Sacred site for sale

2,000-year-old hallowed ground to be auctioned off June 14

CHILLICOTHE, Ohio - Time is running out for one of ancient Native America's most untouched and unusual sacred places. On June 14, Spruce Hill Works, a vast 2,000-year-old hilltop earthworks enclosure, goes on the auction block.

A local coalition - including the Ross County Park District and two nonprofits, Arc of Appalachia Preserve System and Wilderness East - is trying to raise the $600,000 needed to save the 238-acre property. The tract is home to not just a 150-acre sacred site, but also rare native birds and fish and some of the region's densest wildflower displays.

At press time, the coalition had come up with $175,000, the bulk of it from preservation-minded individuals, with additional sums from the Archaeological Conservancy, a national nonprofit, and the Ohio Archaeological Council, a professional organization. ''We need a miracle,'' said Nancy Stranahan, co-director of the 2,500-acre Arc of Appalachia Preserve System. ''We're praying but also working very hard.''

''If these groups don't succeed, Spruce Hill Works will likely be purchased by a timber company or a developer,'' said Marti Chaatsmith, Comanche/Choctaw and program coordinator of the Newark Earthworks Center, an Ohio State University program that promotes the study and protection of mounds, in particular a major complex in Newark. ''Many earthworks have been plowed under or built on, so this one's near-pristine condition is important, especially to Native people. It's very hard to find ancient sacred places that haven't been tampered with or destroyed.''

In 1992, Congress directed the National Park Service to explore adding Spruce Hill Works to Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, in Chillicothe. The park encompasses seven earthworks that have been nominated to become World Heritage Sites. Spruce Hill Works may also be suitable for such a designation.

All of these artificial hills and earthen-walled enclosures were constructed by indigenous people who arrived in the area in about 2,000 years ago and embarked upon a 500-year building campaign that left what appears to be a coordinated system of thousands of earthworks stretching from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Some are massive, with several related installations, each of which encompasses scores of acres. The remains of ceremonial passageways, outlying shrines and habitations cover even more acreage, said archaeologists.

Read the full story here: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415096

Turquoise suggests new trade routes between ancient America and Mexico

New look at turquoise treasures of the Aztecs

An Aztec-Mixtec turquoise mosaic of a double-headed serpent, 15th-16th century

Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent

Many visitors to the American South West come back with turquoise jewellery: the Native American people of Arizona and New Mexico exploited local sources, and modern craftsmen have developed a prosperous industry. Thirty years ago the archaeological scientists Garman Harbottle and Edward Sayre used neutron activation analysis to show that turquoise mosaics from Mexico, found as far away as the great Maya city of Chichén Itzá in Yucatan and dating back to around AD900, used raw material originating in the Cerrillos mines between Albuquerque and Santa Fe in New Mexico, an overland distance of some 3,200 km (2,000 miles). It was assumed that the Cerrillos mines had also supplied more local demand, for instance from the Chaco Canyon communities west of Santa Fe. A new technique of source characterisation, using hydrogen and copper isotope ratios established by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), shows that this picture was altogether too simple.

Sharon Hull and her colleagues report in the Journal of Archaeological Science this month that of eleven samples from Chaco Canyon sites, dating from AD550 to 1050, only two could be attributed to the Cerrillos source. Two others came from Orogrande in southern New Mexico, three from the No 8 Mine in northern Nevada, and one from the Montezuma source in southern Nevada.

Although none of the Mexican mosaics has yet been re-examined in detail, this looks like a good idea: not only the Chichén Itzá pieces, but Aztec turquoise mosaics, such as those in the British Museum’s Mexican Gallery, could well yield evidence that ancient trade networks in late pre-Columbian America were much more complex than we have assumed.

Journal of Archaeological Science 35; 1355-1369

The original story appears here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/court_and_social/article3872341.ece

45-Foot Ancient Canoe Stuck In The Muck Of Weedon Island

By KEITH MORELLI of The Tampa Tribune

ST. PETERSBURG - Stuck somewhere in the muck of Weedon Island is a significant piece of history.

A 45-foot canoe, buried for more than a thousand years and used by a long-dead culture of Native Americans, worked its way to the surface, and now authorities are trying to figure out how best to preserve it.

The vessel is carved out of a single pine tree, and archaeologists say it was used to paddle over the open waters of the bay — unlike the other ancient canoes uncovered in Florida over the years, which were used to ply the calmer waters of lakes and rivers.

With the back end of the canoe broken off, it measures 39 feet, 11 inches. If the missing piece was attached, archaeologists estimate 5 more feet would be added to the length. The size of the vessel and configuration of the bow leads archaeologists to think the vessel may have been used to trade with people living some distance away.

"It's the longest prehistoric canoe ever found in the state of Florida," said Weedon Island Preserve Center manager Phyllis Kolianos.

"I think it's fascinating," she said this morning. "I think it's a very important find, and it's very significant. It gives us an understanding that these weren't simple people living here, that they were probably trading with other cultures."

The dugout is the first pre-Columbian seagoing vessel uncovered in Florida. It points to a culture that thrived in what would become the Tampa Bay area and traded with others along the Gulf of Mexico coast and beyond. The influence of the Weedon Island culture stretched to places as far away as Georgia, archaeologists say.

Kolianos said carbon dating of the canoe shows it to be about 1,100 years old.

Continue reading the full story here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24468049/

The Taking and Displaying of Human Body Parts as Trophies by Amerindians

Product Description

The Amerindian (American Indian or Native American  reference to both North and South America) practice of taking and displaying various body parts as trophies has long intrigued both the research community as well as the public. As a subject that is both controversial and politically charged, it has also come under attack as a European colonists perspective intended to denigrate native peoples.

What this collection demonstrates is that the practice of trophy-taking predates European contact in the Americas but was also practiced in other parts of the world (Europe, Africa, Asia) and has been practiced prehistorically, historically and up to and including the twentieth century.

This edited volume mainly focuses on this practice in both North and South America. The editors and contributors (which include Native Peoples from both continents) examine the evidence and causes of Amerindian trophy taking as reflected in osteological, archaeological, ethnohistoric and ethnographic accounts. Additionally, they present objectively and discuss dispassionately the topic of human proclivity toward ritual violence.

About the Author

Richard John Chacon is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Winthrop University. He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Amazonia among the Yanomamo of Venezuela, the Yora of Peru and the Achuar (Shiwiar) of Ecuador and he has also worked in the Andes with the Otavalo and Cotacachi Indians of Highland Ecuador. His research interests include optimal foraging theory, indigenous subsistence strategies, warfare, belief systems, the evolution of complex societies, ethnohistory and the effects of globalization on indigenous peoples.

David H. Dye is an Associate Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Memphis. He has conduced archaeological research throughout the Southeastern. His research interests include the archaeology and ethnohistory of the Midsouth. He has had a long-term interest in late prehistoric warfare, ritual, and iconography in the Eastern Woodlands.

Buried Dogs Were Divine "Escorts" for Ancient Americans

Anne Casselman
for National Geographic News

April 23, 2008

Hundreds of prehistoric dogs found buried throughout the southwestern United States show that canines played a key role in the spiritual beliefs of ancient Americans, new research suggests.

Throughout the region, dogs have been found buried with jewelry, alongside adults and children, carefully stacked in groups, or in positions that relate to important structures, said Dody Fugate, an assistant curator at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Fugate has conducted an ongoing survey of known dog burials in the area, and the findings suggest that the animals figured more prominently in their owners' lives than simply as pets, she said.

"I'm suggesting that the dogs in the New World in the Southwest were used to escort people into the next world, and sometimes they were used in certain rituals in place of people," Fugate said.

To conduct her research, Fugate collected data on known dog burials and urged her archaeologist colleagues to note when canine remains were found during excavations.

"I have a database now of almost 700 dog burials, and a large number of them are either buried in groups in places of ritual or they're buried with individual human beings," she said.

Many of the burials are concentrated in northwestern New Mexico and along the Arizona-New Mexico border, she said (see map).

"All of that area was full of doggy people," she said.

Read the full story here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080423-dog-burials.html

Canaveral National Seashore's Turtle Mound survives

Ludmilla Lelis |Sentinel Staff Writer

April 29, 2008

NEW SMYRNA BEACH - Scores of Native American mounds have been lost through time, but the one thought to be the nation's highest -- Canaveral National Seashore's Turtle Mound -- survived.

Preservation of the mound has saved many of its secrets, clues to the past never unearthed.

That's why archaeologists and park rangers are excited to learn as much as they can from new holes dug into the massive oyster-shell pile last week.

An archaeological team is taking advantage of a rare chance to study the mound and its contents, while the National Park Service builds a new boardwalk on the site.

Already, the team has found what it thinks are 1,200-year-old pottery, fish bones and other samples that will be analyzed with radiocarbon-dating technology to find out how old the mound is.

"It's a great opportunity because not much work has been done on this mound," said Margo Schwadron, an archaeologist with the park service's Southeast Archaeological Center in Tallahassee. "It is one of the most significant archaeological sites in this country."

Federal officials hope the information will support an effort to have the mound declared a National Historic Landmark.

Though it is already among the 76,000-plus sites on the National Registry of Historic Places, the landmark designation would rank it higher, alongside the Empire State Building, or Walden Pond in Massachusetts, as one of the nation's 2,500 most significant sites.

Read the full story and watch the video here: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/volusia/orl-mound2908apr29,0,5758195.story

'Woodhenge' at Fort Ancient raises interest in ritual past

By Bradley T. Lepper

During a remote-sensing survey of the Fort Ancient Earthworks in 2005, Jarrod Burks of Ohio Valley Archaeological Consultants discovered a circular pattern in the soil that stretched nearly 200 feet in diameter.

Fort Ancient is a massive earthwork in Warren County that was built more than 2,000 years ago by the Hopewell culture.

Robert Riordan, an anthropology professor at Wright State University, directed excavations there in 2006 and last month completed a report on his initial explorations of the circles.

Dubbed the "Moorehead Circle" by Riordan in honor of pioneering archaeologist Warren K. Moorehead, the area was a "woodhenge," defined by a double ring of posts.

The outer ring consisted of large posts about 9 inches in diameter set about 30 inches apart in slip trenches filled with rock. The inner ring had similar-size posts set about 15 feet inside the outer ring.

Riordan estimates that the outer ring would have held more than 200 posts, each 10 to 15 feet tall. Inner posts likely were shorter.

At the center of the circle was a

2.5-foot-deep pit that was 15 feet long by 13 feet wide and filled with red, burned soil. The pit was ringed by a shallow trough in which large timbers of red oak had been burned. Excavators found little ash, so the burned soil must have been brought in.

A radiocarbon date on charcoal from a remnant trace of a post suggests it was built between 40 BC and AD 130. Burned timber fragments from the pit were dated AD 250 to AD 420.

Read the full story here: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/science/stories/2007/05/01/sci_lepper01.ART_ART_05-01-07_B5_J06GK9I.html

New Book Reveals Hopewell Indians

The Scioto Hopewell people of North America have been of great interest to prehistoric archaeologists for a number of reasons:  their monumental, 80 acre earthworks aligned precisely to events in the day and night skies,  masterfully worked glistening metals and semiprecious stones into intricate and elegant symbolic designs,  and their community burial houses two-thirds of a football field in size.

Along with this unique physical evidence, archaeologists also know about their society and culture. Their world view and rituals inspired the artistic exploration of the principles of three-dimensional perspective a thousand years before Renaissance artists discovered them in the Old World and unlike the artistic norms of any other Native American people. The Scioto Hopewells intricate social order and their religious-based concepts of alliance afforded them three centuries of peace among both individuals and communities. For these reasons, the Hopewell are a unique case in prehistoric North America.

This book has two aims. The first is to present in rich detail a coherent holistic synthesis of the culture, lifeways, environment, and history of the Hopewell people - who were one of the most socially complex people in the Americas at the time, and for centuries before and afterward.

The second goal of this book is to systematize and present for use by other researchers and students the massive, largely unpublished mortuary-archaeological and physical anthropological information and other supporting data that have made the fullness of our cultural reconstructions of Scioto Hopewell life possible. This is presented in the DVD that comes with the book.

The authors remove the organizational overhead that previously has constrained archaeologists from making in-depth, empirical inquiries into the social and political life, rituals, and religious concepts of Hopewellian peoples generally. And in so doing, they are able to encourage further detailed studies and deeper understandings of these remarkable peoples.

Artifact may be ancient ax blade

ESCANABA (AP) -- Ryan Bernard of Escanaba has found a lot of interesting things with his metal detector: an 1837 Quebec bank token, an 1861 penny, a 1916 buffalo nickel.

When he found a hunk of metal buried 2 feet beneath his Lakeshore Drive backyard last summer, he almost threw it in the trash.

Upon further examination, it may be an artifact from a prehistoric culture.

"I was about to throw it in the garbage, and I held it up and I saw the honed edge on it," he said.

Ray Reser, director of the Central Wisconsin Archaeology Center at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, described the object as a copper "celt," a type of ax blade with no perforations or grooves. He said the celt was probably a functioning tool.

The piece probably dates from 3,000 to 5,000 years ago.

"We were just out there looking for weed pennies and what not," Bernard said. "To end up digging something like that up is really shocking."

When his detector went off, he wasn't expecting much.

"A lot of times when you get a signal that good and it's buried that deep, it's just a big chunk of iron," he said.

He said he dug down, found nothing, got frustrated and recovered the hole. When his father gave him some ribbing for not finding anything, he tried again, a little deeper, and there it was.

Similar findings have been made throughout the Upper Midwest, most notably in Oconto, Wis., where a site unearthed in 1952 now known as Copper Culture State Park yielded several burial plots and artifacts.

Thomas Pleger, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Baraboo/Sauk County, wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Old Copper Complex. He described these prehistoric societies as seasonally-mobile people whose temporary homes were based on abundance of particular resources. Hunting, fishing and trade were the basis of their lives.

The Old Copper Complex is one of the oldest metal-working societies in the world.

Read the entire article here: http://www.record-eagle.com/statenews/local_story_100095019.html