Muir Site: Early Fort Ancient in Jessamine County

The Kentucky Archaeological Survey places it in the early Fort Ancient (opens in a new tab) period, about A.D. 1000–1200. Later Fort Ancient villages often had 15 to 20 houses around a central plaza, but at Muir only one to three houses seem to have been in use at any one time.

The houses were small, square to rectangular, with single-set posts along the edges of shallow basins and a small central hearth. Researchers read Muir as a sign that some early Fort Ancient households lived in more dispersed settlements than their descendants did, a glimpse of Bluegrass life before the larger plaza towns.

Deer, elk and bear made up almost 90 percent of the meat eaten. Residents grew corn, beans, erect knotweed and sunflower and gathered black walnuts and hickory nuts. They made cordmarked or plain jars, where the classic guilloche decoration was rare, and long triangular arrowheads with "ears" at the base that set Muir's flintwork apart from some northern Kentucky Fort Ancient neighbors.

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The site is in Jessamine County and is not a visitor site, so its map pin is rounded to about 10 km.