The Opatrny Village Site is an ancient village site dating from AD 1000–1600. The site was inhabited by the
Monongahela culture
The Monongahela culture were an Iroquoian Native American cultural manifestation of Late Woodland peoples from AD 1050 to 1635 in present-day western Pennsylvania, western Maryland, eastern Ohio, and West Virginia. The culture was named by Mary ...
and is a contemporary with the
Fort Ancient cultural way of life. The property was placed on the
National Register on 1975-05-21.
The extent of the site has not been fully determined as the artifacts lie in occupational debris over 1.5 feet thick. The site has been used as a pasture and remains largely intact. The property was placed to protect the integrity of the site from a highway project.
Around 1980, an extensive
excavation
Excavation may refer to:
* Excavation (archaeology)
* Excavation (medicine)
* ''Excavation'' (The Haxan Cloak album), 2013
* ''Excavation'' (Ben Monder album), 2000
* ''Excavation'' (novel), a 2000 novel by James Rollins
* '' Excavation: A Memo ...
was carried out at Opatrny; the information that it yielded was seen as highly significant in understanding the ways that local
cultures changed and developed their surrounding terrain.
[Myers, Thomas P., ed. ]
Current Research
'' American Antiquity'' 45 (1980): 355-376. Despite its location along
U.S. Route 40
U.S. Route 40 or U.S. Highway 40 (US 40), also known as the Main Street of America, is a major east–west United States Highway traveling across the United States from the Mountain States to the Mid-Atlantic States. As with most routes wh ...
, the village remains less disturbed by modern development than most surrounding terrain.
References
Further reading
*Ohio Historical Society, Division of Archeology; ''The Opatrny Village Site''; Ohio Historical Society; Columbus, Ohio 1974
*"Radiocarbon Information from Eastern Ohio and a Summary of the Late Prehistoric Occupation at the Opatrny Village Site". ''Ohio Archaeologist'' 29.2 (1979): 40–41.
External links
Pottery and diagram of the site
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio
Archaeological sites in Belmont County, Ohio
National Register of Historic Places in Belmont County, Ohio
Monongahela culture
Former Native American populated places in the United States
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