Franks Site
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Morris-Franks Site
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Woods in the portion of the site traversed by the road
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| Location | Between Vermilion Rd. and the Vermilion River, southeast of central Vermilion, Ohio |
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| Coordinates | 41°24′33″N 82°20′4″W / 41.40917°N 82.33444°WCoordinates: 41°24′33″N 82°20′4″W / 41.40917°N 82.33444°W |
| Area | 87 acres (35 ha) |
| NRHP Reference # | 75001465 |
| Added to NRHP | September 5, 1975 |
The Franks Site is a large archaeological site in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. Located atop bluffs overlooking the Vermilion River in northwestern Lorain County, it lies in the city of Vermilion close to the river's mouth in Lake Erie. The site was once inhabited by people of the Erie tribe before their destruction, and archaeological investigations have yielded enough information to make it exceptionally valuable for learning about its erstwhile inhabitants.
The Franks Site lies midway between Mill Hollow, where the river makes a very sharp bend, and central Vermilion; it sits by the edge of a bluff overlooking a smaller yet still significant river bend. A road traverses the site, dividing it into two distinct sections, while a third section is demarcated by its distance from the other two. Much of the area consists simply of campsites, but the community cemetery is massive, occupying the entire third section and nearly half of the other two. The southern portion of the site is marked by curving earthworks atop the bluff's edge. Had the site been excavated sooner after the coming of civilization, it might have produced yet richer findings; many burials were destroyed on the Franks farm in digging cellars for farm buildings, as well as by crews constructing the present road through the farm.
Raymond C. Vietzen led an excavation of the Franks Site in 1941, finding skeletons and artifacts such as pottery. The burials were of divers forms: Vietzen reported the presence both of extended and flexed burials, for some bodies had been placed lengthwise, while others' legs had been drawn up to the chest in a crouching position. The possibility of the two representing two different phases was considered, but this was easily disproven as many parts of the cemetery included skeletons of both sorts that had plainly been buried at the same time. Many adult female skeletons were buried together with exceptionally tiny infant skeletons, suggesting that many women died in childbirth and that it was customary to bury mother and child together.
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