LostWorlds.org | News: Native American Archaeology

Sacred site for sale

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:14:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:04:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:27:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:35:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:03:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:08:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:50:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:05:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:42:00 +0000

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

New Books Feature Southeastern Indians Research

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 21:20:00 +0000

Several new books contribute a revealing insight into the Southeast's indigenous peoples: The Natchez Indians: A History to 1735, The Archaeology of Town Creek, Architectural Variability in the Southeast, and Southeastern Ceremonial Complex: Chronology, Content, and Contest.

The Natchez Indians: A History to 1735
The Natchez Indians: A History to 1735 is the story of the Natchez Indians as revealed through accounts of Spanish, English, and French explorers, missionaries, soldiers, and colonists, and as revealed in the archaeological record. Because of their strategic location on the Mississippi River, the Natchez Indians played a crucial part in the European struggle for control of the Lower Mississippi Valley. The book begins with the brief confrontation between the Hernando de Soto expedition and the powerful Quigualtam chiefdom, presumed ancestors of the Natchez.

In the late seventeenth century Rene-Robert Cavalier de La Salle's expedition met the Natchez and initiated sustained European encroachment, exposing the tribe to sickness and the dangers of the Indian slave trade.

The Natchez Indians portrays the way that the Natchez coped with a rapidly changing world, became entangled with the political ambitions of two European superpowers, France and England, and eventually disappeared as a people. The author examines the shifting relationships among the tribe's settlement districts and the settlement districts' relationships with neighboring tribes and with the Europeans. The establishment of a French fort and burgeoning agricultural colony in their midst signaled the beginning of the end for the Natchez people. Barnett has written the most complete and detailed history of the Natchez to date.

The Archaeology of Town Creek

The sequence of change for public architecture during the Mississippian period may reflect a centralization of political power through time. In the research presented here, some of the community-level assumptions attributed to the appearance of Mississippian mounds are tested against the archaeological record of the Town Creek site—the remains of a town located on the northeastern edge of the Mississippian culture area. In particular, the archaeological record of Town Creek is used to test the idea that the appearance of Mississippian platform mounds was accompanied by the centralization of political authority in the hands of a powerful chief.

A compelling argument has been made that mounds were the seats and symbols of political power within Mississippian societies. While platform mounds have been a part of Southeastern Native American communities since at least 100 B.C., around A.D. 400 leaders in some communities began to place their houses on top of earthen mounds—an act that has been interpreted as an attempt to legitimize personal authority by a community leader through the appropriation of a powerful, traditional, community-oriented symbol. Platform mounds at a number of sites were preceded by a distinctive type of building called an earthlodge—a structure with earth-embanked walls and an entrance indicated by short, parallel wall trenches. Earthlodges in the Southeast have been interpreted as places where a council of community leaders came together to make decisions based on consensus. In contrast to the more inclusive function proposed for premound earthlodges, it has been argued that access to the buildings on top of Mississippian platform mounds was limited to a much smaller subset of the community. If this was the case and if ground-level earthlodges were more accessible than mound-summit structures, then access to leaders and leadership may have decreased through time.

Excavations at the Town Creek archaeological site have shown that the public architecture there follows the earthlodge-to-platform mound sequence that is well known across the South Appalachian subarea of the Mississippian world. The clear changes in public architecture coupled with the extensive exposure of the site's domestic sphere make Town Creek an excellent case study for examining the relationship among changes in public architecture and leadership within a Mississippian society.

Architectural Variability in the Southeast

Some of the most visible expressions of human culture are illustrated architecturally. Unfortunately for archaeologists, the architecture being studied is not always visible and must be inferred from soil inconsistencies or charred remains. This study deals with research into roughly a millennium of Native American architecture in the Southeast and includes research on the variation of construction techniques employed both above and below ground. Most of the architecture discussed is that of domestic houses with some emphasis on large public buildings and sweat lodges. The authors use an array of methods and techniques in examining native architecture including experimental archaeology, ethnohistory, ethnography, multi-variant analysis, structural engineering, and wood science technology. A major portion of the work, and probably the most important in terms of overall significance, is that it addresses the debate of early Mississippian houses and what they looked like above ground and the changes that occurred both before and after the arrival of Europeans.

Southeastern Ceremonial Complex: Chronology, Content, Contest
I could find no description of this book online but it looks to fill an important void in Southeastern Archaeology as it relates to the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex.

Amazon.com Widgets

Ancient artifacts provide insight to Upstate history

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Fri, 25 May 2007 19:44:00 +0000

By Julie Howle
STAFF WRITER
jhowle@greenvillenews.com

Sifting through the caked, red soil at a dig site near the south
Saluda River, researchers have unearthed pieces of ancient history
they hope will provide a glimpse of early life in the Upstate.

The archaeologists and volunteers returned this month for the first
time since August to the site in Pickens County that is a resting
place for American Indian artifacts, a spot that has been occupied
off and on for the last 10,000 years.

"It's important to understand how people lived in the past," said
Chris Clement, who works at the location, which is near the
Greenville-Pickens line. "Hopefully we can apply lessons learned
through that to the present and to the future."

Searching the soil beneath this present-day farm, the researchers
have discovered almost a time capsule of relics from past cultures,
from pottery that dates back as many as 4,000 years to about 30 or 40
feet of a log fort built by Indians 600 to 700 years ago.

Farther down, workers last year unearthed a cluster of rocks that
date back 10,000 years, said Clement, principal investigator with the
South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, a part of
the University of South Carolina.

People have lived in South Carolina for at least 12,000 years, he
said, but the 10,000-year-old cluster has the oldest confirmed and
culturally associated date in the state.

"It's clearly something that people put there," he said. "As of right
now that's the earliest that particular site was occupied."

Now they are hoping to go back even further in time.

"We want to see if there are any levels that are actually older than
the 10,000-year one we got," said Terry Ferguson, who is also at the
dig and is program coordinator for the department of geology at
Wofford College.

Ferguson, Clement and others will be there for about six to eight
weeks. To preserve the site's integrity, they are close-lipped about
its exact location.

It's one of two sites that sit across from each other, the other in
Greenville County, that are a venture of the Upstate South Carolina
Archaeological Research Group.

The Greenville location isn't being excavated now, but work has been
done at both spots sporadically since 2004, said Ferguson, who helped
form the Upstate archaeological group in 2003.

"They have given us information about what we call culture
chronology, or essentially a history of the cultures of the area," he
said.

Ferguson said that at the Greenville site they found a 600- to 700-
year-old council house, about 40 feet in diameter, for Indian groups
who were ancestral to the Cherokee in the area.

"About every foot we go back about 1,000 years," Ferguson said,
describing how the different levels tell different stories.

Clement said they've also found artifacts like tools and pottery. One
such item ó a piece of Stallings Island pottery that is typically
found along the Savannah River ó was found on the surface a few years
ago.

"It's the first pottery that was made in the Americas, certainly
North America," Clement said. "It's pretty significant stuff."

They are trying to find more because the piece they found was on the
surface, which means it was moved from where it was deposited.
"Finding it way up there on the Pickens-Greenville line was unusual,"
he said.

For Jesse Robertson, who owns the land where the Greenville site is,
it's interesting to see the history come to life. He said his brother
owns the land on the Pickens side.

"We've been surface collecting for years," Robertson said, describing
the many arrowheads and tools they've found. "It's amazing to see how
long people have lived in the area."

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Scientists hope Captiva Island dig can unlock Calusa mysteries

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Fri, 25 May 2007 19:41:00 +0000

an Associated Press report 12/12/05

CAPTIVA ISLAND - On the northernmost tip of Captiva Island stands a
piece of southwest Florida history that may help scientists unlock the
mysteries of an ancient culture.
>From the road lined with high-priced homes in the secluded South Seas
Plantation, a mound with several peaks built by the Calusa Indians more
than 2,000 years ago looks like any other clump of mangroves and
vegetation.
Hundreds of years of plant growth and soil deposits have hidden the
sun-bleached white shells that form the foundation of the mound, which
at one point reaches 18 feet high.
But by studying what is underneath that growth more thoroughly than in
previous mound excavations, scientists hope to uncover the answers of
how Calusa built their shell hills.
It's just one in a series of questions that still surround the extinct
tribe, which once ruled over all of South Florida, said Corbett
Torrence, an archeologist from the University of Florida who is leading
the team of scientists.
"When you think about how much there is to do, there still is a lot we
don't know," Torrence said. "Every time we answer a question, we ask
four more."
There are two main theories that surround mound construction, he said.
One suggests that mounds sprawl like cities with the Calusa building out
and adding on as the tribe grows.
The other suggests that the Calusa begin building the mounds from the
ground up and they grow over time, much like volcanoes.
Torrence and his team hope to solve the puzzle by digging several pits
at different locations on the mound and determining the age of the
sediments within them through radio carbon dating.
Scientists have used the process of dating sediments in mounds before
but never to such an extent.
While scientists typically use radio carbon dating on about six areas of
a mound excavation, Torrence plans to use the technique 24 times at the
Captiva mound.
The cost of the process has prevented scientists from studying other
mounds so thoroughly, but Torrence has a sponsor.
The owner of the property, Plantation Development Limited, hired
Torrence to excavate the site so that it can be protected and used to
educate the public.
Torrence and his team started the process by digging five pits, which
will each reach a depth of 7 to 8 feet.
The pits are strategically located at different levels and areas on the
mound.
The mound has six tiers, each growing in height by three feet.
The 3-foot foundation of the mound is more than 100 yards long and about
100 yards wide. As the tiers get higher the area shrinks. Three terraces
rise from the 9-foot level to heights of 12, 15 and 18 feet. Finally, a
depression in the mound sinks to nearly sea level.
The scientists dug the pits at different heights and will date the
sediments to find out when they were built.
The pits are also located at different areas of the mound to determine
when certain parts were built.
Though Torrence has not done any radio carbon dating yet, he believes
the mound was built between the first century B.C. and 900 A.D.
While digging the pits, Torrence's team has found shards of pottery,
fish bones and various tools made out of shells and deer bone.
While it takes about two weeks to dig a pit five feet deep, the
scientists are getting a lot of help from volunteers, such as Mary Ann
Scott, of south Fort Myers.
Scott has been helping Torrence and other scientists excavate mounds all
over Florida for years.
Though the work is laborious and can be hard on the back, Scott said
it's rewarding.
"It's an addiction," she said. "It's particularly interesting when it's
in your own backyard. When they get it all together and get all the
information from all the pits and then analyze it and get their theory
about what's going on, that's what it's all about."

The E.W. Scripps Co. ©

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Local dig produces the 'Holy Grail' of archaeology

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Fri, 25 May 2007 19:38:00 +0000

By DEBBY HEISHMAN
Staff writer
One little arrowhead has caused quite a stir among local amateur
archaeologists.
But one arrowhead is all it took to turn Ebberts Spring Site 36FR367,
two miles south of Greencastle, from a typical archaeological dig into a
super site.
The artifact, which can be hidden in the palm of your hand, is a paleo
point ˜ a stone point from a spear used during the Paleo-Indianperiod
from 10,000 to 8000 B.C., just after the last ice age. It's identifiable
from later styles of points by the groove chipped into each side. These
grooves helped in slipping the stone into a split wood shaft.
It's a rare find, said Doug Stine, president of Cumberland Valley
Chapter 27 Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology Inc.
"A paleo point is the Holy Grail of archaeology," he said.
The point was found last fall while the chapter's members, all but one
of them avocational archaeologists, were excavating nine inches deep in
the lawn of the Colonial era home at Ebberts Spring. At this layer, they
were finding artifacts from 1000 B.C. and earlier.
Stine had just unearthed an exceptional artifact and wandered over to
where Melissa Spatz, a Gettysburg teacher, was looking intently at the
ground. The two had a friendly competition going and Stine wanted to
brag.
"Are you OK?" he asked as she sat there, staring at her work site. There
lay the paleo point.
"In one instant," he said, "we went from a 9,000-year-old archeological
dig to an 11,000-year-old super site."
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission reports that this type
of point is an uncommon find, due to a low population density during the
relatively short Paleo-Indian period. All it takes for a site to be
listed as a paleo dig is one artifact from the Paleo period. The site is
named a super site when it includes artifacts from all four levels of
past civilization (see chart).
Other items found at Ebberts Spring, besides masses of points from the
Archaic and Woodland periods, are clay pipes, stone tools and pottery,
including a nearly complete bowl that's associated with burials in the
mid-Woodland period. More recent artifacts such as buttons, jars and old
coins were found in the top layers of dirt.
While some excavation at the site had been ongoing for years, the dig
started in earnest in 2003 after the property owner, also a chapter
member, mentioned how many arrowheads he'd find each year while digging
his gardens. Workers dug near the spring and were overwhelmed by the
sheer number and variety of items uncovered.
Stine charted a grid of 5-foot-by-5-foot squares and numbered each one.
Digging only 3 inches deep at a time, teams of workers dug and recorded
their finds by section. Layer by layer, items were carefully collected
and stored. In winter, they clean, sort and catalog all their finds,
using the old two-story springhouse as a makeshift office.
Ron Powell, the site supervisor and a retired engineer, is convinced
this was a permanent community for many ages of civilization.
"The spring produces 650 gallons of water a minute," he explained. "This
is what drew people here for 11,000 years."
More recently, he said, this area was the crossroads of two great Indian
trails, the Virginia Trail and the Georgetown Road.
"At least a remnant of people from different groups stayed here all
year," he said. "It would have been occupied through fall and winter,
until they moved down to the Potomac each spring to fish."
Powell also found post hole patterns that match the size and shape of a
sweat lodge, a building where young men would go for ritual cleansing
and healing.
"We found a hearth with pottery the right size and shape," he said.
Stine said the site itself is a unique dig. Doug McClearen, a chief
officer with the state's Bureau of Historic Preservation, told Stine
that Ebberts Spring is the only Pennsylvania site in the Great Valley
region that's been dug near a spring. The Great Valley, of which
Cumberland Valley is a portion, runs from New York to the Tennessee
River valleys.
The rare find at Ebberts Spring is still not widely known. This spring,
Stine plans to publicize it in the society's magazine, Pennsylvania
Archaeologist.

Copyright ©2006 Public Opinion.

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A complex people lived here 7,000 years ago

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Fri, 25 May 2007 19:37:00 +0000

DAVID TEWES
Sunday, April 2, 2006

A study of ancient human remains and artifacts found in the Guadalupe
River floodplain of south Victoria County shows that a relatively
advanced people who had contacts with others living hundreds of miles
away populated the area.
"We did not know this culture existed. Period," said Bob Ricklis, the
lead archaeologist studying the items. "We didn't know anything about
it."
He said not only did it exist, but it apparently did well. He said the
people had lifespans comparable to modern-day people and had contacts
with others as far away as what later became the Southeast and Midwest
United States.
"They are more advanced than we would have expected," Ricklis said.
Ricklis is director of the Corpus Christi office of Coastal Environments
Inc., which conducted the archaeological dig to unearth and study the
human remains and artifacts discovered at the Buckeye Knoll site near
the Invista plant.
The excavation was done for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part the
project to widen and deepen the Victoria Barge Canal. While the canal
improvements affected only a small portion of the site that contained no
human remains, a corps official has said it's standard procedure to
examine the entire site.
Daniel Castro Romero Jr., general council chairman for the Lipan Apache
Band of Texas Inc., said the find is an important one. He said he
believes Native Americans originated here and this cemetery confirms
that.
"We're rewriting history because of what's been found out here," he
said. "This is of great importance."
He said not only does it rewrite the history of the region, but of the
nation.
The excavation produced a large collection of artifacts dating back from
500 to 10,000 years, Ricklis said. A prehistoric cemetery thought to
date back at least 7,000 years was also discovered.
"It's one of only three of that magnitude in North America," Ricklis
said. He noted that the other known cemeteries older than 5,000 years
are Carrier Mills in Southern Illinois and Windover on the east coast of
Florida. He also said archaeologists didn't even suspect that people in
Texas had major cemeteries 7,000 years ago.
"It's a sizeable cemetery," Ricklis said. "We excavated about 80
burials, but there are a lot more than that in the site."
He estimated there could be as many as 200 burials there that date back
7,000 years. Based on radiocarbon dating, he said, the oldest of the
human remains tested dates back 8,500 years.
Ricklis said researchers are confident the site was occupied as far back
as 10,000 years ago because of flint points found there that are known
to be from that period. "Specifically, we found dart points of the
Golondrina, St. Mary's Hall and Wilson types, all known to date to
before 9,000 years ago."
Ricklis said he has no idea where the predecessors of these Native
Americans originated, but there is nothing to indicate a European
connection. He said they could be part of an early population that may
have come from northeast Asia.
But he added some in the field question that and believe there may have
been immigrants from Europe or the Pacific region who contributed to
early American populations.
"Probably the most interesting thing we have regarding the cemetery is a
lot of artifacts found with the burials and placed in the graves as
offerings," Ricklis said.
He said those artifacts are evidence of links to the Mississippi River
Valley, the Southeast United States and possibly even Mexico.
Examples include bannerstones, flint projectile points, beads, shell
pendants, and bone and antler tools for working flint. A bannerstone is
a piece of stone that was worked by pecking and grinding into an oblong
shape. It was typically 4 to 6 inches long, carefully crafted and
usually smoothed, sometimes to a polish.
"The bannerstones are not typical of Texas," Ricklis said. "The ones we
have are of a certain type much more common in the Mississippi Valley
and the Midwest."
Also found were plummets, or teardrop-shaped stones, that have been
drilled and are more typical of the Southeast for this time period.
Ricklis said he still doesn't have the final report on the physical
anthropology showing the sex and age of the people. But the study showed
there were several individuals who lived to be 70 years old and still
had their teeth, indicating they led relatively healthy lives.
"We do see that these people are quite healthy and some of the diseases
we see in later populations of Native Americans were not present,"
Ricklis said.
He said he's not sure what the typical lifespan would have been for
these people. But he said he would expect hunter-gatherers to have had a
lifespan of 45 to 50 years.
"There is nothing indicating death from other than natural causes,"
Ricklis said. "Old age is just one of the natural causes. There are many
children and young- to middle-aged adults in the cemetery, as well."
It appears they had a diet that was a mix of plants and animals they got
from the local river floodplain and the prairie environment. There were
also indications they brought food from the coast.
Their meals from the floodplain and prairie consisted of things like
deer, river fish, local plants and possibly buffalo. The coastal meals
included saltwater fish and oysters.

 David Tewes is a reporter for the Advocate. Contact him at
361-580-6515 or dtewes@vicad.com, or comment on this story at
www.VictoriaAdvocate.com.

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A dog's life long ago: Broke backs pleasing their Indian masters

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Fri, 25 May 2007 19:36:00 +0000

BY GEORGE PAWLACZYK
News-Democrat

BROOKLYN - In ancient Illinois, small dogs were made to carry or pull
sacks of firewood until the tips of their vertebrae broke.
Sometimes their heads were lopped off with stone axes during sacrificial
ceremonies. Most often, they were buried with the trash.
No wonder canines kept by Indians in the Midwest were described in early
European explorers' journals as nasty tempered and prone to bite. They
were also believed to be unable to bark but still served as watch dogs,
perhaps by nibbling on a sleeping Indian's toes.
Nevertheless, an evolving archaeological record in the metro-east shows
that these small 25- to 35-pound primitive animals became as ingrained
in ancient human existence as today's pampered canine pets.
In Southern Illinois a thousand years ago, it was truly a dog's life,
according to 60 complete or partial dog skeletons recovered from the
remarkably well-preserved, buried remains of a village from an era
archaeologists refer to as "Terminal Woodland." The site is just outside
Brooklyn and is well clear of a nearby modern cemetery.
This fishing village was primarily occupied until about 950 A.D., or
just before the explosion of mound building that marked the more well-
known Mississippian Culture, whose members built the raised earthen
complex at the Cahokia Mounds Interpretive Center a few miles away.
The skeleton total from the Brooklyn site, first excavated in 2003, is
probably a North American record for the recovery of prehistoric dog
remains, said Joe Galloy, a Harvard-trained archaeologist. Galloy's
specialties include interpreting the relationship between dogs and the
earliest Americans.
"If there is something that really pulls on the muscles, this bone, the
spinous process will fracture and reheal, and this is an example of
one," said Galloy, holding up a delicate, deformed vertebra on which the
shark-fin like bone tip that anchors back muscles was bent.
"You see this in modern sled dogs," he said, "This comes from being used
as pack animals, probably hauling firewood."
On a large sheet of white paper spread on a table in front of Galloy at
the offices of the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research
Program in Belleville, was the nearly complete skeleton of a young,
female dog recovered from the excavation site.
Galloy said this creature is descended from wolves that probably prowled
human camps and dumps 15,000 or so years ago in Europe and Asia and
gradually changed in appearance to resemble today's dogs. Galloy said
the wolves, in return for scavenging, became the eyes and ears of the
humans and eventually became their hunting partners.
At another archeological site -- the Koster Site along the Illinois
River in Calhoun County -- one of the earliest North American dog
burials was uncovered in the 1970s. Radiocarbon dating showed it is
about 8,500 years old.
This animal, however, was probably a revered hunting dog and was
interred separate from a trash pit and had been reverently laid on its
side, just like rare human burials from this much earlier time.
But the dogs found by excavating teams at the Brooklyn dig headed by
Galloy and site supervisor Brad Koldehoff were not hunting partners. By
the time of this particular village, fishing and growing corn had
replaced nomadic hunting.
The Brooklyn site, which has gained a national reputation, is officially
known as "Janey B. Goode." The nickname derives from the old Chuck Berry
song and is a tribute to the location's archaeological riches.
"In contrast to earlier times, when the men went out hunting and the
dogs went with them and were very highly valued, at this time people
settled in one spot and the dogs became women's' helpers," he said.
Another use, albeit a grisly one, was as sacrifices, probably to dispel
sickness in humans.
Six of the dogs, all males, were found buried and headless. Two dogs
were found with their heads still intact, but with their skeletons bound
back to back with the skulls facing east and west.
Dog remains found from a time a few hundred years later at Cahokia
Mounds were burned and had cut marks indicating the creatures had been
used as food, said Koldehoff, the excavation director. Koldehoff pointed
out that within a span of maybe 500 to 600 years, early dogs went from
hunting partners, to pack animals to dinner fare.
But weren't there some ancient people, children perhaps, who cuddled
primitive puppies and maybe even played with them?
Koldehoff said he thinks that had to have happened, but there is no
physical proof.
"There's certain things you can't dig up," he said. "You can't dig up a
dance. You can't dig up a song. And you can't dig up somebody petting a
dog."
Contact reporter George Pawlaczyk at gpawlaczyk@bnd.com and 239-2625.
© 2006 Belleville News-Democrat and wire service sources. All Rights
Reserved.
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Researchers find ancient pottery operation at Angel Mounds

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Fri, 25 May 2007 19:35:00 +0000

Associated Press

EVANSVILLE, Ind. - An archaeological dig at southern Indiana's Angel
Mounds complex has uncovered a pottery-making operation that reveals the
artistic skills of the Indians who lived there hundreds of years ago.
Indiana University researchers believe they've uncovered remains of a
potter's house once used by the Indians who inhabited the area
overlooking the Ohio River from 1100 to 1450 A.D.
Excavations have revealed pottery tools and masses of prepared but
unfired clay awaiting shaping into bowls, jars or figures which suggest
that the structure that once stood there was used to make the pottery
now found in shards across the site.
"This is the best collection of pottery tools ever found here," Chris
Peebles, director of IU's Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, told
Evansville Courier & Press.
The finds at the site a few miles south of Evansville have also revealed
some of the ancient tricks Angel Mounds' inhabitants used to strengthen
their clay creations.
The excavations reveal that the Indians of the Middle Mississippian
culture used ground mussel shells to temper clay for pottery, making it
stronger and easier to shape.
Scientists began studying the site last year after an underground
imaging device called a magnetometer showed the remains of more than 100
homes and a stockade wall thousands of feet long in the grassy fields
near the site's 10 mounds.
"In terms of the quality of archaeological learning, this is first
rate," Peebles said.
He and research fellow Staffan Peterson are being assisted on this
year's dig by 17 students from eight Midwestern universities.
"It's really interesting to think about the people who lived here and to
try to imagine what their life was like," said Ashley Metzger, a
University of Evansville student.
The students have uncovered dozens of pot shards, as well as bones,
disc-shaped pieces of coal and shells.
Researchers also have found evidence of a flint-working operation at the
site, where the Middle Mississippian Indians hunted and farmed on the
rich bottom lands of the Ohio River.
The Indian community that once thrived at Angel Mounds is renowned among
archaeologists for the quality of the pottery left behind there.
Last year, the researchers discovered two deer jawbones that appeared to
have been carefully buried within the house, perhaps as part of a
consecration ritual.

© 2006 AP Wire and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
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Octagon Earthworks' alignment with moon likely is no accident

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Fri, 25 May 2007 19:32:00 +0000

February 13, 2007
BRADLEY T. LEPPER
Columbus Dispatch
The Octagon Earthworks in Newark is one remnant of the Newark
Earthworks, recently listed by The Dispatch as one of the Seven Wonders
of Ohio.
Earlham College professors Ray Hively and Robert Horn demonstrated in
1982 that the walls of this 2,000-yearold circle and octagon were
aligned to the points on the horizon, marking the limits of the rising
and setting of the moon during an 18.6-year cycle. The implications of
this argument for our understanding of the knowledge and abilities of
the ancient American Indian builders of the earthworks are astounding.
But how can we know whether they deliberately lined the walls up with
the moon or whether the series of alignments is just an odd coincidence?
In the current issue of the Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology,
Hively and Horn use statistics to address this question. And while they
acknowledge that they cannot provide a definitive answer, their analyses
certainly offer compelling evidence to support their idea that the sites
are among the world's earliest astronomical observatories.
Hively and Horn focused on five alignments. These are the main axis of
the site, which points toward the maximum northerly rise point of the
moon, and the orientation of four of the octagon's eight walls, which
align variously with the moon's maximum southern rise point, the minimum
northern rise point, the maximum northern set point and the minimum
southern set point.
They performed a "Monte Carlo" analysis in which a computer randomly
generates more than 10 billion equilateral octagons, randomly aligned
them to a compass bearing and then checked how many astronomically
significant alignments resulted.
They determined that, even "making the most generous plausible
combination of assumptions favoring chance alignments," the odds that
the alignments at Newark are merely accidental are about one in a
thousand. Using more reasonable assumptions, the odds are more like one
in 40 million.
This does not take into account several other lunar alignments
incorporated somewhat more subtly into the earthworks. Neither does it
consider the fact that Hively and Horn have shown that High Bank Works
in Chillicothe, the only other circle and octagon combination built by
the Hopewell culture, also is aligned to the same series of lunar rise
and set points.
It's a safe bet that these ancient Ohioans understood a lot more about
astronomy than most of us have recognized.

Bradley T. Lepper is curator of archaeology at the Ohio Historical
Society.

blepper@ohiohistory.org

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noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Fri, 25 May 2007 17:58:00 +0000

'Woodhenge' at Fort Ancient raises interest in ritual past
Tuesday, May 1, 2007 3:25 AM
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. The different ages suggest to Riordan that a "sequence of
ceremonial events" took place at this location. The two rings of posts
and the pit might be related, or they might represent three separate
rituals. With less than 5 percent of the circle investigated, Riordan
warns, our understanding of it remains tentative. "We avidly look
forward to subsequent field seasons, new data and altered perspectives,"
he wrote.
More information about the
excavation of the Moorehead Circle can be found on the Ohio Historical
Society's archaeology blog:

www.ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/.

Bradley T. Lepper is curator of archaeology at the Ohio Historical
Society.

noreply@blogger.com (Gary C. Daniels, LostWorlds.org) — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 00:53:00 +0000

Thousands of years ago another civilization inhabited Missouri

All that's left today are the mounds.
By MATTHEW ग्राहम, Columbia Missourian
April 14, 2007

On one of many pinnacles along the bluffs lining the Missouri River
southwest of Columbia, atop the steep face of jagged rock plunging to
the landing, there is an inconspicuous 10-foot lump of earth. What
appears to be a natural point in the landscape ˜ insignificant in the
swath of hills and valleys ˜ is a burial mound, formed by human hands
thousands of years ago.
American Indian burial mounds abound in mid-Missouri, especially along
the blufftops of the river. Many date back 2,000 years or more to what
is called the Woodland Period, from about 500 B.C. to about A.D. 900.
With developer Jose Lindner's purchase of the former W.B. Smith Feed
Mill and Hatchery property ˜ 1,024 acres between the city and the
river ˜ government officials say city annexation is inevitable. And
others say if planning doesn't precede development, the future of the
burial mounds along the blufftops is uncertain at best. Few protections
exist for the prehistoric sites. The federal legislation meant to
protect them only applies to development projects that are on federal
land or use federal money. State protection only applies to "known"
prehistoric sites. But without an official database, many sites only
become known when construction runs into them, at which point
archaeologists say the damage is generally already extensive.
Layers of history
While some city and county officials seek ways to protect the burial
mounds, development creeps steadily southwest toward the water. Boone
County is home to more recorded burial mounds and other archaeological
sites than any other Missouri county, with 1,300 known sites as of Aug.
31.
There are 37,000 known sites in the state, but that's probably a small
fraction of the total, said Judith Deel, an officer with the State
Historic Preservation Office.
Burial mounds were typically built on blufftops overlooking rivers or
streams. In some cases, mound builders saved the bones of their tribe's
dead for years until they camped in one area long enough to build a
mound. As a result, some mounds contain bones and cremations from
different years.
Many of these mounds have been excavated in the past, and the
information gleaned from their contents has given archaeologists a
picture of Missouri that dates back at least 12,000 years to the
Woodland Period and earlier.
Some recent discoveries were accidental. In 1989, during a construction
project along Forum Boulevard, a mound was hit. Because it was already
damaged and partly exposed, archaeologists decided to excavate its
contents. They found the remains of 11 people from the Late Woodland
Period, about A.D. 700 to A.D. 900. They also found a female who was
about 20 years old when she died, sealed in a limestone tomb and buried
in the mound. Carbon dating showed she had lived in the Early Woodland
Period, between 850 B.C. and 450 B.C.
Much of what is known about the historical and archaeological record of
Missouri is owed to Carl Chapman, the first person to graduate from MU
with experience in American archaeology. Chapman dedicated his life to
discovering Missouri's history and prehistory. In 1986, Chapman was
researching the Rogers Shelter area in the Osage River Basin when he
established what he estimated to be an 11,000- year timeline ˜ from
about 10,000 B.C. to about A.D. 1,000 ˜ for one civilization in
Missouri. The discovery is one of the longest cultural sequences found
in the state.
He also uncovered a mastodon tusk near Miami, Mo., in the 1970s. Even
more significant was the "flake knife" found next to it, suggesting
people may have lived in Missouri at the same time as the mastodon ˜
about 18,000 years ago.
Chapman discerned that the people of the Woodland Period were hunters
and gatherers, made ornate pottery and lived in campsites near the
mounds but probably didn't grow their own food. Religious rights
MU anthropology professor Todd Vanpool said that when excavations were
conducted through most of the 20th century, American Indian religious
rights weren't really considered. "With Native Americans ∑ the
unmarked graves were treated as basically abandoned property with no
clear ancestry present," he said. "And therefore, as abandoned property,
archaeologists could take the bodies and do with them what they wanted
to, because there was no clear ownership."
To some American Indians, the excavations ˜ intentional or otherwise
˜ were sacrilegious.
"Mostly (it was) federally subsidized grave desecration," said Lynda
Means, who teaches American Indian history at Lindenwood University in
St. Charles and is an elder in the Thunderbird Society, a nonprofit
organization that promotes American Indian culture. "We understand that
people wanted to know, but the idea is ˜ why don't they dig up white
people's cemeteries?" she said. Jane Livingston, president of the
Columbia-Jefferson City area Red Fox Lodge, one of the Thunderbird
Society's four lodges, said that while some American Indians share
Means' view, others try to see the historical benefits of excavations.
"The views of the full-blood traditionalists is very harsh," Livingston
said. "They see it as an insult ˜ the lack of caring, the lack of
understanding, the way people dismissed their (religious) views as
unimportant."
However, she said, "Some people recognize it was done for educational
purposes, to try to further the knowledge of the prehistory of the
United States."
But if archaeologists once considered the sites "abandoned property,"
Vanpool illustrates the more recent appreciation of Indian burials.
"These resources are valuable," he said. "It's a limited resource; there
is no way to get back a mound once it's been destroyed, or any
archaeological site once it's been destroyed. ∑ And the preservation
of these and the mitigation of damage that might occur to them needs to
be thought about before the development occurs." Changing ownership
Just a few miles up Smith Hatchery Road, there is another mound ˜ a
pile of concrete and debris piled long and high where the W.B. Smith
feed mill stood just months ago.
The land on which the debris is piled was bought by Lindner last year
and is already being cleared.
Attempts to reach the Lindner family for this story were unsuccessful.
But Stan Shawver, director of Boone County's Planning and Development
Department, said he expects Lindner to request a planned development
designation once he annexes into the city, which would allow for a
mixture of residential, recreational and commercial areas on the
purchased land.
Having already acquired 1,024 acres just outside Columbia city limits,
the developer has expressed a desire to buy land all the way to the
river. Though he has faced resistance, some, like city Planning and
Zoning Commissioner Jeff Barrow, think it's only a matter of time before
Columbia annexes the land lining the river. So far, some of the burial
mounds near the river have been protected by those who own the property,
such as Carl and Anne Orazio. They said they have turned down Lindner's
offers to buy their property. The Orazios say they believe in preserving
the artifacts in the area, as does Clifton Duval, who also lives on the
riverfront and is a member of the Missouri Archaeological Society. "I
think they should be left alone," Duval said. "There's surely enough
earth that they don't have to disturb their graves." Duval has spent
countless hours walking the bluffs and searching for artifacts. He said
he worries about developers pushing to the river, which he says would
ruin the area and threaten the mounds. "It's something that we ought to
guard against," he said. "Any kind of destruction of the mounds is
destroying our history." Carl Orazio said he believes the development at
the old W.B. Smith site is already causing damage.
"I just see dirt work being done. I haven't seen the actual machines
working on it, but I see the aftermath," he said. The property Lindner
bought is farther from the river than many of the known burials. But
there's only one more property between it and the river.
The law says construction must stop when human remains or funerary
objects are discovered. But even if a developer stops upon hitting a
mound, he or she may have already caused extensive damage. In Missouri,
it would be difficult for a developer to find out if sites exist on a
specific property because there is no official database of known sites.
The location of known sites is generally kept secret for fear of
vandals.
Toward the river
It would take a minimum of four property annexations for Columbia to
become a river city.
The majority of that land is Lindner's. He can't join the city yet
because two small properties stand between his land and the city
boundary; any voluntary annexation must be contiguous. The fourth
property is the 139-acre riverfront piece owned by the Orazios, who have
turned down offers from Lindner.
Lindner could bypass that land by acquiring a set of five plots that
border the Orazios' land on the east.
Either way, it's close enough to have Duval worried. "I didn't think
(development) was ever coming that far that quick," he said. "It shocked
me and everyone else around here." Barrow, the city planning and zoning
commissioner, said the importance of protecting burial mounds is part of
the reason for well- planned, low-impact development. To ensure the
protection of the blufftops, Barrow said the city and county should
employ more zoning tools to protect the mounds and the whole area beyond
what the state regulations offer.
"We're now in a position to fix it, and it's easier to do it before it's
broken," he said. "It would be wise for the city and county to start
planning" before development reaches the river. Preserving history
Without adequate federal and state protections for the mounds on the
blufftops along the Missouri River, some in the city and county planning
and zoning commissions think something should be done to preserve them.
The thinking is that if the county and city worked together, protections
could be implemented. "I would like to have the commissions work
together to come up with what should the area outside the city look
like, what should our plan be," said Mike Holden of the city Planning
and Zoning Commission. Barrow said overlay zoning along the river bluffs
could be used, which "wouldn't allow for clearing of trees, would limit
the height of houses, maybe have a setback from the bluffs." Barrow
points to the Les Bourgeois winery at Rocheport as an example of
obtrusive and nonobtrusive development. The restaurant goes up three
stories and "sticks out like a sore thumb," he said. "But the winery ˜
the A-frame ˜ that's not obtrusive at all, it blends in with the
bluffs."
Barrow said that if the city and county worked together to enact a
zoning overlay, the regulations could be implemented before any
development took place.
But Jerry Wade, the former chairman of the city planning commission,
said the City Council stopped joint planning efforts with the county in
2003. And the City Council and its planning department won't work
outside a "fringe area" ˜ about a mile outside city limits as of 2000
and 2001 ˜ designated in the Metro 2020 Plan. Meanwhile, the county
planning department decided not to implement at least one attempt by a
county Planning and Zoning Commission member to protect the mounds,
saying that city annexation is inevitable. State law doesn't allow for
dual jurisdiction, so county regulations would be void if the area is
annexed by the city. Shawver, the county Planning Department director,
also said it wasn't a priority because state protections already exist.
Both federal and state laws lay out protections for unmarked burial
mounds and other cultural resources. But there are problems with these
regulations: They rarely apply practically to private developments, and
the limited budget for people charged with watching over such sites
makes it difficult for them to do so effectively. Blanket protection of
historic or prehistoric sites is not allowed under state law, said Deel,
the State Historic Preservation officer, and general oversight and
monitoring is simply not an option because of budget constraints.
According to the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, for any
development using federal funds, a survey must be conducted to assess
the potential damage or disruption to historic and prehistoric sites.
The national Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act,
passed in 1990, reinforced this requirement and added stipulations about
giving already excavated bones back to American Indian tribes. But some
in the American Indian community say the intended protections are still
too difficult to enforce. The grave protection act "was passed, and it's
still almost impossible to enforce some of this stuff unless there's
lots of people pushing and shoving," said Means, of the Thunderbird
Society. And the state law is even less concrete, Deel said. According
to State Chapter 194, a developer must work with the Historic
Preservation Office to avoid a site or arrange for proper excavation and
reburial, but only if the site is known. The legal catch
"The catch there is, that if it's not known for a fact, if or if not
(that) there's burials, they may not come talk to us until they've
already got into it and exposed human remains," Deel said. The
definition of "known" is also problematic. There are many maps, some
dating back hundreds of years, detailing burial mounds and other
American Indian sites. But the state has no official and publicly
accessible database of them. So even if the location of sites along the
river is known by those who live there now or if there are maps of them
in MU's anthropology department, it could be difficult to accuse a
developer of negligence.
It also makes it difficult for developers to know when they might be
encroaching on a site.
"In most instances, especially if it's not a recorded site, we don't
hear anything about it until either a neighbor calls or the developer
themselves realize what they've gotten into," Deel said. Minnesota also
faced problems protecting burial mounds but has set up a system to
preserve them.
In 1976, a private developer started building a bridge on an American
Indian site. In response, lawmakers extended greater protections. Now an
online database of known burial sites has been created to help avoid
site destruction without direct oversight. Many developers and public
bodies utilize the database to check for sites beforehand because the
cost of delaying construction is so high if a site is found. Out in the
open
Russ Duker, of the Boone County Planning and Zoning Commission, argues
that the debate of site accessibility shouldn't be as black- and-white
as whether to develop and surrender the sanctity of the sites or mark
off the entire area.
"There needs to be an allowance for some interaction with these
resources," Duker said. "We don't want to protect them to where no one
can use them. The whole reason that we have resources is so that people
can access them.
"I'd like to find a way, if we could, to utilize them to a community
benefit, and part of a community benefit might be having a commercial
spot that we could go to on the river and enjoy the river." Duker added:
"I would love to see a riverfront. I would love to see us exploit, if
you will, the presence of this interstate highway that used to be the
Missouri River, where the Indians used to come and they've got the
burial mounds, the different archaeological sites we've got here in
Boone County."
Duker said that a recently passed city stream water ordinance and a
similar measure proposed in the county would unintentionally but
effectively eliminate the possibility of any sort of riverfront
district.
He said he agrees with the ordinance in principle but thinks it's too
broad.
"All along the river or all along the stream or all along the creek
should you allow commercial development? By no means," he said. "But
there needs to be some type of allowance for interaction with these
resources."
He agreed that exposing sensitive sites, such as burial mounds, to the
public can increase the potential for damage to the areas, but, he said,
it could also galvanize the community to protect them. "Interaction with
the resources has the potential of saying, 'Hey, this is a great natural
resource. We need to protect it.' ∑ So somehow or another we need to
allow that interaction with these resources while monitoring it, not
just prohibiting it," he said. Van Meter State Park in Saline County
illustrates Duker's suggestion. The park contains part of the Utz site,
which is a former village of Missouri Indians. The park had been
primarily a recreation area, its history mostly ignored. But in the late
1980s, officials decided to build a visitor center and to dedicate the
park to the Missouri Indians. The Utz site had been home to as many as
6,000 Missouris when Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet discovered it in
1673. The visitor center contains a mural depicting the lifestyle of the
Missouris as well as interactive informational exhibits, and the park
contains what is called the "Old Fort" and multiple burial mounds.
Connie Grisier, the park's site administrator who lives on the premises,
said a gate leading to the main burial mound is locked at night. But,
she said, having the sites public probably helps protect them.
"Actually having people around and then having them protected at night
seems to help," she said. "If they were secluded and people knew about
them, I could see people vandalizing them." No native voices
Because the tribes that once inhabited Missouri were forced west to
Kansas and Oklahoma, no American Indian tribes speak for the burials
near the river as religious ancestral sites. David Golden of the
Otoe-Missouria tribe, now based in Oklahoma, said that without the
ability to watch over the burial mounds effectively, the tribe's efforts
are now primarily focused on retrieving the remains of excavated
ancestors.
"What we have done is try to (get back) the objects that have already
been dug up" from previous excavations, he said. "Of course, by that
time it would pretty well be destroyed. We would rather see it
preserved, left alone. If the developer is gung-ho to get it developed,
there should be some concern given to those (burial mounds)." Golden
said that if the whole area is to be developed, the portion of land with
burials on it could be made into a park or otherwise protected to avoid
or minimize damage.
"The Otoe-Missouria tribe is not against any kind of development, road
building, et cetera. We're not trying to stop anything," he said. But
"if you're going to send out a bunch of bulldozers, everything's going
to get chewed up in the process. The position of the tribe, is we don't
want that stuff just destroyed with a backhoe, and if you send in a
builder, that's what's going to happen because they're building a
building or a road."
Barrow also said he isn't absolutely against development along the
river; he just wants it done in a way that's not overly disruptive to
the environment.
"One of my main concerns is that the whole river bluff area ... be
protected along the river so that people traveling down the river have
the same view that Lewis and Clark had," he said.

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