Ashland geology professor receives Ohio Historic Preservation Office Award

Ashland University Professor of Geology Dr. Nigel Brush has been named the recipient of an Ohio Historic Preservation Office Award.

Bush was honored due to his work on the Walhonding Valley Late Prehistoric Sites Project in association with the Ashland/Wooster/Columbus Archaeological and Geologic Consortium.

“This award is for the team’s contribution to ‘Public Education and Awareness’ and is in recognition of our continuing archaeological work in the Walhonding Valley over the past 25 years and the numerous volunteers and college students from Ashland University, College of Wooster, Wayne College and University of Akron who have worked with us on this project,” Brush said. “We are surveying and excavating sites that were occupied by Intrusive Mound peoples from 700 to 1000 A.D. and Cole peoples from 1000 to 1300 A.D. who occupied the Walhonding Valley during the Medieval Warm Period, as well as sites occupied by Philo/Belmont peoples from 1300 to 1500 A.D. and Wellsburg peoples from 1500 to 1700 A.D., who lived in the Walhonding Valley during the Little Ice Age. We are interested in determining what impact this shift from a warmer to a cooler climate had on the settlement and subsistence systems of these native peoples.”