2000-2003 Cost-Share Project at Van Winkle's Mill

Following the publication of the excavations conducted at Van Winkle's Mill between 1997-1999, the Arkansas Archeological Survey's Sponsored Research Program, entered into a cost-share project with the Little Rock District of the Corps of Engineers (SWL) and the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism.

The project was designed to find and test all cultural resources in the northern portion of Van Hollow on the Corps of Engineers' right-of-way to Beaver Lake.

Fieldwork was conducted sporadically over a three-year period (June 2000 through October 2003, including another 2002 "spring break" dig) and a number of features associated with Van Winkle's Mill were identified and investigated. The entire east-west breadth of Van Hollow was surveyed from the foundation of the mill on the south to the shores of what is now Beaver Lake in the north. Click here for more details about the 2000 archeological survey of Van Winkle's Mill.

Six loci were given archeological feature designations as a result of this survey and testing was conducted at the blacksmith's shop (Feature 31) and portions of the mill complex. Nonintrustve, technologically oriented techniques, such as archeo-geophysics and magnetic fraction percentage analysis, were deployed along with traditional testing measures at several features.

Finally, test excavations were also conducted at the neighboring Little Clifty Creek Shelter.