There and Back Again: Dick Jefferies, Winchester Farm, and Middle Woodland Interaction Across Central Kentucky

Summary

Adena-Hopewell enclosure complexes have inspired much conjecture and some well-supported inferences concerning the rise of Middle Woodland ceremonialism, interaction, and social organization in the Eastern Woodlands. After examining Hopewellian interaction at Tunnacunnee in Northwest Georgia, Dick Jefferies turned his focus to Adena-Hopewell mound and enclosure sites in Central Kentucky. Dick’s examination of the Winchester Farm Enclosure in the early 1980s with George Milner was the first research on this little-known earthen enclosure within the Mount Horeb complex. His direction of a geophysical survey with Edward Henry at the site in 2009 led to its discovery as the only known "squircle" in Kentucky, an enclosure form common in the Ohio Hopewell heartland and elsewhere. Recent excavations at Winchester Farm included a trench through its ditch and embankment, as well as an area inside the enclosure. Construction methods are comparable with other enclosures in the Mount Horeb complex, but the site was used differently. Here we put the construction, use, and abandonment of this enclosure in a larger cultural and temporal context. The chronology of Winchester Farm calls into question culture historical constructs like "Adena" and "Hopewell," and suggests Middle Woodland interaction in the Kentucky Bluegrass occurred longer than previously thought.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Investigating Interaction from Tunnacunnhee to Talaje: Papers in Honor of Richard W. Jefferies

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17531