The Edgewater Park Site is a 3,800-year-old Late Archaic campsite situated along the

Iowa River The Iowa River is a tributary of the Mississippi River in the state of Iowa in the United States. It is about longU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed May 13, 2011 and ...

in Coralville,

Iowa Iowa () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wiscon ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. Plant remains recovered from the site suggest the inhabitants were in the earliest stages of adapting domesticated plants.

Excavations In archaeology, excavation is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains. An excavation site or "dig" is the area being studied. These locations range from one to several areas at a time during a project and can be condu ...

revealed a small encampment of two

hearth A hearth () is the place in a home where a fire is or was traditionally kept for home heating and for cooking, usually constituted by at least a horizontal hearthstone and often enclosed to varying degrees by any combination of reredos (a lo ...

s and areas for faunal 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 A ...

production. Other features identified include a discard area and a deep feature of unknown function.

Lithic analysis In archaeology, lithic analysis is the analysis of stone tools and other chipped stone artifacts using basic scientific techniques. At its most basic level, lithic analyses involve an analysis of the artifact’s morphology, the measurement of ...

reveals that the site occupants probably recently traveled along the Iowa River from the north center of the state and were engaged in late-stage tool manufacture and maintenance. Floral analysis indicates the site occupation occurred during the warm half of the year and that the occupants utilized little barley, a non-local plant which was later cultivated, and barnyard grass, a local plant probably also later cultivated. This site is interpreted as a short-term, late warm-season occupation of people migrating down the Iowa River, possibly towards winter encampments in what is now the southeast part of the state.Whittaker, William E., Michael T. Dunne, Joe Alan Artz, Sarah E. Horgen, Mark L. Anderson (2007) Edgewater Park: A Late Archaic Campsite along the Iowa River. ''Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology'' 32(1):4-46.; http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3904/is_200704/ai_n19433705

References

{{Reflist Archaeological sites in Iowa Geography of Johnson County, Iowa Archaic period in North America Coralville, Iowa

See also

References