Rockhouse Cliffs Rockshelters

Last updated
Rockhouse Cliffs Rock Shelters (12PE98; 12PE100)
Rockhouse Cliffs Rock Shelters.jpg
Comprehensive view of the shelters; 12PE100 to the left and 12PE98 to the right
USA Indiana location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
LocationBy the spring in Rockhouse Hollow, northwest of Derby, Indiana [1] :31
Coordinates 38°3′35″N86°34′40″W / 38.05972°N 86.57778°W / 38.05972; -86.57778 Coordinates: 38°3′35″N86°34′40″W / 38.05972°N 86.57778°W / 38.05972; -86.57778
Area1 acre (0.40 ha)
NRHP reference No. 86000918 [2]
Added to NRHPApril 25, 1986

The Rockhouse Cliffs Rockshelters (12PE98 and 12PE100) are a pair of rockshelters in the far southern region of the U.S. state of Indiana. Located amid broken terrain in the Hoosier National Forest, the shelters may have been inhabited for more than ten thousand years by peoples ranging from the Early Archaic period until the twentieth century. As a result of their extensive occupation and their remote location, they are important and well-preserved archaeological sites and have been named a historic site.

Contents

Geology

12PE100, with a human 6 feet (1.8 m) tall for size comparison Rockhouse Hollow shelter with human for scale, interior.jpg
12PE100, with a human 6 feet (1.8 m) tall for size comparison

The shelters are located in western Union Township just south of the Leopold Township line in central Perry County; [1] :27 their PLSS location is Section 24, Township 5 South, Range 2 West. [1] :31 This portion of the county is extremely difficult of access: Perry County is the hilliest part of Indiana, [3] and the land surrounding the shelters is isolated even by Perry County standards. [1] :31 The area was once heavily cultivated, but during the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps engaged in a reforestation program on the former farmsteads. [1] :38 Rockshelters are common in the region; a cursory field survey found 70 shelters countywide in 1953. [1] :37

Between the two shelters, 50 feet (15 m) away from the southern shelter, lies a small spring. A road formerly ran atop the cliff edge, but when the area became a forest preserve, the road was abandoned, and it was inaccessible to all wheeled vehicles by the 1950s. [1] :31

Archaeological investigations

Some of the earliest digging at the site appears to have occurred during the 1930s: one reforestation team active in the area was led by an avid pothunter, and every new rockshelter that he encountered was subject to "exploration" by his crewmen. [1] :38 The Rockhouse Cliffs Rockshelters were recorded by the first scholarly archaeological survey of Perry County. Conducted by a team led by University of Georgia archaeologist James H. Kellar in mid-1953, the survey operated under the sponsorship of the Indiana Historical Bureau and the guidance of Indiana University archaeologist Glenn Black. [1] :5

Conclusions

Floor of 12PE98 at the back of the shelter 12PE98 floor, Rockhouse Hollow.jpg
Floor of 12PE98 at the back of the shelter

Rockhouse Cliffs was occasionally inhabited during the Early Archaic period, [4] although neither Rockhouse Cliffs nor other shelters in the Hoosier National Forest has produced signs of house construction. [4] Among the distinctive forms of Archaic points found at the site is the Elk River Stemmed type; Rockhouse Cliffs is one of the most important sites known to have yielded this point, which has been found as far away as Russell Cave in northern Alabama as well as in prominent closer sites such as western Kentucky's Indian Knoll. [5]

Preservation

Warning sign Rockhouse Cliffs Rockshelters warning sign.jpg
Warning sign

The shelters were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in April 1986 because of their archaeological importance; they are two of just three National Register-listed rockshelter sites in Indiana, along with the Potts Creek Rockshelter to the north in Crawford County. [2]

Related Research Articles

Rock shelter A shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff

A rock shelter is a shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff. In contrast to solutional caves (karst), which are often many miles long, rock shelters are almost always modest in size and extent.

Angel Mounds United States historic place

Angel Mounds State Historic Site, an expression of the Mississippian culture, is an archaeological site managed by the Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites that includes more than 600 acres of land about 8 miles (13 km) southeast of present-day Evansville, in Vanderburgh and Warrick counties in Indiana. The large residential and agricultural community was constructed and inhabited from AD 1100 to AD 1450, and served as the political, cultural, and economic center of the Angel chiefdom. It extended within 120 miles (190 km) of the Ohio River valley to the Green River in present-day Kentucky. The town had as many as 1,000 inhabitants at its peak, and included a complex of thirteen earthen mounds, hundreds of home sites, a palisade (stockade), and other structures.

Meadowcroft Rockshelter United States historic place

Meadowcroft Rockshelter is an archaeological site located near Avella in Jefferson Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania, United States. The site is a rock shelter in a bluff overlooking Cross Creek, and contains evidence that the area may have been continually inhabited for more than 19,000 years. If accurately dated, the site would be the earliest known evidence of human presence and the longest sequence of continuous human occupation in the New World.

Glenn Albert Black

Glenn Albert Black was an American archaeologist, author, and part-time university lecturer who was among the first professional archaeologists to study prehistoric sites in Indiana continuously. Black, a pioneer and innovator in developing archaeology field research techniques, is best known for his excavation of Angel Mounds, a Mississippian community near present-day Evansville, Indiana, that he brought to national attention. Angel Mounds was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964. Black was largely self-taught and began serious work on archaeological sites in Indiana in the 1930s, before there were many training opportunities in archaeology in the United States. He is considered to have been the first full-time professional archaeologist focusing on Indiana's ancient history, and the only professional archaeologist in the state until the 1960s. During his thirty-five-year career as an archaeologist in Indiana, Black also worked as a part-time lecturer at Indiana University Bloomington from 1944 to 1960 and conducted a field school at the Angel site during the summer months.

Potts Creek Rockshelter United States historic place

The Potts Creek Rockshelter Archeological Site, within Hoosier National Forest in Crawford County, Indiana, was a camp for Archaic, Woodland, and Paleo-Indian Indians. It is currently unoccupied by habitation.

Modoc Rock Shelter United States historic place

The Modoc Rock Shelter is a rock shelter or overhang located beneath the sandstone bluffs that form the eastern border of the Mississippi River floodplain at which Native American peoples lived for thousands of years. This site is significant for its archaeological evidence of thousands of years of human habitation during the Archaic period in the Eastern United States. It is located on the northeastern side of County Road 7 southeast of Prairie du Rocher in Randolph County, Illinois, United States. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961.

Union Township, Perry County, Indiana Township in Indiana, United States

Union Township is one of seven townships in Perry County, Indiana, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population was 557 and it contained 293 housing units.

National Register of Historic Places listings in Perry County, Indiana

This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Perry County, Indiana.

Canfield Island Site United States historic place

The Canfield Island Site, also known as Archeological Site 36LY37, is an archaeological site in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, United States. Located on Canfield Island in the West Branch Susquehanna River, the site lies east of the city of Williamsport in Loyalsock Township. It is believed to have been inhabited by prehistoric Native Americans for thousands of years, with the oldest discoveries dating back to more than one millennium before Christ.

Sommerheim Park Archaeological District United States historic place

The Sommerheim Park Archaeological District includes a group of six archaeological sites west of Erie, Pennsylvania in the United States. The sites are in Sommerheim Park, one of the few undeveloped areas of the Lake Erie shoreline, in Millcreek Township. This district has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This is one of the leading archaeological sites in the Erie area and along the southern shoreline of Lake Erie, due to the amount of artifacts and the lack of disturbance on the site.

LoDaisKa Site United States historic place

The LoDaisKa Site is a prominent archaeological site in the U.S. state of Colorado, located within a rockshelter near Morrison. The rockshelter was first inhabited by people of the Archaic through the Middle Ceramic period, generally spanning 3000 BC to 1000 AD.

Franktown Cave United States historic place

Franktown Cave is located 25 miles south of Denver, Colorado on the north edge of the Palmer Divide. It is the largest rock shelter documented on the Palmer Divide, which contains artifacts from many prehistoric cultures. Prehistoric hunter-gatherers occupied Franktown Cave intermittently for 8000 years beginning about 6400 B.C. The site held remarkable lithic and ceramic artifacts, but it is better known for its perishable artifacts, including animal hides, wood, fiber and corn. Material goods were produced for their comfort, task-simplification and religious celebration. There is evidence of the site being a campsite or dwelling as recent as AD 1725.

Trinchera Cave Archeological District United States historic place

The Trinchera Cave Archeological District (5LA9555) is an archaeological site in Las Animas County, Colorado with artifacts primarily dating from 1000 BC to AD 1749, although there were some Archaic period artifacts found. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001 and is located on State Trust Lands.

Paine Run Rockshelter United States historic place

The Paine Run Rockshelter (44-AU-158) is an archaeological site in Shenandoah National Park, in Augusta County, Virginia, United States.

Evelyn Site United States historic place

The Evelyn Site, also referred to as Illinois Archaeological Survey No. Ke-52, is a 12-acre (4.9 ha) archaeological site near Newark in Big Grove Township, Kendall County, Illinois, United States. The site contains utensils from a camp or village on a dried-up lake - dating from the early to middle Archaic period, roughly around 1650 B.C. The site was uncovered in the mid-1970s during the construction of Commonwealth Edison high power lines. The site was named by the evelyn family, who owned the farm on which the site is located, in the nineteenth century. It was excavated by archaeologists from Northwestern University. To preserve its potential to reveal information about archaic period living, the site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service on December 19, 1978.

Craig Run East Fork Rockshelter is a historic archaeological site located near Mills Mountain, Webster County, West Virginia. It is one of a number of prehistoric rock shelters on the Gauley Ranger District, Monongahela National Forest, that are known to have been utilized prehistorically from the Middle Archaic through the Late Woodland period, c. 6000 B.C. – 1200 A.D. In more recent history, the Craig Run rock shelter is known to have served as a stable for a donkey which was employed in the locust post industry.

Laurel Run Rockshelter is a historic archaeological site located near Coe, Webster County, West Virginia. It is one of a number of prehistoric rock shelters on the Gauley Ranger District, Monongahela National Forest, that are known to have been utilized prehistorically from the Middle Archaic through the Late Woodland period, c. 6000 B.C.-1200 A.D. There are some indications that the Laurel Run rock shelter may have been utilized during the Early Archaic period, c. 8000-6000 B. C.

Hidden Valley Rockshelter United States historic place

The Hidden Valley Rockshelter (44-BA-31) is a significant archaeological site located near the community of Warm Springs in Bath County, Virginia, United States. A large rockshelter located near the Jackson River, it has been occupied by humans for thousands of years, and it has been named a historic site.

Jacob Rickenbaugh House United States historic place

Jacob Rickenbaugh House is a historic home located in Hoosier National Forest, Oil Township, Perry County, Indiana. It was built in 1874, and is a two-story, "T"-plan dwelling constructed of ashlar sandstone blocks in the late Greek Revival style. It has a low pitched gable roof and side porches on each side of the rear ell. From 1870 to 1961, its parlor housed the Celina Post Office. It was acquired by the United States Forest Service in 1968.

The King Coulee Site is a prehistoric Native American archaeological site in Pepin Township, Minnesota, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994 for having state-level significance in the theme of archaeology. It was nominated for being a largely undisturbed occupation site with intact stratigraphy and numerous biofacts stretching from the late Archaic period to the Oneota period. This timeframe spans roughly from 3,500 to 500 years ago. The site yielded the oldest known evidence of domesticated plants in Minnesota: seeds dated to 2,500 years ago from the squash Cucurbita pepo.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Kellar, James H. An Archaeological Survey of Perry County. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1958.
  2. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  3. Welcome, Perry County, n.d. Accessed 2013-05-02.
  4. 1 2 Looking at Prehistory: Early Archaic Period 8,000 to 6,000 B.C., Forest Service, 2008-11-21. Accessed 2013-05-02.
  5. Justice, Noel D. Stone Age Spear and Arrow Points of the Midcontinental and Eastern United States : a Modern Survey and Reference. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1995, 112.