9. Midwest Archaeological Conference

The 40th Annual Meeting of the Midwest Archaeological Conference was held in Beloit, Wisconsin on October 25-28, 1995. The Conference was organized by Dr. Robert Salzer, and hosted by the Department of Anthropology and the Logan Museum of Anthropology. The Conference included a reception at the Logan Museum of Anthropology, where participants had the opportunity to view the innovative, new, open storage facility for the collections.

The Midwest Archaeological Conference program included a Late Woodland roundtable discussion and 108 papers. The papers included a number of interesting and contemporary papers on Hopewell studies.

Robert F. Bozhardt (Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center) presented a paper on "ceremonial" bifaces found in association with Hopewell tombs in the Trempleau/La Crosse area of western Wisconsin. Many of these artifacts are made from non-local raw materials, including Knife River Flint, obsidian, Hartville Uplift Chert and Morrison Orthoquartzite. Bozhardt's research suggests that these northwesternmost Hopewellian groups were either travelling west to collect raw materials, or trading with northern Plains people to acquire these lithics materials. Further research is needed to determine if these western lithic materials were being imported for use in the Trempleau/La Crosse area, or if some of the material was being sent east to other Hopewell groups in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

Mark Schurr (Notre Dame University) presented a paper on his current research on the Goodall Focus of northwest Indiana and southwest Michigan. The Goodall Focus was defined by George I. Quimby in 1941, and represents one of the first formally defined Hopewell complexes outside of Ohio. Little research has been subsequently conducted on Hopewell in northwest Indiana, and Schurr's research at the Bellinger site provides exciting new data. After three seasons of field research that included geophysical surveys and excavations, Schurr has documented that habitation adjacent to the Bellinger mound was limited. This is in strong contrast to Havana Hopewell sites in Illinois, where substantial villages were often located near mortuary mounds.

James A. Marshall presented a paper on his interpretation of aerial photographs and maps of major Hopewellian earthwork sites in southern Ohio. Marshall noted that many of the geometric earthworks and parallel walls seem to have a non-random orientation. For example, Marshall notes that if the parallel walls at the Dunlap Works were extended, they would intersect the square and circle at the Hopeton Earthworks, and an extension of the parallel walls at the Dunlap Works and Hopeton Earthworks intersect at right angles. Marshall proposed that the orientation of these features indicates that the builders of these sites were aware of the location and orientation of other nearby earthworks, and designed and built the earthworks with that in mind.

Janet Brashler (Grand Valley State University) described an extensive surface collection from the Prison Farm site in southcentral Lower Michigan. The collection was acquired by an avocational archaeologists during 35 years of regular collecting. The majority of artifacts from the site are attributable to the Middle Woodland substage, and indicate Havana stylistic attributes.

Duane Esarey (Dickson Mounds, Illinois State Museum) presented a paper on the wealth of Hopewellian sites in the lower Illinois River valley near the modern towns of Havana and Beardstown. Esarey noted that although much has been written about Havana Hopewell, basic research to document and map Hopewell sites in this region still needs to be done.