Site Constructed
4 JULY, 2003
Revised 24 June 2005
Archaeologists and Web Designers
One of the most significant archaeological sites in the St, Louis area
is the Martens Site (23SL222) situated in the municipality of Chesterfield,
Missouri.
This website is designed for use by school children, amateur archaeologists
and professional archaeologists. Nothing of this site remains after the
construction of new subdivisions and the realignment of Olive Street road
by the Missouri Highway Department.
Dick Martens (Missouri Archaeological Society Vice President) shown here with his grandson,
recognized the unique natural of the Clovis occupation at the Martens Site and he brought
the site to the attention of Julie Morrow (Washington University graduate student in
Anthropology, now Dr. Morrow) who excavated at the site in 1997 to document the site's
Clovis Culture tool technology. Neither bone nor charcoal was preserved in the soil matrix
at the Martens Site, thus there is not a C-14 date on the occupation. The site can be
estimated as around 9550 BC based upon parellels to other dated Clovis Sites.
Volunteer, amateur archaeologists from the Mound City Chapter of the Missouri
Archaeological Society and students from Washington University worked side-by-side
in an effort to document the site before its destruction.
The excavation was conducted in 1 x 1 meter units with all soil sieved through
1/4 inch mesh to recover waste flakes as well as artifacts. Artifacts were photographed
and piece plotted in situ whenever possible. Careful attention was paid to
the soil matrix in hopes of finding bone or charcoal samples.
The excavation strategy at the Martens site was to take a number of adjacent squares
down to the Clovis occupation surface and that goal was accomplished.
Any evidence for the Clovis occupation at the Martens Site has been erased
by housing subdivisions construction during 2003.