Madisonville Fort Ancient Historical Site

The Fort Ancients were an influential people who lived in and around the Ohio River valley in modern-day Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky from about 1000CE-1700CE. This culture played a significant role in the cultural structure of the Eastern Woodlands for hundreds of years and left a wealth of information behind in the form of artifacts, oral histories, etc. Archaeologists have excavated many sites of the Fort Ancient civilization, including the Madisonville site, Sun Watch Village, and Serpent Mound, among others. Researching the Fort Ancients can inform an understanding of America’s ancient cultural history and enhance our knowledge of contemporary cultures.

Known as the Madisonville site, this location near the river offers an archaeological treasure trove of artifacts from the Fort Ancient people who occupied the area from approximately 1450-1670 BCE, according to researchers at the Ohio History Connection. The village site was excavated heavily in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries by archaeologists, mostly from Harvard, and remains a location of import for cultural anthropologists today, particularly those who study prehistoric North America. The site represents a late occupation by the Fort Ancients and can provide information about the last years of their prevalence in the region. Located in Southwest Ohio near the modern-day city of Mariemont, the site covers approximately five acres and has yielded many artifacts from the later years of the Fort Ancient Civilization, including pottery, beadwork, tools, and many other traces from the people who made the Ohio River Valley their home hundreds of years ago (Drooker, 1997).

Though their structures were different from the architecture created at cultural supercenters like Cahokia, the Fort Ancient people were organized and capable of creating monumental architecture and structures such as the Great Serpent Mound during some periods. Other periods and geographic locations mark a less politically cohesive society, with mostly self-ruled villages linked by trade systems and semiformal alliances. (Pollack et al, 2002). The village at Madisonville appears to belong to the latter category, which is more characteristic of the Fort Ancient people overall--their settlements were a heterogeneous group linked by trade and kinship more than politics and identical cultures (Drooker, 1997). Tracking artifacts that originated with one culture and were recovered at sites occupied by another can enable researchers to reconstruct trade patterns. For example, finding glass beads and metal cookware in an American Indian settlement would be evidence that they had contact with European colonists or traded with others who did have contact. There is evidence of extensive trade systems in the Ohio region, and some Mississippian-crafted artifacts, such as ceramics and marine shell beads, have been recovered at Fort Ancient sites, including Madisonville, leading to the conclusion that the Mississippians and Fort Ancients had a relationship (Pollack et al, 2002). These Mississippian-Fort Ancient interactions were infrequent at first, but became more commonplace towards the end of the Fort Ancient time period, as did their relationships with other American Indian groups like the Oneota and Monongahela (Drooker, 1997).

The Fort Ancient settlement patterns also shifted over time as the people moved and altered their subsistence methods, from primarily patrilocal to a more mixed postmarriage residence pattern in the later periods, of which Madisonville is a part (Cook & Aubry, 2014). The Madisonville village would have been made up of sturdy pithouses and hearths for cooking--a multifamily village, and like other Fort Ancient settlements, primarily egalitarian, with no ranked social structure. Based on the relative placement of grave goods, there appeared to be no social hierarchy of genders, either, suggesting a merit-based culture instead of an intrinsically unequal one (Drooker, 1997). Each individual in the culture played his or her role in food gathering and preparation. The Fort Ancient diet consisted of plant and animal resources. They relied heavily on maize agriculture, and also cultivated beans and squash and collected wild fruits and nuts (Cook & Price, 2015). Meat sources came from a broad range of wildlife, like fish, wild birds, small woodland animals, and larger game such as deer and bison (Drooker, 1997). With resources they gathered themselves as well as crafted goods acquired through trade, the Fort Ancient people lived a well-rounded lifestyle.

Archaeologists and researchers continue to be interested in Fort Ancient sites today. Current research emphasizes modeling the civilization and tracking the movement and interactions of people through trade and politics (Schroeder, 2004). With the advent of new technologies and the applications of new methods, scientists can discover more information than ever before. Radiocarbon dating and archaeological analysis are tried-and-true methods, but new forays into pollen analysis, genetic studies, vegetation and geologic surveys, isotope analysis, osteology, and dental micro-wear analyses allow a more holistic glimpse into the past of the Fort Ancient people (McLauchlan, 2003; Cook & Price, 2015). More research may yet lead to unexpected conclusions and realizations about a people who are still largely a mystery to modern science.

For further reading, check out the sources or follow some of the links at the end of the entry for more information about the Fort Ancient people and pictures of more recovered artifacts. If you’re especially interested in the topic, I recommend The View from Madisonville: Protohistoric Western Fort Ancient Interaction Patterns by Penelope Drooker, which gives an excellent, detailed account of the Fort Ancient Culture and the world in which they lived. For a more general overview of the topic, Early Peoples of Indiana by James Jones and Amy Johnson is also a good choice that is more accessible for younger readers.

Cook, Robert A., and B. Scott Aubry. 2014. “Aggregation, Interregional Interaction, and Postmarital Residence Patterning: A Study of Biological Variation in the Late Prehistoric Middle Ohio Valley.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 154 (2): 270–78. doi:10.1002/ajpa.22503.

Cook, Robert A., and T. Douglas Price. 2015. “Maize, Mounds, and the Movement of People: Isotope Analysis of a Mississippian/Fort Ancient Region.” Journal of Archaeological Science 61 (September): 112–28. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2015.03.022.

Drooker, Penelope. The View from Madisonville: Protohistoric Western Fort Ancient Interaction Patterns. University of Michigan Press. 1997.

McLauchlan, Kendra. 2003. “Plant Cultivation and Forest Clearance by Prehistoric North Americans: Pollen Evidence from Fort Ancient, Ohio, USA.” Holocene 13 (4): 557–66. doi:10.1191/0959683603hl646rp.

Nolan, Kevin C., and Robert A. Cook. 2010. “An Evolutionary Model of Social Change in the Middle Ohio Valley: Was Social Complexity Impossible during the Late Woodland but Mandatory during the Late Prehistoric?” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29 (1): 62–79. doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2009.10.004.

Pollack, David, A. Gwynn Henderson, and Christopher T. Begley. 2002. “Fort Ancient/Mississippian Interaction on the Northeastern Periphery.” Southeastern Archaeology 21 (2): 206. https://proxy.bsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9247818&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Schroeder, Sissel. 2004. “Current Research on Late Precontact Societies of the Midcontinental United States.” Journal of Archaeological Research 12 (4): 311–72. doi:10.1007/s10814-004-0001-2.