Dating the middle to late woodland transition in the Illinois Valley: Radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dates from the Baehr-Gust site

Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Spring 2003 by Holt, Julie Zimmermann, Feathers, James K

Conclusion

The radiocarbon ages and TL dates together support the second hypothesis presented above: that Baehr-Gust was occupied over some 600 years, first by Havana and later by White Hall occupants. According to this hypothesis, White Hall should be considered early Late Woodland rather than late Middle Woodland because there is no convincing evidence that White Hall occupants at Baehr-Gust built mounds or made Hopewell pottery.

The contention that there is no convincing evidence that White Hall occupants built the mounds at Baehr-Gust is supported by an uncalibrated AMS date on a bone awl from the Snyder collection, which indicates that one of the mounds at Baehr-Gust was built during the Havana occupation, ca. A.D. 200. The contention that there is no convincing evidence that White Hall occupants at Baehr-Gust made Hopewell pottery is supported by TL dating and because Feature 91-XVIII was the only feature from the site that contained both Havana-Hopewell and White Hall pottery and was undisturbed according to the field notes. All other possible examples of co-occurring Havana-Hopewell and White Hall pottery at Baehr-Gust are explained either by clearly recorded evidence of disturbance within the features or, in the case of the three other features chosen for TL dating, by disagreement among ceramicists over the classification of body sherds. Feature 91-XVIII contained mostly White Hall sherds and only a few Havana-Hopewell sherds. TL dating of two sherds from this feature demonstrated that one of the Havana-Hopewell sherds is several hundred years older than one White Hall sherd. In sum, a careful review of field notes and results of TL dating provide no convincing evidence that Havana-Hopewell and White Hall pottery are contemporaneous in any of the dozens of features excavated at Baehr-Gust, contrary to the suggestions of Winters and his coauthors (Winters et al. 1989).

We stress that our conclusions do not rely on just one pair of TL dates but on four pairs of dates. The consistency of the TL dates and calibrated radiocarbon dates on three pairs suggests that the measurements are valid, so there is every reason to believe that the dates for the pair from Feature 91-XVIII are also valid. Regardless of the validity of these dates, however, the appearance of the occasional Hopewell sherd or other artifact in a White Hall/Weaver deposit should not be taken as evidence that White Hall and Weaver people participated in the Hopewell Interaction Sphere. They might have occasionally curated Hopewell artifacts as heirlooms, but in many cases taphonomic explanations are more plausible: artifacts can move through a profile, and debris from earlier occupations can be incorporated into feature fill. Evidence of White Hall/Weaver mound building would provide more convincing evidence that the Hopewell Interaction Sphere persisted beyond the demise of the Havana tradition, but there is little convincing evidence for this from Baehr-Gust or any other site in the Illinois Valley. Asch (1990) has made a careful review of Middle Woodland mortuary evidence to determine the end of Hopewellian mound building in Illinois. He found that reported artifactual evidence of White Hall/Weaver mound building is unconvincing (for example, no whole White Hall or Weaver pots have been recovered from Hopewell mounds) and that all uncalibrated radiocarbon dates except a few questionable ones precede A.D. 250 (cf. Buikstra et al. 1998:Table 6.1).