Letters Editor’s Corner
Money Can Influence CRM I was thrilled to read “Changing Times,” Mike’s Toner’s excellent article about cultural resource management (CRM), in the summer issue. However, I believe Toner missed a crucial detail about the role of big money in modern archaeological investigation: when archaeological work stands in the way of profit, money always wins. As a result, some unscrupulous CRM firms are willing to let important archaeological sites be destroyed for the sake of a company’s bottom line. I saw this tragic tale play out many times in the field working in CRM in the Midwest. In one example, I was employed to double-check the work of a CRM firm hired to survey the site of a future regional airport in Arkansas. The CRM firm found “no significant sites” within a nearly 10-square mile survey area. Our research located six sites in one day in that same area, including prehistoric sites and even a stillstanding 1800s homestead eligible for the National Register. In short, the first CRM firm clearly decided that money from their contract was more important than preserving our past. Sadly, that’s just one example of how big money leads to terrible consequences for archaeological conservation, a fact that exposes the weakness of CRM as a method of archaeological research. Granted, plenty of great science and discoveries come through welldone cultural resource management.
Unfortunately, some CRM firms will always place profit over principle. Jason B. Harmon Lake Forest Park, Washington
When the Danes Were Coming I very much enjoyed your article “When the Russians Were Coming” (Summer 2009). However, please be informed that Vitus Bering was not Russian, but Danish. As a Dane, I feel that Denmark, being a small country, must take credit for its famous people. Thanks again for a very informative article and a great magazine. Mette Engelstoft Djokovich Orange, California
Sending Letters to American Archaeology American Archaeology welcomes your letters. Write to us at 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517, or send us e-mail at tacmag@nm.net. We reserve the right to edit and publish letters in the magazine’s Letters department as space permits. Please include your name, address, and telephone number with all correspondence, including e-mail messages. american archaeology
When he’s not preoccupied with his other job—which is running the University of Tennessee—archaeologist Jan Simek might be found exploring a cave. But unlike many other spelunkers, his primary interest is learning how ancient peoples used these caves hundreds, and even thousands, of years ago. (See “Ancient Cavers,” p.12.) Toward that end, Simek founded the Cave Archaeology Research Team (CART) to examine the myriad caves along the western escarpment of the Cumberland Plateau, which extends for some 600 miles across Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and eastern Kentucky. There’s enough to do here that Simek could spend as much time below ground as above it. CART has explored more than 1,000 caves in Tennessee alone, and that’s just a fraction of his home state’s caves. Simek and his colleagues have documented 250 caves in the Cumberland Plateau that were used by prehistoric peoples. Archaeologists have found evidence that caves in this region were used as long as 6,000 years ago, but the primary usage occurred during the Mississippian period, from roughly a.d. 800 to 1600. Of those 250 caves with evidence of prehistoric occupation, nearly 70 contained works of art such as pictographs and mud glyphs. The Mississippians are renowned for their mounds, many of which have been well researched. Their caves have received far less attention. But based on his work, Simek hypothesizes that caves also served an important purpose in the Mississippian’s lives and cosmology, which consisted of the heavens, the earth, and the underworld.
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