The West Oak Forest Earthlodge Site is a historic site located near

Glenwood, Iowa Glenwood is a city in, and the county seat of, Mills County, Iowa, United States. The population was 5,073 in the 2020 census, a decline from 5,358 in 2000. History Located in a hollow of the Loess Hills on the east side of the Missouri River, ...

, United States. It was discovered in 2009 by local archeologist Dennis Miller who found a depression of about in diameter, and a maximum depth of below the surrounding area. It was authenticated by the Office of the State Archeologist the following year. This is one of 29 known earthlodges that exist from the Nebraska Phase of the

Woodland period In the classification of archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 BCE to European contact in the eastern part of North America, with some archaeo ...

. The earthlodges were dwellings that were composed of four central support posts, surrounded by shorter outer wall posts, with

wattle and daub Wattle and daub is a composite building method used for making walls and buildings, in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called wattle is daubed with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung a ...

walls and roof. The depression in the earth was caused by the natural decay and caving-in of the earthlodge itself. In addition to the depression there have been 231 artifacts found at the site that dates from sometime between 1250 and 1400 C.E. The site was listed 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 ...

in 2010.

References

Protected areas established in 1968 Native American history of Iowa Protected areas of Mills County, Iowa National Register of Historic Places in Mills County, Iowa Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa Woodland period {{MillsCountyIA-NRHP-stub