The Dodge Site is an

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 ...

in the northwestern part of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

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 ...

. Located north of

Bowling Green A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls. Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep on ...

in Wood County, the site was inhabited by

Middle Woodland In the classification of :category:Archaeological cultures of North America, archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 Common Era, BCE to European con ...

and

Upper Mississippian The Upper Mississippian cultures were located in the Upper Mississippi River, Mississippi basin and Great Lakes region of the American Midwest. They were in existence from approximately A.D. 1000 until the Protohistory, Protohistoric and early H ...

peoples. Among the artifacts discovered at the site are

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

s and

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. The site's

stratigraphy Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock (geology), rock layers (Stratum, strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary rock, sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigrap ...

is obvious: the Middle Woodland village site and cemetery can easily be distinguished from the Upper Mississippian occupation zone that sits on top of it. While only a small portion of the 2.2 acre (0.89 ha) site has been excavated, the artifacts that have been discovered at Dodge have contributed significantly to an understanding of the western basin of

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...

around AD 1300. Enough material has been recovered to facilitate

radiometric dating Radiometric dating, radioactive dating or radioisotope dating is a technique which is used to date materials such as rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurities were selectively incorporated when they were formed. The method compares t ...

, as well as identifying the peoples who once inhabited the site. The excavations also revealed the intensity of occupation: the Middle Woodland layer was substantially larger than the exceptionally thin Upper Mississippian component. In 1978, the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

recognized the Dodge Site's archaeological value by listing it on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. Five years later, owners Henry Dodge and his wife donated the site to

The Archaeological Conservancy The Archaeological Conservancy is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that acquires and preserves archaeological sites in the United States. Whereas nearly every other nation protects all archaeological sites within its borders as part of its nation ...

in the interests of preservation."Dodges' Donate Woodland Site". ''Archaeological Conservancy Newsletter'' 1983 Summer:11.

References

Mississippian culture Woodland period Archaeological sites in Ohio Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Wood County, Ohio {{WoodCountyOH-NRHP-stub