The Ridgeway Site (also known as the "Ridgeway Kame" or the "Richardson Kame") is a former
archaeological site
An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...
and burial site in the west-central part of the
U.S. state of
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
. Revealed to be a leading site by the construction of a railroad, it yielded a large and highly informational number of
artifacts and buried bodies. It is the
type site of the
Glacial Kame culture: all other sites of the same culture are measured against it.
Background
Located between the villages of
Ridgeway and
Mount Victory in southeastern
Hardin County's
Hale Township, it consisted of a large
kame
A kame, or ''knob'', is a glacial landform, an irregularly shaped hill or mound composed of sand, gravel and till that accumulates in a depression on a retreating glacier, and is then deposited on the land surface with further melting of the g ...
of
gravel
Gravel is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally throughout the world as a result of sedimentary and erosive geologic processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone.
Gravel is classifi ...
that had been deposited by
glacier
A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...
s. In the first years of white settlement of Ohio, the kame was not widely known to be an archaeological site; locals found
artifacts and skeletons there, but news of its existence first reached a wider audience in 1856. In that year, the
Bellefontaine and Indiana Railroad began constructing a rail line between Mount Victory and Ridgeway. Because the railroad needed significant amounts of gravel for
track ballast
Track ballast forms the trackbed upon which railroad ties (sleepers) are laid. It is packed between, below, and around the ties. It is used to bear the load from the railroad ties, to facilitate drainage of water, and also to keep down vegetat ...
purposes, a small
spur line was built from the main line to the base of the hill, enabling workers to shovel gravel into rail cars that were then taken to the construction zone.
[Converse, Robert N. ''The Archaeology of Ohio''. ]Columbus
Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to:
* Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the Italian explorer
* Columbus, Ohio, capital of the U.S. state of Ohio
Columbus may also refer to:
Places ...
: Archaeological Society of Ohio, 2003. Prior to their excavations, it appeared to be a simple hill, about in area and covered with an apple orchard; before the apple trees were planted, it had been the site of an unusually dense and lush woodland.
[Cunningham, Wilbur M. ''A Study of the Glacial Kame Culture in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana''. Occasional Contributions from the Museum of Anthropology of the University of Michigan 12. ]Ann Arbor
Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna (name), Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah (given name), Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie (given name), ...
: U of Michigan P, 1948, 12.
Findings
As digging at the Richardson Kame continued, workers began to find significant numbers of skeletons; by the time that the
quarrying process was complete, hundreds of buried bodies had been discovered. The exact number of burials is uncertain; one source records 380 bodies, while lead excavator John Matson recorded 308,
and he estimated that the remains of as many as four or five hundred individuals had been interred at the site.
These bodies were buried in a range of positions and conditions; some bodies were face-down and others were flexed in other ways, and evidence of
cremation
Cremation is a method of Disposal of human corpses, final disposition of a Cadaver, dead body through Combustion, burning.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India ...
was also present.
[Baerreis, David A., et al. "The Burial Complex of the Reigh Site, Winnebago County, Wisconsin." ]
Wisconsin Archaeologist
' 35 (1954): 34. More than fifty of the skeletons were shown to have been the bodies of children under the age of eight years,
including one unborn child inside the ribs of its mother.
Conversely, at least seven bodies showed pronounced
ossification
Ossification (also called osteogenesis or bone mineralization) in bone remodeling is the process of laying down new bone material by cells named osteoblasts. It is synonymous with bone tissue formation. There are two processes resulting in t ...
in the
cartilage
Cartilage is a resilient and smooth type of connective tissue. In tetrapods, it covers and protects the ends of long bones at the joints as articular cartilage, and is a structural component of many body parts including the rib cage, the neck an ...
of their
tracheas; Matson believed this to be a sign of extreme age,
and recent research shows that this process is often correlated with advancing age. Not all of the bones were present as complete skeletons; some bodies had plainly been beheaded, and one of the burial pits yielded a pile of twenty-seven skulls.
Moreover, the bodies did not appear to have been buried soon after death; the positions in which the bones were found convinced Matson that they had been buried after the flesh was no longer present.
Besides human bodies, findings in the kame included the bodies of dogs next to human skeletons, plus
beads of
copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
and shells, other copper tools, various
stone tool
A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric (particularly Stone Ag ...
s, and sandal-sole-shaped
shell gorget
Shell gorgets are a Native American art form of polished, carved shell pendants worn around the neck. The gorgets are frequently engraved, and are sometimes highlighted with pigments, or fenestrated (pierced with openings).
Shell gorgets were mos ...
s.
The most important of these artifacts included a
bird stone, awls made from the bones of deer, a string of shell beads long that had been wrapped multiple times around a group of bodies,
and groups of
rattlesnake
Rattlesnakes are venomous snakes that form the genera ''Crotalus'' and ''Sistrurus'' of the subfamily Crotalinae (the pit vipers). All rattlesnakes are vipers. Rattlesnakes are predators that live in a wide array of habitats, hunting small anim ...
rattles that were not included in Matson's report.
Results
Throughout the excavation, Matson was careful to record the findings at the site, and he published his conclusions after the excavation was concluded. Because little was known in the mid-19th century about Ohio's prehistoric inhabitants, he was unable to identify the
cultural affinity of the people buried at the Ridgeway Site: they were plainly not part of any people that had previously been recorded. As a result, his conclusions were limited to the observation that the Ridgeway people were able to trade with peoples who lived around sources of shells and copper.
In the 1880s, the site was seen as an extreme example of a site of the
Mound Builders, but since that time, the Ridgeway Site has been identified as the
type site of the
Glacial Kame culture,
which was prominent throughout the
Great Lakes region during the later portion of the
Archaic period. Today, Hardin County and the adjacent
Logan County Logan County is the name of ten current counties and one former county in the United States:
* Logan County, Arkansas
* Logan County, Colorado
* Logan County, Idaho (1889–1895)
* Logan County, Illinois
* Logan County, Kansas
* Logan County, K ...
are regarded as the heartland of the Glacial Kame people, and the Ridgeway and
Zimmerman sites in southern Hardin County are among the most significant sites ever found of that people.
Many known Glacial Kame sites are of relatively little archaeological value, as they are frequently discovered only after modern excavation machinery has destroyed many of the ancient artifacts; as a result, well-recorded sites like Ridgeway and Zimmerman are of immense value.
[Drennen, Bert C., III. ''National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Zimmerman Kame''. National Park Service, 1974-01-22, 2.]
References
{{coord missing, Ohio
Archaeological sites in Ohio
Archaic period in North America
Cemeteries in Ohio
Hardin County, Ohio
Kames
Quarries in the United States
Native American cemeteries