Judd

​​​​The Judd site sat on a toe slope at the base of an upland ridge overlooking a marshy intermittent tributary of Lewis Creek.  Archaeologists excavated the site prior to construction of the U.S. Highway 61 realignment.  These investigations recovered a large number of spear points from a relatively small area, and documented several large pits and large post holes.  

Diagnostic spear points and radiocarbon dates obtained on charcoal samples from three of the large pits suggested that Native peoples repeatedly occupied the Judd site from Early Archaic to Late Woodland times, but occupied it most intensively during the Middle Archaic period (6000-4000 BC).

​​Sacred Poles?

Archaeologists wondered how the site's early Middle Archaic residents had used the two large pits and poles.  Two lines of evidence suggested that they had used them in group-related ritual activities. First, there was no evidence that the site residents had used the pits for storage.  Second, there was no evidence that the poles were parts of structures, and thus the pits were not sections of shelter basins.  

This interpretation raised the possibility that pole ceremonialism had a long history in Kentucky, and in the Eastern Woodlands in general - much longer than previously thought.  Prior to the Judd site investigations, such features were only known from Middle Woodland, Fort Ancient, and Mississippian sites in Kentucky.  The presence of these pits and poles at Judd suggest that archaeologists working in Kentucky need to be on the look-out for these types of pit-and-pole associations when they investigate Archaic sites, too​.