The Horton Site 



The Horton Site lies in a small meadow near Butterfield 

 Creek. On the southern edge of expanding metropolitan 

 Chicago, this area is being rapidly converted into subdivi- 

 sions and shopping centers. Parts of the Horton Site had 

 already been destroyed by the construction of a road and 

 sidewalk for a subdivision. The site was discovered by Ver- 

 non Grubisch, a high school student and amateur archaeol- 

 ogist from nearby Chicago Heights. Grubisch had closely 

 followed the gradual destruction of the ancient settlement; 

 he collected artifacts in the areas disturbed by power ma- 

 chinery. Realizing that Horton represented an ideal loca- 

 tion for its excavation project, and that the total destruction 

 of the site was imminent, Field Museum contacted Mr. 

 Michael O'Malley, who granted permission to excavate 

 portions of the site situated in his subdivision. 



The first class of the Anthropology Summer Training 

 Program, under Struever's direction, began excavations at 

 Horton in 1966. During the ensuing winter no further de- 

 struction occurred at the site, and Mr. O'Malley granted 

 permission for a second season's work. During this second 

 year of excavation, Rackerby continued the line of excava- 

 tion units begun the previous summer. By doing so, the 

 plan of a former Indian house was almost fully exposed, as 

 well as several storage pits and other types of subterranean 

 constructions, called features by archaeologists. These fea- 

 tures reflect the kinds of domestic activities that occurred 

 at this location some 500-600 years ago. 



Excavation Strategy 



The purpose of the Horton Site dig was twofold — to 

 demonstrate to the students proper archaeological excava- 

 tion methods, while retrieving valuable information on a 

 prehistoric community before its destruction by the housing 

 development. On the basis of the pottery fragments — or 

 sherds — which were found on the surface of the disturbed 

 area of the site, it was determined that the occupation be- 

 longed to the cultural tradition known to archaeologists as 

 Upper Mississippian. The strategy for the excavation the 

 first summer was primarily to determine the limits and depth 

 of the occupation, as well as to collect information on the 

 village plan. A topographic survey map was made of the 

 area, and a grid system of 10-foot squares was staked out on 

 the surface of the site. The students were grouped into 

 teams of three and assigned to excavate one of these squares. 

 All of the soil from each square was screened and the arti- 

 facts were bagged and labeled separately for each square 

 and for each level which the students dug. In this way both 

 horizontal and vertical relationships of all types of cultural 

 debris screened from the soil were recorded. 



Earlier in the 20th century the entire surface of the site 

 had been plowed, thus disturbing the cultural remains to a 

 depth of 8 inches. This level was carefully shoveled off and 

 screened, and the material recovered was kept separate from 

 the underlying, undisturbed level. The Horton Site proved 

 to be very shallow, running to a depth of no more than 1 2 

 inches. In the second level many larger pieces of pottery. 



stone tools, and the tops of pits and post holes were first 

 encountered. 



The first season's exploratory excavation revealed sev- 

 eral dark, circular stains, 7-8 inches in diameter that are 

 interpreted as the remains of former house posts. The sec- 

 ond season's work focused on this area and thereby exposed 

 the pattern of the house and its associated pits. This part 

 of the site extended into a lot owned by Mr. William Sik- 

 kema, who kindly gave permission to continue the excava- 

 tions on his land. 



Author Frank Rackerby shows Andy DePeder the square he will dig. Drawing 

 on page 12 was done by Artist Roxanne Pearson-Rackerby, the Author's wife. 



Each student learned to keep his own notes and to re- 

 cord detailed observations as the work progressed. These 

 notes, together with the archaeologists' drawings of the fea- 

 tures, and the artifacts and natural material (unworked 

 stone and bone), are the evidence from which archaeolo- 

 gists reconstruct former cultural activities. 



The information recovered by the Horton excavations 

 can be grouped into three classes: artifacts, features, and 

 debris. Debris includes such food evidence as discarded 

 animal bones and shell, as well as items like hearth stones 

 or waste flakes chipped off" in the manufacture of stone tools. 

 Features are the observable remains of former building ac- 

 tivity, such as house construction or the digging of storage 

 or cooking pits. The artifacts themselves provide clues to 

 much of the behavior of the extinct people. Artifacts may 

 be tools which functioned in the technology of the culture, 

 such as arrow points or flint knives. Other artifacts, such 

 as ornaments or smoking pipes, functioned in their social 

 life, either as items for recreation or as symbols to commu- 

 nicate status. 



Cultural Reconstruction 



The following reconstruction of the Horton Site occu- 

 pation is based primarily on the field observations of the 

 authors. Some preliminary washing and sorting of the arti- 

 facts from the site was accomplished during laboratory peri- 

 ods with the class, but the bulk of the material collected 



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