3 
HISTORY OF THE SITE 
The main part of the Uren farm was cleared by Captain Michael 
Stover in 1812 and has been under cultivation for many years. The best 
part of the site, where most of the excavations were made, has been culti- 
vated since about 1913. 
AGE OF THE SITE 
No stumps, whereby an idea of the approximate age of the site could 
have been obtained, remained standing on any of the refuse deposits. 
The absence of articles of European origin, however, shows that it is at 
least prehistoric. 
PHYSIOGRAPHIC FEATURES, TIMBER, ETC. 
The site occupies a more or less undulating area south of a small 
stream that flows through a wide valley, bordered by steep banks, and 
joins Otter creek about a mile below the site. The soil is a sandy loam and 
the prevailing timber of the adjacent uncultivated area is white pine, 
hemlock, tamarack, sugar maple, basswood, blue beech, ironwood, aspen, 
and American elm. The fruit and nut-bearing trees, found in the neigh- 
bourhood, are the chokecherry, wild black cherry, wild plum, butternut, 
black walnut, shagbark hickory, bitternut hickory, chestnut, white oak, 
red oak, and beech. There are two small springs at the foot of the bank, 
at the north side of the site (See map, Figure 1). 
The refuse deposits, locally known as ash-beds, and sometimes as 
mounds, are twenty in number. As will be seen from the map, there is no 
apparent regularity in their disposition; some are on knolls, others on low, 
flat areas. There are no hillside dumps, although some occur at two of 
the nearby sites. 
It is difficult to define the exact limits of the deposits. Most of them 
merge into one another, owing to the diffusion of the black soil by culti- 
vation. Thirteen of them (Nos. 3, 8 to 15, and 17 to 20), which were not 
excavated because they were too shallow, require no description. Their 
location and relative sizes can be seen on the map. 
Deposit No. 1, about 70 by 80 feet in extent, with a maximum depth 
of about 17 inches, occupies a low area, with a gradual rise to the west. 
It was composed of three layers — a top layer of black soil, an almost 
continuous layer of ashes from 2 to 5 inches thick, and a layer of black 
soil, which rested on the undisturbed sand. In the shallower parts, the 
lower layer was missing. An area of about 40 by 60 feet, excavated in 
this deposit, yielded more artifacts than any of the others. A cache or 
refuse pit, near its eastern extremity, was 3 feet 3 inches deep, with a diam- 
eter at the bottom of about 4^ feet. It was filled with ashes mixed with 
charcoal, discoloured soil, pottery fragments, and other artifacts, and, at 
the bottom, a layer of pure ashes 8 to 12 inches thick. 
Deposit No. 2, on the side of a small knoll, almost merges, through the 
effects of cultivation, into the diffused parts of the surrounding deposits. 
It is about 100 feet long, 90 feet wide, and 1 foot deep. The ashes occurred 
in patches, which suggests that each had been a fireplace. An excavation, 
65 feet long by about 30 feet wide, was made in this deposit, but in spite of 
