Walker Gilmore site (22CC28)
Walker Gilmore site is located in Nebraska
Walker Gilmore site
Walker Gilmore site is located in the United States
Walker Gilmore site
LocationNortheastern quarter of the northeastern quarter of Section 28, Township 11 North, Range 14 East[1]
Nearest cityWeeping Water, Nebraska
Coordinates40°53′59″N 95°50′14″W / 40.89972°N 95.83722°W / 40.89972; -95.83722
NRHP reference No.66000441
Significant dates
Added to NRHPOctober 15, 1966[2]
Designated NHLJuly 19, 1964[3]

The Walker Gilmore site, designated by the Smithsonian trinomial 22CC28, is a prehistoric archaeological site near Murray, Nebraska. First formally investigated in 1915, it is the type site for the Sterns Creek focus, the first Woodland period culture identified in Nebraska. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.[3]

Description

The Walker Gilmore site is a deeply stratified archaeological site on a terrace above Sterns Creek in eastern Cass County. The area consists of repeated habitation layers, interspersed with materials washed down from the hillside above.[4] Finds at the site include evidence of dwelling lodges using poles as support and finished in wattle and daub or bark,[5] as well as a diversity of tools, tool-making artifacts, pottery, and remnants of dietary plants and animals. Radiocarbon dating has yielded occupation dates as late as 1100 CE. One particular set of post-holes are unusually small, and have been interpreted as possibly supporting a rack-like structure for drying meat.[4]

The Walker Gilmore site was found in 1915 by Walker Gilmore, the son of a local physician, who then informed archaeologist Frederick Sterns, then doing graduate field research in Nebraska. It was the first site in the state where evidence of a pre-village culture was identified.[6] Sterns also made key observations about the nature of the terrain, leading to the conclusion that the streambed above which the site lies was probably wider at the time of the site's occupation.[7] In the 1930s, William Duncan Strong investigated the site further, and connected its inhabitants to Woodland cultures of the northeastern United States.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ Sterns, Fred H. "A Stratification of Cultures in Eastern Nebraska". American Anthropologist 17.1 (1915): 121-127: 122.
  2. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  3. ^ a b "Walker Gilmore Site". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Retrieved May 6, 2008.
  4. ^ a b "The Walker Gilmore Site" (PDF). Nebraska History. Retrieved March 8, 2018.
  5. ^ Alex, Lisa (2010). Iowa's Archaeological Past. University of Iowa Press. p. 124. ISBN 9781609380151.
  6. ^ a b Bozell, John; Winfrey, James (May 1994). "A Review of Middle Woodland Archaeology in Nebraska". Plains Archaeologist. 39 (148): 125–144. JSTOR 25669258.
  7. ^ Mandel, Rolfe, ed. (2000). Geoarchaeology in the Great Plains. University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 142–143. ISBN 9780806132617.
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