North American Database of Archaeological Geophysics
North American Database of Archaeological Geophysics
Abstract/Summary:
Project Name: Ward Village (32BL3), ND;
Reference: Kvamme, K.L. (1998). Geophysical Exploration at Ward Village (32BL3), Burleigh County, North Dakota, 1997 Field Season. Boston University, Department of Archaeology, Boston, Massachusetts. Submitted to the State Historical Society of North Dakota.
Ward Village is a fortified earthlodge village located on a promontory over the Missouri River, within a city park north of the city of Bismarck . Early maps of this site by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the U.S. National Park Service, made in the 1930s, include 43 house depressions and a fortified ditch with bastions. Poorly controlled excavations were made in 1934. At a later date several full-scale earthlodges were constructed on the site, but these were burned down and destroyed in the 1960s. Now part of Pioneer Park, many of these features are still visible along interpreted walkways that relate, through posted signs, basic facts about this site. Many of the house depressions appear as elongated ovals or circles. Along the eastern margin of the site the elongated ovals are oriented in a row-like fashion consistent with several of the long rectangular houses excavated at Huff Village, a short way down river. Long rectangular earthlodges seem to be present along with subrectangular and circular forms, a view consistent with poorly reported evidence from the excavations. The Lewis and Clark journals make no mention of this site or even that an old village was present suggesting its later occupation was before 1780. Ahler (personal communication) argues that Ward fits a temporal sequence sometime after Huff (about AD 1450) and before Slant Village (late 1500s) on the basis of ceramic characteristics.
A small part of Ward Village was geophysically explored on July 25, 1997. Due to the limited time available, only 800 m2 was surveyed using two geophysical instruments, a fluxgate magnetic gradiometer and an electrical resistance meter. The magnetic gradiometry and resistance surveys were modestly successful. In a 20 x 40 m area that exhibited three clear house depressions on the surface, the geophysics provided clear definition of the boundaries, shape, and size of two of them, and suggested individual house features including an interior hearth and an entranceway. Findings beneath a third house depression were less clear. One scenario for this feature is a single house, but with two possible boundary definitions. A second scenario sees a second house partially intruding over an earlier one.