Fort Wayne Mound Site facts for kids

The Fort Wayne Mound Site was a Prehistoric burial mound located on the grounds of the Ordinance Department of the former Fort Wayne in Detroit, Michigan. It was one of a series of mounds in Detroit, including the Springwells Mound Group, the Carsten Mound and the Great Mound at the River Rouge. By the mid-20th century only the Fort Wayne Mound was still standing. Today, the remains of the mound—located near Officers’ Row—is fenced off to visitors.

History of Investigations in the Detroit area

Scientific interest in the Detroit mounds goes back over 200 years. In 1817 Samuel Brown made an excavation at one of the 3 mounds in the Springwells Mound Group, recovering bones, stone axes, arrowheads and other artifacts. John Blois also excavated at the Springwells Group in 1837, reporting flexed burials associated with charcoal and grave goods including pottery vessels, arrowheads, stone knives, marine shell, shell beads and red pigment. Bela Hubbard in 1887 reported that 2 of the Springwell Mounds had already been destroyed by gravel excavations at that point, and cultural materials such as bones, pottery, shell beads, stone knives and arrowheads could be seen on the surface in the site area.

In 1876 Henry Gillman conducted excavations at the Fort Wayne Mound under the auspices of the Detroit Scientific Association. He was the first to use modern scientific excavation methods, carefully recording the proveniences of the burials and providing detailed descriptions of the bones and artifacts. He estimated the mound to be approximately 5 feet above ground level at that time, and seventy feet in diameter, and stated that it was undoubtedly much reduced from the original size.

These site reports and other early accounts are old enough that they went out of print years ago. John Halsey of the University of Michigan includes long verbatim quotes from these early reports in the volume Contributions to Michigan Archaeology, for the benefit of a new generation of archaeologists.

Summary of 1944 Excavations

In 1944, at the request of the Commandant at Fort Wayne, the mound was excavated by Dr. Carl Holmquist under the auspices of the Aboriginal Research Club of Detroit. They recovered 24 burials (including a dog burial), many of which were associated with grave goods. Other artifacts were recovered which were not associated with burials.

Burials were primarily flexed or bundle burials. Late Woodland Wayne Ware vessels were associated with many of the burials. It was noted by the excavators that most if not all of the grave goods were associated with female burials, implying that females held important status positions in their culture.

The following artifacts were recovered from the 1944 excavations:

• Chipped stone - including projectile points, knives, drills, end scrapers and side scrapers, and lithic flakes
• Ground stone - including sharpening stones, a celt, a gorget, an adze, a hammerstone, and birdstone figurine
• Bone - including a needle and an awl
• Shell - including shell beads and a columella bead necklace
• Pipes - several clay pipe fragments were present
• Marbles - three small spherical marbles (two stone and one clay) were present

Some of these artifacts are illustrated and discussed further below.

Chronology

The Fort Wayne Mound site reveals evidence of two Late Woodland cultural traditions, the Wayne and Western Basin. The Wayne Tradition is radiocarbon dated to A.D. 750 based on a sample taken from a burial with a Wayne Crosshatched vessel.

A radiocarbon date of A.D. 1159 from a non-burial pit places the Western Basin occupation within the Springwells Phase (approx. A.D. 1100-1250).

Therefore it appears the building of the Fort Wayne Mound, and the time period of the cultures existing here, pre-dates the coming of the Europeans by almost 400 years. It has been suggested that the Detroit area was depopulated after the Wolf Phase (after A.D. 1250) and was a “no-man’s land” until the Potawatomi and other tribal groups moved there in Historic times.