Bintz Village – Then and Now

 

 

 

Bintz is a name given to the village site by archeologists and is not what the original inhabitants called their village located on the South bank of the Ohio River at Oneida, Kentucky, but is the name of the property owner in the late 1940’s when the site was first excavated. As the drawings depict the Village was built on the upper floodplain of the Ohio River were the houses would be safe but the inhabitants could easily utilize the river for food (fish and fresh water clam); water not only to drink but by planting their crops along the bank provided easy crop watering; and as a highway upon which they traded their food and tools for goods they needed with other villages along the river. Their houses were constructed of wood poles placed upright in the ground and then covered with twigs and grass cemented with clay (wattle and dab construction). Archeologists have ascribed the village site to the “Fort Ancient” people who lived in Southern Ohio and Northern Kentucky from about 1000 AD to 1700 AD. Today the river bank is eroding the site since the river's current was changed with the building of modern navigation dams on the Ohio River and part of the site disappears with each flood. Many of the artifacts and tools that are part of this virtual exhibit were found along the lower river bank where they had been deposited by the swift flood waters and are in private collections collected by the owners of the site or with their permission.

 

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