To
the Copper Culture Main Page
(Note: the time of this article's
writing is in the early 1950's, shortly after the site was discovered.
Scientific analysis has progressed tremendously since that time, and many
of the conclusions have undoubtably changed. The purpose of this posting
is to share these historic findings as of the time they happened - Rita)
13 Year Old Donald Baldwin who discovered the Copper Culture Burial ground in June 1952. |
Oconto County Reporter Reuben LaFave, Oconto County Archeologist, Police Chief Henry Toole Oconto, and George E. Hall, President of the Oconto County Historical Society inspecting relics at the Old Indian Burial Grounds a short time after the discovery was made. |
THE OCONTO SITE
AN
OLD COPPER MANIFESTATION
By Robert
E. Ritzenthaler and Warren L. Wittry
Introduction
Their burial complex consisted of interment in a cemetery (no mounds) and
the
employment of the bundle burial method as most common, but partial cremation
was also practiced. Their type of implements indicate an economy based
on
hunting and fishing.
With this rather meager picture of Old Copper culture the Oconto Site was
approached. One chief objective was to obtain enough charred wood for a
Carbon
14 analysis as to accurately date this group. We were also interested in
getting
information on house type, ground-stone work, and in obtaining data which
could
be compared with Osceola in terms of burial practices, and types of copper
and
chipped-stone artifacts.
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The Oconto Site
|
The site lies within the western limits of the city of Oconto with the
burial area about 150 yards north of the Oconto River. Specifically it
is within Part 4 of Government Lot 8, Section 24 of Oconto Township, and
is now the property of the Oconto Historical Society. The area was formerly
a fairly level one1, but commercial gravel operations during the 1920's
removed and disturbed a large area and there is little doubt that a considerable
portion of the burial site was destroyed in the process. It is probable
that the burial site originally enclosed an area at least 100 feet square.
There is no indication of mounds. Beneath the eight-inch topsoil lie several
feet of Plainfield fine sand, underlain by gravel.
Method of Excavation
 |
They had been dug into the gravel, the burials laid-in and covered with
sand,
so the pits were discernible by the gravel outline when approached from
above.
The cremation pits appeared as roughly circular when seen from above,
basin-shaped in cross-section, and in instances did not penetrate into
the
gravel layer. Each pH was given a feature number.
The Burial Complex
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They were basin-shaped in vertical cross-section and from one to two
feet in depth. Most were "custom dug." just large enough to house
the individual or individuals interred. Of the twenty-one burial pits,
one contained nothing, eleven contained a single individual, seven contained
two individuals, one contained three, and one contained five. A variety
of burial positions were sometimes found to occur in a single pit.
In Feature 7, for example, there were three bundle burials, one partially
flexed, and one extended. In the two instances in which the secondary burials
occurred in the same pit with primary ones, the secondary burials were
above the primaries. Apparently the individuals who died in the winter
were kept until the spring thaw made digging possible. Then the recently
dead were interred in the flesh and the bones of those left over
from the winter were thrown on top as secondary burials. In eight of the
pits one or more artifacts were found, but there was no consistent or significant
position of artifacts in relation to the skeleton.
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The bone whistle, however, lay at the back of the head of the child.
(See Webb, 1950, p. 291, for a similar occurrence.) Thirteen of the pits
were orientated with the longitudinal axis running in a roughly north-south
direction, but there seems to be no significance to it, as some had an
east-west orientation and others fell somewhere in between. Furthermore,
there seemed to be no pattern as to how the individuals were faced. A total
of seven cremation pits were discovered plus one reported by the LaFave
excavation. They were roughly circular as seen from above, and basin-shaped
in vertical cross-section. Their diameters ranged from two to four
| Method | Number of Individuals |
| certain probable | |
| Extended | 9 (2 of these were prone positions) |
| Partially flexed | 4 3 |
| Fully flexed | 3 1 |
| Bundle | 12 |
| Partial cremation | 8 pits (number of individuals un-known) |
| (Unidentified) | 5 |
| Total | 45 individuals |
Physical type:
A study of the skeletal material has yet to be made, but it is
readily apparent that they were a fairly robust group, of average stature
for Wisconsin Indians, but with well-developed musculature. The state
of bone preservation ranged from fair to very poor.
Evidence of Occupation
Artifacts
|
FOUR CRESCENTS |
THREE CLASPS (bottom) |
|
PIECE OF SPIRAL-COILED TUBING (top) |
SPATULA (right), FISHHOOK, RIVET (left bottom), and 4 UNIFENTIFIED PIECES |
The types are listed as follows:
Seven awls , four crescents, three clasps, and one each of the following:
spear-point with broken tang, fishhook, bracelet, section of spirally-coiled
tubing, rivet, and spatula. There were also four small unidentified
pieces.
As with Osceola, awls were the most numerous type of artifact, but the Oconto specimens were of smaller size.
Crescents were more numerous at Oconto, but in contrast with Osceola no spuds were found and only one socketed-tang spear-point. At both sites utilitarian products were much more numerous that the ornamental.
Chipped Stone
SCRAPER (bottom) |
Bone:
|
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Two bone artifacts were found, the first bone Implements to be associated
with the Old Copper complex thus far. The most interesting was a fine specimen
of a whistle made from a leg bone of a swan. It was six inches long with
a rectangular opening near the center, and three rows of
short, incised lines running the full length as decoration. The
second specimen was a awl 2 5/8 inches in length and made from a
portion of a fish jaw.
Antler:
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Two well-preserved antler tips, suitable for use as flaking tools although
the polished ends gave no indication of such use, were found together in
a burial bit. A third specimen, a charred short end-section occurred in
a concentration of charred wood.
Shell:
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A series of 14 pond snail (Campeloma decisum) beads plus fragments of
several more were found with a burial before our arrival. They were reported
as occurring at the wrist of the skeleton and apparently 1/8 inches in
diameter near the center with the stringing presumbably done through this
hole and the natural aperture.
Portions of two unworked shells were also found in a burial pit. One was
a
fresh-water clam {Unio ellipsis), the nearest present source of which is
the
Mississippi River. The second was part of the shoulder of a large lightning
shell, a
type of whelk (Fulgar perversus) the present distribution of which is the
Atlantic
Coast from North Carolina to Florida. It was from a shell originally about
a foot
in length, and its importance lies in its indication of trade or contact
with a region
over a thousand miles away.
Hematite:
Two lumps of iron ore were found near the head of the extended child burial,
with which the bone whistle was found. A rounded facet, apparently of natural
origin, appears on the smaller of the two.
Pottery:
No pottery
was found.
Animal
Remains:
Near the
head of an extended burial in a pit, Feature 4, were found a number of
small
bones. They were indeati-fied as parts of turtle and a duck (unidentified
as
to species
but about the size of a mallard).
Conclusions
To a considerable
extent it is merely the absence of a trait, such as bone work for
Osceola,
that creates the difference, and it is very possible that what we have
here
are inadequate inventories of the culture at both places. Future excavation
might
fill in these gaps to the extent that such negative variations will cancel
out.
The variations apparent at this point could be theoretically accounted
for on either
special or temporal grounds, or both. Considering the special approach
the two
sites are at opposite ends of the state some 210 miles apart as the crow
flies. If
contact were lacking, the variation could easily occur within a relatively
short
period of time. As to a temporal difference, there is no evidence to indicate
either
that one is older than the other, or that they were contemporaneous. It
might be
noted that Oconto is near the heart of the Old Copper center as indicated
by
distributional studies based on surface finds (Wittry, 1951, pp. 14, 18)
while
Osceola exists as a lonely outpost, but it is impossible at this point
to determine
which group was the earlier.
Concerning
the problem of dating, there was nothing at either site to dispute the
theory that Old Copper represents an archaic horizon in Wisconsin, and
that these
were the earliest Indians to occupy the site. The Oconto site, in fact,
bolsters this
theory because of such evidence as the absence of pottery and the bone
whistle of
a type found in archaic sites outside the state (see Ritchie, 1944, p.
294, and Webb,
1946, p. 305). As for more precise dating, enough charred wood was obtained
at
Oconto for a carbon 14 analysis and it is hoped that the forthcoming analysis
will
provide the answer to the problem of the age of the Old Copper culture
in Wisconsin.