Bradley T. Lepper: Research on Fort Ancient village shows two periods of occupation

SunWatch Village, on the south side of Dayton, is one of the most thoroughly studied sites of the Fort Ancient culture, a group that lived in central and southern Ohio from about 1000 to the late 1500s.

The Dayton Museum of Natural History (now the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery) excavated large areas of the site in the 1970s and '80s, revealing a circle of houses, work areas and ceremonial spaces. Today, parts of the village have been re-created on the ancient foundations, providing a remarkable glimpse into the lives of these early Ohio farmers.

The original excavators concluded that the site was occupied for a relatively brief period in the late 1100s, but new results, reported in the latest issue of American Antiquity, are changing our understanding of this remarkable site.