The Rockhouse Hollow Rockshelter, Ohio River Valley

Summary

Recorded within the sediments of Rockhouse Hollow rockshelter in the Hoosier National Forest in southern Indiana is a rich history of prehistoric occupation spanning 10,000 years. Unlike any other site in Indiana, Rockhouse Hollow has produced artifacts from all prehistoric cultural time periods, with the notable exception of the Paleoindian Period. Although the site had already been looted for decades, excavations in 1961 produced a wealth of lithic and faunal data that have not yet been published. Because of extensive roof fall within the rockshelter, looting both prior and subsequent to the 1961 excavation, and a fire that destroyed some field data, questions remain regarding the stratigraphic profile within the rockshelter. During the summer of 2014, an Indiana University Geology Department field school reopened the 1961 units to better understand the stratigraphic context of artifacts recovered in 1961, and test whether Paleoindian-aged sediments might be preserved. This paper discusses the archaeological, faunal and geoarchaeological data recovered during the 2014 excavations. These data indicate that this important rockshelter in the Ohio River Valley was used for many purposes by people exploiting multiple ecosystems through the millennia.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• The Frison Institute/Geoarchaeology Interest Group Symposium: Archaeology and Geoarchaeology of Rockshelters and Caves

Keywords

Spatial Coverage