An Archeological Overview and Assessment of the Ozarks National Scenic Riverways, Missouri

In 1964 Congress authorized Ozark National Scenic Riverways (OZAR) and the park was officially established in 1972. It is one of the initial eight wild and scenic rivers designated by the federal government. OZAR encompasses a linear corridor along ca. 241 km (ca. 150 miles) of the Current and Jack Fork Rivers in the Ozark Highlands of southeast Missouri.

The park contains a variety of prehistoric and historic archeological resources. A total of 480 sites are recorded in the files of either the Midwest Archeological Center (MW AC), State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) Historic Preservation Program (HPP) at the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Archaeological Survey of Missouri (ASM) at the University of Missouri (UMC), Missouri Archaeological Society (MAS), or OZAR as of September 2005. These sites were discovered and recorded in the course of cultural resource management (CRM) projects, university and museum-sponsored research, as well as those initially noted by nineteenth-century explorers and early settlers. Finally, this project's review of the historical documentation indicates that unverified prehistoric and historic sites are believed to exist inside the park. Despite this corpus of knowledge, large extents of the park still remain unexamined for archeological sites.

Briefly, this report outlines the culture history of the OZAR region along the upper and middle Current River and lacks Fork River, names the most important written references, and identifies the artifact repositories. All archeological investigations conducted within the OZAR boundaries are specified in the report. The bibliography contains all references cited in the text, all archeological reports for work in OZAR, the county histories and atlases for counties in the park, selected archeological citations for surrounding regions and other related topics, e.g., historical and geological publications. The history of archeological research is summarized with the next section. It provides an historical perspective on fieldwork in OZAR. This section includes pre-park activities and documentation from adjacent areas as necessary. The subsequent chapter on the archeological site database only includes individual descriptions for selected sites. These descriptions are drawn from the site forms, CRM reports, and other published and manuscript sources. A review of the entire archeological site database revealed examples of contradictory, incomplete, or missing data that needed correction whenever possible. Figures and tables are used to include site-specific data relevant to this report. The radiocarbon dates listed in this report are uncalibrated. A series of diagnostic artifacts from the park are illustrated for each prehistoric cultural stage.