Special Programs & Events

2010 HAHN SITE FIELD SCHOOL

Have you always wanted to participate in a real archaeology excavation? If so, you are in luck. Cincinnati Museum Center presents our 4th annual archaeology field school, a series of four weeklong field school sessions at the Hahn Site in Anderson Township, Hamilton County, Ohio. Join us for a week or longer and experience the thrill of uncovering artifacts and features from this Late Prehistoric village site along the Little Miami River.

The Hahn Site is a well-known Fort Ancient period village site located in the broad Little Miami River Valley north of the Beechmont Levy and west of the Village of Newtown. It lies within Clear Creek Park, a recreational park owned and operated by the Anderson Township Park District. Peabody Museum at Harvard conducted preliminary excavations at the site in 1886, uncovering a vast array of flint, stone, bone, and shell artifacts. And, although little was learned of the village layout in those early investigations, subsequent surface collections indicate that it is a circular to oval agricultural village with an open central plaza. Similar village sites have been investigated along the lower reaches of both the Great Miami and the Little Miami rivers in southwest Ohio.

Dating from approximately A.D. 1100 to A.D. 1650, Fort Ancient villages exhibit clear spatial patterning of houses, storage pits, and cooking features around the central plaza. Villages may also be surrounded by wooden stockades. Houses are typically constructed of wooden posts in a square or rectangular pattern. Interior posts may be indicative of screens or dividers within the house. Trash-filled storage pits are often found in front of the structures facing the open plaza area. It is within these trash pits that the physical remains of everyday prehistoric life were deposited.

During the last two Museum field schools at Hahn, we excavated thirteen large units, eight of which straddle a middle period Fort Ancient (ca. A.D. 1300-1500) wall-trench house. At the base of the wall trench (a ditch constructed to support house wall posts), a series of more than two-dozen post molds was exposed and excavated within two separate walls of the house. The remaining units were placed to intercept pit features located by remote sensing. Hahn is a dense village site with a cultural midden rich in flint, bone, stone, shell, and ceramic artifacts extending to a depth of nearly 20 inches below ground surface. The 2008-2009 field schools produced large quantities of flint arrow tips and scrapers, bone tools, and volumes of pottery vessel fragments.

The goals of the 2010 Hahn Site Field School include the exposure and excavation of the remaining two corners of the wall trench house, continued exposure of features located during remote sensing, and the recovery of diagnostic artifact samples and associated organic materials that will allow for radiometric dating of the site. Participants will learn standard excavation and recording techniques, and will engage in all aspects of excavation and screening at the site. Participants will also learn about the late prehistory of southwest Ohio, the development of sedentary agricultural villages, and the importance of the Hahn Site in our understanding of local Fort Ancient-age societies.

The 2010 Hahn Site Field School will run for four consecutive one-week sessions beginning on July 5, 2010 and ending the week of July 30, 2010. Field school members will attend a brief class on field methods and local late prehistory, and will participate in a guided tour of major archaeological sites in the lower reaches of the Little Miami Valley. In the event of rain, participants will travel to the Geier Collections and Research Center of the Cincinnati Museum Center to undertake laboratory work associated with the excavations. Robert Genheimer, George Rieveschl Curator of Archaeology at Cincinnati Museum Center will supervise the 2010 Hahn Site Field School.

Participants may enroll for any or all of the one-week sessions. A modest program fee will be charged with a discount offered to CMC members. Participants should plan on traveling to and from the site on their own, although transportation may be available from CMC’s Union Terminal. The field school is an outdoor activity in July, so participants should be able to perform moderate physical tasks in a hot and humid climate.