Windsor Chapter - Why re-excavate at the Early Woodland Defensive Earthworks Seaman’s Fort Site?

Speaker: Glen Boatman Co-editor of Archaeology of North Central Ohio

Topic:  Why re-excavate at the Early Woodland Defensive Earthworks Seaman’s Fort Site?

​The Seaman’s Fort Defensive Earthworks Site was originally characterized in 1993 and 1998 as an Early Woodland site with only minor presence of other period features. However, in 2008 Dr. David Stothers outlined the need for further excavation; 1. To determine the exact dating of the earthworks, 2. To determine the development of Early Woodland to Middle Woodland to Late Woodland Green Creek culture, and 3. To investigate the midden along Hunt Creek below the Seaman’s Fort  Site. In 2010 a full rimsherd study began and meanwhile work was done at the Metz site that developed a new model for ceramic development  in the Ohio Huron River area.  Stothers intended to return to Seaman’s Fort after work at the Heckelman Site 2008-2012 but he died in early 2013. Since that time the Sandusky Bay chapter of the Archaeological Society of Ohio (SBC/ASO) and Western Lake Erie Archaeological Research Society (WLEARP) have carried out further research that suggests a late Early Woodland to early Middle Woodland  component at Seaman’s Fort and which dates the Earthworks to this time.  In order to accomplish Dr. Stothers’ original follow up excavation plans and gain more research on this site the SBC/ASO  and WLEARP have begun plans to re-excavate at Seaman’s Fort.

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