Schurr, Mark R. and Hilgeman, Sherri L. (Glenn A. Black Laboratory, Indiana
University)
CERAMICS AND CHRONOLOGY AT THE STEPHAN-STEINKAMP SITE (12 PO 33):
THE 1986 IU/GBL FIELDSCHOOL EXCAVATIONS
The 1986 Indiana University Archaeological Field School was co-sponsored by Indiana
University, the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, and the Indiana Historical
Society. Excavations were conducted at the Stephan-Steinkamp site (12 Po 33) in
southeastern Posey County, Indiana. This site is thought to have been an early
Angel phase Mississippian village located approximately 300 feet north of the
Ohio River on a slight rise on the floodplain.
A surface survey was conducted to determine the site boundaries as defined by
the surface distribution of shell-tempered pottery and to prepare a topographic
map of the site. A controlled surface collection was made along a north-south
transect on the western side of the site. This collection was analyzed to select
units for excavation. An area of 1000 square feet was opened by hand, and an additional
area of 800 square stripped of plowzone by backhoe and mapped. A backhoe trench
was used to test for a stockade line on the northern end of the transect.
The excavations uncovered portions of at least four houses, several associated
pit features, and a dog burial. One large pit produced wood charcoal which gave
a radiocarbon date of 1230 +/ 60 BP (AD 625 - 895 corrected, 95% confidence limits)
and two sherds from a globular shell- tempered jar which provided thermoluminesence
dates of 940 +/- 160 BP and 860 +/- 230 BP (mean date of AD 1050 with a pooled
variance of +/- 280). The backhoe trench located a clearly defined feature which
may represent the remains of a stockade line on the northern border of the site.
Grog- tempered pottery of the emergent Mississippian Yankeetown phase was recovered
in both the controlled surface and in the excavated collections, but Yankeetown
occupation features were not identified by excavation.
The shell-tempered ceramics from the excavated units represent a homogeneous assemblage.
Its diagnostic elements are loop handles and cord marking below the necks of some
globular jars.
Fabric-impressed "salt pans" are also present. The assemblage appears similar
to early or pre-Kincaid phase ceramic assemblages in the lower Tennessee-Cumberland
River Valleys of Kentucky and the Black Bottom of southern Illinois. Non-ceramic
artifacts are generic Mississippian types.
In conclusion, the 1986 Indiana University Archaeological Field School excavations
at the Stephan-Steinkamp site (12 Po 33) have demonstrated that a portion of the
site represents the remains of an early Angel phase occupation similar to other
early Mississippian occupations in adjacent areas which have been assigned dates
of occupation around AD 1050.
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