Jeremy Wilson | Indiana University Indianapolis (original) (raw)

Conference Posters by Jeremy Wilson

Lawrenz Gun Club, located on a channel of the Sangamon River in west-central Illinois, is proving... more Lawrenz Gun Club, located on a channel of the Sangamon River in west-central Illinois, is proving to be one of the largest and most complex Mississippian village sites in the region. Geophysical investigations employing magnetic gradiometry have preliminarily defined the site as encompassing 10 ha, largely within the palisade, though features extend beyond the survey’s boundaries. Visible in the magnetic imagery are multiple iterations of a bastioned palisade, six earthworks, a plaza, dozens of structures, and evidence of the geomorphic formation of the landform. Magnetic imagery was used to guide targeted excavations that revealed cross-cutting and overlapping episodes of palisade reconstruction, a solid-earth coring survey of anthropogenic and geomorphic features, and excavation of a burnt structure. Magnetic survey of the earthworks shows evidence of construction and anomalies consistent with mound-top structures. Combined with other remote sensing and targeted excavation, the survey provides a foundation for future research at the site.

Papers by Jeremy Wilson

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2023

The archaeology of how communities in the North American midcontinent responded to environmental ... more The archaeology of how communities in the North American midcontinent responded to environmental change has had global significance for understanding hydroclimate-human relationships in non-industrialized societies. We evaluate how an agriculturalist settlement network, the Angel polity, coped with environmental change through comparing the radiocarbon-derived occupation history to local proxies for hydroclimatic change from Martin Lake, Indiana. Located within the northeast Mississippian (AD 1000-1500) frontier, the Angel polity consisted of a network of hamlets and villages, encompassing ~800 km 2 in southwest Indiana with the Angel Mounds site serving as the polity's social nexus. The results indicate that Angel Mounds was established as the Medieval Climate Anomaly transitioned to Little Ice Age (LIA) drought with the construction of a community centered around a platform mound earthwork. The Angel polity's population became more centralized at Angel Mounds during the initial decades of the LIA drought conditions and a large fortification was constructed at Angel Mounds during this time. The dissolution of the Angel polity occurred in AD 1350-1450 during a profound LIA-associated mega-drought and regional depopulation of the midcontinent. These results provide an example of how non-industrialized, agriculturalist communities responded to episodes of hydroclimatic change.

2019 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data)

Facial landmark placement is a key step in many biomedical and biometrics applications. This pape... more Facial landmark placement is a key step in many biomedical and biometrics applications. This paper presents a computational method that efficiently performs automatic 3D facial landmark placement based on training images containing manually placed anthropological facial landmarks. After 3D face registration by an iterative closest point (ICP) technique, a visual analytics approach is taken to generate local geometric patterns for individual landmark points. These individualized local geometric patterns are derived interactively by a user's initial visual pattern detection. They are used to guide the refinement process for landmark points projected from a template face to achieve accurate landmark placement. Compared to traditional methods, this technique is simple, robust, and does not require a large number of training samples (e.g. in machine learning based methods) or complex 3D image analysis procedures. This technique and the associated software tool are being used in a 3D biometrics project that aims to identify links between human facial phenotypes and their genetic association.

The Orendorf site is a Mississippian village and mortuary complex located in west-central Illinoi... more The Orendorf site is a Mississippian village and mortuary complex located in west-central Illinois. Salvage excavations conducted between 1970 to 1990 have yielded one of the largest and best-preserved skeletal assemblages in the central Illinois River valley. The human skeletal assemblage from the Orendorf site has been ideal for a wide variety of bioarchaeological research, both invasive and non-invasive. Despite the attention given to the individuals, research focusing on the burial contexts and radiometric dating of the burials are lacking. Through georectification of spatial data from the original excavation paperwork, I have identified seven individual burials from distinct stratigraphic episodes within the burial mound excavated between 1986 and 1990 for radiocarbon dating. Establishing a chronology for the Orendorf mortuary complex allows for greater inter- and intrasite comparisons within the central Illinois River valley, as well as, a more nuanced understanding of previous bioarchaeological research conducted with the Orendorf skeletal collection within a temporal context.

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2021

Abstract Recent geophysical surveys at six sites in the Illinois River Valley (IRV), just north o... more Abstract Recent geophysical surveys at six sites in the Illinois River Valley (IRV), just north of the Greater Cahokia area, provide new insights into the region’s volatile era of Mississippian occupation by revealing a series of important changes in community organization that occurred from the eleventh to fifteenth centuries. Geophysical data allow us to evaluate these changes through the lens of site layout, special-purpose architecture and communal space, and the spatial alignment of site features to consider how the construction of Mississippian spaces structured social organization and identities. When considered in conjunction with data from previous excavations in the region, this geophysical work indicates that religion played a key role in forging new relationships and shared identities among early Mississippian IRV and Cahokian groups. Our analysis also reveals that IRV Mississippians reconfigured important aspects of these religious practices and socio-political relationships in the context of warfare-induced population nucleation beginning around 1200 CE, leading to more locally structured identities over time.

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2020

This paper employs concepts from Bourdieu's theory of social fields and contemporary research on ... more This paper employs concepts from Bourdieu's theory of social fields and contemporary research on transnationalism to explore the complicated history of population movement, culture contact, and interaction that fueled the origins of Mississippian society in the greater Cahokia area and closely related socio-political developments in the Central Illinois River Valley (CIRV) of west-central Illinois. We offer a new take on Mississippian origins and the history of culture contact in the CIRV, arguing that interregional simultaneity and inter-group collaboration played an important part of the early processes of Mississippianization in the North American Midwest. By decentering Cahokia in our explanation of Mississippian origins in the greater Midwest, we argue for a long-term persistence of traditional pre-Mississippian practices in the CIRV region, beginning with the first documented engagement among Cahokians and Illinois Valley groups in the early eleventh century until the beginning of the thirteenth century AD.

American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2019

The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users ar... more The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.

Scientific reports, Jan 31, 2017

Climate's influence on late Pre-Columbian (pre-1492 CE), maize-dependent Native American popu... more Climate's influence on late Pre-Columbian (pre-1492 CE), maize-dependent Native American populations in the midcontinental United States (US) is poorly understood as regional paleoclimate records are sparse and/or provide conflicting perspectives. Here, we reconstruct regional changes in precipitation source and seasonality and local changes in warm-season duration and rainstorm events related to the Pacific North American pattern (PNA) using a 2100-year-long multi-proxy lake-sediment record from the midcontinental US. Wet midcontinental climate reflecting negative PNA-like conditions occurred during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (950-1250 CE) as Native American populations adopted intensive maize agriculture, facilitating population aggregation and the development of urban centers between 1000-1200 CE. Intensifying midcontinental socio-political instability and warfare between 1250-1350 CE corresponded with drier positive PNA-like conditions, culminating in the staggered abandon...

Radiocarbon, 2019

ABSTRACTGeophysical survey and excavations from 2010–2016 at Lawrenz Gun Club (11CS4), a late pre... more ABSTRACTGeophysical survey and excavations from 2010–2016 at Lawrenz Gun Club (11CS4), a late pre-Columbian village located in the central Illinois River valley in Illinois, identified 10 mounds, a central plaza, and dozens of structures enclosed within a stout 10 hectare bastioned palisade. Nineteen radiocarbon (14C) measurements were taken from single entities of wood charcoal, short-lived plants, and animal bones. A site chronology has been constructed using a Bayesian approach that considers the stratigraphic contexts and feature formation processes. The village was host to hundreds of years of continuous human activity during the Mississippi Period. Mississippian activity at the site is estimated to have begun incal AD 990–1165 (95% probability), ended incal AD 1295–1450 (95% probability), and lasted150–420 yr (95% probability)in the primary Bayesian model with similar results obtained in two alternative models. The palisade is estimated to have been constructed incal AD 1150–1...

American Journal of Human Biology, 2021

OBJECTIVES Since its inception, skeletally based paleodemographic research has emphasized the uti... more OBJECTIVES Since its inception, skeletally based paleodemographic research has emphasized the utility of biocultural models for interpreting the dynamic relationship between the sociocultural and ecological forces accompanying demographic transitions and shaping populations' health and well-being. While the demographic transition associated with the Neolithic Revolution has been a common focus in bioarcheology, the present study analyzes human skeletal remains from a large 19th century cemetery in central Indiana to examine population dynamics during the second demographic transition, a period generally characterized by decreasing fertility rates and improvements in life expectancy. This study demonstrates the potential to methodologically identify regional variations in the timing and interactions between broad-scale socioeconomic changes and technological advancements that characterized the time period through observed changes in survivorship and fertility based on age-at-death distributions. MATERIALS AND METHODS This study uses three temporally distinct samples (AD 1827-1869; 1870-1889; 1890-1935) from the Bethel Cemetery (n = 503). Kaplan-Meier survival analyses with a log- rank tests are utilized to evaluate survivorship and mortality over time. Next, Cox proportional hazard analyses are employed to examine the interaction between sex and time as covariates. Finally, the D0-14/D ratio is applied to estimate fertility for each of the three temporally bounded cohorts. RESULTS The Kaplan-Meier survival analyses and Cox proportional hazard modeling revealed statistically significant differences in survivorship between the three time periods. Age-specific mortality rates are reduced among adult female and male age classes in this rural community over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, resulting in the increasing life expectancies associated with the second demographic transition. While mortality in early adulthood was common during the first time period and decreases thereafter, sex was not identified as a meaningful covariate. The proportion of juveniles in the three temporal samples indicate that fertility rates were higher than national averages for the better part of the 19th century and subsequently declined around the turn of 20th century for this community. CONCLUSIONS The results indicate temporal differences between the three periods, demonstrating increased survivorship and decreased mortality and fertility over time. These findings corroborate two key features of the second demographic transition characterized by the move from high rates of both fertility and mortality to reduced rates and a general easing of demographic pressures. The observed trends likely reflect improvements in health, coinciding the industrial advance and economic development within and around Indianapolis. While the socioeconomic factors characterizing the Industrial Revolution drove demographic shifts that parallel an equally important epidemiological transition, potential regional differences are discussed to highlight variability in the timing of demographic transitions. The paleodemographic methods utilized in this study demonstrate improved accuracy and efficacy, which ultimately advances researchers' potential to disentangle population-specific socioeconomic factors that may contribute to asymmetrical experiences of health and mortality.

International Journal of Legal Medicine, 2012

Most current methods for adult skeletal age-atdeath estimation are based on American samples comp... more Most current methods for adult skeletal age-atdeath estimation are based on American samples comprising individuals of European and African ancestry. Our limited understanding of population variability hampers our efforts to apply these techniques to various skeletal populations around the world, especially in global forensic contexts. Further, documented skeletal samples are rare, limiting our ability to test our techniques. The objective of this paper is to test three pelvic macroscopic methods [(1) Suchey-Brooks; (2) Lovejoy; and (3) Buckberry and Chamberlain] on a documented modern Spanish sample. These methods were selected because they are popular among Spanish anthropologists and because they never have been tested in a Spanish sample. The study sample consists of 80 individuals (55 males and 25 females) of known sex and age from the Valladolid collection. Results indicate that in all three methods, levels of bias and inaccuracy increase with age. The Lovejoy method performs poorly (27%) compared with Suchey-Brooks (71%) and Buckberry and Chamberlain (86%). However, the levels of correlation between phases and chronological ages are low and comparable in the three methods (<0.395). The apparent accuracy of the Suchey-Brooks and Buckberry and Chamberlain methods is largely based on the broad width of the methods' estimated intervals. This study suggests that before systematic application of these three methodologies in Spanish populations, further statistical modeling and research into the covariance of chronological age with morphological change are necessary. Future methods should be developed specific to various world populations and should allow for both precision and flexibility in age estimation.

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2021

Recent geophysical surveys at six sites in the Illinois River Valley (IRV), just north of the Gre... more Recent geophysical surveys at six sites in the Illinois River Valley (IRV), just north of the Greater Cahokia area,
provide new insights into the region’s volatile era of Mississippian occupation by revealing a series of important changes in community organization that occurred from the eleventh to fifteenth centuries. Geophysical data
allow us to evaluate these changes through the lens of site layout, special-purpose architecture and communal
space, and the spatial alignment of site features to consider how the construction of Mississippian spaces
structured social organization and identities. When considered in conjunction with data from previous excavations in the region, this geophysical work indicates that religion played a key role in forging new relationships
and shared identities among early Mississippian IRV and Cahokian groups. Our analysis also reveals that IRV
Mississippians reconfigured important aspects of these religious practices and socio-political relationships in the
context of warfare-induced population nucleation beginning around 1200 CE, leading to more locally structured identities over time.

Climate's influence on late Pre-Columbian (pre-1492 CE), maize-dependent Native American populati... more Climate's influence on late Pre-Columbian (pre-1492 CE), maize-dependent Native American populations in the midcontinental United States (US) is poorly understood as regional paleoclimate records are sparse and/or provide conflicting perspectives. Here, we reconstruct regional changes in precipitation source and seasonality and local changes in warm-season duration and rainstorm events related to the Pacific North American pattern (PNA) using a 2100-year-long multi-proxy lake-sediment record from the midcontinental US. Wet midcontinental climate reflecting negative PNA-like conditions occurred during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (950–1250 CE) as Native American populations adopted intensive maize agriculture, facilitating population aggregation and the development of urban centers between 1000–1200 CE. Intensifying midcontinental socio-political instability and warfare between 1250–1350 CE corresponded with drier positive PNA-like conditions, culminating in the staggered abandonment of many major Native American river valley settlements and large urban centers between 1350–1450 CE during an especially severe warm-season drought. We hypothesize that this sustained drought interval rendered it difficult to support dense populations and large urban centers in the midcontinental US by destabilizing regional agricultural systems, thereby contributing to the host of socio-political factors that led to population reorganization and migration in the midcontinent and neighboring regions shortly before European contact.

American journal of physical anthropology, 2014

Bioarcheology has made tremendous strides since the subdiscipline's inception, subsequent syn... more Bioarcheology has made tremendous strides since the subdiscipline's inception, subsequent syntheses, the standardization of data collection methods, and analytical advances ranging from molecular analyses through age-estimation and biodistance. Concurrently, health and the adaptive success of past populations have remained primary concerns. However, questions are routinely raised about lesions and whether or not changing frequencies are synonymous with increases or decreases in stress, morbidity, and overall health. These include how and why healed lesions can simultaneously represent stress and survival, demanding that researchers understand how population dynamics influence skeletal sample formation. In this study, methods to analyze age- and sex-specific mortality patterns prior to, and in conjunction with, the analysis of linear enamel hypoplasias are demonstrated. Paleodemographic and paleoepidemiological models are presented for late Pre-Columbian skeletal samples from the...

North American Archaeologist, 2009

Page 1. NORTH AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGIST, Vol. 29(2) 157-177, 2008 RECONSIDERING CULTURE-HISTORIC TAX... more Page 1. NORTH AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGIST, Vol. 29(2) 157-177, 2008 RECONSIDERING CULTURE-HISTORIC TAXA IN THE LATE ARCHAIC LAURIE E. MIROFF JEREMY J. WILSON NINA M. VERSAGGI Binghamton University, New York ABSTRACT ...

The article presents information on a case study in the advancement of Mississippian archaeology ... more The article presents information on a case study in the advancement of Mississippian archaeology through geophysics. It discussed an archaeological investigations at Lawrenz Gun Club, a Mississippian period village and mound complex on the lower Sangamon River in Cass County. It refers to the use of magnetic gradiometry, an effective form of remote sensing with regard to cost, time, and spatial coverage.

Conference Presentations by Jeremy Wilson

Recent investigations at Lawrenz Gun Club (11Cs4), a palisaded Mississippian village and earthwor... more Recent investigations at Lawrenz Gun Club (11Cs4), a palisaded Mississippian village and earthwork complex in the central Illinois River valley, highlight the importance of integrating landscape-scaled geophysical survey with site formation processes to develop chronologies derived from diverse archaeological and geoarchaeological investigations. A comprehensive geophysical survey of the fortified village complex and surrounding landscape revealed extensive habitation beyond the site palisade. The “habitation” magnetic anomalies outside the village walls had multiple spectral and spatial forms—excavations confirmed them as structures. Radiocarbon ages from structures inside and outside the community’s wall, combined with those from palisade excavations and GeoProbe cores of the landform and mounds, form the basis of a comprehensive chronology of site development.

The extended habitation zones at Lawrenz can be explained using multiple models of site development and coalescence. By targeting spectrally and spatially diverse magnetic anomalies for excavation, we assess the relative likelihood of certain site formation models over others, including what role warfare played in construction of and population aggregation within the site’s palisades. As the largest site in the valley, the development processes at Lawrenz have implications for the regional organization of labor in response to changing social dynamics and increasing warfare after AD 1200.

Journal Articles by Jeremy Wilson

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2023

The archaeology of how communities in the North American midcontinent responded to environmental ... more The archaeology of how communities in the North American midcontinent responded to environmental change has had global significance for understanding hydroclimate-human relationships in non-industrialized societies. We evaluate how an agriculturalist settlement network, the Angel polity, coped with environmental change through comparing the radiocarbon-derived occupation history to local proxies for hydroclimatic change from Martin Lake, Indiana. Located within the northeast Mississippian (AD 1000–1500) frontier, the Angel polity consisted of a network of hamlets and villages, encompassing ∼800 km2 in southwest Indiana with the Angel Mounds site serving as the polity’s social nexus. The results indicate that Angel Mounds was established as the Medieval Climate Anomaly transitioned to Little Ice Age (LIA) drought with the construction of a community centered around a platform mound earthwork. The Angel polity’s population became more centralized at Angel Mounds during the initial decades of the LIA drought conditions and a large fortification was constructed at Angel Mounds during this time. The dissolution of the Angel polity occurred in AD 1350–1450 during a profound LIA-associated mega-drought and regional depopulation of the midcontinent. These results provide an example of how non-industrialized, agriculturalist communities responded to episodes of hydroclimatic change.

Radiocarbon, 2019

Geophysical survey and excavations from 2010-2016 at Lawrenz Gun Club (11CS4), a late pre-Columbi... more Geophysical survey and excavations from 2010-2016 at Lawrenz Gun Club (11CS4), a late pre-Columbian village located in the central Illinois River valley in Illinois, identified 10 mounds, a central plaza, and dozens of structures enclosed within a stout 10 hectare bastioned palisade. Nineteen radiocarbon (14 C) measurements were taken from single entities of wood charcoal, short-lived plants, and animal bones. A site chronology has been constructed using a Bayesian approach that considers the stratigraphic contexts and feature formation processes. The village was host to hundreds of years of continuous human activity during the Mississippi Period. Mississippian activity at the site is estimated to have begun in cal AD 990-1165 (95% probability), ended in cal AD 1295-1450 (95% probability), and lasted 150-420 yr (95% probability) in the primary Bayesian model with similar results obtained in two alternative models. The palisade is estimated to have been constructed in cal AD 1150-1230 (95% probability) and was continuously repaired and rebuilt for 15-125 yr (95% probability), probably for 40-85 yr (68% probability). Comparison to other studies demonstrates that the bastioned palisade at Lawrenz was one of the earliest constructed in the midcontinental United States.

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2023

2019 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data)

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2021

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2020

American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2019

Scientific reports, Jan 31, 2017

Radiocarbon, 2019

American Journal of Human Biology, 2021

International Journal of Legal Medicine, 2012

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2021

American journal of physical anthropology, 2014

North American Archaeologist, 2009

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2023

The archaeology of how communities in the North American midcontinent responded to environmental ... more The archaeology of how communities in the North American midcontinent responded to environmental change has had global significance for understanding hydroclimate-human relationships in non-industrialized societies. We evaluate how an agriculturalist settlement network, the Angel polity, coped with environmental change through comparing the radiocarbon-derived occupation history to local proxies for hydroclimatic change from Martin Lake, Indiana. Located within the northeast Mississippian (AD 1000–1500) frontier, the Angel polity consisted of a network of hamlets and villages, encompassing ∼800 km2 in southwest Indiana with the Angel Mounds site serving as the polity’s social nexus. The results indicate that Angel Mounds was established as the Medieval Climate Anomaly transitioned to Little Ice Age (LIA) drought with the construction of a community centered around a platform mound earthwork. The Angel polity’s population became more centralized at Angel Mounds during the initial decades of the LIA drought conditions and a large fortification was constructed at Angel Mounds during this time. The dissolution of the Angel polity occurred in AD 1350–1450 during a profound LIA-associated mega-drought and regional depopulation of the midcontinent. These results provide an example of how non-industrialized, agriculturalist communities responded to episodes of hydroclimatic change.

Radiocarbon, 2019

American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2019

Objectives: The current study seeks to determine if a sample of foragers, farmers, and pastoral-i... more Objectives: The current study seeks to determine if a sample of foragers, farmers, and pastoral-ists are distinguishable based on their dental microwear texture signatures.

Journal of Archaeological Science, 2021

Recent geophysical surveys at six sites in the Illinois River Valley (IRV), just north of the Gre... more Recent geophysical surveys at six sites in the Illinois River Valley (IRV), just north of the Greater Cahokia area, provide new insights into the region's volatile era of Mississippian occupation by revealing a series of important changes in community organization that occurred from the eleventh to fifteenth centuries. Geophysical data allow us to evaluate these changes through the lens of site layout, special-purpose architecture and communal space, and the spatial alignment of site features to consider how the construction of Mississippian spaces structured social organization and identities. When considered in conjunction with data from previous excavations in the region, this geophysical work indicates that religion played a key role in forging new relationships and shared identities among early Mississippian IRV and Cahokian groups. Our analysis also reveals that IRV Mississippians reconfigured important aspects of these religious practices and socio-political relationships in the context of warfare-induced population nucleation beginning around 1200 CE, leading to more locally structured identities over time.

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2020

This paper employs concepts from Bourdieu’s theory of social fields and contemporary research on ... more This paper employs concepts from Bourdieu’s theory of social fields and contemporary research on transnationalism to explore the complicated history of population movement, culture contact, and interaction that fueled the origins of Mississippian society in the greater Cahokia area and closely related socio-political developments in the Central Illinois River Valley (CIRV) of west-central Illinois.We offer a new take on Mississippian origins and the history of culture contact in the CIRV, arguing that interregional simultaneity and inter-group collaboration played an important part of the early processes of Mississippianization in the North American Midwest. By decentering Cahokia in our explanation of Mississippian origins in the greater Midwest, we argue for a long-term persistence of traditional pre-Mississippian practices in the CIRV region, beginning with the first documented engagement among Cahokians and Illinois Valley groups in the early eleventh century until the beginning of the thirteenth century AD.