these Indians to the Ohio River not later than the first part of the Seventeenth Century, perhaps before the Miami took possession of this country. They were probably driven southward by the Iroquois.
1 W. C. Mills, The Gartner Mound and Village Site; The Baum Village Site; The Feurt Mounds and Village Site; Papers of the Ohio State Archaeological Society, Columbus, Ohio.
135
136
INDIAN VILLAGE SITE AND CEMETERY
In all treaty negotiations of the early settlers, the Miami were considered the original owners of the Wabash country in Indiana, and all of western Ohio, while the other tribes were regarded by them as tenants or intruders on their lands.1 The Miami gave their name to the two principal rivers in southwestern Ohio. Mr. Mooney also states that
In 1684, the Iroquois justified their attack on the Miami by asserting that the latter had invited the Santanas (Shawnee) into their country to make war upon the Iroquois. This is the first historic mention of the Shawnee . . . in the country north of the Ohio River.'
With our present knowledge of the material culture of the proto- historic Miami and Shawnee we are not warranted in assuming definitely that members of either of these tribes were the makers of the artifacts found upon this site, or that their dead were buried here.
A few burial mounds were apparently built by the Indians of the Madisonville culture, as seems evident from the explorations of Mr. Mills at the Gartner and Feurt sites. It is possible that some of the mounds, formerly standing near the house circles and just outside the area shown on our plan (plate 30), which were exca- vated by Dr. Metz before the discovery of the cemetery, were the work of these Indians. It should be understood, however, that the people of the Madisonville culture undoubtedly belonged to a different group and were of a later period than the builders of the great earthworks of southern Ohio.
The few house circles at Madisonville were to the northeast of the cemetery. They were much larger than the hut sites found by Mr. Mills in the localities before mentioned. Those reported by him were mostly circular, without. rings, and of a size and form corresponding to the houses in common use among the Algon- quian tribes of the Great Lakes region within historic times, while those at Madisonville were forty to sixty feet in diameter, measur- ing from their outer edges, and more nearly approach the larger house circles of the Tennessee region to the south.
The few artifacts found during the investigations of these circles were in general of types corresponding to those of the main village.
1 James Mooney and Cyrus Thomas, Bulletin 30, vol. i, p. 853, Bureau of American Eth- nology.
? James Mooney, ibid., vol. ii, p. 534.
137
NEAR MADISONVILLE, OHIO
It is possible, however, that these circles antedate the occupation by the people under consideration, and that the artifacts were the result of the later occupation of the ground. The absence of such circles on the main site, where, as indicated by the cache-pits, most of the cabins stood, would seem to point to this conclusion, but the data relating to the subject are too meager to warrant definite deductions.
Speaking broadly, there is much to indicate that the more dis- tinctive artifacts of the Madisonville and other similar sites of southern Ohio are in general more closely related to a group from an area some five or six hundred miles in diameter, having its center in northern Kentucky, than to those outside this region. So far as we know, tribes of the Algonquian stock held nearly all of this area at the time of the latest occupation of this site, but further archaeo- logical investigations in the neighboring states of Indiana and Kentucky are necessary before definite conclusions can be drawn as to which branch of this stock probably dwelt at Madisonville.
Physical Relation of the Inhabitants to the Neighboring People. Unfortunately there is little osteological material available from the two states above mentioned for comparison with that of Madisonville, and the skeletal remains from the mounds and graves of the Great Earthwork Builders of Ohio now in the Museum have not been systematically studied.
Certain quite marked differences between the Madisonville people and the Stone Grave Indians of Tennessee have, however, been pointed out by Dr. Hooton (page 133), whose careful work upon the physical characteristics of these two groups forms a sub- stantial and reliable basis for future comparative studies in con- nection with human remains from the adjacent regions.
PRINTED AT THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S. A.
PAPERS OF THE PEABODY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
VOL. VIII. - No. 2
BASKET-MAKER CAVES OF NORTHEASTERN ARIZONA REPORT ON THE EXPLORATIONS, 1916-17
BY SAMUEL JAMES GUERNSEY AND ALFRED VINCENT KIDDER
FORTY-FOUR PLATES AND SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A. PUBLISHED BY THE MUSEUM 1921
1
913.7 H33
COPYRIGHT, 1921 BY THE PEABODY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
INTRODUCTION
IN the summer of 1914 the Peabody Museum of Harvard Uni- versity sent an expedition to northeastern Arizona under the joint leadership of the present authors for the purpose of studying the relations between the cliff-houses of that district and those of the north side of the San Juan River. In the course of this trip, evi- dence was found of the presence of the Basket-maker culture. This culture had hitherto only been reported from a single rather re- stricted area in southeastern Utah.1 Furthermore, no Basket- maker remains had ever been taken out by trained investigators; so that the claims, put forward by the commercial collectors who discovered and named the culture, that it was a distinct one, ante- dating that of the Cliff-dwellers, had been received by archaeol- ogists with more or less incredulity. We felt, therefore, that the opportunity for studying these little known remains in a region untouched by earlier diggers, was one which should not be neglected; all our subsequent work has accordingly been directed toward the finding and excavation of Basket-maker sites.
In 1915 the junior author regretfully gave up field work in this region to undertake other excavations, and the expeditions of that and the following years were conducted by Mr. Guernsey. The results of 1914 and 1915 have already been published,? the present report deals with the explorations of 1916 and 1917; at the close of the latter season field work was temporarily discontinued because of the war. In each year the expeditions were carried on under permits granted by the Secretary of the Interior.
The Museum wishes to make grateful acknowledgment to the fol- lowing persons whose generous contributions, supplementing the Museum appropriation, served greatly to enlarge the scope of the work : Mrs. S. K. Lothrop, and Messrs. Bronson Cutting, Lawrence Grinnell, F. E. Guernsey, Augustus Hemenway, Henry Horn-
1 Pepper, 1902. The existence of the Basket-makers was first pointed out in print by Dr. T. Mitchell Prudden in An Elder Brother to the Cliff-dwellers (Prudden, 1897).
? Kidder-Guernsey, 1919.
iv
INTRODUCTION
blower, J. M. Longyear, D. L. Pickman, and John E. Thayer. It wishes also to tender its thanks to Professor Byron Cummings of the University of Arizona, who unselfishly shared with it the field in which he was the pioneer; to Clayton Wetherill for his enthusiastic and faithful services as guide and interpreter; and to Mr. and Mrs. John Wetherill and Mr. Clyde Colville of Kayenta for their unfailing hospitality and constant helpfulness.
In the two seasons covered by this report, the party outfitted at Farmington, New Mexico, and proceeded by wagon and horse- back to the trading post of Wetherill and Colville at Kayenta, the base from which further explorations were conducted. Kayenta, which may be found on the more recent Government maps, is reached from Farmington by a journey of four to five days, depending on the condition of the stock, and the abundance of grass and water. The caves and ruins described all lie in Arizona within a radius of one day's ride from Kayenta.
The country exerts a charm which the authors confess their in- ability to describe. Its physical aspect has already been noted by more competent writers; 1 it is sufficient for the purpose of this paper to say, that although essentially a semi-desert region, there is no difficulty now, nor was there ever, apparently, in earlier times for the dweller here who understood the environment, to obtain sufficient sustenance for simple requirements. The wastes of the valleys and mesa tops that once supplied the wild game with which the early people supplemented the fruits of their agriculture, now furnish ample grazing grounds for the Navajo's flocks of sheep and goats; these Indians also succeed on selected sites in producing good crops of corn, under conditions that to a white farmer would seem quite impossible.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS March 5, 1921
1 Prudden, 1903, pp. 282-285; and 1907; Gregory, 1916, pp. 45-67.
CONTENTS
FIELD WORK, SEASON OF 1916 THE SOUTH COMB
PAGE
Sunflower Cave Revisited
3
Goat Cave .
7
White Dog Cave
10
IKiva.
22
FIELD WORK, SEASON OF 1917
SAYODNEECHEE CANYON
Cave 3
28
Cave 4
29
Cave 5
29
SOUTH COMB REVISITED
Cave 6
30
Cave 7
33
SAGIOTSOSI CANYON
Cave 8
34
Cave 9
35
Cave 10
35
Cave 11
36
Cave 12
37
Cave 13
38
Cave 14
38
MATERIAL CULTURE
FOOD
Vegetal Food
41
Animal Food
44
DRESS AND PERSONAL ORNAMENTS
Body Clothing
45
Sandals
47
Necklaces
47
V
vi
CONTENTS
Beads
48
Pendants
49
Feathered Pendant
49
Ornament of Mountain-sheep Horn
50
Deer-hoof Rattles
50
Unfinished Ornament
50
Tablet
50
Head Ornaments
51
Hair-dressing
52
CRADLES AND ACCESSORIES
Rigid Cradles
54
Flexible Cradles
58
Umbilical Pads
58
BASKETRY
Coiled Basketry
59
Twilled Basketry
63
TEXTILES
Plain Weaving
63
Twined Weaving
65
Narrow Fabrics
75
NETTING AND CORDAGE
Coiled Netting
77
Rabbit Net
77
Snares
79
OBJECTS OF WOOD
Atlatl or Spear-thrower
80
Darts
83
Foreshafts
85
Dart Points
87
Atlatl Stones
87
Grooved Clubs
88
Planting Sticks
89
Scoop-like Objects
90
Curved Wooden Tools
91
Other Objects of Wood.
92
OBJECTS OF STONE
Manos .
93
Metate.
93
Chipped Knife Blades
93
CONTENTS vii
Hafted Knife
94
Pipe Drill
95
Flaking Tool
.
96
Flaking Stone
97
OBJECTS OF CLAY, BONE, ETC.
Pottery
98
Bone Objects
98
Dressed Skin
99
Sinew
99
Feathers
99
CEREMONIAL OBJECTS
Ceremonial Whip
100
Problematical Objects
100
Ceremonial Wand .
101
Ceremonial Bundle
102
Ceremonial Bone Objects
103
MEDICINE POUCHES OF SKIN
Bag and Contents .
108
Bag with Colored Minerals 108
Dice Bags
108
Sack with Beads and Feathers
108
Pouch and Small Articles
109
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Summary of Material Culture.
109
Conclusions.
113
Bibliography
119
Graver
95
BASKET-MAKER CAVES OF NORTH- EASTERN ARIZONA
REPORT ON THE EXPLORATIONS OF 1916-17
FIELD WORK, SEASON OF 1916
THE plans of the 1916 expedition included the investigation of a Cliff-dweller ruin discovered the previous year on the west bank of the Chinlee, one day's journey east of Kayenta.1 A week was spent here. After reprovisioning at Kayenta, camp was made near the mouth of Yellow Head Canyon, about 10 miles to the west, where two days were occupied in examining a small cave and in studying cliff-dwellings that had been cleared by Professor Cummings in 1914. Sunflower Cave (see map, figure 1) a site left unfinished in 1915, was then visited with the object of further investigations .? The remainder of the season was occupied in exploring the South Comb and in excavating two caves some 5 miles north of Sunflower Cave.
THE SOUTH COMB 3
The South Comb is a great sandstone monocline that extends from Marsh Pass in a generally northeastern direction as far as the San Juan River. About 16 miles from Marsh Pass its con- tinuity is broken by a narrow valley which leads through it from Kayenta to the Agathla Rock. Our work was confined to that section lying between the break and Marsh Pass.
Hereabouts the course of the Comb is sinuous and its appear- ance constantly changing; some stretches are tilted steeply toward the sheer walls of Skeleton Mesa, whose top at those points rises higher than the jagged summit of the Comb itself, which is shown in plate 1, b. Other stretches show gentle inclines that seem to lead to the Mesa, but on reaching the crests the way is invariably blocked by deep intervening chasms. It is hard to imagine more
1 To be described in a separate article.
" For the location of this and other sites, see map, figure 1.
' For the geology of the region, see Gregory, 1916, p. 47.
1
2
BASKET-MAKER CAVES
rugged rock formations than those to be found in this part of the Comb. Frequently, and with little strain on the imagination, one can make out along its crests weird forms in natural sculpture: the outlines of colossal animals, faces, solitary spires and minarets, whose silent grandeur at nightfall intensifies the brooding gloom of
MONUMENT VALLEY
SAYODNEECHEE
KAVENTA
REGION
ARIZONA
MESA
SAGTOT SOSI
CANYON
SKELETON
9
ESAGATHLA
12
TYENDA MESA
COMB
SOUTH
OKAYENTA
CAVE 7
CAVE 6
WHITE DOG CAVE
GOAT CAVE
SUNFLOWER CAVE
SAGA CAN
MARSH PASS
A = CAVES
BLACK MESA
FIGURE 1
Sketch-map of the Kayenta Region.
the desert. In the walls of the tortuous gorges that wind up among the cliffs are countless caves, large and small, many of them so well hidden among the contorted rocks that they can be found only by working one's way on foot along the ledges.
Before exploring for new sites, the expedition occupied itse' with two caves found in the Comb during the previous year.
3
OF NORTHEASTERN ARIZONA
Sunflower Cave Revisited. While work at this site was still in progress in 1915, a sudden flood in Laguna Creek cut off com- munication between the camp, which lay on the east bank, and the ruin. As time was very limited, it was thought best not to wait the several days that it would probably take for the water to subside; and the party moved on, leaving a section at the rear of the cave unexplored.
Sunflower Cave was occupied by a small cliff-house in which was found the remarkable cache of ceremonial objects that gave the place its name.1 Of even greater interest, however, was the presence of certain remains which led us to suspect that in this cave might be found evidence as to the relative age of the Basket-maker and Cliff-dweller cultures. Cist 4, sunk into the hard-pan behind the cliff-house rooms, had given the most positive indications of this; it is described as follows in the previous report (p. 96):
The outlines of this cist could be traced by a disturbed area showing in the face of the trench. It had originally been a stone enclosure, though but two of the slabs were still in place. A few bones of a child were found in the upper part; near the bottom at the side nearest the back of the cave were two decorated bone tubes. Imprints of coiled basketry could be seen in hard lumps of the adobe filling, but nothing of the basket itself remained. The cist gave us the impression that it had been a Basket-maker burial chamber which had been pulled to pieces, partly emptied and then filled in with rubbish dur- ing the cliff-house period.
There was also found in the loose rubbish a typical Basket- maker sandal, the presence of which, in what was a purely cliff- house site to all outward appearance, required some explanation.
We were accordingly very anxious to examine the still undug portions at the rear of the cave. The results of the second visit amply repaid the effort, for we discovered unmistakable strati- graphic evidence of a sequence of occupation. The new excavations revealed Basket-maker burials, some of them entirely undisturbed, below a stratum of typical Cliff-dweller debris. The location of the finds is shown on the plan (figure 2); their relation to the Cliff- dweller remains is clearly brought out in the diagrammatic cross- section (figure 3).
Cist 5 (cists 1 to 4 opened in 1915) was a shallow bowl-shaped hole dug in the hard-pan. In it were parts of the skeletons of a young
1 For a general description of this cave and of the finds made there in 1915, see Kidder- Guernsey, 1919, pp. 92-96.
4
BASKET-MAKER CAVES
child and an adult, while scattered through the loose dirt about 1 top were portions of the skeleton of a second child, which had pr ably originally been deposited with the other remains. The box
O
Cache Polo
OFot
1
OVERHANG
FIGURE 2
Plan of Sunflower Cave, South Comb.
of the adult had been carefully disposed at the bottom of the hc in a manner to make the most of the limited space. They cr sisted of an undeformed skull in good preservation, the lc bones of the arms, the scapulae, and a few ribs and vertebrae. T arm bones were placed on either side of the skull, the other bor
5
OF NORTHEASTERN ARIZONA
being packed close about it. Lying across the arm bones was a section of a femur which showed a long splintered post-mortem break. The lower jaw was found in the loose rubbish some fifteen inches from the edge of the cist.
It had probably been dragged out by rats, a thing we found to be not uncommon in caves. A small white chipped point lay among the bones. Above these remains was the disarranged skele- ton of the young child. The second child's skeleton as before stated, was scattered through the loose earth about the cist. We
CUFFOWELLER RUBBISH
121
5
HARDPAN
4
FIGURE 3 Sunflower Cave, Cross-section.
are at a loss to account for the neat arrangement of the adult bones. It is clearly a case of secondary burial, but we have never found any instance of this practice in undisturbed Basket-maker sites, and the people who looted Basket-maker graves did not, as far as we are aware, ever trouble themselves to restore anything to place.
Cist 6 was 2 feet 6 inches in diameter and was cut 3 feet deep into the hard-pan. It lay 4 feet east of Cist 5, and contained only a quantity of loose cedar bark and shredded grass piled in the bottom. It is possible that the bones found in Cist 5 came from here, though no positive evidence remained that it had been used for burial.
Cist 7 was an untouched Basket-maker grave; the original filling passed unbroken above it, and was in turn overlaid by Cliff-dweller rubbish (figure 3). It was 4 feet in diameter, 3 feet deep, and held the well-preserved skeletons of two adults with undeformed crania. They lay flexed on their left sides, hands between the lower thighs (plate 10, c); over the head of each was inverted a small coiled basket, one of which can be seen in the photograph. The
6
BASKET-MAKER CAVES
earth about the skeletons showed traces of decayed organic matter, probably from fur-string robes and other wrappings; rotted cedar bark was found at the bottom. The only object besides the de- composed baskets was a small strip of bark with one end neatly trimmed off.
Cist8 8, 9 and 10 had all been plundered in early times and con- tained only fragmentary skeletons; a number of cylindrical seed beads accompanied the remains of a child in Cist 10.
Cists 11 and 12 were within 3 feet of the rear wall of the cave. Although very close under the surface they had not been molested. Cist 11 was a shallow bowl-shaped scoop in the hard-pan, and held two infants. One of these had been wrapped in a fur-string blanket and lay on what seemed to be a twined-woven cedar-bark mat, be- neath which was a reed-backed cradle too badly rotted to preserve. Infant 2 was also wrapped in a fur-string blanket and lay on a de- cayed reed-backed cradle; near the head were remains of a coiled basket inverted over traces of a substance resembling meal. Both cradles were of the rigid type shown in plate 20. Accompanying the bodies were two bark objects covered with prairie-dog skin, which we have since been able to identify as umbilical pads. Cist 12 was a small hole in the hard-pan. In it was an infant wrapped in a fur-string robe and encased in a twined-woven bag. The robe had been destroyed by insects, but the bag was in a fair state of preservation.
All the above Basket-maker cists lay below a layer of cliff- house rubbish from 6 to 8 inches deep, made up of ashes, turkey droppings, bits of straw and many potsherds of the same wares as those found on other cliff-house sites in this region. Beneath this rubbish, the surface of the hard-pan above the cists gave no in- dication of their presence, being as compact and of the same ap- pearance as the surrounding hard-pan. If, therefore, we had fol- lowed the 1915 method of clearing and examining the Cliff-dweller rubbish down to the hard-pan, and not cutting into it except where the tops of cists were encountered or other surface indications excited interest, these burials would have escaped notice altogether.
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