A geochronological approach is used to examine the temporal and spatial parameters of terminal Late Fort Ancient (∼1450 –1750 CE) habitation sites in the Little Miami-Ohio Rivers confluence area. We use a Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates, microtephrochronology, a biostratigraphic indicator (Bison bison), and ethnohistorical records to examine terminal Late Fort Ancient sites in this region. Circular, stockaded villages (≤ 5 ha), consisting of single-family dwellings were replaced with large linear villages (≤ 8 ha), consisting of multifamily longhouses constructed parallel to the Little Miami and Ohio rivers. Smaller contemporary habitations and a plethora of underground maize silos suggest a seasonal pattern of population fission and fusion. At the time of Hernando de Soto's military conquests, ∼350 km to the south, terminal Late Fort Ancient villages in this region were increasing in number and size.
AustinRJ (2011) Gunflints from Fort Brooke: A study and some hypotheses regarding gunflint procurement. The Florida Anthropologist64(2): 85–106.
2.
ClarkCM (1887) The Picturesque Ohio: A Historical Monograph of A River. Cincinnati: Cranston and Curts/Hunt and Eaton Publishers.
3.
ClaytonLAKnightVJMooreEC (1993) The DeSoto Chronicles: The Expedition of Hernando de Soto to North America in 1539–1543. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
4.
CookRA (2017) Continuity and Change in the Native American Village: Multicultural Origins and Descendants of the Fort Ancient Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press.
5.
CookRAFargherLF (2008) The incorporation of Mississippian traditions into Fort Ancient societies: A preliminary view of the shift to shell-tempered pottery Use in the middle Ohio Valley. Southeastern Archaeology27(2): 222–237.
6.
CowanCW (1998) Fort ancient culture. In: GibbonG (eds) Archaeology of Prehistoric Native America: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing Inc, 287–289.
7.
CoxIJ (1905) The Journeys of Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. New York: Barnes.
8.
CurrenC (1987) The route of the Soto Army through Alabama. Alabama De Soto Commission, University of Alabama, State Museum of Natural History, Tuscaloosa.
9.
DalbyT (2007) Geological Aspects of Key Archaeological Sites in Northern Kentucky and Southern Ohio. Columbus: Ohio Geological Survey.
10.
DensmoreF (1929) Chippewa Customs. Minneapolis: Minnesota Historical Society Press.
11.
DrookerPB (1996) Madisonville metal and glass artifacts: Implications for western fort ancient chronology and interaction networks. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology21(2): 145–190.
12.
DrookerPB (1997) The View From Madisonville: Protohistoric Western Fort Ancient Interaction Patterns. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
13.
DrookerPB (1998) Madisonville. In: GibbonG (eds) Archaeology of Prehistoric Native America: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing Inc, 486–487.
14.
DuryGH (1964) Principles of Underfit Streams. Geological Survey Professional Paper 452-A. Washington: United States Government Printing Office.
15.
GalbreathCB (1921) Expedition of Celoron to the Ohio Country in 1749. Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing.
16.
GriffinJB (1937) The chronological position and ethnological relationships of the fort ancient aspect. American Antiquity2(4): 273–276.
17.
GriffinJB (1943) Fort Ancient Aspect: Its Cultural and Chronological Position in Mississippi Valley Archaeology. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
18.
GriffinJB (1967) Eastern North American archaeology: A summary. Science (new York, N Y)156(3772): 175–191.
19.
HendersonG (1992) Fort Ancient Cultural Dynamics in the Central Ohio Valley. Madison: Prehistory Press.
20.
HildrethSP (1848) Pioneer History: Being an Account of the First Examinations of the Ohio Valley, and the Early Settlement of the Northwest Territory. Cincinnati: HW Derby and Co.
21.
HootonEAWilloughbyCC (1920) Indian Village Site and Cemetery Near Madisonville, Ohio. Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology: Cambridge.
22.
HudsonC (1985) De Soto in Arkansas: A brief synopsis. Field Notes205: 3–12.
23.
KenmotsuN (1990) Gunflints: A study. Historical Archaeology24: 92–124.
24.
LerchNKHaleWFLemasterDD (1982) Soil Survey of Hamilton County, Ohio. Columbus: Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
25.
LowCF (1880) Archaeological explorations near Madisonville, Ohio. Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History3: 40–68. 128–139, 203–220.
26.
MarshallGH (1921) De Celoron's Expedition To The Ohio in 1749. FJ Heer Printing Co: Columbus.
27.
MetzCL (1878) The prehistoric monuments of the Little Miami Valley. Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History1: 119–128.
28.
MetzCL (1881) The prehistoric monuments of Anderson Township, Hamilton County, Ohio. Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History4: 293–305.
29.
MeyerDLDavisRA (2009) A Sea Without Fish: Life in the Ordovician Sea of the Cincinnati Region. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
30.
ParkmanF (1896) La Salle and the Discovery of the Great WestNew York: New American Library.
31.
ParksW (1967) The Mariemont Story. Mariemont: Mariemont Preservation Foundation.
32.
PerzigianATenchPBraunD (1984) Prehistoric health in the Ohio River Valley. In: CohenMArmelagosG (eds) Paleopathology and the Origins of Agriculture. Cambridge: Academic Press, 347–366.
33.
PotterPE (2007) Exploring the Geology of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Region. Lexington: Kentucky Geological Survey.
34.
PurtillM (1999) Evidence for a Late Fort ancient fall/winter occupation in southwestern Ohio. North American Archaeologist20: 105–133.
35.
PurtillMLeoneKL (2014) New archaeobotanical and feature-use data from post-AD contexts at the Madisonville Site, Ohio. North American Archaeologist35: 211–242.
36.
RaileyJA (1992) Chipped stone artifacts. In: HendersonAG (eds) Fort Ancient Cultural Dynamics in the Middle Ohio Valley. Madison: Prehistory Press, 137–170.
37.
RanumPPeña-RosasJ PGarcia-CasalM N (2014) Global maize production, utilization, and consumption. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci1312: 105–112.
38.
ScamyhornRSteinleJ (1986) Stockades in the Wilderness. Dayton: Landfall Press.
39.
ShafferJ (2014) Protohistoric Fort Ancient Social and Climatic Adaptation at the Wynema Site (33Ha837). Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati.
40.
SmithZF (1907) Did De Soto discover Kentucky at the time of his conquest of Florida. Register of Kentucky State Historical Society5(15): 51–62.
41.
SpencerD (2016) Early Native Americans in West Virginia: The Fort Ancient Culture. Cheltenham: The History Press.
42.
StarrSF (1960) The Archaeology of Hamilton County, Ohio. Cincinnati: Cincinnati Museum of Natural History.
43.
SummersLP (1929) The Journal of Christopher Gist, 1750–1751, Annals of Southwest Virginia, 1769–1800. Abingdon: Pranava Books.
44.
SwantonJR (1939) Final Report of the United States De Soto Expedition Commission. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
45.
SwinneyTC (2015) Sources of Variability in Ceramic Artifacts Recovered From Refuse-Filled Pit Features at the Hahn's Field Site, Hamilton County, Ohio. Cincinnati: University of Cincinnati.
46.
TankersleyKB (1986) Bison exploitation by the Fort Ancient peoples of the Central Ohio Valley. North American Archaeologist7: 289–303.
47.
TankersleyKB (1992) Bison and subsistence change: The Ohio Valley and Illinois Valley connection. In: HawkinsRACroesDRIsaacBL (eds) Long-Term Subsistence Change in Prehistoric North America. Greenwich: JAI Press, 103–130.
48.
TankersleyKB (2008) The Mariemont earthwork: A fort ancient serpentine hydraulic structure. North American Archaeologist29: 123–143.
49.
TankersleyKBDunningNPOwenLA, et al. (2018) Positive platinum anomalies at three late Holocene high magnitude volcanic events in Western Hemisphere sediments. Scientific Reports8: 11298. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-29741-8.
50.
TankersleyKBDunningNPScarboroughV, et al. (2016) Catastrophic volcanism and its implication for agriculture in the Maya lowlands. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports5: 465–470.
51.
TankersleyKBHainesAL (2010) Was Newtown a fort ancient progenitor?North American Archaeologist31: 201–220.
52.
TankersleyKBLyleN (2019) Holocene faunal procurement and species response to climate change in the Ohio River Valley. North American Archaeologist40(4): 192–235.
53.
TankersleyKBMadhavKMCrowleyBE, et al. (2015) Quaternary chronostratigraphy and stable isotope paleoecology of Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, USA. Quaternary Research83: 479–487.
54.
TankersleyKBMeinhartJ (1982) Physical and structural properties of ceramic materials utilized by a Fort Ancient Group. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology7: 225–243.
55.
TankersleyKBNewmanR (2016) Dr Charles Louis Metz and the American Indian Archaeology of the Little Miami River Valley. Milford: Little Miami Publishing Company.
56.
TankersleyKBScarboroughVDunningNP, et al. (2011) Evidence for volcanic ash fall in the Maya Lowlands from a reservoir at Tikal, Guatemala. Journal of Archaeological Science38: 2925–2938.
57.
TellerJT (1973) Preglacial (Teays) and early glacial drainage in the Cincinnati area, Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. Geological Society of America Bulletin84: 3677–3688.
58.
ThwaitesRG (1899) Father Marquette. New York: D. Appleton and Company.
59.
WarrenS (2014) Worlds the Shawnee Made: Migration and Violence in Early America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press Books.
