woodland period moundbuilders of the bluegrass - Kentucky ...

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An archaeologist carefullyremoves soil fromnear a broken Adenaceramic jar. Aluminumfoil pouches nearby holdcharred wood samplesfor radiocarbon dating.The next four decades witnessed the beginning of research focusedon the Adena culture. Investigators outside Kentucky studied Adenaburial mounds and began to recognize their unique features. In Kentucky,William S. Webb and William D. Funkhouser, University of Kentuckyphysics and biology professors, published a county-by-county list of thestate’s prehistoric sites. Many Bluegrass sites were Adena mounds.Depression-Era ArchaeologyDuring the Great Depression (1929-1941), thousands of Kentuckianswere desperate for work. Some found it excavating prehistoric villages,shell heaps, mounds, and earthworks through federal relief programs.William S. Webb, founder of the University of Kentucky’s newDepartment of Archaeology and Anthropology, directed the Kentuckyprogram.Excavations took place in the counties hardest-hit by the saggingeconomy. Sites chosen for excavation were often ones that had a goodchance of being vandalized, although the desires of the sponsoringagencies also played a part in the selection process. From 1934-1942 inthe Bluegrass counties of Bath, Boone, Fayette, and Montgomery alone,federal relief programs funded excavations at 17 Adena mounds andearthworks.These projects represented the first sustained research efforton Kentucky’s Adena sites. Some of America’s brightest young8
archaeologists supervised the excavations. They used the most modernscientific techniques then available.During the peak years of 1938-1939, the Kentucky program employedalmost 300 people each month. Activities focused on documentingpits, hearths, posts, burials, and soil layers, and on recovering as manyartifacts as possible. Crews excavated year-round under all sorts ofweather conditions. Work on some of the largest Adena mounds tookalmost two years to complete.In 1941, America entered World War II. The federal relief programsstopped soon after, thus ending the era of the most intensive work everundertaken, before or since, at Kentucky’s Adena sites.The significance of Depression-era investigations at Kentucky’sAdena mounds and earthworks cannot be understated. These make-workprojects were revolutionary, given the enormous amount of informationrecovered. Without that information, our understanding of Adena culturetoday would be severely limited.The University of Kentucky’s William S. Webb Museum ofAnthropology in Lexington still carefully curates all of the artifacts,photographs, notes, maps, and drawings from these projects. Thesematerials continue to provide data for new generations of scholars.Adena Research TodayBy the end of World War II, Webb and his colleagues had writtenthe bulk of their reports on the Bluegrass region’s Adena moundsand earthworks. In them, they described the results of theirinvestigations.They also attempted to interpret some of what theyhad found. Understandably, some of these interpretationshave changed over the years. For example, Webb andothers thought that the circular patterns of paired postsdocumented beneath some burial mounds representedhouses. We know today that they were ritual structures.In the 1950s, radiocarbon dating (a techniquethat dates a previously living thing by measuringthe decay of C14, a radioactive isotope of carbon)revolutionized archaeology. It provided a new wayfor archaeologists to measure time. Now it wasfinally possible to consider exactly when the Adenaculture flourished and how it had changed during its700-year long history.9an Adena spearpoint witha short stem
Page 5 and 6: Over time, these people will return
Page 7 and 8: However, Adena people kept no writt
Page 9: As people debated the Moundbuilders
Page 13 and 14: DAILY LIFEAdena lifeways were firml
Page 15 and 16: Adena peoples were mobile hunter-ga
Page 17 and 18: Preparing a garden space took sever
Page 19 and 20: Focus On Adena GardeningAdena peopl
Page 21 and 22: Focus On Adena FabricsThere is no q
Page 23 and 24: Health and DiseaseAlthough Depressi
Page 25 and 26: a cone-shaped MontgomeryCounty moun
Page 27 and 28: Based on the materials found inside
Page 29 and 30: does not accurately reflect the num
Page 31 and 32: extend nearly 8 feet below thegroun
Page 33 and 34: Adena groups probablyworked-out mor
Page 35 and 36: What we do know of Adena burial pra
Page 37 and 38: separate, or mixed with the remains
Page 39 and 40: a necklace of disk-shaped shell bea
Page 41 and 42: The keys to that discovery are vari
Page 43 and 44: Focus On Adena Engraved TabletsAden
Page 45 and 46: Focus On An Adena ShamanIn 1950, be
Page 47 and 48: county, or state law enforcement of
Page 49 and 50: The KENTUCKY ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY

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