Page 10 - RAGBRAI2008

day 5 - tama/toledo to north liberty

The home and trading Woodpecker Cave (site 13JH202) is
post of the first known actually a rock overhang nestled in the
Euro-American settler valley of a small stream flowing into
in Johnson County is the larger Iowa River, a place that
still preserved, 173 provided shelter as well as access to a
years after he built it. wide variety of resources. The site was
John Gilbert’s Trading found when archaeologists were
Post to the Meskwakis looking for sites that might be flooded
may not be standing, by the creation of the Coralville
but it is still in evidence Reservoir in the late 1950s. In the top
as archaeological site layer, archaeologists recovered 40 stone
13JH775, which lies tools, pottery, and bone tools, as well as
partially in timber and shell and bone remains of animals used
partly in a cultivated for food. The pottery found was similar
field. Although only to that found at Effigy Mound sites,
four test units, suggesting that the site may also be of
measuring about 3 by 6 similar age, over 1000 years old. A
feet total, have been second deeper layer had tools that must
excavated there, 10,024 have been even older. The materials
artifacts were found! found during excavation are now
These include beads,
bone buttons, gun parts, housed at the
animal bones, and Smithsonian
broken bottles. in
Washington
D.C.

Of the 18 counties that Woodpecker
the 2008 route passes Cave, North
through, Johnson
County, in east-central Liberty
Iowa, has the greatest
number of recorded
sites, currently at 1253.

Artifacts from the
Aicher Mound group in
Johnson County
represent the oldest
collection in the State
Repository.