Timeline story
Singer-Hieronymus: Fort Ancient villages on North Elkhorn
On a broad ridge overlooking North Elkhorn Creek in Scott County, just north of Lexington, Fort Ancient farmers built a chain of circular villages between about A.D. 1200 and 1550.
UK archaeologists mapped Singer Village in the late 1990s, then found more rings on the adjoining Hieronymus farm; later geophysics pushed the count to at least six or seven midden stains—concentric house, burial, and trash zones around open plazas, with corn-beans-squash agriculture and two low burial mounds on the largest circle.
The complex looks like one community shifting along the ridge over generations, a rare Kentucky window on how Fort Ancient towns moved without leaving the same bluegrass creek.
Cite this story
Published . Last revised .
Chicago
Snowden, Shannon. "Singer-Hieronymus: Fort Ancient villages on North Elkhorn." Kentucky History Drive. Published September 29, 2026. Last revised September 29, 2026. https://kyhistorydrive.com/stories/singer-hieronymus-fort-ancient-villages-on-north-elkhorn/.
MLA
Snowden, Shannon. "Singer-Hieronymus: Fort Ancient villages on North Elkhorn." Kentucky History Drive, published 29 Sept. 2026, last revised 29 Sept. 2026, https://kyhistorydrive.com/stories/singer-hieronymus-fort-ancient-villages-on-north-elkhorn/.
