In 1988, a Minnesota Department of Transportation (DOT) construction project was proposed along U.S. Highway 14 from Highway 15 North of New Ulm, Minnesota, to Highway 99 at Nicollet. The entire project area was within Western Nicollet County in South-Central Minnesota, and included the town of Courtland between New Ulm and Nicollet.
Due to the many federal and state laws concerning cultural data protection, and cooperation agreements between governmental agencies at all levels, an archaeological survey was necessary to determine if any culturally significant sites would be affected by the planned Trunk Highway (T.H.)14 construction.
Also in 1988, the Minnesota Trunk Highway Archaeological
Reconnaissance Survey (MTHARS) started an introductory determination as to the
nature of the proposed building area. Seven sites were looked at in this
survey, only one of which had been recorded earlier. Through shovel tests and 1
x 1 meter test pits that were dug, six of these Native American limited use
habitation sites East of New Ulm were judged to contain artifacts too sparse to
worry about destroying, while the Sellner Findspot Site was avoided entirely
due to data gathered at this time. Also important, is that the six sites did
not meet National Register of Historic Places protection.
In December of 1989, MN DOT added the construction of a box culvert to their plans. The culvert would be put under T.H. 14 in order to carry creek water towards the Minnesota River floodplain in a newly proposed man-made channel from Heymans Creek.
Heymans Creek is located about one mile South-East of the city of New Ulm at the base of a steep 150 foot bluff, running about 835 feet above sea level. The Creek flows from the hill top area just above the Minnesota River Valley, down through a steep and narrow, thickly wooded ravine, into a gently sloping plain, then under Highway 14, and finally ceases in a narrow cut into the silty loam and dark sandy clay of the riverbottom area as the stream with purpose travels one half mile past a stone quarry and empties into the Minnesota River, formerly known as the River St. Pierre (Saint Peter) during fur trading days, and long before that, the Minnesota River was the mighty glacial meltwater, River Warren. The very wide and deep river trench has many tributary waters, of which Heymans Creek is one. Over time, the pedoturbatory processes have redeposited artifacts in a manner which compromises the site's internal integrity and makes stratification almost useless at the base of the site because of these water intrusions over the land, something the archaeologists did not learn well until November of 1990.
Due to the revision of MN DOT's construction plans now involving Heymans Creek, and that spot's close relation to a Lithic Scatter site (21 NL 35) to the North-West of the creek, MTHARS conducted a walking survey of the area. A brief walking survey of the Eastern junction of T.H. 14 and Heymans Creek was conducted on January 24, 1990. This short archaeological peek was surprisingly productive when among the roots of a recently felled tree some grit tempered pottery sherds were found. This geographic spot became henceforth known as the Heymans Creek Site (21 NL 64). This new find made the spot the sole remaining obstacle to the T.H. 14 modification. Deeply buried artifacts were given the potential of existing at Heymans Creek, and archaeologists were excited by Havana pottery sherds they located.
Since the proposed channel change would go through the center of the 100 foot wide find area, most study was focussed upon the habitation site where the pottery was found. In April of 1990 shovel tests every five meters were conducted on a transect grid, each being about 40 centimeters wide, to a depth of sterile clays. The vast majority of these shovel tests found cultural remnants. Fifty of 88 pits were positive for human debitage. The nearby area not in the channel change plans yielded few artifacts. Nine larger pits were also dug on the site with 100 percent finds. One quarter inch screen was used for sifting-out artifacts.
In the more intensive Phase II from October to November 1990, one quarter inch screens were utilized, with the planned options of using water screening if the sifting took too long and was too labor intensive due to anticipated clay soil problems. A backhoe was also to be ready to shave the top layer of soil from the site if artifact recovery was too slow. Then people would dig by hand. Thirty - one by one meter pits were dug.
The site was abandoned November 8, 1990, due to the fact that the archaeologists felt that there was little more data yet to be recovered in order to successfully mitigate the site for construction; plus the disturbed nature of the site made scientific study difficult without a true context existing In Situ.
This site appars to be of the Middle to Late Woodland timeframe. The cultural data that was gathered by Kent Skaar, W. Watson Radford, Leslie D. Peterson and their site workers. Heymans Creek appears to exhibit evidence of planning, cooperation and adaptive strategies as a dynamic among peoples.
Overall, 1,319 artifacts were found in Phases I and II. Pottery sherds numbered 250, mostly are grit-tempered, and appear smooth and cord impressed with little designs present. In the Havana pottery type that was found, there appears to be some sort of contact with far removed peoples in Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. Lithics at the site consisted of fire-cracked campfire rock, stone knives, few arrowheads (points) and 83 percent stone flakes made from tool making. Also evidenced at the site is a wide range of faunal remains that were consumed while these people were habitating at the site. 874 bones were found, as well as some mollusk shells. Animal bones found belonged to catfish, turtle, rabbit, deer, muskrat, gopher and squirrel. Skaar, feels that the presence of the mollusk, catfish and turtle remains points to non-Winter seasonality. Two habitation episodes are evidenced here. The lithic artifacts found at the site date from 500 to 1700 A.D., while the pottery was from 300 through 1000 A.D. The land here was a cross-temporal draw. And, as Kent Skaar says, ";[future studies] of the Minnesota River trench should involve the intensive review of the numerous tributary stream valleys...".
The artifacts recovered in this project are now state property located at the Minnesota Historical Society and at the Fort Snelling History Center for storage and future study.
Skaar, Kent A. "The Cultural Reources Investigation of the Heymans Creek Site, 21 NL 64, A Multicomponent Woodland Habitation", Mankato State University, Mankato, Minnesota, 1994.
Author: S.L. Burgstahler