The Fort Ancient culture (beginning circa 950 A.D.) existed along the Ohio River and its tributaries and continued up to the early historical period. Fort Ancient was originally thought to be a later extension of the Mississippian cultures to the southwest but are now generally seen as being contemporaneous. Both the Mississippian and Fort Ancient cultures are believed to have developed independently from common Late Woodland complexes. Some of the best documented sites of the Fort Ancient culture are the Blaine, Madisonville, Morrison, Graham, Voss, McCune, Gabriel, Erp, Incinerator, Sloane, Turpin Farm, Haffner-Kuntz and Riker sites.
Fort Ancient is distinguished primarily by its ceramic ware styles, but also by their small triangular arrow points as well as distinctive shouldered pentagonal flint knives. Other artifacts include shell hoes, "weeping eye" gorgets, and other ornamentation, bowl stone pipes and elbow stone pipes, and stone discoidals. Many bone tools are also evident such as deer and elk scapula hoes and awls, punches and fish hooks. During the 9th and 10th centuries the Fort Ancient culture had become increasingly dependent upon agriculture as a subsistence base, though floral and faunal evidence hunting and gathering continued to play a large role in subsistence.
Fort Ancient settlements were often quite populous and nucleated but there appears to be a lack of political centralization. Elite structures have not been found, which likely means there was no differential access to economic resources. Fort Ancient society remained flexible for seasonal environmental resource exploitation. The Fort Ancient culture drew to a close in historical times as historically known groups such as the Delaware, Miami and Shawnee are recognized in the area. The Fort Ancient sites are not necessarily abandoned at this time but influx of both these new groups, as well as Europeans, with the attendant stress such as disease all combined to fundametally alter the societal structure.
http://www.shakerwssg.org/fort_ancient_hopewell_native_ame.htm Japanese
References:
Griffin, James B. Fort Ancient Aspect, its cultural and chronological posiion in Mississippi Valley archaeology. Ann Arbor 1943 (reissued, 1966, as University of Michigan Museum of Anthroplogy Anthropological Paper 28)
Muller, Jon Archaeology of the Lower Ohio River Valley. Orlando: Academic Press, Inc. 1986
Potter, Martha M. Ohio's Prehistoric People. Columbus: The Ohio Historical Society. 1968
Prufer, Olaf H. and Orrin C. Shane,III Blaine Village and the Fort Ancient Tradition in Ohio Kent: The Kent State University Press. 1970