North American Archaeology, Midwest Research Papers (original) (raw)

A 1974 act of Congress established the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area. It entered the National Park System as an urban park situated in northeast Ohio. On October 11, 2000, the name was changed to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (CUVA). The park encompasses approximately 33,000 acres (13,355 ha) in Cuyahoga and Summit counties along a 22-mile (35.4 km) stretch of the Cuyahoga River Valley. Suburban portions of Cleveland and Akron comprise the northern and southern boundaries, respectively (Figure 1). A combination of rural and small town aspects highlight its scenic, agricultural, residential, and recreational uses. The Cuyahoga River Valley was a prehistoric focal point for the American Indian cultures of the region. In the early to middle nineteenth century, the highlight was the Ohio & Erie Canal. Building of this canal linked the Great Lakes and the Ohio River. It was the most important nineteenth century development in the region and assisted the westward expansion of America. Locally the presence of the Ohio & Erie Canal and the Cuyahoga River sparked the industrial development of Cleveland and Akron. In the proximity of a contemporary metropolitan landscape that exhibits a population density in excess of four million people, CUVA remains a rural “green shrouded miracle” (Cockrell 1992).

Numerous park visitor access points exist along the Cuyahoga River. Small portions of the CUVA landscape are actually owned by Cleveland Metroparks, Metroparks Serving Summit County (previously called Akron Metroparks), Western Reserve Historical Society (WRHS), Kent State University (KSU), and private individuals. The National Park Service (NPS) actively works to preserve, protect, and enhance the significant historical, cultural, natural, scientific, economic, recreational, and scenic resources in CUVA. The park contains a variety of prehistoric and historic archeological resources. A total of 265 verified sites are recorded in the files of either the Midwest Archeological Center (MWAC) or the Ohio Historic Preservation Office (OHPO) as of January 2002. These sites were discovered since 1970 in the course of cultural resource management (CRM) projects, university and museum sponsored research, as well as those noted by nineteenth century explorers and early settlers. Another 63 informant reported, suspected, or unverified sites are believed to exist in the park. The local informant reported sites, both prehistoric and historic, should be examined by an archeologist. Many of the suspected sites are associated with architectural sites. These are selected historic properties with high potential for significant archeological sites. The above 328 sites are individually described in this report. An index or finders aid for these sites is presented in Appendix A. Finally, this project’s review of the historical documentation indicates that yet another ca. 200 unverified Euroamerican sites from the nineteenth century are known to have existed in the park (Appendix B). Despite this corpus of knowledge, large extents of the park still remain unexamined for archeological sites.

Details of the past human adaptations form an important part of the CUVA’s environmental history. The prehistoric sites encompass village, camp, trail, rockshelter, petroglyph, burial, mound, and earthwork types. American Indian sites in the historic period include village, camp, burial, trail, and sugar bush. At present there are no traditional cultural properties (TCP) defined for the park. It is suspected that the only potential TCP sites consist of mounds, earthworks, waterfalls, and trail-marking trees. Euro-American historic sites exhibit a functional range from trading post, log cabin, early road, military road, bridge, cemetery, farmstead, townsite, residential district, industrial facility, to the Ohio & Erie Canal. These resources reflect human activity in CUVA over the past 12,000 years. A number of the known resources are listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as either individual properties or as elements of an historic district. In summary there is a large body of existing archeological knowledge about CUVA. This includes the Cultural Sites Inventory (CSI) and ASMIS maintained by MWAC and various site-specific studies (e.g., Historic Structure Report, Historic Resource Study, and reports by MWAC and other archeologists). No formal attempts have been made for over 20 years to synthesize the park-wide archeological data. The purpose of this overview and assessment is to assemble and evaluate the park’s baseline archeological data in a management document. Thus, its cultural resources may be inventoried, evaluated, and protected by the park. This is a crucial element of the management of CUVA resources.

Briefly, this report outlines the culture history of the Cuyahoga Valley region, names the more important written references, and identifies the artifact repositories. All archeological reports for work conducted within the CUVA boundaries are specified in the bibliography. The bibliography contains all references cited in the text, all archeological reports for work in CUVA, the county histories and atlases for Cuyahoga and Summit counties, selected archeological citations for surrounding regions and other related topics, e.g., historical and geological publications. The history of archeological research is summarized with the next section. It provides an historical perspective on fieldwork in CUVA. This section includes pre-park activities and documentation from adjacent areas as necessary. The subsequent chapter on site descriptions is the longest section of this report. Individual descriptions are presented for each CUVA archeological resource. These are drawn from the Ohio Archaeological Inventory (OAI), Ohio Historic Inventory (OHI), and selected unrecorded sites listed in published and manuscript sources. The use of these multiple sources revealed often contradictory, incomplete, or missing data that needed correction whenever possible. Resolving these dilemmas proved to be a major part of the data assessment in this study. In a few cases adjacent or overlapping sites that were originally recorded separately were combined into a single site if the occupations shared the same landform. Often one site was entered in the OAI while the adjacent cultural resource had been verified, but never officially recorded. Figures and tables are used to include site-specific data relevant to this report. Particular emphasis is placed upon illustrating the previously undocumented artifacts. The radiocarbon dates listed in this report are uncorrected.

The summary and recommendations provides park staff with a series of observations for management of the park’s outstanding archeological resources. These recommendations emphasize the continuing need for inventory, evaluation, protection of archeological sites in CUVA.

This project is funded by a contract with MWAC. The report follows the requirements in the scope-of-work for Purchase Order No. PX611598078. All the opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MWAC, CUVA, NPS, and the Department of the Interior.