American Archaeology Magazine | Winter 2001-02 | Vol. 5 No. 4

A C U R AT I O N C R I S I S • T H E C A S E F O R A P R E - C L O V I S P E O P L E

american archaeology WINTER 2001-02

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american archaeology a quarterly publication of The Archaeological Conservancy

Vol. 5 No. 4

winter 2001-02 COVER FEATURE

20 ARCHAEOLOGISTS IN WONDERLAND

BY MICHAEL SIMS

The amazing past of Mammoth Cave is revealed by an archaeological inventory.

1 2 TWELV E T H O U S A N D YEARS UNDER THE SEA

BY KC SMITH

An underwater excavation on Florida’s continental shelf gives evidence of Paleo-Indians.

2 8 A C U R AT I O N C R I S I S

BY NANCY TRAVER

Institutions and agencies are trying to come to grips with the problem of properly curating artifacts.

3 5 THE CASE FOR A PRE-CLOVIS PEOPLE

BY ROBSON BONNICHSEN AND ALAN L. SCHNEIDER

Why the Clovis were not the first people to settle the Americas.

4 0 point acquisition: ARCHAEOLOGY ON THE COAST A serendipitous event led to the Conservancy’s purchase of a prehistoric shell midden.

4 1 point acquisition: UNLOCKING THE SECRETS OF INGOMAR MOUNDS Study of this site may reveal more about its puzzling history.

4 2 point acquisition: S T U D Y I N G C A L I F O R N I A’S PREHISTORY The 3,000-year-old Lorenzen site could yield important information.

4 3 point acquisition: A D E N A M O U N D S S U RV I V E An 11th-hour purchase by the Conservancy saves the O’Dell Mounds.

COVER: A researcher gazes down a large passage in Mammoth Cave. This

passage is estimated to be about 20 feet high and 40 feet wide. The cave has countless passages, some of which are larger than this and some of which are so small they’re impassable. Photograph by Charles Swedlund

american archaeology

2 Lay of the Land 3 Letters 5 Events 7 In the News Hopewell Earthwork Discovered • Hunley Excavation Resumes • Climate Change Creates Cultural Change

44 Field Notes 46 Expeditions 48 Reviews 1

Lay of the Land Solving the Curation Problem

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ozens of invaluable collections of artifacts taken from American archaeological sites are literally hidden away, and consequently forgotten and left to deteriorate. We’re not talking about items that bring huge prices on the international antiquities markets. We are talking about tens of thousands of little things of no commercial value that add up to invaluable information available nowhere else. Our investigation of the state of curation in America shows alarming shortcomings (see page 28, “A Curation Crisis”).

As archaeological sites become more rare, the responsibility for car-

ing for the collections becomes more acute. The study of these collections may offer the only opportunity to answer the many questions of the past. As new technology becomes available, it is often possible to return to old collections and get very significant information. After all, restudying the old collections is the most fundamental form of conservation archaeology.

The curation crisis is turning into a national scandal. It is time for Congress to investigate and take remedial action before more is lost. As Maryland has demonstrated, the solution can be had for a reasonable

cost. Let’s follow their example in the rest of the nation.

MARK MICHEL, President

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Letters Amazing Ephrata I find myself constantly watching the Discovery Channel and the History Channel, and many times they have had documentaries on various archaeological discoveries that I find fascinating. Archaeology is an incredible science and it was so nice to read about the findings of the 1732 religious commune of Conrad Beissel in the Fall issue of American Archaeology.

How he got his followers to do his bidding is amazing. I guess if you really believe the Second Coming will happen during one’s lifetime, then the follower will do everything necessary to make that commune work.

The information gathered from this dig is historically important.

The farming techniques of this period are now well documented, thanks to the hard work done by these archaeologists. The Cloister at Ephrata is a valuable finding for all future generations to study.

Alicia Najar Red Bluff, California

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

Overselling Small Insights As a professional historian who has also done time at several archaeological digs, I hate seeing historical archaeologists justify their endeavors as somehow superior to historical research.

The idea that the dig at the Ephrata Cloister is “telling a more truthful story” than can be gleaned from documents is pure hype. Yes, written texts are biased. This is news?

The possible existence of bias is why good historians are systematically skeptics. And what great new truth has been unearthed at the Ephrata dig? That the society’s members ate meat although cautioned by their leader not to do so. Gosh!

Let the Ephrata project go forward with its good work of adding to our knowledge of its material culture. But please, let’s not oversell the significance of very small insights.

Robert R. Dykstra Worcester, Massachusetts

Editor’s Corner There is no place archaeologists won’t go. In this issue, we follow two of them underground and underwater as they attempt to comprehend prehistory. George Crothers has been plumbing the depths of Mammoth Cave in southern Kentucky since 1992. This is the world’s largest known cave system, and within its hundreds of miles of passages is evidence of thousands of years of human activity. The artifacts speak of a wide range of activities—from mining to rites of passage to convalescing from tuberculosis.

While Crothers dons a hard hat and headlamp for work, Michael Faught’s work attire consists of a wet suit and goggles. He explores the seabed of the Gulf of Mexico, more than three miles off the coast of northwestern Florida. Thousands of years ago, this area was dry land and Faught has found stone artifacts that are 8,000 to 12,000 years old.

Crothers and Faught are exploring fascinating places, and we have the good fortune of accompanying them.

STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION 1. Publication Title: American Archaeology. 2. Publication No.: 1093-8400. 3. Date of Filing: September 28, 2001. 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 2001. 15. Extent and Nature of Circulation: Average Number of Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: (A) Total No. Copies (net press run): 28,375; (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): 18,637; (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: 2,848; (4) Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS: 750. (C) Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation (Sum of 15B (1), (2), (3), and (4)): 22,235; (D) Free Distribution by Mail (Samples, complimentary, and other free): (1) OutsideCounty as Stated on Form 3541: 0; (2) In-County as Stated on Form 3541: 0; (3) Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS: 100; (E) Free Distribution Outside the Mail (Carriers or other means): 900; (F) Total Free Distribution (Sum of 15D and 15E): 1,000; (G) Total Distribution (Sum of 15C and 15F): 23,235; (H) Copies not Distributed: 5,140; (I) Total (Sum of 15G and 15H): 28,375. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation (15C/15G x 100): 95.70%.

15. Extent and Nature of Circulation: Number Copies of Single Issue Publishd Nearest to Filing Date: (A) Total No. Copies (net press run): 25,000; (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): 17,026; (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: 1,976; (4) Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS: 1,100. (C) Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation (Sum of 15B (1), (2), (3), and (4)): 20,102; (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: 25; (E) Free Distribution Outside the Mail (Carriers or other means): 700; (F) Total Free Distribution (Sum of 15D and 15E): 725; (G) Total Distribution (Sum of 15C and 15F): 20,827; (H) Copies not Distributed: 4,173; (I) Total (Sum of 15G and 15H): 25,000. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation (15C/15G x 100): 96.52%. 16. This Statement of Ownership will be printed in the Winter 2001 issue of this publication. 17. I certify tha t all information furnished on this form is true and complete. Michael Bawaya, Editor.

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WELCOME TO THE ARCHAEOLOGIC AL 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 preserved more than 220 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.org

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®

5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 402 Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517 • (505) 266-1540 www.americanarchaeology.org 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 Rosamond Stanton, New Mexico • Vincas Steponaitis, North Carolina 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 Heidi Smith, Administrative Assistant • Valerie Long, Administrative Assistant Regional Offices and Directors Jim Walker, Southwest Region (505) 266-1540 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 402 • Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108 Tamara Stewart, Projects Coordinator • Steve Koczan, Site Maintenance Paul Gardner, Midwest Region (614) 267-1100 295 Acton Road • Columbus, Ohio 43214 Alan Gruber, Southeast Region (770) 975-4344 5997 Cedar Crest Road • Acworth, Georgia 30101 Jessica Crawford, Projects Coordinator Gene Hurych, Western Region (916) 399-1193 1 Shoal Court #67 • Sacramento, California 95831 Donald Craib, Eastern Region (703) 780-4456 9104 Old Mt. Vernon Road • Alexandria, Virginia 22309

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PUBLISHER: Mark Michel EDITOR: Michael Bawaya (505) 266-9668, archcons@nm.net ASSISTANT EDITOR: Tamara Stewart ART DIRECTOR: Vicki Marie Singer Editorial Advisor y Board Ernie Boszhardt, Mississippi Valley Archaeological Center James Bruseth, Texas Historical Commission • Jonathan Damp, Zuni Cultural Resources Allen Dart, Old Pueblo Archaeology Center • Richard Daugherty, Washington State University David Dye, University of Memphis • John Foster, California State Parks 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 Mark Lynott, National Park Service • Linda Mayro, Pima County, Arizona Jeff Mitchem, Arkansas Archaeological Survey • Giovanna Peebles, Vermont State Archaeologist Janet Rafferty, Mississippi State University • Kenneth Sassaman, University of Florida Donna Seifert, John Milner Associates • Kathryn Toepel, Heritage Research Associates Richard Woodbury, University of Massachusetts National Advertising Office Richard Bublitz, Advertising Representative; 22247 Burbank Boulevard, Woodland Hills, California 91367; (800) 485-5029; 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, © 2001 by TAC. Printed in the United States. Periodicals postage paid Albuquerque, NM, and additional mailing offices. Single copies are $3.95. A one-year 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) 266-1540. 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.

winter • 2001-02

Museum exhibits Meetings

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Tours

Education

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Events

Festivals

Conferences

■ NEW EXHIBITS Exhibit Museum of Natural History

Ann Arbor, Mich.—The new exhibit “Got Salt?” explores how native people of the Nexquipayac region of Central Mexico produce salt from the soils of ancient lakebeds as they have done for centuries, employing local materials and simple technology. (734) 763-4191 (Through January 31, 2002) Frank McClung Museum

University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tenn.—The rich heritage of coverlet weaving is showcased in the traveling exhibit “Textile Art from Southern Appalachia: The Quiet Work of Women.” The intricate weavings illustrate an unbroken artistic tradition that began prior to the 19th century in southern Appalachia. A portion of the exhibit, the most extensive collection of woven art from the region ever assembled, is also on display at the East Tennessee Historical Society Museum in downtown Knoxville. (865) 974-2144 (Through February 3, 2002)

Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository

Kodiak, Alaska—“Looking Both Ways: Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People” combines art, archaeology, history, and oral tradition to follow the Alutiiq people of Alaska's south-central coast from ancient to present times. This traveling exhibition was created by the Smithsonian, which worked closely with the Alaska native communities depicted in the exhibition. Following its debut in Kodiak, it will continue its national tour, traveling to the Anchorage Museum in October 2002.

(907) 486-7004 (Through April 6, 2002) Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

Los Angeles, Calif.—The new exhibit “Of Myth and Memory: Paiute and Shoshone Baskets of Owens Valley, California” includes 72 baskets that serve as a lens for focusing on the dramatic social, economic, and ecological changes in this part of the Great Basin since the mid-1800s. The Paiute and Shoshone Indians populated the rugged Owens Valley for thousands of years, taking advantage of the rich resources and practicing a semi-nomadic lifestyle which is preserved in the baskets they produced. (213) 763-3515 (Through April 14, 2002)

Canadian Museum of Civilization Hull, Quebec, Canada—“Kichi Sibi: Tracing Our Region’s Ancient History” explores the history of the Ottawa River Valley through numerous artifacts recovered from the region that date from 10,000 to several hundred years ago. The artifacts provide evidence that aboriginal people lived along the Kichi Sibi (“Great River” in Algonquian) for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans.

(819) 776-7000 (Through May 26, 2002)

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.—“Distinguished Casts: Curating Lost Monuments at the Peabody Museum” features some of the most important and valuable Mesoamerican casts from the museum's unique collection. Dating from the 19th century, the collection is among the world's largest and preserves a wealth of hieroglyphic and iconographic information now lost forever on the original Aztec and Maya monuments and sculptures from sites ranging from Honduras to Mexico City.

(617) 495-2269 (New long-term exhibit)

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Events El Museo del Barrio

New York, N.Y.—The new exhibit “Taíno: Ancient Voyagers of the Caribbean” presents some 125 rare Taíno works from major institutions, private collections, and the museum's holdings. The Taíno were the dominant culture in the Caribbean region after about A.D. 1200, and were the first people Columbus encountered in the New World. The exhibit includes the extraordinary Deminán Caracaracol effigy vessel, a masterpiece of Taíno art on loan for a year from the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution.

(212) 831-7272 (New permanent exhibit)

Dickson Mounds Museum Lewistown, Ill.—The new exhibit “Images for Eternity: West Mexican Tomb Figures” features more than 60 extraordinary sculpted ceramic figures created by a West Mexican culture dating from 200 B.C. to A.D. 300. The pieces represent animals, musicians, warriors, ball players, and ceremonial scenes that reveal the culture of these mysterious people. The collection is on loan from the Hudson Museum of the University of Maine.

(309) 547-3721 (January 13–March 31, 2002)

■ CONFERENCES, LECTURES & FESTIVALS Society for Historical Archaeology's Annual Conference

January 8–12, 2002, Adam's Mark Hotel, Mobile, Ala. This year's theme is “Colonial Origins,” in recognition of the 300th anniversary of Mobile's founding by French colonists. For information contact Bonnie Gums at the University of South Alabama: bgums@jaguar1.usouthal.edu or call (251) 460-6562.

Eighth Biennial Southwest Symposium 2002

January 10–12, 2002. Hosted by the University of Arizona and held at the Rich Theatre, Tucson Convention Center, Ariz.

A Friday evening reception will be held at the Arizona State Museum, followed by four half-day sessions on the 11th and 12th.

Sunday field trips will be led to sites in the Tucson area. Contact Barbara Mills at bmills@u.arizona.edu or (520) 621-2585.

12th Annual World Championship Hoop Dance Contest

February 2–3, 2002, Heard Museum, Phoenix, Ariz. The world's top hoop dancers showcase their skills in a brilliant presentation 6

of the intertribal hoop dance as they compete for the prestigious World Champion Hoop Dancer title. (602) 252-8848 The Past as Present: Archaeology and Descendant Communities in Northern New Mexico

Lecture Series continuing through spring 2002 at Santa Fe and Albuquerque, N.M. locations, sponsored by The Archaeological Conservancy and free to Conservancy members. On February 22, 7 P.M. at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, Nan Rothschild and Ann Whitney Olin of Barnard College and Columbia University will present “San José de Las Huertas: A Late 18th-Century Buffer Community.”

(505) 266-1540 Kennewick Man and the Peopling of the Americas Symposium

February 22, 2002, 7–10 P.M., Marin County Civic Center, Exhibit Hall Theatre, San Rafael, Calif. Held in association with the 18th Annual Marin Indian Art Show, the symposium features speakers Bradley Lepper, Ohio Historical Society archaeologist, Rob Bonnichsen, first American specialist and lead plaintiff in the Kennewick Man lawsuit, and Alan Schneider, the lead attorney in the law suit. The speakers will discuss the case from a scientific perspective and review the latest technological advances in the study of the first Americans.

Contact David Bobb at (877) 587-2455 or trails@mind.net for more information.

Eighth Annual Southwest Indian Art Fair

February 23–24 2002, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz. More than 100 of the region's finest American Indian artists sell their works. The weekend includes storytelling, traditional music, dances, artists' demonstrations, native fashions and cuisine. (520) 621-6302 winter • 2001-02

Hopewell Earthwork Discovered

in the

NEWS

The earthwork was hidden in a thoroughly researched site.

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

A

n earthwork was discovered last July at the Hopewell Mound Group, near Chillicothe, Ohio. The earthwork, which is a perfect circle with a diameter of 90 feet, was found by two students from Ohio State University, which was conducting a field school at the park.

“This is one of the more studied Hopewell sites in the world, and this was never detected,” said Jarrod Burks, an archaeology technician who works for Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. “The circle is a very shallow ditch.” The site was first mapped in the early 1800s, and has been mapped several times since. He said the circle was never seen because the ditch had been filled with dirt.

The Hopewell culture is well known for constructing large earthworks, many of which are in geometric forms such as circles, squares, and octagons. The Hopewell Mound Group is the type-site of the Hopewell culture and consists of a large D-shaped earthwork connected to a square. About 40 burial mounds have been identified within the earthworks, which are famous for the elaborate goods discovered in the mounds. These goods were collected from as far away as the Gulf of Mexico and the Rocky Mountains. The Conservancy acquired most of the site, more than 150 acres, in 1980, when it was threatened by residential development. It was transferred to the National Park Service in 1998.

Though the site’s numerous american archaeology

New Earthwork

Possible New Mound

1,650 feet This map is based on several historic maps of the Hopewell Mound Group. The black dots and oblongs are mounds. The large circle and the D-shaped figure represent embankments that are only partially visible.

the known mounds with a fluxgate gradiometer, a remote sensing device that identifies fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic field. Burks said there might be a structure within the circle, such as the remains of a building. This area will be tested at some point in the future.

The researchers may have also found another mound while conducting the survey. It is only about two feet high, and rather than a mound it may be a pile of dirt that was excavated from a The earthwork as seen by archaeologists analyzing the data large nearby mound apfrom the fluxgate gradiometer. proximately 80 years ago. the National Park Service, began The researchers need to examine it conducting random surveys of a further before they can identify it. small portion of the areas between —Michael Bawaya

mounds have been examined, very little research has been done in the areas between the mounds, Burks said. Consequently, researchers from Ohio State, working in concert with

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in the

NEWS

Study Indicates Multiple Migrations Peopled the Americas

Genetic researchers are seeking the origins and arrival dates of the first Americans.

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ANN ARBOR NEWS

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study released by the National Academy of Sciences offers additional evidence that the first Americans were descendants of the prehistoric Jomon people, who migrated from Japan to mainland Asia and eventually to the New World at the end of the last Ice Age around 15,000 years ago. The Jomon have craniofacial characteristics that are more closely related to those of Europeans than to mainland Asians.

The 1996 discovery of Kennewick Man, the 9,300-year-old skeleton with what have been described as Caucasoid features, inspired University of Michigan’s physical anthropologist C. Loring Brace and others to examine the possibility of several migrations of Paleo-peoples to the New World, including one that may have originated in Europe.

Having compared 21 skull and facial characteristics from more than 10,000 ancient and modern populations in the New and Old Worlds, the study supports the notion of two or more migrations, which would account for the greater genetic diversity seen in Paleo-Indian peoples at a much earlier date than was previously thought. Genetic studies are reaching similar conclusions.

“Both the mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome data are beginning to show that at least two expansions of ancestral populations genetically contributed to ancestral Amerindian populations, and these

C. Loring Brace poses with the Williamson skull, which was found near Austin, Texas, in 1983.

This 9,500-year-old skull has craniofacial features similar to the Jomon, such as the angle of the lower jaw bone.

may have arisen from different parts of northern Asia,” explained University of Pennsylvania molecular anthropologist Theodore Schurr.

According to Schurr, the genetic data of American populations suggests that the first wave of migration to the Western Hemisphere may have occurred as early as 22,000 to 30,000 years ago, before the last Ice Age. Genetically distinct peoples that gave rise to the Eskimo-Aleuts and Athapaskan Indians later migrated to the New World from mainland Asia beginning about 8,000 years ago.

“I do not have strong feelings

about the date of earliest entry, and if someone can show an earlier date it would not bother me,” said Brace, who has been curator of biological anthropology at the University of Michigan’s Museum of Anthropology for the last 35 years.

Researchers are working to gather more information, including both craniofacial measurements and mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome data from Native American and Siberian populations, to obtain a clearer picture of the processes that gave rise to the patterns of biological variation seen in these groups. —Tamara Stewart winter • 2001-02

Hunley Excavation Resumes Findings could help determine why it sank.

in the

NEWS

FRIENDS OF THE HUNLEY

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fter a four-month hiatus, the excavation on the H. L. Hunley resumed last October. The Hunley is the first submarine to sink an enemy ship in battle. Shortly after having made naval history, the Hunley mysteriously sank.

The remains of eight men have been found, and archaeologists have concluded that there were no other crew members. The remains will be analyzed with the hope of identifying the men through facial reconstruction and DNA analysis.

While excavating the stern area, the archaeologists were surprised to discover a flywheel, which was located behind the gears of the sub’s hand-crank and connected to the propeller. The flywheel was apparently designed to be a brake for the propeller.

“This complex system graphically demonstrates the advanced technology of the Hunley and dispels any notion that this was a prim-

Senior conservator Paul Mardikian (in the submarine), senior archaeologist Maria Jacobsen, and conservator Philippe de Vivies view a digital picture of the Hunley’s interior.

itive submarine fashioned from a boiler,” said Robert Neyland, the Hunley project director.

Archaeologists have also located the aft bulkhead, which was open. This discovery supports historical recollections that the flood

compartments were not sealed off from the crew compartment. This is puzzling, given the sophistication of the Hunley’s engineering. These open flood compartments might have played a role in the Hunley’s sinking. —Michael Bawaya

Computer Simulation Program Explains Mass Migrations New model provides an analysis of human movement.

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new computer simulation model may help archaeologists understand the reasons behind prehistoric mass human migrations. The model, developed by physicist David Young of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, provides an analysis of the causes of a given human migration.

The model allows its user to place a group in an area and then to design a set of probabilities according to which that group will move, reproduce, and die. Some of the programmable causes of movement are overcrowding,

american archaeology

whether a group survives by hunting and gathering or by agriculture, and whether an expanding group moves into the territory of another group that is more or less powerful.

Young and anthropologist Robert Bettinger of the University of California, Davis, have used the model to analyze the migration of prehistoric Numic-speaking peoples from southeastern California through Nevada to Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming, and the resulting extinction of Prenumic peoples. Their results confirm current ideas about the

causes of this migration, which state that Numic peoples were able to maintain higher population density by using a wider variety of food sources, and as a result, were able to take over the territories of Prenumic peoples. Young says that his quantitative analysis “adds credibility to the existing theory.”

Although Young suspects that his model will have problems accounting for human intelligence and accidents of history, he believes that there’s still a lot more to be learned from computer simulation. —Martha Mulvany

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in the

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Climate Change Creates Cultural Change Geologists find evidence in New Mexico caves.

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VICTOR POLYAK

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wo geologists at the University of New Mexico have found evidence in stalagmites to support the theory that prehistoric cultural shifts in the southwestern United States resulted from climatic change. Victor Polyak, a senior research scientist, and Yemane Asmerom, an associate professor of geochemistry, collected stalagmites from two caves in New Mexico with the hope that this would be a new way of learning more about patterns of climate change in the Southwest.

Stalagmites contain bands of the mineral calcite that are formed when water drips from a cave ceiling. These bands, which consist of alternating dark and light layers, reflect seasonal growth. Their study documents the most complete record of annual bands in stalagmites published thus far.

The thickness in band width can be related to moisture, with thinner bands reflecting drier conditions. When the amount of moisture is significantly reduced, the stalagmites quit growing or they precipitate another mineral called aragonite, which is chemically identical to calcite but has a different crystal form. By examining the bands under a microscope, Polyak and Asmerom were able to determine relative shifts in the amount of moisture in the region dating back to 2000 B.C. Examination of the bands has the potential to be equally, if not more informative, than tree-ring analysis, since the stalagmite record covers greater amounts of time.

The period of time derived from counting a series of calcite bands can then be tested for accuracy by mass spectrometric uranium-series dating, which measures the decay of the element uranium as it breaks down into the element thorium-230.

Polyak, who has an interest in archaeology, said, “We noticed right away that at 700 to 800 years ago, when the stalagmites quit growing, this coincided with an important time of population abandonments and redistributions in the Southwest. So we started comparing our records with other culture and climatic records.”

The stalagmite record shows that early corn agriculture seems to have evolved in the Southwest during the onset of a wet period around 3,400 years ago, near the beginning of the Late Archaic period. Other changes that

These stalagmites are found on the floor of Carlsbad Caverns in southern New Mexico. It’s believed that they formed sometime between 800 and 3,000 years ago during moist conditions.

took place during times of increased moisture include the general population expansion in the Southwest during the Pueblo I period, approximately A.D. 750–900, when people moved from pithouses to above-ground homes.

Major cultural shifts that occurred during relatively drier periods seem to be correlated with the introduction of ceramics and cotton agriculture around 1,700 years ago, the abandonment of higher-elevation dwellings and the movement to lower-elevation ones around rivers during the Pueblo IV period, about 700 years ago.

“The big issue,” Asmerom said, “is what caused changes in cultures and in people’s use of the physical environment. I would say that these findings provide very strong support for the argument that climate had a major effect. But I guess that whether you want to say that climate change was sufficient or the limit of people’s adaptation capacity led to cultural changes depends on your research perspective.” —Martha Mulvany winter • 2001-02

in the Utah Rock Art Vandalized Pigment of uncommon pictograph is damaged.

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he Blue Buffalo, an unusual rock art panel in southeast Utah near Moab, was recently vandalized.

The vandal tried to rub out the pictograph. It’s believed that this event happened sometime between late August and early September. The vandalism was reported to officials of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on September 10.

“It’s totally unknown to us who might have done it,” said Bruce Louthan, a BLM archaeologist. The BLM is offering a $5,000 reward for information that leads to the apprehension of the vandal. “So far, we’ve not received any calls or leads,” Louthan said.

A member of the Ute tribe is believed to have created the Blue Buffalo sometime between 1800 and 1880. Most of the area’s rock art consists of petroglyphs, which are etched, rather than pictographs,

The Blue Buffalo before being vandalized...

and after.

which are painted. The work’s color is also unusual; the pigments generally found in this area, which are

NEWS

derived from ground up rocks and plants, are red, brown, and white.

Louthan said the BLM hopes to hire a conservator to repair the panel. The conservator would attempt to remove the smears, but would not repaint the image. But there are few conservators experienced in restoring rock art and they come at a steep price. He estimated the cost of bringing in such an expert to repair the damage at roughly $10,000. As for obtaining the money, Louthan said, “That’s certainly up in the air right now.” —Michael Bawaya

Prehistoric Artifacts Stolen Twenty-one artifacts are taken from a University of Texas research facility.

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ast July, 21 prehistoric Native American pottery vessels, stone spear points, and replicas of painted pebbles were stolen from the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory (TARL) at the University of Texas at Austin. The great majority of the pottery vessels are from prehistoric Caddo Indian sites in northeast Texas.

The remaining pottery is from the Southwest, including a few items from the Mesa Verde region.

It’s not known whether one or more people were involved in the theft or how the thieves entered the building. “There was no sign of forced entry into the building itself, although locks were cut off of the pottery vessel collection area and off cabinets,” said Darrell Creel, the director of TARL. The University of Texas police, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the FBI are investigating the case. Creel said

american archaeology

This three-legged bottle is one of the stolen pottery vessels. The top of each leg has markings that resemble a face.

the FBI is involved because the Caddo are a federally recognized tribe and a sovereign nation.

The Texas Archeological Research Laboratory is offering a cash reward of $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever stole these objects. Staff members and friends of TARL donated the money. “If we can raise more money, we’ll up the ante,” said Creel.

He added that the security at TARL has been “significantly upgraded” since the break-in with the installation of new alarms and sensors. —Michael Bawaya 11

Twelve Thousand Years Under The Sea

A remarkable underwater excavation on Florida’s continental shelf is discovering Paleo-Indian artifacts.

Archaeologist Michael Faught examines a biface fragment found on the seabed at the J & J Hunt site. This artifact, like all others found by Faught and his crew, will be washed with fresh water to remove salts before undergoing analysis in the laboratory.

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winter • 2001-02

KC SMITH

By KC Smith

I t took about 20 seconds to descend 12,000 years into Florida’s past.

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KC SMITH

rom the time that I leapt off the stern of the boat to the time that I landed on soft sediments 12 feet below the water’s surface, I barely had a chance to clear my ears, fuss with my buoyancy compensator, adjust to the 10-foot visibility, and become focused on the archaeological remains that I was about to explore.

Kneeling on the seabed to get my bearings, I contemplated the zone of history that I had entered. Located three-and-one-half miles offshore in Apalachee Bay—a northeastern crook in the Gulf of Mexico about 20 miles south of Tallahassee—the J & J Hunt site has yielded a provocative array of stone artifacts dating from 8,000 to 12,000 years ago. Ranging from the Late Paleo-Indian to Middle Archaic periods, these items were produced by

some of Florida’s earliest known inhabitants. I’d seen the evidence laid out for inspection and photography on the boat before the dive. It was a stunning sample of chipped stone objects and elegant tools that neatly match identifiable and datable examples from terrestrial sites.

Underwater archaeologist Michael Faught, a gangly scholar with a ponytail and a non-stop smile, has studied the J & J Hunt site intermittently since 1989. It figured prominently in his Ph.D. dissertation research, and, for the past four summers, it has been a focal point of Florida State University’s underwater archaeology field school, sponsored by the FSU Program in Underwater Archaeology (PUA).

Faught was my underwater guide when I visited the site. We landed on the seabed next to a huge cinder-block structure with ropes extending outward and vanishing into the distance in each of the cardinal directions. Impervious to the marine environment, this structure serves as the site’s central point from which all measurements are gauged. In the low-visibility setting, the ropes orient divers to areas being mapped or excavated. Faught and I headed out from the structure along the westerly baseline, over a flat and silty terrain. I was amazed by the pro-

Kimberly Kasper maps portions of the J & J Hunt site. Students map the locations of rocks and, if test pits are dug, stratigraphic information.

Kasper draws on Mylar drafting film clipped to boards with compasses for direction. Inexpensive mechanical pencils are the drawing tools of choice. Maps are drawn in three-foot squares, and then later compiled into a master map.

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RAY STANYARD

Archaeologist Cheryl Ward finds a 12,000-year-old Suwannee projectile point (above). This is

fusion of colors—deep red, purple, blue, yellow, orange, and white—displayed by soft corals, sponges, starfish, mollusks, and other marine life. Adding to the profile were intermittent outcrops of limestone and chert, which Faught jokingly calls “sticky-up rocks.” These geological features once were dry land, and artifacts have often been found near them. As we glided across this seascape, I noticed that the bottom was littered with prehistoric cultural and natural remains. I saw small stone chips called debitage, the refuse of tool making, and pieces of flint that had been fashioned into scrapers and small knives. I picked up a long black object and looked quizzically at my guide, who scribbled “dugong rib” on his plastic slate (one of the means by which divers communicate) to identify a bone from a manatee-like mammal that formerly plied these waters. Further on, Faught found an unfinished stone tool the size of his palm. The evidence was everywhere, sitting right on the seabed.

Before our dive, Faught mentioned that most recovered artifacts have been found in marine sediments, on or within centimeters of the seabed—an unusual situation 14

that he is trying to figure out. “This site,” he said, “is more like a plow zone than a protected setting where everything has been buried or a place where everything has eroded away.” Although core samples in deeper sediments have revealed marine, brackish, freshwater, and terrestrial layers, the overburden on most of the site consists of marine deposits that are less than three feet deep.

If the stratigraphy at J & J Hunt is perplexing and archaeologically atypical, it is not uncharacteristic of similar sites offshore. The day after my visit, Faught took a group of colleagues to a newly discovered deposit less than two miles away. One of the visitors plucked a 12,000-year-old, Clovis-like projectile point right off the surface—a find that would be surprising on dry land.

Not only is it is the oldest artifact yet found in the bay, but it also reflects the vast potential of Faught’s larger research effort, the PaleoAucilla Prehistory Project (PAPP), designed to search for and examine prehistoric archaeological sites on Florida’s continental shelf.

To date, PAPP has identified 35 locations with artifactual material from three to nine miles offshore. Finding winter • 2001-02

ROGER C. SMITH

one of the oldest artifacts found on the continental shelf in North America.

Two divers hook up a dredge to a floating platform where sediment deposits from the seabed are screened for artifacts by a team of students. In the background is the RV Bellows, the 72-foot boat that houses the crew and its equipment.

RAY STANYARD

these deposits hasn’t merely been a matter of chance. For 15 years, Faught has been building and testing a model based on the study of contemporaneous terrestrial remains. The preeminent Paleo deposits in Florida have been found in and around rivers, sinkholes, and springs near the presentday coast, especially the Aucilla River system. Faught believes that the geological and natural characteristics of early human sites on land will be similar offshore. PAPP research has focused on identifying and examining analogous features in the Gulf of Mexico—in particular, the courses of now-submerged river channels such as the Aucilla.

ABOUT 18,000 YEARS AGO, MUCH OF THE Earth’s water was trapped in ice sheets, which caused sea levels to be lower and the world’s continental shelves to be exposed. Florida’s western coastline extended as much as 80 miles beyond the beaches that sunbathers now enjoy.

Over time, global climatic changes caused the ice sheets to melt. As the runoff drained into oceans, sea levels rose.

This process occurred rapidly for the first 6,000 years; later, it occurred in waves of flooding interspersed with american archaeology

Excavating underwater requires an incredible amount of scuba gear, surface supplied breathing hoses, compressors, dredge engines and hoses, and several backup systems in case of mechanical failures.

The deck of the Bellows is crowded, but organized, during the day when operations are underway. Come night, it is cleared in case of a storm or the need to assist a boat in distress.

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Students Camila Tobon (left) and Norma Huerta-Garcia check their scuba equipment in preparation for their next dive. The two make sure they RAY STANYARD

have everything they need, such as writing slates, mapping Mylar, and tape measures.

periods of stability, until today’s sea levels were reached about 5,000 years ago.

Faught’s research is trying to determine how the inundation process took place in the northeastern gulf and how it affected the migration of people into Florida and their subsequent settlement patterns. Based on archaeological and paleontological evidence, this much is known: people arrived on the peninsula at least 12,000 years ago.

The environment was drier and savannah-like, and an abundance of large and small mammals, including mammoths, mastodons, saber-tooth cats, sloths, horses, and camels roamed the landscape, ever on the lookout for sources of water. Hunter-gatherers also were drawn to freshwater locations in search of food and useful resources, especially flint. Their tool assemblage included Clovis-like projectile points, a hallmark of Paleo-Indian populations. They foraged in small family bands that periodically assembled for social and ceremonial reasons. It is unclear whether they made forays to the coast to exploit marine resources, although this is probable. Faught suspects that the J & J Hunt site may have once been 50 miles from the shore.

By the time of the Archaic residents, whom Faught believes were unrelated to Paleo-Indian populations, the sea level was higher, the environment was wetter, and the big game was gone. Consequently, people probably lived close to the coast, relying heavily on the sea for suste16

Huerta-Garcia enters the water, having gotten the OK from the dive supervisor and the standby diver. They determined that her equipment was working, and that there was no threat from storms, sharks, or jellyfish.

nance. One of the sites in the bay may include a Middle Archaic shell midden, but this has yet to be confirmed.

I asked Faught whether people predating the Clovis tradition might have occupied Florida. He suspects that evidence of earlier inhabitants will be found on the continental shelf around now-drowned natural features that provided useful resources in the past. In addition, he proposes that these people may have arrived from Central or South America. This thinking challenges the common belief that Florida’s first residents derived from the migrants who settled the continent after crossing from Siberia to Alaska on the Bering Land Bridge.

“Prehistoric New World colonization is an unresolved issue,” Faught said. “So much land now covered by water was exposed, which bears on our understanding of when and where people entered Florida and where they resided after they got here. Data from offshore sites may determine whether early people migrated along coasts or whether they came to the coasts after settling the interior of the continent.” winter • 2001-02

PAPP, according to Faught, is doing groundbreaking archaeological research. Although submerged prehistoric sites have been studied elsewhere in the world, they generally are located in bays, inlets, and fresh inland waters, and they deal with more recent populations. PAPP is in the vanguard not only in its focus on understanding the culture, history, settlement patterns, and environmental adaptations of inhabitants of the continental shelf, but also in its efforts to develop standard techniques for conducting research on offshore prehistoric sites.

Nonetheless, Faught admitted that PAPP is at a primordial stage. “We’re still trying to figure out the geomorphology and sediment patterns in the bay, the artifact distributions, and how these things are related,” he said. “It’s too early to talk about what people were doing, although eventually we want to know about their daily lives.”

THOUGH THE RESEARCH OBJECTIVES are unusual, the daily procedures at J & J Hunt reminded me of other underwater archaeology projects that I’ve worked on. Operations were well underway by 9:30 A.M., when the powerboat ferrying me from shore drew alongside the RV Bellows, a 72-foot research vessel on loan from the Florida Institute of Oceanography. Anchored securely over the site, the Bellows provided a working platform as well as a home for about 20 staff members, students, and boat crew during a two-week investigation. As I hoisted my gear on board, the back deck bore evidence of wellplanned activity. A small diesel compressor grumbled

noisily as it pumped air through 100-foot-long hoses to dive teams working on the bottom. Neat piles of scuba gear filled all spaces not taken by tools and equipment.

Students were completing dive logs and transcribing notes from slates and Mylar sheets on which they had recorded features within units they had mapped or excavated underwater. A safety diver sat on the stern, intently monitoring the exhaust bubbles of colleagues on the seabed.

Faught took me into the cabin to show me pictures of a different sort. A cramped, 10-by-20-foot area provided office and drafting space as well as storage for artifacts, equipment, and food. Faught clicked through a series of maps and submarine images on his computer to show how data from various sources are being used to reconstruct the cultural and natural landscape beneath the bay.

Since many PAPP sites are located miles offshore, I was curious about how they had been pinpointed. A few sites have been found through tips provided by fishers and divers. On days when the water is clear, divers are towed behind a powerboat to inspect the seabed for limestone and chert outcrops. However, the most revealing information has been supplied by remote sensing equipment, including a fathometer, sidescan sonar, and subbottom profiler, all of which use sonar waves. The fathometer measures the depth of the water. The sidescan sonar and subbottom profiler provide images of features on and under the seabed. They have helped to identify portions of the former margins and drainage system of the Aucilla River. When Faught displayed a few cryptic, wavy-lined pictures produced by the profiler, even my untrained eye could discern a clear pattern of the river’s course from the shore onto the submerged continental shelf. About 200

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY PUA

Learning Underwater Archaeology Florida State University’s Program in Underwater Archaeology (PUA) offers undergraduate courses and master’s and doctoral degrees. Students receive a well-rounded view of the discipline through course work that emphasizes archaeology and traditional topics and by participating in archaeologist Michael Faught’s summer field school.

Based at FSU’s marine laboratory on the coast, the field school includes one week of orientation and lectures, four weeks of field research, and one week of report production and equipment cleanup.

Students rotate between the PaleoAucilla Prehistory Project and another PUA research effort, the Dog and St. George Islands Shipwreck Survey, conducted in Apalachicola Bay, about 60 miles southwest of Tallahassee.

Students experience prehistoric and historical archaeology on submerged sites. They are also exposed to survey, excavation, and remote sensing techniques; artifact identification and analysis; report writing; and equipment maintenance. Because they spend several weeks aboard the RV Bellows or FSU’s 50-foot boat, RV Seminole, participants also discover the challenge of living and working in close quarters, which underwater Michael Faught projects often require. Some students return to subsequent field schools as paid staff or to pursue research for their master’s degree. For more information, see the PUA Web site at www.anthro.fsu.edu/uw/uw.html. —KC Smith american archaeology

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Faught shows writer KC Smith a computer-generated map of the offshore research area. This map incorporates all data from the remote sensing devices used on the boat, surveys and test excavations done by the divers, and the locations where artifacts have been found. This map, used in combination with Global Positioning System technology, is helping Faught’s crew find archaeological sites, as well as to predict where others

feet wide, J & J Hunt is located on a rocky rise along the margins of the drowned river channel.

While we were mulling over these images, a diver rushed into the cabin seeking fresh water to relieve the burning and remove any stinging cells from jellyfish tentacles that brushed his face on the seabed. Unfortunately, the sink was filled with fish defrosting for lunch, so he had to look elsewhere. Operations manager Joe Latvis called all of the divers out of the water and kept them on board for 30 minutes while a dense migration of the jellyfish swept through the area, a not-uncommon occurrence.

Latvis, a low-key, self-effacing man with 20 years of experience on Florida’s submerged prehistoric sites, is the perfect foil for the high-energy Faught. Daily logistics and diving protocol are his primary concerns, and he oversees these tasks with aplomb. “The bywords for daily success on this project are safety, flexibility, make do, and, occasionally, punt,” Latvis observed. “We try to minimize delays and lost diving time by having alternative tasks and redundant equipment. Our motto about gear is ‘two is one and one is none’.”

Student Michael Arbuthnot shows Smith a compilation of the maps that were drawn by divers on the seabed. These maps are then re-drawn at reduced scale and compiled into the master map. Almost 1,500 square feet of the site have been mapped by these methods.

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BUT EVEN THE BEST-LAID PROJECT PLANS are subject to unexpected events and the vagaries of nature. When I arrived at the Bellows, I realized that a 50gallon drum that I’d been asked to deliver—tied securely in the transom of the powerboat when we left port—had made a great escape during our journey. Although the captain retraced most of our route, the container was long winter • 2001-02

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY PUA

might be found.

This Archaic stemmed point is about 8,000 years old.

The point was partially embedded in sediments that pro-

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tected its upper half from brackish water that stained the unprotected portion.

gone, probably bobbing its way to Honduras. After lunch, as students were gearing up to continue mapping and open a new excavation unit, Latvis called a halt to their plans because a dark, triangular fin was sighted crisscrossing the surface 400 feet off the stern. A recent rash of shark encounters in Florida prompted divers to wait a good 20 minutes after the fin vanished before entering the water. Shortly after descending, two students returned to the surface to report that sea grass was growing in the area slated for excavation. Under the terms of one of PAPP’s permits to work in the bay, the grass could not be disturbed, so project staff had to select another place to test.

Diving safety, inclement weather, 12-hour days, a taxing work environment, and an inordinate reliance on equipment are routine concerns on an underwater archaeological project, especially one that is staged offshore for an extended period of time. The logistics are considerable and costly; Faught reckons that his six-week field school, which includes an equally intensive component focused on historic sites around nearby barrier islands, costs about $10,000 a week. Support for this multifaceted summer program is provided by the field school tuition, Florida State University, in-kind loans of equipment, and grants. PAPP has received substantial funding through special category grants from the state’s Division of Historical Resources.

Of the sites that PAPP has identified, J & J Hunt has received the most intensive scrutiny. After 4 field seasons, about 1,200 of an estimated 30,000 square feet have been mapped, and nearly 40 test excavations have been dug.

More than 2,000 chipped stone artifacts have been recovered, of which about five percent are tools, including objects that are diagnostic of culture and chronology. Fragmented pieces of a mastodon cranium and teeth were found in one excavation unit in 1999. american archaeology

During my submarine excursion with Faught, I saw dive teams map and excavate, using techniques that are fairly standard in underwater research.

Watching them move slowly and quietly in their efforts, I was reminded that working underwater has challenges and benefits.

Unlike terrestrial projects, where an entire site can be seen and stakes can be set in the ground to mark a research area, Faught’s divers rely on the baselines, compasses, and measuring tapes to orient and position portable, three-footsquare, PVC grids that define mapping and excavation units. Spared the shoveling and troweling that archaeologists often do, the two-person mapping team gently handfanned sediments, which rise to expose artifacts and outcrops in a unit. After drawing these features on a Mylar sheet—later to be transferred to the master site plan—and collecting diagnostic artifacts, they moved the grid over three feet and began anew.

While mapping has helped to define the limits of artifact distribution, test excavations in all four quadrants of the site have yielded details about the geomorphology and sediment sequences. As Faught and I swam to an area where a test pit was in progress, we could hear the muffled sucking of the induction dredge—essentially, an underwater vacuum—being used to remove the overburden within a three-foot-square grid. As new strata were encountered, the divers took sediment samples and made profile drawings and videotaped it. The dredged overburden was sent through a hose to a screen on a platform floating nearby, where another team of students inspected the debris.

Faught plans to work one more season at J & J Hunt, then move to the site that yielded the Clovis-like point, which he believes will be even more fruitful. He also intends to search for evidence of pre-Clovis people farther from shore, in water as deep as 100 feet. He mused that it will take about 50 years of study to really grasp the prehistoric geology and cultural history of Florida’s continental shelf. He’s confident explanations will come, many of which will be provided by the generation of scientists he now is training. “For a long time, there were just a few of us doing this research. I’m grateful that I now have students who are working on the sediments, landscape, and survey operations,” he said optimistically. “Little by little, we’ll figure this out.”

KC SMITH is a freelance writer and the Florida heritage education coordinator at the Museum of Florida History in Tallahassee.

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CHARLES SWEDLUND

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winter • 2001-02

Archaeologists in Wonderland The dark world of Mammoth Cave, with some 350 miles of passages and 4,000 years of history, is full of surprises.

An archaeological inventory is revealing its amazing past.

By Michael Sims american archaeology

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CHARLES SWEDLUND

George Crothers (right) informs Earthwatch volunteers of the activities they will perform, such as discovering, documenting, and mapping artifacts.

Crothers has worked with roughly 200 Earthwatch volunteers since the beginning of the project.

W

hen Alice fell down the rabbit hole and into Wonderland, she entered a topsyturvy world that upset her most basic assumptions about life. People, animals— even time and space—refused to play by the rules. In reality, the closest we can get to author Lewis Carroll’s wildly imaginative Wonderland might be another underground world—caves.

Every cave explorer, and certainly every cave archaeologist, will assure you that caves have their own Wonderland rules. Deep underground it is always nighttime; the very sky overhead is made of earth; time moves slowly and the past remains preserved. These conditions provide archaeologists with both opportunities and burdens. Prime examples of both are demonstrated by the Cultural Resources Inventory of Mammoth Cave that is nearing completion at Mammoth Cave National Park in southern Kentucky.

Every excavation has its demands, but cave archaeologists must plan for unique conditions. Working in a cave is like working at night—but even more complicated. A headlamp is essential, but if angled wrong, it can blind other workers. Warm clothes are necessary even in midsummer because there is no solar radiation in the cave.

Archaeologist George Crothers, acting director of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Kentucky, has been working under these conditions for most of his career. Crothers, along with two other principal co-investigators, is directing the inventory. In his early 40s, slender, not as pale as a cave archaeologist

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ought to be, Crothers has been on this project since its inception in 1992.

“In a sense,” he explains, “this project is federally mandated, because the National Park Service is responsible for protecting their resources—including cultural resources. And they can’t protect them if they don’t know what they have.”

In his work on shell mounds in this same region, Crothers has performed excavations on private property, working with the permission of landowners and within strictures that vary from state to state. He points out one of the distinctions of working in a national park: “If this was a private cave, and had this archaeological material in it, the landowner may or may not let me work in it, and may or may not protect the resources. Here the site is preserved.”

With more than 350 miles of passages mapped, the Mammoth Cave system is the largest known in the world.

(A gypsum cave in the Ukraine comes in a distant second at 150-odd miles.) Although natives had been visiting the caves for thousands of years, white settlers of European ancestry discovered what we now call Mammoth Cave in the late 18th century. By the mid-19th century, thanks to savvy promoters, the cave became a tourist attraction. It became a national park in 1941. To convert almost 53,000 acres into parkland required the relocation of 600 families in 30 communities. Within its boundaries, on the surface and underground, the park encompasses roughly a thousand sites of archaeological interest.

Because of Mammoth Cave’s long history as first a winter • 2001-02

CHARLES SWEDLUND

commercial enterprise and then a national park, its most heavily toured areas are also those that contain the largest concentration of prehistoric and historic artifacts. Situated an hour and a half south of Louisville, Mammoth Cave National Park receives more than two million visitors every year, at least a quarter of whom tour the cave. As Robert Ward, the park’s cultural resource specialist, points out, “Every one of those visitors walks within arm’s reach of 4,000-year-old artifacts.” A cordial Southerner, Ward is one of Crothers’s co-investigators on the project. Besides serving as the park’s chief interpreter of cultural issues, he is liaison between the National Park Service and the conservation organization Earthwatch Institute, which supplies volunteers to assist the survey. Because of the variations in park funding, one of Ward’s jobs is to ensure that the inventory continues to exist.

Ward helped to initiate the inventory. In 1992, he and other Mammoth Cave officials met with Patty Jo Watson, the dean of U.S. cave archaeology and the Washington University mentor of Crothers, to seek advice about the project.

“Our intent here was to do a comprehensive inventory as non-invasively as possible,” Ward says. “Really, the only invasiveness is they’re working off the trail. This is the project’s novelty, because most archaeological surveys are in some way destructive—for example, digging and removing of layers.”

Mapping an Alien World Crothers has been conducting the survey for eight years, and so far he has worked with roughly 200 volunteers, all of whom are members of Earthwatch. They work under federal auspices through the National Park Service’s Volunteers in the Park program. They pay their own way and stay in a bunkhouse.

The volunteers are a diverse crew from all over the U.S. and several other countries. They range from college age to retirees. As introductions move around the table, a married couple from New Jersey announce that they will celebrate their anniversary while working in the cave. This is the sixth summer at Mammoth Cave for an Ohio policeman, who uses his vacation time to come here.

They quickly get a sense of the overall size and variety of the cave system—literally hundreds of miles of passages, dark rivers, absurdly wide caverns followed by alarmingly tight squeezes. During the volunteers’ first day at work, Crothers quickly teaches them how to efficiently perform the necessary labors. The group works in three teams with three distinct tasks: discovery, mapping, and photography.

The first team locates artifacts and describes them on inventory cards. The second employs surveying equipment to determine the precise location of artifacts by orienting them in relation to a computerized map of the cave system. The third team carefully photographs the items. american archaeology

Crothers points to a Native American climbing pole, which was once used to reach higher areas of the cave. Portions of these poles are worn due to their extensive usage.

The archaeologists and volunteers cast giant shadows on the stone walls of the cavern, which is lit by gas-powered lanterns. It is so chilly (the cave-standard 55 or so degrees Fahrenheit) that at times their breath is visible. The lanterns make the cavern smell like a campground, but what it really looks like is a science-fiction movie set. The stone walls rise upward into shadow, and above them, rather than sky, is more heavy stone. Their shadows distorted by helmets, dust masks, and sometimes kneepads, the workers crawl on their bellies and aim flashlights and headlamps into crevices, like astronauts exploring an alien world.

Crothers explores on his own, while constantly monitoring the work of those around him. Everything raises a question. He gently brushes grit off an exposed shelf and leans closer. “It looks polished,” he remarks. “Why so polished?”

Crothers looks around to see what might have led countless people to rub against this shelf in passing. The answer isn’t obvious. It seldom is.

With a digital video camera, Charles Swedlund docu23

Photographer Charles Swedlund steps over fallen rocks, which are called breakdown. The yellow flags sticking up from the rocks mark the spots where artifacts have been found. Upon finding an artifact, the archaeologists and volunteers identify it and draw a picture of it on cards that they then attached to the cards. The artifact locations are eventually incorporated into a map of the cave’s main trail.

ments the artifacts, the layout of the area, the methods of the inventory itself. The third co-investigator, Swedlund has been photographing the project since its inception.

Now in his mid-60s, a wryly humorous man whose voice seems softened by his bushy white beard, Swedlund describes himself as having “graduated” from teaching photography at Southern Illinois University–Carbondale.

The years of photographing underground haven’t dimmed Swedlund’s enthusiasm for the Mammoth Cave project. He even devised a track on which his still camera moves smoothly, which helps in photographing the cave’s signature-rich ceilings and walls. In the past, guides and tourists were permitted—even encouraged—to sign their names with charcoal or burn them in with the flame of a candle. Frequently, explorers included the date of their visits along with their names, and Swedlund enters every decipherable name and date into a database.

Swedlund turns off the video camera and picks up a 24

still camera to photograph in black and white a blurred signature on the cavern wall. But he can’t decipher the name. “No legibility, no immortality,” he sighs.

Miners and Mummies Using radiocarbon dating of tiny amounts of organic materials, Crothers and his colleagues estimate that people were venturing deep inside Mammoth Cave and other nearby caves as long as roughly 5,000 years ago. However, the majority of artifacts date from the Early Woodland period, approximately 2,200 to 3,000 years ago, when mining of cave minerals apparently was a sustained industry in the region. “And I don’t use the term ‘industry’ lightly,” Crothers laughs. “This was not a casual operation.”

Day after day, the miners trekked from daylight into darkness. One of the most important minerals found in the winter • 2001-02

JOHN FITZGERALD

carry with them. The flags are

CHARLES SWEDLUND

cave is gypsum. Composed of calcium sulfate and water, gypsum appears as a white crust on the walls and ceiling, and therefore on some of the breakdown (fallen rock) that litters passages. Throughout the cave system, there is considerable evidence of gypsum mining: worn and stripped cave walls, mussel shells used as scrapers, and other artifacts.

Some explorers assumed that gourd bowls found in the cave were used for transporting water, but Crothers scoffs at the idea: “That’s silly. There are sources of water already in here.

We just walked by two.” Apparently the gourds were used for transporting mined minerals.

What seems like the simplest question of all is the one that archaeologists have yet to answer: Why did the Early Woodland people engage in the labor-intensive task of mining gypsum? Nowadays it’s used in plasterboard, cement, plaster of Paris, and even as a soil conditioner; but these are relatively recent innovations. Archaeological evidence indicates a systematic and long-term industry. Was gypsum used in ornamentation? Rituals? Both are possible. And why did they visit the cave for many hundreds of years before they began mining?

The question of purpose is easier to answer regarding the mining of mirabilite, another mineral found in the drier passages of Mammoth Cave. Also known as Glauber’s salt, the mineral occurs as feathery crystal growths. Mirabilite falling in white flakes from the ceiling inspired the name Snow Room for one of the passages in Mammoth Cave. Mirabilite is highly water soluble, and it dissolves and reforms without leaving much of a trace.

Crother’s team discovered torch ties (strands of fiber that hold together bundles of reeds), indications of mirabilite mining, and human paleo-feces (desiccated fecal matter). Medicinally, mirabilite is used as a cathartic, and finding this evidence in one place suggests that the Native Americans understood the cathartic aspects of the mineral and used it on site. Archaeologists theorized that the Early Woodland people used mirabilite as a cathartic. However, no one predicted that the inventory of the cave would reveal such convincing data to support the hypothesis.

Twelve of these paleo-feces samples were subjected to hormone analysis, eleven of which were proven to have

A cross section of paleo-feces indicates the high amount of roughage in the diets of the Early Woodland people.

american archaeology

been produced by males. A male may have also produced the other sample. Given this and other evidence, Crothers hypothesizes that a group of males used this section of the cave for rites of passage, such as boys entering manhood.

Caves are perfect locations for conducting secretive acts.

While the exact nature of this ritual may never be known, the evidence suggests consumption of mirabilite for its ritual purgative effect, possibly extended stays in the cave for purposes of sensory deprivation, and the collection of gypsum in its spectacular crystalline forms as proof that one had successfully negotiated this rite of passage.

The analysis of paleo-feces is the best index of the Early Woodland diet. (It can also reveal parasites and even hormonal residues.) Many seeds survive the passage through the body and can still be identified after hundreds or even thousands of years. Examination of paleofeces reveals that the diet of the time was more diverse than scientists had imagined. Apparently trade among the Early Woodland peoples was widespread. For example, Mammoth Cave specimens reveal that gypsum miners ate sumpweed and marsh elder, which is native to the region, as well as Midwestern sunflowers and plants from the Gulf Coast.

The cave’s oldest artifacts include hammerstones, bottle gourds made from hard-shell ornamental squash, and cordage made of plant fibers. There are even woven fiber “slippers,” some of them ornamented with tassels that featured a drawstring to tighten the shoe around the foot.

Torches and torch ties are particularly common in Mammoth Cave, as a supply of some kind of light-producing material has always been the first item on a spelunker’s list. Trekking deep underground, the Early Woodland gypsum miners had to carry enough torches to light many hours, or even days, inside the cave. The torches were made of bamboo-like river cane and were bundled together with grass ties. There are so many individual torches in the cave that they are no longer recorded as artifacts; only bundles are counted.

Among the most dramatic artifacts are the stone huts used by tuberculosis sufferers. In the mid-1800s the cave caught the imagination of John Croghan, a prominent

This is the only tortoise shell found in the cave. It’s probably a prehistoric artifact, though its purpose is unknown.

This fresh water mussel shell was used by Native Americans to scrape minerals off the wall. It’s believed these shells were obtained from the nearby Green River.

25

(Above) A complete bundle of weed stalks used as a torch. This is the most intact bundle the archaeologists have found.

(Right) As the Native Americans traversed the cave, their lit torches developed long ashes that reduced their brilliancy. By striking off the ash against a cave wall, they increased the light. These torch marks often give an idea as to the number of stalks in the bundle. In many areas it appears that it became a habit to strike a particular spot each time they came to it. The number of these

Louisville physician. He thought that the cave’s cool temperature and steady humidity might cure, or at least slow the decline of, his TB patients. He lodged several patients in stone huts deep inside the cave, where they resided for months at a time. Unfortunately, Croghan’s prescription turned out to be ineffective, and all that remains standing of his plan are two stone huts and the sooty stones from his patients’ cooking fires.

Although there are aboriginal footprints preserved in mud or sand in remote areas of the cave, not even they compare to the most intriguing of all Mammoth Cave artifacts: the so-called mummies. Over the centuries, several well-preserved human bodies have been found in the cave.

The cave’s unvarying climate, perhaps combined with the presence of mineral salts, dehydrate and naturally preserve organic remains. Scientists frequently find bats and insects that have died but not decayed. Sometimes the same process occurred with human bodies. The most famous example is the preserved body of a man who was crushed by a falling boulder roughly 2,000 years ago. He was discovered in 1935 by cave guides.

Many people have heard about the Mammoth Cave 26

CHARLES SWEDLUND

marks suggests the frequency of the Native Americans’ visits.

mummies, and most are disappointed when Crothers points out that, as productive as it has been, his archaeological inventory hasn’t turned up any previously unknown human remains. With so much of the cave explored, it may be that all the mummies have been found.

Grand, Gloomy, and Peculiar The Wonderland world of Mammoth Cave upended social convention by its treatment of slaves. During the cave’s early days as a tourist attraction, the guides were usually slaves owned by the owner of the cave. In the winter • 2001-02

cave system in 1941, there were no black guides in the cave for many years.

It was Bishop who described Mammoth Cave with a phrase that is still quoted: He called it a “grand, gloomy, and peculiar place.” All of those adjectives certainly apply.

For thousands of years, visitors have been fascinated by its peculiar grandeur. “The simple truth about Mammoth Cave,” H. C. Hovey wrote in Scribner’s Monthly in 1880, “surpasses the most ingeniously woven fabrication.”

Hovey closed his article with a vision of the future.

With necessary precautions in place, he said, “let surveyors measure, geologists hammer, and archaeologists delve, till the secrets of this subterranean realm are unearthed, and instead of mysteries, conjectures, and estimates, we have definite knowledge.”

Slowly, painstakingly, the archaeologists are indeed delving to increase their knowledge of the cave. As was the case for so many others who preceded them, Mammoth Cave’s Wonderland strangeness has captured their imaginations. George Crothers shrugs and says, “The cave got to me from the first time I saw it.”

MICHAEL SIMS is the author of Darwin’s Orchestra. His next book, Adam’s Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Body, will be published

by Viking.

JOHN FITZGERALD

fields and streets of 19th-century Kentucky, these men were chattel. Yet, by virtue of their arcane knowledge of the cave’s passages, the slaves possessed a higher status while underground. They were in charge, depended upon, trusted, praised; some were even allowed to keep tips.

Stephen Bishop is a case in point. Bishop was owned

by Franklin Gorin, a successful lawyer in Glasgow, Kentucky, who acquired Mammoth Cave (and the acreage above it) in 1838. Bishop began working in the cave while in his teens, and continued to do so until his death in the late 1850s. He became so well known that his portrait appeared in books published abroad and he was credited on maps of the cave system. One of the results of Swedlund’s photographs and image database is the mapping of Bishop’s explorations in the cave system.

Some historians claim that, to buy his freedom, a slave named Nick Bransford sold some of the fish that are native to the cave system. Like many other creatures that live in the eternal dark deep inside caves, the fish has lost its pigmentation and sight. In the 19th century these creatures were little known to scientists and shockingly alien to the general public.

At the beginning of the 20th century, some descendants of Bishop, Bransford, and others were still guides.

However, after the National Park Service took over the

The cave has attracted tourists for many years. In the past, the tourists were encouraged to write their names on the cave’s ceilings and walls.

This portion of the cave, called Gothic Avenue because of its macabre formations, has a smooth ceiling that was easy to write on.

american archaeology

27

B

D

28

G

US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

A E

F

C

winter • 2001-02

H

A Curation Crisis I

Lacking the necessary resources, institutions and agencies throughout the country struggle with the problem of properly curating artifacts.

BY NANCY TRAVER

A - This box of artifacts suffered severe water and compression damage.

Mold is also apparent.

B - Water damage can be devastating to collections. In this case, leaks in the ceiling caused the deterioration and breakdown of ceiling tiles, which dropped into this open box of artifacts. When this material dried, it adhered to the artifacts and resulted in the growth of mold.

C - Due to being stored in substandard conditions, these artifact documents became a rats’ nest.

D - This box and its contents were crushed by having too much weight stacked on top of them.

E -This container and its artifacts have been damaged by insects, rodents, and, as the molted skin of a snake indicates, even a reptile.

F - Storing archaeological documents in inappropriate conditions can result in reports stained by rusted paper clips and warped and brittle paper.

G - Archaeological collections are frequently stored wherever space can be found, such as in this garage.

H - These stone artifacts are haphazardly stored.

american archaeology

n the early 1980s, Bob Sonderman, a staff archaeologist with the National Park Service in Washington, D.C., examined the facilities of three area universities that stored artifacts recovered from federal lands. “In 99.9 percent of the cases, I felt the storage conditions were substandard,” he said. Sonderman recalled the most egregious case: “The collections were in a storage room where overhead pipes leaked onto the artifacts that were in paper bags. The provenience information written on the bags in pencil was unreadable. All the metal artifacts were rusted. All the bone had turned to mush.”

Sonderman’s recollection is one of many examples of the curation problem that has reached crisis proportions. Universities, historical societies, states, and some federal agencies have huge repositories filled with artifacts that are being damaged because there is not enough money to properly house them, curate them, and make them readily accessible to researchers and the public. “What good is a collection when it’s little more than a pile of dust?” Sonderman said.

Patience Patterson, an archaeologist in the Fort Worth District for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Texas, said some of the corps’s collections were stored “in lunch bags, pizza boxes, and God knows what. Some artifacts were sitting in moth-eaten paper sacks.” She noted that, while these conditions, generally speaking, have been improved, some artifacts are still stored in very poor conditions.

29

Assessing the magnitude of the problem, Terry Childs, an archaeologist for the National Park Service’s Archeology and Ethnography Program and chairperson of the Society for American Archaeology’s (SAA) Committee on Curation, said, “We’re talking millions and millions and millions of objects.” In many cases, the documentation for a collection isn’t stored with the collection. There are other cases in which institutions don’t know where their collections are stored. The problem may be most dire on the state and regional level; a 1998 Army Corps of Engineers study found that only 40 percent of the nation’s state historical societies catalogued their artifacts.

“You get your Ph.D. for digging,” Childs stated.

Among many archaeologists, curation is considered “women’s work.” “You put your weak, sun-sensitive woman in the lab to do the clean-up job. The macho man works out in the field.”

She also pointed to the widespread practice of storing objects without their field notes. “The problem is especially acute in universities, where you find a professor who sees her work as her own personal property,” Childs said.

“She thinks, ‘Why should I give it over to a museum, when it belongs to me?’ Or, she says, ‘I’ll give it over when I’m done with it when I’m dead.’”

The problem has been compounded by the plethora of federal and state laws regulating excavation work. The THE CAUSES Antiquities Act of 1906, which was the first federal law to The crisis has been approximately a century in the makregulate excavations in this country, said all collections ing. Prior to the 20th century, most archaeologists were af“shall be made for permanent filiated with museums that preservation in public museums” housed the artifacts the archaeoland shall be accessible to the pubogists excavated. Then archaeollic.

After World War II, the Amerogy became professionalized and Some will say we can’t ican economy boomed and the nacolleges and universities, many of throw out anything because the ar- tion embarked on hundreds of which had no museums, began to hire archaeologists to teach the tifacts are a non-renewable resource. large-scale construction projects.

The National Historic Preservascience. When these archaeoloYou don’t know if a future technoltion Act of 1966 mandated that gists, who had little training in when federal money was used for collections management, excaogy will yield new insight into a construction projects on federal vated, they often had nowhere to piece. But at the same time, we’re land, such as building a bridge or a store the resulting artifacts other road, attempts should be made to than their offices or labs. simply running out of space. preserve, or at least minimize, the Some experts have been lobdamage to archaeological rebying for better collections manTerry Childs sources. Consequently, countless agement for about 25 years. And National Park Service excavations preceded countless while they concede that condiconstruction projects, and archaetions have improved across the ologists amassed staggering numbers of artifacts. They nation during this time, there are many collections today knew for many years they should store these objects, but in dire need of attention from trained staff. there were no guidelines to follow.

Getting archaeologists to focus on curation has hisBy the 1970s, the problem became alarming. In torically been a challenge. Many archaeologists are eager 1974, the U.S. Congress approved the Archeological and to excavate and do the laboratory work required to comHistoric Preservation Act—the first piece of legislation to plete their research; but they are far less eager to carefully call on the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to issue regulastore artifacts in an environmentally controlled repository, tions for curation. In 1984, Congress approved regulation where they are safe, secure, and accessible in perpetuity.

43 CFR Part 7, which provided for the preservation of The Internet has made the job even bigger, as most excollections and data. Congress followed up in 1990 with perts agree that information about every collection should regulation 36 CFR Part 79, which spelled out the stanbe on-line. Indeed, some curators believe that for every dards, procedures, and guidelines for federal curation. The hour spent in the field, an archaeologist should spend regulation, according to some experts, had several flaws: four to five hours in the lab.

There was no deadline for compliance, it didn’t include a “Curation is supposedly a back-room, boring thing. grant process to provide money for curating artifacts, and People aren’t drawn to it. It’s not Indiana Jones,” said there was no means of enforcement.

Sonny Trimble, director of archeological curation and colThe question of deaccessioning was proposed, but not lections management for the Army Corps of Engineers. incorporated in the regulation: In other words, when do “But to my way of thinking, you can teach anyone to pull institutions have permission to transfer artifacts to another something out of the ground. Where the rubber meets institution? Under current federal law, every artifact must the road comes in analysis and in understanding the artifacts, records, and their special needs for long-term care be preserved and accessible. Archaeologists have been and conservation.” taught that every artifact should be collected, as they’re all

“

”

30

winter • 2001-02

B. SEIFERT

HOWARD WELLMAN

Doing It Right In Maryland, thousands of archaeological artifacts were stored in acidic boxes, lying around in attics, closets, basements, even the local U-Store-It. Some objects were scattered all over the state in the homes of the archaeologists who had excavated them.

Realizing that so many priceless objects were buried Collections manager Ron Orr and volunteer Lisa Seric store artifacts from the Banneker site using archival-grade in the bottom of cardboard boxes, bags, and labels. boxes, J. Rodney Little, the state historic preservation officer, proposed to the Maryland legislature that it fund one facility that could hold all of the state's archaeological collections.

The state set aside $8.5 million to build the center at the Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum in St. Leonard, Maryland. “That was relatively inexpensive,” said Julia King, director of the Maryland Archaeology Conservation Laboratory, which is located there. “We're not talking break the bank here. After all, down the road there's a high school that cost $20 million.”

The laboratory, which was completed in 1998, is custom designed and climate controlled. The state rented tractor-trailers and moved every archaeological object—5,500 boxes from 2,000 sites—into the building. “We fumigated them, repackaged them, and took everything out of acidic boxes,“ said King.

All of the objects are packed in archival-quality material. That means, among other things, that if padding foam is required, it be made of virgin, not recycled, polyethylene. Recycled polyethylene often contains chemicals that can affect the artifacts. The collections are stored with their documentation, and the documentation, when necessary, has been copied on acid-free paper which won’t degrade.

“We use compactible shelving,” said Howard Wellman, the lab’s lead conservator. “It basically doubles the capacity of the storage space but it doesn’t reduce accessibility.”

This year, the museum received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund a two-year project that will enable curators to sort through one-fourth of the collection and re-catalog everything. By 2003, it will be accessible on-line. “This way, if you're an archaeologist anywhere in the world, you can access the data,” King said. “Having this facility has allowed us to do something we'd earConservators use an overhead crane to place a 700-pound waterlogged oak shipyard brace lier only dreamed of: preserve our cultural from the Steward Colonial Shipyard site into a treatment tank. heritage.” —Nancy Traver american archaeology

31

important in understanding past cultural activity.

Experts agree that the delays and controversy over deaccessioning have contributed to the mountain of artifacts in need of curation. “Some will say we can’t throw out anything because the artifacts are a non-renewable resource,” said Childs. “You don’t know if a future technology will yield new insight into a piece. But at the same time, we’re simply running out of space.”

Sonderman agreed. “How many chicken bones do

Colorado’s Crisis Most of Colorado’s museums are no longer accepting collections because they have no space.

“We just don't have anyplace to put things,” said Mark Mitchell, president of the Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists.

Only four major museums are still accepting collections, and they’re restricting what they’ll accept. For example, the University of Denver Museum of Anthropology will take collections found east of the continental divide.

The situation is so severe, Mitchell said, it could halt all archaeological work on public lands in Colorado within two years. Any federal project, such as road construction, that takes place on federal or state land, must be preceded by an archaeological investigation. The investigation can’t proceed without a curation agreement with a museum. But what will happen if no museum will enter into an agreement?

“Well, that's the $64,000 question,” he said.

Colorado is a rapidly developing state, and growth, as Mitchell noted, “generates lots of archaeology.” Every object recovered from the state’s archaeological sites has been curated and stored in accordance with federal standards.

A committee of the council proposed the construction of a regional curation facility. The group started a dialogue with Colorado's federal congressional delegation in July in hopes of acquiring state and federal funds to address the crisis. But since the events of September 11, money for domestic programs has dwindled, and Mitchell thinks the possibility of obtaining federal financing to build a facility this year is unlikely.

The state’s curation crisis has repercussions beyond the field of archaeology. “There’s the potential to impede energy development projects and other kinds of public works,” he observed.

As bad as Colorado’s curation problem is, Mitchell believes it’s no worse than that of other states. —Nancy Traver

32

you need? How much debitage and fire-cracked rock are you going to keep?” he asked. “Rusty nails, broken window glass—there are huge redundancies in each collection. In a climate where space is equated with money, archaeolgists must face the hard reality that we simply can’t keep everything. The professional community must take the lead on this issue or we face the possibility of having the decision made for us.”

But Darrell Creel, director of the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory in Austin, said, “Let’s not be too presumptuous in deciding that something can be thrown out.

With rapid changes in technology and new techniques, we can get new information out of artifacts we thought were previously tapped.”

THE COST The considerable cost of storing artifacts poses another problem. Thirty-seven states have laws calling for proper collections management, but many of these states don’t have the money to support their own regulations. “There’s definitely a decrease in the amount of material being collected,” Childs stated. Construction companies, who absorb the costs of excavation and curation associated with their projects, may discourage the collection of artifacts.

That can skew the archeological record. It also puts the archaeologists who were subcontracted to do the work in a very difficult situation. “They need to satisfy their client,” Sonderman said, “and maintain their ethics.”

Experts estimate funding for curation should constitute 25 to 30 percent of the total budget for every excavation project. “That line item must be in the budget,” said Sonderman. “If you spend all your money digging up objects and there’s no money to take care of what you find, why bother in the first place?”

The Corps of Engineers possesses a huge number of artifacts. Trimble estimated it would cost approximately $40 million for all the artifacts and records to be properly housed, catalogued, and put on-line. The corps seeks an annual appropriation of $3 million to $4 million from Congress, and usually receives about $1.5 million. Currently, all of this money is used to identify, access, and, as appropriate, return the skeletal remains and other items from grave sites to Native American tribes, as decreed under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, passed by Congress in 1990. “The money we receive for curation of collections doesn’t begin to address the curation issue at hand,” Trimble lamented. In his view, “conditions are getting worse and worse, not better.”

Patterson, of the Corps of Engineers’ Fort Worth district, said, “Down here in the trenches, I’ll tell you, we need all the money we can get to bring things up to standards.”

Unfortunately, maintaining archaeological collections “is not sexy, like some cool new exhibit” that will attract visitors who pay admission fees, Childs noted. Consequently, institutions that previously housed collections for free are now charging fees; those that were charging fees winter • 2001-02

(Left) Archaeologist Robert Sonderman and intern Teresa Moyer conduct an artifact inventory at the National Park TERRY ADAMS

Service’s National Capital Region Museum Resource Center in Landover, Maryland. These artifacts are stored in non-acidic, museum-quality boxes. (Above) In Sonderman’s left hand are two points packed in ethafoam, a material that can be cut to

are raising them. A 1998 survey undertaken by the National Park Service found that fees vary significantly, ranging from $60 per cubic foot in Oklahoma up to $1,080 in Nevada. (See table on page 34.) The survey’s authors postulated that the Western states, charge higher fees because of the high proportion of public lands—and more artifacts—in that region and factor in the real cost of curation rather than the rate of competitors.

One of the toughest challenges for any museum director is to find the money for the construction of new repositories. Many facilities have collections that have outgrown their storage space; their only option is to add on.

For example, Creel is pursuing money to construct a new building. He has asked both state and federal agencies to pool their resources. The proposed building will cost up to $20 million. Creel said he feels “lucky to have enjoyed the support we’ve had so far.” His existing facility continues to undergo renovations, at a cost of more than $1 million, which include new rooms with smoke detectors, fire alarms, fire suppression systems, security systems, environmental controls, high density cabinetry and shelving units, computer systems, and Web sites to make archeologists and the general public more aware of what it curates.

Additional renovations and upgrades are planned.

THE SOLUTIONS A significant sum of money is needed to acquire more space and staff. Construction of new storage facilities will require funding from various sources, including american archaeology

fit the exact shape of the artifact.

Federal Storage Standards Federally owned and administered archaeological collections must meet the following requirements: • Accession, label, catalog, store, maintain, inventory, and conserve a collection on a long-term basis in accordance with professional museum and archival standards.

• Maintain complete and accurate records of the collections.

• Have adequate equipment and space for storage, study, and conservation.

• Ensure the security of the collections through safety codes, fire systems, intrusion systems, and an emergency management plan.

• Require staff to be qualified professionals.

• Handle, store, clean, conserve, and exhibit collections in a way that is appropriate to the nature of the materials, protects the objects, and preserves data.

• Store forms and records in a protected manner.

• Regularly inspect collections.

• Conduct inventories.

• Provide access to collections.

33

A Sample of Curation Fees WASHINGTON

300

$

MONTANA

150

$

WISCONSIN

IDAHO

367

70

$

$

CONNECTICUT

IOWA

NEVADA

PENNSYLVANIA

250

$

1080

$

UTAH

300

$

250

$

INDIANA

COLORADO

200

$

175

$

250

$

KANSAS

CALIFORNIA

200

125

$

1000

$

ARIZONA

200

$

KENTUCKY

OKLAHOMA

$

60

$

ARKANSAS

185

$

S. CAROLINA

68

$

TEXAS

302

$

FLORIDA

Samples of the highest curation fees as of December 1998.

Price is a one-time fee per cubic foot for storage in perpetuity.

150

$

Source: National Park Service

state legislatures and the U.S. Congress. In order to obtain government funding, the public must be informed of this crisis. The public is now unaware of the problem, Patterson said. “You try to talk to them and they’ll look at you and say, ‘archi-what?’ We haven’t done a very good job, so far, of bringing this issue to the fore.”

Congress must be convinced that money earmarked for curation won’t serve the interests of only a small number of scholars. “I really think these collections can be used by a wide range of people and not just researchers,” Trimble stated.

But money alone won’t solve a problem of this dimension and complexity. More archaeologists need to be trained in collections management. Very few universities offer classes in curation through their anthropology departments; even fewer offer degrees or on-site training.

“Too often, archaeology professors still teach their students that a real archaeologist goes out and digs stuff up,” said Trimble. “Someone who works on a curated collection is often considered a lesser professional.”

He and his colleagues are working to change that mentality. Trimble assisted his wife, Nicola Longford, a museum professional, when she taught a course on archaeological curation and collections management at Washington University in St. Louis last spring. It was the first time the course was offered there. “To my surprise, the classroom was filled to the ceiling,” he said. “The students know that in today’s market they have to be well versed in collections management, even if their professors, who received their degrees in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, are not.”

Trimble joked that, if he were “the king of archaeology in North America,” he would require every student earning a master’s degree to take at several courses in cu34

ration. Most archaeologists now learn to curate on the job, if at all.

Childs believes that, before going into the field, archaeologists need to budget for curation and think about what’s going to become of the excavated artifacts once they’re done with them. “We were never taught these things,” she said The SAA’s Committee on Curation, which was established in 1999, is preparing more detailed standards to guide archaeologists. The committee started by drafting ethical principles, but the final wording of the guidelines “could take several years,” according to Childs.

She believes that deaccessioning may contribute to remedying the problem. “The key is we’ve got to do it in a very careful manner,” she cautioned, adding that a deaccessioning plan must be clearly thought out. “We’d be advocating to not destroy the collections, but to transfer them to other facilities” if possible. Childs wants to present the idea to the SAA’s members, and she speculated that deaccessioning guidelines could be promulgated in federal regulations in five years.

Childs is also intent on getting institutions to put information about their collections on the Web. The National Park Service is developing a Web catalogue that has information about the collections found at some of its parks. The catalogue should be on-line by the end of 2001, and more parks will be added in the future.

“We’re still in a mess,” she said, “but I think we all agree there have been significant steps forward.”

Woeful as the situation is, it’s far from hopeless.

NANCY TRAVER is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Time, People, the Chicago Tribune, and other publications. winter • 2001-02

PHOTO: CHIP CLARK, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

RECONSTRUCTIONS: SHARON LONG

THE CASE FOR A PRE-CLOVIS PEOPLE

These forensic recontructions illustrate differences in the shapes of the skulls between ancient and more recent Native American remains. On the left is the reconstructed head of an approximately 600-year old man with a long face and a short, broad cranium. On the right is the reconstructed head of an individual known as Spirit Cave Man, who is more than 9,000 yearss old and has a short face and narrow cranium. Such differences, along with the archaeological and genetic evidence, suggest that the colonization of the Americas was a more complex process than previously believed.

THOUGH THE IDENTITY OF THE FIRST AMERICANS REMAINS A MYSTERY, THERE IS GOOD REASON TO BELIEVE THEY WERE NOT THE CLOVIS PEOPLE.

By Robson Bonnichsen and Alan L. Schneider Editor’s Note: In the Fall 2001 issue, Brian Fagan, a renowned archaeologist, argued that the Clovis people were the first Americans. In the following essay another prominent archaeologist, Robson Bonnichsen, and Alan L. Schneider, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the Kennewick Man lawsuit, present a contrary viewpoint. american archaeology

O

ne of the greatest unanswered questions of human prehistory is how and when people first colonized the Americas. This fascinating topic has been the subject of a contentious debate among scholars for many years. A number of right answers have been proposed for when and how the Americas were peopled. Although acknowledged for a time, each has ultimately been replaced by a better answer. The most recent right answer, the Clovis-first model, is suffering the same fate. Once widely 35

J.M. ADOVASIO, PH.DD., D.SC.

SCIAA PHOTO BY DARYL P. MILLER

36

These small stone tools were taken from the pre-Clovis occupation at

The excavation of Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Pennsylvania revealed

the Topper site: A-–E: burins and spalls; F–G: microblades; H: a micro-

11 strata. In addition to stone artifacts, the site has yielded a wealth

core; I: a scraper; J: a blade-like tool.

of animal and plant remains.

accepted by specialists in first Americans studies, new methods and evidence have undercut its basic premises.

Since the time of the early Spanish settlements, many origin theories have been proposed to explain the initial peopling of the Americas. For many years it was generally agreed that humans first arrived in the Americas no more than 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. This theory was shattered in 1927 with the discovery of a stone spear point, known as a Folsom point, associated with the remains of an extinct bison near Folsom, New Mexico, in late Ice Age geological deposits. Slightly older fluted projectile points were found in the 1930s with the remains of extinct mammoth at the Clovis and the Blackwater Draw sites, in New Mexico, and elsewhere in the Great Plains. These discoveries demonstrated that human presence in the New World was much older than anyone had imagined. A picture gradually began to emerge that the earliest American sites contained evidence of big-game hunters. By the late 1960s, the radiocarbon dating method had confirmed the age of the oldest known Clovis archaeological complex in North America. This complex dates to a period between 11,200 and 13,500 years ago.

This dating breakthrough spurred development of the Clovis-first colonization model as an explanation of the peopling of the Americas. It proposes that a single band of nomadic big-game hunters crossed the Bering Land Bridge from Siberia to America at the end of the last Ice Age. These people supposedly traveled down an ice-free corridor between the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets along the eastern flanks of the Rocky Mountains and expanded into what is now the United States about 13,500 years ago. In their wake, they left behind a legacy of exquisitely made artifacts, including blade cores, blades, bifaces, gravers, fluted points, and large bone tools. Supposedly unimpeded by any other pre-existing New World populations, descendants of the founding Clovis population are presumed to have settled all of North and South America in an astounding 1,000 years. In the process they are said to have exterminated 33 genera of large game animals in North America and over 50 genera in South America. Due to the sudden

and widespread appearance of fluted points in North and South America, and the apparent lack of antecedent cultural developments, many scientists accepted the perception that Clovis represented the first and only colonization event in the prehistoric Americas.

New evidence, however, suggests that most of the basic premises of the Clovis-first model do not square with relevant archaeological, skeletal, and genetic information.

The first problem with the model is the lack of a clear ancestral homeland for the Clovis culture traits in Northeastern Asia. No archaeological evidence has been found in northeast Siberia of a people that were a logical ancestor of the Clovis. Although the Diuktai archaeological complex of northeastern Siberia is of the right age to be an ancestor to Clovis, the tools and adaptive system used by these peoples are not similar to Clovis. They relied heavily on the use of microblades to fashion composite tools such as harpoons and insets in antler and bone points, knives, and lances. Artifacts typical of Clovis are absent in Siberia.

Another premise of the Clovis-first model is that after crossing the Bering Land Bridge between Asia and America, which existed only during periods of lowered sea levels, the Clovis people reached the United States about 13,500 years ago by traveling southward through the icefree corridor. Recent geological research, however, suggests glacial ice closed the northern end of the ice-free corridor until about 13,500 years ago. Even then, and for several centuries afterward, early hunters would have encountered an ecologically impoverished landscape and their movement would have been hindered by the many lakes formed by glacial melting. No satisfactory reason has been offered to explain why people would have wanted to use such an uninviting corridor during its initial opening.

One likely alternative to the ice-free corridor is the Pacific Rim coast. Some experts believe that people used boats to “coast hop” along the Pacific Rim from Asia to the Americas. Exactly when this may have occurred is a matter of ongoing discussion. Some scientists believe it could have happened near the end of the last Ice Age, winter • 2001-02

Possible Pre-Clovis Sites These sites are considered by some archaeologists to be pre-Clovis. Though no human remains have been discovered at these sites, they have all yielded evidence that suggests human occupation.

Blue Fish Caves YUKON TERRITORY

Mammoth bone core and flake, microblades and debitage.

12,000–28,000

Old Crow Flats YUKON TERRITORY

YEARS OLD

Large mammal bones possibly flaked or cut.

25,00–40,000

Manis Mastodon

Dutton and Selby

WASHINGTON

COLORADO

Bone point in mastodon rib. Mastodon bone cut and flaked.

Lamb Spring

14,000

Flaked mammoth bones.

YEARS OLD

YEARS OLD

Flaked and polished extinct mammal bones.

COLORADO

13,500–15,000

14,000–17,000

YEARS OLD

YEARS OLD

C

A

N

A

D

A

Schaefer, Mud Lake, Fenske, and Heibor WISCONSIN

Stone tools and mammoth bones with butchering marks.

15,000–16,500

YEARS OLD

Wilson Butte Cave

PENNSYLVANIA

Lanceolate point, blade-like flakes, and charred basketry.

13,500–17,500

IDAHO

Modified bones and flakes.

17,500–18,500

Meadowcroft Rockshelter

YEARS OLD

Cactus Hill

YEARS OLD

VIRGINIA

Lanceolate points, blades, and blade cores.

Lovewell Mammoth

17,000–19,000

YEARS OLD

KANSAS

Flaked mammoth bone.

22,000

Saltville

YEARS OLD

VIRGINIA

Flaked stone, fractured and polished bone.

Pendejo Cave NEW MEXICO

Human hair and prints in baked clay, and possible stone tools.

14,000

YEARS OLD

15,000–16,000

MEXICO

Topper SOUTH CAROLINA

Shaffert, Jensen, and La Sena

Possible stone tools found in dated deposits.

NEBRASKA

15,000–16,000

Human flaked mammoth bone.

KATHLEEN SPARKES • WHITE HART DESIGN

17,000–22,000

YEARS OLD

FLORIDA

MISSOURI

Possible stone tools.

14,000–14,500

Monte Verde CHILE

Many organic artifacts, stone tools, and house structures.

YEARS OLD

Page Ladson and Sloth Hole FLORIDA

Shaped wooden stake embedded in extinct tortoise shell.

14,000

YEARS OLD

Stone tools and flakes and cut mastodon tusks.

14,400

YEARS OLD

YEARS OLD

about 15,000 years ago. Others argue that it could have taken place more than 25,000 years ago. The possibility cannot be excluded that this route may have been used by more than one group during different periods of time.

Clovis-first and other late-entry advocates argue that there is no hard evidence to support early boat use in the peopling of the Americas. The lack of such evidence is not surprising since wood and hides do not survive over long periods of time except in unusual circumstances. There is, on the other hand, compelling indirect evidence for boat american archaeology

YEARS OLD

Little Salt Spring

Big Eddy

SOUTH AMERICA

14,500

YEARS OLD

use by Paleolithic peoples. The discovery and dating of a 60,000-year-old human skeleton from Lake Mungo, Australia, demonstrates early human use of watercraft for open-ocean travel. Even during the lowest Ice Age sea levels, approximately 50 miles of water separated the Sunda Peninsula of Southeast Asia from the paleo-continent called Sahul that included modern Australia. Indirect evidence for the early use of boats also comes from Japan. By 30,000 years ago, people were navigating the open seas between the Japanese Islands and the Izu Islands, in the Pa37

38

winter • 2001-02

STEVE HOLEN, DENVER MUSEUM OF NATURE AND SCIENCE

Skeptics have had a more difficult time rejecting the wellcific Ocean south of Tokyo, to obtain obsidian. At that dated, 14,500-year-old Monte Verde site, located near the time, it was impossible to travel between islands without town of Puerto Mont, in southern Chile. Tom Dillehay, water transport such as dugout canoes or rafts. the site’s principal investigator, and his 60-person interdisIf we accept that Ice Age peoples were competent naviciplinary team published what has become a key case gators, notions of how humans originally came to the Amerstudy. Investigations at this site revealed a rich organic maicas are no longer constrained by the Bering Land Bridge terial culture that is missing at most prehistoric sites betheory. In fact, no hard evidence, archaeological or othercause of normal decay processes. Some of the most imporwise, has ever been found to demonstrate that early colonist tant organic remains include a 60-foot-long residential walked across the Bering Land Bridge. Movement along the structure, a ceremonial structure, wooden spears and morNorth Pacific Rim would have been equally, or more, feasitars, digging sticks, stakes, and cordage. Flaking, polishing, ble. Some scientists even argue that early colonists may have and grinding techniques were also used to make stone imreached the Americas from Europe along the North Atlantic plements. Monte Verde revealed a much more complex soice shelf, or that they may have traveled from Australia to cial and economic organization and possible interaction South America across the South Pacific. with other regional groups than previously expected of Sites that predate the Clovis complex also challenge early New World cultures. the premise that Clovis represents the first New World ocAnother reason to doubt cupation. At an August the Clovis-first model is the 1999 workshop organized presence in North and South

by Dennis Stanford of the America of other stone tool Smithsonian Institution and complexes that are contemDavid Madson of the Uniporaneous with, if not versity of Utah, the case for slightly older than, the Clovis a pre-Clovis occupation in complex. Some of the most North America was supimportant of the North ported by artifacts from a American complexes include number of sites. For examthe Nenana complex of ple, James Adovasio from Alaska, the Western Mercyhurst College exhibStemmed point complex in ited flaked-lithic artifacts from the lower levels of Small fragments of mammoth bone were found at the La Sena Mammoth site. North America, and the Meadowcroft Rockshelter, The bone was buried deep in late Ice Age deposits that are 22,000 years old. Goshen complex of the Great Plains. Many more exist in in Pennsylvania, that date South America. These diverse complexes appear to reprefrom 15,000 to 17,500 years ago. Joseph McAvoy brought sent unique adaptations to a wide variety of different restone tools from a 17,000- to 19,000-year-old level at the gional environments. They are so different from one anCactus Hill site, near Richmond, Virginia. There was a other and from Clovis that they cannot easily be explained consensus among the specialists present that although away as merely the local variants of a Clovis tradition. there are differences, there are remarkable similarities beSome are so distinctive they may represent separate develtween the artifacts from these two pre-Clovis sites. opments spanning thousands of years.

There also is evidence of an early bone industry in Researchers are also beginning to question whether North America. Researchers have radiocarbon dated a the Clovis-first model is consistent with human skeletal 27,000-year-old mammoth bone core and flake from stratand other biological evidence. Until recently, little attenified deposits found at Blue Fish Caves, in the northern tion was given to early New World skeletal remains beYukon Territory in northwest Canada. Steve Holen, from cause of the sparseness of the evidence. There are fewer the Denver Museum of Natural History, has reported than 40 human remains (most mere fragments of a few human-flaked mammoth bones dating between 17,000 and bones) older than 8,000 years old. Researchers generally 22,000 years ago at the Shaffert, Jensen, and La Sena sites in Nebraska and the Lovewell site in Kansas. David Overassumed that all Paleo-Americans looked alike, and that street, of the Great Lakes Archaeological Research Center in they looked like modern native peoples. New studies are Milwaukee, has found a series of sites with butchered mamchallenging these assumptions.

With the aid of computers and new statistical techmoth remains and a few non-diagnostic stone tools along niques, researchers have compiled databases of crainofacial with bones that display cutmarks. The sites—Schaefer, measurements from both New World and Old World Mud Lake, Fenske, and Heibor—have yielded radiocarbon skeletal populations. Their work has indicated that early dates of 15,000 to 16,500 years ago.

New World skull forms are very different from those of Although Clovis-first advocates have challenged many recent Native Americans. Early skulls display relatively of these sites on dating, human association, and other narrower faces, longer crania, and more protruding faces, grounds, other specialists are convinced they are genuine.

JACQUES CINQ-MARS

including higher and narrower eye orbits, than are typical of more recent Native American and Siberian populations A central question is whether these skeletal differences between ancient and modern populations indicate different genetic relationships or whether they indicate adaptations to different environments. Because these differences crosscut many environments in North and South America, some specialists think that they indicate genetic differences and that early New World populations were not the direct ancestors to modern native peoples. Early New World skeletal remains also differ significantly from one geographical region to another. These differences are so great that some researchers have rejected the hypothesis that the Americas were colonized by a single group of people. Instead, they believe that the colonizing process involved multiple populations from different founding regions of Eurasia.

DNA studies, such as those conducted by molecular anthropologist Theodore Schurr and his colleagues, seem to point in the same direction. Studies of the variation in the mitochondrial DNA of Asian and Amerindian populations suggest that New World founding populations may have come from a number of regions. These mitochondrial DNA variations, called haplogroups A, C, and D, may have been brought to the Americas as early as 30,000 years ago. Another, haplogroup B, may have been brought by a second immigration possibly between 13,000 and 17,000 years ago, either along the coast, or overland, or both. The origin of another haplogroup, X, found in low frequencies in North American native populations, is ambiguous. It could have arrived in the New World either before or after the last glacial maximum, about 22,000 years ago. The absence of haplogroup X in Asia and Siberia and its presence among certain European populations suggests another discrete migration to the Americas.

The Clovis-first model needs to be replaced, and whatever replaces it must be more than a simplistic singleissue theory. It is becoming increasingly apparent that no single explanation can adequately account for the peopling of the Americas, which likely spanned many thousands of years and involved numerous factors. Many experts now believe that there were at least three waves of immigration to the Americas within the last 15,000 years, and a number of them believe that the colonization process began well before that point.

It is clear that we do not yet have a definitive answer to who first colonized the Americas. It is clear, however, american archaeology

(Above Left) The excavation site at Blue Fish Caves in Canada’s northern Yukon Territory. (Above) This bone bed was found at the site. A considerable portion of the animal remains came from horses.

that the process of peopling the Americans was much more complicated than originally anticipated. With the demise of the Clovis-first model, leading experts in the field are using the latest scientific tools in their search for the elusive first Americans. Before scientists can answer the general questions of whom, when, where, how, and why, they must first develop models to account for each specific migration to the Americas. For example, after 70 years of study, we still do not know where the Clovis people and their technology originated. In many ways, they are as mysterious today as they were when first found.

A satisfactory scientific origin theory for explaining the peopling of the Americas must first be based on solid and reliable evidence and must be consistent with the known chronology of reliable radiocarbon dates. Second, it must provide a way to explain the cultural and/or biological diversity witnessed among modern-day and past peoples. And third, it must provide a framework for explaining cultural and biological descent. Without adherence to such standards, attempts to collect and interpret data will not lead to a common understanding of how the Americas were peopled.

ROBSON BONNICHSEN is the director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Oregon State University. ALAN L. SCHNEIDER is a cultural law attorney in Portland, Oregon.

39

new POINT a cq u i s i t i o n s

Archaeology on the Coast A serendipitous event led to the Conservancy’s purchase of a prehistoric shell midden.

40

MARK MICHEL

C

ranberry farmer Reg Pullen was working on an organic cranberry project on 200 acres of land on Long Beach, Washington, owned by Bill and Pat Weller. When the Wellers happened to mention that there was a large shell midden on the northern edge of their property, which is a mile from the Pacific coast, archaeologist Reg Pullen’s ears perked up.

The Wellers also wanted to harvest timber on their property. When he’s not farming, Pullen is a contract archaeologist, and he informed the Wellers that a cultural resources survey would have to be done before they could get a permit from the state to cut down trees. The Wellers hired him to perform the survey, and thus began Pullen’s investigation of the midden, which is known as the Martin site.

The site, which covers about 10 acres, was first recorded in 1947, and it has been excavated by archaeologists from the University of Washington in 1947, 1957, 1959, and 1974. These excavations revealed the midden has a depth of more than six feet and consists mainly of land and sea mammal bones at the lower levels, with upper levels of native oyster and basket cockle. Portions of two residential structures were identified.

A radiocarbon date of approximately A.D. 200 was obtained from the lowest level of the midden, and a date of A.D. 600 came from a higher level. Parts of the midden were covered with silt from nearby Espy Lake, suggesting that the site was abandoned when, at some time in the past, water levels rose.

Most of the artifact assemblage found at the site consisted of unstemmed, primarily leaf-shaped projectile points and knives. Pointed bones, which may have served as barbs or fishhooks, were also found.

Numerous girdled deer and elk bones indicate that bone tools were manufactured here. The bones and the abundant antler wedges were likely employed in some form of woodworking.

Though most of the materials from the midden have never been properly analyzed, the Martin site is a benchmark for Washington archaeology. Even though only half of the site is intact, it has the potential to correlate prehistoric cultural activity on the coast to tectonic movements, changes in sea level, and the consequent effects on resources. For example, villages may have changed from

Western regional director Gene Hurych examines a shell midden on the Martin site, located approximately one mile from the Pacific Ocean. Among the many artifacts found at the site are these scored and cut bones.

marine mammal hunting to taking advantage of shellfish, particularly oysters.

A large amount of whalebone was also found in the midden. The Chinook people, who previously inhabited the site, claim to have a whale hunting tradition, and the Martin site is part of the limited archaeological evidence that supports that claim.

Pullen suggested that the Wellers offer to sell the Martin site to the Conservancy, which used POINT funds to make the purchase. Now the midden is preserved and the Wellers can harvest timber on their remaining property.

“The Chinook tribe knew about this site and they didn’t want to see anything happen to it,” Pullen said. “It was just a win-win situation all the way around.” —Michael Bawaya winter • 2001-02

Unlocking the Secrets of the Enigmatic Ingomar Mounds Study of this site may reveal more about its unusual and puzzling history.

ALAN GRUBER

T

he Ingomar Mounds site is located on a section of farmland in a rapidly developing area of northeast Mississippi.

The mound center consists of a large flat-topped, ramped central mound, which is over 33 feet in height and is surrounded by numerous conical mounds of varying sizes.

The Ingomar site was first recorded and partially excavated by the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of American Ethnology in 1885.

The archaeologists compiled a record of the site with little study of the artifacts they found, and without the benefit of modern tools, such as radiocarbon dating. In the intervening period, it was classified as a Mississippian site because the large central mound that dominates the site resembled the temple mounds seen in other Mississippian-era (A.D. 1100–1550) mound centers.

However, the science of archaeology has changed dramatically since Ingomar’s first investigation, and studies of Ingomar in the last 20 years have resulted in debate about its classification. Modern archaeologists have raised many questions about the function and placement of the mounds on this site. If the site was from the Mississippian era, why was the central platform mound surrounded by traditional conical mounds, which looked similar to burial mounds from the earlier Woodland period? What was the purpose of the large central mound? Who built these mounds, and when?

In 1985, Janet Rafferty, an aramerican archaeology

Fourteen mounds have been recorded at Ingomar. Mound 14 (above) is the largest, and the only one that is ramped and has a flat top. The other mounds are conical.

chaeologist at the Cobb Institute of Archaeology at Mississippi State University, compiled a team to study Ingomar’s history. The team examined the artifacts from the Smithsonian excavation and also performed a limited excavation of portions of the site, radiocarbon dating charcoal samples from several of the mounds to get an accurate time frame of their construction. Rafferty concluded that the Ingomar site was not a Mississippian structure; instead, it was occupied and constructed during the Middle Woodland period.

Her findings also revealed that the mounds are similar in structure and shape to those at other contemporaneous mound center sites such as the site at Pinson State Archaeological Park in Tennessee.

With strong evidence to date the mounds at Ingomar from approximately A.D. 10 to A.D. 210, and with similar mound centers to research,

archaeologists are now working to decipher the function of these oddly structured mound complexes. As with Pinson and other similar sites, there are no signs that Ingomar was continuously occupied. The conical mounds excavated at Ingomar contained some burials typical of Middle Woodland mounds, but the central platform mound is clearly not a typical mound from the period, given its shape and construction. It shows no sign that a structure existed on top for ceremonial purposes.

What was its purpose? The mysteries of the site continue to intrigue archaeologists and to invite further study.

According to Rafferty, “Ingomar is a fascinating and unusual place that confounds our thoughts and shows us we don’t yet know as much as we think. It has a huge amount of future research potential.”

— Jennifer Gruber 41

Studying California’s Prehistory The 3,000-year-old Lorenzen site could yield important information.

42

LYNN DUNBAR

I

n the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, near snow-capped Mount Shasta, is the remains of a Native American settlement that was occupied for at least 3,000 years. Named the Lorenzen site after a former owner, Herman Lorenzen, it is today one of the best-preserved major village ruins left in California.

The village site is some 250 feet in diameter.

Located in Little Hot Springs Valley of Modoc County in far northeastern California, the Lorenzen site sits near a hot spring, whose 180-degree water would roast a careless bather.

The University of California at Davis, under the direction of Martin Baumhoff, excavated a small portion of the midden in 1960. They found a deeply stratified deposit that yielded metates and manos, pestles, tubular and elbow-shaped stone pipes (some of which were incised with decorations), projectile points, and lemon-shaped gambling stones. This is also one of the few sites in California where Siskiyou brownware pottery was discovered.

The tested area was some 13 feet deep with clear indications of continuous use. A radiocarbon date of 1300 B.C. was obtained from the lowest level of the test pit. It appears to have been abandoned in the early 19th century after native contact with European trappers and explorers.

At the time of European contact the area was part of the territory of the Ajumawi Band of the Pit River Indians, who were Hokan speakers. Evidence from the Lorenzen site has been used to argue that the area was occupied by Hokan-speaking people who had been forced out of California’s Central Valley by Penutian speakers. As such, the site plays a central role in discussions of California’s prehistory, and future research is likely to elaborate on this role.

“This site is one of those key locations in the development of California prehistory,” said Eric Ritter, an archaeologist with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

“It is a data bank of informative resources awaiting future researchers in a locality that has seen very little study, and its preservation serves as a legacy to one of California's pioneer archaeologists and visionaries, Marty Baumhoff.

The transfer of this property to The Archaeological Conservancy also will serve the interests of both Ajumawi people, who lived near here on a rancheria in historic times,

Hot springs are generally considered to be sacred locations by many California tribes, but it’s uncertain whether Lorenzen’s hot spring was used for spiritual purposes.

as well as those of the Pit River Indians, who have historically visited the site and vicinity from nearby Fall River Valley to collect various plant foods.”

Former owners Cliff Harvey and Jan Sorochtey have protected the site from would-be looters for many years, and they will continue to work as site stewards. They agreed to sell the site and five acres to the Conservancy.

—Gene Hurych winter • 2001-02

Adena Mounds Survive

An 11th-hour purchase by the Conservancy saves the O’Dell Mounds.

PAUL GARDNER

T

ucked into the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, near such quaintly named places as Hominy Falls and Potato Hole Knob, the O’Dell Mounds seemed to be beyond the threats of modernday development. Sadly, it may be that no place is too remote to escape this threat, and last summer the mounds nearly succumbed to it.

This pair of Adena period (800 B.C. to 100 B.C.) burial mounds, located in the southeastern part of the state, had been owned by the O’Dell family, who farmed the land for generations. Long-standing family tradition held that the burial mounds not be disturbed. Unfortunately, such traditions tend to fade with the passing of each generation and as family members locate farther and farther from the old home place.

This was the case with the O’Dell mounds. Family members who were unaware of their importance recently inherited them and sold them to a young couple as part

This is one of the two mounds that have been identified. The former owners of the property claimed there are three other mounds, but so far archaeologists have not identified them.

of a six-acre housing tract. The young couple, oblivious to the archaeological importance of the site, planned to construct a home and fishpond amid the mounds.

Such small-scale destruction of archaeological sites in remote areas is the bane of preservationists, as it very

POINT Acquisitions White Potato Lake

★ Martin Site

Sumnerville

★ Lorenzen

Indian Village on Pawnee Fork McClellan

Cambria

Parchman Place A. C. Saunders

★ Ingomar Mounds Graveline Mound

american archaeology

★ O’Dell Mounds Hunting Creek

often escapes notice until after the fact. Fortunately in the case of the O’Dell mounds, Shirley O’Dell Ramsey, a family member with a sense of responsibility to the mounds, contacted the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office with the news of the planned development.

The preservation office dispatched archaeologist Joanna Wilson to meet with the new landowners and make them aware of the regulatory hurdles that would have to be cleared before their new home could be built.

At the same time, Wilson informed the Conservancy of the threat.

Using POINT program funds, the Conservancy made the new owners a cash offer to buy the land.

They quickly accepted, giving the Conservancy its fourth West Virginia preserve and Shirley O’Dell Ramsey some much deserved peace of mind. “This is such good news,” she said. “I’ve prayed about this.”

—Paul Gardner 43

C O N S E R V A N C Y

Field Notes MIDWEST—The High Bank earthwork, a massive Hopewell circle and octagon complex, has been acquired by the National Park Service as part of the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Chillicothe, Ohio.

Congress directed High Bank and two other Hopewell culture sites be added to the park in 1992. One of the largest and best-preserved of the massive Hopewellian sites in the Chillicothe area, High Bank has often been linked to ancient astronomical alignments. N’omi Greber of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History has been conducting research on the site for the past decade trying to determine its use and make-up.

The Conservancy purchased the northern half of the earthwork in 1992. Having preserved this portion of the 1,900-year-old earthwork for the last decade, the Conservancy sold it to the National Park Service. The proceeds from the sale will be used to purchase other endangered sites.

The southern portion of the earthwork, encompassing most of the octagon structure, was nearly lost. Its owner was Alva McGraw, a local farmer and longtime supporter of archaeology in the Chillicothe area. McGraw often spoke of his plans to permanently preserve the

44

KELLY BRITT

Hopewell Earthwork Transferred to National Park Service

The Albuquerque Archaeological Society visits San José de Las Huertas. The Conservancy acquired this preserve by obtaining three tracts of land between 1986 and 2000.

site by bequeathing his portion of the earthwork to either the Conservancy or the National Park Service.

Unfortunately, when he died last winter at the age of 94, he had not revised his will in over 40 years.

The entire McGraw estate, including his portion of the High Bank earthwork, passed to a cohort of 37 distant relatives. They chose to have all McGraw’s holdings sold at public auction. Miraculously, the attorney for the McGraw estate was able to arrange for the National Park Service to purchase McGraw’s portion of the High Bank site prior to

the public auction, averting a potential catastrophe.

Research Continues at San José de Las Huertas SOUTHWEST—A clearer picture of the Spanish Colonial settlement of San José de Las Huertas near Albuquerque, New Mexico, is coming into focus as researchers Nan Rothschild and Heather Atherton with Columbia University continue their mapping and archival research of the 24-acre Conservancy preserve. This winter • 2001-02

ALABAMA HISTORICAL COMMISSION

past summer, a group of graduate students assisted the researchers in the completion of a topographic survey of the site, as well as the collection of additional soil resistivity and magnetrometry data, that will help them identify the locations of the site’s buried features.

The walled village of San José de Las Huertas was occupied between 1765 and 1826, and contains at least nine housemounds, two trash areas, and what may be agricultural fields within the walled area, surrounded by agricultural and grazing lands. The site is considered a buffer community on New Spain’s northern frontier due to the role it played in protecting principal frontier settlements from the raids of nomadic Plains tribes.

The village is one of only a handful of intact colonial period sites in the Southwest, and as such, is important to archaeologists and historians studying the area’s early history.

“The 19th century is the final stage of Spanish Colonial control and is marked by weakened central control and more autonomy, especially on the frontier,” explains Rothschild. “We are particularly interested in how the residents of San José de Las Huertas saw themselves: as Spanish, Hispanic, or as members of some other group, and how they used material culture, architecture, and other archaeologically accessible behavior, to express their identity.”

The researchers hope to finish the geophysical survey and remote sensing next summer, which will guide them in conducting limited test excavations of architectural features such as the houses, the plaza, storage areas, and corrals. The archaeological evidence, historical american archaeology

A view of the McColman Tract from the Cahawba River. Old Cahawba is the site of Alabama’s first state capital.

records, and oral histories will be used as complementary sources of information to build a more complete picture of the settlement.

Conservancy Acquires Two More Tracts at Old Cahawba Site SOUTHEAST—The Conservancy recently acquired two additions to the Old Cahawba site. Old Cahawba, located about 12 miles west of Selma, is the site of Alabama’s first state capital. It is also a multicomponent prehistoric site. The new acquisitions primarily relate to Cahawba’s 19th-century occupation.

The three-acre Zito Tract, on the far north end of the old town, is located where the toll bridge on the old Cahawba-Selma Highway once crossed the Cahawba River. The bridge and the bridge keeper’s house

were destroyed in the 19th century during a major flood The 4.5-acre McColman Tract, which is on the Cahawba River close to the Zito Tract, is located in what was once the Cahawba Commons, an area where the townspeople kept their livestock and gardens.

Archaeologists have not yet examined the commons.

When coupled with the 400+ acres at Cahawba already acquired by the Conservancy, the two tracts will help to tell archaeologists the story of Alabama’s frontier capital, as well as that of the people who lived on the site hundreds of years before.

The Conservancy has transferred all its holdings at Old Cahawba to the Alabama Historical Commission for the developing state park. The park is open to the public from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. daily, except for major holidays.

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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

Sojourns in the South PEOPLES OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY

MARK MICHEL

When: April 27–May 4, 2002 Where: Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi How Much: $1,345 ($230 single supplement)

A day will be spent touring the extensive ruins at Teotihuacán.

Monuments of Mesoamerica AZTECS, TOLTECS, AND TEOTIHUACÁNOS

Mound “A” at the Winterville site in Mississippi is the fifth-largest mound in North America.

Beginning in Memphis and following the Mississippi River south to Natchez, our week-long journey covers more than 5,000 years of history—from ancient earthen mounds to Civil War battlefields. The trip offers an exciting opportunity to learn more about the rich and complex moundbuilder cultures that flourished along the Mississippi River valley until the arrival of the Europeans.

While taking in the charms of the Old South, you’ll visit important sites, including Emerald Mound, the third largest Mississippian mound in the United States. At Poverty Point, you’ll tour one of the country’s most complex and oldest prehistoric sites. You’ll also visit sites from historic times, including the Grand Village of the Natchez and the Civil War battlefield at Vicksburg. Several of the Conservancy’s preserves, such as the Watson Brake Mounds, which may be the oldest mound site in North America, are also featured on the tour.

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UPCOMING TOUR - PERU, SUMMER 2002 Join our two-week expedition in Peru, where you’ll explore the world of the ancient Andean civilizations— from the ruins of the Inca capital at Cuzco, to the spectacular site of Machu Picchu in the rugged Andes Mountains, to the dazzling golden tombs of the Moche on Peru’s North Coast. winter • 2001-02

ALAN

Thousands of years ago, cultures that have long since vanished from Central America constructed magnificent temples and pyramids. Today these monuments of the Aztecs, Toltecs, and Teotihuacános remain a testament to the fascinating people that built them.

On this tour you’ll visit a number of sites including those left by the Olmec, a culture known throughout the region for its art style. You’ll also visit the monuments of the Aztec, a civilization that witnessed the arrival of the Spanish. You’ll explore Teotihuacán, once a great urban center with a population of 200,000.

John Henderson, professor of anthropology at Cornell and author of The World of the Ancient Maya, will lead the tour.

GRUBER

When: April 13–22, 2002 Where: Mexico City and surrounding area How Much: $2,395 per person ($300 single supplement)

Patrons of Preservation DAVID GRANT NOBLE

The Archaeological Conservancy would like to thank the following individuals, foundations, and corporations for their generous support during the period of August through October 2001.

Their generosity, along with the generosity of the Conservancy’s other members, makes our work possible.

Life Member Gifts of $1,000 or more The Yampa River offers breathtaking scenery.

A Spectacular River Trip YA M PA R I V E R When: June 5–12, 2002 Where: Colorado and Utah How Much: $1,595 ($85 single supplement) Join us for a downriver adventure through the spectacular scenery of Dinosaur National Monument, including Whirlpool Canyon, which was first described by the explorer John Wesley Powell.

In additional to the beautiful scenery, your 70-mile journey down the Yampa and Green rivers offers an opportunity to visit remote archaeological sites, including Fremont-culture rock art panels and prehistoric rock shelters.

David Grant Noble, noted photographer and author of Ancient Ruins of the Southwest, will guide the tour.

An Extraordinary Gift This space is generally devoted to an extraordinary gift from one of our members—a bequest, a charitable gift annuity, a donation of stock, or other major contribution. In this issue, we wanted to recognize an extraordinary gift of another kind: We received a letter from Susan Stephenson of California that perfectly summed up the reasons why, even in these difficult times, support for archaeology still has its place. We have reprinted it here.

—Martha Mulvany September 29, 2001 Dear Mr. Michel and TAC Staff: Thank you for your dedicated work. We need the past to guide us into the future. The early peoples of America dealt with many of the same problems we do: water, population pressure, climate change.

They have things to tell us. Your work keeps that dialog open.

The flood of aid for the September 11 tragedy is both laudable and inspiring. Unfortunately, as floods have the potential to do, it could sweep away many things, such as other valuable non-profit efforts.

I choose to honor America by preserving our joint heritage.

Sincerely, Susan M. Stephenson 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.org

american archaeology

Anonymous (2) David Arthur, Illinois Emily Dern, West Virginia Richard Dexter, Wisconsin Ellenore Doudiet, Maine Derwood Koenig, Indiana Julilly Kohler, Wisconsin J. E. Loughridge, Florida Ursula Michaelson, California Jane Quinette, Colorado William and Priscilla Robinson, Arizona H. Warren Ross, California

Anasazi Circle Gifts of $2,000–$4,999 Sue Anschutz-Rodgers, Colorado Rosemary Armbruster, Missouri Helen Darby, California Harlan and Ann Scott, Delaware Hervey and Sarah Stockman, New Mexico

Anasazi Circle Gifts of $5,000 or more Anonymous (1) June Stack, Pennsylvania Richard Woodbury, Massachusetts

Foundation/Corporate Gifts of $1,000–$4,999 Archaeological Resource Management Corporation, California Roger and Frances Kennedy Fund at the Santa Fe Community Foundation, New Mexico

Foundation/Corporate Gifts of $5,000–$34,999 Philip R. Jonsson Foundation, Texas The Clayton Fund, Texas Elmina B. Sewall Foundation, Maine

Foundation/Corporate Gifts of $35,000–$74,999 The Steele-Reese Foundation, Kentucky

Foundation/Corporate Gifts of $75,000–$149,999 The Ford Foundation, New York

Foundation/Corporate Gifts of $150,000 or more Anonymous (1)

Bequests Estate of Hildegard E. Pang, Indiana

47

Reviews Archaeological Perspectives on the American Civil War Edited by Clarence R. Geier and Stephen R. Potter (University Press of Florida, 2001; 432 pgs., illus., $55 cloth; 800-226-3822)

Tikal: An Illustrated History of the Ancient Maya Capital

By John Montgomery (Hippocrene Book, 2001; 294 pgs., illus., $15 paper; 718-454-2366)

Art historian John Montgomery has produced a very readable history of the great Maya city of Tikal in the Petén rainforest of Guatemala.

Drawing on published sources, he has assembled valuable information on the economy and politics as well as the architecture, rulers, and people of this great city.

48

Archaeology has finally taken up the American Civil War, and in a big way. Studies of the physical evidence of the war bring new information and new insights to perhaps the most written-about event in the history of mankind. Historical archaeology is a relatively new discipline in the United States; it’s a multi-discipline field that seeks to combine history, anthropology, and archaeology in order to understand the past. So what can this new approach tell us about a conflict that has produced tens of thousands of volumes? Plenty, it turns out.

Editors Geier and Potter have assembled 18 essays for this volume, dividing them into three basic areas of study. “Tactics and the Conduct of Battle” explores the fighting. Making abundant use of new technology, modern archaeologists are able to recreate the course of battles by the physical remains of war. From the siege of Atlanta to bloody Antietam, archaeology gives us new dimensions of great battles.

“The Home Front and Military Life” explores military support institutions like prisons and hospitals. An examination of domestic life includes the lives of slaves and whites from the North and South, and tells us of the travails of civilians in the path of war.

Four chapters discuss the new methods and techniques of Civil War archaeology. Integrated technology is now able to plot the course of battles.

High-tech metal detectors locate spent ordnance, which is plotted by satellite locating devises. All this data is then churned by a computer to produce pictures of the battles. Most battles are fought in a fog of confusion. Too often the confusion is reflected in the first-hand accounts. But the physical evidence of battle tells a different story, one devoid of panic and emotion. It’s an exciting new tool for scholars of America’s greatest conflict.

Ruins and Rivals: The Making of Southwest Archaeology

By James E. Snead (University of Arizona Press, 2001; 290 pgs., illus., $35 cloth; 800-426-3797)

As the 19th century came to a close, Victorian America found a new fascination with the West, and in particular the ancient ruins of the Southwest and the native peoples descended from them. Eastern centers of wealth were building huge new museums and were in need of spectacular collections to fill them. In the Southwest, new institutions were being formed to capture the local heritage and protect it from outsiders.

And a market was developing for ancient Southwestern artifacts, attracting relic collectors of myriad stripes.

These three forces were bound to come in conflict as the emerging science of archaeology sought to understand the ancient cultures of the Southwest. Snead shows how competition for status and prestige shaped modern Southwestern archaeology. The Eastern “museum men” were initially the allies of the early relic hunters, more concerned with trophies from Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, and Bandelier than knowledge. But before long, some of those Easterners were becoming Southwestern professional archaeologists.

It was a time and place where legends in archaeology were made: Frederick Ward Putnam of the Peabody in Boston; Nels Nelson of the American Museum in New York; Edgar Lee Hewitt of Santa Fe; Frederick Hyde; and, of course, Richard Weatherill, the cowboy who discovered Mesa Verde. Ruins and Rivals captures the flavor of digs and discoveries, scholars and scoundrels.

—Mark Michel winter • 2001-02

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