An archaeological survey of any large area such as a state should be expected to contribute much definite information as to the diversification of prehistoric cultures within the area, and should suggest the location of the boundaries of the areas occupied by the different cultures.
It is to be expected, however, that the location of such boundaries, at best, can be no more than roughly approximated. Further, since the occupancy of the state by different cultural groups was not necessarily a simultaneous occupancy, it is to be expected that the boundary of one culture, or group of cultural characters may often overlap a second, quite different group. In this way, any area may have its archaeological problem complicated by the superposition of one, two or even three or more different occupancies. Such boundaries are not to be thought of, therefore, as rigidly fixed, but rather as roughly defining a center, at which a custom, or group of customs, existed for a considerable period, and from which center such customs may have spread to adjoining territory.
By reference to Powell's1 map of the Linguistic Families of American Indians North of Mexico, it will be observed that the State of Kentucky lies almost entirely within the great Algonquian area. It was known to have been occupied by some of the numerous tribes of the Algonquian Linguistic group in the very early days of the historic period of North America, and it is natural to suppose that their occupancy antedated the coming of Columbus. Archaeological investigation confirms this supposition, and shows that over practically the whole state this great linguistic stock early had its representatives, widely scattered along the rivers and creeks where travel was easy and food plentiful. The density of this population in pre-Columbian times varied greatly in different portions of the state as investigation seems to show. In some portions, occupation began early and continued in these areas without interruption for perhaps centuries. In other portions of the state these people seem to have been only transient visitors, moving from place to place, and leaving, on any particular site, only a feeble reminder of their presence. This very numerous linguistic family which lived on into the historic period in the northern and eastern states, and which thus perpetuated its manners and customs long after its first contact with white civilization, gave every opportunity to ethnologists to study its culture, and to note its determining characteristics, and its level of development.
Archaeological research in Kentucky seems to indicate that this stock began its early residence as probably the most primitive of all the peoples who have left any considerable record within the state.
In much later times, that highly developed separate member of the Iroquoian Linguistic stock, the Cherokee, came into southern Kentucky to dwell in its numerous caverns and open-faced caves, and to leave its trace indelibly impressed on the archaeology of that region. This occupancy was not necessarily long nor continuous and the density of this population probably never very great.
That portion of the state west of the Tennessee River commonly called "The Purchase" and the area between the Tennessee River and Cumberland River, has been designated by Powell's map as within the area of the Muskhogean Linquistic stock. Besides those linguistic stocks which persisted into the historic period, leaving descendants from whom could be obtained information regarding their prehistoric ancestors, there were other peoples who at one time or another occupied definite areas in Kentucky for perhaps centuries, and who passed away, leaving no known descendants and no proof of their existence save the archaeological record.
By reference to the map shown as the Frontispiece of this report it will be seen that the state may be divided into eight areas, having quite distinct archaeological characteristics, the boundaries of which, as has been pointed out in the Introduction to this report, generally follow some marked change in the physiography of the region.
It is proposed to discuss each of these areas separately, to indicate particularly their outstanding archaeological features and their cultural connections where known.

Area I. (The Mound Area)

This area, which covers in its southern and central portion the heart of the famous Bluegrass Region, and which extends northeastward to the Ohio River, is in general a very fertile land, well watered, and in prehistoric times heavily timbered. Dotted here and there are to be found salt springs producing so-called "salt licks", areas to which animals, prehistoric as well as historic, resorted in great numbers to obtain salt, as shown by the skeletons of mastodon, mammoth, and extinct species of bison which have been found in the marshes about these licks. In prehistoric times this area must have been a vertiable hunters' paradise. This area is characterized archaeologically by the great number and size of its prehistoric mounds, many associated with village sites of great area, and often with what have been called forts or fortifications. It is to be doubted if there is another area within the United States where, over the whole area, the density of the earth mounds is any greater. While this evidence of prehistoric occupation is plentiful, the cultural problem of this area immediately south, of the Ohio River might be expected to show archaeological similarity with the area of southern Ohio. In Mason County near Mayslick, Harland I. Smith developed an extensive site of the great Fort Ancient Culture. An area of some sixty acres appears to be a continuous cemetery and contained at the time of his investigation two large mounds from which he removed hundreds of skeletons. This site is only some sixty miles south of the Gartner Site of Ohio.
The authors have developed at Fullerton, Greenup County,2 an extensive Fort Ancient cemetery, and have also explored a burial mound3 in Nicholas County, of the same culture. This culture, first named and described in Ohio as the result of the early work of the late Professor William C. Mills,4 is characterized in Kentucky by cemeteries of flexed, partially flexed, and extended burials of bodies in the flesh as shown in the accompanying figures. This usual serrated triangular arrow, and arrow points of horn tips are always found. Sandstone game stones are plentiful in such sites, and the great use for ornamentation of shell and animal teeth is very noticeable. Shards of shell-tempered pottery of large size, having incised or pressed scroll designs, and often having large pot handles and lugs, are common on such Fort Ancient culture sites. This culture having begun the practice of agriculture, as shown by storage bins in the earth, and having thus become sedentary, is certainly responsible for some of the major earthworks of this region. While its archaeological contribution is definite and considerable, yet it appears it is not responsible for all or even most of the mounds and fortifications to be found in this central region.
A great deal of further investigation must be undertaken before the question of who built the large earth mounds of Central Kentucky has been answered. So far, none of the very large mounds of central Kentucky have ever been scientifically excavated. The reason for this is that it would require many months and thousands of dollars properly to complete such a task. Until such time as several of these larger mounds are carefully excavated, their cultural significance must remain in doubt. Several of these mounds have, many years ago, been dug into by persons little trained in careful observation. In most cases they made no report of their findings at the time, and in only a few instances have artifacts found been preserved to the present time. The most suggestive of such investigations reported is that of Mr. Tyler in Montgomery County (q. v.) some forty-five years ago. The finding in this mound of copper bracelets, large slabs of mica and cremated human bones, strongly suggests connection with the Hopewell Culture5 of Ohio. The finds of Professor Burroughs6 at the stone fort in Madison County (q. v.) of beaten copper breastplates, or armor, again suggests Hopewell Culture connection.
The prehistoric fort in Greenup County, almost opposite the mouth of the Scioto River on the Ohio, seems to the authors to bear external evidence of Hopewell, origin. While no definite proof of the Hopewell Culture in Kentucky has yet been discovered, it seems probable that this region has been influenced to some extent by this culture. Thus in Area I there remains a very promising field for the investigator with sufficient time and financial aid to make a thorough examination of one or more of the major earthworks of this very important region.

Area II. (Cliff Dwellings)

This area immediately adjacent to the mound area on the east embraces the central portion of the mountain regions of eastern Kentucky. In this area the rapid erosion of many small streams has made many miles of narrow valleys, leaving nearly vertical cliff walls from fifty to two hundred feet in height. The mile upon mile of winding stream beds has thus left many rock shelters known locally as rock houses, or ash caves, which were used by the prehistoric inhabitants. Many of these shelters are very large, some several hundred feet long, with rock overhang of from thirty to fifty feet, and many quite dry. Into these, primitive man carried wood for fire and animals for food. The bones and the ashes accumulated in stratified layers sometimes ten feet deep. In such a site, if undisturbed, each succeeding layer of ash contained a record of contemporary custom and artifacts, which although covered by later deposits, would be well preserved, if no water entered the shelter from the outside, since the ashes remained so dry as to prevent all forms of bacterial action. In such situations, bone, shell, gourd shards, textiles, leather, etc., may be found perfectly preserved.
In the cliff-dweller region there is a great degree of similarity of sites. Not all are of the same age, to be sure, and all have not the same amount of accumulated debris, but the series of artifacts, burial customs and apparent steps of development of culture are so nearly identical in the scores of sites investigated as to make it reasonable to suppose that all such cliff sites have had a similar history of occupancy.
The authors believe that these early cliff dwellers were members of the Algonquian stock. They seem to have begun occupying these rock shelters early in their history. The lower ash beds have no pottery of any kind, no flint implements and only the crudest forms of hammerstone. Large animal bones broken for their marrow, mingled with mussel shells, nut hulls and fish scales form a considerable portion of the refuse in the ash beds. Later levels show gourd shards, grooved axes and very crude limestone hoes, indicating the beginning of crude agriculture. Crude pot shards occur only in the top six inches of the ash, where found at all. A few sites have produced a few paddle marked shards showing either Cherokee manufacture or Cherokee influence. Woven textile and moccasins of both textiles and leather have been found in the upper layers of the ash.
Many burials of women and children occur in these ash beds, and such burials appeared to be no bar to continued occupancy of the site. These burials were partially or completely flexed, in the flesh, but at least one showed definitely to be a burial of a dismembered body in the flesh. Although dozens of ash beds have been investigated and scores of burials of women and children have been found, no known burial in the flesh of an adult male has so far been discovered in or about these ash beds. The question of what disposition was made of adult males, may have been answered by the finding in one site in Wolfe County of a cache of artifacts, some fifty-seven in number, associated with the charred and almost entirely burned bones of what appeared to be a fully developed human adult. These bones and artifacts are preserved, just as they were found, in the museum of the University of Kentucky. It is believed that future careful investigation will disclose that adult males were cremated after death, and the residue buried in the ashes of the cliff dwelling. Unless marked by such an unusual cache of artifacts, the detection of human ashes in the mass of the ash bed would be difficult and uncertain.
These cliff dwellers made considerable use of bone and shell, mostly artifacts of utility. They produced no gorgets or beads or pendants of shell, but used shell as spoons and as scrapers. They made a characteristic bone awl from the shoulder blade of the deer. A few sites show the use of so-called "hominy holes'' in boulders, to grind corn. This method of grinding was not extensively used and apparently came late in their occupancy of these sites, after they had begun to practice crude agriculture.

Area IV. (Algonquian)

This area embraces a portion of Central Kentucky and extends northward to contain a great stretch of the Ohio River Valley. It contains relatively very little evidence of prehistoric occupation except immediately adjacent to the Ohio River. In most of the interior counties, only scattered graves, mostly destroyed by cultivation, give evidence of Algonquian occupancy. A few burial mounds are found in this area, but they are small and low, and have been largely destroyed by cultivation. The usual cemetery in this region consist's of a few graves two to six at a site, usually on some high hillcrest. These graves are covered with flat stones, a double row being set on edge and leaned together at the top. Other stones are then leaned against this first row, and sometimes an area of ten feet square is covered with sloping stones. Along this river are a few larger mounds associated with village sites, some of which have yielded material strongly suggestive of Fort Ancient Culture connection, which would be expected from its contacts with Ohio and with the mound area (I) in Kentucky to the eastward of this region.

Area V. (Hominy Hole People)

This area embraces much of the drainage area of the Green River on its south border and extends northeastward to include the Salt River. This is a second cliff dweller area though quite different from that of Area II. Here the shelters are but overhanging rock strata or ledges jutting out over a small area. The cliffs are usually not more than thirty feet high and the actual shelters, while numerous are individually small, usually not larger than would meet the need of a single family. Here evidence of occupation as usual is the ash bed under the shelters. Often such shelters were so small that the ashes were periodically swept off the ledge occupied, and falling to a lower level formed a talus at the foot of the cliff, which grew deeper and broader as occupancy of the ledge above continued. Burials of men, women and children were often made in the ashes and debris swept from the shelter floor. There is no known evidence of cremation. Bone and shell were used extensively. A few slate pendants, shell and bone beads and other objects of ornamentation have been found in shelter floor ashes. The distinguishing feature of these sites is the so-called "hominy hole" used for grinding corn.
At every site, from one to five or six of these conical holes will be found in the shelter floor or rock ledge. They are from four to ten inches in diameter at the top, tapering to perhaps three inches at the bottom and varying in depth from one foot to three feet. They are associated with a "bell shaped" pestle which was used pointed end downward in these holes to grind corn by percussion, the pestle being lashed to a suitable staff or handle several feet long. A number of pestles have been found in these "hominy holes", evidently left there by their users. The nature of these shelters was not such as would offer especial opportunity for preservation of perishable artifacts, so no textiles or leather objects have been found. A few crude hoes and the hominy holes and pestles suggest rudimentary agriculture. The cultural connections of these cliff dwellers is uncertain. They appear to be quite distinct from the cliff dwellers of eastern Kentucky, having distinctly different customs, and making artifacts of type forms easily differentiated from those of Area II.

Area VI. (Shell Mound Area)

Along the Green River in its passage through McLean, Muhlenberg, Ohio and Butler counties, and therefore south and west of the hominy hole area, is a region distinguished by great shell heaps near the river banks. These shell mounds represent a vast accumulation of snail and mussel shell, mixed with animal bones and camp debris, indicating that these mounds were formed by actual deposit of camp refuses and suggesting that this accumulation of shell represented so much food consumed. If this was the method of the formation of these shell heaps, their size and number would seem to suggest a large population from this limited region, and a long continued occupation. In many of these mounds, the packed shell is ten to twelve feet deep, and many cover several acres in area. The most important archaeological investigation within this area was made by C. B. Moore7 at Indian Knoll where he discovered many skeletons and certain characteristic artifacts. The so-called "net spacers'' and weaving hooks of horn have not been found elsewhere. The circular burials at this site are distinct from surrounding territory. Moore has suggested that these mounds are the result of one of the many subdivisions
of the Algonquin family.
This shell mound area seems to indicate a people living wholly by fishing and hunting. There is no evidence of agriculture, and beyond the mounds themselves no evidence of permanent occupation of a given site by the same local group. It is possible that these mounds represent the very long accumulation of shell over centuries of time by a group or groups more or less transient. If so, these mounds may be among the oldest of evidence of mound occupancy in this state.

Area VII. (Stone Grave People)

This area, lying between the Tennessee River and the Green River, is very rich in prehistoric remains and presents a very complex archaeological problem. It is a region of earth mounds, some quite large, village sites and cemeteries.
It would appear that possibly three distinct and different peoples lived within this area. In the order of their age they may be designated:

The terms used herein to describe this archaeological complex are not of our own selection but have been used by other writers to describe conditions elsewhere quite similar to those in this area.
Stone grave cemeteries are fairly numerous in this area, and in some sites fairly extensive. By stone grave is meant a rectangular box made of six to eight stones set on edge, carefully joined, to form a box to receive a full length burial of a body in the flesh. These graves were usually lined at the bottom with flat stones and had other flat stones for covers. On at least one site these stone graves were under mounds containing crematory pits and ossuaries of the Siouan group. Hence, it is believed to represent, in general, the oldest and first occupancy of this area.
These graves are generally devoid of artifacts, although sometimes they may contain small mortuary pottery vessels. Associated with these are extended burials and many burials of bones at the head or foot of the individual within the stone grave. Thus on such sites, there is definite evidence of at least two different methods of disposal of the dead. Because of a dearth of artifacts in stone grave cemeteries, and because of the complexities of the problem, the cultural connections of the stone grave people is as yet uncertain.
Within this area has been found, built upon a stone grave cemetery, and yet seemingly at a much later date, a great village site and group of sixty or more mounds, many of which upon investigation have proven to be crematory pits for burning the bones of the dead. Associated with the practice of cremation, strongly suggestive of some members of the Siouan Linguistic Stock, are to be found, often within the same mound, great collections of jumbled human bones. The ossuaries contain oftimes the bones of hundreds of individuals, packed into small stone chimney-like vaults, similar to the crematory pits. Here again was a twofold custom of dealing with the dead. Artifacts found in this association are few, the most important being pottery elbow pipes. These pipes and burial customs are quite similar to those described by Fowke in Missouri and seem to justify the suggestion that these sites may be ascribed to an early Siouan occupation of this region. No evidence is presented that this group is distinct from the stone grave people, except that on many stone grave sites there is no evidence of cremation, and where it is found it is on top of what appears to be very old stone graves.
The other group within this area which has been designated the Gordon Culture has been so called because of its apparent likeness to a culture so described by Meyer8 in the Cumberland River region of Tennessee. This group is distinguished for the erection of earth mounds over the sites of buildings or temples. These buildings, made of wattlework between posts driven in the earth, are finally destroyed by fire. They are covered over with earth while the fire is yet burning, and a new structure erected, which goes the way of the first. Thus a mound is erected containing the charred remains of wattlework walls and post molds marking the form of the structure. The mounds show generally several levels of occupation. This culture practiced agriculture and used corn, the remains being found in their temple sites. They were extensive manufacturers of pottery, producing many distinct types. Many pottery specimens found on Gordon sites show outside influence. One characteristic form of pottery is the textile marked vessel of large size commonly called salt pans. Shards of these vessels are found in great numbers incorporated in the mounds covering the sites of burned buildings.
While on some sites these earth mounds are found near to stone grave cemeteries, not all such sites are so located. Some of the larger of these sites show full length extended burials in the flesh, and are accompanied by a variety of artifacts. This would argue a complete separation from the stone grave people, and also from the so-called Siouan group in this area, as no evidence of human cremation has so far been found in sites designated herein as Gordon Culture. In this area there remains a fruitful field for investigation. The problem is complicated by multiple occupancy by what seems to be different peoples. Also the opportunity for stratification of artifacts and culture customs is multiplied. Much field work yet remains to be done before the archaeology of this region is measurably worked out.

Area VIII. (Muskhogean Area)

This area is rich in prehistoric remains, has many mounds, earthworks and village sites. The archaeological problem is particularly complex. The presence of the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, with all their tributaries, made distant travel for the dwellers in this region quite easy. They were thus lying at the center and focus of prehistoric trade and travel, and it is to be expected that here change of customs would be rapid and evidence of outside influence great. Archaeological investigation confirms this expectation. Artifacts from this region are not only numerous but have a wide divergence in type. Sites of this area have produced a wealth of pottery showing that the ceramic art was very highly developed. While many forms of pottery were produced, this area is noted for the variety of zoomorphic forms, as well as the high development reached in the "water bottle" type of pottery vessel.
While the problem of the prehistoric cultures of this area has not been solved, its connections and affinities are basicly southern, yet show modification and variation for the reasons stated.
It is believed that the largest contribution to its pre-history were the early Chickasaw, or other members of the Muskhogean Linguistic group.

from Archaeological Survey of Kentucky Volume II - Archaeological Atlas of Kentucky, Webb and Funkhouser  - 1932