Page 26 - ImmenseJourney

living near, and used by, the site’s
Making a Living
Animal bones, charred seeds, and artifacts tell us
about prehistoric diet, economy, and environment.
The recent Loess Hills study gave researchers an
opportunity to review and conduct new analyses
of these materials from existing collections.
Especially important were materials from Wall
Ridge (13ML176), a Glenwood lodge. The site was
excavated in 1984 prior to its destruction for use as ing at least 21 varieties and about 400 individual
a highway barrow. It is, in fact, the only Glenwood
house site carefully excavated with stratigraphic
control from the modern surface to the lodge floor
and subfloor pits. Analysis of the recovered data has identification of mussel shells and many shore birds
been an ongoing project ever since.
Wall Ridge sits on the western border of the Loess
Hills which serve as the eastern valley wall of the
Missouri Valley. With the bones of more than 100
vertebrate and invertebrate species recovered in
excavation, the Wall Ridge fauna offers a “time cap-
sule” of the local and regional animal communities
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actually the case may ultimately help explain why
residents.
The primary source of animal
protein at Wall Ridge came from
three large mammals—bison (Bison
bison), elk (Cervus elaphus), and
deer (Odocoileus sp.). There were,
however, fewer of these species
present at 13ML176 than found at
other Glenwood sites. In contrast aquatic animals
were abundant—nearly 13,000 fish bones represent-
fish alone! Over half of these were species of catfish,
but others included gar, sturgeon, paddle fish, and
smaller varieties such as suckers and sunfish. The
underscored the extent to which the Wall Ridge resi-
dents depended on aquatic resources.
Taken together, this most recent analysis suggests that
Wall Ridge differs markedly in the array of aquatic
species such as birds, fish, and mussels when com-
pared to Glenwood sites located inland along the
nearby Keg and Pony Creek drainages. It is evident
that this lodge was situated by the occupants to take
advantage of locally available animal resources with-
in both the Loess Hills and the Missouri floodplain.
The broad array of animals eaten, and the fewer
numbers of large mammals present, also hint at the
possibility that the Wall Ridge hunters were experi-
encing a period of large game depletion during the
site’s occupation. Understanding whether this was
University of Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist
Glenwood people abandoned southwestern Iowa.
While the Wall Ridge faunal study suggests that fewer
numbers of large game were hunted by the residents,
there is no question that people there were process-
ing these animals
for meat and hides.
A pilot microwear
study was conducted
on a sample of stone
scrapers from Wall
Ridge and two other
Glenwood houses
using an optical
microscope. The
results revealed the
presence of the kind
of polish along the
tool edges consistent
with their having been used against a soft material.
Experimental studies have demonstrated that such a
pattern typically results from hide working. Analysis
of similar scrapers from a Mill Creek site produced
comparable results. Unambiguous traces of hafting
on many of these scrapers, also visible under the mi-
croscope, shows that some would have been bound
into a handle.
Over 60 percent of the chipped stone tools from Wall
Ridge were made of chert that came from within a
50-mile radius of the site. Lesser numbers were made
of materials transported from sources 145 miles to
the southwest. Does the location of the chert sources