ABSTRACT
My purpose in this paper is to describe some of the problems, solutions, and expectations of Archaic Period research in the western Ozark Highland locality of the lower Pomme de Terre River, Missouri (Figure 4.1), a part of the larger middle Osage River basin. This drainage is familiar to Quaternary specialists as the location of Albert C. Koch's 1840 excavation of the American mastodon and its claimed association with artifacts. More recent investigations, beginning in the mid-1960s, have reevaluated Koch's find (McMillan 1976; Wood 1976a) as well as examined deeply buried, multilayered sites, among them Rodgers Shelter and Phillips Spring. The results of the overall interdisciplinary program are notable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the light it sheds on orchestrating team research over several years, a topic to which I shall return later. Pertinent to the Archaic are the many studies conducted at specific sites. Among these are Blackwell Cave (Falk 1969; Wood 1961), Rodgers Shelter (Ahler 1971; Kay 1980b ; Klippel et al. 1978; McMillan 1970, 1971; Purdue 1980; Walthall 1981; Wood and McMillan 1976), Phillips Spring (Chomko 1976, 1978; Chomko and Crawford 1978; Kay 1980b , 1980c; Kay et al. 1980; King 1980b), and several other springs in this (Wood 1976a) or nearby drainages (Saunders 1977). Other Archaic site distributions have also been presented (Joyer and Roper 1980), as have preliminary comparisons of Archaic adaptive strategies (Kay 1980a). Space limitations do not allow a comprehensive statement of all of the conclusions reached. But I shall attempt to convey in summary form and also through a discussion of the Late Archaic Sedelia phase a sense of what has been ascertained. The Pomme de Terre locality and selected Archaic and Woodland sites. (From <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4_20">Kay el al. [1980]</xref>; copyright Society for American Archaeology 1980; reprinted by permission from American Antiquity, volume 45, number 4.) https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315433530/b7e545a9-ce0e-403a-bbf3-cb5864e43213/content/fig4_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
