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Dreaming Creek

Site ID: 15Ma97

Camp
Madison
Kentucky Archaeological Survey (from the Collection of the William S. Webb Museum of Anthropology)
Unless specified, we cannot provide site location information.

Summary

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Dreaming Creek (15Ma97) was a small, early Late Woodland campsite. It sat on a steep-sided ridgetop near a large sinkhole. Archaeologists with Wilbur Smith Associates investigated the site from 1995 to 1996. They carried out this research prior to highway construction.  

Archaeologists identified three midden/feature concentrations within the site. Concentration A produced the most artifacts and features. Fewer artifacts were found in the other two concentrations. Radiocarbon dates obtained on nut charcoal, along with the types of ceramics and spearpoints found at the site, indicate that Indigenous peoples lived at Dreaming Creek from AD 500 to 700.

Lowe Flared Base spearpoints.

Findings

​Researchers failed to find patterns of postholes, which are one way to identify where ancient Native structures once stood. However, they did find three clusters of ceramic vessel fragments, chipped stone tools, carbonized plant remains, and burned rock. These they interpreted as areas where families had built their houses and cooked their food. 

Dreaming Creek ceramic vessels were jars.  And like other Late Woodland jars, they were larger and had thinner walls than earlier Woodland vessels.

Native peoples started making thin-walled pottery at about the same time as they increased their reliance on starchy- and oily-seeded native plants, such as goosefoot, sunflower, and maygrass. Larger vessels also may have been better suited for processing and cooking the seeds from these plants.

Seeds of other cultigens from the site included squash, tobacco, and corn. The corn from Dreaming Creek is some of the earliest corn recovered in Kentucky.

​Nuts were also an important food resource. The recovered nutshell was predominately hickory and black walnut. 

Late Woodland period vessel rims with notched lips.

What's Cool?

​Plain Jars with Angular Shoulders

As noted above, early Late Woodland jars are distinguishable from jars recovered from earlier Woodland sites by their thinner walls and larger size. But they are different from earlier vessels in another way: they have a distinctive angular shoulder.  The thickest areas​ on these thin-walled jars were at the shoulder.  


As demonstrated by the vessels recovered from
Dreaming Creek these shoulders can be sharply
angled or somewhat rounded.​
Fragments of angular shoulders from Late Woodland jars.

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