Village Visualization FAQ – What was the basis for the elements in the main village images?
Was there a ditch, palisade or neither? At Nodena, Morse notes that the village limits correspond closely with swales or “drainage ditches” (1989:101) and concludes that the evidence “suggests a palisade wall and ditch.” Mainfort, however, concludes that there was not a palisade (2007:120) and indicates that seismic trenching in the area supports this conclusion. Dr. Hampson described the site as surrounded by a ditch (1989) but Mainfort reports that there has been no archeological confirmation of this. The Nodena Village in the main village (re)creations has been shown without a ditch or palisade. However we have also elected to create a few images that depict the village with a palisade. The presence or absence of the ditch and/or palisade probably had a strong influence on the density of structures “inside” the village. In general palisaded villages had a much denser distribution of structures that did non-palisaded ones (see the Cherokee example mentioned above).
