Ellerbusch site facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Ellerbusch archeological site (12W56)
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Overview of the site from the southeast
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 Location in Indiana
Location in the United States
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| Location | Atop the bluff northwest of the junction of State Road 662 and Ellerbursch Rd., west of Newburgh, Indiana |
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| Area | 0.8 acres (0.32 ha) |
| NRHP reference No. | 91000270 |
| Added to NRHP | March 14, 1991 |
The Ellerbusch site (also known as 12-W-56) is a small but important ancient site in southwestern Indiana. Unlike many other sites from the same time, it sits on a hill near a big river's flat, low land (called a floodplain). This site likely started because there was a time of peace and growth at the nearby Angel site. This led some people from Angel Mounds to move to new villages like Ellerbusch. These new villages were better for finding food and other resources.
Ellerbusch was studied partly because it was small. The research here has taught us a lot about other small sites and how people of that culture lived across the region. Because of its historical value, the Ellerbusch site was named a historic site in the late 1900s.
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What Was the Area Like?
The area around Ellerbusch is known for having many ancient sites. In 1954, a quick look around didn't find Ellerbusch. But it did find four other large sites nearby. One of these was a village right on the riverbank, about 0.5 miles southwest of where Ellerbusch was later found.
How Was the Site Discovered and Dug Up?
Who Started the Digging?
The first digging at the Ellerbusch site was done by the Ellerbusch family, who owned the land. They worked with their neighbors, George and Francis Martin. The Martins were connected to the Glenn Albert Black Laboratory of Archaeology at Indiana University in Bloomington.
In the summer of 1957, the Martins got help from a university student. Together, they found one house, part of another, and a pit with decorated pottery pieces. This first discovery was written about the next year. Not much more digging happened in 1958 and 1959. Only a very small amount of work was done in 1962.
Why Was More Digging Done?
In June 1973, a student named Thomas J. Green from Indiana University decided to restart work at the Ellerbusch site. The Black Laboratory paid for this. They wanted to dig up a small site completely. This would help them understand what smaller sites were used for, how their communities were set up, and what times of year people lived there.
Studying a small site was also important for understanding how people of the Mississippian culture lived. Most studies focused on big sites. This meant experts could only guess how these big centers were connected to the smaller villages around them.
Green chose Ellerbusch for several reasons. Besides the work already done by the owners, he liked that it was on a hill next to a lake. It was also close to the Angel site. Plus, almost everything found at Ellerbusch was owned by the family. This meant all the artifacts could be studied together. At many other sites, artifacts are spread out among many different collections. Also, earlier work showed that houses at Ellerbusch hadn't been rebuilt many times, unlike at Angel.
What Ancient Objects Were Found?
Objects from Early Digs
The first digs by the Ellerbusch family and the Martins found 129 pieces of pottery. These included 41 sandy pieces with clay, 61 with cord marks, 18 plain pieces, and 9 small decorated pieces that were hard to identify. They also found 23 stone tools, mostly knives. Occasionally, pieces of mica and cannel coal were found.
Based on the pottery, Frances Martin thought the site was mainly used during the Middle Woodland period. She believed people from the Hopewell tradition influenced it. She also saw some pottery parts that linked the site to the Swift Creek culture from Georgia.
Pottery Found Later
Green's digging showed that all artifacts not found on the surface were in the top layer of soil (called the plow zone) or in special areas like pits. By 1977, digs had found 3,466 pieces of pottery. This included 582 from the Woodland period and 2,884 from the Angel Phase. More than 98% of the Angel Phase pottery had shell in it and no decoration. This is similar to pottery found at Angel, where very few pieces were decorated.
However, many decorated pieces from Angel had a red color or special negative painting. Only six pieces from Ellerbusch had this. Most pottery pieces found at Ellerbusch were small. Only 19 of the 151 shell-tempered pieces were big enough to tell what shape the original pot was. This made it hard to guess how many pots were originally at the site. Other similar sites usually have larger, less broken pieces. But many Ellerbusch pieces were found in the plow zone, meaning repeated plowing had broken them into smaller bits.
Stone Tools and Other Items
Almost all the non-pottery items found at Ellerbusch by 1977 were stone tools or parts of them. Green reported that 3,907 stone items were found. Sadly, more than five out of every six were found on the surface, not by digging. This shows how much damage plowing and natural wear had caused.
More than 3,800 of the stone items were chipped stone, like cores or smaller pieces. Three out of every four chips were flakes without any changes after they were made. Another 124 pieces were projectile points (like arrowheads), and 164 items looked like broken parts of other points.
Other chipped-stone tools found at Ellerbusch include knives, drills, and scrapers. There was also one shredder, a tool similar to a scraper but used for tearing. Many flakes showed signs of being part of hoes. Ground stone tools were also found, such as pestles, nutting stones, and hammerstones. Other interesting items included parts of two Woodland gorgets (decorative necklaces), a single copper bead, and a small pipe. This type of pipe is often found at Angel and other Mississippian sites.
What Were the Houses Like?
One of the areas dug up in 1973 was the house the Ellerbusch family had found earlier. It looked like two houses had been built in the same spot, one right after the other was destroyed. Both were about the same size (22 by 19 feet and 19 by 19 feet) and faced the same direction. Both houses seemed to have been supported by vertical posts and supports in wall trenches. Only one pit, which looked like a hearth (fireplace), was found inside a house at the site.
Another house site dug up in 1973 had been home to three or four different houses over time. Besides its own postholes, this second house site had ten nearby pits and a pile of stone chips. These chips were made of a type of chert stone found in Harrison County to the east.
The houses were not all the same. They were either two or three different types. Since there wasn't a clear reason for the different types, it seems they were built at different times. Parts of other structures, including two more houses, were still at the site. But plowing had greatly damaged the areas where these structures were.
All the houses were generally rectangular. The sides were built first, and the corners were either filled in later without support posts or left open as doorways. None of the sides of any houses showed openings that were likely to have been doorways.
The presence of houses is a key reason Green believed Ellerbusch was a farming village, not just a place for hunters to process animals. Stone tools found could have been used for animal processing. But building houses just a few miles from Angel would have been a waste of effort for hunters who moved around a lot. For farmers who stayed in one place, it was a good use of their time.
Other Discoveries
A group of small pits was found at the site. While they could have been used for storage, their small size likely means they were just holes for trash.
Unusually for a Mississippian site, the houses seemed to have been built simply on the ground. Ellerbusch shows no sign of the common Mississippian practice of building houses on a specially prepared floor below the ground.
Studying the site was made harder by two things. First, because the site is on a hill, rainwater and modern plowing had mixed up artifacts from different time periods. This destroyed most of its context. Second, the soil was very acidic. Because of this, only one bone survived from all the animal materials that were once at the site.
What Did We Learn from Ellerbusch?
How Ellerbusch Connected to Angel Mounds
Ellerbusch's location near the Ohio River is typical for Angel Phase communities. These groups often lived on terraces (flat areas) above the floodplains of the Ohio River or other rivers.
The people seemed to prefer floodplains because they were very productive. Hills are more likely to erode and dry out faster. Without using crop rotation or modern fertilizers, hill fields would quickly lose their richness in just a few growing seasons. Also, Angel Phase people usually used wood for fuel. People living in floodplains could find wood more easily by using driftwood.
Riverside villagers also had easier access to water for drinking and washing. They could also add to their diet by fishing and hunting animals that came to drink at the river. This meant they didn't have to rely only on hunting far away.
While the Angel site was the main settlement in the region, smaller villages like Ellerbusch were built for efficiency. If everyone lived at Angel, people would spend too much time walking to distant fields. By building villages among the fields, people could use their time much more efficiently. Also, the hill area right around Ellerbusch was good for short-term farming. The soil there was easy to farm and could be as rich as floodplains.
It seems that warfare was the only thing stopping Ellerbusch-type sites from spreading further away. Because they often fought with other groups, the Angel Phase people needed to be able to go to the protected Angel site for safety. They couldn't stay in small, unprotected villages. So, Ellerbusch and similar sites were used more often during times of peace. While digging at Ellerbusch couldn't fully explain some things at Angel, it helped us understand even smaller sites better.
When Was Ellerbusch Used?
Two dates were found for the site using radiocarbon dating. These dates suggest the Mississippian people lived there between AD 200-320 and 990-1110. Green first thought the earlier date was a mistake. But he later saw it as proof of people living there during the Woodland period. The later date seemed a bit early but was similar to other early Mississippian sites in the area.
What Kind of Site Was Ellerbusch?
Green calls Ellerbusch a "hamlet." He uses this term for Angel sites that:
- Are between 0.5 and 1 acre in size.
- Have only a few artifacts on the surface.
- Show remains of houses.
- Have signs of activities like hunting, farming, and gathering.
- Had an estimated population of 10 to 25 people.
After deciding Ellerbusch was a hamlet, he used its population to guess the population of other hamlets. Earlier studies suggested that households at these sites had about five members. Evidence at Ellerbusch suggests that only two or three of its four houses were used at any given time. This would mean 10 or 15 people lived in the site's 0.5-acre area. Slightly larger populations have been suggested for hamlets twice that size.
Also, a hamlet's lack of many artifacts on the surface meant its residents didn't change the surrounding land much. Out of 68 Angel Phase sites known in 1977, Green classified six as hamlets.
Why Is Ellerbusch Important Today?
In early 1991, the Ellerbusch site was added to the National Register of Historic Places. This is because it is a very important archaeological site. It is one of three archaeological sites in Warrick County, Indiana, that are on the Register. The others are a small part of the Angel site and the entire Yankeetown site, which is located along the Ohio River to the southeast.
