A team from the Toledo and Indianapolis offices of Civil & Environmental Consultants shifts through excavated dirt during archaeological dig near Indian Hills Elementary School in Rossford. Visit www.sent-trib.com to watch a video.
A team from the Toledo and Indianapolis offices of Civil & Environmental Consultants marks off a section of ground in preparations for an archaeological dig near Indian Hills Elementary School in Rossford.
ROSSFORD — Archaeologists are digging at the former Indian Hills Elementary School on Glenwood Road, in an effort to determine if there is evidence of a possible Native American burial site.
In the woods behind the old school, Michael Coonfare, with Civil & Environmental Consultants, has a team of five archaeological specialists that began work on Monday.
With strings and metal stakes, they have laid out grids, a meter square, with sections of land that their ground penetrating radar has determined are anomalies. Their GPR is a non-intrusive tool. On Thursday, the team dug down about 2 feet, and started sifting the dirt through screens with ½-inch holes, to find out what the anomalies are.
“The GPR reads a lot of different things. It could be a rock. It could even be a pocket of sand, or something different from the soil around it, that gives off a different kind of read,” Coonfare said. “It isn’t going to tell you if it’s a projectile point or a copper bowl. It’s just saying, based on the GPR, that I’m getting different readings right here, than I am right there.”
They already found a man-made projectile point that could be an arrowhead. It was sitting on the surface, under a leaf.
“It’s a finding, but it’s not different from what people find on farm fields all over Ohio,” Coonfare said.
He said that there is a large buffer with undulating terrain between where the current work is being done and the locations at the other end of the property where items were previously found. In that buffer zone is a previous Army Corps of Engineers project that redirected parts of Grassy Creek with steep slopes that he estimated to 30 feet in height, making it very difficult to determine what is natural or man-made disturbance.
“We have not found anything that would put it on the historical list – on this end of the property – yes, for the other end,” Coonfare said. “At the very least, there will be further conversations with the state historical preservation office, just to communicate what the findings are. Then we will work with the city of Rossford and SHPO, to identify next steps.”
The entire Indian Hills property is owned by the city. Investigations started last year as part of the National Historic Preservation Act Section 106 program, which determines the historical significance of properties.
The site is 39 acres, but that has been narrowed down to 10 acres where material with historically significant items have been identified.
“Back in the late ’60s there were some archaeological finds on this 40 acres property, on the far east end, we’re on the far west end. The city is going through a due diligence process, trying to assess if there are any significant artifacts on this end of the property, similar to what was identified on the east end of the property,” Coonfare said.
The eastern end had a palisade, estimated to have been in use approximately 500 years ago, where many different items were found, including: bowls, cups and projectile points.
Todd Audet, Rossford director of economic development, has been heading up the project for the city.
CEC was chosen for their expertise in dealing with both environmental and archaeological finds.
Future use of the land is dependent on the city land-use master plan, Audet said.
“The determination is not made by any one person,” Audet said. “Nothing has been decided on, for the highest and best use of the land. That’s what this is all about, it’s exercising the due diligence and determining if there are cultural artifacts and if it’s going to change, or preclude, possible future use. Maybe it will be a park? If there’s not much out here, we will go back to the community and they will decide what will be done out here.”
The significance of the larger parcel first came to the attention of the city in 1962. Skeletal remains were found by children digging a “fort.” This was followed by official work by archaeologist Marshall Becker, from the University of Toledo, with a large-scale excavation of the area conducted by the university in 1967, with it being called Indian Hills after that time.
