New archaeological research highlights how artisans modified animal bones using blades to create ceremonial objects two thousand years ago in what is now called the Miami Valley. Archaeologists found the objects from the study at the Moorehead Circle post enclosure within the Fort Ancient Earthworks in Oregonia in Warren County, Ohio.
The Moorehead Circle in Warren County is believed to have been a ceremonial enclosure surrounded by timber posts that was used by people during the Middle Woodland (ca. 50 BC–AD 400) period. Archaeologists located it using magnetic surveying technology in 2005.
The new research analyzed the proteins from blood residue found on blade tools excavated from the circle. That analysis found that some of the blood was from a bear.
Bob Riordan from Wright State has been studying and interpreting Moorehead Circle for years–he was even the one who named it after Xenia native Warren K. Moorehead.
Riordan said he and his co-authors’ (G. Logan Miller and Abigail Chipps Stone of Illinois State University) recent publication shows how the modified animal teeth ceremonial objects were made.
“With Logan's use-wear analysis and Abby's faunal analysis, plus the excavation that I directed, we have a convergence of three lines of evidence of something ritualistic going on that we didn't expect,” Riordan said.
The larger Fort Ancient complex where Moorehead Circle is located is one of many Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks in Ohio under consideration to become a UNESCO World Heritage Sites this year.
Riordan explained how he thinks UNESCO World Heritage status would highlight the ingenuity of people who lived in what is now Ohio thousands of years ago. He also thinks it would bring a lot of visitors and attention to the region.
“It's too easy to think of people in the past as being simpler, more primitive, less intellectual than we are, and in some ways, that might be right, our intellectual systems have evolved over time, but in most ways, it's not,” he said.
