Faunal Expectations at Angel Mounds: Revisiting Adams Analysis

Kelsey Noack Myers

Mathers Museum/Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology & Indiana University - Bloomington
This is by no means a final word on the methods and conclusions of the faunal research conducted at Angel Mounds in past and present times. However, we can see that the changes in field methodology and collection clearly influence the ratio of unidentifiable fragments collected, as well as the ratios of taxonomic class present in the faunal assemblage. While the deer are still present in the 2011 assemblage, they are not statistically as significant as they were according to Adams data set. Many exciting research questions arise from looking at this data. Future research should involve a larger statistical body to use for comparison, which will be possible as more of the materials from recent field school are identified to species. Also interesting would be associations of seasonality, particularly with some of the migratory bird species identified in the assemblage. While the historically excavated materials are no longer available to us, it is useful to have Adams faunal records, and these records can speak to use regarding the methodological changes in field and lab work at Angel. As more data is created and examined, we can view a more detailed picture of what the population of Angel Mounds was eating. Comparison and contrast between households and temporal periods made in the future could also contribute to bettering our general understanding of life and cultural process at Angel Mounds.

In 1949, William Richard Adams completed his Masters degree at Indiana University. His work focused on the faunal remains excavated and collected at Angel Mounds during the earliest years of excavation.
The analysis completed by Adams is detailed within his Masters dissertation, simply entitled Faunal Remains from the Angel Mounds Site. The work that Adams completed was one of the first extensive faunal reports from the Midwestern United States ever written. While the remains that Adams studied have unfortunately been de-accessioned, we are left with the original identification records that were created in his ethnozoology lab around the time of his dissertation research. The NISP values for several species are detailed in Adams dissertation, and MNI was calculated using humerus and femur fragments for the key species identified at the site Odocoileus virginianus, the white-tailed deer.

View to the northeast of excavated blocks in X11C with most of the profile walls still standing. W10D is just to the northwest, still unexcavated.

Close up view of excavation by WPA workers on Mound F, November 17, 1941, taken from a photographic tower. Because this area was excavated concurrently to block W10D, excavation in the latter area was slowed.

Workman uncovering negative-painted bottle in X11C.

With the aid of several comparative specimens he collected himself for identification as well as the Chicago Natural History Museums vertebrate skeletal collection, Adams identified 8,546 bone fragments for his dissertation assemblage. Of those quantified, just over one third were listed as unidentifiable. Although Adams identified materials from several units of the site, the area known as W10D is of particular interest for the scope of this study. The NISP data Adams lists in his dissertation associated with W10D is represented below.
Homo sapiens uniden able Terrapene (carolinensis) Chelydra serpen na Vulpes vulpes fulva Urocyon cinereoargenteus Sylvilagus oridanus Sciurus niger (ruventer) Sciurus carolinensis Ra us sp. Puma concolor Procyon lotor Oryzomys palustris Ondatra zibethica Odocoileus virginianus Mephi s Lynx rufus Euarctos americanus Didelphis virginiana Cervus canadensis Castor canadensis Canis lupus nubilus Canis familiaris Lophodytes cucullatus Ictalurus Centrarchidae Aplodinotus grunniens Phalacrocorax auritus Mergus merganser Meleagris gallopavo Ectopistes migratorius Cygnus columbianus Colaptes auratus Bucephala clangula Branta canadensis Ardea herodias Aquila chrysaetos canadensis Anas rubripes Anas platyrhynchos 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500

Faunal Remains by class, using NISP in Adams dissertation data

Unid 22%

Faunal Remains by class, using NISP in Adams salvaged faunal identification sheets from the ethnozoology lab (may or may not overlap data from his dissertation)
Fish 1% Rep le 1% Uniden able 0%

100 90 80 70 60 50

Rep le 1% Fish 3%

Bird 7%

Of the identifiable remains listed, an overwhelmingly large portion was identified as deer (N = 2023). The next most common, in descending order, are: Sciurus carolinensis Eastern grey squirrel (N = 171) Procyon lotor Raccoon (N = 127) Meleagris gallopavo Wild turkey (N = 106) Sciurus niger Fox squirrel (N = 101) Didelphis virginiana Opossum (N = 30)

Bird 12%

Mammal 62%
Mammal 91%

40 30 20 10 0

Early faunal identification sheets used by Adams. This is all that remains of the faunal materials excavated by Black in the first several years of excavations at Angel Mounds.

2011 Field School Adams lab ID's Adams disserta on

The East Village portion of the site was excavated by Black to a north profile wall intersecting the palisade wall trenches as well as a series of wall trenches. The excavation of this block began on Friday morning, May 23, 1941. It was the presence of the wall trenches as well as possible evidence that the house structures in the area were at least partially subterranean that dictated its excavation. While not given a feature name, a house structure was partially excavated by Black with the rest of section W10D, with its northeastern corner being left unexcavated. Black notes that the excavation of this particular block took a long time to complete, due to an upsurge in the number of men being employed by the war and the overall number of men on relief being reduced, thereby reducing the work force available through the Federal WPA program from which the project drew its field crew. The excavation of W10D was all but finished when the WPA program was terminated in 1943, and as a result the final cleanup of the W10D floor was not completed until six years later as part of the field school. The materials from this cleanup are most likely not included in the data from Adams dissertation.

Faunal Remains by class, using NISP, from the 2011 Field School
Mammal 17%

Bird 8% Fish 6%

Unid 58%

Rep le 11%

Methods: Because not even the preliminary identification of the faunal materials from the field school had yet been conducted, materials were identified to taxonomic class for the purpose of this preliminary study. These materials were sampled from the area just to the north of Blacks 1940s-50s excavations, allowing us to compare faunal materials excavated in different centuries by different entities. The materials came from the few units located just along the north trench in the East Village area, and from Level 2 and below, as plow zone and Level 1 materials were determined to be less pertinent to my current analysis.

References
Adams, William Richard 1949 Faunal Remains From the Angel Site. Unpublished M.A. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington. Black, Glenn A. 1967 Angel Site: An Archaeological, Historical and Ethnological Study. Volume I. Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis. Garniewicz, Rexford C. 2005 Zooarchaeological Measures of Resource Intensification and Depletion: Examples From Eastern North America. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington.

Thank you, Dr. Bill Monaghan, Dr. Tim Baumann, Erika Ausel, and Dr. Jeremy Wilson for your assistance in completing this preliminary study. Thanks also go to Glenn Black, Dick Adams, the WPA crew and former field schools for all their work, and the Glenn A. Black Laboratory for the use of its facilities and support.

2011 Indiana University field school students working in the East Village excavation area.

A portion of the East Village trench with one of the palisade wall trenches visible, just north of the termination of the W10D excavation by Black, excavated by 2011 Indiana University field school students.

Some of the recently analyzed faunal materials excavated during the 2011 field school.