Tue Feb 09 2010
By LISA NICELY
CECIL --The Ohio Department of Transportation is usually digging up roads, but this time it dug up some Indian artifacts.
While preparing to give part of the area along U.S. 24 to Paulding County, in conjunction with the U.S. 24 Fort to Port project, members of the ODOT's Office of Environmental Services uncovered some American Indian artifacts near the site.
The items discovered will not hinder the continuation of the Fort to Port project.
Among the items uncovered were 4,000-year-old stone tools and a 1,000-year-old pottery fragment. According to a report from ODOT, these items suggest, "that the site was used as a temporary camp for thousands of years. The full extent of these occupations will not be totally understood until all studies are completed."
Area historian Randy Buchman said it is possible the site was used for several years by the Native Americans.
" If it was a camp, an activity they do on a regular basis, yes they come back to it," he said. "For example if it is a sugar camp, where they capture sap from maple trees they will come back to the same area. Many times if it is a particular hunt and the area has been very productive to game because of location to water they will come back."
As far as the artifacts found, it is very easy to believe that items are still working their way up to the surface from thousands of years ago.
"Pottery lot of times is washed up by water along rivers," Buchman said. "Pottery, because of freezing and thawing, is worked up over the years. There are several places in our area that there are great chances to find pottery. Even though we've been picking it up the last few hundred years, it's still around."
Rhonda Pees, ODOT District 1 representative, said the artifacts are protected under federal and state laws.
She stressed it is important to protect the site and did not give the exact location of where the site is located. The artifacts and their preservation is a sensitive situation.
ODOT is attempting to reach members of a local Indian tribe to find out how they want to preserve the artifacts.
"Sites such as this are carefully governed by federal Native American protection laws," an ODOT release states. "ODOT is currently coordinating with the Native American tribes in the area to determine what specific requirements they may have regarding protecting the site."
Buchman said because the artifacts were found on state land, as opposed to private land, archeological research must be done and laws apply such as the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act.
The federal Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act, passed in 1990, provides a process to return certain cultural items to descendants and affiliated tribes. Under the act, inventories or summaries of items must be collected and descendants or local tribes must be sent notices that the items have been discovered.
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