American Archaeology Magazine | Spring 2002 | Vol. 6 No. 1 by American Archaeology Magazine

R E M OT E S E N S I N G : W I L L I T C H A N G E A R C H A E O L O G Y ? •

T E X A S ’ S A M A Z I N G R O C K A RT

american archaeology

SPRING 2002

a quarterly publication of The Archaeological Conservancy

Vol. 6 No. 1

Digging into Teotihuacán $3.95

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american archaeology a quarterly publication of The Archaeological Conservancy

Vol. 6 No. 1

spring 2002 COVER FEATURE

20 TUNNELING THROUGH TEOTIHUACÁN BY WILL WEISSERT

Archaeologists are digging deep into the mysteries of the Americas’ first metropolis.

1 2 THE LITTLE-KNOWN TREASURES OF THE LOWER PECOS BY TAMAR STIEBER

If you’re looking for amazing rock art, you’ll find it in this remote part of Texas.

2 7 REMOTE SENSING EMERGES BY BETSA MARSH

American archaeologists are gradually embracing this powerful new technology.

33 FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS BY NANCY TRAVER

An archaeologist’s weekend projects evolve into a major endeavor.

3 7 LEGENDS OF ARCHAEOLOGY: M A K I N G A SCIENCE OF ARCHAEOLOGY BY JON MULLER

Cyrus Thomas used scientific methods to advance the field.

4 0 new acquisition: PRE-CLOVIS SITE DONAT E D TO THE CONSERVA N C Y

2 Lay of the Land

This 14,000-year-old site provided the first evidence of humans hunting mastodons in North America.

3 Letters 5 Events 7 In the News Excavations Reveal Ceremonial Center • Finding the French in Peoria • Fort St. Louis Excavation Ends

44 Field Notes 46 Expeditions 48 Reviews american archaeology

COVER:

Teotihuacán, located northeast of presentday Mexico City, is believed to have once been the largest city in the New World Photograph by

4 2 new acquisition: A GLIMPSE OF THE CADDO Because of the Redwine site, archaeologists are learning more about the Caddo.

4 3 point acquisition: A LEGACY OF THE DEPTFORD CULT U R E The pristine Waters Pond site has excellent research potential.

Lay of the Land Grassroots Archaeology

Founded by archaeologist Allen Dart and friends in 1994, it now boasts an annual budget of $400,000, and a staff of seven that’s assisted by 100 volunteers. They are taking archaeology directly to the grassroots through educational programs for children and adults, thereby connect-

ing people in the Tucson area to the ancient Hohokam that preceded them. It’s infectious. Now the nearby town of Marana is developing an archaeological park in cooperation with Old Pueblo. In addition to education and enthusiasm, groups like Old Pueblo are producing valuable research and site information.The Archaeological Conservancy works with these local and regional groups on a regular basis and we applaud their efforts. From California to New England, these groups are reshaping archaeology for the better by getting lay people involved in

DARREN POORE

ll across the country, people are getting together to study and do archaeology because there is much work to accomplish and because it’s just plain fun. In this issue of American Archaeology, we focus on the Old Pueblo Archaeology Center in Tucson.

preservation. Look for more stories on these dedicated people in the months and years to come.

MARK MICHEL, President

IMELESS... EXPERIENCE T S THE

AUTUMN IN THE

OUTHWEST

• FOUR CORNERS COUNTRY Archaeology and Native Peoples of the Colorado Plateau SEPTEMBER 7 - 15, 2002

• TWO PERSPECTIVES ON THE PAST Histories of the Hopi Clan Migration SEPTEMBER 15 - 21, 2002

• EXPLORING CHACO CANYON SEPTEMBER 22 - 28, 2002

• BACKCOUNTRY ARCHAEOLOGY The Cedar Mesa Frontier OCTOBER 6 - 12, 2002

CROW CANYON ARCHAEOLOGICAL CENTER

23390 Road K, Cortez, Colorado 81321 800-422-8975 www.crowcanyon.org CCAC’s programs and admission practices are open to applicants of any race, color, nationality, or ethnic origin. CST# 2059347-50

spring • 2002

Letters An Important Discovery “Studying California’s Prehistory,” which appeared in the Winter 2001-02 issue, explains what an important discovery the Lorenzen site is. The Pit River Indian Village is a historical find that will help future generations understand California’s prehistory. Little is known about the state’s prehistory and archaeology sites like this help shed some light on the state’s past. Kudos to former owners Cliff Harvey and Jan Sorochtey for protecting this critical site from looters. What a terrible loss it would have been had looters found this site first. It disheartens me every time I hear about archaeological sites in Egypt that have been ransacked and looted. What a terrible loss this is. Sophie Roberts Lehigh, Oklahoma Who Built Fort Ticonderoga? In the article “Defending King and Country” in the Fall 2001 issue, the author makes reference to Fort Edward becoming the British colonial force’s most important bulwark against French invasions following the fall of Fort Ticonderoga and Fort William Henry. While William Henry was, in fact, a British fort that fell to the French, Fort Ticonderoga was built by the French in 1755 and was then known as Fort Carillon. It only became a British fort late in 1759, when Lord Jeffery Amherst took it from the French. Charles Hudson Forest, Virginia american archaeology

Editor’s Corner

Volunteering at the Gault Site We were fortunate to be able to accompany Bruce Bradley to the Gault site (“Challenging the Clovis Paradigm,” Fall 2001 issue) and work there for 10 days. Mike Collins’s interest in the site is infectious. The site should definitely be an archaeological preserve. Don and Jeanne Tucker Hillsboro, Oregon

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.

One of our features, “The Little Known Treasures of the Lower Pecos,” focuses on the incredible rock art found in a corner of southwest Texas. Rock art, for its creators, was fraught with meaning; when viewing these works today, one can’t help but wonder what these figures meant. Archaeologist Solveig Turpin has studied Lower Pecos rock art since the late 1970s. When she started, she vowed to never interpret the figures because interpretation was then considered to be “a frivolous pursuit.” But after five or six years of study, Turpin broke her vow. Having looked at many sites, she began to discern patterns, and patterns are something archaeologists are suppose to explain. One can’t literally read rock art symbols like a book, she stated, but she added that her interpretations are informed by identifiable patterns, the archaeological and ethnographic records, and religious history. Though she is moved by rock art, she doesn’t consider it a spiritual experience, as some do. Turpin said the intellectual climate has changed and most archaeologists who specialize in rock art no longer refrain from interpretation. So her views are now more acceptable, and what a shame. “It was a bit more fun,” she observed, “when it was disreputable.”

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 225 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

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 • David Bergholz, Ohio 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 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 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.

spring • 2002

Museum exhibits Meetings

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Tours

Education

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Events

Festivals

Conferences

■ NEW EXHIBITS

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

New Orleans Museum of Art New Orleans, La.—“The Sport of Life and Death:The Mesoamerican Ballgame” is the first traveling exhibit in the United States to explore the world’s first team sport, which began around 1500 B.C. in southern Mexico with the early Olmec. It includes 175 artifacts such as jade carvings of Olmec ballplayer kings, ceramic vessels, jewelry, costume accessories, and artifacts from major public and private collections in Mexico and the United States. (704) 337-2098 or www.ballgame.org (Through April 28)

Museum of Anthropology The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada—Prepared in collaboration with representatives from the Squamish, Klahoose, Stl’atl’imx, and Nlaka’pamux First Nations, the new exhibit “Continuing Traditions” focuses on the evolution of Coast Salish basketry over the past 50 years. (604) 8223825 (Through April 30)

SCOTT VLAUN

Field Museum Chicago, Ill.—Explore the fascinating relationship between human culture and this rainforest treasure in the new exhibit “Chocolate.” Chocolate has been popular since the Mayans first ground cacao seeds with water and made a drink that was soon coveted by other cultures. It was a valuable article of trade, a drink for the elite, and an offering to the gods. The exhibit includes pre-Columbian ceramics and ritual objects, as well as historic European artifacts relating to the production, advertising, packaging, and serving of chocolate. (312) 665-7100 (Through September 8)

american archaeology

Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.—The new exhibition “Objects and Their Meanings: Histories and Highlights” explores the ways in which the meaning of objects changes over time, and how social and cultural relationships influence people’s understanding of material things. (978) 7494488 (Through June)

Arizona State Museum University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz.— The museum’s extensive American Indian pottery collection is highlighted in “The Pottery Project: 20,000 Pots, 2,000 Years,” which includes a vast array of whole vessels from throughout the Southwest and across the Mexican border, representing every cultural tradition in the region. (520) 626-8381 (Through June)

Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center, New York, N.Y.—The artistic, cultural, economic, and political significance of beadwork in the lives of the Iroquois is explored in the new traveling exhibition “Across Borders: Beadwork in Iroquois Life,” which includes more than 300 stunning examples of beadwork from the mid-19th century to present times. (202) 357-3164 (Through May 19)

SCHENCK AND SCHENCK

Events Pueblo Grande Museum and Archaeological Park

■ CONFERENCES, LECTURES & FESTIVALS 67th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology

Montclair Art Museum Montclair, N.J.—The museum’s new Native American gallery highlights works from a variety of cultural areas, including the Woodlands, the Southwest, California, the Northwest Coast, the Plains, and the Arctic. The indigenous inhabitants of these areas have an ancient tradition of creating art, with each generation handing down its skills, techniques, and talents to the next. Works date from prehistoric times through the 20th century. (973) 746-5555 (New permanent gallery)

March 20–24,Adam’s Mark Hotel, Denver, Colo. Contact SAA headquarters at (202) 789-8200 or visit their Web site at www.saa.org

36th Annual Meeting of the Society for California Archaeology April 4–7, Doubletree Hotel San Diego, Mission Valley, Calif. Various events such as workshops, presentations, receptions, and tours are planned at historical locations in the area. Contact Mark Allen, program chair, at (909) 869-3577 or visit the SCA Web site at www.sca.org

The 20th Annual Maya Weekend: A Maya Katun Celebration April 5–7, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, Pa. Maya epigraphers (hieroglyph specialists) and archaeologists share their latest discoveries in a weekend immersed in Maya culture. This year’s event also features a colorful festival of Maya textiles with specialists from the U.S., Mexico, and Guatemala. (215) 898-4890

Southwest Museum Los Angeles, Calif.—The new exhibit “Pikuni Blackfoot: Good Things Stay the Same” features artifacts, photography, and historical documents about the Pikuni Blackfoot culture of what is now Montana. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Pikuni supported themselves with a huntinggathering economy that was well documented by U.S. forest surveyor Walter McClintock, whose first-hand accounts are an integral part of the exhibition. (323) 221-2164 (New long-term exhibit)

Open House at Arizona State Museum April 6, The University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz. See the museum’s nationally recognized pottery collection in this behind-the-scenes visit into the storerooms, vaults, galleries, and labs.The day includes family activities such as pinch pot making, beadwork, spear throwing, corn grinding, and more, as well as the museum’s spring book sale. Free admission. (520) 621-6302

86th Annual Meeting of the New York State Archaeological Association April 26–28, Howard Johnson Hotel, Norwich, N.Y. Professional and avocational archaeologists will present papers about New York State archaeology. Call E. Augustyn at (315) 824-8423.

Springtime Festival of Iroquois Arts May 25–26, Iroquois Indian Museum, Howes Cave, N.Y.This year’s festival features archaeological displays and demonstrations, as well as the works of skilled Iroquois artists, traditional dances, storytelling, and music. Call Neal Keating at (518) 296-8949. spring • 2002

MONTCLAIR ART MUSEUM

Phoenix, Ariz.—The newly remodeled main exhibit gallery explores Hohokam agriculture, architecture, and arts in “The Hohokam: The Land and the People.” The exhibit includes the distinctive Hohokam red-on-buff pottery, a variety of tools, and shell and stone jewelry, as well as information about the extensive Hohokam canal system. (602) 495-0901 (New longterm exhibit)

in the Excavations Reveal Details of Ceremonial Center

NEWS

Revised dates show Georgia’s Kolomoki Mounds were established in the fourth century A.D.

TOM PLUCKHAHN

olomoki Mounds, one of the oldest, largest, and most enduring settlements in the Southeast, has also been one of the least understood. But a recent University of Georgia investigation revealed the village’s status as a major ceremonial center, established 1,000 years before the state’s better-known mound sites such as Etowah and Ocmulgee.The settlement, which is protected as a State Historic Park, consists of a 56-foot-tall flat-topped mound, eight smaller mounds, an open plaza, and a large earthen wall that once encircled the site. Researchers estimate the site had a population of about 500. Located in southwestern Georgia, Kolomoki was first visited in the late 1800s by archaeologists with the Smithsonian Institution and later became the focus of major investigations undertaken by William Sears of the University of Georgia from 1948 to 1953. Sears’s work focused primarily on the discovery of exotic artifacts such as iron and copper cymbalshaped ornaments, mica disks, shell beads, and other ornate items. For years the settlement’s main occupation was incorrectly dated to around A.D. 1200 during the Middle Mississippian period, a time when large, flattopped mounds were built throughout the Southeast as platforms for the temples of the ruling chiefs. After more than 50 years, researchers with the University of

american archaeology

(Left) The pithouse before and (right) during excavation. The excavators have exposed the floor of the pithouse, including a small fire pit at the center of the structure.

Georgia have returned to the site to undertake a three-year project with the goal of re-analyzing the results of previous work conducted at the site to better understand the lives of the village’s inhabitants. Based on the Swift Creek type pottery found at Kolomoki and on radiocarbon testing, researchers now date the site to the Middle to Late Woodland periods, from around A.D. 350 to 750, placing it well before the establishment of other similar Southeastern mound sites. The Swift Creek culture once covered portions of present-day Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Tennessee; its trade networks reached as far north as the Ohio River Valley. Using ground-penetrating radar, University of Georgia graduate stu-

dent Tom Pluckhahn and his crew located one of the first dwellings established at the site, a 10-foot square pithouse with a ramped entrance that dates between A.D. 350 and 450, one of the few from this period ever found in the Southeast. “This new work has led archaeologists to new and quite different interpretations of Kolomoki’s role in the development of sophisticated cultures of the prehistoric Southeast,” said Pluckhahn, who is writing his dissertation on this project.“We now know that this was the site of both a major village and mound center that was occupied for many centuries, and that it clearly served as some sort of ceremonial center.” —Tamara Stewart

in the

NEWS

A Long Search Culminates in the Discovery of French Peoria The 18th-century village is one of the earliest European settlements in western Illinois.

bottle found behind the house.

ITARP

hile conducting a testing project for a proposed roadway realignment in Peoria, Illinois, last fall, researchers with the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program (ITARP) of the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, discovered the first remains of an 18th-century French village previously known of only from historical documents. “We had a broad understanding that this was the location of French Peoria, one of the main French areas in the region, but people have been looking for traces of this old village for more than twenty years with no luck,” says Robert Mazrim, the project’s historian. The limited extent of past excavations and the subtle nature of the site kept it hidden since the late 18th century, but after a backhoe revealed faint soil discolorations in a vacant lot, project director David Nolan and his crew traced what appeared to be a linear wall trench feature that extended almost 300 feet across the lot. While the researchers suspected the trench was a legacy of the village, they found no other evidence to confirm their suspicion. But they later discovered a similar wall trench feature that turned out to be the remains of a two-room house which appeared to be of French construction. In the house fill they found a

A fragment of a late-18th-century wine

The remains of the 18th-century dwelling after the wall trenches were cleaned of fill dirt. It’s thought that the house may have served as an outbuilding where slaves were kept.

fragment of a late 1700s’ wine bottle and a hand-forged nail.The first trench is thought to be the remains of a fence, and the house probably served as a fieldhouse or outbuilding, which explains the dearth of artifacts. Researchers think that this site represents the outer edge of the village. Work at the site showed that it sits up on a fairly intact high terrace, indicating that there are probably pockets of remains that are still very well preserved despite the area’s urbanization. Based on historical documents and detailed probate records of the lot’s landowner, Louis Chatellereau, what is known as the Old Village was inhabited by a small group of French settlers from about 1763 until 1796. The house was most likely occupied

seasonally throughout most of this period. Many inhabitants moved a short distance downriver to the New Village in the 1780s, and the French remained in the area until the War of 1812, when the American army burned down the New Village and arrested those who were suspected of being British sympathizers. “For the people of Peoria interested in their French history, there has not been much that’s tangible in the past to look at until this discovery,” says Mazrim. When the details of the road corridor are established, ITARP will conduct more testing and continue to work with local historical societies to check for French remains farther afield. —Tamara Stewart spring • 2002

in the Protecting the Miami Circle

NEWS

Federal legislation proposes making the site part of Biscayne National Park.

ills filed in late January by Florida legislators in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives propose a federal feasibility study to add the Miami Circle, a 2,000-yearold Tequesta Indian site located in downtown Miami, to nearby Biscayne National Park. If passed, the measure could provide federal resources for preservation and interpretation of the site. The bills are sponsored by Sena-

tors Bob Graham and Bill Nelson and Representatives Carrie Meek and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Graham made a similar proposal in 1999 that failed to pass Congress because no similar measure was introduced in the House. The Miami Circle, which has gained international renown since its discovery in 1998, is no more than seven miles from the park’s northern boundary.The circle sits on a 2.2-acre parcel of land that the state and Miami-Dade County

bought from a real estate developer for $26.7 million. The bills ask the National Park Service to assess the site’s significance and determine whether it belongs in the park.The Park Service supported Graham’s previous bill, noting that seven Tequesta sites have been discovered within Biscayne National Park. “I think it’s a very bold and creative idea,” said Bob Carr, one of the discoverers of the Circle. —Michael Bawaya

Uncovering a Historic Market A 200-year-old market is found in Washington D.C.

U.S. MARINE CORPS

rchaeologists have found the remains of a 19th-century public market that served some of the first residents of Washington D.C. The excavation was conducted because the U.S. Marine Corps is planning to build a housing project on the site and federal and city laws require an archaeological investigation before construction begins. There is virtually no information in the historical record about the Eastern Branch Market, which is thought to have opened at the beginning of the century.The single existing sketch of the market shows that it was Ushaped. About 10 feet of fill dirt covered the site, which in recent years has been a play field administered by the city’s recreation department. “They found an 1804 coin, which was probably about the time

american archaeology

John Mullen, a supervisor with Thunderbird Archaeological Associates, removes fill dirt from a portion of the market wall that was made of brick.

it was open,” said Nancy Kassner, the archaeologist for the District’s Historic Preservation Office. “Unfortunately, they didn’t find many artifacts related to the market.” The Marine Corps hired Thunderbird Archaeological Associates to perform the excavation.Thunderbird discovered the remains of the market’s walls, which were made primarily of sandstone. Soil samples taken from the market are being analyzed for protein residue.“We’re looking to see what they were selling in the market,” said Bill Gardner, Thunderbird’s president. Protein analysis could, for example, reveal that vendors in a given section of the market were selling beef or pork. Gardner believes the market was destroyed around 1869 because the poor neighborhood it was located in couldn’t support it.—Michael Bawaya

in the

NEWS

Two sides of a religious medallion found at the site.

Fort St. Louis Excavation Ends Work at Texas’s first European settlement stops due to lack of funding.

TEXAS HISTORICAL COMMISSION

aving run out of money, the Texas Historical Commission’s 28-month excavation of Fort St. Louis ended earlier this year. All but one of the goals of the project have been accomplished, with researchers confirming the site’s importance as Texas’s first European settlement and a significant 18th-century Spanish fortification for the defense of New Spain. The fort was built in 1685 as the base of operations for French explorer Réne-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and 180 colonists (see “La Salle, La Belle, and the Lone Star State,” American Archaeology, Fall 2000). La Salle’s mission was to establish a French colony at the mouth of the Mississippi River and eventually take over territory controlled by Spain in what is now Mexico. Because of an inaccurate map and navigational miscalculations, the colonists landed about 400 miles off course at Matagorda Bay, southeast of Victoria. The fort became central to the struggle between France and Spain to dominate the New World. Shortly after Fort St. Louis was built, many of the colonists left for new territories or died of smallpox. When it was overrun in January 1688 by the local Karankawa Indians, it’s estimated that only 25 colonists remained. The fort was burned to the ground in 1690 by order of the Spanish government. In addition to confirming the lo-

Jim Bruseth (left) and Luis Alvarado excavate in a melted adobe mound near the center of the site. The Spanish initially used adobe to build their presidio, but it proved to be a poor building material, as the heat and humidity of southeast Texas caused it to melt.

cation of Fort St. Louis and the elaborate 16-pointed star-shaped Spanish presidio that was built over it in 1722, a major goal of the project was locating and excavating the cemetery that may hold the remains of as many as 80 of the French colonists. The site’s owners hoped to have the remains removed from their property and re-interred on public land where they would be better protected by state law. Although the remains of three French colonists were found, the cemetery has not been located. “We have a couple of areas left to check later this spring. If we do not find the cemetery, this will become one of Texas’s great un-

solved historical mysteries,” said Jim Bruseth, head of the commission’s archaeology division and director of the project. The cemetery would yield a great deal of information about the diet, stature, and general health of the French colonists, as well as the causes of their deaths. Researchers will undertake these studies on the existing three sets of human remains, however, and excavations of about 20 percent of the site have given them more than 150,000 artifacts, most of which will be displayed at the Museum of the Coastal Bend at Victoria College when it opens next year. —Tamara Stewart spring • 2002

in the

NEWS

Archaeologists Find the Campo de Cahuenga Adobe

This Los Angeles building played an important role in the Mexican-American War.

and Wyoming to the United States, and recognized the U.S. government’s claim to Texas. The general location of the Campo de Cahuenga adobe has been known since the building was destroyed around 1870, but no one had recorded its exact location. Excavations began in 1996, when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) decided to build a subway station near the site and hired archaeologists to excavate. Archaeologist John Foster, who is with the firm Greenwood and Associates, led the dig. The excavation has revealed the top of the building’s stone foundations, tile floors, interior doorways, and the remains of a slate feature

JOHN FOSTER

n ongoing excavation adjacent to a subway stop in Los Angeles, California, has uncovered the remains of the adobe building where U.S. Lieutenant Colonel John C. Fremont and Mexican General Andres Pico signed the treaty that led to the end of the Mexican-American War. The Articles of Capitulation were signed on January 13, 1847 at the Campo de Cahuenga adobe. The agreement ended hostilities between the U.S. and Mexican armed forces in California and paved the way for the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ceded the land that is now California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado,

Archaeologists document the tile floors and stone foundations of the adobe building. The excavation,

that may have been a fireplace. Despite the fact that the site is quite close to the surface and its approximate location was generally known, looting has been minimal. “What’s incredible,” said Foster, “is that we found the tile floors just six inches below the surface and they were intact. None of them had been scavenged.” The tiles are in good condition, and dog paw prints and the hand swipes of the Native Americans who put them out in the sun to dry are still visible. Although the find is most significant because of the historical events that took place there, Foster is hoping that the dig will reveal more about the building itself. The 6,000square-foot adobe was built as early as 1795, and it’s one of the largest structures of the period in the Los Angeles area. It was originally owned by Mariano de la Luz Verdugo, a retired soldier. The property was later claimed by the San Fernando mission for grazing. “The building was supposed to be a cattle outpost when the mission took over in 1810,” said Foster, “but it’s too large—six or seven rooms as compared to one or two. The question is, can we figure out what was going on there?” The MTA is looking for areas of the villa to expose in a permanent interpretive display so the public can view the site. —Martha Mulvany

which began in 1996, was completed in February.

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THE LITTLE-KNOWN T OF THE LOWER PECOS JIM ZINTGRAFF

Panther Cave, where this panel is located, holds one of the most elaborate displays of the central theme of Pecos River–style art—the supernatural ability to assume the form of an animal familiar. Commonly called the were-cougar, the central figure stands erect on human feet, his clawed hands holding an atlatl (spear thrower) and darts.

spring • 2002

Some of the New World’s oldest and most remarkable rock art is hidden away in a remote corner of Texas. By Tamar Stieber

TREASURES american archaeology

im Zintgraff is a man with a mission.A short, stocky Texan who turned 75 last November, he feels his time on earth waning and worries that there’s precious little time remaining to accomplish his work.“Sweetheart,” he sighed, his voice betraying exhaustion, “I have a lot to do and only a few years left to do it.” It was the last night of a four-day camping trip in the rugged Chihuahuan Desert in southwest Texas near the Mexican border. Barely two weeks out of surgery, Zintgraff nonetheless insisted on escorting me across some 200 miles of canyon land for a look at some of the oldest and most extensive prehistoric rock art in the New World. Hidden in rock shelters along the craggy, cactus-covered hills overlooking the confluence of the Rio Grande and Pecos rivers, the paintings range from 100 to 4,000 years old. Zintgraff’s work—his obsession, really—is to finish photographing these extraordinary works that offer a glimpse into the lives and beliefs—the “world view”—of the various peoples who inhabited the Lower Pecos during those four millennia.To date, archaeologists have recorded some 350 rock art sites among the roughly 1,900 archaeological sites known to exist in the canyons of Val Verde and Terrell counties, and Zintgraff has some 13,000 negatives of pictographs, which he keeps in a fire- and burglarproof safe. He’s hell-bent on photographing every last pictograph in the Lower Pecos before it’s too late not only for him, but also for the rock paintings, some of which are showing the

JIM WALKER

ravages of time and the elements. Custodians such as the state, the National Park Service, and the Rock Art Foundation (see sidebar, page 16) are fencing sites and controlling the number of visitors to minimize the human impact on the pictographs. It’s miraculous the pictographs have lasted as long as they have, a result of a unique combination of environmental factors in the region, notably an ideal humidity level similar to that of a climate-controlled museum, and the composition of the paint itself. Pigments from ground ocher, charcoal, chalk, limonite, and other naturally occurring minerals combined with animal fat provide the tints to a spectrum of reds, oranges, blacks and, more rarely, yellows, and white that have withstood the test of time.

A Rice University field school visits a rock art site on the Devils River.

A plainspoken man with a distinct Texas drawl, Zintgraff favors suspenders over belts and smokes a hand-carved pipe. He looks like a professor, but he talks like a cowboy. In fact, he’s neither. He’s a professional photographer whose resume includes shooting for Life, National Geographic and stills for legendary movie director John Ford. But all that was in another life, one Zintgraff began putting behind him in 1952 when he saw his first prehistoric rock painting.That was at Fate Bell rock shelter, one of hundreds of naturally occurring rock shelters marking the steep canyon walls of the Lower Pecos. Carved by eons of erosion, rock shelters technically differ from caves in that they are wider than they are deep. At 150 yards wide and 40 yards deep, Fate Bell is the largest rock shelter in the region. It’s also highly accessible, being a 10-minute walk from the visitors center in Seminole Canyon State Historical Park, 45 miles west of Del Rio,Texas. Most sites in the region are located in hidden, hard-to-reach places that require challenging climbs up and down the canyons. A 25-foot-deep blanket of gravel and ash deposited over thousands of years cover Fate Bell’s midden, the contents of which suggests up to 9,000 years of occupation by groups ranging from 25 to 50 people at a given time. Based on what’s known about hunter-gatherer groups, experts believe that ceremonies took place at Fate Bell that may have drawn hundreds of people from all over the region to the shelter. Unfortunately, some of the midden contents were turned up in the 1960s by people who, for fees of $1 to $5, were given carte blanche by private landowners to dig for artifacts. Obscenely pocked with gaping holes, the south end of Fate Bell is a testament to the ignorance of that era. spring • 2002

NPS/JOE LABADIE

The Curly Tailed Panther site includes this nearly inaccessible alcove high above the Devils River. Entering the alcove requires traversing a narrow ledge that slopes downward at a 45 degree angle. The drop from the ledge is more than 100 feet.

So is the diaphanous veil of dust that dulls the pictographs.While all shelters contain dust deposited over the centuries by the elements and the fauna and flora, Fate Bell’s rock walls wear an unusually heavy coat that partially resulted from the large amounts of dirt that looters let fly in their search for stone tools.“No one knows for sure how to remove the dust without destroying what’s underneath,”said Greg Williams, president of the Rock Art Foundation.A food broker turned amateur archaeologist, Williams guided me along a rubber mat extending the length of the Fate Bell shelter.The mats reduce the dust that results from walking through the shelter.Williams had me peer into one of the holes on the shelter floor where a looter had laid bare a section of Fate Bell’s midden. He pointed out such artifacts as remnants of clothing, sandals, even food.

This thunderbird, a typical Plains motif, soars across the bleached surface of a shallow overhang at Meyers Springs.

JIM ZINTGRAFF

INCREDIBLE ART, INCREDIBLE PRESERVATION Joe Labadie, a National Park Service archaeologist working at Amistad National Recreation Area near Seminole Canyon, explained that it’s rare to find such a high level of preservation at archaeological sites, most of which yield little more than “stones or bones.” But it’s the incredibly well-preserved organic material—baskets, netting, snares, clothing, sandals—that makes the Lower Pecos such a scientific treasure trove. “Nature is very rough on organic materials,” Labadie explained.“Here we have in the Lower Pecos . . . the unique geology in North America that allows for its preservation.” That unique geology includes a semi-arid climate, a labyrinthine canyon system, and protective rock shelters. Combined, they provide a natural preservation environment Labadie described as “almost unparalleled in America.” “We know the sandals they may have been wearing that day in the shelter.We even know the spear points they had and what food they might have had,” he marveled. Archaeologists are relatively certain that humans occupied the region by 9300 B.C., a date derived from PaleoIndian-era Clovis, Folsom, and Plainview points unearthed during half a century of excavations which began in earnest during the 1930s and included several excavations by the Smithsonian. In addition to spear points, archaeologists have uncovered a host of other tools including knives, scrapers, and manos and metates. By 7500 B.C., the hunter-gatherers of the Lower Pecos refined their tools to suit their increased dependence on plant foods and the smaller game that replaced the then-extinct Pleistocene animals they once hunted. The Early Archaic period (7000–4000 B.C.) saw communities moving from open-air camps to rockshelters, where archaeologists have identified such creature comforts as latrines that were at a remove from the living areas, grass-lined pits, and various organic artifacts. Painted pebbles and clay figurines from this period have also been unearthed—portable art that, by 2000 B.C., would be joined by the long-term exhibits that are the rock paintings.

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This nine-foot-long panther dominates a complex series of paintings in Panther Cave, so named for the numerous felines that decorate its walls. The long tail and reddish hue are characteristics of the mountain lions that still inhabit the region, especially south of the Rio Grande.

This line of dancers is another motif introduced into the Lower Pecos region by Plains Indians. The more technically skilled artists show the dancers with round objects that are probably drums.

This fantastic rendering of a mountain lion has a bristling mane, bug-eyes, and an extremely long tail that curls up over his back, giving the site the name Curly Tailed Panther.

Preserving by Publicizing The Curly Tailed Panther site at sunset. This is one of a handful of shelters that contains three different styles of pictographs: Pecos River, Red Monochrome, and Red Linear.

The paintings at Fate Bell rock shelter span at least three millennia and three distinct styles. The oldest artwork—the Pecos River style—which dates back at least 4,000 years and may well be some of the first religious art in North America, if not the New World—is the most abundant, distinct, and detailed. Fate Bell’s central panel features a seven-foot-high anthropomorphic figure, the largest of several such figures in the prehistoric mural. An icon that dominates the Pecos River style, these anthropomorphic figures almost always appear in the company of their “familiars,” which commonly include at least one panther.The anthropomorphic figures are characteristically rendered in abstract rectangular fashion, lacking either facial features or feet, with arms outstretched and hair standing on end. Bedecked in intricate costumes and headdresses, the shaman is usually painted holding what may be an atlatl (throwing spear) in one hand and perhaps a rattle in the other. Depictions of his symbolic displays of supernatural powers—transmogrification, transcendence, rebirth, communicating with the spirit world— document a belief system common to hunter-gatherer societies worldwide.“It’s the same story painted over and over,” said Williams, who has been studying rock art for 21 years. Zintgraff accompanied Boone Law—recently returned from Australia, where he is getting his master’s degree in archaeology—and me on the short-but-steep, up-and-down hike leading to the White Shaman, one of the best-known rock art sites in the lower Pecos River Valley. Officially named the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway site—“I don’t think three people know it as that,” Zintgraff, who christened it the White Shaman, snorted—it’s also the cornerstone and namesake of the Galloway White Shaman Preserve, a 300acre refuge belonging to the Rock Art Foundation, of which Zintgraff is a founding director and a major mover and shaker. Located across Highway 90 from Seminole Canyon State Historic Park, the land was donated by foundation members Gale and Connie Galloway of Pearsall,Texas.

In the 10 years since its inception, the Rock Art Foundation has grown from 9 to 800 members whose ranks include scientists, artists, lawyers, entrepreneurs, cowboys, good old boys, and just plain folks. Despite their differences, and they’re myriad, they share a single vision: to spread the word about the extraordinary rock art in the Lower Pecos in order to preserve it for future generations. While that may sound inherently contradictory given that more foot traffic causes more erosion, this nonprofit organization based in San Antonio is convinced that generating interest in the rock art will in fact protect this precious legacy of ancient Native America. ”I always thought that what we’re doing is a double-edged sword,“ said Jim Zintgraff, one of the foundation’s nine founding directors and its photographer of record. ”If you lock ‘em up and throw the key away, which some people want to do, you never accomplish anything. You have to share the excitement with everyone to accomplish what we’re after.“ What they’re after is, in a word, preservation. Sometimes that means educating landowners about rock art on their property, other times it means acquiring the property. But that takes a lot of money. Shunning public funding, the foundation relies exclusively on private donations. ”If we take federal money to help us, then we have to answer to federal regulations,“ Zintgraff explained. ”If we use private money, then we can do what the conservators tell us to do.“ The idea that government equals intrusion is common currency in Texas. Zintgraff has earned the trust and respect of local ranchers who have become unwitting custodians of the millennia-old artwork on their land. An avid and effective ambassador for the foundation, Zintgraff assures landowners that if anybody tries to take their property, ”we’ll be right there in court beside you.“ ”Old-timey ranchers think the state wants their land even though it wouldn’t take it if they tried to give it [away],“ archaeologist and foundation member Solveig Turpin said. But a newer generation of ranchers—people like Tom and Ava Clary, who own 5,000 acres on the pristine Devils River—have a different attitude. ”The Clarys have been a real help to the foundation—generous and cooperative,” explained Turpin. ”A great many people take a great deal of pride in protecting these.“ Still, there are notable exceptions, like a Louisiana Boy Scout troop that lit a fire under a pictograph. ”When we told them they shouldn’t do this, they said, ’This ain’t no old archaeological site, this is an old Indian cave, ‘ “ Turpin recalled. ”It’s just a very small percentage of people who don’t have regard for the past, but they make it difficult for everybody.“ To increase awareness of the roock art, the foundation will soon publish a CD about the pictographs. —Tamar Stieber spring • 2002

NPS/JOE LABADIE

Measuring approximately 30 yards long and 10 yards high, the White Shaman mural is painted in fading reds, burnt oranges, black, and the rarely seen white. Zintgraff considers rock art to be “a spiritual experience,” and to him the White Shaman depicts the flight of a powerful magician to the spirit world where he encounters death and rebirth, a sacred theme that echoes throughout time and space.Archaeologists like Labadie, on the other hand, prefer to focus on rock art’s value as a physical artifact; another piece of the puzzle that someday may reveal who these people were, where they came from, where they went, and why.

That’s the beauty of science. It has a leveling effect.” Unlike the ancient Macedonian priests who gave us the Rosetta Stone—a basalt slab inscribed with a key to translating Egyptian hieroglyphics—the prehistoric Pecos River people provided no such clue to decipher their signs and symbols.While pictographs provide an additional tool for archaeologists to piece together the natural and cultural his-

JIM ZINTGRAFF

“The difference between science and interpretation is that science is replicable,” Labadie explained.“When you interpret, you draw on those things that you know, your own personal experiences, to come up with an idea of what a symbol looks like. Someone who grew up in California may interpret a squiggly line differently than someone from Minnesota or Florida.We are products of our past experiences.

The White Shaman illustrates a common principle expressed in Pecos River–style art —the duality of body and spirit. Here the entranced spirit is shown leaving his body and rising toward the supernatural plane, which is defined by inverted or skeleton figures that symbolize the spiritual death incurred during altered states of consciousness.

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One of the dominant themes in Pecos River–style art is magical flight, the ability of the shaman to leave his mortal body and rise to the land of the spirits. This transcendental experience is portrayed in this case by the wings and clawed feet of the ascendant shaman who rises from a circular motif that represents the portal to the supernatural or upper level of the three-tiered shamanic universe. This bird shaman is superimposed on the eponymous panther of Panther Cave and may be intended to demonstrate the superiority of one animal incarnation over another.

tory of the Lower Pecos, without the accompanying scientific data, they offer “very limited investigative tools with which to theorize what it all means,” said Labadie. THE STYLES OF THE LOWER PECOS Solveig Turpin, an archaeologist with the University of Texas in Austin and an expert on Lower Pecos rock art, acknowledges that it’s difficult to avoid pondering the meaning behind the pictographs. When she first began documenting them in 1978, she vowed to never interpret them. “But after looking at them for twenty years, you start to see patterns and make hypotheses,” she admitted. Pecos River–style artwork utilized the full repertoire of colors while the two styles that follow—the 2,000- to 3,000year old Red Linear, and Red Monochrome, which dates back 1,000 years—come, as their names imply, in a wide variety of reds only.The Red Linear, named for its abstract, whimsical, and diminutive red stick figures engaged primarily in procreation, hunting, and combat, is the rarest of all the prehistoric rock art in the region, appearing in only about 20 sites. “To me it’s just so waggish and vivacious that it’s my favorite style,” said Turpin, who describes Red Linear artwork as “cartoonish” and “cute.” “I don’t know how you take stick figures and make them so animated and lively. And yet these conveyed motion.” Indeed they do convey motion, including graphic acts of human reproduction. These typically appear in small, isolated shelters with no sign of habitation, suggesting they were probably reserved

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JIM ZINTGRAFF

for ritual use.“This is the only [style] I know of that has purely sexual themes in it,” continued Turpin.“I know of five sites where they show this same sequence of copulation and pregnancy and birth, none in occupied places. They probably had to do with puberty rites—with the transition from youth to adulthood.” At occupied sites like Fate Bell, you might find a drawing or two of pregnant women. But few, if any, show the sex act or childbirth. Rather, those artists seem to have been inordinately fond of processions, often in hunting or combat scenes.Turpin thinks these might be migratory histories. Compared to the two older styles, Red Monochrome portrays rather mundane subjects, primarily humans and animals painted in a more representational fashion.Almost as rare as Red Linear—archaeologists know of only 30 or so occurrences—Red Monochrome shows up in a wider area. Some of the best examples of Red Monochrome appear in Painted Cave, a hard-to-reach shelter on private land abutting Seminole Canyon State Historic Park. Ever the schmoozer, Zintgraff not only got us access to the site, he also secured a guide—Allen Wright, a friend of the owners. With Boone’s father, Ken Law, at the wheel and Wright navigating from the back seat, we followed a maze of rocky old ranch roads to a desolate area.All around us were telltale circles of large, and largely buried, fire-cracked rocks marking the campfires left by ancient inhabitants, who cooked with hot rocks.The ground was littered with chert and other artifacts left by the prehistoric people who camped there. Boone noted that their tools—stone darts,bone awls, needles, and digging implements, not to mention animal traps made of wood bound with plant fiber—speak so eloquently about the resourcefulness of the people who crafted and used them. Wright led us down a rocky slope to Painted Cave, which sits at the bottom of Painted Canyon. About 150 yards wide and a third as deep, the shelter’s wall is covered by Pecos River–style artwork made extremely faint by erosion from wind and flash flooding. But this erosion also created a perfectly weathered limestone canvas for the Red Monochrome artists who plied their crude paintbrushes after the Pecos River artists. A single pictograph of a Red Monochrome bow and arrow offered a segue to our next stop, Meyers Springs, a historic-era site where the bow and arrow plays a far more prominent role. Located in Terrell County on the easternmost end of Big Bend country, Meyers Springs features a magnificent example of 16th-century pictographs.They extend the length of a 100-yard limestone wall at the back of the spring for which the site is named. Pictures of a large bird, bison, shield-bearing dancers in procession, and other scenes and symbols associated primarily with Plains Indians suggest they’re the work of Apache and/or Comanche artists.This conclusion is reinforced by depictions of mission churches, robed priests, Christian crosses, and horsemen with rifles, all of which clearly reflect the arrival of Europeans, who in turn documented the presence first of

Four Styles of Lower Pecos Rock Art

The Red Linear style stands in direct opposition to the Pecos River style. It is a miniature monochrome art form peopled by vivacious stick figures engaged in various group activities. Common themes are hunting, processions, and human reproduction.

JIM ZINTGRAFF

The Pecos River–style is a monumental static polychrome art form that focuses on the trance experiences common to shamanistic religions. This elaborate Pecos River–style panel at Halo Shelter on the Devils River illustrates several themes that are derived from the actual physical sensations incurred during altered states of consciousness.

In this historical pictograph a thunderbird soars upward from the permanent pool of water at Meyers Springs. Motifs such as this are classic examples of the Plains Indian iconography that came into the region after the acquisition of the horse and the influx of Apaches, Comanches, Kiowas, and related tribes from the north.

The Red Monochrome style is peopled by static monochromatic humans, posed frontally with their arms raised and accompanied by naturalistic animals of many species. The bows and arrows held by some of the men indicate that the Red Monochrome is the latest of the prehistoric styles, postdating A.D. 600.

Apache Indians, who were followed by the Comanche and Kiowa, into the Lower Pecos. “We see really five basic shifts in focus over a period of four thousand years,” said Turpin, adding what she called “Bold Line Geometric”—a highly abstract design common in Mexico but appearing only occasionally in southern Texas—to the four rock art styles more closely associated with the Lower Pecos.Though archaeologists “don’t have a good handle on the timing,”Turpin said that Bold Line Geometric is probably contemporaneous with, or at least overlaps, the Red Monochrome period.This suggests to her a fluidity of movement—both of people and ideas—into and out of the Lower Pecos, making it a locus of sorts for social evolution. “I suspect the Pecos River style is an indigenous development . . . a religious movement that took root, flourished for a while, and disappeared for reasons that we don’t know,” she said.“[It] was like an idea that was spread-

ing outward while, in the case of the other [styles],it was a bringing in of ideas.” For Turpin, this seems to support both sides of an ongoing archaeological debate, the diffusion-versus-migration debate (diffusionists believe culture was spread by the movement of ideas; migrationists believe it was spread by the movement of people), to which she added a third category:“intrusion.”The latter applied largely to later populations who, with the arrival of the horse from Europe, came to the region on raiding missions, she explained. “That to me is what makes the region the best laboratory for the study of rock art,” said Turpin.Hesitating for a moment, she amended her statement.“Well,maybe it’s not the best.That would infuriate Californians. Let’s just say it’s an excellent laboratory; it’s all in the same place, so we can contrast.”

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TAMAR STIEBER is a Pulitzer Prize–winning writer and a frequent contributor to American Archaeology. 19

Tunneling Through Teotihuacán

THE FIRST METROPOLIS OF THE AMERICAS IS BEING EXPLORED THROUGH A SERIES OF TUNNELS.

aburo Sugiyama neared the top of the 1,900-yearold pyramid when his cell phone rang.“I can’t talk long now, I’m about to go into the tunnels,”the 49-year-old Japanese archaeologist said without breaking his quick stride up 81 stone steps that rise 151 feet into thin mountain air. Sugiyama is an archaeology professor at Aichi Prefectural University in Nagoya, Japan, and an adjunct faculty member at Arizona State University. During summer months he spends 14 hours a day, six days a week in tunnels that cut a claustrophobic path through the Pyramid of the Moon, the awe-inspiring oldest structure of the Mesoamerican metropolis Teotihuacán. He’s assisted by a team of 25 people that includes archaeologists and geologists from

Japan, Mexico, California, and New York, and students and assistants from Mexico City and Puebla state. The meticulously built pyramid was Saburo Sugiyama directs the excavation constructed over time of the Pyramid of the Moon (above). in seven stages. Each stage was itself a complete pyramid that was large enough to cover the stage beneath it. Sugiyama and his team are endeavoring to understand the building scheme and the city’s rulers who devised it. By digging a series of tunnels through its bowels, spring • 2002

VICTOR R. CAIVANO

BY WILL WEISSERT

Sugiyama is learning how the Pyramid of the Moon grew from a modest 72-foot religious platform into a mammoth structure to which worshipers, some of whom traveled for days, flocked.

Spanning from 100 B.C. to A.D. 650, Teotihuacán was once the largest city in the Americas and the sixth largest city in the world. How Teotihuacán came into existence remains a subject of debate. Many believe that inhabitants of the ancient city of Cuicuilco came to Teotihuacán when slow-moving lava from a series of volcanic eruptions drove them from their settlement in Mexico City. They headed north, settling in the mountain-ringed Valley of Teotihuacán, 35 miles away.Their new home proved to be colder, drier, and less fertile, which leads Sugiyama to believe that those who built Teotihuacán envisioned it as a great center of worship and not a common city of modest homes and strips of farmland. At its height in the fifth century, the city encompassed an area of more than 13 square miles and had a population of 125,000. It now rivals Machu Picchu and

MARGARET MYERS

VICTOR R. CAIVANO

CITY OF THE GODS

Tikal as one of Latin America’s most popular pre-Columbian tourist attractions. Monumental construction at Teotihuacán began around A.D. 100 with the Pyramid of the Moon. When building began to taper off 500 years later, Teotihuacán was a sprawling city and the Pyramid of the Moon was its Archaeologist Ruben Cabrera led northern anchor. On the the excavation of the Temple of city’s south side sat the the Feathered Serpent. Citadel, a multi-leveled rectangular stone complex surrounding a large courtyard that archaeologists believe served as a ritual and administrative hub for priests and municipal officials.Within its confines was the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, a smaller pyramid that probably played an important role in religious ceremonies. Between the Pyramid of the Moon and the Citadel stood the Pyramid of the Sun, which is one of the largest pyramids in the world.

Crew member Israel Ortega waits for his partner to wheel in dirt to fill up the tunnel on the north side of the Pyramid of the Moon. Sugiyama’s team has been excavating for four seasons. At the end of each season, parts of the tunnels are filled with loose boulders and dirt and the metal gates at their mouths are locked.

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VICTOR R. CAIVANO

Lorenzo Saravia, a member of the archaeological crew, uncovers a red stucco wall that was probably part of the living quarters west of the Pyramid of the Moon.

The Mexican government declared the Pyramid of the Sun and some other parts of Teotihuacán a national park during the 1940s. For decades, however, the rest of the ruins remained home to squatters who lived in shacks on the mounds of dirt covering the pyramids. In 1964, the government bought the rest of the land that now forms Teotihuacán Archaeological Park.

MARGARET MYERS

Traversing the giant city was the Avenue of the Dead, a 150-foot wide, straight path that was dotted on all sides by the world’s first brownstones: thousands of well-organized, high-walled homes, complete with wide courtyards and stone-lined patios. About the time the city was completed, some sort of conflict gripped Teotihuacán. Around A.D. 650, archaeologists suspect either the inhabitants or outsiders began systematically burning the city’s buildings. When the Aztecs arrived centuries later, the city was an abandoned, charred shell of its former self. Still, the Aztecs were stunned by the sheer size of its pyramids. No one knows what the former inhabitants called the city, but the Aztecs gave it the name Teotihuacán, which in their language means City of the Gods. According to Spanish accounts, the Aztecs believed it was the center of the universe, the site where God set out to create the world. The excavation of Teotihuacán began in 1906, when Mexican archaeologist Leopoldo Batres excavated a mountain of dirt covering the Pyramid of the Sun.Archaeologist Manuel Gamio worked at the city in the 1920s, studying unearthed ceramics and the remains of ancient jewelry and weapons. He also described the architectural and cultural influence Teotihuacán had on Mayan and Aztec cities that later emerged. During dozens of trips to Teotihuacán during the 1950s and 1960s, University of Rochester archaeologist Rene Millon drew detailed maps of the city’s urban planning scheme. His reports described how Teotihuacán’s inhabitants built the city’s main structures, then built the Avenue of the Dead to connect them.

Shigeru Kabata, a graduate student at Aichi Prefectural University in Japan, assists Sugiyama in taking a stratigraphic reading at the ruins of a residential and ceremonial platform that was once connected to the Pyramid of the Moon’s west side.

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VICTOR R. CAIVANO

A southern view of the Pyramid of the Sun. This pyramid was extensively excavated by Mexican archaeologist Leopordo Batres in 1906. Another thorough excavation took place in the early 1990s.

TUNNELING FOR A TOMB Sugiyama first came to Teotihuacán to participate in Mexican archaeologist Ruben Cabrera's project at the central ceremonial complexes including the Temple of the Feathered Serpent in the 1980s. During nine years of excavating, Cabrera, Sugiyama, George Cowgill of Arizona State University, and other archaeologists unearthed the remains of 137 people, most buried with their hands tied behind their back, suggesting that they were sacrificed as offerings to the pyramid. They also found a tunnel leading to an open pit deep beneath the temple, which they surmised could be the remains of the tomb of a Teotihuacán ruler.“The area had been picked clean by looters,”Sugiyama said.“But it may once have contained the kind of tomb that we are searching for.” Still searching for a noble burial, Sugiyama, again joined by Cabrera, focused on the Pyramid of the Moon, the city’s least-excavated pyramid. Maya and Aztec peoples

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often buried their rulers in some of their oldest pyramids, a practice they may have learned from Teotihuacán. Unlike many other flourishing settlements of its era, however, Teotihuacán’s pyramids weren’t adorned with symbols honoring the city’s rulers. For that reason, little is known about those who ran the city and the hierarchies they established. Complicating matters is the fact that while Teotihuacán’s inhabitants had a system of hieroglyphs, a calendar, and some understanding of astronomy and geometry, they had no developed writing system. “With the Aztecs and the Maya we see the influence of rulers everywhere. The hieroglyphs tell their names, when they lived and died, and how they ruled,”Sugiyama said. “The Teotihuacán people didn’t write anything as text, so the best way we will know about who these nobles were is to find a tomb.” The tunnels burrow into the top of the pyramid’s fifth stage, about 30 feet below its summit.This stage was once the pyramid’s highest point, and Sugiyama and Cabrera be-

lieve Teotihuacán’s inhabitants constructed several temples and altars in the area, and then eventually built over them. If such temples and altars existed, the sixth stage could have preserved their remains.“The religious rulers and nobles were probably the only ones allowed in these temples,”Sugiyama said.“To find out what they left behind would be very important.” The tunnels are supported overhead by rectangular wooden ceiling braces that look like they were plucked from a mine shaft; small cinderblock walls run along both sides of the tunnels to keep dirt and stone from caving in on the archaeologists.They are eerily dark in some places, while in others cracks in the stone ceiling drench the narrow pathways with blinding sunlight. Heat rising from the depths of the pyramid below makes them feel like a sauna. “It can get uncomfortable at times up there,”Cabrera said. “But finding a burial tomb will make it all worth it.”

HOW THE PYRAMID WAS BUILT When they set out to transform the modest religious platform into the towering Pyramid of the Moon, Teotihuacán’s inhabitants dismantled much of the original structure and used what was left as a base to build upon. Why they used this multi-staged building scheme is uncertain, though Sugiyama said it was customary for a new ruler to cover the previous pyramid to make his own bigger. It may also have been meant to make it difficult for

looters to dig into the center of the pyramid and raid tombs laden with treasure. After completing 85 feet of east-west tunnels that run under the Pyramid of the Moon, Sugiyama and his team began to dig southward.They were forced to stop, however, when their new tunnel ran up against the steps built into the pyramid’s exterior.“We could hear the footsteps of the tourists climbing the pyramid just above where we were working,”Sugiyama said.“That was when we decided that we had gone far enough.” So they dug northward, creating a second tunnel that, together with the east-west tunnel, reveals the base of each of the pyramid’s seven stages. The tunnels uncover the pyramid’s original structure, a small square base made of precisely cut, brick-like stones that were piled close together. The pyramid’s second stage reflects a newer building style where larger stones and boulders were pushed together in a pattern that is less concise.The more chaotic second structure is held together by hardened mud and adobe plaster, Sugiyama said.The builders used a similar technique to construct the slightly larger third stage.A dramatic change occurred with the building of the fourth stage, the base of which is almost nine times bigger than that of the third. “This is when the idea of making a truly great structure began to take hold,” Sugiyama said.“We don’t know the geometric significance of it being nine times bigger, but it meant something to them.” Under the spotty light provided by a string of lowwattage light bulbs on the sides of the tunnel, the massive fourth stage looks like a smooth brown and gray wall of grainy concrete. Sugiyama said it was built using larger pieces of stone and bolder, but that the facade fits together in a more organized fashion than the second and third stages. The building of the fifth stage was a further enlargement of the earlier monument.The building of the sixth stage was yet another substantial enlargement of the monument, at which point it became a major structure.Then came the addition of the seventh and final stage.

This feathered serpent head, which is carved in stone, was found in 1962.

The team has unearthed two burial sites.The first was discovered in 1998, under the fourth stage. The second grave was found a year later under the posterior facade of the fifth stage. The first grave contained a 40- to 50-year-old man who was probably sacrificed in homage to the pyramid. Buried with his hands tied behind his back, the man wore green stone beads and earplugs. In front of him lay nine obsidian knives, and scattered in the grave were obsidian needles.Teotihuacán’s inhabitants used to draw blood during religious ceremonies. Marking the central axis and the corners of the burial chamber were two pumas, a wolf, spring • 2002

VICTOR R. CAIVANO

MAJOR DISCOVERIES

VICTOR R. CAIVANO

A view of the Avenue of the Dead from the Pyramid of the Moon. The Pyramid of the Sun rises in the distance. The Avenue of the Dead was the main street in Teotihuacán, extending for more then one and one-half miles.

three serpents, and nine eagles, some of them buried in wooden cages. Sugiyama said placing these potentially dangerous animals in cages suggests that they, and possibly the man, were buried alive. The burial chamber unearthed in 1999 contained four men between the ages of 15 and 25 who were also buried with their hands tied behind their backs.Their tomb was

american archaeology

lined with the decapitated heads of 18 animals. Those human remains had different skeletal features from the locals and appear to have been members of a tribe that lived outside Teotihuacán. “They could have been captured,” Sugiyama said.“The animals’ heads around them probably symbolized war.” Teotihuacán’s inhabitants did not build defensive

These detailed designs of birds (some say they are eagles, others parrots) are carved into rock columns in the courtyard of a living

These human figures and knife blade are made of obsidian and date to around A.D. 250. They were found during the excavations at the Pyramid of the Moon.

tried to make the program as detailed as possible,”said Sugiyama, who said the years of research will one day be used to compile a book that he hopes will be required reading for anyone doing fieldwork in Teotihuacán. At the end of the season, portions of the tunnels are filled in with loose boulders and metal gates prevent people from entering.“We hope that one day the tunnels will be open to show all the tourists how much there is to see about the building process,” Sugiyama said.“This can teach so much. But for now there’s still much work to be done.” The team’s fourth season ended in September. Grants from the National Science Foundation and the Japanese Association for the Promotion of Sciences will enable them to excavate for at least two more years. Sugiyama has worked at dozens of sites all over Latin America, but it’s the unanswered questions that keep him coming back to Teotihuacán. “There are so many things to find out about the people who lived here,”he said. “We don’t know who they were, how they lived, what they looked like, what language they spoke, and particularly why they wrecked their city.” The answers, he believes, are waiting to be found. “It’s all right here for us to see. As we go in deeper and deeper we are able to get a better sense of how this city really took shape,”he said.“Teotihuacán has hints for all the answers. Now we have put ourselves in a position to find them.”

compound southwest of the Pyramid of the Moon. The eye is a small obsidian stone.

WILL WEISSERT is a reporter for the Associated Press in Mexico City. spring • 2002

VICTOR R. CAIVANO

walls around their city, suggesting it wasn’t under constant threat of attack from rival tribes. Still, surviving murals painted all over the city reveal that war—and animals that symbolized warfare like pumas, wolves, and jaguars—played a pivotal role in the city’s religious imagery. Along with the burials, various artifacts have been found. Samples of the recovered bones go to Florida for radiocarbon dating; ceramic fragments are analyzed in Poland and Germany; Mexican geologists test the rocks, searching for traces of centuries-old plaster and other artifacts. All these artifacts must stay in Mexico, and researchers have to get permission in order to ship the tiniest fragments of bone and ceramic overseas for testing. Most of what’s found ends up in a huge warehouse outside of Teotihuacán.The shabby wooden building, in some places piled from floor to ceiling with artifacts, doubles as the team’s living quarters. “We have a warehouse and a few rooms down from the storage area that serve as our dormitory,” Sugiyama said.“Storing what we find at Teotihuacán is really more important than having a luxurious place to sleep.” The team has created a three-dimensional, computerized map that provides a tour through even the smallest nook and crannies of Teotihuacán’s oldest pyramid.“We

Remote Sensing Emerges

KEN KARSMIZKI

This new tool has the power to change archaeology. This vehicle is the command center of a robotic system, provided by the U.S. Air Force, that was used to search for Lewis and Clark campsites near Great Falls, Montana. Computers inside the center direct robotic vehicles that are equipped with sensors that locate buried objects.

BY BETSA MARSH

red-tailed hawk angles into the turquoise sky, soaking up the improbable warmth of a late-fall sun.The breeze carries a hint of hay from rolled bales at the far edge of the field. It’s an ideal day for a stroll, but Jennifer Pederson is too busy to enjoy the weather. She walks in precise south-to-north lines along a rope pulled taut between plastic tent stakes to the beeping accompaniment of a machine called a fluxgate gradiometer. Pederson, an archaeologist at Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Chillicothe, Ohio, walks the lines as straight and holds the machine as rigidly as she can while it measures changes in the magnetic field up to a yard below the surface.

american archaeology

This particular section of the park, which is in between some of the most famous Hopewell mounds, has attracted considerable attention since last July.Then, students in a field school from Ohio State University, practicing their remote sensing skills, walked this assigned grid with a fluxgate gradiometer.They took their readings in the morning, then dumped their data from the gradiometer into a laptop during lunch. By early afternoon, everyone at Hopewell was jostling to get a better look at the computer screen. There, beneath the Hopewell Mound Group that had been mapped since 1820 and excavated since 1848, was a previously unknown formation: a near-perfect circle 90 feet across, with a distinct opening to the east.

ROBERT MOORHEAD

Hopewell archaeologists Jennifer Pederson and Jarrod Burks unpack a fluxgate gradiometer. Many remote sensing devices are made for geological exploration, which requires deep penetration of the ground. This fluxgate gradiometer, which penetrates to a depth of about three feet, was made for archaeological investigations, which put less emphasis on depth.

“It was one of those fabulous discoveries,” said William Dancey, an associate professor of archaeology at Ohio State University, who supervised the field school.“Geophysics should always be used in all archaeology projects—the first thing we should do is x-ray our deposits.We are trying to introduce these instruments in our classes.” Dancey foresees geophysics providing an entirely new dimension to archaeological prospecting, “creating new maps for every place where it’s applied,” he said.While the Hopewell mounds have been studied extensively since 1820,“in between the mounds, there are all kinds of possibilities for discoveries using remote sensing.” The circle is a ditch that presumably was dug some 1,500 to 2,000 years ago during the time of the Hopewell culture, and was subsequently filled in. Pederson and archaeologist Jarrod Burks have collected tiny fragments of charcoal from the circle that will be radiocarbon dated. The remote sensing data is helping to create an extensive map of the Hopewell Mound Group, one of five sites in Hopewell Culture National Historical Park. Just as physicians use x-rays, CT scans and MRIs to look inside the human body, modern archaeologists are relying on remote sensing to see underground. Remote sensing by magnetic methods, resistance/conduction techniques, and ground-penetrating

radar can help researchers scan larger areas more quickly than by conventional surveys and shovel testing. Many of the techniques are adapted from exploration geophysics, in which scientists look for landscape features that might yield oil or minerals.Remote sensing is also used to search for buried landfill sites and unexploded bombs. These techniques do little or no harm to the archaeological resources, thereby preserving them for future investigation.“Also, it’s a question of strategic testing and resource management,” said Mark Lynott, manager of the Midwest Archeological Center, National Park Service, in Lincoln, Nebraska.“It’s much like surgeons gathering information before they cut.”

BRITON RICHARD ATKINSON WAS THE first to apply resistivity surveying to an archaeological site in 1946, according to John Weymouth, professor emeritus of physics at the University of Nebraska. Other Europeans were quick to pick up on magnetic remote sensing, too. “Bit by bit, I think American archaeologists are accepting these technological tools and the geophysical methods,” said Weymouth, who was one of the first American researchers to combine geophysics and archaespring • 2002

ROBERT MOORHEAD KELLY BRITT

ology back in 1972.“There is a reluctance…to use methods that they’re not familiar with.” Of the three most common remote-sensing methods, “the magnetic approach is probably the most widely used in the U.S.,” according to Weymouth. Archaeologists use hand-held magnetometers to measure minute changes in the earth’s magnetic field that result from buried objects. Soils contain various iron minerals, some of which are slightly magnetic. Building a fire or digging a ditch can alter some of the minerals and their magnetic states. Fire, for instance, reorients the minerals in the ground to the earth’s magnetic field, making them more magnetic than the surrounding soil. Magnetometers gather data that are downloaded into computers and used to plot contour maps of the magnetic values. Researchers then examine the maps for anomalies. “Magnetometers are so sensitive now that they are capable of finding a buried paper clip a foot down,” said Lawrence Conyers, co-author of the book Ground-Penetrating Radar: An Introduction for Archaeologists. He used magnetics in conjunction with ground-penetrating radar on the north coast of Peru to help locate Moche pottery kilns that date to approximately A.D. 300. Using magnetic technology can be tricky.The Earth’s magnetic field changes throughout the day as it interacts with the solar wind, the flux of charged particles from the sun.The Earth’s rotation causes a rapid decline in the magnetic field’s intensity during the early morning and an equal increase toward the end of the day. Magnetic storms during periods of sunspot activity also affect magnetometers. Archaeologists have dealt with this problem by employing one magnetometer to survey an area while a second magnetometer measures the ambient magnetic field.

Graduate student Heather Atherton takes notes while another graduate student, Phil Lechman, operates an electrical resistivity meter at San José de las Huertas, one of The Archaeological Conservancy’s preserves in New Mexico. The resistivity meter detected buried walls and other features.

american archaeology

Pederson takes a reading with a fluxgate gradiometer. This instrument has two sensors, one of which measures the magnetic field of the area being surveyed, while the other measures the ambient magnetic field, which is prone to fluctuations. The two measurements are then compared.

Thus, an increase in the magnetic field due to a large piece of underground metal in the survey area will be detected only by the first magnetometer, whereas an increase due to sunspot activity will be detected by both instruments. The fluxgate gradiometer, which is equipped with two sensors to measure both the local and the ambient magnetic field, simplifies this task. “Compensating for the changes in the Earth’s magnetic field was very slow and laborious,” Lynott said. “Twenty years ago, if you did a twenty-by-twenty-meter field in two to three hours, you thought that was wonderful. Now, you can do it in twenty minutes. It’s amazing.” Remote sensing by electrical conduction has also been improved by technological advances.This technique measures underground conductivity of soils and buried archaeological features. An electromagnetic conductivity meter hovers above the ground, its coil emitting a signal that generates eddy currents in the soil.The currents create a secondary magnetic field, which is measured by another coil.“You move along the ground in a line, constantly applying electrical

The Hi-Tech Search for Lewis and Clark

spring • 2002

NASA

en Karsmizki, a student of John Weymouth’s and the sembled and buried. “Nothing in the journals said they curator of history at Columbia Gorge Discovery Cenpicked it up on the return journey,” Karsmizki said. ter and Museum in The Dalles, Oregon, has used magSoon he was asking the Air Force for the use of its netic techniques for 15 years in his search for Lewis remote-sensing robotic vehicles to examine a 30-acre area. These computer-controlled vehicles pulled a sensor over the and Clark campsites. (see “The Quest for Lewis and Clark,” area “almost the same American Archaeology, way a farmer plows a Spring 1999) field,” said Karsmizki. “You would think it The sensor induces a would be easy to find magnetic field that underLewis and Clark campground metal enhances. sites, because five peoThe sensors are also ple were writing jourequipped with a global nals and drawing positioning system that enmaps, but that’s not the ables a satellite to track case,” said Karsmizki. their movements. Conse“The journals are interquently, when the sensors nally inconsistent, as detect an underground disare the maps. One perturbance, the GPS notes son said it was five the exact location of miles from point A to the disturbance. The point B, another said it vehicles covered the was four, and another said area in a remarkably it was three. So you have quick four days. The to search large areas.” data they produced is Karsmizki is hardly being analyzed. the only archaeologist to Karsmizki was also employ remote sensing, selected for NASA’s but he may be the only Space Act Agreement, a one to get assistance technology transfer profrom such unlikely orgram between government ganizations as the and the private sector. ConU.S. Air Force and Though it’s best sequently, he has access to NASA. With the aid of known for putting men on the moon, the agency’s vast database Air Force remote-sensNASA is also capable of airborne remote sensing. Their of remote sensing taken ing maps, Karsmizki zeremote sensing devices can cover hundreds of square miles a day, which is from satellites that helps roed in on several sites vastly more than can be covered with hand-held equipment. Archaeologist him pinpoint possible fornear Great Falls, MonKen Karsmizki has enlisted NASA in his search for Lewis and Clark campsites. mations on and below the tana. Bringing in magThese images of the Great Falls, Montana, vicinity were taken from a NASA ground. “Satellites use a netometers to follow up satellite. The top image is an elevation map with a digitized version of a Lewis range of techniques: therthe sites suggested by and Clark map superimposed upon it. The bottom image shows that same mal imaging, false-color the fly-over maps, he Lewis and Clark map, which includes their portage route (blue line) around infrared and radar,” found charcoal, burned the Great Falls of the Missouri River. Karsmizki used the NASA images to Karsmizki said. bone, and other eviverify the accuracy of the landscape features and scale of the 200-year-old He can even request dence of a fire that may Lewis and Clark map. that a satellite’s orbit be have been built by changed to pass over and Lewis and Clark. photograph an area previously unmapped, such as a possiLewis and Clark built a long, iron-frame canoe for the ble Lewis and Clark site along the Missouri River in South 20-mile portage around the Great Falls of the Missouri River. Dakota. —Betsa Marsh The design proved unworkable, and Lewis ordered it disas-

These vehicles, which move up and down the open field, are part of the U.S. Air Force’s robotic system that was originally designed to detect unexploded ordnance. The vehicles pull what appears to be a simple cart —however, the cart is anything but simple. The orange bars contain sensors that detect underground objects and the pole-like instrument is

KEN KARSMIZKI

a global positioning system unit that enables the system’s command center to pinpoint the vehicle’s location at any moment.

current, and measure how much of it makes it through the ground to another sensing device,” said Conyers.“Different features, such as a clay floor of an ancient house, will have different amounts of electrical conductivity than the sand surrounding it.” The meter takes readings as swiftly as its operator moves across the area.“You induce a huge electrical field into the ground as you walk along with this meter over your shoulder,” Conyers said.“It’s extraordinarily fast—I did a whole apple orchard of 15 acres in a day.You dump the data into a laptop computer and have a map that night.” Conyers’s remote-sensing tool of choice, however, is generally ground-penetrating radar. Initially a tool of engineering geophysicists, ground-penetrating radar is now used to search for such archaeological features as foundation walls and floors, stone roads, and earthen mound bases. Researchers send a high-frequency electromagnetic signal into the ground in pulses, while an antenna on the surface listens for the echoes of these pulses.The signal bounces back differently from places where the electrical properties of the soil change abruptly, perhaps denoting a feature or formation. Scientists can deduce the depth of the object by timing the echo.

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“There are preservation and money-saving aspects with it,” Conyers said.“You can map a whole site in two to three days that would take two to three years of random digging.” Conyers used ground-penetrating radar to locate buried pithouse villages near Tucson,Arizona and in southeastern Utah. He started working radar in 1991 in El Salvador at Joya de Ceren, a Maya village buried under three to seven yards of volcanic ash. It is “the Pompeii of the New World,” according to Conyers.“Each hole we dug cost $50,000 to $60,000.A friend of mine knew about groundpenetrating radar, which was just in its infancy. So I did my dissertation on it—mapping the whole village with 30 to 40 houses, the plaza, everything.” His work yielded a huge amount of data that took about a year to process for his dissertation.“Fortunately, now we have computers that are faster, bigger, cheaper, and capable of storing more data, so you could process my amount of [dissertation] data in about 10 minutes. That’s while you’re still in the field with your laptop.

Screen of the laptop computer that monitors the movement of the robotic vehicle. The little black icon is the vehicle and the elliptical lines show

You’ll get 3-D maps about 10 to 15 minutes later.” One of radar’s main advantages over magnetic and conduction/resistance methods is its three-dimensional results. “When you look at a map, you can tell not only where a formation is, but how deep it is,” Conyers said.

KEN KARSMIZKI

its movement across the area being surveyed.

Jeff Witt of WINTEC, Inc., works on the laptop computer that programs the movement of the robotic vehicles for the survey pattern. The joystick to his left permits manual operation of the robotic vehicle. The computer to the left of the joystick is monitoring the pattern of movement of the robotic vehicle during the survey.

AS IMPRESSIVE AS REMOTE SENSING IS, IT has its limitations. “Geophysical data are not a photograph of what’s below the surface, but they are strongly suggestive,” said Weymouth.“One has to be skilled to produce the data, then one needs an archaeologist to exchange with,” he said.“It’s the interplay between experienced archaeologists and experienced technicians that makes this work.” Pederson noted that remote sensing can’t differentiate between “cultural or natural formations.You still have to excavate to find out what they really are.” Both resistance and radar have their drawbacks. Resistance methods can be affected by too much or too little rain, and it doesn’t work at all when the ground is frozen. Soil conditions affect ground-penetrating radar, too, but no one is sure exactly how.“In the old days—five years ago— we used to say that ground-penetrating radar would only work in dry, sandy conditions,” said Conyers.“So I went to a part of Peru where it hasn’t rained since 1956, and I thought I’d be able to see to the center of the earth.” But the deepest reading he got was 16 to 20 inches.Then he went to the coast of Oregon,“where it hasn’t stopped raining, ever.”There the radar penetrated to a depth of more than seven feet. This indicates there is still much to be learned as to how the earth affects remote sensing. The National Park Service is informing archaeologists about geophysical techniques by conducting annual seminars.The seminars, which combine field exercises and lec-

tures, are held at various archaeological sites. “Acceptance of geophysics has particularly accelerated in the last ten to fifteen years, and the National Park Service seminar has caused quite an increase in awareness,” said Weymouth. Last spring, the conference was held at Chillicothe, where participants could “apply their knowledge to mound and earthwork sites,” Lynott said.“The seminar is the only place an established archaeologist can get this kind of experience. It’s important to work with somebody who’s a specialist.” He has found that archaeologists just out of the university can pick up much of the geophysics in a few days, while those “not raised around computers are a bit more intimidated, and it takes longer.” However reluctant American archaeologists may be to embrace this new technology, remote sensing can’t be ignored.“I’m not saying get rid of traditional archaeology, but remote sensing is something we can add to our tools to improve our success,” said Pederson. “I think that understanding and applying geophysics will be as common as digging square holes is today,” Lynott said.“In my lifetime, no excavations will be undertaken unless archaeologists do geophysics first.”

BETSA MARSH, author of The Eccentric Traveler, has written for Scientific American Explorations, McCall’s, and USA TODAY. spring • 2002

CONNIE COLBERT

From Humble Beginnings

A group of students who are participating in the Old Pueblo Educational Neighborhood program study a model Hohokam pithouse to understand how it was built.

ALLEN DART’S WEEKEND ARCHAEOLOGY PROJECTS HAVE EVOLVED INTO THE OLD PUEBLO ARCHAEOLOGY CENTER. BY NANCY TRAVER

rchaeologist Allen Dart bought a house southwest of Tucson in 1987. He noticed a number of archaeological sites in the area, and in his spare time he began to record these sites. Word spread. Soon, people began approaching Dart to ask if they could help.“I realized people were just hungry to dig and to learn about excavating,” he said.

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He developed a core of volunteers, and soon his following grew so large that Dart formed a nonprofit organization to obtain grants to do more work and create more opportunities for volunteers.That was 1994, the date the Old Pueblo Archaeology Center was born.“I was continually barraged with requests from people to dig,” said Dart, who became the center’s executive director.“I set up the

CONNIE COLBERT

Allen Dart leans on the water holding tank that the Aguirre family used for irrigation between 1895 and 1940 at the Bojórquez-Aguirre Ranch site.

Old Pueblo Archaeology Center to enable people to dig.” Operating out of an office building in midtown Tucson, Dart’s organization now boasts an annual budget of $400,000, a crew of 100 volunteers, and seven paid staff. The center contains a laboratory, storage areas for artifacts and documents, and a library. It has awarded $24,000 in scholarships over the past year so needy children and students can take part in its education programs. Over the past 18 months it has also given some 4,400 amateur archaeologists excavating experience. Old Pueblo has also been instrumental in arranging donations of significant archaeological sites in Arizona to The Archaeological Conservancy for preservation. Old Pueblo convinced developers to donate the Madera Reserve and Santa Rita Springs preserves in Green Valley and the Dairy site in Marana.

Teaching Archaeology

Educating the public about the cultures and peoples of the Southwest is the organization’s main goal, according to educational project director Eric Kaldahl. In 1995, Old

Pueblo launched its first public archaeological field school at the Sabino Canyon Ruin, which lies on public and private land northeast of Tucson.The field school was conducted in cooperation with the Fenster School, which owns some of the Sabino Canyon property. Fenster’s administrators wanted their students to participate in an excavation on this property.“Shortly after we founded that, we started getting calls from other teachers asking us to offer something similar to their students,” said Dart. This led to the Old Pueblo Educational Neighborhood (OPEN) program, which allows adults and children as young as eight to excavate a model of an ancient archaeological site.The site, which is 25 feet by 40 feet, is a replica of a southern Arizona Hohokam Indian village that includes full-size prehistoric pithouses. It is salted with pot sherds, stone tools, seashell jewelry, and animal bones, some of them loaned by the Arizona State Museum. The participants screen excavated material in search of artifacts, record their findings, catalog artifacts, and interpret their finds. OPEN offers scholarships to impoverished school districts in Arizona. Students, at a ratio of four to one, spring • 2002

work under the supervision of a staff member.“We figure it costs about $25 per kid per hour to run this program,” Kaldahl said. The program is supported by grants from the Arizona Humanities Council and other organizations and individuals. Steve Stacey, a member of Old Pueblo’s board of directors and a volunteer at the center, said working with the students is rewarding. He recounted a recent dig in which 16 teenagers identified by their school district as at-risk youths came to the center.“They started out being bored, kicking the dirt, acting very macho,” Stacey recalled.“We explained to them that the floor we were digging up might have been put here 800 years ago, and we’re destroying it by excavating. Everything we do wrecks the past.” Upon learning this, the students began to take interest in the dig.“They changed their attitudes,” Stacey observed, “and that’s worth all the money in the world.” Excavating often stimulates the students’ desire to learn, he said. They realize they have to learn math in order to become archaeologists.“Suddenly, instead of getting Fs in math, they started getting Bs and Cs,” he said.

An Ambitious Project Old Pueblo is teaming up with the Town of Marana to develop a cultural heritage exhibit and education program in a regional park that the town is developing. Old Pueblo will focus on the Yuma Wash and BojórquezAguirre Ranch sites, which are roughly 11 miles northwest of Tucson’s center. This project was launched after two parcels of land

were donated to the town by two real estate developers, according to Farhad Moghimi, director of public works in Marana. Because the Yuma Wash and Bojórquez-Aguirre sites were on the developers’ land, they would have had to pay for excavation and data recovery. “They saw it as a major constraint for them, so instead, they donated the land to the town,” Moghimi said.“We had had Old Pueblo do some work for us in the past, so we started talking about building a park there.” The town contracted in 1999 with Old Pueblo to do some preliminary excavation at the site. “The more we learned about the site from Old Pueblo, the more excited we got,” he explained. Old Pueblo issued a preliminary report estimating that the site, which it calls Yuma Wash, includes over 100 prehistoric house ruins.The area was home to a large Hohokam settlement, established some time after A.D. 750 and abandoned after A.D. 1325. The ruins there include partly underground pithouses and above-ground pueblolike homes, plus thousands of prehistoric artifacts. Dart said,“Old Pueblo’s first Yuma Wash investigations demonstrated just how special a site this is.” Hohokam pithouses of the type found at the site were common, but there are also small above-ground adobe roomblocks containing unusually large amounts of red, black, and white Salado-style pottery.The Salado culture’s heartland is 100 miles north of the Tucson area, he said.The Salado-style ceramics and the roomblock architecture suggest that the people who constructed these roomblocks were immigrants.This hypothesis has been drawn at very few other sites in the greater Tucson area that contain roomblocks. Yuma Wash is also the westernmost site in the Tucson

These sherds of bottle glass and other artifacts are also from the Aguirre family occupation. CONNIE COLBERT

Dart holds a piece of glass with an iridescent blue patina.

american archaeology

CONNIE COLBERT

Students discover artifacts by pouring excavated material through sifting screens at Old Pueblo’s mock dig site.

Basin where Mogollon-style indented corrugated pottery has been found. The remains of the ranch, founded in 1878 by Juan and María Bojórquez, have also been identified. Another rancher, Feliberto Aguirre, acquired title to the property in 1900. Vestiges of Bojórquez and Aguirre’s buildings and a stone-masonry water tank remain. Rather than hire archaeologists to excavate Yuma Wash, Marana officials decided that the site should be used to educate the public about the town’s cultural heritage. A very small portion of the site will be excavated over the next five years, and Old Pueblo will provide professional archaeologists to instruct teachers, students, and amateur archaeologists in the proper methods of excavation and interpretation. The rest of the site will be preserved for future research. By the time the park is completed in 2007, it will include a community center that will showcase exhibits of Marana’s history, including artifacts and features discovered by the excavation.Athletic fields, benches, and equestrian trails are being developed around the archaeological sites as the excavations proceed.The park will also offer

guided tours once the excavation is finished. An amphitheater, picnic area, library, and river walk trails are also included in the park’s master plan. Marana expects to pay over $400,000 over the next five years for the excavation, analysis, and storage of artifacts at the Arizona State Museum. “It will be a win-win situation,” Moghimi said.“People will get a chance to dig and the town will have a wonderful park.” “I think Old Pueblo is filling a void,” said Emory Sekaquaptewa, a Hopi Indian and the president of Old Pueblo’s board of directors. Sekaquaptewa is believed to be one of the first Native Americans to head the board of a nonprofit archaeological group. “Generally, the public has always seen archaeologists as highly specialized people, removed from the community, who are simply looking for artifacts to exhibit. People think what they do is not directly connected to the present world.” Old Pueblo not only brings archaeology to lay people, he added, it also involves lay people in the discovery of the past.“There is an unbroken connection from our prehistoric past to the present,” said Sekaquaptewa. “Old Pueblo is making the past more real.”

NANCY TRAVER is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Time, People, and other publications. spring • 2002

L E G E N D S

O F

A R C H A E O L O G Y

Making a Science of Archaeology Cyrus Thomas advanced archaeology by employing scientific methods. By Jon Muller

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

yrus Thomas was one of the first persons to be paid to do archaeology on a full-time basis, and he was also a purveyor of a new and professional archaeology.Though he had a great impact on the science, he came to archaeology rather late in his career and in a roundabout fashion. Thomas was born in 1825 and raised in East Tennessee. He moved to Murphysboro, Illinois, in 1849, staying at a hotel called the Logan House, which was run by the nationally known Logan family. While he was clerking and beginning a law practice, he married the innkeeper’s daughter, the sister of U. S. Congressman John A. Logan. While working as a lawyer,Thomas became interested in a broad range of natural phenomena. He was associated with John Wesley Powell, the geologist and ethnologist of Grand Canyon fame, as well as numerous members of various state natural history organizations, and was a founder of the Illinois Natural History Society. He became the curator and commissioner for entomology and ichthyology for that organization. He gained respect for his work as a

american archaeology

Cyrus Thomas

natural scientist, and his interests ranged from plant lice to Maya writing. He received an honorary Ph.D. from Gettysburg College that was most likely awarded for his work in entomology. Thomas’s first wife died during the Civil War, and he then went to Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary to

Though Thomas did very little digging during the mound explorations, a good deal of excavating took place under his direction. This ceramic image vessel was found at Pecan Point in Arkansas. The vessel is thought to be from the 17th century.

ration and hired Wills de Hass, a St. Louis physician who had lobbied for the investigations, as its first director. Under mysterious circumstances,Thomas soon replaced de Hass. After Thomas had taken over direction of the mound exploration, he began a surprisingly modern survey to map the distribution of the mounds.This application of natural science methods to archaeology was in stark contrast to the rip-it-out methods used by so many early collectors. But this was the “Museum Period” of American archaeology, a time that focused on the acquisition of collections which institutions were eager to display. Given the methods of this period, which one British archaeologist described as “like digging up potatoes,” it was not surprising that Thomas encountered opposition. Upon reporting his survey program, he ran headlong into the interests of the National Museum, whose chief clerk icily informed Thomas that “Referring to that portion of your letter of November 8 concerning the subject of mounds, you say that no attempt at digging has yet been made. I am instructed by Major Powell to ask if you cannot open some of the mounds of Southern Illinois, or Missouri, with a view to obtain the contents thereof.The Director of the National Museum is of the opinion that a sufficient number of mounds have been located and their positions described, and he is more anxious that their contents should be secured than that others

spring • 2002

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

study for the ministry. During this time, he published essays on Darwin’s theory of evolution in Lutheran journals, revealing that even his theology was intertwined with his scientific interests. While in Pennsylvania, he met and married his second wife, who assisted him with much of his later work, and who herself published a Bibliography of the Earthworks of Ohio in 1887. In the 1870s, Thomas served as the State Entomologist for Illinois and he became one of the founders of Southern Illinois Normal College, which is now Southern Illinois University. During this time he published works on entomology as well as Ancient Mounds of Dakota, one of his first archaeological publications. Meanwhile, the American Association for the Advancement of Science had been calling for scientific investigations to settle the “moundbuilder question”— the issue of who had built the largescale earthworks of the eastern United States. It seems that John Wesley Powell, who became the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, encouraged supporters in Congress and other persons of power to make the Smithsonian undertake this task. Thus in 1881, the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution (later Bureau of American Ethnology)— also directed by Powell—began a Division of Mound Explo-

A shell gorget discovered at Nelson Triangle in North Carolina during the mound explorations. Nelson Triangle was probably a Cherokee burial ground and the

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

gorget likely dates to the 17th century.

should be discovered and mapped.” His first major report was included in the 5th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, published in 1888. Subsequently, he collaborated on some general surveys of North American archaeology and of Native American cultures that were generally well received. Shortly before his death he began writing about the huge Cahokia Mounds in Illinois. His landmark publication, however, was the Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology in 1894. This work devotes nearly 600 pages to reporting the excavations and surveys undertaken in each state.The last 100 or so pages argue in detail that the Native Americans built the mounds of the East. In this section Thomas presented a scientific argument, emphasizing the continuity between the historic and prehistoric mounds in their construction styles and methods, as well as the kinds of artifacts found within them. He stated that the Eastern tribes were agricultural and capable of such mound construction. He also pointed to historic artifacts of European origin present in some mounds, indicating that the builders were not some lost race (at that time, some people claimed the mounds were constructed by the Lost Tribes of Israel), but the very peoples who interacted with the European invaders. It was thought in some quarters that the Native Americans lacked the sophistication required to build the mounds. But Thomas was convinced they were capable of such complex works, and his report served as

american archaeology

proof that the Native Americans were in fact responsible for the mounds. This period between the Civil War and the end of the century was a time during which Native Americans were considered a force of nature to be tamed, or vermin to be extirpated in the inexorable march of civilization. It’s been suggested that Thomas was a racist because there is evidence that he, too, thought of them as less than human. But, in the context of his times, his belief that the Native Americans built the mounds of the East was a progressive, rather than racist, view. As W. H. Holmes put it in an 1899 review in American Anthropologist of a book by Thomas,“The difficulty with archeology as it stands today is not that it is unlike any other field of scientific research in character, but that it has been so often treated in an unscientific manner and by writers having little conception of scientific method. It is a science in so far as its complex and obscure data are correctly observed, treated, and applied to the elucidation of human history.” Holmes recognized one of the credits due Thomas was that he brought the methods of science to a field sorely needing those methods. Though Thomas’s route to the field of archaeology was a circuitous one, once he arrived he stayed put, holding the title of archaeologist at the Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution until his death in 1910.

JON MULLER is Professor Emeritus at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

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

Pre-Clovis Site Donated to the Conservancy Fourteen-thousand-year-old site demonstrates clear association between prehistoric peoples and Pleistocene elephants.

WASHINGTON

CLARE MANIS HATLER

t was an unusually hot, dry summer in 1977 in the Sequim region of Washington’s northern Olympic Peninsula. Emanuel Manis decided to take advantage of these conditions and excavate a dry pond in the marshy field that was his front yard. Little did he know that some 14,000 years earlier, water from a melting glacier formed a pond in this very spot that attracted ancient animals and the PaleoIndians who hunted them. After a few hours of digging, Manis brought up what looked to be parts of old logs, one about six inches in diameter and four feet long, the other a curved piece over six feet long and seven inches in diameter. Washing them off, he called excitedly to his wife, Clare, who realized that the objects were mastodon tusks. Clare insisted that they call a fossil expert. Richard Daugherty, an archaeologist, and Carl Gustafson, a zoologist, both with Washington State University, came to the Manises’ farm. Thus began a project that would continue for the next eight years. More than 50,000 people from all over the world have visited the site. Clare Manis Hatler is donating the two-acre site to the Conservancy in the name of her late husband. Although mammoths and mastodons are known to have roamed North America during the last Ice Age until roughly 12,000 years ago when they became extinct, it is rare to find complete skeletons due to the rapid decay of bones. However, the Manises’ marshland provided excellent preservation of the ancient skeleton. While excavating the pond, researchers uncovered a molar identified as that of a mastodon, and a fragment of rib that appeared to have a remnant of an ancient bone spear point embedded in it. Further examination showed it

Emanuel Manis is perched over the two mastodon tusks he dug up in his front yard in the summer of 1977.

was a spear point, making this the oldest archaeological site on the Olympic Peninsula by at least 4,000 years, and the first direct evidence of humans hunting mastodons in North America. The sediments surrounding the bones appeared to have been deposited soon after the glaciers retreated, dating the site’s occupation to between 11,000 and 14,000 years ago. Analysis of pollen and seeds collected from the deposits and radiocarbon dating of vegetal material preserved in the alluvium confirmed these dates. Bison remains with evidence of butchering were found scattered among the mastodon bones in the same geologic deposits. Other artifacts recovered from the pond include several pieces of worked bone and tusk, a cobble spall tool, and a stone projectile point that dates to a later spring • 2002

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period, between 7,000 and 8,000 years ago. Charcoal and bones found on high ground about 25 yards from the pond suggest that prehistoric peoples made use of the area on several occasions between 7,000 and 14,000 years ago. As the great significance of the site became clear, the Manises built a fence, arranged parking and other details to accommodate the thousands of visitors who eventually flocked there. The Manises also allowed the researchers to build a laboratory and storage shed onto their barn so that work could continue at the site. Between Memorial Day and Labor Day from 1978 to 1985, the site was opened to the public. Local school groups were allowed to visit A large bone from the Manis mastodon. The bones on the mastodon’s right side had numerous cuts and scratches, indicating

CLARE MANIS HATLER

that it was butchered.

A field school of university students works at the site in 1978. The students exposed bones by washing away the dirt that covered them.

american archaeology

the site each September after it was officially closed. “We enjoyed every minute of it,” said Clare of the tours that she and Emanuel gave to the thousands of people that visited the site over the years. Three years after the initial mastodon discovery, the remains of another extinct elephant with signs of human butchering were uncovered about 60 feet southwest of the main site in deposits older than those in which the first mastodon was found. It is highly likely that more remains are buried at the site. The site was covered over in 1985 and now looks much as it did before Emanuel’s discovery. —Tamara Stewart

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A Glimpse of the Caddo

or centuries, portions of what is now Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and northeast Texas were home to the Caddo. The Redwine site, a Middle Caddoan habitation site that dates to the 14th century, has become the Conservancy’s 10th preserve in Texas. Sites such as Redwine, few of which have been extensively examined, are crucial Mark Walters to understanding the Middle Caddoan period in northeast Texas. As a teenager growing up in northeast Texas, Mark Walters was fascinated with the endeavors of his uncle, Sam Whiteside, an avocational archaeologist interested in site preservation.Walters assisted Whiteside during excavations at the Redwine site in the late 1960s, and Walters later purchased the property to preserve it for future research. In 1995, he joined several archaeologists who conducted limited excavations at Redwine, recovering enough information to have the site designated a State Archeological Landmark the following year. Walters is involved with several archaeological soci-

TEXAS

eties and he serves as a volunteer for the Texas Archeological Stewardship Network, a program of the Texas Historical Commission. He and his wife, Sandra, donated the fouracre site to the Conservancy in January, making this the seventh preserve in the Conservancy’s Caddo project. Situated on a terrace above Auburn Creek, a small tributary of the Sabine River, Redwine is comparable to nearby Middle to Late Caddoan sites in that its inhabitants relied on the hunting and gathering of animals and wild plants as well as the cultivation of maize. Initial trenching at the site in the late 1960s revealed an earthen mound about 24 feet in diameter and 2 feet high covering a circular house that may have been used for ceremonies. The Redwine community probably consisted of between four and six houses arranged in a semi-circle around an Various artifacts have been found open plaza. Four adult at the Redwine site, including this burials accompanied by ceramic vessel, which is decorated an assortment of grave by a series of punctated lines. goods including ceramic bowls, jars, bottles, arrow points, and an unusual long-stemmed pipe with a double bowl, were also excavated.These artifacts indicate interaction with local groups, and the small number of stone artifacts suggests that wood and bone tools were probably important parts of the group’s material culture. Based on the types of artifacts and features that researchers identified at the site, it appears that Redwine was occupied continuously for at least 20 years, after which time the site, along with other Caddoan settlements in the area, was abandoned. Researchers suspect this was due to the depletion of natural resources, climatic changes, or a change in subsistence patterns, with an increased reliance on maize cultivation requiring richer lands. Future research at the site may shed light on the reasons for its abandonment, as well as on Caddoan settlement and subsistence patterns in the area. —Tamara Stewart spring • 2002

JIM WALKER

The Redwine site is adding to the knowledge of this culture.

A Legacy of the Deptford Culture

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

The Conservancy acquires the Waters Pond site, its fourth preserve in Florida.

ALAN GRUBER

round 500 B.C., life began to change for the inhabitants of northern Florida. The change was slow at first as influences from the north, in what is now Georgia and South Carolina, began to creep in.The most obvious sign that life was different was the abrupt transition in pottery-making techniques. This change in pottery style is an important marker for archaeologists, as it defines where the Archaic period ends and the Woodland period begins.Within a few generations, the social, political, and geographical distribution of the population of northern Florida also changed. The Conservancy’s newest preserve in Florida, at the Waters Pond site, protects one of these Early Woodland sites affiliated with what archaeologists call the Deptford Phase. This phase lasted from about 500 B.C. to A.D. 250. Deptford is also the name archaeologists give to the first Woodland period culture to arise out of Archaic period traditions. The culture is named for the Deptford site, located near Savannah, Georgia. The Deptford people originally lived in the coastal environs of South Carolina, Georgia, and portions of northern

The virtually pristine Waters Pond site may help archaeologists understand the Deptford Phase.

Florida, largely subsisting on the sea’s bounty. In the early stages, little distinguished the Deptford people from their Archaic period ancestors except for their pottery.The Archaic potterymaking technique consisted of shaping plant-fiber-tempered clay into pots by hand. The Woodland method involved making pots from coils of sandtempered clay, then using a wooden anvil and a grooved, wooden paddle to beat the pots into their final shape— usually a cylindrical form that could be used for either cooking or storage.The paddle stamped designs into the clay

POINT Acquisitions White Potato Lake

Martin

Sumnerville Lorenzen

Indian Village on Pawnee Fork

O’Dell Mounds McClellan

Cambria

Parchman Place A. C. Saunders

Graveline Mound

american archaeology

Hunting Creek

Ingomar Mounds

★ Waters Pond

and thus created a slight increase in the pot’s surface area which allowed it to heat and cool more effectively, making it better for cooking. The Deptford territory on the west coast of northern Florida was crossed by rivers that flowed out of the interior of what is today Georgia. The rivers served as trade routes, and with trade came an influx of new ideas and ways of life. The Deptford people began to build earthen mounds and practice mound ceremonialism. Populations grew, leading to the establishment of more villages and more complex political organization. As land became scarce along the coasts, people moved inland to settle along the many lakes and rivers of Florida’s interior. By A.D. 250, the Deptford Culture had evolved into several distinct cultures, which continued to occupy northern Florida for the 600 or so years remaining in the Woodland period. Last winter, using POINT funds, the Conservancy purchased two lakeside lots that contain the Waters Pond site. The site remains virtually pristine and provides archaeologists with excellent research potential. —Alan Gruber

C O N S E R V A N C Y

Field Notes Developer-Preservation Partnership Saves Arizona Hohokam Pithouse Village SOUTHWEST—This past December, Courtland Homes, an Arizona homebuilding company, donated a small Hohokam pithouse village in north Phoenix to the Conservancy. The three-acre site is located in the middle of a parcel of land that the company obtained from the State of Arizona for the creation of a housing development. As a condition of the sale, the state mandated that the site and a surrounding buffer zone be excluded from the developed lands and donated to the Conservancy. Courtland Homes and staff members of the Conservancy recently completed the perimeter fence and stabilized 40 areas within the site that had been left exposed by vandalism. “This is definitely a win-win situation for Courtland, the Conservancy, and the archaeological site,” said John

Wittrock, manager of land acquisition for the homebuilder. The site is thought to be a Hohokam Sacaton phase pithouse village. It probably dates to between A.D. 950 and 1150, and it contains as many as six pithouses and significant buried cultural deposits.The site will be preserved as open space within the planned development, construction of which will begin during the next several months.

her husband.The new donation simplifies management of the preserve by improving access to it. The Stepath Mound is a large stone mound, 12 feet high by 50 feet wide and 120 feet long. It has never been excavated, although some stones were removed to use in building construction generations ago. Examination of the small pits caused by the removal of the stones

Donation of Land Augments Conservancy Preserve MIDWEST—A year-end donation of about 1.2 acres of land near the sprawling town of Lancaster, Ohio, has expanded the buffer zone around the Conservancy’s Stepath Mound Preserve.The preserve was created in 1997 through a donation by the late Myron Stepath of a parcel of land encompassing a large Adena-period stone mound. His wife,Virginia, made the recent donation as a memorial to

Excavating the Internet TEOTIHUACÁN: THE CITY OF THE GODS http://archaeology.la.asu.edu/teo This site offers a comprehensive picture of Teotihuacán, which was once the largest city in the Americas. Learn about the city’s great structures and the thoroughfare that linked them, the Avenue of the Dead. The site includes photos, maps, and even short movies.

This former Hohokam village will soon be surrounded by new homes.

THE MESOAMERICAN BALLGAME www.ballgame.org Explore the first team sport known to man, the sport of life and death, that began more than 3,500 years ago. There’s information about how the Mesoamericans made balls out of rubber, the uniforms the players wore, the type of court they played on, and the consequences for the winners and losers. spring • 2002

JIM WALKER

ABOUT.COM IS ABOUT ARCHAEOLOGY www.archaeology.about.com/science.archaeology This smorgasbord of information and resources has everything from book reviews to a list of periodicals to information on theories and methods. That’s not to mention news, a history of archaeology, and biographical sketches of legendary archaeologists.

Fieldwork Opportunities The Cahokia Palisade Project

PAUL GARDNER

June 16–29, June 30–July 13, July 14–21 Central Mississippi Valley Archaeological Research Institute, Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. The Cahokia Palisade Project is a multi-year archaeological research investigation to identify the western and northern walls of the palisade or stockade that once surrounded the site of Cahokia. Volunteers can participate in the excavations at the site and laboratory work at the Powell Archaeological Research Center Laboratory. For further information and an application form, contact Dr. John Kelly, Project Coordinator, at jkelly@artsci.wustl.edu or write to: CMVARI, P.O. Box 413, Columbia, IL, 62236. Stepath Mound is a large stone mound located in a state better known for its earthworks.

indicates that the outer portion of the mound is equally composed of stone and soil. The mound may have once had a stone mantle. According to Bradley Lepper, an archaeologist with the Ohio Historical Society, stone mounds make up about five to 10 percent of the state’s mounds.“It’s unusual to have such a large stone mound preserved,” said Lepper, noting the penchant of early Ohio engineers to use the mounds for building material. Stone mounds have received much less study than the earthen mounds that characterize the Adena and Hopewell periods in Ohio. Excavations at other Ohio stone mounds indicate that they are most likely part of the Adena culture of the first millennium B.C.

Management Plan Created for Wells Petroglyph Preserve SOUTHWEST—A management committee met this past fall to draft a long-term management plan for the Wells Petroglyph Preserve, a 156-acre site that overlooks the Upper Rio Grande Valley in northern New Mexico. Educating the public about the site was one of several issues that were discussed.The committee hopes to involve school groups and pueblo members, among others, in future programs at the preserve. A monthly public tour program, which could begin as early as May, is planned for the preserve. Katherine Wells donated the site to the Conservancy as an archaeological easement in 2000. It consists of more than 6,000 petroglyphs carved into basalt boulders along the eastern slopes of the Black Mesa escarpment that date from the Archaic period (ca. 3,900 B.C.) to historic times. Known for its number, variety, and quality of shield images, as well as its remarkable number of flute-playing animals—more have been documented at the Wells site than at any other site in North America—the Black Mesa area is believed to have been a center of ceremonial activity for the prehistoric Tewa peoples of Oke’Oweenge (now San Juan Pueblo), which is just south of the site.

american archaeology

The Lenape Meadow Excavation

Sundays, April through June, July through August, and September through November. Somerset County Park Commission’s Environmental Education Center, Basking Ridge, New Jersey. The site is a Late Archaic-Early Woodland village area. Although the focus of the program is on fieldwork, during inclement weather work is done in the Environmental Center, cleaning and cataloguing the material found. The site has attracted high school students, members of the general public, avocational archaeologists, and graduate students in archaeology and other fields. The only criterion is the desire to learn the techniques and methods of field archaeology. Participation is limited, so register early by calling Somerset County Environmental Education Center at (908) 766-2489.

The Program for Belize Archaeological Project

March through mid-May, Belize, Central America. This program has conducted original research concerning ancient Maya civilization since 1992. The project area is in northwestern Belize on land owned by the Program for Belize, a non-profit organization established in 1988. The research area contains over 50 ancient Maya settlements. The field school program involves survey, excavation at several Maya sites, and laboratory experience working directly with excavated Maya artifacts. Volunteers of any age and experience level are welcome. Volunteers must commit to a minimum of one week and may stay with the project for up to 15 weeks. Contact the Mesoamerican Archaeological Research Laboratory, PRC 5 MC R7500, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712-1100, (512) 232-7049, Fax (512) 232-7050, e-mail: marl@uts.cc.utexas.edu

Fort Christanna

June 17–29, July 3–15, July 17–29, Lawrenceville, Virginia. British colonists founded Williamsburg in 1699 as a tobacco-exporting town at a time when smoking and furs were all the rage in Europe. In 1714, Fort Christanna was established southwest of the settlement as both a defensive base and a trading post known as the Virginia Indian Company. The fort’s ruins will be examined to determine the politics, economics, and living conditions of the inhabitants. Volunteers will excavate, measure, map, and record stockade walls and house foundations. You’ll also collect and “float” soil samples to screen for small artifacts and carbonized wood, and sort and label finds. Call Shaun Golding at Earthwatch Institute 1-800-776-0188 ext. 181, or (978) 461-0081 ext. 181. To learn more about field schools and volunteer opportunities in North America, consult the “Archaeological Fieldwork Opportunities” Web site www.cincpac.com/afos/testpit.html. A more comprehensive source is the Archaeological Institute of America’s 2002 Archaeological Fieldwork Opportunities Bulletin, available for $12.76 for AIA members, and $15.95 for nonmembers. Shipping is additional. To order, call (800) 791-9354.

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

A Peruvian Adventure LAND OF THE INCA

MARK MICHEL

When: June 28–July 12, 2002 Where: Peru, including Cuzco, the Urubamba Valley, and the North Coast How much: $4,595 ($950 single supplement)

The discovery of Cliff Palace (now part of Mesa Verde National Park) in the late 1800s led to widespread exploration of the region.

JIM WALKER

Exploring the Land of the Anasazi BEST OF THE SOUTHWEST sophistication of the Incas.

When: September 21–October 1, 2002 Where: New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado How much: $2,095 ($390 single supplement)

Machu Picchu remained a secret to the outside world until 1911, when archaeologist Hiram Bingham discovered it almost by accident. Perched on a ridge more than 2,000 feet above the Urubamba River, this ancient city is among the most spectacular sites in all of the Americas.And Machu Picchu is just one of the many highlights of the Conservancy’s two-week Peruvian tour. From the coastal city of Lima to the magnificent tombs of the Moche at Sipán, you’ll explore some of Peru’s most fascinating sites. Accompanied by an expert in Peruvian archaeology, you’ll learn about the vast empires that once reigned in the land.The adventure begins with visits to several archaeological museums in Lima, allowing you to become familiar with the country’s past cultures. Next, you’ll explore the pyramids at Sipán and Túcume, as well as the newly excavated ruins of La Huaca El Brujo. At Chan Chan, you’ll tour the remains of one of the largest pre-Columbian cities in the New World. Several days in the Inca capital of Cuzco will give you ample time to explore sites such as Coricancha, an Inca temple where the walls were once covered with gold.

The American Southwest is home to some of the best-preserved evidence of prehistoric civilizations in the New World. The magnificent ruins of Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde are but two examples. The Archaeological Conservancy’s Best of the Southwest tour includes these two settlements as well as other prehistoric sites and modern pueblos where ancient traditions persist. In New Mexico, you’ll visit the cliff dwellings at Bandelier National Monument; the “Sky City” of Acoma, a pueblo flourishing atop a high mesa just as it did 600 years ago; and San Ildefonso Pueblo, which is famous for its pottery. Several nights will be spent in Santa Fe, providing an opportunity to enjoy the city’s museums and shops. In Arizona, you’ll take a jeep tour through Canyon de Chelly National Monument and visit Montezuma Valley’s seldom-seen prehistoric pueblos. In Colorado, the world-famous cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde await. Back in New Mexico, you’ll stop at outliers of the Chacoan culture and tour Chaco Canyon, which formed the center of a great civilization around A.D. 900–1150.

The complex architecture of Machu Picchu is a testament to the

spring • 2002

DAVID GRANT NOBLE

Yampa River Trip When: June 5–12, 2002 Where: Southern Utah and Southern Colorado How Much: $1,595 ($85 single supplement) Join us for a downriver adventure featuring the spectacular scenery of An example of the remarkable rock Dinosaur National Monu- art that can be seen on the trip. ment. This 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, author of Ancient Ruins of the Southwest, will guide the tour.

COMING SOON

Aztecs, Toltecs, and Teotihuacános When: April 13-22, 2002 Where: Mexico City and the surrounding area How much: $2,395 ($300 single supplement)

An Investment in the Future This past December, Earl Biffle of Missouri was looking for a way to make a substantial gift to charity that would reduce his taxes for 2001 and provide him with a guaranteed income. Since he already had three of them, he knew that a charitable gift annuity with The Archaeological Conservancy would meet his needs. Earl established a fourth generous gift annuity with us this year. In return, he gets a substantial tax deduction for 2001, fixed monthly income for the rest of his life, and the satisfaction of knowing that he has done his part to help preserve America’s archaeological heritage. “It’s an investment in my future,” he says, “because I get an income, and at the same time it’s an investment in the future of our country’s past. It’s a win–win situation.” Earl has had a life-long interest in archaeology. He studied it in college, and he’s been on several trips with his local community college and with the National Park Service to help survey sites. “The past is the future,” Earl says. “All things come around again. I’m just glad I can help conserve archaeology so we can find out what history is trying to tell us.”—Martha Mulvany 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

Patrons of Preservation The Archaeological Conservancy would like to thank the following individuals, foundations, and corporations for their generous support during the period from November 2001 through January 2002. Their generosity, along with the generosity of the Conservancy’s other members, makes our work possible.

Life Member Gifts of $1,000 or more Anonymous (1) Edith Arrowsmith, Arizona Paula Atkeson, Washington, D.C. Helen Ann Bauer, Illinois Richard Berg, California Lyle Borst, New York Nance and Barbara Creager, Texas Arthur Cushman, Tennessee Helen Darby, California Robert S. Hagge, Jr., Wisconsin J. Scott Hamilton, Arizona John and Emy Hinnant, North Carolina John Jaeschke, Wisconsin Steven and Judy Kazan, California Susan Mayer Reaves, Florida Suzanne Rice, Colorado Richard Salamon, Oklahoma Keith Seasholtz, Florida Lee Thompson, Colorado

Anasazi Circle Gifts of $2,000 or more Ethan Alyea, Jr., Indiana Earl Biffle, Missouri Arthur and Mary Faul, Arizona Coburn Haskell, Ohio Nelson Kempksy, California Mark Menefee and Stephanie Wade, Maryland J. C. Morris, Virginia Joe and Dolly Rollins, Mississippi Laura Stearns, California

Foundation/Corporate Gifts of $1,000–$4,999

Harley W. Howell Charitable Foundation, Maryland Dr. Frank C. Marino Foundation, Inc., Maryland Miriam M. & Harold S. Sternberg Fund, Communities Foundation of Texas, Texas

Foundation/Corporate Gifts of $5,000–$9,999

Randleigh Foundation Trust, North Carolina Adelard A. Roy and Valeda Lea Roy Foundation, Massachusetts The Mary D. B. T. Semans Foundation, North Carolina Robert Winthrop Charitable Trust, Inc., New York

Foundation/Corporate Gifts of $10,000–$24,999 Crystal Trust, Delaware

Foundation/Corporate Gifts of $25,000–$75,000 The J. M. Kaplan Fund, Inc., New York Laurel Foundation, Pennsylvania Margaret T. Morris Foundation, Arizona

Bequests

The Paul H. Henkin Ph.D. Trust, California The Richard Nickel Trust, California Estate of Julia Clark, Maine

Reviews The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame Edited by E. Michael Whittington (Thames & Hudson, 2001; 288 pgs., illus., $50 cloth; 800-233-4830)

An Archaeological Guide to Central & Southern Mexico By Joyce Kelly (University of Oklahoma Press, 2001; 400 pgs., illus., $55 cloth, $25 paper; 405-325-2291) Joyce Kelly has produced the third of her indispensable guides to Mesoamerican archaeological sites. This one covers the area from Zacatecas to the Yucatán, including the Valley of Mexico, Oaxaca, and the Veracruz coast. In addition to excellent descriptions of 91 sites and 60 museums, Kelly provides maps of the sites and the ways to get there.

The Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, North Carolina, has assembled the most comprehensive exhibit of materials ever displayed about the Mesoamerican ballgame.This superbly illustrated volume was produced to accompany the exhibit that is now showing at the New Orleans Museum of Art and travels to Omaha and Newark later this year.The Olmec began playing a ballgame with a rubber ball as early as 1800 B.C. which developed in many forms until it was prohibited by the Spanish is the 16th century. The game, which spread as far south as Honduras and as far north as Arizona, remains an enigma to this day.Whittington has assembled essays by ten noted archaeologists and art historians that give us valuable insights into the game and the ceremonies and rituals that accompanied it.Tackling topics from rubber making to mythology and equipment to game strategy, the authors give us a better understanding of this deceptively complex game. The ball courts are found at virtually every Mesoamerican site; they are usually near the center of the ceremonial district and there is often more than one.The courts come in various sizes and shapes and clearly demonstrate a central feature of Mesoamerican life. It’s not known how the game was played, or even who was allowed to watch.Was it just a game or was it an allegory of life itself? The game inspired countless works of art, immortalizing those who played it, and this volume superbly illustrates that art in all its glory from painted scenes on ceramics to carved stone equipment. At the greatest of the surviving ball courts in Chichén Itzá, bas-reliefs show elaborately dressed ball players being beheaded. But are

they the winners or the losers? The Sport of Life and Death gives us an extraordinary insight into this amazing ancient phenomenon.

Excavations at Wickliffe Mounds By Kit W. Wesler (University of Alabama Press, 2001; 256 pgs., illus., $40 paper; 773-568-1550.

In this fascinating volume, Kit Wesler tells the story of seven decades of excavations at the Wickliffe Mounds, a major Mississippian town near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers in Kentucky. For its first 50 years of excavation this rich site was subjected to the indignities of looters and the love of professional archaeologists. When I first visited as a boy in the 1950s, it was a failing tourist attraction, billed as the “Ancient Buried City,” that displayed an excavated cemetery in situ, complete with skeletons and grave goods. But fortune smiled on the Wickliffe Mounds when, in 1983, it was turned over to Murray State University for an academic center dedicated to research, student training, public education, and preservation of the site and its collections. Fortunately, the Wickliffe collections include all the early excavation records as well as more than 85,000 artifacts.Wickliffe Mounds was transformed from an impending disaster into a model university archaeological preserve, serving science and the public. The book is accompanied by a CD-ROM that contains contributions from a wide range of archaeological specialists and includes site maps, databases, excavation records, artifacts, and photographs. Excavations at Wickliffe Mounds is both a fountain of data and a fascinating story of preservation. —Mark Michel spring • 2002

TWO BOOKS BY DENNIS L. SILUK “Angelic Renegades & Rephaim Giants” ISBN: 0-595-20986-6 which can be purchased through www.iuniverse.com (iUniverse) Retail Price:

10.95

“The Last Trumpet and the Woodbridge Demon” ISBN 0805956212 Retail Price: 8.00 plus

Dorrance Pub., Co. Inc. www.dorrancepublishing.com Preorder through Barnes & Noble

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BOOKS Coyote Press P.O. Box 3377 Salinas, CA 93912 Specializing in Archaeology, History, Prehistory, Ethnography, Linguistics, Rock Art, and Native American Studies of Western North America. We stock thousands of books and reprints, including used and rare books. If it is in print we generally can get it. Custom rare book searches. Visit our massive on-line catalogue: http://www.coyotepress.com. Free 50 page catalogue available.

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American Archaeology Magazine | Spring 2002 | Vol. 6 No. 1

Articles inside

FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

new acquisition AGLIMPSE OF THE CADDO

new acquisition PRE-CLOVIS SITE DONATED TO THE CONSERVANCY

LEGENDS OF ARCHAEOLOGY: MAKING A SCIENCE OF ARCHAEOLOGY