Posted on 05/11/2002 3:10:09 PM PDT by blam
1,900-year-old skeleton dug up nearly intact
By Erika Schmidt Russell, Community Editor May 10, 2002
Erika Schmidt Russell/The Register
The skeleton of a woman buried 1,900 to 1,400 years ago was discovered when archeologists were working on the now defunct Lawrenceburg west-side levee project.
Forget celebrating 200 years in Lawrenceburg, try celebrating 2,000 years or 10,000 years. People have been settling along this portion of the Ohio River for thousands of years.
A recent archaeological dig for the defunct west-side levee project unearthed evidence of human settlement in the bottoms along the riverbank and Tanners Creek, dating to 6400 B.C. or more than 8,500 years ago. The most exciting find by archaeologists is the skeleton of a woman probably buried between A.D. 100 and A.D. 600, or 1,900 to 1,400 years ago.
Archaeologists were nearly finished with their work when they found her in mid-April.
After digging more than 300 trenches and painstakingly digging out side areas four inches at a time, the crews were close to wrapping up their work when part of her skull was discovered, said Jeff Plunkett, an archaeologist with Landmark Archaeological and Environmental Services, Sheridan, Ind.
She probably was between 25 and 40 years old when she died, and most likely at the younger end of that range because her wisdom teeth were not as worn as her other teeth, said Plunkett.
Teeth are the most important part of a skeleton, and usually survive the longest because they are the hardest part of the body, said Plunkett.
A cast of her teeth, obtained with a special permit from the state, will tell researchers about her diet. In other cases, teeth can help archaeologists determine a person’s age, he said.
The Lawrenceburg lady’s teeth are heavily worn. Archaeologists determined she was a female from looking at her brow ridge and her chin.
In women, these facial features are not as heavy and prominent as in men. Her bones remain in the ground because if they are removed, they would disintegrate, said Plunkett.
Once the team has learned all they can about her, she will be reburied, he said.
Her feet were clipped off when a clean water effluent line was installed from the sewer plant to Tanners Creek. People installing the sewer line probably would not have noticed the foot bones in the dirt because they would have been about the size of a dime or nickel, said Plunkett.
The remainder of her skeleton is 4 feet 7 inches. In life, she probably was about 4 feet 10 inches, said Plunkett.
She was buried in the early- to mid-Woodland period, and most likely would not have been buried in anything. The Woodland period ranges from about 1000 B.C. to European contact, roughly about A.D. 1600, he said. “She might have been wrapped in something though,” said Plunkett.
The Lawrenceburg lady also was not buried pointing toward a cardinal direction of north, south, east or west. Most Christian burials have the head pointing toward the east and feet to the west, said Plunkett. When the Lawrenceburg lady was alive, 1,900 to 1,400 years ago, people primarily were hunters and gatherers with some limited agriculture.
Native Americans in the area were not dependent on corn at that time, said Bill Mangold, an archaeologist with the division of historic preservation and archaeology at the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
People lived in small villages, and “were involved in extensive trade over a wide area, although after 300 A.D. that trade declined rapidly,” said Mangold. The Lawrenceburg lady would not have been part of any present Native American tribe. She is contemporary to the mound building cultures, said Mangold.
The 6400 B.C. fire pit found on the levee dig is from the late-mid-Archaic period. People at that time were nomadic hunters and gatherers, who lived in extended family groups. They were starting to get the maximum usage out of available natural resources, said Mangold. Evidence of even earlier occupation in the Ohio River bottoms in Southeastern Indiana has been found on previous digs. People have been camping near the river for 10,000 years, he said.
The glaciers had just receded into lower Michigan, and Southeastern Indiana had a tundra like climate. The Ohio River and major creeks were in existence 10,000 years ago, said Mangold.
“We know very little about their material culture. There were few long-term settlements. What information we do have is from surface finds or very small campsites,” he said.
Little is known about Indiana’s pre-history because only bone, stone and pottery can survive for centuries. Leather, skin or other materials decompose when exposed to oxygen, said Mangold.
There are few sites in the Midwest where fibrous or skin materials can survive. Bogs in Ireland and other European counties have a pH and lack of oxygen that helps preserve skin, woven materials and other items. A rare exception in the United States is a bog in Illinois, where archaeologists found woven baskets below the water table, said Mangold.
While the Midwest climate may not be good for preserving skin or woven materials, the heavy clay soil along the Ohio River was good for preserving Lawrenceburg lady’s skeleton, said Plunkett.
Once the soft tissues of her body decayed, the clay compacted around her skeleton, and kept it remarkably whole, he said.
Meanwhile, the team hopes charcoal fragments found in and around her body will reveal a more precise age, said Plunkett.
Give or take 500 years...
In all seriousness, I thought that the pelvic girdle, which is visible in the picture, is the means to determine the gender.
NOT in any part of Michigan.
A permit obtained, no doubt, from the Michigan Department of Teeth Casts (MDTC),right down the hall from the Michigan Department of Cranium Casts (MDCC) and the Michigan Department of Femural Forensics (MDFF).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.