Huber Site

The site was excavated under the auspices of the University of Chicago by W.C. Bennet, but no comprehensive site report was published. Further excavations took place in 1956 and in 1990 an analysis was published by the Illinois Department of Transportation and the Center for American Archaeology including data from both excavations.[1][2]

Excavations at the site yielded prehistoric artifacts, pit features, burials and animal bone.[1][2]

Upper Mississippian Huber pottery

Pottery sherds from the Huber Site

Archaeologists often find pottery to be a very useful tool in analyzing a prehistoric culture. It is usually very plentiful at a site and the details of manufacture and decoration are very sensitive indicators of time, space and culture.[6]

The Huber site is the type site for an Upper Mississippian culture known for its distinctive shell-tempered pottery. Although the Huber tradition was well known by archaeologists for decades following the original excavations, a formalized typology was not developed until Charles Faulkner devised one in his 1972 report on the Griesmer site in northwestern Indiana, just to the east of Chicago.[7]

Huber pottery is characterized by shell-tempered, plain surface pots with globular vessel shape and restricted orifices with everted rims. Some vessels also have strap handles. Decoration (when present) usually consists of vertical or obliquely applied incised or trailed lines generally running from the lip to the shoulder. Rarely, surfaces are cordmarked or smoothed-over cordmarked. The top of the lip is either plain or decorated with fine to wide notching. A minority also have punctate decoration, usually in combination with the trailed lines.[8][4][1][7]

18 different rim profile types were identified but almost all of them are everted, mostly sharply everted. The most common are everted with square lip; everted with the lip thickened on either the inside or outside; and everted with pointed lip. Almost half of the lips are unnotched. Of the body sherds showing incised lines, there were more fine-line incised lines than either medium- or wide-line.[1]

Following Faulkner's typology,[7] this is the proportion of the pottery types at the site:[1]

• Huber Plain - 82%, characterized by a plain surface
• Huber Trailed - 9%, characterized by a plain surface decorated with fine incised lines
• Huber Bold - 5%, characterized by a plain surface decorated with wide lines, possibly finger-trailed
• Huber Cordmarked - 1%, characterized by a cordmarked surface
• Fisher - less than 1% of the pottery was identified as belonging to the Fisher tradition, another Upper Mississippian culture which existed in the southern Lake Michigan region and was at least partially coterminous with Huber. Fisher pottery is characterized by shell-tempering and predominantly cordmarked surfaces, often decorated with curvilinear designs.[4]
• Other types - 2.5%

The trends in certain pottery traits are very time-sensitive and can be used as indicators of relative age. Based on information on other Huber sites in the area, archaeologists have determined early Huber pottery is more likely to have cordmarked surface finish; wide-trailed decoration; and notched lips. Late Huber pottery has predominately smooth surface finish; fine-line incised decoration; and unnotched lips.[1]

Temporal trends may be seen by a comparison to the nearby Hoxie Farm site. The pottery from the Huber site assemblage overwhelmingly has smooth surface with only 1% of sherds cordmarked; in contrast, Hoxie Farm's pottery was 23.5% cordmarked. 45% of incised decoration was fine-line incised, compared to 13% at Hoxie Farm. Also, almost 50% of lips are unnotched, compared to only 20% at Hoxie Farm. This indicates the Huber Site assemblage dates to a later time period than Hoxie Farm.[1]

Huber ware (and Huber culture) are often mentioned together with Fisher. Both Fisher and Huber are Upper Mississippian cultures which existed in the southern Lake Michigan region in the states of northern Illinois and Indiana and southwest Michigan. Both have shell-tempered pottery but Huber is predominantly plain surface with fine-line decoration and Fisher is predominantly cordmarked surface with wide-line decoration.[7][8][9]

The relationship of Huber and Fisher both with each other and with other Upper Mississippian cultures in the area has long been a matter of debate and speculation among archaeologists. James Griffin, upon examining the artifacts from the original 1929 excavations, felt that Huber was a Component of the Oneota Aspect based on the form and design of the pottery, close to the Orr and Lake Winnebago foci, and that Fisher was part of a separate focus.[2] Since that date, we’ve obtained a great deal more information and now we know that Fisher is the older of the two and Huber is the only one that has been found in association with early Historic European trade goods. Nevertheless, both Fisher and Huber coexist at the same sites seemingly at the same time. Hoxie Farm, Griesmer and Moccasin Bluff are examples of this.[7][1][9][8]

Most archaeologists now believe that both Fisher and Huber are taxonomically related phases within the Oneota tradition. The relationship between the two is time-related in that Huber is derived from Fisher; but there are also late Fisher sites like Fifield, where Fisher pottery is associated with late Prehistoric artifacts, so it is possible that Fisher also survived until the Protohistoric or early Historic period.[7][9][8]

The Huber site has had an outsized influence in archaeological circles, especially in the American Midwest, as the namesake of an Upper Mississippian culture. Several of the artifacts are also noteworthy:

Several items of personal adornment and domestic utility were found here, and provide a glimpse into daily life; such as hair accessories, bracelets, pendants, and hoes made of bison and elk scapulas. A bone or antler dice implies games or gambling went on at the site. A bone rasp indicates music was being performed for entertainment or for ceremonial purposes.[1]

There was no direct evidence of cultivated plants at Huber, but that is probably due to the fact that plant remains were not systematically collected during excavations. The fact that there are hoes made of bison scapula and elk scapula is indirect evidence of agricultural activities.[1] Furthermore, cultivated corn remains have been found at other Huber sites such as Hoxie Farm, so there is no doubt the Huber society was agriculturally based.[10]

Based on the type of animal bone present, and the presence of agricultural implements such as the scapula hoes, the researchers felt that the site was occupied at least from spring through fall.[1]

The engraved pebbles found at Huber are an indication of the Native Americans belief in the spirit world. Early observers of the Ojibwe Midewiwin Society reported that similar engravings were made in birch-bark before a hunt in the belief that drawing the animal would facilitate the hunter's success.[1]

There are several Huber sites in the Chicago and northwest Indiana area; besides Huber itself, there are Hoxie Farm, Oak Forest, Anker, Bowmanville and Griesmer. It is thought that these sites formed a settlement system which included large villages and smaller sites used for ceremonial and mortuary purposes. Huber may be one of the ceremonial/mortuary sites due to several factors:[1]

• Burials were found there
• Dog bone was present; dog sacrifice and dog meat consumption had ceremonial implications in Great Lakes Native American society[11]
• Several of the artifacts had possible religious connotations, such as the bone rasp, the personal adornment items and especially the engraved pebbles[1]

• James A. Brown, ed. (1990), At The Edge of Prehistory: Huber Phase Archaeology in the Chicago Area, Center for American Archaeology, Kampsville, Illinois