American Archaeology | Fall 2000 | Vol. 4 No. 3 by American Archaeology Magazine

U N C O V E R I N G A M AYA M E T R O P O L I S • E X C A V AT I N G T E X A S ’ S F I R S T E U R O P E A N C O L O N Y

american archaeology FALL 2000

a quarterly publication of The Archaeological Conservancy

Vol. 4 No. 3

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Research: Archaeology’s

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american archaeology a quarterly publication of The Archaeological Conservancy

Vol. 4 No. 3

fall 2000 COVER FEATURE

ARCHAEOLOGY’S NEW FRONTIER

BY MICHAEL BAWAYA

What can ancient DNA research accomplish?

A SLEEPING GIANT AW AKENS BY ROB CRISELL

Though relatively unknown, Calakmul is a majestic Maya center.

LA SALLE, LA BELLE, AND THE LONE STAR STATE BY CLAIRE POOLE

An ongoing excavation reveals the birth of Texas.

MISSISSIPPI VALLEY STA R T- U P BY JERILYN DINSMOOR

Under the guidance of Jim Gallagher, the Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center has grown in size and significance.

LEGENDS OF ARCHAEOLOGY: A COLOSSAL DISCOVERY BY TAMARA STEWART

Matt Stirling was the last archaeologist to discover an ancient civilization.

new acquisitions: M A K I N G A POINT OF PRESERVAT O N The $2-million campaign to Protect Our Irreplaceable National Treasures has already preserved three sites.

new acquisition: PREHISTORY AT M A RYLAND’S CROSSROADS The Conservancy preserves three villages that were home to American Indians for more than 1,000 years.

american archaeology

2 Lay of the Land 3 Letters 5 Events 7 In the News

Revisiting America’s First Dig ■ Lost Maya City Never Lost ■ A Monument to Archaeology ■ Examining Jamestown’s “Starving Time”

44 Field Notes 46 Expeditions 48 Reviews

COVER:

Maintaining a sterile environment is crucial in ancient DNA research. photograph by Darren Poore

Lay of the Land Let the Truth Be Told database expands and techniques improve, we can expect dramatic results. Ironically, at the moment this fantastic new research tool is becoming available to answer hitherto unanswerable questions, forces are working to destroy the evidence before it can be analyzed. Take, for example, the question of what happened to the Anasazi of the Southwest. It’s a question that can be answered by ancient DNA research, but government officials and Native Americans are rushing to rebury skeletons from Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon before DNA can be extracted. Do they fear the truth? Perhaps a political answer is more appealing than a scientific

one. Let’s put a moratorium on reburials until DNA can be extracted, and let truth prevail.

GRANT THERKILDSEN

ur cover story explains the fantastic new world of DNA research as it is being applied to American archaeology—a development that challenges the imagination and promises to add vast stores to the knowledge of the prehistoric people of America. Still in its infancy, ancient DNA research has the potential to identify the first Americans and answer many of the most perplexing questions of prehistory. DNA scientists are already giving us important information on early populations that can confirm or destroy theories of population migrations and cultural origins. As the

MARK MICHEL President

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BACKCOUNTRY ARCHAEOLOGY: HIKING MOQUI CANYON TO LAKE POWELL MARCH 18-24, 2001

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CULTURES OF THE CHAMA RIVER VALLEY, NORTHERN NEW MEXICO

23390 ROAD K . CORTEZ, COLORADO 81321 (800) 422-8975 WWW.CROWCANYON.ORG

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CCAC’s programs and admission practices are open to applicants of any race, color, nationality, or ethnic origin.

THE CROW CANYON EXPERIENCE.

2000

Letters

An End to the Vinland Map Controversy?

I was greatly interested in the News article “The Vinland Map: Genuine or Fake?” that appeared in the Summer issue of American Archaeology. I have been interested in the subject of Viking explorations in North America all my life, and ever since Yale published The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation, I have hoped the issue of its genuineness would eventually be solved. Now, perhaps it may be. Please keep your readers posted. Elizabeth Stewart Rochester, New York The Adventure of Archaeology

Your Summer issue had a superb article entitled “Archaeology Along the Mohawk.” There is so much to learn from American Indian village sites, and it must have been a thrill to unearth history from the Iroquois. The information that can be obtained around the Palatine Bridge is unfathomably rich. One of the most exciting moments for me was when I was 12 years old and living in Monterey. We were building a rock wall around our house, and during the digging we dug up two Indian arrowheads, which we donated to the Monterey Museum. Later on while digging, we dug up a whole cow skeleton with a cowbell. Of course, when we first saw the bones, we american archaeology

thought we had a dinosaur. You can say I was somewhat disappointed. Ever since then, I have enjoyed the adventure of archaeology through publications like yours. Paul Dale Roberts Elk Grove, California No Puffery, Please

I have delayed my membership renewal because I am greatly disturbed by the puff piece about Crow Canyon in your Spring issue. I was an enthusiastic member of Crow Canyon for years. I worked at Sand Canyon for three sessions with the person who began the excavations and finished them: Bruce Bradley. Sand Canyon is, was, and always will be Bruce Bradley, especially to anyone who actually worked there. When I need public relations/ marketing pieces such as the article in your magazine, I will start looking at my junk mail. I am greatly concerned about the veracity of the rest of your pieces, but I am renewing my membership under the premise that the good you do by preserving land outweighs the specious quality of some articles in your magazine. Joan A. Cameron Paris, Virginia

Editor’s Corner You might notice that our current issue has expanded to 48 pages. We chose to increase the page count because we wanted to broaden our coverage of the fascinating world of American archaeology and we simply couldn’t squeeze everything into our old 40-page format. But even with the extra pages, we were pressed for space. With the expansion of the magazine, we’re able to offer more feature articles and new, occasional departments. On page 33, we have a short feature on the Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center, a growing nonprofit organization that has been doing important work for more than 20 years. On page 35, you’ll find the debut of one of our new departments, Legends of Archaeology, which features the exploits of Matt Stirling. In future issues we will bring you other new, occasional departments, including debates between prominent archaeologists concerning some of the field’s more controversial issues, and advice from professional photographers on how to photograph archaeological sites. Now that we have the extra pages, we intend to put them to good use.

Michael Bawaya, Editor

Sending Letters to American Archaeology American Archaeology welcomes your letters. Write to us at: 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 402, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517, or send us e-mail at archcons@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.

WELCOME TO THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONSERVANC Y!

he Archaeological Conservancy is the only national non-profit organization that identifies, acquires, and preserves the most significant archaeological sites in the United States. Since its beginning in 1980, the Conservancy has acquired more than 195 sites across the nation, ranging in age from the earliest habitation sites in North America to a 19thcentury frontier army post. We are building a national system of archaeological preserves to ensure the survival of our irreplaceable cultural heritage. Why Save Archaeological Sites? The ancient people of North America left virtually no written records of their cultures. Clues that might someday solve the mysteries of prehistoric America are still missing, and when a ruin is destroyed by looters, or leveled for a shopping center, precious information is lost. By permanently preserving endangered ruins, we make sure they will be here for future generations to study and enjoy. How We Raise Funds: Funds for the Conservancy come from membership dues, individual contributions, corporations, and foundations. Gifts and bequests of money, land, and securities are fully tax deductible under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Planned giving provides donors with substantial tax deductions and a variety of beneficiary possibilities. For more information, call Mark Michel at (505) 266-1540. The Role of the Magazine: American Archaeology is the only popular magazine devoted to presenting the rich diversity of archaeology in the Americas. The purpose of the magazine is to help readers appreciate and understand the archaeological wonders available to them, and to raise their awareness of the destruction of our cultural heritage. By sharing new discoveries, research, and activities in an enjoyable and informative way, we hope we can make learning about ancient America as exciting as it is essential. How to Say Hello: By mail: The Archaeological Conservancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 402, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517; by phone: (505) 266-1540; by e-mail: archcons@nm.net; or visit our Web site: www.americanarchaeology.com

5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 402 Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517 • (505) 266-1540 www.americanarchaeology.com Board of Directors Earl Gadbery, Pennsylvania, CHAIRMAN Olds Anderson, Michigan • Cecil F. Antone, Arizona • Janet Creighton, Washington Christopher B. Donnan, California • Janet EtsHokin, Illinois • Jerry EtsHokin, Illinois W. James Judge, Colorado • Jay T. Last, California James B. Richardson, Pennsylvania • Peter O. A. Solbert, New York Rosamond Stanton, New Mexico • Dee Ann Story, Texas • Stewart L. Udall, New Mexico Conser vancy Staff Mark Michel, President • Tione Joseph, Office Manager Erika Olsson, Membership Director • Shelley Smith, Membership Assistant Martha Mulvany, Special Projects Director • Yvonne Woolfolk, Administrative Assistant Heather Wooddell, Administrative Assistant Regional Offices and Directors Jim Walker, Southwest Region (505) 266-1540 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 402 • Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108-1517 Lynn Dunbar, Western Region (916) 448-1892 1217 23rd Street • Sacramento, California 95816-4917 Paul Gardner, Midwest Region (614) 267-1100 295 Acton Road • Columbus, Ohio 43214-3305 Alan Gruber, Southeast Region (770) 975-4344 5997 Cedar Crest Road • Acworth, Georgia 30101 Rob Crisell, Eastern Region (703) 979-4410 1307 S. Glebe Road • Arlington, Virginia 22204

american archaeology

PUBLISHER: Mark Michel EDITOR: Michael Bawaya (505) 266-9668, archcons@nm.net SENIOR EDITOR: Rob Crisell ASSISTANT EDITOR: Tamara Stewart CREATIVE & PRODUCTION DIRECTOR: Kathleen Sparkes, White Hart Design Editorial Advisor y Board Mark Barnes, National Park Service • James Bruseth, Texas Historical Commission William Dancey, Ohio State University • Allen Dart, Old Pueblo Archaeology Center Hester Davis, Arkansas Archeological Survey • James Dixon, University of Colorado Brian Fagan, U.C. Santa Barbara • John Foster, California State Parks Lynne Goldstein, Michigan State University • Peter Harrison, Maxwell Museum Gwynn Henderson, Kentucky Archaeological Registry • John Henderson, Cornell University William Lipe, Washington State University • Bonnie McEwan, San Luis Historic Site James Miller, Florida State Archaeologist • Peter Pilles, U.S. Forest Service John Roney, Bureau of Land Management • Lynne Sebastian, New Mexico Dennis Stanford, Smithsonian Institution • Vincas Steponaitis, University of North Carolina Kathryn Toepel, Heritage Research Associates • Richard Woodbury, University of Massachusetts National Advertising Office Richard Bublitz, Advertising Representative; 22247 Burbank Boulevard, Woodland Hills, California 91367; (818) 992-0366; fax (818) 716-1030 dick-rcb@juno.om American Archaeology (ISSN 1093-8400) is published quarterly by The Archaeological Conservancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 402, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517. Title registered U.S. Pat. and TM Office, © 2000 by TAC. Printed in the United States. Periodicals postage paid Albuquerque, NM, and additional mailing offices. Single copies are $3.95. A oneyear membership to the Conservancy is $25 and includes receipt of American Archaeology. Of the member’s dues, $6 is designated for a one-year magazine subscription. READERS: For new memberships, renewals, or change of address, write to The Archaeological Conservancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 402, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517, or call (505) 2661540. For changes of address, include old and new addresses. Articles are published for educational purposes and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Conservancy, its editorial board, or American Archaeology. Article proposals and artwork should be addressed to the editor. No responsibility assumed for unsolicited material. All articles receive expert review. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to American Archaeology, The Archaeological Conservancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 402, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517; (505) 266-1540. All rights reserved.

American Archaeology does not accept advertising from dealers in archaeological artifacts or antiquities.

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Museum exhibits Meetings

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Tours

Education

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Conferences

■ NEW EXHIBITS UCLA FOWLER MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Events

Festivals

Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art

Indianapolis, Ind.—The newly created exhibit “From One Hand to Another: Native American Treasures from the Children’s Museum” shares the stories and treasures passed from generation to generation among native peoples. More than 70 toys and child-related objects are on display. The activities include making dolls and

and miniature tipis. (317) 636-9378 (New long-term exhibit) Pueblo Grande Museum

Phoenix, Ariz.—“Doorways to the Past: Hohokam Houses,” is an exciting new outdoor exhibit featuring full-scale reproductions of prehistoric Hohokam dwellings dating back more than 900 years. The replicas are based on recent archaeological data as well as information from historic cultures of the Southwest. (602) 495-0901 (New long-term exhibit) George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art

FRANK H. MCCLUNG MUSEUM

Toronto, Ontario, Canada—Undertaken with the assistance of Maya researchers and members of the Maya community, the museum’s recent reinstallation of ancient American artifacts focuses on the Maya collection, providing in-depth information about the artifacts and the sites where they were found. (416) 586-8080 (New permanent exhibit)

■ CONFERENCES & FESTIVALS

Frank H. McClung Museum The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tenn.—Over three years in the making, the new 3,200-squarefoot gallery, “Archaeology and the Native Peoples of Tennessee,” will showcase the museum’s worldclass collection of prehistoric native art and artifacts. The new state-of-the-art exhibit traces over 12,000 years of Tennessee’s history and includes materials excavated from sites under study by University of Tennessee archaeologists over the last 65 years. The gallery’s opening coincides with Tennessee’s Archaeology Week, a statewide celebration of cultural heritage. (865) 974-2144 (New permanent gallery opens September 24)

american archaeology

27th Biennial Great Basin Anthropological Conference

October 5-7, David Eccles Conference Center, Ogden, Utah. For information, contact Steven Simms, GBAC Chair, at (435) 7971277, ssimms@hass.usu.edu, or www.hass .usu.edu/~gbac2000 Fort Ancient State Memorial Site Tours

UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History Los Angeles, Calif.— The Moche civilization flourished on Peru’s north coast between A.D. 100 and 800, leaving behind a vivid artistic record of their activities and beliefs in beautifully painted ceramics. The culmination of 30 years of study, “Moche Fineline Painting of Ancient Peru” features 50 large-scale drawings of the original ceramics, accompanied by many of the exquisite Moche vessels from which they were taken. (310) 825-2585 (Through February 18, 2001)

October 14-15, Lebanon, Ohio. Enjoy the lush fall colors of the wooded settlement while learning about the prehistoric Hopewell people who built the site’s hilltop enclosure. (513) 932-4421

Events

Bar Harbor, Maine—Using archaeological and historic records as well as oral tradition, the new exhibit “First Light, First People” explores the daily life of Maine’s native peoples over the past 10,000 years. The exhibit coincides with Maine Archaeology Week (October 14–24), which includes special presentations, children’s activities, and other events. (207) 288-3519 (Through October 22)

December 9, Maine Center for the Arts, University of Maine, Orono, Maine. This event features Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot basketmakers, who sell their handmade, one-of-a-kind, ashsplint and sweet-grass baskets. Visitors enjoy traditional foods, storytelling, flute music, children’s workshops, and demonstrations of traditional techniques. Call (207) 581-1901 for more information.

Museum of Man’s 25th Annual Rock Art Symposium

November 4, San Diego Museum of Man, San Diego, Calif. The museum’s 25th annual symposium is devoted to the latest research on petroglyphs and pictographs, ranging from new interpretations and conservation issues to recent discoveries. The event features presentations by internationally known archaeologists. To register or obtain more information, call (619) 239-2001. 57th Annual Southeastern Archaeological Conference

November 8-11, the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Macon, Ga. On Saturday afternoon the Society for Georgia Archaeology will lead guided tours of Ocmulgee National Monument. For more information check the SEAC Web site at www.uark.edu/campusresources/seac/seac2000.html or call the Crowne Plaza Hotel at (800) 227-6963. Joint Midwest Archaeological & Plains Anthropological Conference

November 9-12, Radisson Hotel St. Paul, St. Paul, Minn. The conference features various workshops and symposia. For more information, call (612) 725-2411, or visit the Web site www.admin.state.mn.us/osa/mw _arch_conf00.html 6

Hudson Museum’s Sixth Annual Maine Indian Basketmakers Sale and Demonstration

HEARD MUSEUM NORTH

Abbe Museum

October 25-28, San Juan College, Farmington, N.M. This year’s theme is “Anasazi Archaeology at the New Millennium: What We Have Learned.” Linda Cordell of the University of Colorado Museum will give the keynote address. Several field trips to area sites are planned for Saturday, October 28. Contact Paul Reed for more information: (505) 326-7352, pfreed@sprynet.com, or animas@cyberport.com

ABBE MUSEUM

Sixth Occasional Anasazi Symposium

Heard Museum North Scottsdale, Ariz.—The new exhibit “Fancy Blankets: 19th-Century Navajo Textiles” features some of the museum’s most spectacular textiles, including a “Blue Borders” Manta, one of the museum’s oldest woven pieces. The exhibit explores events and trends that influenced Navajo weaving, such as trade and the growth of tourism in the Southwest. (606) 488-9817 (New long-term exhibit)

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Revisiting America’s First Archaeological Dig Archaeologists in Charlottesville, Virginia, are investigating the remains of a Monacan Indian village where American archaeology was born.

in the

NEWS

JEFFREY HANTMAN/UVA

rchaeologist Jeffrey Hantman and his 20-member crew spent most of the past summer conducting excavations at an Indian village site on the Rivanna River near Charlottesville, Virginia. Based on results from the dig and related documentary evidence, Hantman believes that the site is the Monacan village of Monasukapanough, mentioned by Jamestown colonist Captain John Smith in 1612. “We’ve been able to confirm a number of things this summer,” says Hantman, who is chairman of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Virginia. “We now know that the midden is here and extends out into the field. In other words, the village of Monasukapanough is preserved. The site contains artifacts that are rare and date firmly from the 15th to the 17th century, and possibly later.” John Smith placed Monasukapanough on his map of Monacan territory after talking with a Monacan man in 1608. Smith stated that the Monacans were “many different in language, and be very barbarous, living for the most part of wild beests [sic] and fruits….” His description relied entirely on the testimony of Jamestown’s Powhatan allies, whose enemies happened to be the Monacans. Hantman’s research challenges this negative description, revealing the Monacans as farmers and moundbuilders with a political system similar to that of the Powhatans.

american archaeology

Students from the University of Virginia examine one of the test units excavated at Monasukapanough this summer.

Thomas Jefferson’s excavation of a large mound at Monasukapanough in 1783 was North America’s first archaeological dig, earning Jefferson the title of the “Father of American Archaeology.” Many of Jefferson’s techniques—such as the use of trenching to examine the internal structure of the mound’s stratigraphy—were 100 years ahead of their time. In 1787, Jefferson published his findings in his well-known monograph, Notes on the State of Virginia. Based primarily on Jefferson’s account and excavations conducted by the Smithsonian in 1911 and 1930, Hantman believes the current dig takes place in the portion of the village located directly across the Rivanna River from where the mound once stood. Intensive farming beginning in the 1700s destroyed any immediately visible traces of the mound.

The excavations are in anticipation of the construction of a soccer complex on the site. The current landowner agreed to lease the 20acre field to the Soccer Organization of Charlottesville and Albermarle (SOCA) at no charge. The Archaeological Conservancy is working closely with SOCA, Hantman, and the developer to protect and permanently preserve the Indian site. The Monacan Indian tribe has been involved as well. “To find this site in context, radiocarbon dated, with artifacts from the 17th century, is absolutely extraordinary,” says Hantman. “It links us right into the whole Jamestown episode and the role of the Monacans. It shows us that these were the same people John Smith talked about and the same people who are in Amherst County today.” —Rob Crisell 7

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NEWS

Horrified Captives Give Clues to Maya Culture A carved stone tablet discovered at an ancient Guatemalan site depicts emotion in an unprecedented way.

The tablet features King Itzamk’anahk K’in Ajaw. His reign, which lasted nearly 50 years, is said to be the longest at Piedras Negras.

knocked down the steps of the pyramid during the decline of the Maya, around A.D. 800, according to Brigham Young University archaeologist Stephen Houston, who has been co-directing the U.S. and Guatemalan excavation.

“The tablet’s significance lies in its enormous, unprecedented size, the experimentation with emotional display, and the historical account it gives of how a Maya king established himself in this area by skirmishing with his neighbors,” said Houston. The dig, in which roughly 25 archaeologists and 85 workers are participating, is one of the largest in the Americas. It began in 1997. Researchers were unable to work at the site for decades due to Guatemala’s civil war. —Tamara Stewart

“Lost Maya City” Never Lost

The recent discovery of El Pajaral is called into question.

edia reports excitedly describing Guatemalan archaeologists’ recent discovery of a major ancient Maya city may all be hype, said several Maya experts working in the area. Described as rivaling the major Maya center of Tikal, El Pajaral is located in a densely forested area in the state of Petén in Guatemala, about 50 miles southeast of Tikal. According to David Stuart, associate curator of Maya archaeology at Harvard’s Peabody Museum, the site is one of many small- to medium-sized centers in the Petén area of Guatemala. The area was first mapped in the 1970s by archaeologist Ian Graham, a colleague of Stuart’s at Harvard, and has been known of by the Institute of Archaeology in Guatemala for some time. Graham was in England and could not be reached for comment. “The media storm over El Pajaral is mind-boggling, frankly,” said Stuart. “The site was never ever ‘lost,’ and the things I’ve heard and read about its great size are distortions, pure and simple.” Claiming that El Pajaral may be the long-sought “Site Q,” Guatemalan project director Salvador Lopez described the 670to 800-year-old site as containing ceremonial temples and other structures taller than those at Tikal. “How El Pajaral and Tikal ever came to be compared is beyond me,” said Stuart, who has been deluged with calls over this so-called discovery. “The plan of El Pajaral would be little more than a speck on the big map of Tikal. The site’s most interesting feature is a well-preserved staircase leading to a hilltop courtyard.” Arlen Chase, a Maya expert with the University of Central Florida, said it’s possible that El Pajaral is a major site, but he’s dubious since Graham didn’t acknowledge it as such. “I’d like to see more information,” he remarked. “There’s no supporting documentation.” When asked why false reports would be given credence, Chase responded: “Everybody loves a lost city. It makes for good copy in American newspapers.” —Tamara Stewart

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STEPHEN HOUSTON

hile clearing the stairway of a large pyramid at the ancient Maya city of Piedras Negras this past June, Guatemalan archaeologist Ernesto Arredondo discovered a massive tablet with an intricate carving depicting a group of suffering captives being presented to a king. Based on the hieroglyphic inscription, the 3,000plus pound tablet was placed on the pyramid on December 31, 706 A.D., putting it in the Late Classic period of the Maya culture. The tablet describes the birth, accession, and coming of age of the king, who assumed the throne at the age of 12. Its graphic depiction of the prisoners’ anguish represents a new development in Maya art. The tablet may have been

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NEWS

Unearthing Public Opinion A poll shows Americans value archaeology.

KATHLEEN SPARKES

poll commissioned by a group of conservation organizations indicates that Americans have a reasonably accurate understanding of archaeology and consider it to be important. The poll, which was conFrom Exploring Public Perceptions and Attitudes about Archaeology, prepared by Harris Interactive ducted by the re- for the Society for American Archaeology. search company Harris Interactive Inc., questioned archaeological resources should be 1,016 randomly selected adults across protected, 96 percent of those questhe continental United States about tioned said yes. While more people their knowledge of archaeology, their felt that archaeological sites on public interest in it, and their belief in its lands should be protected than sites value. The results are accurate within on private lands, 67 percent believed three percentage points. that laws should prevent people from The majority of respondents had digging up artifacts, even on their some general knowledge about arown property. chaeology, understanding that arArchaeologist Barbara J. Little, chaeologists study the remains of secretary of the Society for American the human past. Archaeology, says the poll “affirms Most respondents felt that archwhat archaeologists already know aeology is important in today’s socifrom working with the public on a ety, giving a mean score of 7.3 on a day-to-day basis. People are fasciscale of 0 to 10. Those who said archnated by archaeology.” aeology is important are interested in The poll was commissioned by the past. They believe that knowledge The Archaeological Conservancy, the of the past can contribute to an unArchaeological Institute of America, derstanding of the modern world as the Bureau of Land Management, the well as improve the future. NinetyFish and Wildlife Service, the Forest nine percent of the respondents said Service, the National Park Service, the that archaeological sites have educaSociety for American Archaeology, tional and scientific value. and the Society for Historical When asked whether or not Archaeology. —Martha Mulvany american archaeology

American Archaeologists Appeal to Internet Auction Houses to Stop Sale of Antiquities

n an appeal to Internet auction houses such as eBay and Amazon.com, several archaeological and anthropological organizations, including the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) and the American Anthropological Association, have written letters protesting the online sale of antiquities. SAA President Keith Kintigh, professor of anthropology at Arizona State University, stated that commerce in artifacts creates a market that encourages looting and grave robbing. Internet trading companies may forbid the sale of illegal items, but the legal status of antiquities is difficult to determine, and the only way of dealing with the problem is to prevent the sale of artifacts. In response to the letters, eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said his company is happy to work with organizations to keep illegal or inappropriate items off the Internet, however, eBay doesn’t want to be a censor. “There is a tremendous amount of traffic on the Internet,” Pursglove said, “and we can’t punish those who are selling merchandise that was legitimately obtained.” Amazon.com spokeswoman Shelley Diamond responded by citing her company’s policy, a portion of which states: “We proactively work with anthropologists and government officials to remove antiquities as they are brought to our attention. As it stands, Amazon.com does not condone the use of our site for illegal activities and we have an extremely low occurrence of items that might be considered antiquities.” —Tamara Stewart

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NEWS

A Monument to Archaeology

n June 9, 2000, President Clinton signed a proclamation to establish a 164,000acre national monument in southwest Colorado. The Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, which possesses the highest known density of archaeological sites in the country, will protect the legacy of more than 10,000 years of human habitation. The archaeological record at the monument reflects use by PaleoIndians for hunting and gathering until around 7500 B.C. and later occupation by Archaic peoples, Basketmakers, the Anasazi, and by Ute, Navaho, and European groups. More than 5,000 archaeologically significant sites have been recorded, including villages, cliff dwellings, shrines, great kivas, agricultural fields, dams, reservoirs, petroglyphs, and sweat lodges. Archaeologists know of thousands more that require documentation.

The monument, which protects lands that were already managed by the Bureau of Land Management, caused some controversy in

This tower, built in the mid-13th century, is a legacy of the Anasazi.

Colorado. Representative Scott McInnis, R-Colo., and Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., feared that the monument would affect local business and recreational users by prohibiting natural gas and carbon dioxide drilling, cattle grazing, and off-road vehicles. In fact, while the monument does bar offroad vehicles, oil and gas drilling and grazing are permitted. Although the president has the authority to declare objects of historic or scientific interest on government lands to be national monuments, only Congress can appropriate the funds necessary to protect and maintain those lands. Some of the monument’s sites have been looted, and some preservationists are concerned that unless Congress provides funding for adequate management and protection, increased public attention may put the sites in even greater danger. —Martha Mulvany

Mesa Verde Fire Uncovers New Sites The number of new sites is uncertain.

orking just ahead of two fires that burned nearly 24,000 acres of the 52,000-acre Mesa Verde National Park, archaeologists scrambled to identify and flag newly revealed archaeological sites before they were destroyed. The first blaze, known as the Birches Fire, began on July 20, when lightning struck private land adjacent to the park. Very low humidity combined with erratic winds caused the fire to burn out of control. The Pony Fire, which was ignited in early August when lightning struck adjacent Ute Mountain tribal land, burned about 5,000 acres of park land. The fires forced the park to close temporarily. “It’s difficult to estimate the total number of sites that the fire uncovered, since the area is still being surveyed and inventoried,” said Will Morris, chief of interpretation for the park. Based on the 1996 fire that burned 4,750 acres of Mesa Verde and uncovered more than 250 sites, it’s estimated there could be as many as 1,600 previously unknown sites uncovered by the Birches Fire and 200 by the Pony Fire. The types of sites that have been uncovered from the recent fires are primarily artifact scatters, middens, and wall sections. Once sites are identified, they are flagged and mapped, then Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation Teams stabilize them and build diversion dams around them to prevent erosion. —Tamara Stewart

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U.S. BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT

A new national monument will preserve thousands of sites.

in the

Examining the “Starving Time”

NEWS

A Jamestown excavation is yielding information about the lives of the British colonists.

APVA

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From these and other sources of information, the researchers hope to piece together a clearer picture of these early settlers. Kelso said the site has an abundance of information about the English adapting to the New World. The site is so rich Kelso said the dig, which was originally seen as a 10-year project, could go on “indefinitely.” —Martha Mulvany

LOOTING NEWS

n July of this year, archaeologists with the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities began excavating a number of graves believed to be in an unmarked 17thcentury Jamestown burial ground. They hope to uncover more information about the “Starving Time,” the winter of 1609-1610, when hunger and disease killed all but 60 of the 215 British colonists at the settlement. The burial ground is about 200 yards from the original James Fort, which was discovered in the mid1990s by archaeologist William Kelso, who directs the Jamestown Rediscovery Project. The fort is being excavated, and the work at the burial ground is a facet of the excavation. Kelso described the fort excavation, which has yielded approximately 300,000 artifacts, as being “astoundingly successful.” Douglas Owsley, a forensic osteologist at the Smithsonian Institution, is in charge of the final analysis of the remains. By examining the shape and size of a skeleton’s bones, scientists can determine a person’s height, weight, race, and sex. Stress on joints and ridges at the areas of muscle attachments can give clues about a person’s occupation. Tests on the bones can suggest diseases the individual may have had as well as what he or she ate during childhood.

Bones can provide a wealth of information. As the illustration above shows, different parts of the skeleton yield different kinds of information.

The researchers will also examine the individuals’ teeth, which can be very revealing. The wear on teeth can help determine what someone ate, and the condition of dental enamel can indicate childhood malnutrition. Teeth can also help determine a person’s age at death, and evidence of diseases such as tuberculosis, syphilis, and gout.

Men Caught with Artifacts and Drugs

wo men were arrested in May for digging up artifacts on Plymouth Island in south Benton County, Washington, across the Columbia River from the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Steven L. Sawyer was also charged with possession of methamphetamines. He was found guilty by the Benton County Superior Court and sentenced to 60 days in jail and fined $1,000. Sawyer’s attorney intends to appeal the case. David L. Bailey pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. After discovering that Sawyer and Bailey were in possession of drugs, deputies searched their vehicle and found evidence of archaeological vandalism, including knee pads, head-mounted flashlights, and several arrowheads. The full extent of their looting operation is unknown. —Tamara Stewart

In room 211 of Young Hall at the University of California at Davis is a large freezer, within which is nearly one gram of Kennewick Man, an important and highly controversial archaeological find. The 9,000-year-old remains of Kennewick Man were discovered in Washington state in 1996. Since that time, he has been at the center of a legal tug of war resembling that of Elian Gonzalez. On one side is a group of prominent scientists wanting to study the remains; on the other side are several Native American groups, who want to rebury the remains, as well as federal law in the form of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which mandates that federal agencies consult with local tribes when remains are discovered on federal land. U.S. Magistrate Judge John Jelderks, who is hearing the case, ordered DNA testing of Kennewick Man. This is “to help determine cultural affiliation” as defined by NAGPRA, according to Francis McManamon, the chief archaeologist of the National Park Service and the lead investigator representing the U.S. Department of the Interior, which is involved in the case. The testing is taking place at three labs— one at Yale University headed by Frederika Kaestle, another at the University of Michigan, headed by Andrew Merriwether, and at UC–Davis. The results are to be presented to the judge no later than September 24. 12

Next door to the Kennewick Man specimen, in a cramped and cluttered office, is David Glenn Smith, a professor of anthropology. An affable, middle-aged man dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, he heads the UC–Davis team. Smith is a little vague about how long he’s been working with ancient DNA (“five to ten years”), but, like Kaestle, his former graduate student, and Merriwether, he was chosen because of his expertise. Smith is acquainted with Kennewick Man, having begun work on the specimen three years ago. But they’re not that well acquainted, as, due to the legal wrangling, he was forbidden to examine the specimen for two of those years. Smith slouches in his chair and fiddles with his glasses while discussing ancient DNA research. He and his colleagues speak an arcane language of haplotypes and hypervariables, mitchondria and nucleotides, polymerase chain reactions and base pair deletions that confounds the layperson. Theirs is an endeavor in which the examination of microscopic strands of DNA can miraculously reveal the grand picture of life, of evolution and adaptation. Like other sciences, archaeology is benefiting from advances in DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) research. DNA is the main component of chromosomes and the material that transfers genetic characteristics in all life-forms. DNA testing of evidence at a crime scene can identify a criminal; fall • 2000

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The Good and Bad of Ancient DNA Ancient DNA research can inform anthropology in a number of ways. A significant portion of the work is concerned with prehistoric population movements, particularly with the peopling of the New World. Studies have also been done to determine the sex of human remains, shedding light on status, material possessions, marriage and burial patterns, and possible infanticide. Research has provided information about historic diseases. Tuberculosis DNA was detected in the remains of two pre-Columbian Native Americans, dispelling the notion the disease was a consequence of European contact. Animal feces have been examined to determine what the animal consumed and from that draw a picture of its environment. It’s possible to identify the genus and species of plant and animal remains, which can speak to the issue of when domestication occurred. This, in turn, might answer the old question of whether domestication was employed by numerous cultures, or by a single culture that brought the techniques to others. Perhaps the most important ancient DNA finding presents evidence that Neandertals were not closely related to modern humans. Neandertals “aren’t direct ancestors of humans,” says Anne Stone, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico. “They’re more like cousins.” Stone was involved in one of the two studies that arrived at this conclusion. Though ancient DNA research is yielding important results, it’s not yielding them easily. The science, in fact, requires extraordinary patience and tenacity.

MELISSA TANDYSH/KATHLEEN SPARKES

DNA testing of ancient human remains at an archaeological site may be capable of identifying the first Americans. Ancient DNA research is a nascent field that has made remarkable progress. In 1984, University of California scientists extracted DNA from the preserved skin of an extinct zebra known as a quagga. In 1985, biochemist Svante Pääbo—whom Merriwether extols as “Mr. Ancient DNA”—obtained human DNA from the muscle tissue of a 2,400-year-old Egyptian mummy. Erika Hagelberg extracted DNA from human bones in 1989. Hagelberg’s was a particularly important breakthrough, as many ancient remains are nothing but bones. Ancient DNA has also been taken from hair, teeth, lung tissue, human and animal feces, pollen, seeds, and the animal component of rock art pigment. Some researchers believe that DNA can survive for 100,000 years or more. Most ancient DNA work is done with mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). MtDNA differs from nuclear DNA in that the former resides in the cell’s mitochondria while the latter is found in the cell’s nucleus and contains an organism’s genes on chromosomes. As each cell contains many mitochondria, mtDNA is far more plentiful than nuclear DNA and is therefore more likely to be preserved and extracted. It’s also easy to map due to its shorter sequences of genes. In the early 1980s, the genetic information of the whole mtDNA was sequenced (the DNA code was read), thereby furnishing a reference guide for the analysis of other mtDNAs. Because mtDNA is inherited from the mother, there is less confusion when tracing lineages, but there is no information about male ancestry.

David Glenn Smith in his DNA lab at the University of California at Davis.

“Unfortunately, working with ancient DNA is a slow, tedious process,” says Sloan Williams, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who has persevered at this task for 10 years. Williams’s statement is echoed by all researchers who have tried their hands at ancient DNA. The work is difficult because the samples tend to be smaller than modern DNA. They also tend to be highly degraded, due to their age, and highly contaminated with other kinds of DNA, having resided for many years underground or in museums. “Almost inevitably you will end up with fungal DNA, bacterial DNA, DNA from organisms that live in the soil,” says Kaestle, an assistant professor of anthropology at Yale. That’s not to mention the human DNA that results from handling the specimens or that even the sterile lab wear is sometimes contaminated. These “contaminants” must be expunged in order to conduct accurate tests. The problem is so pervasive that University of Utah anthropologist Dennis O’Rourke observes, “If things are working too well it makes you nervous.” Given these pitfalls, it’s not surprising that ancient DNA researchers are extremely concerned about the accuracy of their results. (This is evident in that, for purposes of corroboration, three labs are conducting identical tests on Kennewick Man.) A few embarrassing errors have accompanied the trustworthy research into publication. Kaestle knows this firsthand: Faulty data from research she conducted made its way into a chapter in the book Bioarchaeology of the Stillwater Marsh. The most egregious of these er14

ERIC O’CONNELL

rors, in Smith’s estimation, was the supposed sequencing of dinosaur DNA in the highly regarded journal Science. “Turns out it wasn’t dinosaur DNA, it was human DNA,” Smith remarks. “So then everyone, rightfully, becomes skeptical of ancient DNA analysis.” In room 211, Smith’s small, nondescript, ancient DNA lab, various precautions are taken to avoid such mistakes. The lab is a “clean room,” a sterile environment like a hospital operating room. The lab has positive air pressure, meaning no air infiltrates from other areas. It’s equipped with a highly filtered water called nanopure. There are two large Plexiglas boxes within which some of the ancient DNA work is done. Test tubes and various other tools of the trade are sealed in the boxes, which workers access by sticking their arms into long gloves that extend into the boxes. The lab workers don’t resort to bunny suits, but they do wear lab coats which, to preclude

The Kennewick Man sample isn’t the only thing occupying Smith and his team. They’re also working on this bone sample, which is approximately 8,000 years old. It was taken from a site in the Middle East.

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Making a Name in Ancient DNA

DARREN POORE

nne Stone apologizes for her office being such a mess. Globetrotting is part of an ancient DNA researcher’s job description, and she has just returned from six weeks abroad, including time spent in Peru, where she hopes to conduct a study on 1,000-year-old and modern populations. “If you’re working with ancient DNA, you want cold and dry,” she says, noting such conditions, which can be found in parts of Peru, best preserve remains. There are roughly 50 indigenous languages in Peru, and Stone, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico, wants to examine the linguistic differences. She also wants to examine the relationship between different archaeological sites there. She estimates such a project will take four to five years and cost between $200,000 and $500,000. “To talk the NSF out of that kind of money you’ve got to have a really good proposal,” she says, referring to the National Science Foundation, the organization that frequently funds such research. She adds that the NSF funds roughly one-third of the grant applications it receives. Dressed in an off-white T-shirt and shorts, the youthful Stone could easily pass for a graduate student. But she’s one of the handful of American experts in ancient DNA research, her eminence resulting from involvement in two of the science’s more notable studies: one dealing with Neandertals, the other with the Norris Farms Oneota, a preColumbian Native American population in Illinois. Norris Farms was the first population-size genetic study of ancient Native Americans. Stone, along with another anthropologist, Mark Stoneking, worked at a site that’s about 700 years old and was apparently occupied for a generation. Approximately 260 well-preserved skeletons were taken from a cemetery within Norris Farms by the Illinois State Museum, which excavated there in 1984 and 1985. Stone and Stoneking extracted DNA from 108 individuals and did mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequencing on 52. The purpose of the five-year study was to examine the social organization within this community as well as test hypotheses of the peopling of the New World. The genetic makeup of the Norris Farms population was compared with that of contemporary Native Americans whose mtDNA has been analyzed. Most modern Native American populations possess mtDNAs belonging to four primary mtDNA lineages derived from their Asian ancestors. These lineages are

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referred to as haplogroups A, B, C, and D. These four haplogroups were found in the Norris Farms population, as was a fifth type that is rare in modern populations. Stone was surprised by the “genetic diversity” of the Norris Farms population. In the mid-1980s, several researchers theorized that Paleo-Indians came to the New World in three separate migrations, an idea that gained acceptance over the next 10 years. This theory was contradicted by Stone and Stoneking’s research, which supported the single-migration theory based on evidence that these common Native American lineages are a subset of Asian lineages and are not common in Asian populations. If three Asian migrations occurred, it’s unlikely such uncommon Asian haplogroups would be reintroduced repeatedly into the New World. Acknowledging the influence of the Norris Farms study, Stone states, “I’d say people are more in favor of one migration.” While working at Norris Farms, she and her colleagues also developed a method for identifying the sex of human skeletons by employing DNA testing. This method is a useful tool in burial analysis. Prior to this development, the sex of skeletons was determined by the size and shape of the bones, which, in cases of fragmentary remains and the remains of children, often led to inconclusive results. —Michael Bawaya

A Glimpse of the Future The best thing to happen to DNA is PCR, the polymerase chain reaction. A veritable godsend, PCR separates the double stranded DNA molecule, isolates segments of it, and then proAn X-ray film of a DNA sequence. duces an identical copy of the isolated segment, giving a researcher more DNA to work with. As there is no limit to the number of copies that can be made, a researcher can begin with a strand of DNA, and within a few hours time, the strand will have multiplied into, literally, a billion strands. As the demand for DNA research has grown, so has the supply of related products. A primer is a piece of DNA that tells the PCR process what should be copied. Not long ago, Kaestle says, she and her colleagues had to take the time to make their own primers. Now it’s as easy to order primers designed to her needs as it is to order a 16

pizza to her taste. The primer manufacturer will even do next-day delivery. DNA researchers’ lives have also been made easier by the invention of automated sequencers, which can detect much lower concentrations of DNA. The Human Genome Project, which has been hailed as the first great technological achievement of the 21st century, has benefited DNA research in general, but its impact doesn’t approach PCR’s. “To think we’ll have another advance like PCR is probably hopeful at best,” says Mitchell Holland, the scientific director of the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory. Which is not to say the Human Genome Project has no impact on ancient DNA research. Because of the project, the technology for large-scale sequencing is better and cheaper, making detailed studies of ancient populations more feasible. There are problems the most awesome technology can’t address. Ancient DNA researchers are, so to speak, at the mercy of their specimens: Poorly preserved specimens make the difficult task of extracting DNA all the more so. The sample sizes of ancient DNA studies are generally limited due to the availability of samples and because the work is expensive. Defining a prehistoric population is also difficult. Most published studies include samples from fewer than 10 individuals, sometimes taken from a broad geographic area. To give credence to their studies, researchers try to obtain “population-size” samples which are representative of a given population. The number constituting such a sample appears to be more arbitrary than scientific, but Williams believes it should be at least 30 to 50. There are only about 25 Paleo-Indian samples older than 8,500 years, therefore drawing any conclusions about the first Americans is a risky business. Studies concerning the peopling of the Americas require DNA samples of modern Native Americans for purposes of comparison, and in some cases the modern samples are no more plentiful than the ancient. It’s easier to get modern DNA samples in Central and South fall • 2000

ANNE STONE/UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO

contamination, never leave the room. Upon entering the lab, they go the extra mile by wiping their shoes on a mat. To eliminate contaminants, a bone specimen is prepped with a light grinding, washed with bleach, and zapped by ultraviolet radiation. Even bleach may not be strong enough to kill the contaminants, so Smith is armed with a custom-made chemical mixture named, appropriately enough, DNA Away. Despite all of this, the contaminated DNA doesn’t always go away. Smith acknowledges an incident of contamination in his Kennewick Man testing, which he says has been remedied. “There’s little or nothing that can be done to eliminate contamination,” he laments. If contamination can’t be eliminated, it’s crucial that it be detected. Toward that end, the protocols governing ancient DNA research have dramatically improved. Tests are done two or three times to ensure consistent results. “Protocols are changing constantly,” says Ripan Malhi, an anthropology graduate student working with Smith. To keep pace, Malhi uses the Internet to learn of new advances. Protocols appearing in books, he says, are outdated the moment they hit print.

ILLUSTRATION: KATHLEEN SPARKES PHOTOS: DARREN POORE,

PCR is a method of replicating DNA. The replicated DNA samples are then suspended in glycerin, mixed with a dye, and loaded into slots containing an aragose gel (upper right). The samples are subjected to electrophoresis, in which electricity is applied, causing the DNA to move toward the positive pole of the unit, the smaller DNA strands moving more quickly. The gel (lower right) has a base ladder on the left-hand side which contains DNA fragments of known length that are used as a reference. The gel is viewed on an ultraviolet light surface.

America than in North America, where, for various reasons, Native Americans frequently refuse to participate. One of the reasons, Kaestle says, is the “antagonistic relationship” between Western science and Native Americans. Consequently, she thinks it may be 10 years before researchers have the representative modern DNA database they covet. For certain parts of the Americas, where it appears there are no living decendants of some Native American groups, the modern database may never exist. american archaeology

Despite the frustrations of this science—“on ancient DNA,” says Merriwether, “you can spend three or four years and come up with no results, or only anecdotal ones,”—its accomplishments are impressive and its potential inspiring. Perhaps it will even solve the mystery of the first Americans. “I think it can,” Merriwether states. “I really do.” MICHAEL BAWAYA is the editor of American Archaeology. 17

CREDIT

A stela stands sentinel outside Structure XV. The stairway led researchers to three dramatic tombs where they uncovered a jade mask, several cache vessels, a ceramic head, and hundreds of other artifacts. The stela was likely erected around A.D. 650 to honor the mother of one of Calakmul’s rulers.

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Uncovering the Maya Metropolis of Calakmul CREDIT

by Rob Crisell photos by Eldon C. Leiter

Three of Calakmul’s nine jade masks, with ear spools. Although similar masks have been discovered in tombs at Tikal, Palenque, and elsewhere,

prawled in the canopy of a nearby tree, a bored howler monkey eyes us indifferently as we scramble the last few feet to the top of Structure II. At 175 feet high and 500 feet square, the pyramid is the largest at Calakmul, and very possibly, in the entire Maya world. It has been the leitmotiv of almost two decades of work done at Calakmul. Initially mapped and excavated by William Folan beginning in 1982, the structure has been further investigated and consolidated by Ramon Carrasco from 1993 to the present. Perhaps more than any other building at Calakmul, Structure II best exemplifies the impossibly majestic vision of the ancient Maya, with its numerous and overlapping periods of construction between 250 B.C. and A.D. 900. The view from the summit of the pyramid is of an emerald sea of trees. Rain forest stretches for miles in every direction, spilling over the horizon of the Yucatán Peninsula. Though environmentalists fear for the area’s well-being, it seemed to me that one might as well try to drain the ocean as deforest the Yucatán. I gaze down to where five massive, carved stelae stand guard like stone giants in front of the pyramid’s broad central staircase. Although at least 15 structures have now been excavated at Calakmul, most of the site is still covered by dense trees and brush. My eager, if unsolicited, guides on my daylong visit to Calakmul are Daniel and Bernardo. Both are paid custodians of the site and are the closest things to permanent residents that the Maya center has known since its abandonment more than 1,000 years ago. Bernardo is the talkative

Calakmul has yielded more

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than any other Maya center.

Archaeologist William Folan (right) supervises the work of restorer R. Araujo as he reconstructs a jade mask recovered in Structure VII at Calakmul.

one—I’m obviously not the first visitor he has ushered about the ruins. I remark on what look to be looting holes on top of the adjacent (and equally massive) Structure I. No, explains Bernardo, that is merely disturbance left over from a recent archaeological dig. But looting has occurred elsewhere at the site, he says. He excitedly relates the story of a senedero (forester) who had been looting artifacts several years ago from one of Calakmul’s solemn temples. The senedero was asleep in a building near the ballcourt, the treasures of a day spent in the tombs reflecting in the dying embers of his fire. Suddenly, a sound awakened him. According to Bernardo, when the senedero looked up from his bedroll, he found himself face to face with a vengeful Maya warrior-spirit angry about the intruder’s desecration. When the senedero emerged from the room the next morning, speechless and quaking with fear, his long black hair had been rendered translucente. “You mean that his hair turned white, right?” I ask. “No,” insists Bernardo. “Translucent, like a spider’s web.”

t should come as no surprise that the ghosts who haunt Calakmul are probably more terrifying than those at other sites. Despite its relative obscurity, Calakmul is the largest center not only in the Yucatán, but also in the entire Maya universe. During the heyday of the Maya world, between 300 B.C. and A.D. 600, Calakmul and its estimated 60,000 citizens controlled hundreds of square miles, including a series of complex trading routes between large cities to the north and south. Although Calakmul lacks the star power of sites its people once conquered, such as Palenque and Tikal, archaeologists are becoming increasingly aware that Calakmul may have been the first superpower of the ancient Maya. The archaeologist most responsible for bringing the hidden past of Calakmul

to the world’s attention is William Folan. Folan, a friendly expatriate American archaeologist, has served as director of the archaeology department of the Universidad Autónoma de Campeche for the past 20 years. The idea of digging at Calakmul first occurred to him in 1975 when he was codirecting the mapping project at Cobá, a site 250 miles northeast of Calakmul. In 1981, the well-known Mexican archaeologist Roman Piña Chan offered Folan the opportunity to work at Becan, Chicanná, Edzna, or Jaina—four large sites in the Yucatán that most Maya archaeologists wait their entire lives to investigate. Folan politely declined all four of the plum assignments. How could he dig these sites—impressive though they may be—when what could be the granddaddy of them all moldered in the jungle? For Folan it was Calakmul or nothing. Chan reluctantly agreed. That year he named Folan field director of the first professional investigation of Calakmul. Most of Folan’s initial work was the painstaking, all-important task of mapping Calakmul. After 84 months of continuous fieldwork, Folan’s crew mapped 6,250 structures in 30 square kilometers, including two of the largest pyramids in the Maya world (the structures give the site its Maya name, which means “Place of Two Adjacent Mounds”). Innumerable artifacts have been recovered from several elaborate royal tombs, including nine rare jade masks. In a short time, Folan had confirmed Calakmul’s position as the undisputed heavyweight in the Maya world during the Preclassic and Early Classic (A.D. 250-600) times. Still, he knew that he had only scratched the surface.

A Maya Codex vase from Structure II.

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An artist’s rendering of downtown Calakmul, excluding the Little and Big Acropoli. The imposing Structure II sits at one end of the central plaza facing Structure VII at the other. Structure I rises above the jungle beyond Structure II (toward the top

ERNESTO TAMAY SEGOVIA

of the page).

KATHLEEN SPARKES

ravelers are usually heartbroken to discover that the town of Campeche—200 miles from Calakmul on the Gulf of Mexico—is the most convenient starting point for journeys into the interior. The town lacks much of the Old World charm of Mérida (150 miles to the north) but suffers from little of that town’s burgeoning tourism-related problems. The colonial-era cannons perched on the edge of Campeche’s new boardwalk remind passers-by that Spaniard Francisco de Montejo chose Campeche to launch his successful invasion of the peninsula in 1540. Later, when Spain established Campeche as its principal port in the Yucatán, pirates kept up a relentless program of looting and plunder, inspiring the town’s massive fort-construction project in the 1700s. When Alonso de Avila and his soldiers arrived in 1531, the large Maya settlement of Calakmul— situated almost dead center between the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean in the southern Yucatán—had been deserted for at least 600 years. These days, expeditions to Calakmul still present some of the obstacles and challenges that they once did for the Spaniards. The drive from Campeche to Xpuhil, the only town of any size between Chetumal and Escárcega, is over 4½ hours, mostly on a two-lane paved road. Visitors to the Yucatán generally confine themselves to points farther north, such as Mérida and Cancún. Others fly to Belize City or Villahermosa to take advantage of the easy access to such sites as Tikal, Palenque, and Xunantunich. However, if you picture the once vast region of the ancient Maya as a giant dartboard, Calakmul is the bull’s-eye. Folan and other researchers have pointed to Calakmul’s ideal position at the convergence of what were likely dozens of Maya trade routes. Moreover, 120 stelae have been found

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at the site, and Calakmul receives more mentions (80 and counting) in the inscriptions at other sites than any other Maya center. In 1973, University of Michigan Mayanist Joyce Marcus predicted that Calakmul would turn out to be the capital of one of the largest Classic Maya regional states. Marcus and others showed how the location of important sites formed a hexagonal pattern equidistantly around Calakmul. Although many scholars refused to assign such prominence to the little-known site, Folan was not among them. He embarked on a 12-year program of mapping and excavation, testing and verifying many of Marcus’s original contentions regarding the site’s regional dominance. With the help of satellite imaging, Folan and Marcus identified the existence of a network of roads leading into Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. The critical issue for Folan these days is how the Calakmuleños thrived for hundreds of years in the area 21

Excavations at Structure II in early 1990. Archaeologists have engaged in extensive consolidation and reconstruction efforts on this structure during the past five years.

without any obvious sources of water. “One of the central problems that I’m concerned with is climate,” Folan explains as we sit in his office in Campeche. “The question is how some of these large cities such as Calakmul, El Mirador, and Tikal exist without being associated with permanent bodies of water. I think the bajos—the lowlying swampy areas in the midst of the forest—hold the answer. The fertility of the bajo edges allowed the Maya to produce adequate food, especially when combined with upland milpas and gardens during periods of seasonal rainfall.” Whereas many researchers at sites such as Tikal and Palenque focus on the complex alliances formed within royal families or between two or more powerful centers, Folan is much more concerned with understanding what 50,000 Calakmuleños ate for dinner. “How did you live in the Yucatán without rivers, without lakes?” he asks. “I think the Calakmuleños managed the forest to meet their needs. I’m sure areas were cut down for planting.” Folan’s persistent desire to make sense of the whole story of Calakmul rather than simply its architecture, burials, and stelae compelled him to search for ways to permanently preserve Calakmul and its natural surroundings. In 1989, after seven years of lobbying by Folan and others, former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari dedicated 1.5 million acres as the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. Today the biosphere helps ensure the preservation of history, nature, and the homeland of hundreds of modern-day Maya farmers who live within and around the reserve. 22

alakmul may be the largest Maya center in the world, but that does not mean it is easy to reach. Until the Mexican government built a paved road to the site in 1993, intrepid visitors were forced to use primitive roads used by chicleros (chicle collectors) and loggers, which took four hours to four days, depending on the condition of the bajos. Members of Folan’s team sometimes made the 40-mile journey on foot, a 16-hour ordeal, in order to obtain needed supplies. “These obstacles tested the strength and will power of those willing to risk hardships to determine the sociocultural, political, and economic organization of the Calakmuleños,” says Folan. “During some seasons we broke as many as 30 suspension springs crossing the bajos in our Jeeps. Horses and mules were brought in during the rainiest months of the year.” My drive to the isolated ruins took only an hour. My only cause for delay was to look at the occasional Maya house near a milpa (farm field) that had been dissected from the ever-encroaching jungle. The road—a thin strip of pavement that occasionally narrows to the width of a single automobile—passes over several of the notorious bajos that caused Folan and other travelers such logistical nightmares. The half-mile walk from the parking lot to the site follows a recently constructed raised white pathway evocative of the sacbes (Maya for “white roads”) that once connected Calakmul to other centers. This particular pseudo-sacbe ends at the Grand Plaza, the central area of the site. As I stroll in the neat, tree-shaded plaza, I notice large grinding stones—manos and metates—piled A portrait vase recovered from a tomb in Structure XV.

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up against the trees. Several bright red pieces of ceramic are scattered at the base of one of the smaller pyramids. The ground seems to be hemorrhaging potsherds, some as big as my hand. The most conspicuous and dramatic features in the plaza are the many stelae that stand or lie face down in front of almost every structure. Marcus was the first to connect the Serpent’s Head emblem glyph with Calakmul by tracing it to inscriptions found at sites in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. For her and other epigraphers, the stelae have provided a wealth of information about the site’s history, especially its royalty. Sadly, study of Calakmul’s 120 stelae has often been frustrating because of their badly eroded condition. Still, several stelae at the site reveal vivid images of kings, queens, and captives in the carved stone. Marcus believes that at least five royal couples are depicted on the site’s stelae, in addition to numerous other rulers.

lthough Folan and his team in Campeche continue to add to their 100 articles and monographs based on their research at Calakmul, Ramon Carrasco, with Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), was appointed as principal investigator in 1993. Over the past five years, Carrasco has expanded on and consolidated much of Folan’s work on Structures I, II, and VII while moving beyond the Great Plaza to a previously unexplored area of the site called the Great Acropolis. “We want to slowly start leaving the central zone and start working and understanding more of the development of Calakmul in urban and spatial terms,” says Carrasco. “I want to articulate the two acropoli, these big building complexes around the center. We want to see how they relate to the center.” The acropolis area includes a Byzantine collection of buildings, tombs, walls, and passageways that are off the main plaza to the east and west. Some scholars suggest that the Great Acropolis served a military purpose, such as a barracks or a american archaeology

A stela discovered in several pieces in different corners of the ballcourt just off the central plaza. The restored stela shows a ballplayer arrayed in ritual garb, a ball resting on his right foot. A reconstructed jade mask, discovered in a tomb in Structure VII in 1984.

defense post. While they don’t confirm this idea, Carrasco’s excavations offer new insights into how Calakmul related to other large centers. “Calakmul was able to organize very large alliances that latticed throughout the entire Central Maya area,” explains Carrasco. “It was a completely different kind of state. It was not a state that dominated and invaded—it was not a Roman state.” According to Carrasco, the system is reflected in the architecture at Calakmul, with its large buildings designed according to an open urban plan. In fact, Carrasco believes the differences between Tikal’s and Calakmul’s political systems are well characterized by the architecture of the two sites. “When you stand in the Acropolis of Tikal, it is very compact and impressive— it is a place that flattens you,” says Carrasco. “Calakmul, by comparison, is more open, friendlier in terms of visiting. Even though it has bigger structures, the structures are not overpowering, are not on top of you. These differences show up in their political organization as well. Tikal had a very aggressive political system with lots of control. Calakmul’s power appears to have been more democratic due to its dispersed nature and far-flung alliances.” Although much of Calakmul still remains concealed in the rainforest, Carrasco and his team have completed their excavations for now. These days, he and Folan are busy analyzing the results of past excavations and publishing their findings. Folan has spent the last several years in the regional state of Calakmul, conducting interdisciplinary studies addressing questions related to regional climate, horticulture, settlement patterns, and trade. Both archaeologists hope to return to the site in the near future. Meanwhile, Calakmul waits patiently, as it has for hundreds of years, attended only by site guards, tourists, and perhaps one or two vigilant ghosts. ROB CRISELL is senior editor of American Archaeology. You can check out Calakmul online at http://www.uacam.mx/cihs/2000/investigaciones

Day Trips Around Calakmul: Chicanná, Xpuhil, Becan

Even with the new road, Calakmul’s relative inaccessibility renders it off-limits to many travelers. Thanks to its recent discovery and remoteness, Calakmul has avoided many of the overzealous reconstruction efforts and take-no-prisoners excavation projects for which Mexican archaeology is notorious. Although the efforts of William Folan and Ramon Carrasco have helped reveal many of Calakmul’s secrets, the site is less consolidated, more rustic, and more obscured by the jungle than other centers that are closer to the highway. Without a knowledgeable guide, Calakmul can be a confusing, even overwhelming, day trip. If you have only a day or two to The “serpent-mouth” doorway at Chicanná that gives the site its name. The doorway and the rest of Structure II spend in the area around the date to A.D. 750. town of Xpuhil, you might consider visiting several other sites instead of Calakmul. Well-known centers such as Becan, The Late Classic Río Bec twin towers of Structure I are Chicanná, and Xpuhil are all located within 10 minutes of the impressive, but it is the monster-mouth doorway of Structure II town of Xpuhil. Kohunlich, Hormiguero, and others are slightly that is truly awe-inspiring. Just to the right of the Chenes monfarther, but worth the trip. Such centers assumed great imporster mask, look for two red-painted glyphs that were uncovered tance in the Late Classic period—along with a resurgent when a section of stucco fell away in 1986. One can see hints of Calakmul—thanks to their positions along the vital trade route paint—like flecks of blood—in the serpent’s teeth as well. between the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Most of the Dates of occupation: A.D. 400 to A.D. 1050. sites in this region of the Yucatán exemplify the Río Bec style of architecture, a Late Classic phenomenon that dominated XPUHIL the region between A.D. 600 and 900. The style is characterized “Place of the Cattails” As you enter the city limits of Xpuhil (pronounced shpoo-heel) in part by dual groupings of tall towers, non-functional stairfrom the west, the three dramatic towers of the eponymous ways with simulated temples on top, and ornate roofcombs. The Maya site leap into view. With its sturdy barbed-wire fence, Late Classic Maya also decorated facades with Chenes-style Xpuhil seems at first more like a prison than a park. The site monster-mouth doorways, complementing them with elaborate consists of only five or six structures, but Stucture I with its tristucco masks. towered temple makes any trip worthwhile. This Late Classic CHICANNÁ structure best epitomizes the region’s Río Bec architecture, with its curved sides and repetitive decorative motifs. One of “House of the Serpent’s Mouth” the site’s most dramatic aspects is the monster-mouth mask Mexican archaeologist Roman Piña Chan investigated Chicanfound at the top of Structure I’s central tower. Researchers ná in the mid-1980s. Additional work was conducted at the site believe the mask is feline, defying the reptilian theme in most periodically into the 1990s. Located six miles west of the town other sites. A hidden stairway in the southern tower enables of Xpuhil, Chicanná is small and well consolidated. At its braver visitors to climb to the top. height, archaeologists believe that the site served as a royal Dates of occupation: A.D. 500 to A.D. 900. palace for the much larger center of nearby Becan.

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The partially reconstructed Structure IV at Becan, dating to A.D. 770–830.

BECAN “Ditch Filled with Water” Built on a limestone outcrop, Becan knocks you over with its labyrinthine buildings and panoramic views of the surrounding jungle. From the top of Structure I, one can glimpse Xpuhil’s three towers four miles away. Becan is most famous for its moat, a deep one-mile-long earthwork that encircles the site. According to archaeologists, the moat is a very early feature of the site and one of the largest of its kind in the Maya world. Despite its name, which is derived from the Maya, researchers doubt that Becan’s moat ever held water. There are several towers at Becan that are 50 feet in height, and at least one that is 100 feet. As is the case with nearby Xpuhil, researchers have worked at Becan since its discovery by Carnegie Institution archaeologists in 1934. Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History has done extensive work and consolidation at the site since the mid-1970s and these excavations continue apace today. The architecture of Becan is overpowering and vast. The sheer size and number of intact structures is impressive. Architectural styles from Chenes to Río Bec to the much later Teotihuacan influences are visible at Becan. Dates of occupation: 550 B.C. to the early A.D. 1200s.

ACCOMMODATIONS Overlooking Campeche Bay on Avenida Ruiz Cortinez, this 100-room hotel doesn’t impress from the outside, but inside the rooms are newly renovated and the views are excellent. Short walking distance to downtown. Amenities include pool, restaurant, gift shop. $40–$60 per night. Tel. (01152) 98163911; E-mail: baluarte@campeche.sureste.com

Del Mar Ramada Located next door to the Baluartes Hotel, the 85-room Del Mar Ramada is the most popular tourist hotel in town. While excellent in some ways, the rooms are in need of renovation. Amenities include pool, restaurant, car rental, tour arrangements. $80–$100 per night. Tel. (01152) 981-62233; fax (01152) 981-11618

XPUHIL Chicanná Ecovillage Resort Located within walking distance of the Chicanná ruins, the charming 35-room Chicanná Ecovillage sits just outside the town of Xpuhil, providing easy access to dozens of ruins in the Río Bec region. The road to Calakmul lies about 40 min-

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utes west. Reservations must be made at the Del Mar Ramada in Campeche (see information above) before arriving. Amenities include pool, restaurant, guided tours. $80–$90 per night. Tel. (01152) 981-62233; fax (01152) 981-11618

CHETUMAL Holiday Inn Chetumal Puerta Maya The best hotel in the port town of Chetumal, the beautiful 85-room Puerta Maya is located in the lively downtown, about 11/2 hours east of Xpuhil. Amenities include swimming pool, gym, restaurant, travel agency, and car rental. $70–$90 per night. Tel. (800) 465-4329; in Mexico (01152) 983-21050

Hotel Laguna Bacalar The Hotel Laguna Bacalar, located on the breathtaking Bacalar Laguna, is a charming, low-budget 40-room hotel about 20 minutes north of the cut-off to Chetumal, about 11/2 hours east of Xpuhil. Accommodations are low budget and plain, but the view is arguably the best in the Yucatán. Next door to a Maya cenote and a good restaurant. Amenities include private dock, restaurant, pool, and bar. $30–$45 per night. Tel. (01152) 983-23517 ROB CRISSEL

CAMPECHE Baluartes Hotel

Archaeology student Robin Pry collects artifacts from a screen at the Fort St. Louis site.

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La Salle, La Belle, and the

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Lone Star State The archaeologists of the Texas Historical Commission are unearthing the state’s origins.

by Claire Poole As he walks up and down a 4.2-acre area deep in the Texas Gulf Coast woods, Jim Bruseth scratches his head. But at this moment, the scratching is not about the massive archaeological dig that lies before him. It’s the pesky gnats that are attracted to his scalp. “It may look like I’m pondering,” he says. “But I’m really only scratching.” Gnats are not the only thing gnawing at him these days. He and his team of 20 archaeologists from the Texas Historical Commission (THC) are excavating near Victoria, the state’s first European colony, established in 1685 by the French explorer Réne-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. A major goal of the excavation is to find the settlement’s cemetery, where 100 French colonists were buried. The site is on private property and Bruseth and the owners of the property want to rebury the remains on public land, where they will be protected by state law. But finding the cemetery, which could be one of the state’s most important historical discoveries, has eluded him so far. This is not the first ambitious project for Bruseth, who is head of THC’s archaeology division. The 48-yearamerican archaeology

old anthropologist directed the excavation of the wreck of La Belle, one of four ships that carried La Salle and 300 others across the Atlantic Ocean in 1684. La Salle’s mission was to establish a French colony at the mouth of the Mississippi River and eventually take over territory controlled by Spain in what is now Mexico. The voyage was ill-fated from the start: Relying on maps that were incorrectly drawn, La Salle overshot the river by about 400 miles to the west, landing in Matagorda Bay, approximately 115 miles south of Houston on the Texas Gulf Coast. Two of the ships didn’t make it. The Saint-Francois was heisted by Spanish pirates in the Caribbean and L’Aimable, which carried many of the supplies for the founding of the colony, ran aground trying to enter a narrow channel and broke apart in February 1685. La Belle safely entered the bay while Le Joly remained anchored in the Gulf. But in March 1685, Le Joly returned to France with 120 disenchanted colonists. La Belle stayed, along with 180 colonists, including men, several young women, and a few children. But on returning to Fort St. Louis from an 27

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★ (Left) La Salle left France in 1684 with 300 passengers aboard four ships. One hundred and eighty colonists and one ship remained when Fort St. Louis was established.

(Below) Greg Cook and Toni Carrell measure the bow of La Belle while other archaeologists work on the stern. The first seawater cofferdam—a structure that keeps water out of an enclosed area—was used to excavate the ship. This allowed archaeologists to perform a dry-land

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excavation in the middle of Matagorda Bay.

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expedition to find the mouth of the Mississippi, the ship ran aground and was wrecked in a severe storm in early 1686. (On a trip to seek help, La Salle was assassinated by his men in March 1687.) Finding and excavating La Belle was a massive endeavor. The THC, led by marine archaeologist Barto Arnold, had been looking for her since 1978. In July 1995, his team surveyed potential sites in the murky Gulf waters. The first exploratory dive turned up musket balls, pottery, a brass buckle, and bronze hawk bells. Further exploration resulted in a more significant discovery: an 800-pound bronze cannon decorated with leaping dolphin handles and the royal crest of King Louis XIV, who had given the ship to La Salle. Encouraged by that find, divers then located the hull of the ship, which was entombed in the mud. The THC began a $6-million excavation project to recover the ship in September 1996. The team built a huge steel box, called a cofferdam, around the site, pumped out the seawater, and began to dig. Over the next eight months, archaeologists and volunteers recovered nearly one million artifacts, including 750,000 blue, white, and black glass trading beads, pins, leather shoes, a Roman coin (probably a good luck charm belonging to one of the colonists), pewter dishes, a colander, a ladle, and two candlestick holders—a sign that La Salle’s crew liked to travel in style, despite what appeared to be rough conditions. They also found a skeleton of a 45-year-old man. fall • 2000

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(Right) Archaeologist Curtis Tunnell takes elevation readings on the cannons excavated at Fort St. Louis. The discovery of the cannons was

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instrumental in finding Fort St. Louis.

(Below) Peter Hitchcock and Peter Fix lay out timbers from La Belle in preperation for reconstructing La Salle’s ship. In the foreground is a model of La Belle.

The discovery brought the team great glory. La Belle is believed to be the oldest French shipwreck ever discovered and one of the most important underwater archaeological discoveries in the Americas. The team’s work was featured in a 1999 documentary called “Voyage of Doom” on the PBS show Nova. The ship is being reconstructed at Texas A&M University’s Conservation Research Laboratory in College Station. The THC’s next feat, which was equally challenging, was finding Fort St. Louis, the site inland from Matagorda Bay where La Salle and 180 colonists built their base of operation in 1685. The archaeologists were helped by the journal of Henri Joutel, one of La Salle’s lieutenants, who was on the expedition and served as the fort’s post commander. His journal contained directions to Fort St. Louis from the mouth of Garcitas Creek, as well as descriptions of daily life at the settlement. Joutel also kept an inventory of the fort’s armaments, which included muskets, sabers, swords, and eight cannons that La Salle’s men dragged from one of La Belle’s cargo boats.

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The breakthrough came in September 1996. Using a metal detector, a foreman at the Keeran Ranch, which is located on Garcitas Creek about 15 miles from the shipwreck, found one of the black cast-iron cannons buried in a two-foot-deep pit near the creek. The THC was called out, and they found the seven other cannons buried there. At that point, Bruseth and his crew knew that Fort St. Louis must be near. While searching for the fort, the archaeologists again benefited from historical records. Hearing that La Salle had established a settlement in the area, the Spanish american archaeology

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★ which is off-limits to the public. We started out in downtown Victoria, where the THC is leasing a historic building just a block off the main square. The building houses the laboratory in which archaeologists clean, sift through, review, sort, and label their findings from the site. It also has a museum that provides information about the site and displays artifacts. Highlighted in the window are the eight cannons shown exactly as they were found. From there, we jump into a red Jeep Cherokee and ride about 25 miles east to Garcitas Creek, where we board a small boat driven by archaeologist Jeff Durst and ride for 15 minutes until we reach the site. Once we disembark, Mike Davis, the project’s director, talks poetically of the sacred ground we’re about to walk on, the excavation of which, funded for $1.5 million, is one of the larger site excavations taking place in the country, according to Bruseth. “This little hillock of land was talked about in the courts of France and Spain,” Davis says. “We can’t start (up the hill) without thinking about the 180 people who came here and those whose lives ended here.” Davis is the right man to lead the dig. While the tall, bespectacled Bruseth is mild-mannered and studious, Davis is intense, with electric blue eyes, a shock of white hair, and deeply tanned skin with deeply lined cheeks.

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Bruseth took me on a tour of the site,

Archaeologist Luis Alvarado excavates inside the Spanish presidio that overlaid the French fort. Jim Bruseth examines the remains of an adobe wall at Fort St. Louis.

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mounted 11 expeditions by land and sea to find it. Finally, in April 1689, they succeeded. The French colonists who had lived there were either dead (due to smallpox or the Karankawa Indians) or gone (back to France, off to explore new territories, or captured by the Karankawa). But Don Alonso de Leon, governor of the Mexican state of Coahuila and leader of the expedition, wrote of “eight pieces of artillery, iron, of medium bore” found at the site. He also drew a map of the fort, which consisted of a main building and five smaller buildings surrounding it. Concerned that the cannons might be used by an enemy, he had his men bury them near the site. Later, in 1722, the Spanish built a fort, Presidio La Bahia, on the site, but they couldn’t find the buried cannons. Bruseth’s crew began surveying the 28-acre area late last year. They are examining the soil with a magnetometer, a device so sensitive it can detect one one-millionth of the magnetic force required to move a compass needle. The first thing it detected was a plaster wall that may have been the presidio’s powder house. Encouraged by that find, Bruseth and his crew began excavating last January. fall • 2000

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The 53-year-old has worked as a professional archaeologist in Texas for 23 years at various state and academic institutions and was assistant project director during a critical phase of the fieldwork on La Belle. He is a workaholic. Bruseth says he rises at 4:30 every morning and works until 8 at night in the lab. “He’s driven,” Bruseth observes. Davis is also something of a practical joker: He admits being responsible for the plastic snake that gave us a scare at the beginning of our ascent to the site. Bruseth leads me to a small trailer, where he conducts a Power Point presentation of the dig on his laptop computer. Then he leads me outside again so I can get my bearings. The area where the octagon-shaped presidio stood is cordoned off with yellow plastic tape. Davis shows me a long trench where he believes the top of the powder house is sticking out. “We’re standing on the wall,” he says. We head over to an adjacent area, where archaeologists believe the main building of Fort St. Louis was located. This is also where Bruseth thinks the cemetery may be; a chapel was attached to the fort, and the French in those days had a custom of building their cemeteries next to or around their places of worship. The area is mapped out, checkerboard-like, in square-meter areas. The squares are excavated one at a time. “We found some bone fragments the other day— that was pretty exciting,” says archaeology student Robin Pry, who carefully digs at one of the squares. american archaeology

In order to facilitate screening for artifacts, archaeologist Jose Laredo soaks a wheelbarrow full of excavated soil. There are 104 wheelbarrows at the site.

Others, like Ashley Watson and volunteer Mike Fulghum, tag the squares. Anything found in a particular square is tagged with that square’s number to identify where the object was found. Watson is hearing impaired; he communicates with a pen and a note pad he carries. “Nice to meet you,” he writes on my pad. Nearby, Luis Alvarado hauls excavated dirt in wheelbarrows and then soaks it with water. Todd Seacat waterscreens this excavated material with water pumped from the creek, and Davis then sifts through the remains, looking for artifacts. Bruseth leads me into a small field, where one worker, Tiffany Osburn, pulls a magnetometer while another, Bill Pierson, guides her. The two are surveying the last part of a 32-acre circular area surrounding the site where they think the cemetery could also be buried. They take a breather. Osburn has her socks and shoes off and is rubbing her feet. It’s extremely humid; a storm came through the previous night, dumping several inches of rain on the site. The humidity makes brutal work of dragging the magnetometer, with its 15-pound battery pack, around. “It’s tough in the woods,” Pierson says. “The mosquitoes will eat you alive.” 31

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Another storm appears to be approaching, so Bruseth, Kathleen Gilmore, and I head back into town to have lunch and talk about the beginnings of the dig. Gilmore, a 70-something archaeologist from Dallas who won’t reveal her age (“Don’t even ask,” she says), did some of the original site work. “When I came across some green glaze ceramics, I thought, ‘This isn’t Spanish,’” she says over a plate of cheese enchiladas. “So I thought it was probably the site of La Salle at Fort St. Louis.” The crew has found more than 1,000 Spanish, French, and Native American artifacts as well as bones of various animals. The artifacts range from the expected— ceramics, armaments, glass trading beads—to the unusual—Spanish Colonial good luck charms called ficas, which were employed to ward off the evil eye. Bruseth and his team work daily at the site, from roughly 7 A.M. until 4 P.M. Late afternoons and evenings are spent in the laboratory. They have enough money to keep the excavation going until March 2001. When Bruseth isn’t on site, which is about half of the time, he’s out raising money or doing administrative work at the THC’s main office in Austin.

These buttonholes, buckles, and fragments of cloth were recovered from

“It’s not like other sciences,” Bruseth admits. “There’s never much funding for these kinds of things.” First Victoria National Bank, the trustee for the ranch (the Keerans died several years ago), has given the THC a deadline: It has two years to finish its work, at which time the archaeologists must leave. So far, more than 20,000 artifacts have been found. At the conclusion of the excavations, the artifacts will be made available to museums in Victoria and elsewhere in Texas. Naturally, Bruseth hopes his team will locate the cemetery, which could yield a wealth of information about the state’s first European colonists. The biggest obstacle has been the sheer size of the site and the time it’s taken to systematically investigate it. Whether they find the cemetery or not, Bruseth says the information they’ve obtained from Fort St. Louis and the Spanish presidio is very significant. “[Fort St. Louis is] as important as the Alamo to Texas history,” he says. “It will help us understand where we came from.” Archaeologist Jason Weston empties a load of excavated soil into a water screen. The soil is then screened for artifacts.

CLAIRE POOLE is a Houston, Texas, writer whose articles have appeared in Forbes, Worth, and Texas Monthly.

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La Belle. The fragments of cloth may be from La Salle’s uniform.

Mississippi Valley start-up

Armed with the resourcefulness of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Jim Gallagher has made the Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center a success. by Jerilyn Dinsmoor

farmer on a tractor spots a 900-year-old arrowhead. A teenager discovers a rock shelter with unusual engravings in it. A burial ground is threatened by a new development. Ernie Boszhardt’s phone rings. Boszhardt and other researchers at the Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center (MVAC) at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse have developed a network of archaeology enthusiasts who aid the organization in preserving the area’s cultural resources. Tips such as these have led the MVAC staff to dozens of archaeological sites in western Wisconsin, northeastern Iowa, and southwestern Minnesota. “It amazes me that after all these years we are still able to make major discoveries that really take your breath away,” says Boszhardt. “Last year, a volunteer led us to Wisconsin’s first deep cave site. It included drawings on the wall and ceilings, a 1,200-year-old preserved moccasin and birch bark torches. It opened up a whole new part of the past that we never thought we could have access to before.”

University of Wisconsin-La Crosse students assist the

n 1977, Jim Gallagher was invited to establish an archaeology program at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse campus. It was a one-man show, with countless hours spent teaching courses, scouting research sites, and giving talks. One day he received word that people were filling shopping bags with artifacts at a suburban construction site, so he asked his students for help. “They showed up with snow shovels, garden hoes, and plastic tubs,” he remembers. “It was the sorriest looking

MVAC staff at a trench excavation at the Sand Lake site, located just north of

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MVAC

La Crosse,Wisconsin.

archaeology team ever assembled.” It turned out that the site contained evidence of the last prehistoric occupation of Native Americans in the La Crosse area. The project, which was heavily publicized, attracted other volunteers and increased the public’s interest in the region’s rich archaeology. In an effort to build on this interest and coordinate future research, Gallagher founded the MVAC, a nonprofit organization connected to the university. He now serves as its executive director. Beginning with a paltry budget of $15,000 that was insufficient to fund his endeavors, he looked elsewhere for revenue. A construction boom in the region created a large demand for contract archaeology, and the MVAC took advantage of the opportunity. “Many academic researchers look down on contract work. For us, it was a sensible way to build up a full-time staff of archaeologists,” explains Gallagher. “We were quite selective, only bidding on contract work that overlapped with our research interests.” The MVAC’s contract excavations also provided students with hands-on experience unheard of at the undergraduate level. Word spread, and the university’s undergraduate archaeological studies program is now the second largest in the country.

resource materials, and teacher training. Field schools are offered to high school students, teachers, and adults. During Visitor Days the public can view excavations in progress, and an Artifact Identification Day is held at a local shopping mall each spring. Sharing research findings with the public is also important. “Too often, archaeologists write up scholarly reports that are over the head of the average person,” says Gallagher. The MVAC’s staff is encouraged to translate their research findings into publications and videos that are easy to understand. For example, the organization’s Web site, http://perth.uwlax.edu/mvac, includes a projectile point guide, an online museum, a family primer, and teacher lesson plans. Gallagher takes great pride in the MVAC’s accomplishments. The organization’s name is embroidered on his denim shirt, imprinted on his vehicle license plate, and illuminated on a neon sign placed in his third-floor office window. “Our strengths include our concentrated, regional focus, a great working relationship with the Native American tribes in our area, and our commitment to sharing and involving the public in a firstrate research program,” he says. “As a result, we are better able to help developers, agencies, collectors, and the public understand the process of archaeology and the importance of preserving our past.” Gallagher’s passion for and appreciation of archaeology is evident. “The people who lived in this area in ancient times were facing nearly the same problems we face today—getting along with our neighbors, getting by on limited resources, etc.” he says. These extinct cultures may offer solutions to these enduring challenges.

MVAC’s contract excavations also provided students with hands-on experience unheard of at the undergraduate level.

“...we are better able to help developers, agencies, collectors, and the public understand... archaeology and the importance of preserving our past.“ – Jim Gallagher

JERILYN DINSMOOR is a freelance writer who lives in Onalaska, Wisconsin. MVAC

he MVAC now has a staff of 15 and an annual budget approaching one million dollars. But this financial growth has created another problem: “We are definitely over-dependent on contract revenue,” Gallagher observes, noting that it constitutes 80 percent of the organization’s income. “Should the contract market significantly weaken, the center would be at risk.” Public education is one of the MVAC’s priorities. Staff archaeologists give nearly 200 talks each year. Schools in the area benefit from field trips, presentations,

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A Colossal Discovery In a series of expeditions, archaeologist Matt Stirling discovered the 3,000-year-old Olmec civilization, Mexico’s first complex culture. BY TAMARA STEWART Intent on investigating a report of a large, mysterious stone eye near a small village in Veracruz, Matthew Stirling and his wife, Marion, hurriedly boarded a train from Chiapas, where they had just finished working. They then traveled on horseback to San Lorenzo, which turned out to be one of the largest centers of the prehistoric Olmec civilization of Mexico’s Gulf Coast. The eye belonged to a nine-foot-tall head carved out of lava rock, one of the signature masterpieces of Mesoamerica’s first complex culture. This was but one of the spectacular finds made by the american archaeology

Stirlings during their years of archaeological investigation in Mexico. Revered as the “father of Olmec archaeology,” Matt Stirling, an avid sportsman and track star, grew up in the Salinas Valley, the setting for some of the novels of John Steinbeck, an old family friend. Stirling became intrigued by the Olmec while visiting the Berlin Museum with his parents in 1920. One exhibit included a beautifully carved blue jade masquette, which piqued his curiosity about the civilization that created it. After an account of the fantastic Maya cities in the Petén jungle of Guatemala and the Yucatán Peninsula in 35

Mexico was published in 1822, people became so enamored of the Maya they believed nothing earlier or more significant could have existed in Mesoamerica. Although La Venta, a principal Olmec center, was discovered in 1925 in Tabasco, researchers ignored the site’s significance due to the overwhelming interest in the Maya. The Maya calendar made this the only region with a firmly established time sequence, and people generally believed the Maya to be the parent culture of all later Mesoamerican civilizations. Stirling, however, came to believe that the Olmec was a distinct civilization of great antiquity, one that likely predated the Maya. Though without proof, he held to this controversial view despite criticism from the vocal Mayanists, who insisted the Olmec artifacts and settlements were inspired by the genius of the Maya. Following graduation from the University of California, Stirling joined the Smithsonian Institution in 1921. From 1928 to 1958, he served as the director of the Bureau of American Ethnology. He met Marion in 1931 when she assumed a position with the bureau as his secretary, and the two collaborated on a variety of archaeological and ethnographic investigations. Stirling launched a program in 1932 focused on the eastern and western margins of the Maya area, where he believed evidence could be found to prove his suspicion that all Mesoamerican cultures did not derive from the Maya.

Fieldwork in the Olmec heartland (the region of southern Veracruz and neighboring Tabasco) was difficult, with few roads leading to the remote and often inhospitable locations, and little respite from the heat, mosquitoes, ticks, and other insects. The Stirlings quickly became accustomed to living in a palm-thatched house—as well as less regal shelters principally designed for animals—and to the nightly ritual of picking ticks off their skin by lamplight. Tres Zapotes was the focus of the first two seasons of the Stirlings’ excavations. The villagers there were grateful for the unusual opportunity to earn cash wages, and since all the men in the village wanted to work, the Stirlings had to establish shifts to accommodate them. One day, due to a rivalry between two factions, the men came to work armed. Ominous as this seemed, the Stirlings were assured that if anyone was going to get hurt, it wouldn’t be them. Despite the villagers’ volatile natures, relations were generally peaceful, and the Stirlings were frequently invited to participate in the local festivities. On one, and only one, occasion, they attended the popular Saturday night huapango (dance), which was often broken up by the gunplay of feuding villagers, reckless from having imbibed too much aguardiente. The shooting sometimes resulted in dead bodies that were carried in a hammock past the Stirlings’ camp. Next to the huapango, the villagers’ greatest source of weekend entertainment was a visit to the Stirlings’ camp to

The National Geographic– Smithsonian Expeditions

These weathered designs appear on Stela C. According to Mexican archae-

ologist Alfonso Caso, they represent the tear-streaked face of a deity related to the ancient Zapotecan rain god. Carved on the reverse side of the stela is the earliest recorded date in the New World, September 3, 32 B.C.

RICHARD STEWART/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY IMAGE COLLECTION

Upon returning from a visit to Tres Zapotes, Veracruz, in 1938, where the first colossal head had been found a century earlier, Stirling showed a photograph of the partially excavated head to one of the editors of National Geographic, who suggested that he seek a grant to fund an expedition to the remote site. The following year, with the support of the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institution, Stirling and his wife began a series of eight archaeological investigations at Olmec sites in southern Mexico that lasted from 1939 until 1946. Accompanied by archaeologist Philip Drucker and photographer Richard Stewart, they explored and excavated the three principal Olmec sites of Tres Zapotes, La Venta, and San Lorenzo, as well as other smaller Olmec settlements. They made many spectacular discoveries, including one of the oldest (more than 2,000 years) dated monuments of the New World, the incredible tombs and the mosaic jaguar of La Venta, and the 1945 discovery of the huge Olmec center of San Lorenzo, which contained the 30-ton “El Rey,” the largest of the colossal heads found by Stirling. “It’s quite clear that it was Matt’s enthusiasm, vision, and drive that resulted in the discovery of this ancient culture,” said Michael Coe, Olmec archaeologist and longtime friend of the Stirlings.

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RICHARD STEWART/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY IMAGE COLLECTION

Marion Stirling stands beside a finely carved stela, which depicts a warrior with a club in one hand and a plumed serpent in the other. Matt Stirling hypothesized that sacrifices and offerings were probably made on the frog altar in the foreground, which was uncovered at Izapa in the state of Chiapas.

watch them eat. For reasons the Stirlings never quite understood, groups of men, women, and children arrived before breakfast and stayed through dinner to observe the way they took their meals. Marion’s frequent task of taking dictation on the camp typewriter for her husband was another source of fascination for the villagers, who gathered around the doorway to watch. Thinking the locals must be very impressed by a man so important that others perform such tasks for him, Matt Stirling later recounted how he was put in his place one day when a woman confidentially told his wife: “How unfortunate that your husband never learned to read or write!”

Uncovering the Proof Stirling’s slogan was “leave no stone unturned,” and on the morning of January 16, 1939, while working at Tres Zapotes, that slogan was put to the test. He was investigating a possible stela that had been pointed out by one of the workmen. After laboring with his workers for hours in the hot sun to turn the large rock, they found both sides were uncarved. A nearby rock had also been called to his attention, so Stirling directed his workers to dig it out. It, too, appeared to be unmarked, but as his men carefully cleared american archaeology

away the mud, one of them called out in Spanish: “Chief! Here are numbers!” “Here in front of my eyes was the thing we had all secretly hoped might show up in the course of our work, but which not one of us had had the temerity to expect,” Stirling later related. Unfortunately, a portion of the stone, known as Stela C, had been broken off, but the remainder provided enough to go on. Stirling copied the characters and rushed back to camp where Marion, an accomplished mathematician, used Sylvanus Morley’s An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs to decipher the stela’s carved bars and dots. The stela, which showed a Maya-type date of 3 September 32 B.C. on one side and a characteristic Olmec were-jaguar (half human, half jaguar) carving on the other, created a great stir with its suggestion that the Olmec, not the Maya, was Mexico’s earliest civilization, and that the Olmec had even invented the art of writing and recording dates. Even when later radiocarbon dating indicated that the Olmec civilization existed from about 1500 to 400 B.C., Mayanists continued to attack Stirling’s findings. It wasn’t until 1969 when a local farmer discovered the upper fragment of the stela containing the missing portion of the date, that he was proven correct and Maya scholars finally relented. “Matt said he never expected to live to know it and was delighted to be vindicated,” Marion recalled. After eight years of Olmec exploration, the National Geographic Society began to tire of colossal heads and werejaguar jade carvings, and encouraged the Stirlings to embark on other digs. From 1948 to 1952, the Stirlings worked in Panama, Ecuador, and Costa Rica searching for jade sources and links between those areas and the Olmec region. The Stirlings quickly made friends in their travels, and the villagers’ devotion to them was clearly impressed on Coe when, during his 1967 excavation at San Lorenzo, word got out that the Stirlings were to visit. Most of their former workmen from the 1940s came to greet them. “The guitars were tuned up in the warm evening and the huapango began,” Coe recalled. “In trobas composed and sung on the spur of the moment, these fierce men expressed their love and respect for ‘Don Mateo’ and ‘Dona Mariana’, after all these years had passed.” In retirement, the Stirlings traveled around the world, and Matt continued his work as an archaeologist and ethnologist on the Committee for Research Exploration of the National Geographic Society until he died in 1975. “Matt was a prince among men and has always been one of my intellectual heroes,” said Coe. Matt was one of the world’s great discoverers—in fact, he was the last person to actually discover an ancient civilization.” TAMARA STEWART is the assistant editor of American Archaeology and the Conservancy’s Southwest projects coordinator.

n e w a cq u i s i t i o n s

Making a POINT of Preservation The Conservancy’s ambitious new emergency acquisition program is dedicated to saving sites throughout the country.

hanks to a generous pledge of one-million dollars from one of its founders and board members, the Conservancy is pleased to announce a groundbreaking initiative to safeguard endangered archaeological sites across the country. The POINT Program—an effort to Protect Our Irreplaceable National Treasures—is an emergency acquisition project intended to purchase significant sites in immediate danger of destruction. The cultural remains of America’s prehistoric and historic peoples are rapidly being destroyed. Suburban development, modern agricultural and industrial practices, commercial looting, and erosion all threaten not only the integrity but the very existence of these valuable historical resources. The U.S. population is increasing rapidly, dramatically accelerating the consumption of land and other resources. Once an archaeological site is leveled for development, that part of our national heritage is erased forever. The greatest obstacle to saving these sites is funding. Realizing this, the board member has made a challenge grant of one-million dollars to the Conservancy. The gift must be matched dollar for dollar by December 2001 through gifts from foundations, corporations, and members. The POINT funds will allow the Conservancy’s five regional directors to acquire sites with cash in hand. This will

speed up the process of site preservation considerably by eliminating the delays inherent in fund raising. The POINT Program will focus primarily on sites in five geographic regions, as well as the sites of one national culture, the PaleoIndians, who were the first people to inhabit the Americas. Although any endangered site of national significance will be eligible for protection under the program, regional preservation efforts will focus on the following areas: Algonquian and Iroquois villages of the Northeast;

Monumental sites of the Mississippi Delta; Moundbuilders of the Ohio Valley; Anasazi of the Four Corners; and the native peoples of California’s Central Valley. By taking a thematic approach, the Conservancy will ensure that a good sample of early cultures is preserved. The following three sites have been acquired using the first installment of the POINT funds that was donated to launch the program. We look forward to the successful preservation of many more. —Martha Mulvany

Preserving Mississippi’s Last Coastal Earthwork IN JUNE, THE CONSERVANCY ACQUIRED the Graveline Mound in Gautier, Mississippi. Believed to be the last earthwork on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, the Graveline Mound was of-

fered for sale on the open market at the beginning of June. Situated in a residential subdivision overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, the property was in imminent danger as its locafall

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Learning about the Late Woodland Period

READ STOWE

IN 1991, A

Read Stowe, Johnny Jones, and Jim Keeney at Graveline Mound. Stowe is an archaeologist who worked at the site. Jones, who lives next to the site, is a Gautier city councilman. Keeney is a member of the Mississippi Archaeological Association.

tion was ideal for the construction of a home. Archaeologist Keith Baca with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History contacted the Conservancy about the property. Thanks to the availability of POINT funds, the Conservancy purchased the site before a real estate developer could. The Graveline Mound site has been the subject of archaeological investigations since pioneer archaeologist C. B. Moore first examined the site in 1905. He reported, and later researchers concurred, that Graveline Mound is the largest of a sevenmound Late Woodland complex. It is a rectangular platform mound measuring 82.5 by 100 feet and stands about 5.5 feet high. The mound was constructed during the Late Woodland period (A.D. 400– 700) over a midden created during an earlier occupation. Artifacts from many cultures are found at the Graveline Mound site. The area was a crossroads where people from the northern Gulf coast, the Mississippi River Valley, the Southern interior, and coastal Florida met for american archaeology

trade. Undoubtedly, many ideas were exchanged with the commodities from these diverse regions. Archaeologists hope that a site such as this will provide information to solve the mystery of the demise of the Woodland culture, which was succeeded by the Mississippian culture shortly after Graveline was abandoned. The site has already produced a great deal of information about the material culture of the people who occupied it. Archaeologists have unearthed pottery, stone and bone tools, and even some samples of basketry. The midden below the mound will also prove to be instrumental in researching the dietary habits of the site’s occupants, providing archaeologists more insight into what life was like on the Mississippi coast 1,500 years ago. Although researchers have learned much about the Graveline Mound, it still has a great deal more to tell us. Thankfully, it will continue to exist to answer these questions for generations to come. —Alan Gruber

FARMER PLOWING A FIELD

in Davie County, North Carolina, discovered that pieces of human bone were coming to the surface. Alarmed, he reported his finding to the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology. Inadvertently, he had disturbed several ancient burial sites, and in so doing, discovered the location of a 1,000-year-old Late Woodland Indian village. Archaeologists consider the Hunting Creek site to be among the most significant of its type in all of North Carolina. Excavations conducted in 1991 and 1992 revealed 26 human burials, 19 pits and refuse areas, 64 postholes, and an extraordinary number of well-preserved artifacts, including bone and shell beads, shell necklaces, fish hooks, stone projectile points, mortar and pestles, pipes, and pottery. What is so exciting about this discovery is that it may help to shed light on the complex Late Woodland period. The Woodland period, which began around 1000 B.C. and lasted until approximately A.D. 1500, was marked by great social, cultural, and technological changes. During this time, the population of the Southeast burgeoned, and as people developed horticultural skills that allowed them to grow and store food, they began to establish semi-permanent villages. Social organization changed from the loosely organized hunter-gatherer band characteristic of the earlier Archaic period to a more complex tribal system. Pottery making was also a major innovation of the Woodland period. The Early and Middle Woodland periods were a time of cultural florescence. Villages grew larger and were 39

Because there are fewer earthworks and ritual artifacts associated with the Late Woodland period than with other cultural periods, these sites have attracted little attention. The Hunting Creek site may provide clues as to why this culture grew, thrived, and then eventually deteriorated over the course of 3,000 years. —Martha Mulvany

Plains Indian Village Once Destroyed, Now Preserved John Davidson and his crew from Randolph Community College investigate the Hunting Creek site during the 1992 field season.

ruled by an elite leadership. Trade networks were established that stretched from Florida to the Great Lakes, bringing in goods that were used for religious and mortuary practices. But for unknown reasons, the years between A.D. 900 and 1500, known as the Late Woodland, show a reversal of these trends. The complex mortuary and ceremonial activity

that took place in the Middle Woodland ended. Artifacts that had been made for religious practices were no longer produced. People stopped using trade networks as extensively and, as a result, had fewer exotic goods. Villages became smaller, and although the overall population grew, it was more fragmented than before.

Shells, trade beads, and other artifacts from an interment at the Hunting Creek site.

Hart and Gordon Yellowman and several others of the Cheyenne tribe performed a traditional blessing ceremony for a portion of the rolling Kansas grasslands while some 200 onlookers stood in respectful silence. The land being consecrated was the site of a historic Cheyenne and Sioux village on Pawnee Fork that was destroyed over 100 years ago during the Plains Indian Wars. Some 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne villagers lived at the site in April 1867, when General Winfield S. Hancock’s expedition arrived at nearby Fort Larned with 1,400 troops. Rumors of an Indian uprising prompted Hancock to make a show of military force, and despite protests from the Plains people, Hancock led his troops toward the village. Fearing an attack, the people fled. Hancock ordered Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer to surround the settlement, which Custer found to be abandoned except for an old Sioux man, a woman, and a young girl. Custer and the 7th Cavalry were sent in pursuit of the fleeing Indians. Days later, he sent word to Hancock that Indians had raided stagecoach stations on the Smoky Hill Trail to the north. Assuming these must be the people who fled the captured camp, Hancock ordered Custer to fall

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KEITH SPARKS

ON APRIL 24, 1999, CHIEFS LAWRENCE

Last April, a living history demonstration of a Plains Indian village took place at the Indian Village on Pawnee Fork site. Among the event’s several demonstrations was show horsemanship. This horse wears a rare ornamental mask that, it was believed, gave the animal power

CRAIG HACKER

and a sense of identity.

destroy their village. Nearly everything was piled together and burned, initiating a season of conflict known as Hancock’s War. This was one of the first pivotal tragedies in the Plains Indian Wars. “If one site can be used to depict the saga of an advancing frontier and

POINT Program Acquisitions

american archaeology

the resulting cultural clash between Indian and white peoples during the 19th century, it is the Indian village on Pawnee Fork,” says Timothy Zwink of Northwestern Oklahoma State University. Located just 32 miles northwest of Fort Larned, the Indian village site

was discovered by archaeologists nearly 25 years ago. After a Kansas State Historical Society dig confirmed the village’s location, it was damaged by looters, who targeted many of the site’s metal artifacts. In 1998, the site became the focus of preservation efforts by the Fort Larned Old Guard, the organization that supports the Fort Larned National Historic Site. The Old Guard and The Archaeological Conservancy joined forces, and purchased the site in June. “The Old Guard is especially honored to be a partner with the Conservancy in the preservation of the village site,” says Leo Oliva, historian and chairman of the Old Guard. “The Old Guard has been working on this project for years, but it could not have been completed without the assistance and leadership of the Conservancy.” —Tamara Stewart

n e w a cq u i s i t i o n

Prehistory at Maryland’s Crossroads The three villages located on a 37-acre field in Maryland were once home to

t is rare these days to find an intact Late Woodland Indian village site in Maryland. This fact makes archaeologist Bob Wall’s identification of three village sites on one farm field west of Cumberland even more exceptional. Given the Barton site’s location at the top of the Shenandoah Valley and in the transitional zone between the Appalachian Mountains and the Ohio River Valley, it may not be surprising that three distinct groups of Indians built villages there. Since 1993, Wall and his students from Towson University—along with members of the Archaeological Society of Maryland and the support of Maryland’s Division of Historical

and Cultural Affairs—have painstakingly laid bare many of the details of the last 1,000 years of American Indian life at the Barton site. Upstream from the Barton site is the Bloomington Reservoir, and prior to its construction in the 1970s, the rich farmland along the north branch of the Potomac River flooded regularly and dramatically. The floods were a mixed blessing for the Barton site and its three overlapping Indian villages, which span from A.D. 500 to the 1730s. On the one hand, the continuous soil buildup from such floods created

(Right) Late Woodland spear point found during the 1999 excavations. (Below) Volunteers from Towson University and the Archaeological Society of Maryland work at Barton during this year’s excavations.

an exceptionally thick plow zone on the site, protecting the archaeological resources from centuries of cultivation and plowing. Lately, though, such prodigious deposits have meant only one thing for local farmers: topsoil mining. During the past few years, Wall and others have nervously watched dump trucks rumble past the Barton site from State Route 220, stopping briefly at the gaping pit to fill their beds with tons of topsoil from the adjacent field. Wall worried that someday the site might end up in a thousand different flower beds between Washington, D.C., and New York City. Archaeologists with the Maryland Historic Trust (MHT) were also concerned. The recent sale of much of the acreage surrounding the Barton site to Allegany County for use as an industrial park increased their anxiety. In 1999, MHT’s Tyler Bastian notified the Conservancy of John Barton’s possible willingness to sell the Barton site. Bastian, Wall, and Maryland State Archaeologist Richard Hughes assisted the Conservancy in its negotiations with the owner, who has long supported the research on his property. In May, Barton agreed to sell the property to the Conservancy for the appraised price of the land. The Barton villages are situated in the most upstream bottomlands along the North Branch of the Potomac. For centuries the extensive farmland in the area was ideal for the cultivation of corn, beans, and other crops. By the fall

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BOB WALL/TOWSON UNIVERSITY

American Indians for more than 1,000 years.

BOB WALL/TOWSON UNIVERSITY

Conservancy Plan of Action

A Late Woodland cord-marked pottery sherd recovered from the Barton site.

1600s, the site was well placed to receive trade goods from the English settlers on the Chesapeake Bay. Wall’s research shows at least three separate occupations relating to the Late Woodland or contact periods. The earliest Late Woodland (A.D. 900 to 1400) site consists of small hamlets. In addition to features such as burials and pits, this so-called Page-period village includes marginella shell beads, showing trade connections that stretched to the Atlantic Ocean. Wall and his crew also found a palisade wall enclosing a three-acre Luray-period village dating from roughly A.D. 1400. Adjoining the Luray village was a third village, with trade goods and Susquehannock pottery dating from 1600 to 1625. Post mold patterns suggest several houses and another palisade line. There is some evidence of a second contact-period occupation in this area by the Shawnee during the late 17th to early 18th centuries. Last summer, Wall and his team excavated a spot in the Susquehannock village area. It was often difficult for him to tell where one village began and another ended. “Everything is on top of everyamerican archaeology

thing else,” he says. “When you’ve got palisades going through middens and pit features, sometimes it’s hard to pick up the boundaries of these things.” Another important discovery for researchers this summer was a buried surface beneath the Woodland deposits that may indicate a possible pre-Clovis presence at the site. Several radiocarbon dates of soil samples confirm the very early date of 15,000 B.C., but Wall remains skeptical. In the fall, after reviewing the results of additional radiocarbon tests, he intends to conduct further investigations at the site.

SITE: Barton Site CULTURE & TIME PERIOD: Late Woodland to Contact (1000 B.C.–A.D. 1700) STATUS: The Conservancy has purchased a six-month option on the 37-acre property. ACQUISITION: The Conservancy needs to raise an additional $70,000 to match the $50,000 Save Maryland’s Treasures grant to purchase the property. HOW YOU CAN HELP: Send your contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Project Barton; 5301 Central Ave. NE, Suite 402; Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517.

In the meantime, thanks in part to the support of the MHT and others, the Conservancy became one the first recipients of the inaugural Save Maryland’s Treasures grant, of $50,000. This generous grant from the State of Maryland represents nearly half of the funds needed to purchase the property. —Rob Crisell

C O N S E R V A N C Y

SITE UPDATES

Preserving Alabama’s First State Capital SOUTHEAST—The Conservancy is closer to preserving the entire site of Cahawba, near Selma, Alabama, after making four acquisitions over the last six months that total nearly 40 acres. Since 1995, Cahawba has been the target of a long-term Conservancy project to protect the 19th-century remains of Alabama’s first state capital as well as numerous prehistoric sites

Visitors view ruins at Old Cahawba.

found within the boundaries of the old town. The Conservancy has acquired approximately 240 acres of the nearly 400-acre site. These latest acquisitions have consolidated lands purchased in previous acquisitions so that the northern half and the center of the town are now preserved. The Conservancy’s acquisition includes the Fambro House, one of Cahawba’s two surviving original structures. Cahawba site archaeologist Linda Derry believes the Fambro

House will provide a great many clues in researching the construction of other homes at Old Cahawba that are now in ruins, as well as provide an excellent site for new excavations. Derry expects that the area under and around the Fambro House will prove to be a “time capsule” of information about urban antebellum life in Cahawba. The Conservancy’s work at Cahawba during these projects was made possible by a generous gift from Daniel J. Meador of Virginia, a descendant of the Kirkpatrick family who settled Cahawba, and by financial support from the Cahawba Advisory Committee. As a condition of this support, the Conservancy will transfer these lands to the Alabama Historical Commission for permanent preservation in Old Cahawba Historic Site, where they will be open to the public for interpretation. The Historical Commission also plans to restore the Fambro House to its 1840s appearance and open it to the public after thorough testing by archaeologists and architectural historians. The preserved lands at Cahawba are open to the public from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. daily. Conservancy members can call the park at (334) 872-8058 to arrange for a free tour.

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ALABAMA HISTORICAL COMMISSION

Field Notes

Steve Koczan, Southwest regional site maintenance coordinator (middle), and Zuni workers erect a barbedwire fence at the

JAMES WALKER

Box S site.

The Conservancy and Zuni Pueblo Forge a Unique Partnership SOUTHWEST—Located in west central New Mexico, immediately adjacent to the Zuni reservation, the Box S site (known to the Zunis as Heshodan Imk’oskwi’a) is a large ancestral-Zuni pueblo containing about 1,000 masonry rooms thought to have been occupied between A.D. 1260 and 1285. The Conservancy acquired 160 acres containing the pueblo in 1999. In a unique partnership, the Conservancy and the tribal-owned Zuni Cultural Resource Enterprise (ZCRE) completed a number of preservation tasks at the site, including fencing, mapping, and creating a cultural resource management plan for the ruin. First noted in the archaeological literature by Adolph Bandelier in 1892 and recorded by Leslie Spier in 1917, the pueblo has suffered from the hands of looters over the years. Although some of the looting was done using a backhoe, researchers estimate that at least 80 percent of the site’s deposits remain intact and undisturbed. This summer, under the direction of Jonathan Damp, a ZCRE survey team, using a computer-aided transit called a total station, completed a detailed map of the ruin that

american archaeology

will serve as a blueprint for a stabilization project to be completed by ZCRE and the Conservancy sometime this fall. The Conservancy plans to transfer ownership of this site to the Pueblo of Zuni before the end of the year. The Zunis plan to preserve the site for tribal, scientific, educational, and conservation purposes. The Conservancy and the Zunis hope this unique, innovative preservation project will serve as a model for future interactions between preservationists and Native Americans.

Work Continues at San Marcos SOUTHWEST—Researchers Dave Thomas from the American Museum of Natural History in New York and Ann Ramenofsky from the University of New Mexico returned this summer to continue their respective projects at Pueblo San Marcos. Ramenofsky conducted the UNM field school in a continuing research project that included mapping an archaeological profile of an arroyo cut which has exposed walls, floors, and features of a portion of the pueblo. The Conservancy stopped the erosion of San Marcos Arroyo in the mid-1970s by creating a stabilized channel within the arroyo bed

that directs water away from the structure. Ramenofsky’s team also conducted testing in each of the midden areas to try to date the deposits in an effort to reconstruct the building, occupation, and abandonment sequences for the site. Thomas focused again on the 17th-century Franciscan mission church and convento complex. Test excavations conducted in the eastern end of the church revealed fallen walls, but the main doorway and adobe floor are intact. Test excavations in a northern convento room led to the discovery of the baptistery. Additional remote sensing of the complex using soil resistivity to create a subsurface map of the walls and features was also conducted. Contrary to historical accounts of the destruction of the church in 1680 during the Pueblo Revolt, the research team found no signs of burning or intentional destruction of the church walls or features. It appears that the church and convento complex collapsed over a long period of time following abandonment. Features such as a stone-lined firepit and a sealed doorway indicate that the complex may have been reused after its abandonment in the late 1600s.

T H E

A R C H A E O L O G I C A L

The Magnificence of the Maya ■ M AYA O F PA L E N Q U E A N D Y U C AT Á N When: January 11–21, 2001 Where: Southern Mexico How much: $2,295 ($295 single supplement)

as El Caracol, a two-tiered astronomical observatory dating from the 10th century. At the city of Palenque, deep in the rain forest, you’ll spend a day touring the many architectural wonders there. Inside the Temple of the Inscriptions you’ll visit the tomb of Pacal the Great, who ruled Palenque from A.D. 615 to 683.

Palaces and Pyramids ■ BELIZE AND COPÁN When: March 16–25, 2001 Where: Belize How much: $2,295 ($295 single supplement)

Our tour begins on the coast of Belize, where you’ll visit Belize City and take a boat ride up the New River to Lamanai, a Maya trading center established before Christ and occupied until A.D. 1641. From the coast you’ll travel to the inner reaches of Belize and explore the magnificent mountaintop palace of Cahal Pech.

MARK MICHEL

From A.D. 300 to 1200, the Maya flourished in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. Their splendid cities, which still tower over the rain forest today, testify to the sophistication of the mysterious people who built them. Our tour will visit some of the most spectacular of these cities. You’ll explore the Pyramid of the Magician at Uxmal, the largest of the Maya cities. At Kabah, you’ll see the stone mosaic of masks that adorns the Palace of the Masks. At Chichén Itzá, a magnificent city founded in the fifth century and occupied until the 13th century, you’ll see the great ballcourt, the largest found in Mesoamerica, as well

C O N S E R V A N C Y

Pacal the Great’s Palace at Palenque is a remarkable structure.

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Patrons of Preservation The Archaeological Conservancy would like to thank the following individuals, foundations, and corporations for their generous support during the first half of 2000. Their generosity, along with the generosity of the Conservancy’s other 20,000 members, makes our work possible. Anasazi Circle Gifts of $2,000 or more

This stela portrays 18 Rabbit, who ruled Copán from A.D. 695 to 738.

A ferry ride will take you to the ruins of Xunantunich, once an important trading center. There you’ll tour El Castillo, a classic example of the Maya technique of constructing a pyramid within another pyramid. From Xunantunich you’ll travel to the recently discovered ceremonial site of Caracol, possibly the largest Maya site in Latin America. You’ll spend several days investigating the magnificent city of Copán, considered by many to be the crown jewel of the southern Maya. Copán’s achievements are well documented in its famous and important monument, the Hieroglyphic Stairway. The stairway’s 63 steps contain more than 2,000 intricately carved glyphs.

Anonymous (3) Olds Anderson, Michigan Molly Arrowsmith, Texas R. W. and Evie Beckwith, Florida Helen Darby, California Jerry and Janet EtsHokin, Illinois Jim and Mary Faul, Arizona R. M. and Joanne Hart, Colorado Jean James, Arizona Helen Louise Kempton, California David and Sue Knop, California Jay Last, California Jack and Pat McCreery, California Betty Mitchell, Illinois Lawrence Peterson, Colorado Gavine Pitner, Ohio Sue Anschutz Rodgers, Colorado Joe and Dolly Rollins, Mississippi E. D. and Yolanda Seaman, Texas Melvin and Giulia Simpson, New York Peter Solbert, New York Rosamond Stanton, New Mexico Kathryn Wanlass, Utah Gordon and Judy Wilson, New Mexico Richard Woodbury, Massachusetts

Life Member Gifts of $1,000 or more Harry Adams, Kansas Calvin Thomas Atkeson, New Mexico Camilla Atkeson Carere, Washington, D.C. Carol Baker, Texas Betty Banks, Washington Leonard Blake, Missouri Lee Bradley III, Massachusetts Barbara Brown, Washington Harryette Campbell, Missouri Ruth Churchill, Ohio Mr. and Mrs. William Cowles, New Mexico Nance and Barbara Creager, Texas Hester Davis, Arkansas Carlene Ellis, California Warren and Bette Gorton, New Mexico Ricky Lightfoot and M. Melissa Gould, Colorado J. E. Loughridge, Florida Shelby Nelson, Alabama Susan Mayer Reaves, Florida Ian and Talmadge Silversides, North Carolina John Thorup, Arizona

Foundation and Corporate Gifts of $1,000 or more Anonymous (1) Archaeological Resource Management Corporation, California Ballantine Family Fund, Colorado State Historical Fund/Colorado Historical Society, Colorado Philip M. Gelatt Foundation, Wisconsin The J. Paul Getty Trust, California Eugene and Emily Grant Family Foundation, New York David Greenewalt Charitable Trust, Massachusetts Schwab Fund for Charitable Giving, California BETSY GREENLEE

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Visitors to Copán can view the impressive “monster mouth” doorway.

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The Vikings and America Indians of the Greater Southeast

Reviews The Vikings and America By Eric Wahlgren (Thames and Hudson, 1986; first paperback edition, 2000; 192 pgs.; illus.; $19 paper, 800-233-4830)

For more than 50 years, Eric Wahlgren studied the Vikings. In particular, Wahlgren sought to discover the location of Vinland, the mysterious “land of grapevines” discovered by Leif Eriksson nearly 1,000 years ago and believed by many scholars to be L’Anse aux Meadows, a Viking settlement in northern Newfoundland. By the end of his life, Wahlgren was convinced that Vinland was in fact much farther south, though its From Mounds to Mammoths: A Field Guide to Oklahoma Prehistory 2nd Edition by Claudette Gilbert and Robert L. Brooks (University of Oklahoma Press, 2000; 129 pgs., illus.; $14 paper; 800-627-7377) The authors have produced a handy guide to 30,000 years of Oklahoma prehistory, from the first American mammoth hunters to the farmers and buffalo hunters of contact times. It ends before resettled Eastern tribes changed the mix forever. Oklahoma is a diverse area on the edge of the Great Plains, and its prehistoric people reflect that diversity. This little volume is a commendable introduction to that fascinating story.

From Mounds to Mammoths: A Field Guide to Oklahoma Prehistory

definitive location is unknown. But in the course of his research, he amassed a wealth of information about these little-understood people, which he reports in a delightfully idiosyncratic voice. To set the record straight, Vikings were not depraved barbarians who killed out of bloodlust and quaffed wine from the skulls of their fallen enemies. Although the savagery of their raids is well documented, Wahlgren asserts the Vikings were no more bloodthirsty than countless other peoples throughout history driven by population pressure, climatic disturbances, and political upheavals. On the other hand, Vikings established the first democratic parliament, worshipped a complex pantheon of gods, and developed one of the great technological wonders of the pre-industrial world: the flexible, lightweight, supremely maneuverable Viking warship. It was this technological superiority, rather than an innately brutish character, which accounts for the Vikings’ domination of Europe for more than 300 years, and their successful establishment of colonies in Iceland, Greenland, Labrador, and Newfoundland. This wonderfully readable and even-handed book makes understandable Wahlgren’s lifelong fascination with these enigmatic people. —Betsy Greenlee

Indians of the Greater Southeast Edited by Bonnie G. McEwan (University Press of Florida, 2000; 392 pgs., illus.; $55 cloth; 800-226-3822)

If you have ever wondered about the Indian tribes who lived in the American Southeast at the time of European settlement, this book is for you. Surprisingly, there is more information about the prehistoric peoples of the region than on the Indians encountered by Europeans and Americans. Bonnie McEwan, the director of archaeology at Mission San Luis in Tallahassee, Florida, has assembled an outstanding group of scholars to integrate the archaeological, historical, and ethnographic evidence in the most comprehensive study of these cultures ever published. Clearly, the lack of an interdisciplinary approach has limited our understanding of these tribes, and this volume addresses that problem. Eleven of the nation’s top historical archaeologists tackle 11 of the Indian nations that occupied the territory from Florida to Texas. They include some of the best known but little-understood American tribes—the Cherokee, the Natchez, and the Caddo. These are the tribes that first came in contact with an alien civilization and religion. But it was perhaps alien germs that had the greatest effect, as populations plummeted. Even the most determined natives were unable to resist these massive changes, which are ably documented in this distinguished volume. —Mark Michel fall

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2000

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American Archaeology | Fall 2000 | Vol. 4 No. 3

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