A Nodena Projectile Point Cache in the Driftless Area, Wisconsin

WisArch News Volume 23 Number 2 WINTER 2023-2024 WisArch News The Newsletter of the Wisconsin Archeological Society A Nodena Point Cache in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin In this Issue WAS Officers, Affiliates, Chairs….…….2 Affiliated Organizations……….….……..3 The Society Celebrates Citizen, Scientist and Archaeology……….………4 Nodena Point Cache...................................5 The Wisconsin Idea and the Golden Age in Wis Archaeology…..10 Archaeology News and Notes…….…….16 Back Dirt: 100 Years Ago in The Wisconsin Archeologist……….…....17 A plowed out cache of Nodena Elliptical projectile points was found in the Bohn Creek valley, southwestern Dane County, Wisconsin, in 2015. The cache, initially numbering 50 small, leaf-shaped bifaces, was found by Tim Goplin in April of that year following clearing of a portion of a field where derelict machinery had been deposited. Nodena Point Cache………...…5 The Golden Age in Wisconsin Archaeology……10 Membership in the Wisconsin Archeological Society………......…...….18 More Support for White Sands Dates……………16 1 WisArch News WINTER 2023-2024 Volume 23 Number 2 A Nodena Projectile Point Cache in the Driftless Area, Wisconsin Marlin F. Hawley and Thomas J. Loebel A plowed out cache of Nodena Elliptical projectile points was found in the Bohn Creek valley, southwestern Dane County, Wisconsin, in 2015 (Figure 1). The cache, initially numbering 50 small, leaf-shaped bifaces, was found by Tim Goplin in April of that year following clearing of a portion of a field where derelict machinery had been deposited. After removal of this equipment and deep plowing, a visit to the site revealed a tight concentration of bifaces (< ca. 10 sq. m; ca. 100 sq. ft.). A visit to the location the following spring (2016) by Eddie Goplin netted one additional point, bringing the total to Figure 1. Localities referenced in the text 51 points (Figure 2). After being alerted to the discovery, one of us (Hawley, usually with 1-2 others) repeatedly surveyed the field where the cache was found. Close interval pedestrian survey was conducted several times over the course of more than a year, in corn stubble and following spring planting under dry and wet surface conditions. While no additional Nodena points were found, the survey did reveal a lithic scatter covering an area 5 WisArch News WINTER 2023-2024 Volume 23 Number 2 Figure 2. The Goplin site Nodena point cache. of 3.5-4.0 acres, now designated as site 47DA1522. The flakes, shatter and other material were all made from locally obtainable Galena chert, including probably expedient use of the material found in glacial till. In the absence of projectile points or pottery, the age of the scatter is not known, though it seems likely that it predates by an unknown margin the Nodena cache. The cache location lay close to the southern edge of the site, near a small, intermittent tributary of Bohn Creek. The points are all assignable to the Nodena Elliptical type, associated with the late Mississippian/protohistoric Nodena phase (AD 1400-1650) in eastern Arkansas and southeast Missouri (Justice 1987; Morse 1990). (“Phase” is an archaeological term denoting a cluster of related sites, probably indicative of a cultural relationship between their inhabitants.) Those from the Goplin site range from 25.72 to 42.40 mm in overall 6 WisArch News WINTER 2023-2024 Volume 23 Number 2 length with widths varying from 7.94 to 14.89 mm. Maximum thickness ranges from 3.18 to 8.04 mm. The 51 points were chipped from non-local chert, including Burlington (n=45 or 46), Salem (n=2 or 3), Jefferson City (n=1), and unidentified (n=1); some of the stone appears to have been thermally altered to improve its flaking qualities (Figure 2). Perhaps the most notable aspect of the points, however, is that all bear extensive wear on edges and surfaces. Use wear analysis (by Loebel) indicates that this wear derives from transport, probably from the points rubbing together inside a hide bag. Nodena points have a wide distribution and have been recovered from sites flanking the Mississippi River from the Gulf Coast northward into the Great Lakes region (see Justice 1987:230-232, Map 101), as far north as southern Ontario (e.g., Dann 2011:7-8, Figure 4). The Nodena points reported in eastern Iowa (Anderson 1981:49; McKusick 1973; Straffin 1971:18, Plate 7c; Wedel 1959:52, 153), western Wisconsin (Gibbon 1986:328, Figure 11; McKern 1945:135, Plate 39; Sasso 1989:45-46, 198, Appendix 29) and southeastern Minnesota (Sasso 1989:198; Wilfred and Brink 1974:33) have been recovered from Oneota tradition site contexts. Late Mississippian artifacts, including pottery and a carved shell gorget, also have been reported from the Anker site, a Huber phase Oneota tradition site located in the greater Chicago area (Bluhm and Liss 1983). Formerly, the few Nodena points found at Oneota sites were in artifact assemblages ascribed to the Orr phase (Gibbon 1986; Sasso 1989:198). However, in light of taxonomic revision and temporal refinement of the La Crosse area Oneota cultural sequence in the 1990s (Boszhardt 1994), these assemblages presumably now would be considered as belonging to the Valley View phase (ca. AD 1530-1625). Of course, in the absence of diagnostic ceramics at Sasso’s (1989:211) ”ephemeral” sites in the Coon Creek drainage, uncertainty as to dating remains. (The sites in question are 47VE577—with a single Nodena point made of Burlington chert—and 47VE892, n=1, where chert is unidentified light tan material; there may be one other from Sasso’s survey in the private collection from 47VE807, but the point is broken and typological assignment is somewhat clouded as a result.) Contact between Nodena phase peoples and the Oneota potentially could extend back into earlier Pammel Creek phase times (but still overlapping the early Nodena phase). The Goplin cache points were intended as part of a suite of goods exchanged between populations in the lower Mississippi Valley and Oneota tradition peoples several hundred miles upriver (Dye and Aid 2022). The cache’s location in the Bohn Creek valley, far outside the obvious trade route of the Mississippi or the Wisconsin rivers and, for that matter, far from any Oneota settlement, however, remains puzzling. Movement up the Rock River valley remains a distinct possibility, though. The late pre-European contact/early historic era was a time of conflict in the midcontinent (Hollinger 2005) and the cache’s placement may somehow relate to unsettled conditions. Possibly, too, exchange may have taken place in areas removed from settlements or which possessed some special 7 WisArch News WINTER 2023-2024 Volume 23 Number 2 significance. It also has to be considered that the cache did not end up at its intended destination. The Goplin cache is unique in that it is the only known cache of Nodena points in a region otherwise characterized by infrequent isolated finds of the type. The transport of a substantial number of these points into the upper Mississippi Valley (which were then subsequently cached), is reflective of the complex social landscape and population dynamics which existed in the late pre-contact era. All of the materials collected from the Goplin site, including the cache, have been retained by the Goplin family. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Eddie Goplin for bringing the cache to our attention and letting us measure, photograph and even borrow the artifacts for use wear analysis. This last was facilitated by Madeline Evans. We are also grateful to both Eddie and his son, Tim, for permission to visit the site, repeatedly as it turned out. Amy Hawley, Rachel Hawley, and Matt G. Hill assisted at different times with site survey, while Sydney Hanson helped with shovel testing vegetated portions of the site. We appreciate information and comments from Bob Sasso. David Dye has been a source of information and encouragement for many years. References Cited Anderson, D. C. 1981 Eastern Iowa Prehistory. Iowa State University Press, Ames. Bluhm, E. A., and A. Liss 1983 The Anker Site. In Chicago Area Archaeology, edited by Elaine A. Bluhm, pp. 89138. Bulletin No. 3, Illinois Archaeological Survey, Urbana. Boszhardt, R. F. 1994 Oneota Group Continuity at La Crosse: The Brice Prairie, Pammel Creek, and Valley View Phases. The Wisconsin Archeologist 74(3-4):173-236. Dann, D. 2011 Surface Survey of the Wiener Site (AeHh-140), 2006-2010. KEWA: Newsletter of the London Chapter, Ontario Archaeological Society 11(1):2-14. Dye, D.H., and T. Aid 2022 Oneota and Tunican Cosmoscapes in the Lower Mississippi Valley. In Archaeologies of Cosmoscapes in the Americas, edited by J.G. Stauffer, B.T. Giles, and S.P. Lambert, pp. 85-105. Oxbow Books, Havertown, Pennsylvania. 8 WisArch News WINTER 2023-2024 Volume 23 Number 2 Gibbon, G. 1986 The Mississippian Tradition: Oneota Culture. The Wisconsin Archeologist 67(34):314-338. Hollinger, R. E. 2005 Conflict and Culture Change in the Late Prehistoric and Early Historic American Midcontinent. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Justice, N. D. 1987 Stone Age Spear and Arrow Points of the Eastern United States. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. McKern, W. C. 1945 Preliminary Report on the Upper Mississippi Phase in Wisconsin. Bulletin of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee 16:109-285. McKusick, M. 1973 The Grant Oneota Village. Office of the State Archaeologist Report No. 4, Iowa City, Iowa. Morse, D.F. 1990 The Nodena Phase. In Towns and Temples along the Mississippi, edited by D.H. Dye and C.A. Cox, pp. 69-97. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. Sasso, R. F. 1989 Oneota Settlement Practices in the La Crosse Region: An Analysis of the Coon Creek Drainage in the Driftless Area of Western Wisconsin. Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. Straffin, D. 1971 The Kingston Oneota Site. Office of the State Archaeologist, University of Iowa, Iowa City. Wedel, M.M 1959 Oneota Sites on the Upper Iowa River. The Missouri Archaeologist 21(2-4). Wilford, L.A. and J. Brink 1974 The Hogback Site. The Minnesota Archaeologist 33(1-2). 9