AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL TIME CAPSULE • MYSTERIOUS, MAGNIFICENT CAHOKIA
american archaeology
WINTER 2000–2001
a quarterly publication of The Archaeological Conservancy
Vol. 4 No. 4
Fishing
IN THE DESERT
$3.95
When a lake came and went, the Cahuilla people had to adapt. Archaeologists are learning how they did it.
american archaeology a quarterly publication of The Archaeological Conservancy
Vol. 4 No. 4
winter 2000–2001 COVER FEATURE
FISHING IN THE DESERT
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BY RICK DOWER
When a vast lake suddenly formed in their desert and then gradually evaporated, the Cahuilla people were forced to adapt.
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DISCOVERING AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL TIME CAPSULE BY LANCE TAPLEY
Archaeologist Jeffrey Brain is excavating Popham Colony, an undisturbed site as old as Jamestown and in some ways more important.
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OF MOUNDS AND MYSTERIES BY JOHN G. CARLTON AND WILLIAM ALLEN
Archaeologists have been working for years at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site to better understand the remarkable Mississippians.
2 Lay of the Land 3 Letters 5 Events
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BY JOANNE SHEEHY HOOVER
Chaco Culture National Historical Park has determined the Navajo are culturally affiliated with the Anasazi. Some Native Americans and archaeologists strongly disagree.
7 In the News
The Slow Process of Repatriation • Archaeologists Rediscover Ancient Maya Center • Shipwreck Appears to Be Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge
42 Field Notes
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american archaeology
new acquisition: H I S T O RY ON THE SHORES OF BIG LAKE Once the traditional homesite of Passamaquoddy Indian chiefs, Governor’s Point in Maine is the Conservancy’s northeastern-most preserve.
46 Reviews
COVER: Archaeologist Jay von Werlhof has spent years studying the cultures of the southern California deserts. photograph by Bob Grieser
new acquisition: LEARNING ABOUT THE TATAV I A M The Conservancy’s acquisition of Lannan Ranch may provide important information about a little-known people.
44 Expeditions 48 Past Portrait
A C U LTURAL AFFILIAT I O N C O N T R O V E R S Y
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new acquisition: PRESERV I N G A R E C O R D O F PREHISTORIC VILLAGE LIFE The Archaeological Conservancy partners with a local land trust to preserve the Cambria site.
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Lay of the Land centuries ago, was located in the middle of the desert. Others are working to save its successor, the Salton Sea, one of America’s biggest ecological disasters. The two are linked in a convoluted way. If a method is found to save the Salton Sea, real estate development will explode around it, threatening the remaining archaeological sites. We have to move quickly before a speculative balloon goes up, and we are priced out of the market. Saving sites before there is a crisis is our goal at the Conservancy. This approach saves resources and money. Too often, land protection agencies
wait too long and have to pay dearly for their inaction. Let’s not allow that to happen at the Salton Sea.
MARK MICHEL, President
MORE THAN JUST A TOUR ... THE CROW CANYON EXPERIENCE. LET CROW CANYON BE YOUR GUIDE FOR A UNIQUE AND INTIMATE ADVENTURE THROUGH TIME. EXPERIENCE THE ARCHAEOLOGY AND CULTURES OF THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST AND THE WORLD WITH RENOWNED AND ENGAGING SCHOLARS IN A WAY THE CASUAL TOURIST CAN NOT.
BACKCOUNTRY ARCHAEOLOGY: HIKING MOQUI CANYON TO LAKE POWELL MARCH 18-24, 2001
PEOPLES OF THE CHAMA RIVER VALLEY, NORTHERN NEW MEXICO MAY 20-26, 2001
MAY 27-JUNE 2, 2001
MARK VARIEN Photo: Bill Proud
A CANYON CELEBRATION WITH RUTH SLICKMAN AND
CROW CANYON ARCHAEOLOGICAL CENTER
CCAC’s programs and admission practices are open to applicants of any race, color, nationality, or ethnic origin.
Some people look at a desert and see endless emptiness. Archaeologist Jay von Werlhof sees endless beauty and the fascinating story of some of prehistoric America’s most inventive people. A desert rat if ever there was one, von Werlhof has been campaigning to preserve the archaeology of southern California’s Colorado Desert for half a century. Finally, he’s getting some help. The Conservancy is joining forces with California State Parks and the Bureau of Land Management to develop a plan to save what remains of the fascinating cultures that surrounded ancient Lake Cahuilla, that improbable fresh water lake that,
DARREN POORE
Preser ving Archaeology and Ecology
23390 ROAD K . CORTEZ, COLORADO 81321 (800) 422-8975 WWW.CROWCANYON.ORG
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Letters Cultural Confusion
While I enjoyed the article “Prehistory at Maryland’s Crossroads,” I could not help but observe that the “Late Woodland spear point found during the 1999 excavations” bore unmistakable traits of an Eastern Clovis-type fluted projectile point. Many sites in the East and Midwest are stratified and contain several cultural components. Perhaps future excavations will explain the presence of an apparent Paleo-Indian artifact at this site. Joseph D. Bartlett Lafayette, Indiana You’re right. It is a Clovis point. Our apologies for mistakenly identifying it as Late Woodland. —Ed. A Dismaying Commentary
I was dismayed and shocked to read Mr. Mark Michel’s remarks about putting a moratorium on the reburial of Native Americans in his column Lay of the Land in the Fall 2000 issue. How would Mr. Michel feel if some
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.
american archaeology
historically hostile people to his were to dig up, find, keep, and study his ancestors’ remains for their own purposes? Common human decency and respect for other peoples’ desire to rebury their dead are not “political answers.” I strongly feel an apology is due to Native Americans everywhere. Madelene S. Nowell Cape Neddick, Maine Finding Other Methods of Research
Regarding the Lay of the Land column, I am all in favor of finding the truth concerning the cultural collapse of the Anasazi. But to say that Chaco Canyon and other sites are deliberately withholding skeletons or “rushing to bury them” for political reasons is being a little insensitive. We need to find a way to do research without tampering with the remains of people’s loved ones. Monette Bebow-Reinhard Abrams, Wisconsin
American Archaeology Wins Another Award American Archaeology recently took second place in the Folio: Editorial Excellence Awards. The Winter 1999/2000 issue was a finalist in the Science and Technology category. The Editorial Excellence Awards are part of a national competition sponsored by Folio:, a publication devoted to the magazine industry. The Winter 1999/2000 issue also won the Silver award in another national competition, Magazine and Bookseller’s Annual Magazine Cover Contest.
STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION 1. Publication Title: American Archaeology. 2. Publication No.: 1093-8400. 3. Date of Filing: September 25, 2000. 4. Issue Frequency: Quarterly. 5. No. of Issues Published Annually: 4. 6. Annual Subscription Price: $25.00. 7. Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of Publication: The Archaeological Conservancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 402, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517. 8. Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters or General Business Office of Publisher: same as No. 7. 9. Names and Mailing Addresses of Publisher, Editor, and Managing Editor: Publisher—Mark Michel, address same as No. 7. Editor—Michael Bawaya, address same as No. 7. Managing Editor—N/A. 10. Owner: The Archaeological Conservancy, address same as No. 7. 11. Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Security Holders Owning or Holding 1 Percent or More of Total Amount of Bonds, Mortgages, or Other Securities: None. 12. Tax Status: Has Not Changed During Preceding 12 Months. 13. Publication Title: American Archaeology. 14. Issue Date for Circulation Data Below: Spring 2000. 15. Extent and Nature of Circulation: Average Number of Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: (A) Total No. Copies (net press run): 31,500; (B) Paid and/or Requested Circulation: (1) Paid/Requested Outside-County Mail Subscriptions Stated on Form 3541 (Include advertiser’s proof copies and exchange copies): 17,676; (2) Paid In-County Subscriptions (Include advertiser’s proof copies and exchange copies): 0; (3) Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and Other Non-USPS Paid Distribution: 3,788; (4) Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS: 600. (C) Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation (Sum of 15B (1), (2), (3), and (4)): 22,064; (D) Free Distribution by Mail (Samples, complimentary, and other free): (1) Outside-County as Stated on Form 3541: 1,211; (2) In-County as Stated on Form 3541: 0; (3) Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS: 50; (E) Free Distribution Outside the Mail (Carriers or other means): 500; (F) Total Free Distribution (Sum of 15D and 15E): 1,761; (G) Total Distribution (Sum of 15C and 15F): 23,825; (H) Copies not Distributed: 7,675; (I) Total (Sum of 15G and 15H): 31,500. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation (15C/15G x 100): 92.61%. 15. Extent and Nature of Circulation: Number Copies of Single Issue Publishd Nearest to Filing Date: (A) Total No. Copies (net press run): 29,000; (B) Paid and/or Requested Circulation: (1) Paid/Requested Outside-County Mail Subscriptions Stated on Form 3541 (Include advertiser’s proof copies and exchange copies): 16,975; (2) Paid In-County Subscriptions (Include advertiser’s proof copies and exchange copies): 0; (3) Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and Other Non-USPS Paid Distribution: 3,694; (4) Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS: 750. (C) Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation (Sum of 15B (1), (2), (3), and (4)): 21,419; (D) Free Distribution by Mail (Samples, complimentary, and other free): (1) Outside-County as Stated on Form 3541: 0; (2) In-County as Stated on Form 3541: 0; (3) Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS: 75; (E) Free Distribution Outside the Mail (Carriers or other means): 400; (F) Total Free Distribution (Sum of 15D and 15E): 475; (G) Total Distribution (Sum of 15C and 15F): 21,894; (H) Copies not Distributed: 7,106; (I) Total (Sum of 15G and 15H): 29,000. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation (15C/15G x 100): 97.83%. 16. This Statement of Ownership will be printed in the Winter 2000 issue of this publication. 17. I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. Michael Bawaya, Editor.
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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
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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
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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 James Bruseth, Texas Historical Commission • Allen Dart, Old Pueblo Archaeology Center Hester Davis, Arkansas Archeological Survey • David Dye, University of Memphis John Foster, California State Parks • Lynne Goldstein, Michigan State University Megg Heath, Bureau of Land Management • Susan Hector, San Diego County Parks Gwynn Henderson, Kentucky Archaeological Registry • John Henderson, Cornell University John Kelly, Washington University • Robert Kuhn, New York Historic Preservation William Lipe, Washington State University • Mark Lynott, National Park Service Bonnie McEwan, San Luis Historic Site • Giovanna Peebles, Vermont State Archaeologist Peter Pilles, U.S. Forest Service • John Roney, Bureau of Land Management Kenneth Sassaman, University of Florida • Dennis Stanford, Smithsonian Institution 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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Festivals
Conferences
PAUL E. BURD
■ NEW EXHIBITS Peabody Museum of Natural History
New Haven, Conn.—The recently completed Hall of Native American Cultures showcases 360 objects from the Peabody’s substantial Native American collections. The latest Plains and Southwest installations complement the recently renovated Northwest Pacific Coast and Arctic culture exhibits. (203) 432-5050 (Permanent exhibit) High Desert Museum
HEARD MUSEUM
Bend, Ore.—A recently opened exhibit, “Sacred Sites, Sacred Places: Whose Culture and Whose Property?,” displays rubbings of prehistoric rock art images along the Columbia River in northern Oregon. Ten rubbings, made before dams flooded sacred petroglyph sites in the 1950s, will be on display accompanied by explanatory material. (541) 382-4754 (Through January 14, 2001)
The Heard Museum’s 11th Annual World Championship Hoop Dance Contest and 43rd Annual Indian Fair and Market Hoop Dance Contest: February 3–4, Indian Fair and Market: March 3–4, Phoenix, Ariz. Come see the world’s best Native American hoop dancers from across the United States and Canada showcase their skill, athleticism, and grace as they compete for the prestigious title of world champion. The Heard’s annual Indian Fair and Market draws nearly 500 of the nation’s finest Native American artists, including jewelers, sculptors, potters, painters, weavers, and beadworkers, who come to display and sell their work. The event also features traditional music and dance performances, storytelling, and native foods. (602) 252-8840
american archaeology
American Museum of Natural History
New York, N.Y.—“Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga” examines the historic impact of recent archaeological finds and explores the creative and enterprising spirit that led the Vikings to North American shores 1,000 years ago—more than 500 years before Columbus landed. (212) 769-5100 (Through January 21, 2001) Yorktown Victory Center
Yorktown, Va.—The exhibit “Shipbuilding in Colonial Virginia” traces the shipbuilding industry from the Virginia colony’s earliest days through the American Revolution. Examples of tools used in ship design and construction are exhibited along with paintings, maps, documents, models, and nautical armaments. (888) 593-4682, (757) 2534838 (Through February 28, 2001)
Schingoethe Center for Native American Cultures Aurora University, Aurora, Ill.—After closing for renovation, the Schingoethe Center will unveil new exhibits in its Main Gallery, including artifacts from the Northeast Woodlands’ historic period, with special emphasis on the Great Lakes region. Another exhibit highlights new acquisitions from the Arctic region. (630) 844-5402 or visit the museum’s web site: www.aurora.edu/museum (Opens February 1, 2001)
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Battery Park, New York, N.Y.— The new exhibit “Beauty, Honor, and Tradition: The Legacy of Plains Indian Shirts” features beautifully crafted beaded, quilled, painted, and ribbon shirts, as well as headdresses, leggings, and buffalo hides from the mid-19th to the early 20th century. The exhibition offers insights into the materials used and the symbology embedded in the shirts, giving a better understanding of the history, cultural context, and development of shirts made and worn by Plains tribes of North America. (212) 514-3700 (Opens December 10)
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Arizona State Museum Southwest Indian Art Fair
February 24–25, Tucson, Ariz. Some of the finest Native American craftspeople will again dazzle visitors at the museum’s annual Art Fair, which is expected to be bigger and better than ever. (520) 626-8381
Hudson Museum
Maine Center for the Arts, The University of Maine, Orono, Maine—The prehistoric Mesoamerican exhibit “Realms of Blood and Jade” focuses on the civilizations of the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, and West Mexico, showcasing 250 fascinating objects that date from 2,000 B.C. to the time of the Spanish Conquest. (207) 581-1901 (Permanent exhibit)
■ CONFERENCES & FESTIVALS Society for Historical Archaeology Annual Meeting
January 10–14, Queen Mary, Long Beach, Calif. This year’s theme is “Teach the Mind, Touch the Spirit.” For more information, call SHA headquarters at (520) 886-8006, or check the society’s Web site www.sha.org Museum of New Mexico Spring Lecture Series
Friday nights, January 26–February 23, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe, N. M. Sponsored by the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, Friends of Archaeology, this series of lectures will cover
BURKE MUSEUM
Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M.—“Andean Textiles and Rituals as Cultural Communication” explores the ways in which the pre-Columbian Quechua peoples used textiles to symbolically express relationships with the natural and supernatural worlds. (505) 277-4405 (Through June 2001)
topics regarding Southwestern prehistory and current research. (505) 827-6343
KATHERINE FOGDEN
Maxwell Museum of Anthropology
The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture Seattle, Wash.—“Entwined With Life: Native American Basketry,” the museum’s first major exhibit featuring the Burke basket collection, is unique in its focus on the people behind the artistry. The stunning baskets included in the exhibit vary in age from contemporary to over 600 years old and originate from the Southwest to the Alaskan Arctic. (206) 543-7907 (Through May 6, 2001)
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The Slow Process of Repatriation The laws and other factors have made it long and complicated.
JANE BECK
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en years after the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and the National Museum of the American Indian Act, it’s estimated that only about 10 percent of the approximately 218,000 sets of Native American human remains in collections nationwide have been inventoried and made eligible for return to their affiliated tribes, according to the National Park Service (NPS). Repatriation legislation requires that federal agencies and museums inventory their Native American collections, document origins and conditions of the objects, assess Native American claims to remains and artifacts, work with tribal representatives, and finally, repatriate or develop alternatives to repatriation. Institutions face a number of difficulties that slow this process. At some of the larger museums, like the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History, which, before it began to repatriate, held over 18,400 sets of Native American human remains, and Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, which held over 12,000, the task of inventorying and documenting is immense. Adding to this is the fact that archaeological collections at major museums often consist of millions of artifacts. In addition to the sheer volume of these collections is the inadequacy of initial documentation. Objects american archaeology
A Pawnee religious leader fans burning herbs to purify the repatriated remains of Pawnee scouts killed in action in the late 19th century.
that were donated or acquired in the past often lacked accurate information on their origins and provenience. Barbara Isaac, repatriation coordinator at the Peabody, points out the problems that older collections present: “We have collections from the 1860s and ’70s. These disciplines [anthropology and archaeology] were just being formed then. How could such objects be well documented?” Working with tribal leaders is an integral, and time consuming, part of the repatriation process. A further requirement causing delays is that
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notices of all inventories of human remains and funerary objects must be published by the NPS in the federal register. Repatriation cannot occur until the notices have been on the register for a minimum of 30 days to allow time for counterclaims. Thus far, a total of 562 notices have been published. Due to a staffing shortage that has only recently been addressed, there is a backlog of 309 notices awaiting publication, according to the NPS. “People are frustrated because (repatriation) is perceived as proceeding at a glacial pace,” says Thomas Killion, the Repatriation Office program manager at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. “There’s a lot more going on than just the number of remains that have been returned.” While this process takes an institution’s time and money, and ultimately, reduces its holdings, the laws have benefited museums in other ways. Working with Native American leaders on repatriation has led to new partnerships that inform exhibits and other museum projects. Having to create a detailed inventory of their holdings has also provided museums with much more information on their collections than they had previously. Killion observes that repatriation efforts have resulted in more information about Native American human biology, archaeology, history, and material culture. —Martha Mulvany 7
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Historic Shipwreck Sites May Be in Peril Zebra mussels invade the Great Lakes region and quickly spread.
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A diver uses a syringe to take a water sample. The sample will be analyzed to determine if the zebra mussels are affecting the iron fastenings of shipwrecks.
In 1996, Arthur Cohn, of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, and a team of researchers began an eight-year sonar survey to locate and document shipwrecks on the bottom of the lake before they become completely encrusted with mussels. Fifty historic vessels have been found so far, including the 1776
gunboat Spitfire, one of Benedict Arnold’s Revolutionary War ships. “These ships represent what may be one of the most extraordinary archaeological collections, one that is not widely recognized,” Cohn says. “Sites that were once ninety-nine to one hundred percent intact are now threatened.” —Tamara Stewart
Ancient Remains Meet Different Fates
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he fates of two of American archaeology’s most senior citizens have, for the moment, been determined. Spirit Cave Man will remain in federal custody, while Kennewick Man is to be repatriated to an affiliated tribe. The Reno, Nevada, office of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) determined that human remains from Spirit Cave, including the 9,000-year-old Spirit Cave Man, are Native American, but they cannot be culturally affiliated with any contemporary group. Spirit Cave Man has been housed at the Nevada State Museum for nearly 60 years. The determination was the result of more than four years of analyzing information and reviewing NAGPRA policy. “We looked at multiple lines of evidence,” said Pat Barker, an archaeologist with the Nevada BLM office. The determinations, which are in accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, are informed by a wide variety of scientific and traditional evidence. The BLM will evaluate additional evidence, which could confirm or overturn its determination. Shortly after the Spirit Cave Man decision, the Department of the Interior and the Army Corps of Engineers informed U.S. Magistrate Judge John Jelderks that a connection between Kennewick Man and modern tribes could be shown by tribal oral history and the location where the bones were discovered, as well as other evidence. DNA testing had been done on 9,000-year-old Kennewick Man at three different laboratories, but the researchers were “unable to extract useable DNA from the bone,” said Stephanie Hanna, a Department of the Interior spokesperson. Despite the determination, the lengthy process of repatriation won’t begin until a lawsuit filed by a group of scientists seeking to study Kennewick Man has been decided. A ruling on the lawsuit is expected in August 2001. —Michael Bawaya
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LAKE CHAMPLAIN MARITIME MUSEUM, PIERRE LAROCQUE
ebra mussels, which are attaching to historic shipwrecks across the Great Lakes region at a rapid rate, sometimes in clumps as thick as six inches, could be damaging the vessels. The mussels were introduced to the Great Lakes in the late 1980s from cargo ships originating in the Caspian and Black Sea areas of northern Europe; they have spread all the way from northern Quebec to Louisiana. Observations made in Lake Erie indicated that they had spread to a density of 100,000 to 200,000 per square meter by 1995. “Historic shipwrecks that were pretty much pristine are now severely fouled by the mussels,” says Chuck O’Neill, director of the National Aquatic Nuisance Species Clearinghouse. “It looks like a coral reef down there.”
Archaeologists Uncover a Three-Story Palace
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CHRISTOPHER TALBOT/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY VIA AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The site may have been an important Maya trade center.
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orking in a remote area of Guatemala, archaeologists Arthur Demarest of Vanderbilt University and Tomás Barrientos of the Universidád del Valle in Guatemala led a 6-month excavation and mapping project of Cancuen, a well-preserved Maya center containing one of the largest and most elaborate palaces ever found. The site was first discovered in 1905 by Teobert Maler, an explorer with Harvard University’s Peabody Museum, and was partially surveyed and mapped by a Harvard team in the 1960s. Cancuen, which means “Place of Serpents,” remained littleknown for 40 years, its size and importance unrealized. Demarest was prompted to explore this area by hieroglyphs deciphered at the Dos Pelas site, which tell the story of the site’s great king conquering the region and bringing his queen here from Cancuen. Over five square kilometers have been mapped at Cancuen. The ruins include a three-story limestone palace. With 170 rooms around 11 courtyards, it is comparable in size to the central palace at the well-known Maya site of Tikal. Federico Fahsen, the project epigrapher, has put together the site’s dynastic history through hieroglyphs found both at the site and on monuments looted from the site years ago. According to ancient writings, the Cancuen dynasty is much older and more prestigious than that of Dos Pelas. Believed to date back to the second or third century B.C.,
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Arthur Demarest (left) and Tomás Barrientos (right) discovered the huge palace in central Guatemala.
it was involved in alliances with all the major military powers of the day, including Teotihuacán, Tikal, Calakmul, and Dos Pelas. Cancuen is unusual in that its structures are primarily secular and its orientation economic. Tikal, by comparison, has many temples and a strong religious focus. “What is most remarkable about Cancuen is the nature of the site,” explains Demarest. “Workshops for making jade plaques, pyrite mirrors, and obsidian objects were located directly adjacent to the palace, indicating that the site was a very specialized place of production and portage for highly valued sacred objects that were shipped downriver and traded all across the Maya world. The palace is probably disproportionately large because of the king’s prestige, based on his control of precious commodities.”
He adds that his findings thus far indicate that “there are big gaps in our understanding of history and politics in the Maya world.” Demarest believes that a large cave system with religious items and Cancuen-style artifacts discovered about five kilometers south of the site was a place of ritual, which would explain why there is so little evidence of religious practice at Cancuen. He hopes that their research team will have the funds to explore this area in March. The main goal for next season, however, is a community development project, in which Demarest hopes to involve the nearby Kekchi Maya village of El Zapote to protect the site and the surrounding rainforest, and to promote eco-tourism by building a lodge and leading tours of the site. —Tamara Stewart
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Revisiting the Boston Saloon The excavation of a 19th-century saloon yields a glimpse of African American life in Nevada.
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KELLY DIXON
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Archaeologists, assisted by volunteers, found thousands of artifacts while excavating the saloon.
the Boston Saloon may help researchers understand how some of these highly complex social relationships manifested themselves in daily life. Dixon also worked on the excavation of Piper’s Old Corner Bar, an upscale gathering place for the city’s theater-going clientele associated with Piper’s Opera House. An informal analysis of the artifacts found at the
LOOTING NEWS
n 1861, an African American named William A. G. Brown came to Virginia City, Nevada, hoping to profit from the economic boom fueled by gold and silver mining at the Comstock Lode. Brown opened up the Boston Saloon, which catered to the small African American population in the Comstock Mining District. He ran the saloon until 1875, and soon after Brown closed up shop, the building burned to the ground. Last summer, the University of Nevada, Reno’s Department of Anthropology, the Comstock Archaeology Center, and the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office sponsored a field school and volunteer project to excavate portions of the Boston Saloon. The excavation’s findings may contribute to a better understanding of the African American experience in the West. Thousands of artifacts were unearthed, including broken bottle fragments, pieces of glassware and crystal stemware, plates, tobacco pipes, and the like. Since three other bars from this period have been excavated in Virginia City, project director Kelly J. Dixon is hoping that a comparative analysis will give some indication of how an African American saloon was connected with other saloons in the mining West. Virginia City was fairly integrated for its time, but “while African Americans may have received better treatment here in Virginia City, Nevada, they still faced prevailing racist attitudes and laws,” says Dixon. Work at
Boston Saloon suggests that African Americans were drinking the same products and using the same types of glassware as were in use at Piper’s. “These artifacts,” says Dixon “allow us to visualize the ambience of an African American saloon and reinforce the fact that people really aren’t that different.” —Martha Mulvany
Looters Target Verde Valley Site
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n May, Yavapai County sheriff’s deputies John Price and Tony Mascher were caught illegally excavating the Kinninnick ruin, a large northern Sinagua prehistoric pueblo in the Coconino National Forest in Arizona’s Verde Valley, between Phoenix and Flagstaff. Both men were indicted on October 23 under the federal Archaeological Resources Protection Act and for possession of illegal firearms and making false statements to police officers. Price could face up to 27 years in prison, and Mascher could face seven. The men were apprehended after a graduate student from Arizona State University spotted them looting the isolated site. “They had completely butchered seven burials at the site,” said Peter Pilles, Coconino Forest archaeologist. “Artifacts, a sifting screen, and digging tools were found at their camp, and $22,000 worth of prehistoric artifacts were found at their houses.” —Tamara Stewart
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Evidence Mounts for Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge
in the
NEWS
Artifacts recovered from the shipwreck have early 18th-century date.
APRIL VARNAM
F
our years after the discovery of a shipwreck just off the coast of North Carolina, work continues to yield artifacts indicating the wreck is the Queen Anne’s Revenge, which was run aground by Blackbeard in 1718 (see American Archaeology, Fall 1998). Mark Wilde-Ramsing, director of the State of North Carolina Underwater Archaeology Unit’s investigation of the wreck, is convinced that the ship is indeed that of the fearsome pirate Blackbeard, who plundered dozens of ships in American and Caribbean waters before he was killed in a battle with the British navy in November 1718. “The strongest evidence comes from the 22 cannons that have been
Divers bring up a 17-foot-long piece of the hull of the ship. The wood is wrapped in foam rubber for protection.
confirmed at the site,” says WildeRamsing. “That makes this as heavily armed as any vessel in the New World during the early 18th century.” He says the Queen Anne’s Revenge is the only armed vessel of this size known to have sunk in this area.
Other evidence includes a 21pound brass Spanish bell bearing the date 1709, wine bottles bearing the date 1712, gold dust, a blunderbuss barrel, and many other artifacts that indicate the ship probably sank sometime in the early 18th century. —Tamara Stewart
Prehistoric Colorado Site Shows Evidence of Cannibalism
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n an article published in the scientific journal Nature, researchers reported that a new test designed to detect digested human muscle protein in human feces has proven that cannibalism took place at the Cowboy Wash site on Ute Mountain Ute tribal lands in southwestern Colorado. In 1992, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe hired Soil Systems, Inc., of Phoenix to excavate archaeological sites in the path of a new irrigation system. From 1995 to 1996, the company, led by project director Brian Billman, excavated a small pithouse community at Cowboy Wash that was occupied between about A.D. 1120 and 1150. Information recovered from one of the sites within the community indicates that, of the fifteen people who lived there, at least seven appear to have been massacred, then butchered, cooked, and eaten by their attackers. One of the attackers defecated in a cold hearth in one of the pit structures, providing researchers with the evidence to prove cannibalism took place here. Biochemist Richard Marlar of the University of Colorado School of Medicine designed the test for human myoglobin in preserved human fecal material that, when applied to the coprolite recovered from the hearth and a broken cooking vessel found nearby, clearly indicated that human remains were cooked and consumed. “While I think that there’s pretty convincing evidence for cannibalism at this site, the frequency and reason for it are still open for question,” says Billman, now an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina. “We would like to see the debate shift from whether cannibalism took place to the more interesting issues of why it occurred—in what context—and why it ceased after about A.D. 1200.” There seems to have been a significant outbreak of cannibalism in the area between 1150 and 1200. This outbreak may have been precipitated by problems such as drought, which may have resulted in social chaos and violence. Billman sees the incidence of cannibalism as a potential act of political terrorism, possibly by one group and possibly related to the abandonment of Chaco Canyon in north-central New Mexico, where for about 200 years, thousands of prehistoric Pueblo peoples were organized into a large social and political system of some kind. “While this is of course a sensitive issue to Native Americans today,” says Billman, “it is something in their past that their ancestors apparently found a way to deal with and put a stop to.” —Tamara Stewart
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Christa Mueller, Jeffrey Brain, and Alex King discuss the excavation of a feature near the hearth of Admiral Raleigh Gilbert’s house at Fort St. George. King is a descendant of George Popham, the colony’s president.
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D A Popham
iscovering an rchaeological ime C apsule
T C
ELLIS VEENER
olony was settled the same year as Jamestown, but it failed and faded from memory. Archaeologist Jeffrey Brain is excavating this undisturbed site, which, in some ways, he thinks is more significant than Jamestown.
by Lance Tapley photography by Dean Abramson american archaeology
“Popham Rock, 1607.”
This inscription was taped in large black letters on a parking-lot boulder last summer next to the excavation site of Fort St. George at Popham Beach, Maine. Everyone knows the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, but this boulder’s message was: So what? The English established the Popham colony 13 years earlier, the same year as Jamestown. So why isn’t Popham as famous as Plymouth or Popham’s sister colony, the legendary Jamestown led by Captain John Smith? Because Popham’s colonists packed up, burned down their buildings, hauled the cannons back onto their ships (they were for protection against the French), and sailed back to England after little more than a year—before the second winter set in. The Virginia colonists endured pestilence and native warfare, the Massachusetts Pilgrims faced cold and hunger, but a Maine winter is, as the state’s present inhabitants might say in Yankee understatement, different. But the Popham excavation has been a summer paradise for Jeffrey Brain, its hearty, ruddy-faced chief archaeologist. “I’ve never had so much fun. This is my reward for over 40 years of archaeology!” he exclaimed. 13
Jeffrey Brain holds pieces of a German stoneware jug. The style of decoration dates these pieces from between 1590 and 1607.
Brain, an engaging 60-year-old man dressed in red suspenders and red pants, talked about both the significance of his findings—unearthing Fort St. George is a major discovery for American historical archaeology—and the pleasure of working on the sunny, breezy coast of Maine in summer. “All right, you loafers!” he yelled good-naturedly to his crew, who during their lunchtime had been chatting under the maple trees of the small waterfront park covering much of the site. “We’ve only got three weeks!” Brain’s exuberance stirred up a group of middle-aged students from a field school sponsored by the Friends of 14
the Maine State Museum. They made up the bulk of his excavators. Also heading back to the trenches, located under white tents, were Brain’s three professional assistants and several experienced volunteers. “My hands were on the very same nails that my ancestor pounded,” marveled Alex King, a bearded house builder from the Chicago area. King has been doing genealogical research for 35 years and has volunteered here for three. His ancestor was the colony’s president, George Popham, a kinsman of the Lord Chief Justice of England. Helping out on this dig was an “overwhelming” experience for him, King said. He had high praise for Brain: “He’s a great motivator.” Brain became especially enthusiastic when talking about the archaeological significance of digging up the parallel settlement to Jamestown, which he began doing in 1994, the same year Jamestown excavations started under William Kelso. Colonies established by the same company of speculators and comparable in size, “Jamestown is historically more important, but Popham in some ways is archaeologically more important,” Brain claimed. “We have here a time capsule of 1607–1608. Jamestown was continually settled and its critical first year of settlement disturbed. What we have here is undisturbed.” Pam Crane, one of Brain’s professional assistants, showed him a small, dark sherd of 400-year-old pottery that came from the summer’s main target, the house of Raleigh Gilbert, the nephew of Sir Walter Raleigh and son of explorer Sir Humphrey Gilbert. Raleigh Gilbert was the “admiral” of the colony and second in command. The Gilbert house, Brain said, has provided “10 times the artifacts” that were found in the colony’s storehouse, the focus of the previous several summers’ excavations. These included fragments of liquor bottles and ale and wineglasses. “Glass bottles were only used for the finest liquor,” he said. “This was a gentleman from English society. He was well equipped with potables.” The pottery discovered, which included delft, was finer and more ornamental than that found in the storehouse. There were large sherds of brown, German-made Bellarmine jugs. One had a medallion of the coat of arms of the city of Cologne. Also discovered were glass buttons for a waistcoat or jacket, pieces of iron armor, and musket and pistol balls. Only someone with real status would have had a pistol, according to Brain. Gilbert apparently was of a higher social position than George winter
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Popham, which might have contributed to the contentiousness in the settlement. Gilbert also had the biggest house, about 12 by 30 feet in dimension. Peter Morrison, another of the professionals and Crane’s husband, was spending some of his time puzzling out a stone pile found in one excavation unit of the Gilbert house—“which we take to be the collapsed hearth,” he said. Pointing to the stratification, he indicated a black charcoal streak on what is believed to be the floor of the house, likely evidence of a fire. A University of Maine graduate student in historical archaeology, Morrison has been involved in studying a cross section of a shallow, 20-foot-wide trench that encircled the fort. The Gilbert house site is next to, and a small part of it is under, the asphalt road that runs through the park. A layer of gravel and sand about a foot and a half deep had been deposited on the site in 1981, when a parking lot was created. When this fill was removed by a backhoe for the excavation, Morrison said, the earth underneath was found to be “surprisingly undisturbed.” Undisturbed—every archaeologist’s favorite word. At Fort St. George (named for England’s patron saint) this is the rule rather than the exception. Even the early-20thcentury occupation of the spot by Fort Baldwin, a military base used principally during World War I, did not result in significant disturbance. american archaeology
A row of tents protect the excavation area of Raleigh Gilbert’s house within Fort St. George. In the background is Atkins Bay, at the mouth of the Kennebec River.
T
he Popham excavation is at Sabino Head on Atkins Bay, part of the Kennebec estuary about a half-hour’s drive from the small shipbuilding city of Bath. Across a cove of the bay is the resort village of Popham Beach. It has lobster boats in the harbor, a white, bell-towered church, and yet another defunct military installation, a stoneblock Civil War battlement, Fort Popham, which looks out on the Gulf of Maine. On the other side of the village are three miles of perfect beach. A homey bed-and-breakfast has provided housing for the 15 students in the field school. The tuition of $500 for each person and an $8,640 National Park Service annual grant have paid for the archaeology. The location is a New England paradise. With its spruce and pitch pine, wild roses and beach peas, smells of salt marsh and clam flats, this place must have indeed seemed pristinely beautiful to the 100 male adventurers who landed here in mid-August from the ships Mary and John and Gift of God after a two-and-a-half-month journey from Plymouth, England. Sent by the Virginia 15
MAP AND PORTRAIT COURTESY POPHAM PROJECT
(Above) The plan of Fort St. George, which was drawn by one of the colonists, John Hunt, in October 1607. It is the only existing detailed plan of one of the first English settlements in America. (Below) A portrait of Raleigh Gilbert, the admiral of the colony and its second president.
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Company, a group of West Country merchants chartered by King James I, they came to legitimize the company’s claim to this “North” Virginia section of the North American shore. The sister expedition that had landed in Jamestown three months earlier had been sent to do the same for “South” Virginia. The historical records show that, like their counterparts at Jamestown, the Popham colonists arrived with misconceptions. One man was in charge of finding gold mines such as had been discovered by the Spanish in Mexico. A report of a body of water to the west assured George Popham that the Southern Ocean and China, as he suggested to the king in a letter he wrote in Latin, were just around the corner. The fragments of expensive bottles and glasses indicate that Raleigh Gilbert was determined to transpose his noble family’s elegant lifestyle to the wilderness. The harshness of a Maine winter soon blew away any thought of a paradise, however, as it frequently does still for members of the state’s “summer colony”—as they are called by native Mainers—who linger here beyond early fall. Within months the colonists ran short of food. They traded for furs, but the natives were not as helpful as the famous Squanto and his friends were at Plymouth. As early as December, half of the colony departed on the Gift of God. For the 45 or so who wintered over, troubles with the natives increased, food continued to be a problem, and lack of the opposite sex was felt. Worries about the French, who had established a fort in 1604 on St. Croix Island, 175 miles north up the coast, were constant. Bickering broke out, especially between the “timorously fearful” Popham and the proud, arrogant Gilbert, as a contemporary described them. Smothering everyone’s spirits were the deep snow and severe cold, the likes of which these Englishmen had never seen. George Popham, who may have been in his 70s, died in February 1608. Raleigh Gilbert, only 25, took over. But Gilbert, a swashbuckler also winter
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described as “headstrong,” decided to abandon the colony when the Mary and John returned late in the summer with supplies. The ship also brought the news that Gilbert’s brother had died and that Gilbert had inherited the family’s estates. This event was apparently much more promising for him than American colonization. The rest of the discouraged men joined him. In October 1608, they returned to England aboard the Mary and John and the Virginia of Sagadahoc, a 30-ton pinnace built at the colony that was the first English vessel constructed in the Americas. The Popham colony became a footnote instead of a major chapter, like Jamestown, in American history. Popham is the capstone of Jeffrey Brain’s career, and a serendipitous one at that. In the summer of 1990, he was a tourist visiting Popham Beach. He saw a reference to Fort St. George on an interpretive placard at the Fort Popham State Historic Site. Up narrow Fort Baldwin Road he found the tiny, state-owned picnic grounds between white clapboard houses. When Brain first visited, there wasn’t even a placard about the ancient Popham colony, the remains of which he supposed lay under the grass and parking lot. His interest was piqued. Brain is a Yale University Ph.D. who at that point was not long retired from 20 years at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum, where he had specialized in prehistoric cultures of the Southeast. He had recently become associated with the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., an
american archaeology
art and maritime institution, and was looking for something to work on in New England. His Fort St. George research disclosed, much to his surprise, that very little archaeological work had been done on Popham. The site was generally known from historical documents, but unlike Jamestown, it had languished unappreciated, and for all intents and purposes, undiscovered, for centuries. In 1962 and 1964, Wendell Hadlock, the director of a small Maine art museum, had conducted excavations at Popham. Although he came across some 17th-century artifacts, his now-out-of-date methods (narrow trenches dug with shovels) precluded discovering the fort. So Brain decided to excavate.
H
is first excavation was financed by a small grant from the National Geographic Society. After a few weeks of frustration, several artifacts came to light as well as a hole that had contained a one-square-foot post. Based on the documentary information, he concluded that the post must have been part of the fort’s storehouse. The information on the fort’s design, which was of a modified “star” structure typical of that period in Europe, came from an extraordinary document: a precise fort plan created by Volunteer Peter Hutchinson carefully profiles the sediments that filled the fortification ditch after Fort St. George was abandoned.
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(Top) Volunteer John Bradford excavates a posthole at Raleigh Gilbert’s house. (Below) The posthole has been excavated, but the mold from the post, and the stones that were used to support it, are left in place.
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the expedition’s military draftsman, John Hunt. It showed the fortifications, the positions of the cannons, each building in some detail, and it listed the function of each building. It also had a scale. An American researcher had discovered the plan in a Spanish archive in 1888. The Spanish ambassador to England had sent it to Spain in 1608. The Spanish, archenemies of the English at the time, would have been interested in getting their hands on a copy of any English military map. “It’s the only detailed plan we have of an initial English settlement in America,” Brain said. The work in 1994 “convinced me we had a 1607 context, but one posthole does not a storehouse make, much less a fort,” Brain related. So after doing more historical research and arranging the financing of an investigation that could be continued for three weeks each year, he went back to dig at Popham in 1997. Brain superimposed the Hunt plan on the oldest topographical map he could find, one from 1865, of Sabino Head. The posthole lined up roughly with the storehouse shown on the plan. The Hunt plan was so detailed it showed the interval between storehouse posts to be approximately nine feet, and Brain and his team excavated accordingly, locating the postholes. This work also led them to discover the surface of the storehouse floor, where bits of cheap pottery, glass beads, bottle pieces, lead balls and shot, nails, a pipe bowl and stems, and pieces of armor were found. There was a caulking iron, too, a relic of the shipbuilding. The storehouse was a post-and-beam structure with a thatched
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roof, wattle-and-daub walls, and an earthen floor. Its charred boards and burned thatch, daub, and earth suggested a fire. Raleigh Gilbert’s house was also excavated using the Hunt plan as a guide. Brain decided on this house due to a historical reference to its presence. Only one other structure, the chapel, is referred to in the documents as having been constructed, but its site is on private land and can’t be excavated. Next season Brain will see if Hunt’s plan is correct about the fort’s buttery, the storage facility for casks of cider, beer, and cheap wine. Although there is no historical reference to it other than in the plan, Brain thinks it “logical” that such a useful structure would have been built. Brain hopes to spend several more seasons at Popham. He would love to find George Popham’s grave. This discovery would halfway match the two celebrated colonial skeletons found in recent years at the Jamestown excavations. More important, Brain would like to answer further questions about how the Popham colonists lived and why they failed. “People remember success, not failure,” he commented, “but lessons were learned here.” He believes the Pilgrims heeded some of the lessons learned at Popham Colony. The Pilgrims had strong leaders, brought women and children, had more supplies, and settled farther south. Brain is looking toward the year 2007, the 400th anniversary of both Popham and Jamestown, the very earliest foundations of English America. “We’re in touch with the folks at Jamestown” about the possibility of a joint celebration, said Robert Bradley, associate director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission at the state capital of Augusta. He oversees the federal grant that funds the Popham project. A joint celebration might include lectures and traveling exhibits. Bradley, like Brain, was adamant about Popham’s importance, and, like Brain, he has been enlivened by a spirit of friendly competition with the Jamestown archaeologists. “This is a nationally significant site,” Bradley declared. “The best Jamestown can do is get something dated to within a decade. The people at Jamestown would kill for [an equivalent of ] the Hunt map.” Both Bradley and Brain also talked about the possibility of a book and a Maine State Museum exhibit in Augusta. The Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands intends to put up interpretive panels at the site. A private group has begun raising money to build a replica of Virginia of Sagadahoc by 2007. Meanwhile, public interest in the dig has increased. The Boston Globe has run a major feature on it, and the Washington Post was preparing an article. Last summer Brain had to station an official greeter to talk with the stream of tourists asking questions and american archaeology
Near the hearthstones (foreground) of Raleigh Gilbert’s house, castings for lead munitions and fragments of kaolin clay tobacco pipes were found.
wanting to see artifacts, which he put on display in the back of a pickup truck. However, by mid-September, both tourists and archaeologists are gone, and the excavation is covered with earth. In the late fall only an occasional year-round resident of Popham Beach strolls in the little park by the bay. In the blustery, cold, snowy winter, no one strolls there. Not many of the summer colony spend the winter in Maine, and the Popham colonists were the first to learn why. LANCE TAPLEY is a freelance writer who lives in Maine.
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Fishing IN THE
DESERT When a vast lake suddenly formed and gradually evaporated in their desert, the Cahuilla people were forced to adapt. Archaeologists are studying the ancient fish traps the Cahuilla left behind, which are proof of their resourcefulness. BY
RICK DOWER
PHOTOGRAPHY BY 20
BOB GRIESER
W
e are standing in one of North America’s driest deserts, worrying about rain. Three archaeologists, a photographer, and I debate the odds of being cut off by a flash flood if we venture too far off the beaten path in search of ancient Indian fish traps. Grape-sized raindrops pelted the windshield of our vehicle earlier, and we’ve already been stuck in the sand once today. Behind the Santa Rosa Mountains, northwest of the Salton Sea, forks of pale blue lightning split a sky brushed in purple and pewter tones. Glowing halos of peach and rose tint the spots where the sun pours through, suggesting an El Greco painting. “This isn’t exactly our usual weather pattern out here,” says Jay von Werlhof, our craggy-faced guide and a veteran researcher of the unique culture of the Desert Cahuilla people. He scans the weird tableau. “I think we’ve just gotten most of the year’s rain in the last few hours.” winter
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Archaeologists Gary Hurd (left) and Jay von Werlhof in the Colorado Desert. In the foreground is one of the desert’s many fish traps.
Indeed, southern California’s Colorado Desert—the 80mile-wide basin sandwiched between the mountains of San Diego County to the west and the Colorado River to the east, hard on the Mexican border—receives less than three inches of rain a year. The notion of native stone fish traps among the creosote and mesquite bushes seems paradoxical. Yet, the rugged landscape here is dotted with hundreds of them, dating back nearly 1,000 years. Beginning sometime around A.D. 700, the desert basin filled with an enormous lake that would dwarf the present Salton Sea, the modern landscape’s most prominent feature. Ancient Lake Cahuilla (pronounced kah-WEE-yah) formed after the nearby Colorado River, its delta filled with silt, shifted its historic course from south to the Gulf of California, to north and west. The mercurial river poured into the Salton Trough, much of which lies more than 200 feet below sea level, filling it like a washtub under a broken spigot. At its largest, the water stretched more than 100 miles from its northern shore near present-day Indio to well below the american archaeology
Mexican border, and 50 miles wide from the Santa Rosas nearly to the Chocolate Mountains. In a geologic eye-blink, Lake Cahuilla became one of the largest freshwater lakes in North America. Fed by fluctuating snowmelt in the Rockies, archaeologists believe the giant lake filled, receded, and evaporated several times before drying up for good around 1700, when the Colorado River returned to its former course. The lake’s relatively sudden appearance was a serious liability to the Desert Cahuilla, who were forced from their homes in the northern part of the basin into the upland plateau. The water also disrupted trade connections to other nearby tribes such as the Yumans to the east and the Kumeyaay to the west and south. But in time, the lake attracted wild game and waterfowl and fostered edible marsh plants such as cattails and tule, providing the Cahuilla with an enviable living. But it was fishing that set the Cahuilla people apart, leaving clues to adaptive strategies for archaeologists to decipher. 21
Von Werlhof, the director of the Imperial Valley College Desert Museum in nearby Ocotillo, has been studying fish traps for 22 years.
L
acking the technology or handy materials to build boats, and confronted with a shallow shoreline unsuitable for nets or spearfishing, the Cahuilla began experimenting with fish traps. Using bowling-ball-sized granite stones that still pepper the landscape, they developed a simple, but apparently highly effective, method to concentrate and collect humpback suckers, bonytail chub, and freshwater mullet. “These people had come right out of the Great Basin; they had limited experience with fish or fishing,” von Werlhof says admiringly. “So as the huge lake appeared in the desert and filled up, sooner or later they must have noticed the fish and started wondering ‘How the heck are we going to get these things?’ And they figured it out rather brilliantly.” With his shock of unruly white hair, leathery skin, and a worn silver medallion he wears around his neck, von Werlhof trudges hatless through the sere landscape with his walking stick. Several hundred traps have been surveyed since the 1940s, when they were first documented. Those probably represent only a fraction of the number that may have been constructed in the centuries before the Spanish and other settlers arrived. Engineers began tapping the Colorado for ambitious irrigation projects for the Imperial and Coachella valleys around 1900 (one such water-the-desert scheme went badly awry in 1905, resulting in the accidental creation of the Salton Sea), and the farmers who followed covered over many 22
sites with vineyards and vegetable crops. Highway and road construction, gravel mining, and, most recently, damage from off-road vehicle activity have also taken their toll on the largely unprotected sites. “We have no way of knowing how many traps have already been lost,” says Ed Collins, staff archaeologist for the sprawling Imperial Irrigation District, the region’s water and power utility. With a nod toward the well-watered Coachella Valley, he adds, “Population growth, housing developments, and agriculture have become the driving force today of what destroys cultural resources.” The pony-tailed Collins is one of a growing number of archaeologists employed by public utilities, local governments, and other public agencies in California and elsewhere to survey and preserve archaeological sites. He’s also a former student of von Werlhof ’s at Imperial Valley College. Collins convinces our group that it would be dicey on such an unsettled day to try to visit the prime fish traps site, where the main access road was washed away three weeks earlier in a rainstorm. The area includes a large Cahuilla village, a ceremonial complex, and rich pockets of cultural artifacts nearby. To protect it, The Archaeological Conservancy recently acquired a 370-acre portion of the site.
A
fter the existence of the desert fish traps was formally documented in the 1940s, a comprehensive survey of the sites was undertaken by archaeologists and students from the University of Redlands beginning in the 1950s. Von Werlhof became interested in the traps in 1978, when he led students from Imperial Valley College on a resurveying project. Now retired from teaching, he was initially attracted to desert work involving geoglyphs and pictographs left by the Cahuilla, Kumeyaay, and other local native groups. But for the past 22 years, von Werlhof has devoted himself to the fish traps, viewing them as a means of understanding Cahuilla history, culture, and organizational structure. Near the traps, circular stone rings reveal the location of foundations of Cahuilla brush winter
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(Foreground) This sandstone fish trap was made by the Kumeyaay, a Native American tribe that fished and hunted in the desert. In the background are archaeologists Ed Collins (left) and von Werlhof (middle) and writer Rick Dower.
in a ‘U.’ Researchers believe the traps became increasingly sophisticated as the Cahuilla’s fishing expertise grew. “I’m just in awe of how sharp these people were. With these stone traps, they’ve left concrete evidence of their intelligence,” says Collins. “They got to the point where the traps were basically low-maintenance—they’re working 24 hours a day and probably it just takes a couple of men to work them.” Research to date suggests the Cahuilla probably began building their fish traps around A.D. 1000. The lake had filled to its highest point, 43 feet above sea level, stabilized for a period, then must have begun a process of retreating to the extent that the natives could use traps along the shallow shoreline. The greatest concentration of traps has been found at sites 40 to 85 feet below sea level, suggesting the Indian fishers followed the retreating shoreline, which was a sort of movable feast. But in at least one location, a former U.S. Navy test base, traps have been found more than 100 feet below sea level, suggesting that fishing occurred for longer than previously presumed.
shelters the fishermen probably used while tending the traps or processing the catch. Also visible nearby are descending lines of gravel deposits, laid down by waves as the lake ebbed. At first, the traps themselves are difficult to discern among the scrubby brush and jumble of desert rocks. But as von Werlhof points one out, the dominant features take shape: a long row of stones with a parallel shorter row in front creating a narrow canal that ends in a ‘V.’ A few feet away lies another. Then another, until he points out six traps in a staggered formation. At the small opening where the two rows converge, the point where fish were funneled, the Cahuilla may have waited with a stone to drop into the gap to block escape. It isn’t clear whether the Indians used a basket, a stick weir, their bare hands, or some other method to collect the trapped fish. While most of the traps share a similar basic design, shaped like a check mark and built at right angles to what was a gently sloping shoreline, there are distinct differences. Some have arms more equal in length, while others are shorter; some end in a ‘V,’ others
The Kumeyaay crushed acorns, pine nuts, and desert seeds in stone mortars such as these.
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Lake Cahuilla was formed approximately A.D.
700 when the Colorado River shifted
course and flowed into the Salton Trough. The lake evaporated for the third and final time around 1700, when the Colorado River returned to its former course. Two centuries later, in 1905, irrigation canals were dug to draw water from the Colorado River. A levee burst, resulting in the accidental creation of California’s
JOSEPH BUCKLES, UNIVERSITY OF REDLANDS
largest body of water, the Salton Sea.
(Below) The high-water mark of Lake Cahuilla–43 feet above sea level— is clearly seen at Travertine Point.
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rom the parking lot of the Fire House Café in sleepy Desert Shores, a tiny, sun-blasted town on the western edge of the Salton Sea, von Werlhof points out the high-water mark of Lake Cahuilla, clearly visible as a discolored line above State Highway 86. Reaching well up the base of the nearby mountains, it resembles a bathtub ring. “One thing I’d really like to find out is how long does it take for standing water to leave a mark like that?” von Werlhof says. He points out the café would have been about 50 feet under water at the time. Gary Hurd, a curator with the Orange County Natural History Museum and an enthusiastic Cahuilla researcher, catches up with us at the café. Over burgers, Hurd also 24
expresses admiration for the ways the Indians learned to adapt so quickly to their changing environment. He says the Cahuillas’ physical world changed so radically, and so abruptly, “you might say they experienced long periods of instability punctuated by shorter periods of stability. That’s what I find so fascinating—how exactly did they cope with it?” Hurd helped develop a method of studying shell deposits left over the centuries by tiny crustaceans called ostracods. Their shells, he says, can be used to determine variable conditions in the ancient lake such as water, salinity, and temperatures at different times. Tufa, a coral-like deposit that encrusts rocks submerged for long periods, helps archaeologists determine what was underwater when. The thicker the tufa, the longer the rock was under water. Hurd has also conducted radiocarbon dating on a shell midden found in the lake bed that dates from A.D. 1250, plus or minus 60 years. “This tells us that as soon as the water reached its highest level, the Cahuilla must have started working on the problem of how to get those fish,” he said. Another aid to research into the ancient lake’s secrets is the Salton Sea. The sea—California’s largest body of water—is a model for how the ancient lake may have influenced the desert, and vice versa. Ninety-five years winter
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after its accidental creation, the Salton Sea has fallen on hard times. With only two sources of fresh water, the badly polluted New and Alamo rivers, the sea is predicted to become too salty to support its plentiful wildlife. Despite the flurry of recent interest in the Cahuilla and their fish traps, many questions remain unanswered, says archaeologist Jerry Schaefer, a senior archaeologist with ASM Affiliates who has worked in the Colorado Desert for 20 years. Did the traps’ effectiveness result from luck or a knowledge of fish spawning behavior? Were the adjacent encampments used by individual family units or were they communal? How did such largescale fishing fit into the Cahuilla’s tightly-organized cultural and political structure? What were the Cahuilla’s logistical strategies for dealing with problems and opportunities afforded by the lake? Whatever the answers, Schaefer thinks the Desert Cahuilla have much to teach researchers about rapid human adaptation. “The fish traps represent a very discrete picture of how the Cahuilla were adapting to change over a very defined period,” he says. “And because the lake receded so quickly, each line of traps and fish camps represents something that happened relatively quickly and sequentially.” (Above) Tufa, a coral-like deposit, covers these rocks that were once on the floor of Lake Cahuilla. Researchers have found coats of tufa as thick as three inches. (Below) The Salton Sea attracts a variety of waterfowl.
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Saving the Salton Sea The Salton Sea is in decline. The desert sea, 35 miles long and 15 miles wide, is already 25 percent saltier than the ocean and getting more so every year. If nothing is done, it’s predicted that within the next 10 to 15 years, the sea will become too salty to support its abundant fish and waterfowl. Along with the salinity problem, one of the sea’s two feeder rivers, the New River, which originates in northern Mexico, is often said to be the most polluted river in North America. Nutrient-rich agricultural and municipal runoff from the fertile Imperial, Mexicali, and Coachella valleys contributes to algal blooms in the sea that can result in the deaths of huge numbers of fish. With such stress on the ecosystem, diseases such as avian cholera and botulism periodically break out, killing tens of thousands of brown and white pelicans, cormorants, grebes, and other resident species. The Salton Sea was formed over an 18-month period beginning in June 1905, when irrigation engineers dug canals to tap the nearby Colorado River. The river burst through a levee and began pouring into the desert, destroying homes and flooding farmland. Finally, in early 1907, after countless trainloads of rubble were brought in to close the breach, the river returned to its banks. The Salton Sea is in trouble because it has no natural drain. Its fresh water evaporates quickly under the blistering desert sun while salt remains. Following years of debate about how to avert an environmental disaster, a rescue plan for the sea has been developed. Both the U.S. Congress and California legislature have approved bills funding studies and cleanup plans. After evaluating dozens of proposals in recent years, the Salton Sea Authority, a multi-agency study group, has chosen the most promising one. Under this plan, water would flow through gates into large diked areas up to several thousand acres in size. There, the water would evaporate and the salt be removed. As fresh water from the two rivers continues to flow into the sea, researchers hope its salinity will decline. A $1 million pilot project is scheduled to begin by the end of this year to test the idea’s feasibility. Proponents believe this plan, estimated to cost several hundred million dollars, is the cheapest and most effective way to save the sea. —Rick Dower
Von Werlhof notes that, unlike at most active archaeological sites, little actual excavation is conducted at the Cahuilla locations. Most of the sites are on federal or Indian tribal lands. Digging and removal of artifacts is seldom permitted, so research must be carried out in situ. “But that’s the beauty of desert archaeology,” he says. “You don’t have to dig. Stuff is lying there undisturbed on the surface. It isn’t digging, it’s simply picking things up.” Along with the fish traps, researchers have found no shortage of other remnants of Desert Cahuilla culture— potsherds, stone cutting tools and flint-chippers, round stone mortars, and the grinding stones called manos and metates, as well as sandstone and granite brush-house foundations. Some of the tools and pots are catalogued and stored in the tiny desert outpost of Ocotillo, where 26
Cahuilla artifacts will soon go on display in the new Imperial Valley College Desert Museum now under construction. Von Werlhof is 78. He has worked as a teacher and archaeologist for half a century, covering California from end to end. He estimates he has about four more years of research to complete on the traps before calling it quits. “I find desert cultures absolutely fascinating,” he explains. “Desert people are very inventive and clever. They have to be to survive. And I love the desert. People may think it’s empty, but it isn’t. It’s not empty at all. It’s full—full of rocks, full of animals, of cultural artifacts. It’s full of life.” RICK DOWER is a freelance writer in San Diego.
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Of Mounds and
Mysteries
CAHOKIA MOUNDS STATE HISTORIC SITE
by John G. Carlton and William Allen
Work at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site is yielding clues about the Mississippians. Around A.D. 1100, this was the most densely populated place north of Mexico City. More than 10,000 people made their homes at this spot. Thousands more lived in large settlements nearby. The massive bulk of Monks Mound, a 100-foot-tall temple mound that was the largest earthen structure in the New World, already dominated the region’s physical and spiritual landscape. Nearby loomed a 15-foot-tall palisade wall, crowned every 80 feet with defensive fortifications called bastions. It stretched more than two miles around a central plaza and a few dozen mounds of varying shapes and sizes. This remarkable place is Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, located a few miles east of St. Louis. Recent excavations here uncovered clues that are helping to shape a rapidly evolving picture of this influential culture. They american archaeology
provide fresh evidence of the outsized contributions made by the people who lived here long ago, and of an influence that persisted for hundreds of years after their homes and temples disappeared. The name by which these ancient Native Americans knew themselves—like the language they spoke and the myths they recounted—has been lost. Archaeologists call them the Mississippians. One thousand years ago, their faith made mountains rise on the fertile flood plain of the Mississippi River. Basket-load by basket-load, the Mississippians piled earth toward the sky to fashion imposing temple mounds from which they could commune with their gods. The Mississippians mastered enough astronomy to create a giant celestial calendar known as Woodhenge that tracked the changing seasons with unerring accuracy. 27
WILLIAM R. ISEMINGER
An artist’s conception of Cahokia, circa A.D. 1150. Monks Mound overlooks the Grand Plaza, with the Twin Mounds at the opposite end. The central ceremonial area is enclosed by the palisade wall. The circular formation at the far left is Woodhenge, the celestial calendar. Agricultural fields surround the site.
Their knowledge of geometry and surveying was sufficient to lay out major monuments with surprising precision. Yet they had no written language and did not use the wheel. For three and a half centuries, their ancient metropolis flourished. Then, by A.D. 1350, it was abandoned and swallowed up by the prairie. They left behind numerous mounds and a pair of mysteries as tantalizing as they are elusive: What brought these people together? What drove them apart? During their time at Cahokia, the Mississippians developed complex rituals and beliefs, one of which was human sacrifice. Within those rituals are clues that might help decipher their lives and mysteries—if only we knew how to read them. Once their wood-and-thatch huts had fallen to pieces and their palisade wall had collapsed, when early European settlers had dismantled their temple mounds and carved roads across their sacred plazas, little remained to suggest the elaborate achievements of Mississippian culture. For decades, the ancient stone cities of South America and the towering pueblos of the American Southwest eclipsed this prehistoric metropolis in the heartland. But a burst of scholarship in the past decade—fueled by digs such as those that occurred last summer, and by a reappraisal of material collected during earlier excavations—has produced a remarkably detailed picture of the Mississippians. In the process, it has transformed this ancient metropolis and the large towns that once surrounded it from an archaeological backwater into some of the most important prehistoric sites in North America.
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MICHAEL HAMPSHIRE
The Rise of Religion At its height, Cahokia was a city of thatch houses and earthen mounds. But it may have been built upon a religious foundation. An earlier generation of archaeologists explained its rise with objects: corn or items of trade. The city sprang up, according to these theories, because early Mississippians began extensive farming of maize, an ancestor of modern corn. Or perhaps it blossomed because of its central location, which laid the foundation for a vast trading empire. Certainly maize played an important role in Mississippian society. And there is no question that early Native Americans were involved with long-distance trade. Cahokia’s location at the heart of a river network spanning two-thirds of the continent provided a liquid highway to distant lands. But maize was adopted in the region as a food staple about A.D. 800—two centuries before the Mississippians’ rise. And though some archaeologists believe the Mississippians engaged in long-distance trade, recent discoveries indicate otherwise. Archaeologist Thomas Emerson, director of the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program, used X-ray diffraction and other sophisticated techniques to analyze raw material in effigy pipes, figurines, and other important Mississippian artifacts. He concluded
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they came from no farther away than the Ozark Mountains in what is today east-central Missouri. Even if it wasn’t corn or trade, something surely engendered significant changes in the region around A.D. 1000. Within a very short time, perhaps as little as 10 years, what had been a village of about 1,000 people grew more than tenfold. Other, smaller, villages in the area that is today southern Illinois and eastern Missouri emptied as their inhabitants moved to Cahokia. A relatively new theory puts a more human face on the sudden blossoming of Mississippian culture. It depicts Cahokia as a center of pilgrimage, a metropolis that grew under the sway of a charismatic leader and new religious insights drawn from old Native American beliefs. Anthropologist Timothy Pauketat of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who first proposed this interpretation in 1993, calls it “the big bang.” He found evidence to support it at Cahokia’s most elaborate burial site and inside an ancient garbage dump. Archaeologist Melvin Fowler of the University of Wisconsin excavated a small ridge-shaped mound at
An artist’s conception of a Cahokia market. People from other areas brought seashells, copper, pottery, stone tools, fabrics, and other materials to trade with Cahokia’s elite.
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(Left) Geoarchaeologist Mike Kolb takes core samples at regular intervals to help determine the location of the palisade wall on the west side of the Grand Plaza.
JERRY NAUNHEIM JR.
(Below) Mary Beth Trubitt consults with Kolb.
Cahokia in 1967. Inside, he discovered the body of a middle-aged man laid out on a bed of beads fashioned from seashells that had come from the Gulf of Mexico. The beads were arranged in the shape of a large bird, a design thought to have religious significance. In a trench nearby, the bodies of 54 young women were laid out in two rows. Most experts believe they were ritually sacrificed. Elsewhere in the mound were other pits that unquestionably contained victims of human sacrifice. The man’s burial occurred shortly after the rise of Cahokia. Its like had not been seen before. Clearly, this was a man of great importance. About the same time Fowler started work, another archaeologist began excavations a few hundred yards away. Instead of an important leader, he found a midden. The archaeologist, the late Charles Bareis, carefully bagged the material he uncovered and stored it away. Nearly 30 years later, a team led by Pauketat sifted through that trash and uncovered a surprising wealth of information. The team, which included zooarchaeologist Lucretia Kelly of Washington University, found the remains of many feasts, laid one over the other. Discarded bones revealed what was on the menu: swan, prairie chicken, and the choicest cuts of venison. Amazingly, remnants of berries 30
were also found in the debris, indicating the feasts took place in late summer or early fall. Also in the pit were broken remains of religious objects not seen before—highly valued quartz crystals chipped into arrowheads and human figures. With them were bits of brightly painted pottery inscribed with religious symbols: wings, eyes, and ceremonial masks. Pauketat and Kelly believe the increasingly elaborate feasts, unusual objects, and ritualistic burial demonstrate that changing religious beliefs coincided with the blossoming of Mississippian culture. But not everyone is convinced. Unlike the Maya, Mississippians left no inscriptions recounting their myths and beliefs. Whatever social or political factors sparked Cahokia’s growth—and collapse—must be deduced from bones and potsherds.
A Shift in Beliefs
Of all the unanswered questions that remain, Monks Mound is undoubtedly the most imposing. Named for a group of Trappist monks who once lived nearby, the huge mound covers an area more than three football fields long and almost three fields wide. Centuries after construction, the mound holds fast to its secrets. This summer, a team led by William Woods of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville succeeded in wresting one of those secrets away. It was a small but significant victory for Woods, who has spent years studying the soil composition of Monks Mound. His earlier work has detailed the surprisingly sophisticated construction methods used to build it. Rather than haphazardly piling dirt, Mississippian engineers layered various types of soils to permit drainage and ensure the mound’s stability. In July, Woods led a team that cored a portion of the mound called the first terrace—a 35-foot-tall platform abutting the southern edge. Drilling to ground level, the team retrieved sections of the terrace. As Woods had predicted, the coring seems to show that the first terrace was added sometime after the mound was completed. Instead winter
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John Kelly uses surveying instruments to map the Cahokia Mounds area.
of carefully layering soil, the terrace was built quickly with whatever dirt was close at hand. It might seem surprising that ancient builders would alter their greatest monument. But Woods believes that he may have uncovered the reason—a literal shift in the foundation of their religion. Monks Mound was once crowned with one of the largest buildings at Cahokia. Here, screened from the sight of ordinary people, a great religious leader is thought to have performed rituals to greet the rising sun and ensure a bountiful harvest. Some time around A.D. 1200, perhaps triggered by a massive earthquake centered on the nearby New Madrid fault, an enormous portion of this sacred mound’s western side broke away and slid down to form what has until recently been interpreted as a lower terrace. Part of the temple building was carried with it and destroyed. Studying soil composition on the mound’s western slope, Woods found evidence of a hasty patch job. Afterward, a large temple was built on the first terrace within sight of crowds that gathered in the great plaza to the south. Within about 25 years, the first palisade wall was begun.
A Show of Force
JERRY NAUNHEIM JR.
On a humid summer day last July, Mary Beth Trubitt, an archaeologist with the Arkansas Archeological Survey, looked up from inside a shallow pit where she was straining to spot subtle variations in the wet soil. “We keep finding
this patchy clay,” Trubitt said. “We’re going to dig down deep to see if we have a trench on one side or the other.” That elusive trench may have been dug out 800 years earlier in preparation for building the great defensive palisade. It was an undertaking that required up to 20,000 trees, each as tall as 20 feet—enough large oak and hickory to denude portions of the surrounding countryside. Parts of that wall, in the form of linear soil stains caused by disturbed soils and decomposed wood, were visible in aerial photographs taken in the 1920s. But that record was incomplete. More recently, excavations have revealed the eastern and southern portions. For the last three years, Trubitt has been trying to document the palisade’s western edge. By closely mapping variations in the surface topography and by charting subtle differences in resistance when electrical current is transmitted underground, Trubitt and her team can identify subsurface features that could be the remains of trenches. Only by digging into them and analyzing the soil composition can they be sure. Her team’s meticulous labor is an example of the lengths to which archaeologists go to coax ancient secrets from the reluctant earth. By the time the first serious investigations occurred around Cahokia, the Mississippians had been gone for centuries and another group of settlers—European Americans—had moved onto the ruins. When archaeologists had become convinced of its size and importance, many outlying sites and even parts of Cahokia had disappeared. Whatever remained of large Mississippian Elizabeth Severson, an anthropology student at Northwestern University, prepares the site at Mound 34 for photographing.
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JERRY NAUNHEIM JR.
know from the accounts of early settlements in what is now the explorers that, in the 1500s, the city of East St. Louis, Illinois, focus of Mississippian warfare were thought to have been forwas the desecration of mortuary ever lost. John Kelly put the lie to that temples and the bones of the notion. Kelly is an archaeologist chiefs’ ancestors.” at Washington University and Spanish explorer Hernando the husband of Lucretia Kelly. de Soto encountered MississipIn pioneering excavations, he pian tribes in what are now Alalocated tell-tale evidence of wall bama, Georgia, Mississippi, and trenches and dark, compacted Arkansas, around 1540. By that clay that marks the base of time Cahokia had been long mounds just beneath the backabandoned. But traditions obyards and alleys of East St. Louis. The head of a chert hoe made by the Mississippians. The heads served by those tribes, such as A team from the University of were attached at right angles to wooden handles. mound building, religious rituals, Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and possibly warfare, could well spent the fall of 1999 digging along a busy interstate have been rooted in the past when Cahokia flourished. In highway near where Kelly had worked. The team also any case, Trubitt said, the palisade likely served as “a show found the remains of mounds, plazas, and small buildof force, a show of readiness.” ings. During his early work in East St. Louis, Kelly had The object of this intimidation remains a mystery, also seen evidence of burned buildings with food and one of many that linger centuries after the Mississippians valuables still inside. departed. Last spring, the University of Illinois team cautiously released their analysis. It looked as if a large part of this ancient town, located about two miles down a ridge-top road from Cahokia, had been burned to the ground. The On early maps, the hillock a few hundred yards east of signs all pointed to warfare, Pauketat said. the better known Monks Mound is designated “Mound The same thing was uncovered during later excava34.” When it was built around A.D. 1200, it stood no tions at outlying Mississippian villages conducted by more than 10 feet high. Today, reduced by centuries of Pauketat and Emerson. At another dig in the Illinois erosion, farming, and artifact hunting, it lies sandwiched River Valley, Emerson found evidence of a torched village between an interstate highway and a warehouse, covered and violent death—individuals killed in farm fields, then by tall grass and weeds. scalped or otherwise mutilated. But items found here belie the mound’s unimpressive Not everyone is convinced that all the burned buildappearance. Among the most precious are pieces of several ings in East St. Louis and the outlying settlements engraved drinking cups fashioned from a seashell. They were the result of warfare. But to Pauketat and others, were broken, perhaps as some sort of consecration ritual, those clues point to an epoch of upheaval in Mississipabout the time the mound was built. The cups were pian culture. As it occurred, residents of discovered by archaeologist Gregory Perino in Cahokia turned away from their monu1956. One was engraved with a block line mental mound building to embark on a motif believed to have religious significance. public works project of stunning size: the “That particular artistic style represents palisade wall. a codification, a refinement of religious It was built and rebuilt four times themes that had been seen for years among between about A.D. 1175 and 1275. Even Native Americans here and elsewhere,” explained archaeologist James Brown of at its most expansive, the wall is believed Northwestern University. “It may turn to have enclosed only a small part of the out that rituals defined here set the stanCahokia site. Most of the community’s dard for rituals practiced throughout the thousands of homes were left outside, American Southeast.” unprotected. That seems a strange defensive strategy. “Whether this site was ever attacked This jar, found east of Monks Mound, is the only one of and the palisade served as defense, that’s its kind that has been discovered at Cahokia. It’s an open question,” Trubitt said. “We believed to date between 1050 and 1150. 32
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PICTURES OF RECORD
More Clues, More Questions
PICTURES OF RECORD
Examples of pottery decorated in the same style have been found at other sites, some occupied well after Cahokia was abandoned. “You see the same designs on ceramics in east Tennessee. You see it throughout the lower Mississippi Valley, and you see it on shells found in eastern Oklahoma,” said Kelly. Many archaeologists believe religion was Cahokia’s main export. But was it the same religion that sparked the flowering of Mississippian culture? Did beliefs change after a portion of Monks Mound collapsed and the palisade wall was begun? Kelly and Brown led a team that re-excavated part of Mound 34 last summer in search of anything that might lend context to the shell cup, or add detail to what is known about Mississippian beliefs. They unearthed no Rosetta stone, but they did find some intriguing puzzle pieces. At a corner of the mound where Perino described what he called a “copper workshop”—a place where copper was worked into jewelry or repoussé plates—they discovered nuggets of raw copper. At a place where Perino found sharks’ teeth and flint chipped to resemble sharks’ teeth, Brown and Kelly found another shark’s tooth with a hole drilled in it. The teeth were probably attached to war clubs. They also discovered projectile points and small pieces of bone that appear to have been painted or inscribed. And late one humid July morning, members of their team meticulously brushed flecks of dirt away from a bundle of white and cream-colored shells similar to those used to make the broken drinking cup. They may have been bound by a mat or cloth in the way similar so-called votive bundles discovered at other Mississippian sites were held together. Because votive bundles are often found at the base of mounds, archaeologists believe they had religious significance to the Mississippians—perhaps as part of a ritual to purify and consecrate the ground before a mound was built. But why, at a time when thousands of Cahokians must have been engaged in building the palisade wall, did they decide to divert resources to construct another mound? And why outside the palisade? For now, at least, Brown and Kelly have no answers. Each new discovery provides further clues. But it also raises fresh questions about the ancient Mississippians who communed with their gods at Cahokia, a place of mounds and mysteries. JOHN G. CARLTON is an editorial writer and WILLIAM ALLEN is a science writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They collaborated on a five-part series for the paper exploring Mississippian culture and Cahokia, which appeared in December 1999 and January 2000.
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This ceramic effigy vessel of a mother and nursing child was found in a small mound in East St. Louis.
Saving Prehistory from Urban Sprawl A traveler flying into Lambert–St. Louis International Airport and taking the interstate eastward to Cahokia will pass the locations of two other important Mississippian mound and village centers without noticing them. The St. Louis mound group, found on early 19th-century maps just north of the city, has been completely destroyed by urban expansion. The East St. Louis mound group is now located beneath the city of that name. In the early 19th century it still consisted of 20 to 22 mounds estimated to have been between 12 and 20 feet high. Only one low mound, fortuitously preserved between two railroad tracks, is visible today. However, recent investigations in East St. Louis have been surprisingly successful in locating intact prehistoric deposits beneath the historic landscape. As a result, The Archaeological Conservancy is now working with archaeologist John Kelly and other local preservationists to identify areas within the now blighted urban zone that can be acquired to create an archaeological preserve. This will probably involve buying some recent ruins in order to preserve the significant prehistoric remains beneath them. Even at Cahokia, urban sprawl has taken its toll. Many mounds were destroyed to provide fill for modern construction projects and large portions of the site have disappeared under the modest houses, shops, and mobile home courts of the surrounding neighborhood. Here as well, Kelly and his associates are working to identify well-preserved deposits within the urban zone. The Archaeological Conservancy is acquiring a 2.5-acre tract in a residential area on the western margin of Cahokia, where Kelly’s investigations have revealed a workshop area where shell ornaments and perhaps basalt figurines were made. —Paul Gardner
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A Cultural Affiliation Controversy Archaeologists and Native Americans are protesting Chaco Culture National Historical Park’s determination that the Navajo are related to the Anasazi. By Joanne Sheehy Hoover
CHACO CULTURE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK IN NORTH-
western New Mexico is considered a sacred ancient site by the Pueblo Indian tribes of New Mexico, the Hopi in Arizona, and the Navajo Indians of the region. Chaco is also the epicenter of a conflict involving Native Americans, archaeologists, and the federal government. This conflict was set in motion by the National Park Service’s actions taken under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA). One of the act’s primary purposes is to permit tribes to determine what will happen to human remains and funerary, sacred, and communally-owned objects with which the tribes are culturally affiliated. The trigger for the conflict was Chaco’s inclusion of the Navajo Nation in March 1999 in its list of tribes determined to be culturally affiliated with the Anasazi, the popular term for the peoples who occupied Chaco between the ninth and thirteenth centuries. The park’s findings meant 34
that, like the Puebloan peoples of the area, who are thought to be descendants of the Anasazi, the Navajo could legally lay claim to human remains and artifacts within the park. This decision set off a chain of protests. Sixteen of the 19 Puebloan tribes that form the All Indian Pueblo Council in Albuquerque formally joined with the Hopi tribe to dispute the claim. The process of repatriation and reburial at Chaco came to a halt. A NAGPRA Review Committee, established to hear NAGPRA disputes and make recommendations to the Secretary of the Interior, found that Chaco had done an inadequate job of determining cultural affiliation and recommended that the park service rethink its findings and hire a consultant to review the evidence. When the park service refused to do this, the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) wrote to Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, questioning the validity of the park service’s findings and requesting a review of its decision. winter
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NATIONAL PARK SERVICE • CHACO CULTURE NHP MUSEUM COLLECTION
Majestic Fajada Butte towers over Chaco Culture National Historic Park.
This controversy “got everybody’s attention because of the political aspects,” according to Francis P. McManamon, the park service’s chief archaeologist. The park service, as represented by Chaco, is also at odds with a significant portion of the archaeological community that believes the Navajo’s claim is contradicted by archaeological and other scientific evidence.
THE CONTROVERSY CENTERS ON THE TERM “CULTURAL
affiliation.” NAGPRA states that culturally-affiliated tribes have the right to determine the disposition of their ancestors. In the case of Chaco, where virtually every modern tribe in the area claims a connection to the site, determining which groups fit that category becomes difficult. Intermingling of clans and intermarriage between the Puebloan peoples and the Navajo also complicate the picture. In the view of Keith Kintigh, professor of anthropology at Arizona State University and president of the SAA, american archaeology
the Chaco finding “confused a legal definition of cultural affiliation with a common sense understanding of cultural relationship. . . . It was badly flawed.” NAGPRA, which establishes a careful balance between traditional Native American and scientific interests, defines cultural affiliation as a relationship of shared cultural identity that can be traced through time to a modern tribe. Current archaeological thinking does not place the Navajos in the Southwest until the 15th or 16th century, long after the dispersal of the Anasazi from Chaco. The Navajo language derives from a language family known as Athapaskan, which is unrelated to the languages spoken by the Puebloan peoples. At stake, said Kintigh, is “the definition of cultural affiliation . . . . If you say anything can be cultural affiliation, then you can repatriate anything to anybody. The law’s intent is to allow tribes that have reasonably close connections to determine what happens to the remains of their ancestors.” 35
DARREN PO0RE
Wendy Bustard, the museum curator at Chaco, pointed out that recently Babbitt officially proclaimed NAGPRA to be “Indian Law,” a legal principle that tilts the scales of justice in favor of the Indians. Chaco interpreted NAGPRA as Indian Law in concluding the Navajo are culturally affiliated to the park. “[NAGPRA] was designed for the benefit of American Indians, not archaeology,” she stated. “We believe we complied with the law,” said Butch Wilson, the superintendent of Chaco. The Navajo furnished Wilson and his staff with oral traditions and historical records as well as “a ton of ethnographic and written literature” which established cultural affiliation. “The NAGPRA review committee looked at it differently than we did.” Wilson stated the review committee lacked a firm grasp of the law and that some of its members were biased. John O’Shea, a University of Michigan archaeologist who chaired the review committee’s dispute hearings,
said the committee was advised by a government lawyer who is well versed in NAGPRA law. The review committee did its best to uphold the letter and spirit of the law, he said, adding that NAGPRA is subject to interpretation, and that one of the committee’s roles is to establish guidelines for enforcing the law. O’Shea believes Chaco’s controversial determination resulted from the park wanting to resolve a difficult situation “as expeditiously as possible.” He was surprised that Chaco rejected the review committee’s unanimous recommendation to reconsider its determination. “Some people felt [Chaco] couldn’t be trusted to do honest work,” he observed.
“[NAGPRA] was designed for the benefit of American Indians, not archaeology.” —Wendy Bustard 36
BRENDA L. SHEARS
“If you say anything can be cultural affiliation, then you can repatriate anything to anybody.” —Keith Kintigh
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MESA VERDE CONCURS WITH CHACO
“The Navajo have been officially determined to be a culturally affiliated tribe to the people and objects in the collection at Mesa Verde,” said Will Morris, Mesa Verde National Park’s public affairs officer. Mesa Verde conducted a study in 1995 that resulted in this determination. “We feel it was an appropriate study,” Morris said, though he acknowledged that a number of Native Americans and archaeologists are of a different opinion. Oral history was “the line of evidence that made the difference,” said Linda Towle, the park’s chief of research and resource management. She said the study complied with NAGPRA regulations. Approximately 400 individuals are being prepared for burial, and Mesa Verde officials plan to “return the remains to the ground as soon as possible,” Morris said. Twenty-four tribes are considered to be culturally affiliated to the remains and objects at Mesa Verde, four of whom— the Acoma, Hopi, Zuni, and Zia—have been selected to receive the remains and objects. Though Mesa Verde is prepared to repatriate, it can’t until the four tribes have signed the repatriation agreement, and so far none of them has. Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, the director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, said his tribe is appealing Mesa Verde’s decision. Morris said he had no idea when this dispute will be resolved. —Michael Bawaya
OF THE NATIVE AMERICANS OPPOSING THE NAVAJO
claim, the Hopi are the most vigorous in their protest. The Hopi reservation in north-central Arizona is surrounded by the vast Navajo reservation, and the two tribes have a longrunning conflict over land issues. Leigh J. Kuwanwisiwma, director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, objected to the weight the decision placed on oral tradition and folklore. Though the Hopi use these things to prove their tie to Chaco, he said they also have specific cultural objects and ceremonies that support their relationship. He also questioned the evidence for a shared identity between the Navajo and the Anasazi. As an example, he pointed to kivas, plazas, and organized room blocks that are part of contemporary Hopi life and the Chaco past. “Did Navajos have organized villages, room blocks, plazas, kivas? I don’t think so,” Kuwanwisiwma said. The Navajos, according to Alan Downer, director of the Navajo Nation Historic Preservation Department, recognize that “contemporary pueblos are descended from the Anasazi. We don’t dispute that view. It’s just too limited.” Navajo claims of cultural affiliation with the Anasazi were initially based on their oral history. Downer said he believes that the Navajo may have come to the area earlier than the accepted archaeological date. The Navajos have thus far made no requests for remains at Chaco because their oral historians, who have declared they are culturally affiliated with the Anasazi, have said the remains are not Navajo ancestors. “It’s not better for the remains to be in a Navajo holding facility than in the Smithsonian,” said Downer. Bustard noted the dispute may have one positive outcome, this being a renewed interest in looking for earlier Navajo archaeological sites. Discovery of a Navajo site prior to or coexistent with Chaco could significantly alter thinking about the Southwest’s history. american archaeology
Ancient-DNA testing, a relatively new archaeological field, might also offer some answers. David Glenn Smith, an anthropologist at the University of California and one of the country’s leading ancient-DNA researchers, believes that, if a genetic link between a modern tribe and the Anasazi exists, DNA testing can reveal it by identifying the genetic makeup of the prehistoric remains and comparing them to those of modern populations. But getting reliable results from the ancient samples can be challenging, and Native Americans generally consider DNA testing to be invasive and destructive. “Ultimately, genetics will tell the full history, but many tribes, including the Hopi, don’t endorse DNA (testing),” said Kuwanwisiwma. In response to the Hopi’s appeal, the park service has said it will conduct a public review of the entire NAGPRA process. Unfortunately, Kuwanwisiwma noted, such a review will not directly address the Hopi’s appeal. “The next step is to the Secretary of the Interior,” he said. The Zuni, a pueblo closely allied with the Hopi, suggest avoiding confrontation and turning to unrelated matters where cooperation can be achieved. The park service hopes continued discussions between the Pueblo tribes and the Navajos will yield a resolution. The Navajo want private discussion, not public confrontation, with other Native Americans. In the meantime, archeologists could unearth evidence that might settle the dispute—or ignite a new controversy. JOANNE SHEEHY HOOVER is a freelance writer living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.
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Learning about the Tataviam T
he 1,600-acre Lannan Ranch rests along the slopes of the Sierra Pelona Mountains north of Agua Dulce, California. In 1995, Tom Haile, a respected avocational archaeologist of the nearby community of Acton, contacted the Conservancy about the property. He believed it to contain an important prehistoric village. The ranch was owned by Belva Lannan, who had established it with her husband in the 1930s. In later years, Lannan watched the quiet valleys fill with houses and the rural ranching economy suffer as a result of higher land prices and the development of utilities, roads, and other infrastructure. Because Lannan wanted to preserve the archaeological resources on her land, she donated the ranch to the Conservancy in late 1998, retaining a life estate to
assure her continued use of the property until her death, which occurred earlier this year. Even in dry years, numerous springs provide water to the high desert hillsides of Lannan Ranch. This was one reason for the establishment of the large prehistoric village at the site. The ranch is also one of the few known inland sources of steatite in California. Steatite, commonly known as soapstone, is a soft rock that was avidly traded by Native Americans, and highly prized because it could be easily carved into bowls, pipes, and ornaments. Because soapstone can be traced to the originating quarry, steatite artifacts and the location of their sources form the basis for important hypotheses about the extent of trade between groups in Southern California and other areas of the Southwest. The area around Lannan Ranch was inhabited in the 18th century by a group known as the Tataviam. They spoke a dialect of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family similar to that of their Gabrieleño and Kitanemuk neighbors. The Tataviam was one of the earliest groups contacted by Spanish missionaries in the region, and their villages were described by members of the Don Gaspar de Portolá expedition as early as 1769. Even given these early accounts, little ethnographic or historical information is available about the Tataviam people. Research at another Tataviamoccupied area along the Santa Clara River, the Conservancy’s preserve at Assistencia de San Francisco, uncovered historical documents which indicate that by 1810, all of the Tataviam people had been transported to mission properties to work in vineyards, orchards, and fields. They were baptized at Mission San Fernando and soon began to intermarry and mix with other groups. Exposure to Old-World diseases quickly caused their population to plummet. The last speaker of Tataviam, Juan José Fustero, died in 1921. The Tataviam were likely similar to their Fernandeño and Chumash neighbors in terms of subsistence Lannan Ranch is a source of steatite, a soft rock that Native Americans carved into bowls, pipes, and ornaments.
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LYNN DUNBAR
The Conservancy’s acquisition of Lannan Ranch may provide important information about a little-known people.
LYNN DUNBAR
strategies. They lived in houses of wooden poles planted in the ground and covered with woven panels and thatched roofing. The temperate Southern California climate and varied topography allowed the Tataviam to draw upon a large variety of food sources. They hunted deer, squirrels, rabbits, birds, lizards, and snakes, and gathered chia seeds, sage, agave, yucca, buckwheat, toyon berries, acorns, grasshoppers and caterpillars. The Tataviam were known for their weaving and basketry skills, and stone bowls associated with Tataviam sites show an unusual tell-tale ring of pitch around the rim, where a basket may have been affixed to the bowl. This emphasis on basketry may explain the dearth of ceramics in Tataviam sites. The Tataviam were known to store caches of artifacts in caves in the region. During a recent survey, archaeologists David Whitley and Joe Simon discovered such a cache, yielding a variety of deposits that had been damTom Haile called Lannan Ranch to the attention of the Conservancy. aged by looting. The best known cache of Tataviam goods was Bowers Cave, near Val Verde. It was found by a teenager, McCoy Pyle, in 1884. relics to private collectors and to Harvard University’s Pyle was out deer hunting and noticed a dark opening in a Peabody Museum. sandstone cliff. Within the cave were large baskets containThe Lannan Ranch sites have never been excavated. ing stone tools, obsidian blades, deer bone whistles, strings Archaeologists hope that the sites may contain further of beads, crystals, and spectacular headdresses and capes clues to Tataviam political and social organization, made of iridescent condor and flicker feathers. The cache ceremonial traditions, and tenure on the land. also contained painted stone discs attached to wooden Whitley and Simon hypothesize that a wide-scale handles that were likely used for ceremonial purposes. inland population expansion began about 4,000 years Soon after the discovery, local collector Stephen Bowers ago, when a drought ended, and then tapered off about purchased the entire cache for $1,500, and sold the 800 years ago, when drought returned. However, Tom Haile believes that recent discoveries and radiocarbon dating at sites near the Lannan Ranch may reveal a Tataviam occupation stretching back 8,000 years. To Learn More Haile also believes that the Tataviam The Antelope Valley Indian Museum was originally influence may have extended to islands constructed by homesteader and artist H. Arden off the coast. Edwards in 1928 and contains his collection Due to the lack of detailed historical of artifacts from aboriginal and information about the Tataviam and the contemporary California and fact that so many nearby sites have been Southwestern cultures as well as looted or disturbed, this acquisition is an the collection of anthropologist extremely important one. There are Grace Oliver. The museum, archaeological research questions which which is 15 miles east of might be answered only at Lannan Ranch. Lancaster, is open 11 A.M. Belva Lannan has left an important legacy, to 4 P.M. from the end of passing on the heritage of the earlier September through the middle landowners, the Tataviam, to us all. of June. (661-946-3055) —Lynn Dunbar or www.avim.av.org
american archaeology
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History on the Shores of Big Lake Once the traditional homesite of Passamaquoddy Indian chiefs, Governor’s Point in Maine has the distinction of being the Conservancy’s northeastern-most preserve.
Conservancy Plan of Action SITE: Governor’s Point CULTURE & TIME PERIOD: Woodland period to historic (1000 B.C.–A.D. 1800) STATUS: Jim Thompson is donating this seven-acre property to the Conservancy after protecting the site for more than two decades. ACQUISITION: The Conservancy must raise $15,000 to pay for survey, site stabilization, closing, fencing, and long-term management costs. HOW YOU CAN HELP: Please send your contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Project Governor’s Point; 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 402; Albuquerque, NM 87108.
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GREGORY HART
I
t is difficult to imagine a more pleasant place than Maine in the summertime. Yes, there are mosquitoes and an occasional squadron of black flies, but these minor nuisances disappear when you are in the middle of one of Maine’s emerald lakes. Last June, owner Jim Thompson paddled his 100-year-old Passamaquoddy canoe out onto Big Lake with the Conservancy’s Eastern regional director, Rob Crisell. The only way to visit Governor’s Point, a Late Woodland archaeological site and the Conservancy’s fourth property in the state, is by boat. Thompson, Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology, Emeritus, at Harvard University, decided to donate the seven-acre property—located near the small town of Grand Lake Stream— after many years of safeguarding the site himself.
A view of the sandy beach at Governor’s Point. Excavations were conducted here in 1988 and 1992.
During historic times, chiefs of the Passamaquoddy tribe traditionally resided at Governor’s Point across from what is now the Passamaquoddy Indian Reservation, giving the site its name. Evidence from two digs at the site conducted by archaeologist Steve Cox suggests that Governor’s Point was also a major seasonal village throughout the Woodland period and well into the historic period (1000 B.C. to A.D. 1800). The property is vital for understanding details of the relationship between the first European settlers and the Passamaquoddy.
Governor’s Point was discovered in 1986. Cox and his crew recovered numerous prehistoric artifacts, such as stemmed bifaces, prehistoric pottery, calcined bone, and cooking hearths. Early 17th-century artifacts include copper objects, trade beads, Bellarmine jar fragments, barbed iron points, kaolin pipe fragments, and French gunflints. “Although the prehistoric Woodland period components alone would make Governor’s Point a National Register-quality site,” explains Cox, “the early contact material is particularly significant because of the scarcity of such components in Maine and because of the dynamic and complex cultural interactions of the period.” —Rob Crisell
Exploring Maine’s Past The Abbe Museum (207-288-3519) in Bar Harbor features changing exhibits on the state’s Indian culture, history, and art. Other nearby attractions include the Maine State Museum (207-287-2301) in Augusta and St. Croix Island International Historic Site (www.nps.gov/sacr) in Calais. winter
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new POINT a cq u i s i t i o n
Preserving a Record of Prehistoric Village Life
The Archaeological Conservancy partners with a local land trust to preserve the Cambria site.
ROBERT GIBSON
P
erched atop Lodge Hill, with a view of the Pacific Ocean, the Cambria site is one of the best preserved and oldest prehistoric villages on California’s Central Coast. Radiocarbon dating has established that the site is 8,000 years old, which is unusual for an intact shell midden here. Most early sites have been lost to intense coastal development or eroded away by wind and waves. Cambria is a charming vacation town between San Luis Obispo and Monterey. Greenspace, a nonprofit organization in Cambria, has lead efforts to create parks, nature trails, historic sites, and community gardens throughout the town. The Archaeological Conservancy has joined forces with Greenspace to preserve the site. This is the first time that the Conservancy will contract directly with a local land trust in a joint venture, and may serve as a model for future archaeological preservation. The site was first excavated in 1978 and has been tested repeatedly since then. It contains stone and bone tools, projectile points, shell beads, pipes, stone and shell pendants, and ornaments. In prehistoric times, the Cambria area was inhabited by the Northern Chumash and the Southern Salinan people. They followed an annual cycle of fishing, hunting, and harvesting wild plants. They traded american archaeology
These abalone ornaments are approximately 2,000 years old.
commodities such as food, luxury items, and tool-making materials. Over time, they were forced to adapt to climate change, technological advancement, and cultural shifts, and these adaptations are reflected
in the archaeological record. In fact, since native societies here were decimated by contact and colonization, the underground record of village life is essential to our understanding of California’s prehistoric peoples. —Lynn Dunbar
POINT Acquisitions The POINT Program is the Conservancy’s new emergency acquisition initiative to save sites throughout the country. (See the POINT Program donor list and information on page 45.)
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C O N S E R V A N C Y
New Excavations Lead to a Surprising Discovery SOUTHEAST—Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago, led by Cameron Wesson, braved extremes in weather to complete an archaeological survey of the Conservancy’s 60-acre Samuel Preserve near Wetumpka, Alabama. The Samuel Preserve possesses several distinct archaeological features, including mound groups and middens that were originally recorded over 30 years ago by archaeologist David Chase. Since their recording, the sites have remained undisturbed. Wesson, who originally believed the sites were separate from one another, hoped to learn more about the cultural affiliations of the various sites, paying particular attention to the mound groups. The Conservancy planned to utilize the information gained from the survey to better manage the preserve. After completing over 500 shovel tests at 20-meter intervals, it became apparent that the Samuel Preserve was not several distinct sites but one very large site dating to the end of the Woodland period (A.D. 850–1100), with Archaic and Creek Indian components. Wesson found copious amounts of pottery throughout the preserve resembling the later
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Mississippian ceramic styles but fashioned in the Woodland method. This unexpected turn of events indicates the site was occupied at the end of the Woodland period and promises to shed light on the origins of the Mississippian culture. However, one feature particularly piqued Wesson’s interest: the so-called “Doughnut Mound.” When the site was originally recorded, archaeologists believed the Doughnut Mound to be a burial mound or midden that looters had dug out in the distant past, leaving only an earthen ring. Wesson excavated a few test units to l earn more about the mound. What he found shocked and amazed archaeologists Working in a trench on the top of Doughnut Mound, throughout Alabama. researchers identify the various layers of soil used to Wesson determined that construct the mound. the Doughnut Mound was not a mound at all, but a structure. are known to date to as early as the Additional excavations confirmed his Woodland period,” states archaeologist theory; he had located an earthlodge, Craig Sheldon, chairman of Alabama’s a rare, semi-subterranean type of Historical Commission. “The struccouncil house similar in many respects ture resembles one I excavated at Fusihatchee, but this structure is about to the kivas found in the Southwest. eight hundred years older and is “Few earthlodges have ever been enormous for the Woodland period.” discovered in Alabama, and no others
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CAMERON WESSON
Field Notes
HEATHER ATHERTON
“Our investigations determined that the present shape of the mound is a result of the collapse of a large circular structure with an interior floor area of approximately 12 meters in diameter,” states Wesson. He also recovered posts and wall debris consistent with wattleand-daub architecture, and a large central post that would have been one of four supports for the roof, and discovered a large central hearth. Evidence indicates that the interior of the roof was covered with daub and the exterior with earth. “Although we can never be sure,” Wesson adds, “there is a very good possibility that this structure was intentionally burned. I believe this because the floor and central fire pit were cleaned out prior to being burned. This usually only happens when people intentionally burn a structure.” As is typical of most archaeological excavations, Wesson raised as many new questions as he answered. He hopes to return to the Samuel Preserve in the near future to attempt to solve the mysteries surrounding the earthlodge and its builders.
Remote Sensing at San José de las Huertas SOUTHWEST—Researchers Nan Rothschild and Heather Atherton, with Columbia University’s Barnard College, conducted remote sensing at the walled Spanish Colonial village of San José de las Huertas, near Albuquerque, New Mexico, last summer. They were assisted by a team of graduate students. This Conservancy preserve, which covers 24 acres, was assembled through the acquisition of three tracts of land between 1986 and 2000. Occupied from 1764 to 1823, San José de las Huertas contains at least 10 undisturbed housemounds.
american archaeology
Kelly Britt, a member of the crew that worked at San José de las Huertas, maps the site.
Rothschild previously produced a surface map of the site’s features. Her recent work with Atherton included a geophysical survey using soil resistivity and magnetometer studies to create a sub-surface map of the site’s features and structures. She also researched Spanish Colonial documents pertaining to the occupation of the site.
Getting a Clearer Picture of Bloom Mound Pueblo SOUTHWEST—Last summer, John Speth led members of the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology field school in conducting a testing program at Bloom Mound Pueblo near Roswell, New Mexico. Bloom Mound is located in the Pecos Valley near Henderson Pueblo, another Conservancy preserve. Bloom Mound was thought to have been a very tiny community, with just one small roomblock of nine
adobe surface rooms and a deep square pitroom, surrounded on the north and east by shallow midden deposits. This structure was totally excavated by a group of amateur archaeologists from Roswell in the 1930s and 1940s, leaving nothing but the midden. None of the items recovered in those early excavations were labeled or cataloged, and most were lost in the 1950s when the basement of the Roswell Art Museum flooded. Speth was surprised to discover that most of what had been thought to be midden was actually architectural, with the community now numbering at least 20 rooms, and perhaps as many as 30 or more. The goal of last summer’s testing was to obtain samples from the midden for radiocarbon dating, and to obtain faunal and floral samples to determine whether Bloom Mound’s economy had undergone changes comparable to those at Henderson. Speth’s work at Henderson Pueblo between 1994 and 1997 has shown that this 50- to 60-room community underwent a dramatic restructuring of its economy in the 1300s, changing from a system based on a mixture of farming corn and hunting a variety of small and large animals to one based on long-distance communal bison hunting. Speth suspected that Bloom Mound post-dated Henderson by a few decades and might therefore represent the last stages in this transformation of local farmer-hunters into nomadic bison hunters. The testing also produced the hoped-for economic data. While the analysis of this material is just beginning, the preliminary results suggest that Bloom Mound’s time of occupation probably extends beyond that of Henderson’s. The site therefore preserves an invaluable record of the final stages in the emergence of fulltime bison hunters in this part of the Southern Plains.
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T H E
A R C H A E O L O G I C A L
C O N S E R V A N C Y
River to tour Lamanai, a Maya trading center established more than 2,000 years ago that was occupied until A.D. 1641. From the coast you’ll travel to the inner reaches of Belize and visit magnificent sites such as Cahal Pech, perched on a mountaintop, Xunantunich, the site of El Castillo, and El Caracol, possibly the largest Maya site. You’ll spend several days exploring the magnificent city of Copán, considered by many to be the crown jewel of the southern Maya. Its famous Hieroglyphic Stairway, with its 63 steps, describes the city’s achievements. John Henderson, professor of anthropology at Cornell University and one of the foremost scholars on Mesoamerican cultures, will lead the tour.
Rafting Through Time When: June 2–9, 2001 Where: Southeastern Utah How much: $1,495 ($45 single supplement)
The ball court (lower right) is one of the attractions of the amazing central palace of Copán.
Palaces and Pyramids BELIZE AND COPÁN When: March 16–25, 2001 Where: Belize and Honduras How Much: $2,295 ($295 single supplement)
Our Maya adventure begins on the coast of Belize, where you’ll explore Belize City and take a boat ride up the New
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If you love floating downriver, camping under the stars, or exploring remote archaeological sites, our San Juan River trip is sure to be an adventure you’ll enjoy. In Bluff, Utah, you’ll begin a six-day journey down the scenic San Juan River, including its famous “goosenecks” stretch. Among the highlights of the trip are visits to several archaeological sites, such as River House, the largest cliff dwelling on the San Juan. You’ll also visit Chinle Wash, the famous setting of author Tony Hillerman’s novel A Thief of Time. At Lower Butler Wash you’ll view what is considered one of the Southwest’s most beautiful rock art sites. For those who wish to explore beyond the river, there are opportunities throughout the trip to hike river trails,
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MARK MICHEL
SAN JUAN RIVER TOUR
Patrons of Preservation
ERIKA OLSSON
Each year the Conservancy receives a substantial amount of its funding from individuals, foundations, and corporations. We would like to thank the following donors for their generous support for the period of August through October.
Covered with life-sized petroglyphs, this rock art panel in Butler Wash extends more than 200 yards.
including Honaker Trail, a famous trail once used by prospectors. David Grant Noble, photographer and author of such books as Ancient Ruins of the Southwest and New Light on Chaco, will accompany the tour and share his insights about the people who once lived in this isolated region.
Life Member Gifts of $1,000 or more
Foundation/Corporate Gifts of $1,000 or more
David Arthur, Illinois Robert Connick, California (in memory of Jean Pitzer) Chris A. Cummings, Texas Mrs. John Kee, Jr., Florida William and Priscilla Robinson, Arizona T. L. Samuel, Jr., Alabama George M. and Nancy Shaffer, New Mexico Jacqueline Woodruff, California
ARCO Foundation of California, California R.& F. Coal Co., Ohio Hutchinson Family Fund of The Greater Cincinnati Foundation, Ohio Santa Fe Community Foundation, New Mexico Joan Irvine Smith & Athalie R. Clarke Foundation, California Richard and Mary Solari Charitable Trust, California Sidney Stern Memorial Trust, California Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, Florida
To make a donation or become a member, contact:
The Archaeological Conservancy 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 402 Albuquerque, NM 87108 (505) 266-1540 • www.americanarchaeology.com
POINT Program Update This September, the POINT Program (Protect Our Irreplaceable National Treasures) was launched in order to preserve important archaeological sites that face imminent destruction. Conservancy founder and board member Jay Last pledged a gift of $1 million to the Conservancy to buy sites. In order to receive this gift, the Conservancy must raise matching funds. To date, we have received more than $150,000 from dedicated members and foundations. To all who have contributed to this very special campaign, we extend our deep appreciation. In addition, we would like to express our thanks to the following donors for their extraordinary generosity:
POINT Program Gifts of $1,000 to $2,499 Anonymous (1) Betty Banks, Washington Laurel Cooper, Arizona Helen Darby, California Lindsay and Lucy Duff, Texas J. Scott Hamilton, Arizona Roger and Frances Kennedy, New Mexico Derwood Koenig, Indiana Paul McCament, Texas George Pardee, Jr., California Hervey and Sarah Stockman, New Mexico
american archaeology
POINT Program Gifts of $2,500 to $4,999 Grace Hartzel, Ohio POINT Program Gifts of $5,000 to $9,999 Anonymous (1) Dorothy Beatty, California Elmina B. Sewall Foundation, Connecticut June Stack, Pennsylvania Richard Woodbury, Massachusetts POINT Program Gifts of $10,000 or more Nina Bonnie, Kentucky Donna Cosulich, New York Jerry and Janet EtsHokin, Illinois
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Reviews
Examining the Mystery of Rock Art
The Art of the Shaman: Rock Art of California By David S. Whitley (University of Utah Press, 2000; 145 pgs., illus.; $45 cloth; 801-585-9786) Warrior, Shield, and Star: Imagery and Ideology of Pueblo Warfare By Polly Schaafsma (Western Edge Press, 2000; 216 pgs., illus.; $25 paper; 505-988-7214) The Serpent and the Sacred Fire: Fertility Images in Southwest Rock Art By Dennis Slifer (Museum of New Mexico Press, 2000; 208 pgs., illus.; $35 cloth, $17 paper; 505-827-6454) Three recently published books on prehistoric rock art in the American Southwest represent a range of current research into various aspects of this intriguing subject. Each book makes an important contribution to the knowledge of rock art and the cultural traditions from which it developed. For centuries, scientists and lay people alike have been fascinated by the gorgeous polychrome murals and elaborate petroglyphs prehistoric peoples created in public and private places, yet the real meaning of these enigmatic images has remained tantalizingly elusive. Ethnographic evidence indicates that the art was often produced by shamans, but for many years archaeologists dismissed these records as providing no useful information about the content of the art. In the masterful Art of the Shaman, a book as pleasing to look at as it is to read, David S. Whitley, an archaeologist who has written extensively on prehistoric art and religion (see “Reading the Minds of Rock Artists,” American Archaeology, Fall 1997), brings together ethnographical analysis, art interpretation, and findings from the esoteric field of neuropsychology to shed new light on this mystery. Whitley asserts that the forms of rock art found in California, though richly varied stylistically, actually represent a limited number of specific themes related to shamanism, a concept known to be central to the religious beliefs of prehistoric Californians. The sites themselves—often caves, crevices, and natural formations chosen for their symbolic content—were sacred places intermediate between this world and the world of the spirits. Whitley makes a compelling argument that rock art depicts the events of the shamans’ vision quests, the spirits they had encountered, and the rituals in which they had participated. The question remains of why shamans created art—that is, why they needed to permanently record their otherworldly experiences. 46
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Guide to Rock Art of the Utah Region: Sites with Public Access By Dennis Slifer
(Ancient City Press, 2000; 245 pgs., illus.; $16 paper; 800-249-7737) For those who wish to leave their armchairs to experience the wonders of rock art first hand, this book, also by Dennis Slifer, is an excellently organized guide to more than 50 sites in and around the Colorado Plateau that are now open to the public. The book includes a comprehensive overview of rock art styles and the cultural traditions that produced them, maps and directions for locating the sites, and extensive descriptions of the imagery. Slifer also includes much-appreciated chapters on rock art conservation and site etiquette, as well as photography tips.
Whitley suggests that a clue may be found in neuropsychology. Scientists who study brain chemistry during altered states of consciousness have discovered that short-term memory is severely impaired during a trance. This observation eerily echoes ethnographic accounts of the great difficulty shamans had in remembering their hallucinogenic experiences. Perhaps recording these important sacred events in paint or carving was a way of ensuring that they would not be forgotten. Whitley’s ingenious thesis also offers an explanation for the puzzling geometric motifs that proliferate in rock art, which have often been dismissed as mere decorative graffiti. These images are strikingly similar to the optical illusions reported by subjects to accompany a trance state or as precursors to migraine headaches. By drawing on findings from divergent fields, Whitley has produced a highly original synthesis of current research into the meaning of these ubiquitous and haunting images. Another book dealing with the interpretation of rock art is Polly Schaafsma’s Warrior, Shield, and Star, which investigates the depiction of warfare in Southwest rock art as a means of understanding violence and conflict among the prehistoric Pueblo peoples. The rock art and kiva murals in Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico incorporate some of the most dramatic, graphic images in Pueblo art. Representations of shields and other weapons, warriors, animal war patrons, and other warfare iconography suggest a very different culture from the traditional “peaceful farmer” model of the Anasazi. Schaafsma’s investigation combines interpretation of american archaeology
these symbols with ethnographic data from diverse sources to shed light on the ideological motivations for institutionalized conflict during the Pueblo IV period (ca. A.D. 1325–1600). The art indicates that organized warrior societies and kachina cults evolved during this time, and that warfare was important to the rainmaking and sun cults that sought to ensure agricultural success. The concluding chapter relates ancient war symbols to modern Pueblo war societies, where some of the more traditional rituals are still performed. Fertility has long been recognized as a theme of primary importance in the art of prehistoric cultures. The abundance and universality of fertility images suggest that a primary concern of ancient peoples was the appeasement of supernatural forces to assure the continuation of life, not just of humans, but of other animals and plants upon which human life depended. The Serpent and the Sacred Fire, by Dennis Slifer, features hundreds of diagrams and numerous photographs focusing on the iconography of fertility, creation, and abundance, and the connection between sexuality and the sacred, in the rock art of the American Southwest. Slifer further compares these images to those found in the art of tribal peoples from other parts of the world to demonstrate the archetypal nature of such depictions. Undoubtedly, as research progresses on this compelling subject, new discoveries and insights will continue to add to our understanding. Nonetheless, these three scholars have given us a great deal to think about and admire in the ancient people who preceded us in this place. —Betsy Greenlee 47
Past Portrait Pueblo pottery from the Spanish Colonial village of San José de las Huertas, 1764–1823, a Conservancy preserve in New Mexico.
HELGA TEIWES
(See the related article in Field Notes, page 43.)
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BOOKS
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Show Pride in America’s Archaeological Resources! Archaeological Conservancy T-shirt: 100% cotton
Limited Edition!
Lamb Spring Archaeological Preserve T-shirt: Commemorating the Conser vancy’s 100th site acquisition. 100% cotton
To order, send your check to: The Archaeological Conservancy 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 402 • Albuquerque, NM 87108
❏ Conservancy T-shirt
NAME
❏ Lamb Spring T-shirt
ADDRESS
CITY
$12, plus $1.75 S&H
circle size: S M L XL XXL
STATE
ZIP
circle size: M L
$10, plus $1.75 S&H
Make your mark in time. Some Conservancy members think the only way to help save archaeological sites is through membership dues. While dues are a constant lifeline, there are many ways you can support the Conservancy’s work, both today and well into the future. And by supporting the Conservancy, you not only safeguard our past for your children and grandchildren, you also may save some money.
Place stock in the Conservancy. Evaluate your investments. Some members choose to make a difference by donating stock. Such gifts offer a charitable deduction for the full value instead of paying capital gains tax.
Give a charitable gift annuity. Depending on your circumstances, you may be able to make a gift of cash and securities today that lets you receive extensive tax benefits as well as an income for as long as you live.
leave a lasting legacy. Many people consider protecting our cultural heritage by remembering the Conservancy in their will. While providing us with a dependable source of income, bequests may qualify you for an estate tax deduction.
Lamb Spring colorado
Conservancy Preserve since 1995
Yes, I’m interested in making a planned-giving donation to The Archaeological Conservancy and saving money on my taxes. Please send more information on: ❏ Gifts of stock
❏ Bequests
❏ Charitable gift annuities
Name: Street Address: City: Phone: (
State: )
-
Zip:
Whatever kind of gift you give, you can be sure we’ll use it to preserve places like Lamb Spring and our other 195 sites across the United States. Mail information requests to: The Archaeological Conservancy Attn: Planned Giving 5301 Central Avenue NE Suite 402 Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517 Or call: (505) 266-1540
