Page 22 - DesMoinesRiver

The Iowaville site has been in cultivation for subsurface features such as houses and storage or they may have chosen to move away from
more than half a century and artifacts have pits. Archaeological deposits buried below the the smallpox-decimated village. Unsubstantiated
been collected from the plowed surface for at plow zone have a high degree of integrity. It was written history holds that a massacre took place
least as long. In 2011 a team of archaeologists also determined that the impact from the artifact at Iowaville, with the Sauk slaughtering hundreds
undertook a geophysical survey of the site, with collectors has been largely confined to the plow- of Ioway in a surprise attack. Apart from an
the assistance of geophysical specialist Steven zone (De Vore and Peterson 2011:14). account left by a local trader who did not live in
DeVore of the National Park Service as part of the area at the time of the supposed battle, no
the National Park Service’s National Historic Around 1820, the Ioway were displaced from solid evidence supports this massacre story. Sauk
Landmark evaluation of archeological resources. their main village at Iowaville (Blaine 1979:135). warrior Black Hawk does not mention this at-
The purpose of this research was to use remote They may have been displaced by other tribes tack in his autobiography; in fact, his account of
sensing techniques, magnetometers and Sauk and Ioway relations at that period reflects a
ground-penetrating radar, to determine tolerant, if not completely peaceful, coexistence
whether any undisturbed portions of (Blackhawk 1994 [1833] in Peterson and Artz
the site still survive. The results indicate 2006:28).
that the site does indeed contain intact

2011 excavations at the Iowaville site, 13VB124.

22 A River of Unrivaled Advantages—Life Along the Lower Des Moines River