Bone Bank Archaeological Research

Excavations continued with water-screening of each level.

Excavation of Units 4A-4J reached level 11, which underlies the Mississippian deposits.

Professor Marjorie Jones and students from the University of Southern Indiana volunteer their time to help with water-screening. Each 10 cm level in a 1 x 1 m unit requires the processing of about 16 buckets of excavated soil.

After soil is dissolved during water-screening, the remaining materials in the excavation samples are dried in screen boxes and then taken back to the lab for later analysis.

Students from the University of Evansville, along with Professor Patrick Thomas, have been a major help the rescue excavation project. For Units 4A to 4J, levels 3 through 10, about 19 tons of soil have been excavated, placed in tagged buckets, water-screened, dried, and bagged & boxed for later analysis. More than 600 pottery sherds (> ½ inch) were recovered in these levels.

Close-up of water-screened sample from FS 506 in the Mississippian midden (Unit 4A, Level 6, Zone B). Labels on flagging tape for each bucket identify the field specimen number and are transferred from the bucket to the water-screen container, and then to the drying screen to maintain control of provenience. This sample contains pieces of fabric impressed pottery bowls (shallow wok-like vessels), part of a narrow-necked ceramic water bottle, other pottery sherds, cracked rock, and small pieces of bone.