The Toolesboro Dog-Paw Pot: A Unique Middle Woodland Vessel	by William Green
Central States Archaeological Societies 2020 October Journal	Beloit, Wisconsin

 

This excerpt from "The Toolesboro Dog-Paw Pot: A Unique Middle Woodland Vessel" published in the 2020 Central States Archaeological Societies 2020 October Journal Read the complete column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2020 October Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2021

Betty and Dale Roberts holding the Ted Watson Memorial Award presented to them in 1971.

The Toolesboro Mound Group (13LA29) is a National Historic Landmark and an Iowa State Preserve. It is situated on a bluff top overlooking the Mississippi River valley at the mouth of the Iowa River. The five-acre site is owned by the State Historical Society of Iowa, with the Louisa County Conservation Board responsible for maintenance and interpretation. Two large, well preserved mounds are easily accessible in a mowed, park-like setting (Fig. 1). Five more mounds are present in the adjacent woods. An interpretive center is staffed during limited hours between the Memorial Day weekend and the end of October. Located in the small community of Toolesboro, 25 miles north of Burlington on Iowa’s Great River Road (State Highway 99), the site is worth a visit any time of year. Adjacent to the site is the Littleton Brothers Memorial, a monument commemorating six local African American brothers who died in the Civil War.

Figure 2. Image from Stevenson (1879) showing copper sheet, pottery jar, and copper axe from Toolesboro.

While the Toolesboro State Historic Site preserves seven mounds, at least 13 more mounds once existed in a mile-long row on both sites of town. Those mounds, an adjoining octagonal earthwork, and a large Oneota village site (the McKinney site, 13LA1) attracted settlers’ attention from as early as 1840. Local residents and archaeology enthusiasts from the Muscatine and Davenport Academies of Science excavated many of the Toolesboro mounds in the 1800s. In the 20th century, archaeologists affiliated with the Davenport Public Museum (now Putnam Museum), University of Iowa, University of Illinois, and Iowa Archeological Society worked at the mounds and at nearby sites in and around Toolesboro.

The early mound excavators at Toolesboro were avid but untrained diggers. Only a few scanty records exist from their work. Some of the artifacts they found are housed at the Putnam Museum, but we do not know which specific mounds most of the objects came from or what they might have been associated with. We’re sure of one thing, though: almost every artifact recovered is Middle Woodland in age.

Figure 4. Image from a stereo photo showing the dog-paw decoration s on the vessel from Toolesboro.

 

The Middle Woodland period in eastern Iowa and western Illinois is best known as the time when “Hopewell” flourished. Hopewell refers to the networks and styles that connected many Middle Woodland societies throughout eastern North America around 2000 years ago. Exotic and elaborate objects and distinctive art styles characterize Hopewell material. Log crypts covered by mounds were common parts of Hopewell burial programs. Many types of elaborate Middle Woodland artifacts and tomb/mound burials actually appeared around 200 BC, about 100 years before the classic Hopewell style emerged.

John E. Stevenson, an attorney, was one of the Muscatine Academy of Science mound explorers. Stevenson excavated two mounds at Toolesboro in November 1878. Both mounds reportedy were 40 feet in diameter and about 5 feet in height. Stevenson used a pick, among other tools, to dig the mounds, in which he found bones, copper axes, a copper sheet and pottery. One pottery jar was especially notable. Stevenson published an ...

 

Read the complete column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2020 October Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2021