Skip to main navigation Skip to main content
Hand excavations underway in Horizon 3 at the Triple Threat Site

Triple Threat

Site ID: 15Md476

Camp; Workshop
Meade
Burns & McDonnell
Unless specified, we cannot provide site location information.

Summary

​​​Triple Threat is a prehistoric camp and lithic workshop site with three stratified Woodland components, deeply buried in the floodplain of the Ohio River about 1 mile east of Brandenburg in Meade County. Intensively investigated during development of the Nucor Steel Mill, the site contains evidence for the mass production of Adena-type bifaces and preforms made of Wyandotte chert during the late Early Woodland Period.​


Findings

​Phase III work recovered approximately 21,132 artifacts from three stratified cultural components exposed in 54m2 of hand excavations and 537 m2 of machine excavations. Horizon 1 appeared to be a Late Woodland camp where some flintknapping and cooking in pots took place. Horizon 2 represented a briefly occupied camp dating to the end of the Middle Woodland period, cal AD 406 and 542, where limited stone tool manufacturing and cooking activities were evident. Horizon 3 was found to be a camp dating to the end of the Early Woodland period, cal 339 to 57 BC. Domestic activity in that horizon revolved around gearing up hunting weaponry, butchering prey, and cooking it in pots and hearths. Substantial effort in Horizon 3 was directed toward the focused production of Wyandotte chert bifaces, especially Adena point preforms. 


What's Cool?

Three Point Types Found Together
It is rather remarkable that three morphologically distinct point styles – Turkey Tail, Adena, and Snyders – were being used at the same camp site contemporaneously. Turkey Tail and Adena points are regularly found together in earlier Early Woodland contexts, and Adena and Snyders points are commonly found together in the same early Middle Woodland components. But at Triple Threat, the three point types were all recovered from Horizon 3 and dated to cal 339 to 57 BC.
 



Related Materials

The Triple Threat site was excavated as part of a three-site archaeological mitigation effort sponsored by Nucor at the location of their new steel mill in Brandenburg. The Craven Crawdad site (15Md475) and Glen Fount Plantation (15Md458) were also excavated there, and each of those sites has its own entry in this website.





Keep the Search Alive!

Learn more about the ROBOT INSERT TIME PERIOD HERE.