Stories Hidden in Fort Ancient Teeth

SunWatch Village has been partially restored by the Dayton Society of Natural History.
Image Courtesy of the Ohio History Connection Archaeology Blog.

July 20, 2014.

Dr. Brad Lepper, of the Ohio History Connection Archaeology Blog and The Columbus Dispatch, has written a blog post and article about recent research by Dr. Robert Cook and Dr. Scott Aubry have conducted studying 'the teeth of ancient American Indians from four sites in southwestern Ohio which span almost the entirety of the Fort Ancient Culture ( A.D. 1000 - 1650)'.

"From precise measurements of the teeth, Cook and Aubry were able to determine that in early Fort Ancient societies, people tended to be partrilocal. By the middle Fort Ancient, people had shifted to being matrilocal. And in the late Fort Ancient, the societies appear to have been multilocal, meaning that people opportunistically connected “with kin on either side of the family.” "

-Brad Lepper, Ohio History Connection Archaeology Blog.

To read the full post, click here.

"Archaeologist Robert Cook and physical anthropologist Scott Aubry, both with The Ohio State University, examined the teeth of ancient American Indians from four sites in southwestern Ohio for clues to the changing patterns of where newlyweds chose to live."

-Brad Lepper, The Columbus Dispatch.

To read the full article, click here.

"Aggregation, interregional interaction, and postmarital residence patterning: A study of biological variation in the late prehistoric middle Ohio Valley"

• Robert A. Cook and B. Scott Aubry
• American Journal of Physical Anthropology, June 2014 (Vol. 154, Issue 2).
• Pages 270-278.

For more information about the Fort Ancient culture, visit:

• The Ancient Ohio Trail
• Earthworks Timeline
• Virtual First Ohioans
• Ohio History Central Encyclopedia