Prehistory Of The Little Blue River Valley, Western Missouri: Archeological Investigations At Blue Springs Lake

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kansas City District is presently constructing Blue Springs Lake on the East Fork of the Little Blue River in Jackson County, Missouri. The location of the project is in the tall grass prairie forest mosaic of the eastern Prairie Plains (Figure 1). This area is in the West Missouri Management Unit as defined by the Preliminary Draft Master Plan for Archaeological Resource Protection in Missouri prepared by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. Completion and operation of the lake will directly impact and result in the loss of significant archaeological data at three sites 23JA143, the Cold Clay site (23JA155) and the Black Belly site (23JA238), all located within the project area.
Test excavations at the three sites indicated that they contained intact deposits associated with poorly known cultural periods in the Little Blue drainage and the Kansas City area in general. Work at the Cold Clay site (23JA155) indicated the presence of a late Middle Archaic component that predates the Late Archaic Nebo Hill occupation of the area (Schmits and Reust 1980). Work at the Black Belly site (23JA238) indicated the presence of Middle Woodland, Late Woodland and Mississippian period May Brook phase components (Schmits and Reust 1982b). 23JA143 was initially recognized as containing a Middle Woodland component (Peterson and Schmits 1982). Further testing of the site, however, revealed the presence of a deeply buried early Middle Archaic component eroding from a cutbank of the Little Blue River (Schmits et al. 1984).

美国陆军工程兵团（U.S. Army Corps of Engineers）堪萨斯城分部（Kansas City District）目前正在密苏里州（Missouri）杰克逊县（Jackson County）的小布卢河（Little Blue River）东叉河段建设布卢斯普林斯湖（Blue Springs Lake）。该项目选址位于东部草原平原（eastern Prairie Plains）的高草草原-森林镶嵌带（tall grass prairie forest mosaic），详见图1。该区域隶属于密苏里州自然资源部（Missouri Department of Natural Resources）编制的《密苏里州考古资源保护初步总体规划草案》（Preliminary Draft Master Plan for Archaeological Resource Protection in Missouri）所划定的西密苏里管理单元（West Missouri Management Unit）。该湖的建成与运营将直接影响项目区域内的三处遗址——23JA143、冷粘土遗址（Cold Clay site，23JA155）与黑腹遗址（Black Belly site，23JA238），并造成其重要考古数据的遗失。

对上述三处遗址的试掘（Test excavations）结果显示，其保存有与小布卢河流域及堪萨斯城地区鲜为人知的文化时期相关的原生堆积。对冷粘土遗址（23JA155）的发掘表明，此处存在一处晚于该区域晚阿恰伊克时期（Late Archaic）尼博山（Nebo Hill）遗存的中阿恰伊克晚期（late Middle Archaic）遗存（Schmits与Reust，1980）。对黑腹遗址（23JA238）的发掘则显示，此处存在中伍德兰文化期（Middle Woodland）、晚伍德兰文化期（Late Woodland）以及密西西比时代（Mississippian period）的梅布鲁克阶段（May Brook phase）遗存（Schmits与Reust，1982b）。23JA143最初被认为仅包含中伍德兰文化期遗存（Peterson与Schmits，1982），但后续进一步试掘发现，该遗址存在一处深埋于小布卢河侵蚀陡岸之下的早中阿恰伊克时期遗存（Schmits等，1984）。