Results on the Experimental Replication of the Turner Earthworks Pit-and-Tunnel Systems
Barbara M. Harkness · Lithic Technology · 1986
In an effort to test the thesis that the pits-and-tunnels under Mound 3 of the Hopewellian Turner Earthworks (Hamilton County, Ohio) had once served as heat treatment ovens for the thermal alteration of chert, it was decided to experimentally reproduce models of them for such testing.Pit No. 28 (representative of 26 of the 31 pits) and Pit No. 6 were built at half-scale. Work was carried out by members of the Cuyahoga Valley Archaeological Society and a class in Lithic Replication and Analysis taught by the author. Although these efforts must at best be considered provisional, we can point with confidence to two successful thermal alteration runs using the Pit 6 model. Success with the Pit 28 system was also obtained, but, from this vantage point, the amount of treated chert seems too small to warrant the intensity of labor requirements.