Mary Beth Trubitt, Arkansas Archeological Survey (HSU Research Station)
In the summers of 2007 and 2008, a team of professional archeologists, amateurs, and students excavated at the Jones Mill site in Hot Spring County, Arkansas. This location, on a terrace overlooking the Ouachita River, downstream from modern-day Hot Springs, has been a good place to live for at least 8000 years. The significance of this site — and its research potential — led to its listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
This project sheds light on several aspects of Arkansas archeology and American Indian history in this region. Novaculite quarried from the Ouachita Mountains was used as a raw material for chipped stone tools by Indians living at Jones Mill. Novaculite and other resources may have been traded beyond this area during the Archaic period.
Based on the styles of artifacts found, and radiocarbon dating of excavated organic samples, ancestors of the Caddo Indians lived and worked here between 6000 B.C. and A.D. 1450. From these excavations we are learning how the ways of life changed through time — from the Archaic period through the Mississippian.
By detailed analyses of fragments of plants and animals from ancient food refuse excavated at the Jones Mill site, we can reconstruct ancient foodways. How did the Indians who lived here find food from their environment? Click here for results of the “Ancient Foodways” project.
An archeological project like this takes many people working together. The excavations at this site in 2007 and 2008 were part of training programs coordinated by the Arkansas Archeological Society and the Arkansas Archeological Survey. Through the annual Society/Survey Training Programs, people interested in archeology can become involved with professionals in archeological research.
Field excavations and on-going work in the ARAS/HSU Archeology Lab has involved students from both Henderson State University and the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. The experience of working with a professor as part of a research team is useful for careers in anthropology and other fields.
Novaculite Tool Production and Exchange
The Jones Mill site is on the Ouachita River near the fall line between the Ouachita Mountains and Coastal Plain physiographic provinces in southwest Arkansas. People living here would be well-situated to use resources from the Ouachita Mountains — such as novaculite — and may have exchanged some to neighbors living in stone-poor areas further south. Artifacts of novaculite, magnetite and hematite, igneous rock, quartz crystal, and slate have been found on Archaic period sites in Mississippi and Louisiana. Did people come to Jones Mill to get their own raw materials, or did local residents make extra to trade? This is a key question investigated with this research project.
Our research focuses on the use of novaculite by Indians living at Jones Mill. Novaculite was made into tools — dart points, knives, scrapers, drill bits — by Indians in this region. But it was also transported to sites in what are now Louisiana and Mississippi, as early as 6000 B.C., during what archeologists term the Middle Archaic period. We are interested in learning whether Indians living at the site were making stone tools out of novaculite for trade down the Ouachita River.
A 2011 poster presentation at the Southeastern Archaeological Conference by Mary Beth Trubitt and Vanessa Hanvey explored the novaculite reduction sequence at Jones Mill. In this poster, we used analyses of three datasets (debitage, biface fragments, and projectile points) from the Jones Mill site to reconstruct the novaculite reduction sequence. We looked at what stages of biface reduction were done at the site, when in the sequence the novaculite was heat treated, and whether there were changes between the Tom’s Brook and Crystal Mountain components (ca. 6000 - 4300 B.C.). Using a combination of mass analysis and attribute analysis of individual flakes, we compared sites where different stages of reduction took place. Larger/heavier pieces of debitage as well as higher proportions of shatter and cortex characterize quarry sites and workshops located next to quarries, as compared to habitation sites on the Ouachita River such as Jones Mill (3HS28). Here, residents brought novaculite in as stage 2 cores and bifaces, but most of the pieces discarded at the site were broken stage 3 bifaces. An analysis of fracture patterns indicates that material flaws and heat-related breaks were common on stage 2 cores and bifaces. Apparently stage 2 bifaces were heat treated, and in the subsequent flaking some were broken either along cracks and flaws or because of overheating. There is a slight increase in differential luster on flakes and bifaces in upper levels of Stratum III, suggesting heat treatment was more common later in the Middle Archaic sequence, a pattern for further investigation.
In a poster presented at the annual meeting of the Arkansas Archeological Society in 2018, Mary Beth Trubitt illustrated all 336 projectile points excavated during the 2007-2008 project at Jones Mill. Analysis shows that over 90% of the points were made from novaculite, with other cherts in the minority. The tools show a range of styles from Early Archaic period Dalton and San Patrice points to Mississippian period arrow points. Upper deposits across the site had a mixture of arrow and dart points in Mississippian, Woodland, and Archaic styles, while only Archaic period types were found in lower deposits. Middle Archaic types (Johnson and White River Side Notched or Big Sandy) made up the majority of the points in Stratum III in the West Trenches. These two types were not neatly separated into different strata at the site but both occurred throughout Stratum III. Many of the points were broken from use, reinforcing the interpretation that the residents were replacing and refurbishing their tools at the site.
