Professor of geology to give presentation on archaeological excavations near Prairie Chapel
COSHOCTON – Archaeological excavations near Prairie Chapel in Coshocton County reveal 700 years of intermittent use by Native Americans. Dr. Nigel Brush, professor of geology at Ashland University, has recently completed work on this Late Prehistoric Period site (A.D. 1000 to 1700). Dr. Brush will give a presentation of his findings, The James Crawford Site and 18th Century Captivity Narratives: In the Heart of “Indian Country,” at the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum on Thursday, April 23 at 6:30 p.m. He will discuss his archaeological excavations at the Crawford Site, as well as the proximity of this site in both space and time to the many stories of English captives who were brought to this area by Native Americans during the 1700s: Muskingum’s Town (Christopher Gist’s account of the killing of a captive), Bouquet’s Camp (return of captives), White Woman’s Rock (death of a captive), White Woman’s Town (captive Mary Harris), and Tullihas (captive James Smith). Since the Crawford Site was occupied off and on from A.D. 1000 through the Wellsburg Phase (A.D. 1500 to 1700), Dr. Brush speculates that native peoples may have still been occasionally using this site in the mid-1700s when many of these early captivity narratives were recorded.
Dr. Nigel Brush joined the Ashland University faculty in 2000 and received full professorship in 2015. His areas of research include geoarchaeology, dendrochronology and millennial-scale climate change events. He is a co-director of the Ashland/Wooster/Columbus Archaeological & Geological Consortium and former curator and co-founder of the Killbuck Valley Natural History Museum. Dr. Brush received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California at Los Angeles and did post-doctoral work in geology at The Ohio State University and the University of Akron.
Program admission is $6 for adults and $3 for students (Friends of the Museum, $1 off). The Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum is located in Historic Roscoe Village at 300 N. Whitewoman St., Coshocton. For more information, contact the museum at 740-622-8710 or e-mail jhmuseum@jhmuseum.org. Museum hours are 1 – 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. The Ohio Arts Council helped fund this program with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.
Category: Arts & Entertainment
