The Bentley site (15Gp15) is a Late Fort Ancient culture Madisonville horizon (post 1400 CE)

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

overlain by an 18th-century

Shawnee The Shawnee ( ) are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language. Their precontact homeland was likely centered in southern Ohio. In the 17th century, they dispersed through Ohi ...

village; it is located within the Lower Shawneetown Archeological District, near South Portsmouth in

Greenup County, Kentucky Greenup County is a county located along the Ohio River in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 35,962. The county was founded in 1803 and named in honor of Christopher Greenup. Its c ...

and

Lewis County, Kentucky Lewis County is near the northeastern tip of the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 13,080. Its county seat is Vanceburg, Kentucky, Vanceburg. History Kentucky was part of Virginia unti ...

. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on April 28, 1983. It is located near four groups of

Hopewell tradition The Hopewell tradition, also called the Hopewell culture and Hopewellian exchange, describes a network of precontact Native American cultures that flourished in settlements along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern Eastern Woodlands from 1 ...

mounds, built between 100 BCE and 500 CE, known as the

Portsmouth Earthworks The Portsmouth Earthworks are a large prehistoric mound complex constructed by the Native American Adena and Ohio Hopewell cultures of eastern North America (100 BCE to 500 CE). The site was one of the largest earthwork ceremonial centers con ...

Description

Buffalo style mask gorget Ohio HRoe 2010 01

The site is a village on the second flood terrace of the

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

, located across from the mouth of the

Scioto River The Scioto River ( ) is a river in central and southern Ohio more than in length. It rises in Hardin County, Ohio, Hardin County just north of Roundhead, Ohio, flows through Columbus, Ohio, where it collects its largest tributary, the Olent ...

. It was excavated in the 1930s and was discovered to have had similar structures and building techniques as those found at another nearby Fort Ancient site, the Hardin Village site located up the Ohio.David Pollack and A. Gwynn Henderson, "A Preliminary Report on the Contact Period Occupation at Lower Shawneetown (l5GP15), Greenup County, Kentucky," paper presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the Central States Anthropological Society on April 9, 1982.
/ref>Lee H. Hanson, ''The Hardin Village Site,'' University of Kentucky Press, 1966
The site was inhabited continuously from 1400 to about 1625 CE and probably had a population of 250 to 500 people living in long, rectangular houses covered with bark and shared by multiple families, as indicated by the several central hearths and interior partitions.A. Gwynn Henderson, David Pollack, "A Native History of Kentucky: Selections from Chapter 17: Kentucky," in ''Native America: A State-by-State Historical Encyclopedia,'' edited by Daniel S. Murphree, Volume 1, pages 393–440; Greenwood Press, Santa Barbara, CA. 2012
/ref>

Artifacts

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the community engaged in trade with other villages, as evidenced by the presence in graves of ornamental

shell gorget Shell gorgets are a Native American art form of polished, carved shell pendants worn around the neck. The gorgets are frequently engraved, and are sometimes highlighted with pigments, or fenestrated (pierced with openings). Shell gorgets were mo ...

s made from the shells of marine

mollusks Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The num ...

harvested off the coasts of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.A. Gwynn Henderson, "Dispelling the Myth: Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Indian Life in Kentucky,"
''The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society,'' Vol. 90, No. 1, ''The KentuckyImage'' (Bicentennial Issue), pp. 1-25, Kentucky Historical Society Fort Ancient residents probably obtained these shells by trading salt extracted from boiled

brine Brine (or briny water) is a high-concentration solution of salt (typically sodium chloride or calcium chloride) in water. In diverse contexts, ''brine'' may refer to the salt solutions ranging from about 3.5% (a typical concentration of seawat ...

. Also found during the excavations were distinctive Madisonville

horizon The horizon is the apparent curve that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This curve divides all viewing directions based on whethe ...

pottery,Michelle M. Davidson, "Preliminary mineralogical and chemical study of Pre-Madisonville and Madisonville horizon Fort Ancient ceramics," ''Norse Scientist'', Vol. 1, Issue 1, April 2003; Northern Kentucky University.
/ref> including cordmarked, plain and grooved-paddle jars, as well as a variety of

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...

points, scrapers and

ceremonial pipe A ceremonial pipe is a particular type of smoking pipe (tobacco), smoking pipe, used by a number of cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Americas in their sacred ceremonies. Traditionally they are used to offer prayers in a religious ceremo ...

s. A variety of locally-made tools were recovered from the site, including bone awls, chisels, endscrapers, fishhooks and pins, and some decorative items including pendants,

earplugs An earplug is a device that is inserted in the ear canal to protect the user's ears from loud noises, intrusion of water, foreign bodies, dust or excessive wind. Earplugs may be used as well to improve sleep quality or focus in noisy environments ...

, and freshwater mussel-shell beads. Tobacco pipes made of stone and ceramic were found, along with a few items of European origin, including copper or brass beads, bracelets, tubes, coils and pendants. These were most likely not obtained directly through contact with Europeans but rather via Native American intermediary trade. Over 300 burials were located, and some skeletons showed signs of tuberculosis,

yaws Yaws is a tropical infection of the skin, bones, and joints caused by the spirochete bacterium ''Treponema pallidum pertenue''. The disease begins with a round, hard swelling of the skin, in diameter. The center may break open and form an ulc ...

nonvenereal endemic syphilis Bejel, or endemic syphilis, is a chronic skin and tissue disease caused by infection by the ''endemicum'' subspecies of the spirochete ''Treponema pallidum''. Bejel is one of the "endemic treponematoses" (endemic infections caused by spiral-shaped ...

Abandonment

The village was probably abandoned around 1625, possibly because of periodic flooding of the Ohio River.Andrew Lee Feight, "Lower Shawnee Town and the Flood of 1753," ''Lower Scioto Blog ,'' posted on December 24, 2007 The Fort Ancient residents of southern Ohio were very likely wiped out in the late seventeenth century by infectious diseases brought by Europeans, particularly

measles Measles (probably from Middle Dutch or Middle High German ''masel(e)'', meaning "blemish, blood blister") is a highly contagious, Vaccine-preventable diseases, vaccine-preventable infectious disease caused by Measles morbillivirus, measles v ...

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by Variola virus (often called Smallpox virus), which belongs to the genus '' Orthopoxvirus''. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (W ...

, and

influenza Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These sympto ...

. Graves from this period often contain multiple burials—from four to over a hundred individuals—reflecting a sudden increase in mortality typical of epidemics. Depopulation may have been hastened by Iroquois raids during the

Beaver Wars The Beaver Wars (), also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars (), were a series of conflicts fought intermittently during the 17th century in North America throughout the Saint Lawrence River valley in Canada and the Great L ...

(1629–1701).Caudill, Courtney B., ""Mischiefs So Close to Each Other": External Relations of the Ohio Valley Shawnees, 1730–1775." Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539625770, May 1992
/ref>Andrew Lee Feight, "Lower Shawnee Town and Celoron's Expedition," ''Scioto Historical,'' accessed November 22, 2020
/ref>

References

{{Registered Historic Places Fort Ancient culture Prehistoric cultures in Ohio Shawnee history Former Native American populated places in the United States Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Kentucky Native American history of Kentucky National Register of Historic Places in Greenup County, Kentucky National Register of Historic Places in Lewis County, Kentucky

Description

Artifacts

Abandonment

See also

References