American Archaeology Magazine | Summer 2003 | Vol. 7 No. 2 by American Archaeology Magazine

SUMMER TRAVEL SPECIAL • LEARNING OF SPANISH COLONIAL LIFE • SAVING OUR ANTIQUITIES

american archaeology SUMMER 2003

a quarterly publication of The Archaeological Conservancy

THE CHANGING PERCEPTIONS OF

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25274 91765

Vol. 7 No. 2

Chaco Canyon

archaeological tours led by noted scholars

superb itineraries, unsurpassed service For the past 28 years, Archaeological Tours has been arranging specialized tours for a discriminating clientele. Our tours feature distinguished scholars who stress the historical, anthropological and archaeological aspects of the areas visited. We offer a unique opportunity for tour participants to see and understand historically important and culturally significant areas of the world. Professor Jo Anne Van Tilburg on Easter Island

ANCIENT PERU

Specially Designed for Grandparents and Their Grandchildren This unique Inca tour for children and their grandparents begins in Lima and includes a three-day visit to Cuzco and two days at legendary Machu Picchu. Additional highlights include a flight over the Nazca lines, the fascinating marine bird reserve on the Ballestas Islands, fossil hunting in Cerro Blanco, and visits to ancient stone fortresses, colonial churches and colorful markets. We have planned special events with English-speaking Peruvian children, including lunch on a ranch, a dancing horse show, and a folkloric music program.

SPAIN: THE PILGRIM’S ROAD TO SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA

The age of the pilgrimage coincided with a great flowering of Romanesque architecture. Our route is lined with a series of Romanesque, Gothic, Mozarabic and Visigothic architecture. Starting from Zaragoza, we wend our way to Santiago de Compostela, visiting beautiful cathedrals, monasteries and shrines in and around Jaca, Pamplona, Burgos, León and Oviedo. We will also visit Celtic and Roman settlements, archaeological museums, and the 21 DAYS fortress/palaces of the kings of Aragón and Navarra. A tour OCTOBER 12 – NOVEMBER 1, 2003 highlight will be the vespers Gregorian chant at the Led by Dr. Mattanyah Zohar, Hebrew University Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos.

AUGUST 7 – 18, 2003 12 DAYS SEPTEMBER 5 – 21, 2003 Led by Prof. Daniel H. Sandweiss, University of Maine Led by Dr. Robert S. Bianchi, Art Historian NORTHERN CHILE & EASTER ISLAND

ANATOLIA

(Crossroads of Europe and Asia) Beginning in Ankara, this tour features the Hittite capital of Hattusa, the rock-hewn churches in Cappadocia, the Hellenistic cities on Turkey’s southern and western coasts, Pamukkale, the ongoing excavations at Aphrodisias, Sardis, Ephesus, Pergamon, legendary Troy and Ottoman Bursa. Our adventure ends with a three-day visit to Istanbul’s fabulous mosques and museums.

17 DAYS

MUSEUMS OF SPAIN

THE SPLENDORS OF ANCIENT EGYPT IN TWO WEEKS

A somewhat shorter version of our most popular Egypt tour, we will spend five days in Cairo, ample time to visit the Egyptian Museum, Cairo’s Islamic sites, Sakkara and the Giza Plateau. We will travel into the Faiyum Oasis to visit the collapsed pyramid at Meydum and Roman Karanis. During our five days in Luxor we will explore Thebes, as well as the temples at Dendera and Abydos. After a five-day Nile Cruise aboard the deluxe Sonesta Moon Goddess, the tour concludes with a flying visit to Abu Simbel.

This glorious new tour focuses on the art and artifacts found in the museums of Bilbao, Barcelona and Madrid. After visiting Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum, we will begin our study of the fabulous art created by the ancient peoples who have lived in Iberia, as well as the rich international offerings that have poured into the peninsula’s museums. We will also examine Gaudi’s unparalleled architectural style and study art from the earliest 15 DAYS Romanesque to the Golden Age of Spanish painting, all the OCTOBER 19 – NOVEMBER 2, 2003 while sampling the culture and gastronomy of the Basques, Led by Dr. Hratch Papazian, University of Chicago 16 DAYS Catalonians and the Spaniards.

The enigmatic giant statues on Easter Island and the mysterious geoglyphs of northern Chile will be the highlights of this unusual tour. In northern Chile visits include pre-Inca fortresses, the archaeological remains of the Atacameno culture, enormous areas of perfectly preserved geoglyphs, fine museums, lovely old colonial churches and Santiago. Lastly, we study the fascinating prehistoric Rapa Nui culture during our seven-day stay on remote Easter Island. NOVEMBER 1 – 16, 2003 Led by Dr. Jo Anne Van Tilburg, University of California GUATEMALA

Traveling in a land of quetzal birds, jaguars, trackless rain forests, exceptional museums and wondrous Maya sites, our tour of Guatemala encompasses all of these historic and natural treasures. Highlights include Quiriguá, two days at Tikal and two days at the ongoing excavations at Copán...plus the rarely visited ruins along the lush jungle rivers of the Petén, Aguateca and Uaxactún, the colorful market of Chichicastenango, colonial Antigua and the highland villages around Lake Atitlán.

ETHIOPIA

OCTOBER 2 – 12, 2003 11 DAYS This exotic tour examines the historic sites associated Led by Prof. Ori Z. Soltes, Georgetown University SICILY & SOUTHERN ITALY

Touring includes the Byzantine and Norman monuments of Palermo, the Roman Villa in Casale, unique for its 37 rooms floored with exquisite mosaics, Phoenician Motya and the classical sites of Segesta, Selinunte, Agrigento and Siracusa...plus, on the mainland, Paestum, Pompeii, Herculaneum and the incredible "Bronzes of Riace."

with the ancient Kingdom of Axum. Beginning in Addis Ababa we visit museums and early man sites before traveling to the north to visit the uniquely designed churches around Gondar and Mekele, the famous rockcut churches of Lalibela and the fabulous ancient Axumite cities. We drive through the spectacularly beautiful Simien Mountains to Bahir Dar and the origin of the Blue Nile. During this adventure we will experience Ethiopia’s extraordinary pageantry and its diversity of peoples and traditions.

17 DAYS NOVEMBER 6 – 21, 2003 16 DAYS OCTOBER 11 – 27, 2003 Led by Prof. Barbara Barletta, University of Florida Led by Prof. Patrick Culbert, University of Arizona NOVEMBER 7 – 23, 2003 17 DAYS Led by Dr. Mattanyah Zohar, Hebrew University OASES OF THE WESTERN DESERT

(Siwa, Bahariya, Dakhla & Kharga) Beginning in Alexandria, we explore the fabled oases of Egypt’s Western Desert: Siwa, famed for its Temple of the Oracle, consulted by Alexander the Great; Kharga and Dakhla’s temples and painted tombs; and lastly, the wonderful temple dedicated to Isis and Osiris in Doush. A tour highlight will be the newly opened archaeological sites in Bahariya Oasis. The tour ends in Luxor, with visits to newly opened tombs and Malqata. Desert landscapes and colorful villages add to the magic of this special tour. OCTOBER 3 – 20, 2003 Led by Prof. Lanny Bell, Brown University

ANCIENT CAPITALS OF CHINA

with an Optional Yangtze River Cruise ADDITIONAL TOURS This tour focuses on the major capitals of Imperial China, Georgia and Armenia; Khmer Kingdoms; Northern India; including Beijing, Xian, Luoyang and the garden city of South India; Egypt; Sri Lanka; Chile and Easter Island; Suzhou. Some of the tour’s highlights are the Longmen Mali...and more Buddhist caves in Luoyang, the famous terra-cotta warriors and the recently excavated Famensi Temple near Xian, the newly installed museums in Beijing and Shanghai — plus an optional four days on the magnificent Yangtze River, sailing from Chongqing to Wuhan through the famous Three Gorges.

17 DAYS 18 DAYS OCTOBER 13 – 29, 2003 Led by Prof. Robert Thorp, Washington University NEW

american archaeology a quarterly publication of The Archaeological Conservancy

Vol. 7 No. 2

summer 2003 COVER FEATURE

1 2 U N D E R S TA N D I N G C H A C O C A N Y O N BY TAMARA STEWART

WILLIAM STONE

Archaeologists have arrived at new conclusions about this amazing place.

2 0 AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL TOUR IN THE UPPER MIDWEST BY JACK EL-HAI

Our summer travel special introduces you to some of the most interesting archaeological sites in Minnesota and Iowa.

2 6 LEARNING OF SPANISH COLONIAL LIFE BY PAMELA SALMON

An excavation in New Mexico yields information about 18th-century life.

32 THE NEIGHBORHOOD BONEBED BY CATHERINE DOLD

WILLIE GIBSON

Archaeologists are learning about prehistoric hunters at a 3,000-year-old bison-kill site in northern Colorado.

3 9 PRESERV I N G A M E R I C A’S ANTIQUITIES BY ANDREA COOPER

The American Antiquities Act of 1906 is still relevant today.

4 4 new acquisition ONE OF THE LARGEST PREHISTORIC PUEBLOS IN THE GALISTEO BASIN PRESERV E D Pueblo played an important role in New Mexico’s past.

4 6 new acquisition O R G A N I Z AT I O N D O N ATES A T H O R O U G H LY RESEARCHED SITE New Mexico pueblo is considered the forerunner of large 15th-century northern Rio Grande communities.

4 7 new acquisition PROTECTING A HOPEWELL EARTHWORK

2 Lay of the Land 3 Letters 5 Events 7 In the News The Birth of the Oneota? • University Reveals 1980 Archaeological Heist • Phoenix Excavation Uncovers Hohokam Farmstead

50 Field Notes 5 2 Reviews 54 Expeditions

Old Fort is one of the largest prehistoric earthworks in Kentucky.

4 8 point acquisition C O N S E RVA N C Y O B TAINS PINE ISLAND CANAL

COVER: An aerial view of Pueblo Bonito, the largest of the great houses in Chaco Canyon. Photograph by Adriel Heisey.

A unique example of pre-Columbian engineering in Florida is protected.

american archaeology

Lay of the Land

inety-seven years ago, the Congress adopted perhaps the most important preservation and conservation law in American history. Though it’s only three paragraphs long, the Antiquities Act of 1906 has protected more of the nation’s heritage, natural as well as cultural, than any other measure. Our feature “Preserving America’s Antiquities” tells the story of this law that originated in archaeologists’ desire to protect priceless ruins. President Carter made bold use of the law to protect millions of acres of Alaska wilderness. Ever controversial, it only recently withstood a legal challenge of President Clinton’s proclamation of the Canyons of the Ancients National

Monument in Mesa Verde country. But then again, President Teddy Roosevelt was heavily criticized for using the act to protect the Grand Canyon, as was Franklin Roosevelt for preserving what became Grand Teton National Park. The law marked a commitment by the federal government to preserve its archaeological legacy by protecting ruins and controlling excavations on public lands. While this is a giant step in the right direction, many other countries have gone a step further by protecting antiquities wherever they are found, be it public or private land. That’s probably not going to happen here anytime soon, but many states are taking steps in that direction by

DARREN POORE

Preserving Our Nation’s Heritage

MARK MICHEL, President

protecting human burials and regulating archaeology in subdivisions. The Antiquities Act of 1906 was a dramatic first step for the preservation of our cultural and natural treasures. It remains an important tool today, but there is still much to be done and those of us who want to see our heritage preserved need to keep working to pass wise laws to achieve that goal.

summer • 2003

Letters Editor’s Corner Chaco Canyon inspires awe and wonder. The ruins of its great houses are likely to make any visitor ask, What went on here? That question is at the heart of our cover story, “Understanding Chaco Canyon.” Though Chaco is one of the best known and most thoroughly researched archaeological sites in the Southwestern United States, it is shrouded in mystery. Why did its inhabitants choose this stunning but severe place in northwest New Mexico to construct these monumental buildings? What was the purpose of these buildings? What was the nature of Chaco’s society? These are a few of the many questions that Chaco researchers grapple with. And grapple they have. Back in 1969, a number of researchers, under the auspices of the National Park Service and the University of New Mexico, began a herculean endeavor called the Chaco Project. That project, and the ensuing analysis and interpretation, is now coming to a close. As mentioned in the article, this extensive and comprehensive research has changed some of the thinking about Chaco. But that’s not to say it’s changed everything. Chaco experts reviewing similar data can still arrive at very dissimilar conclusions about what it means. And Chaco remains a source of awe, wonder, and mystery.

american archaeology

Dating Confusion Until recently, most of us were accustomed to looking at North American archaeological dates in uncalibrated radiocarbon years. We now know, of course, that radiocarbon dates require calibration, and the early dates are especially inaccurate. When you quote dates in your articles you should define whether they are uncalibrated radiocarbon years, calibrated radiocarbon years, or if they have been derived by another method. A great example of this problem is the article on the 13,000year-old Mexican skull described on page eight of your Spring 2003 issue. I assume this is a calibrated date, but that is not stated in the article.

Our thanks to Ellen Sue Turner and Thomas R. Hester for allowing us to use the two illustrations of points that serve as the logo for The Archaeological Conservancy’s POINT-2 acquisition program. These illustrations originally appeared in their book Stone Artifacts of the Texas Indians.

John Whatley Thomson, Georgia All radiocarbon dates in American Archaeology are calibrated.—Ed.

Sending Letters to American Archaeology American Archaeology welcomes your letters. Write to us at 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517, or send us e-mail at tacmag@nm.net. We reserve the right to edit and publish letters in the magazine’s Letters department as space permits. Please include your name, address, and telephone number with all correspondence, including e-mail messages.

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 260 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 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517; by phone: (505) 266-1540; by e-mail: tacmag@nm.net; or visit our Web site: www.americanarchaeology.org

5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902 Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517 • (505) 266-1540 www.americanarchaeology.org Board of Directors 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 • Dorinda Oliver, New York 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, Business Manager Kerry Elder, Special Projects Director • Lorna Thickett, Membership Director Shelley Smith, Membership Assistant • Valerie Long, Administrative Assistant Yvonne Woolfolk, Administrative Assistant Regional Offices and Directors Jim Walker, Southwest Region (505) 266-1540 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902 • Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108 Tamara Stewart, Projects Coordinator • Steve Koczan, Site-Management Coordinator Amy Espinoza-Ar, Field Representative Paul Gardner, Midwest Region (614) 267-1100 3620 N. High St. #207 • Columbus, Ohio 43214 Joe Navari, Field Representative Alan Gruber, Southeast Region (770) 975-4344 5997 Cedar Crest Road • Acworth, Georgia 30101 Jessica Crawford, Delta Field Representative 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

american archaeology

PUBLISHER: Mark Michel EDITOR: Michael Bawaya (505) 266-9668, tacmag@nm.net ASSISTANT EDITOR: Tamara Stewart ART DIRECTOR: Vicki Marie Singer, vsinger3@comcast.net Editorial Advisor y Board Ernie Boszhardt, Mississippi Valley Archaeological Center Darrell Creel, University of Texas • Jonathan Damp, Zuni Cultural Resources Richard Daugherty, Washington State University • David Dye, University of Memphis Kristen Gremillion, Ohio State University • Megg Heath, Bureau of Land Management Susan Hector, San Diego • Richard Jenkins, California Dept. of Forestry 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 • Ann Rogers, Oregon State University Kenneth Sassaman, University of Florida • Donna Seifert, John Milner Associates Art Spiess, Maine Historic Preservation • Richard Woodbury, University of Massachusetts National Advertising Office Marcia Ulibarri, Advertising Representative 5401 6th Street NW, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87107; (505) 344-6018; Fax (505) 345-3430; mulibarri@earthlink.net American Archaeology (ISSN 1093-8400) is published quarterly by The Archaeological Conservancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517. Title registered U.S. Pat. and TM Office, © 2003 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 902, 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 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517; (505) 266-1540. All rights reserved.

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

summer • 2003

Museum exhibits Meetings

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Tours

Education

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Conferences

■ NEW EXHIBITS San Diego Museum of Man

HEARD MUSEUM

Events

Festivals

San Diego, Calif.—Turquoise has been used by many cultures since ancient times. It has played a role in trade, fertility rituals, planting of crops, building, marriage, healing, and adornment. The new exhibit “The Turquoise Path/El Camino Turquesa: The Story of Turquoise in the Native American Southwest” takes an in-depth look at the historical, social, cultural, and economic implications of this age-old stone. (619) 239-2001, www.museumofman.org (Opens June 7) Anchorage Museum of History and Art

Anchorage, Alaska—The remarkable, unique exhibition “Eskimo Drawings” features more than 200 rare illustrations offering a captivating and intimate view of Alaska life from the 1890s to the mid-20th century. Steeped in ethnographic detail, the exhibit also includes an exceptional group of artifacts from the museum’s extensive collection. (907) 343-4326, 343-6173, www.anchoragemuseum.org (Through September 14)

■ CONFERENCES, LECTURES & FESTIVALS 20th Annual Indian Fair

June 14–15, The Museum of Man, San Diego, Calif. More than 150 native performers and artists representing dozens of tribes will participate in this year’s spectacular fair, a breathtaking tribute to Native American culture and heritage. (619) 239-2001, www.museumofman.org Mid-South Archaeological Conference

June 14–15, Murray State University, Wickliffe, Ky. Papers on such topics as the Wickliffe Mounds archaeological site, the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1803–06, and current archaeological research in the mid-South will be presented on Saturday. Sunday’s events include a guided tour of the universityowned Wickliffe Mounds and excursions to other local mound sites. (270) 335-3681, http://campus.muraystate.edu/org/ wmrc/wmrc.htm

Heard Museum Phoenix, Ariz.—More than 60 pieces of the famous black-on-black pottery created by San Ildefonso potter Maria Martinez and decorated by her husband Julian and their descendants are featured in the new exhibit “A Revolution in the Making: The Pottery of Maria and Julian Martinez.” Martinez began fashioning her innovative pottery in the early 1900s. Her work was inspired by prehistoric potsherds found during an excavation near San Ildefonso. (602) 252-8848, www.heard.org (Through September 14)

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology PEABODY MUSEUM

Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.—More than 100 exquisitely painted prehistoric bowls are displayed in the new exhibit “Painted by a Distant Hand: Mimbres Pottery of the American Southwest.” The Mimbres formed farming communities in what is now southern New Mexico from A.D. 200 until the 1100s. The exhibit traces the history of the Mimbres people and features rare, never-before-exhibited examples of Mimbres painted pottery, as well as textiles, sandals, baskets, axes, and shell and stone trade items. (617) 496-0099, www.peabody.harvard.edu (New long-term exhibit) american archaeology

Ohio Archaeology Week

Arizona State Museum The University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz.—Learn how archaeologists read the clues found in prehistoric pottery through the new interactive exhibit “The Pottery Detectives.” Visitors can walk into and around an 8-foottall ceramic vessel, which demonstrates details of design, decoration, and manufacture on a very large scale. The exhibit answers the questions of how and why archaeologists examine the past and why this is important today. (520) 621-6302, www.statemuseum.arizona.edu (New long-term exhibit)

June 15–21. A variety of statewide events demonstrates Ohio’s rich prehistoric and historic past and the archaeological techniques used to explore them. Events include museum and park tours, visits to ongoing excavations, artifact identification sessions, and Native American storytelling. Contact Sandy Lee Yee at (937) 2991536, malamasly@aol.com or for information, www.ohioarchaeology.org Native American Arts & Culture: Art, Archaeology & History

July 6–11, Idyllwild Arts Foundation, Idyllwild, Calif. Enjoy a week-long program of formal presentations, informal discussions, and question/answer sessions by renowned artists, archaeologists and historians. (909) 659-2171, ext. 365, summer@idyllwildarts.org Great Northern Arts Festival

July 11–20, Inuvik, Northern Territory, Canada. Join the annual celebration of northern Canadian arts and culture, the largest of its kind in Canada. Up to 100 visual and performing artists from across the Northwest and Yukon territories will participate in this event, which includes traditional crafts, workshops, and entertainment. It’s held on the northernmost community on the continent that is accessible by public road. (867) 777-3536, www.gnaf.ca

Sun Mountain Gathering: A New Mexico Native Heritage Festival

July 12–13, Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, Santa Fe, N.M. The weekend features a wide range of activities, displays, and entertainment to educate the public about native people and their culture and history. Artists’ booths and archaeology exhibits share center stage with dancers, drummers, prehistoric craft and technology demonstrations, and hands-on activities for all ages. Members of the World Atlatl Association (WAA) will conduct a regional spear-throwing contest, and will offer lectures and training. Contact Chris Turnbow at (505) 476-1252, cturnbow@miaclab.org, www.miaclab.org Native American Weekend

August 9–10, Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge, Mass. Lectures, tours, performances, and craft demonstrations tell of the lives of Native Americans throughout New England’s history. (508) 347-3362, www.osv.org 76th Annual Pecos Conference

August 14–17, INAH Centro Cultural Paquime, Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico. The conference will include presentations on the latest archaeological research in the Southwest, followed by tours of local sites. www.swanet.org/zarchives/pecos/2003 summer • 2003

ARIZONA STATE MUSUEM

Events

Charleston, S.C.—“Redcoats, Hessians & Tories: The British Siege and Occupation of Charleston, 1780– 1782” explores one of the great sieges of the Revolutionary War and the ensuing occupation of one of the era’s most important cities. The exhibit features a rich array of artifacts and images from the museum and from archives in England, Scotland, Canada, Germany, and the United States. (843) 722-2996, www.charlestonmuseum.org (Opens June 14)

CHARLESTON MUSEUM

Charleston Museum

The Birth of the Oneota?

A recently discovered site in Wisconsin might contain evidence of the tribe’s origin.

DANIELLE BENDEN

uring routine land clearing for a new housing subdivision last November, evidence of two distinct cultural pottery types at the same hearth were found at the Iva site on the outskirts of Onalaska, Wisconsin. The discovery of the pottery fragments are thought by some to be evidence of a rare cultural exchange and may shed light on Wisconsin’s prehistory. Further exploration of the Iva site, which has yielded pre-Contact Oneota artifacts, revealed the remnants of both Late Woodland and Middle Mississippian pottery, “indicating direct contact between these cultures at this site,” said Robert “Ernie” Boszhardt, an archaeologist with the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse’s Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center. Boszhardt suggested that the association of Middle Mississippian and Late Woodland materials at the site is evidence that “this contact apparently led to the emergence of a subsequent Oneota culture by A.D. 1200 in the Upper Mississippi Valley.” Late Woodland ware is grittempered, meaning rock is mixed with the clay, and has impressed decorations and a globular shape. Middle Mississippian ware has shell mixed in the clay and sharply angled shoulders. Oneota pottery shares qualities of both: It’s shell-tempered like Middle Mississippian ware and globular in shape like Late Woodland design. The Late Woodland and Middle Mississippian cultures inhabited the Upper Mississippi Valley from around A.D. 1050 to 1150.

american archaeology

in the

NEWS

This Late Woodland pot is tempered with crushed rock and decorated with carefully incised lines. It was found at the site in association with Middle Mississippian ceramics.

Boszhardt claims that the discovery of two distinctly different pottery types in association with burned rock and dog bones suggests a possible ritual feast shared between the two cultures. Not all archaeologists are convinced that Late Woodland peoples became Oneota as a result of intermingling with Middle Mississippians. “There is no transformation. By A.D. 1200 or thereabouts, with the collapse of the Mississippian center at Cahokia, Oneota populations began to expand south and west at the expense of whatever remnants of the Late Woodland/ Middle Mississippian coalition population remained in southern Wisconsin,” argued David Overstreet, an archaeologist at Marquette University and director of the Center

for Archaeology Research in Milwaukee. Overstreet pointed to research done in northeast Wisconsin indicating that Late Woodland was almost immediately replaced by Oneota. But James Stoltman, a retired professor of archaeology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, disagreed. To replace the Late Woodland, the Oneota must have existed in the area prior to A.D. 1000, “yet there is no evidence anywhere else in the world of Oneota to be in existence before A.D. 1050 to 1100,” he said. The Iva site is now buried under a new housing development. Artifacts recovered from the site will undergo further research at the Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center. —Kerry Elder 7

in the

NEWS

University Reveals 1980 Archaeological Heist Cyberspace sleuthing may recover precious artifacts.

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA

hat Unsolved Mysteries was to hunters of America’s Most Wanted fugitives, the “Stolen Artifacts” Web site may become to the University of Alabama archaeologist determined to recover precious Moundville artifacts stolen from the university’s repository 23 years ago. In 1980, 264 high-quality pottery vessels were lifted from the Erskine Ramsay Archaeological Repository at the Moundville Archaeological Park in what James Knight has called “the largest recorded antiquities theft in the southern states.” Knight, the chair of the university’s anthropology department, launched the Web site in April in hopes of tracing the antiquities, which represent one-fifth of the entire Moundville vessel collection curated by the Alabama Museum of Natural History. Appraised at $1 million at the time of the theft, the artifacts are worth about $2.3 million today. Shortly after the theft occurred, UA scholars placed a notice in the international Journal of Field Archaeology. For reasons undisclosed, “what wasn’t done was to publicize it an any other level,” Knight explained. “Not only is this a good time to remind people of [the theft] but to try some other levels as well. The Internet is perfect for that” because it reaches millions. It’s thought that the theft was an inside job because there was no sign of forced entry into the four-story repository, and the thief or thieves knew exactly what they were after and where it was located. Despite a thorough investigation by the FBI, none of the Moundville artifacts have been recovered and there are no suspects. The FBI is no longer investigating the case, said Craig Dahle, spokesman for the Birmingham office, but it is monitoring developments. Despite the age of the case, Knight remains optimistic that the stolen objects may eventually be recovered. “None of the artifacts have turned up for sale on the market,” he noted. “That suggests to me that the collection may still be intact.”

This incised bowl is one of the Moundville vessels that was stolen in 1980.

Within one week of its launch, the Web site drew several anonymous tips. “You see the same [concern] with what’s happened in Iraq,” Knight continued, referring to the destruction of the Baghdad National Library and widespread looting of antiquities during the war. The Web site has a complete photo gallery of the missing bottles, jars, and bowls. Many other objects stored in the same boxes as the vessels were also stolen, but no records of them exist, Knight said. Occupied between about A.D. 1000 and 1450, Moundville was a large Mississippian ceremonial center in central Alabama. At its peak, approximately 800 years ago, it boasted a population of about 1,000, making it the largest city in North America. For more information about the stolen antiquities, visit http://museums.ua.edu/oas/stolenartifacts/. To report information about the case, call the Anonymous Tip Line at (205) 371-8721. —Elizabeth Wolf summer • 2003

in the

NEWS

Sir Francis Drake Hoax Solved Years of research reveals identities of forged plaque creators.

or decades, historians believed that a brass plaque with an old inscription claiming California for England and purportedly left by the English explorer Sir Francis Drake on a Greenbrae hillside just north of San Francisco in 1579 was authentic. Historical records state that Drake left such a plaque about 30 miles north of San Francisco at Drake’s Cove, where he is thought to have landed. But metallurgical tests conducted on the plate in the late 1970s showed that it was a fake, made from machinerolled brass and engraved in the 1930s. This raised the questions of who was responsible for this hoax and what was the motivation.

Eleven years of research by Drake enthusiasts have finally solved the perplexing puzzle. Ed Von der Porten, maritime historian and president of the Drake Navigators Guild, and fellow researchers recently published their findings in California History magazine, revealing that the fake plaque was part of an elaborate prank that spun out of control. As it turns out, a group of friends of the distinguished University of California–Berkeley professor Herbert Bolton were the pranksters. The group of five, led by G. Ezra Dane, a San Francisco lawyer and leader of E Clampus Vitus, a society of irreverent intellectuals, created the fake as a private joke on Bolton.

But after planting the plaque, which they designed based on historic documentation of the real plaque, it was unexpectedly found by someone who threw it into a meadow across the mountains from Drake’s Cove, where it’s believed the explorer landed. It was found again in 1936 and brought to Bolton, whose search for the plaque was well known. Bolton immediately hailed the plaque as genuine, publishing his discovery and thereby perpetrating the misconception of where Drake landed. Bolton died in 1953, believing the plaque to be authentic. The real plaque has never been found. —Tamara Stewart

Survey Confirms Location of Werowocomoco Seventeenth-century Indian chiefdom was powerful and complex.

he findings of an archaeological survey north of Jamestown, Virginia, have confirmed the location of Werowocomoco, the village of the Indian chieftain Powhatan. Powhatan controlled the Virginia Tidewater when the English established the Jamestown colony in 1607. Legend has it that this is the village where Powhatan’s daughter, Pocahontas, intervened with her father to spare the life of Captain John Smith, Jamestown’s military leader. Though this deed may be a

american archaeology

product of myth, Smith was captured and brought to Powhatan at Werowocomoco in the winter of 1607. Powhatan, whether at the behest of Pocahontas or not, did release him. Archaeologists have long suspected that this was the location of Werowocomoco. The survey was prompted when the owners of the property reported their findings of pottery and arrowheads to local archaeologists. The investigation revealed Indian and European artifacts that suggested a large village

from that period. An excavation will begin in June. “For us, the emphasis is on Powhatan, not Pocahontas,” said archaeologist E. Randolph Turner III, the regional director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. “For the early 17th century the Powhatan chiefdom was possibly the most complex Native American political entity in eastern North America.” Though the Pocahontas tale is intriguing, Turner does not expect the excavation to prove or disprove it. —Michael Bawaya

in the

NEWS

Phoenix Excavation Uncovers Hohokam Farmstead Site may be one of the last to be discovered in this rapidly developing city.

TODD BOSTWICK

his past fall, archaeologists working for the City of Phoenix discovered a prehistoric Hohokam farmstead and two pithouse clusters with ancient human remains in a heavily populated area of south Phoenix. The discovery temporarily halted the development of a 760-unit housing project while archaeologists with Northland Research Inc. undertook more intensive excavations at the site, revealing 36 archaeological features clustered in three locations on the property. The city’s archaeologists knew of two prehistoric irrigation canals previously recorded in the area, and they recommended monitoring the initial trenches that were dug across the property for the housing development. When additional Hohokam materials were revealed, a full-scale excavation of the site was required. “The occupants of the Hohokam farmstead may have been farming the area and helping to maintain the canals,” speculated Todd Bostwick, City of Phoenix archaeologist. “Three human burials were also discovered in association with the pithouses, suggesting that the farmstead may have been occupied year round.” While researchers still await the results of radiocarbon analysis, the styles of artifacts and features found at the site indicate that the farmstead dates to the Classic period, sometime between A.D. 1100 and 1450.

John Marshall of Northland Research Inc. takes notes on a Hohokam pithouse excavated at the First People's Site in Phoenix. This ancient farmstead lay buried for more than 500 years before being recently discovered during preparation for a housing development project.

Archaeologists are well aware of the more than 700 prehistoric sites that lie beneath the city, particularly along a five-mile stretch of land that borders the Salt River. In prehistoric times the Hohokam people densely settled this rich agricultural area, building the large villages and extensive irrigation canals recorded by researchers in the 1920s and ’30s before development made them more difficult to find. The recently discovered site is located on one of several

undeveloped parcels of land in south Phoenix, and may represent one of the last undiscovered sites in this part of Phoenix. In accordance with state law, the human remains and their associated grave goods will be repatriated to the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. A spiritual leader with the Native American community blessed the remains before their removal from the ground. —Tamara Stewart summer • 2003

in the Drought Reveals Early Occupation Sites in the Tonto Basin

NEWS

Decline in depth of central Arizona lake gives a glimpse of the Salado people.

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

or three centuries between A.D. 1100 and 1400, the Salado people of central Arizona’s Tonto Basin farmed the area, building vast irrigation canal systems and producing some of the most exquisite polychrome pottery and intricately woven textiles in the Southwest. With the construction of the Theodore Roosevelt Dam in 1903, the river valley and its rich cultural resources were inundated. The severe drought of the last two years lowered Roosevelt Lake levels to the point where these remains once again became visible. “Every summer, as the agricultural demand increases, the water drops at Roosevelt,” explained J. Scott Wood, archaeologist with the Tonto National Forest Service. “Every summer there are certain prehistoric sites that are exposed, time and again, and are quite familiar to both the Forest Service archaeologists and the locals. But every now and then, when the water drops down nearly to the original channel of the river, some marvelous things are exposed that are rarely seen and even more rarely visited.” When terrace surfaces along the former course of the Salt River are exposed, researchers are able to view the Tonto Basin’s lowest and some of its earliest levels of human habitation. During last year’s low lake levels, ar-

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This excavation took place at a platform mound at Roosevelt Lake in 1992. The water level was higher at that time.

chaeologists with the Forest Service recorded early Preclassic Hohokam pithouse villages, 700-year-old Salado platform mounds, prehistoric agricultural fields and irrigation canals, as well as numerous small field houses and other sites. An extensive study conducted by Arizona State University researchers in the late 1980s showed that the platform mounds served as important administrative centers for the Salado people. The Salado are a much-debated prehistoric group that are thought by most researchers to have been transformed from a local indigenous group that had close cultural and biological ties with the Hohokam. Re-

searchers are very interested in understanding more about the initial contact between the local Salado people and the Hohokam of the Salt-Gila Basin, and think that sites lying beneath Roosevelt Lake may hold the key to understanding this crucial time period in the Tonto Basin. While lake levels are now back up and all of the lower terraces have once again disappeared, archaeologists are hopeful that another deep drawdown this summer will reveal early occupation sites that can shed more light on the cultural origins and development of the Tonto Basin’s prehistoric inhabitants. —Tamara Stewart 11

Pueblo Pintado was one of the first of the Chacoan great houses to be documented. Located at the eastern end of Chaco Canyon, it was built amidst a

WILLIAM STONE PHOTOGRAHY

community of smaller sites around A.D. 1060.

Chetro Ketl is one of the largest pueblos in Chaco Canyon. Chetro Ketl and its western neighbor, Pueblo Bonito, represent the center of what’s referred to as the Chaco Phenomenon.

summer • 2003

Understanding

Chaco Canyon

A decades-long, remarkably comprehensive research project has resulted in changing perceptions of this fascinating site.

haco Canyon is an enigma. Archaeologists who have long studied Chaco are baffled by its many contradictions. Located in a desolate, arid canyon in the San Juan Basin, which covers about 26,000 square miles of desert in northwestern New Mexico, the area would seem to have little to offer, yet it witnessed monumental building for hundreds of years. The canyon is filled with nearly a dozen spectacular multi-storied masonry pueblos known as great houses and many smaller habitation sites, yet scant evidence has been found to support the idea of a large resident population. Portions of what was once thought to be a vast network of roads connecting communities within the San Juan Basin now appear to have little utilitarian value; it’s thought that their purpose may have been ceremonial. Little direct evidence exists for an elite or ruling group that coordinated the construction of these great houses and

american archaeology

By Tamara Stewart roadways and brought hundreds of communities within Chaco Canyon’s sphere of influence, yet these massive undertakings were clearly orchestrated in some fashion. Following nearly a century of fieldwork, analysis, and interpretation, and an unprecedented three-year series of conferences, researchers are finding that many previous explanations of Chaco are not supported by the growing body of data.

The Chaco Project—Since

the late 19th century, explorers and researchers have investigated Chaco, resulting in the recovery of thousands of artifacts from the canyon’s great houses. The most comprehensive research began in 1969 with the initiation of the Chaco Project, a large-scale collaborative effort undertaken by the National Park Service (NPS) and the University of 13

this pithouse during the Chaco Project. The pithouse dates to approximately A.D. 750. A fire pit is in the center; to the left of the pit is a set of upright stone slabs that separated the main living area from smaller work or storage space.

New Mexico (UNM) to document and appraise all archaeological remains within Chaco Culture National Historical Park’s 43 square miles. Between 1970 and 1985, researchers excavated 25 archaeological sites and surveyed the entire park and key adjacent lands, documenting more than 3,300 sites and revealing an extensive system of outlying communities with Chaco-like characteristics, some of which appear to be linked to each other and to Chaco by ancient roadways. This multidisciplinary project applied new technologies—climatic reconstructions based on tree rings, archaeomagnetic dating, aerial photography, remote sensing, paleoenvironmental studies, and geochemical analysis—to source materials and artifacts. The project refined Chaco’s chronology and dramatically changed the view of Chaco from that of a major isolated site to the center of a cultural system that incorporated a large network of communities. Efforts of the Chaco Center, a branch of the NPS located at UNM in Albuquerque, led to the passage of federal legislation to preserve 33 Chacoan outlier communities and to add more than 12,500 acres of land to the park. Based on the work of Chaco Center staff, Chaco Canyon was added to the World Heritage list in 1987.

The Synthesis Project—Following 15 years of data gather-

ing and almost 20 more of analysis and interpretation, the Park Service, with the imminent publication of two volumes summarizing this work, is bringing the project to a close. “We still needed something to tie together and sum up all of the work that had gone on since the 1980s in a 14

contemporary way, both for professionals and for the general public,” says Bob Powers, supervisory archaeologist for the Intermountain Support Office of the NPS. “Steve Lekson had been involved with the Chaco Project for about 10 years and, with his innovative and productive thinking, he was a natural choice to head up this effort.” Lekson’s recent book, The Chaco Meridian, describes his highly controversial theories regarding ruling elites and political history at Chaco and two later centers in the Southwest. After several meetings between Powers, Chaco Culture park archaeologist Dabney Ford, and Lekson, now a curator for the Museum of Natural History at the University of Colorado, the idea of the Chaco Synthesis Project was born. Lekson proposed small working conferences focused on Chaco’s economy and ecology, the methods of production, architecture, social and political organization, and the Chaco regional system. The conferences, which began in 1999, matched “outsider” archaeologists—those studying cultures of a comparable level of complexity in regions outside of the Southwest—with Chaco experts. A final conference was held at UNM in 2002 to synthesize the results of the earlier discussions. The inclusion of outsider archaeologists was a key element of the project that most participants felt was very useful and stimulating. Lekson enlisted their services for two reasons: to offer their interpretations of Chaco and to make them, and other researchers they work with, more aware of Chaco. “I think bringing fresh eyes in helped a lot,” Lekson says of the outsiders’ contribution. “We need to know whether Chaco was an isolated phenomenon, relatively rare in the rest of the world, or was it common elsewhere, and what we see is simply a summer • 2003

COURTESY: THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, CHACO CULTURE NHP MUSEUM COLLECTION

Archaeologists excavated

Southwestern manifestation of a common occurrence,” explains W. James Judge, who for many years directed the Chaco Project. “For example, take the debate over whether downtown Chaco was a chiefdom, some other kind of formal prehistoric social organization, or purely ritual? It helps immensely to hear [outsider] Tim Earle, who has worked with chiefdoms in Hawaii and in the Old World, say he thinks Chaco was a kind of chiefdom, and to hear Colin Renfrew and Norm Yoffee, both of whom have vast experience in Europe and the Middle East, emphasize their feelings of Chaco as a ritual entity. This enables us to compare and contrast Chaco with archaeological manifestations elsewhere.”

Explaining Chaco—As

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH © ADRIEL HEISEY

researchers began to identify Chacoan communities located outside of the canyon that were characterized by a combination of features including a great house, great kiva, and often what appeared to be a road, they realized that Chaco was part of something much larger and more complex that they began to refer to as the “Chaco Phenomenon,” a term coined by the late Southwestern archaeologist Cynthia Irwin-Williams.

Great houses, the monumental buildings that are the quintessential feature of Chacoan communities, are bigger and more massive than nearby contemporaneous habitation sites. Most are multi-storied, display distinctive masonry styles, and show a higher degree of planning in scale, layout, and design than other sites. Great kivas, which in the Chaco region are circular, subterranean, or partly subterranean structures that are at least 30 feet in diameter, with some exceeding 60 feet, are usually located nearby. Based on the presence of some 150 communities, a number of which are interconnected by a system of straight, 24- to 36-foot-wide roads built with raised beds, berms, bridges, stairways, ramps, and other features, researchers began proposing various theories to explain the origin, existence, and persistence of the “Chaco Regional System.” Archaeologists of the 1970s and ’80s largely considered prehistoric cultures to be the product of adaptation to their environment—a framework known as cultural ecology. In accordance with this view, a popular explanation for Chaco in the early 1980s was the redistribution theory put forth by Judge. According to this model, the lack of rain limited the agricultural production of the San Juan Basin, which necessitated the import of surplus foods such as corn from those outlying communities. These goods, which were

The northeast corner of Aztec West at Aztec Ruins National Monument in Aztec, New Mexico. Built in the early A.D. 1100s, Aztec West is part of a larger great house community located on a terrace of the Animas River. This structure is among the largest of the great houses. The Aztec community is thought to have been a center for the Chacoan system around A.D. 1100 to 1140. Some researchers think it was the successor to Chaco Canyon.

american archaeology

HANS ANDERSSON

This map shows Central Chaco Canyon, the numerous outliers, and the road segments. Some of the road segments connected Chaco Canyon to outliers, while many others did not. It's now thought that the road segments were ceremonial in purpose.

brought into Chaco in pottery vessels, were stored within the canyon great houses, from where they were redistributed to participating communities according to their needs. The roads were thought to integrate these outlying communities into the larger system, which was considered reciprocal and voluntary, with an “administrative entity” coordinating the storage and redistribution of goods. But an excavation within the canyon at Pueblo Alto 16

revealed far more pottery sherds than archaeologists expected to find. The large number of sherds suggested that the pottery vessels, as well as the goods that they contained, were not redistributed to the outlying communities. Consequently, the redistribution theory was revised to one of ritual consumption of goods within the canyon, indicating that Chaco’s leaders wielded spiritual rather than economic power. summer • 2003

THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, CHACO CULTURE NHP MUSEUM COLLECTION/JIM JUDGE

THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, CHACO CULTURE NHP MUSEUM COLLECTION/DAVE SIX

This macaw skeleton was found at Salmon Ruin, a

This black-on-white olla was purposely placed in a pit in the floor of a late A.D. 700s-to-early-

great house constructed around A.D. 1090 and locat-

800s pithouse at a small site in Chaco Canyon. The olla, which was discovered during the

ed along the San Juan River to the north of Chaco

Chaco Project, had been plastered into place using manos and ground stone as support. It

Canyon. Colorful macaws provided brilliant feathers

was probably used to store grain.

that could be used for several purposes, especially ceremonies. They were imported from Mexico and found in the northern Southwest after A.D. 1050.

In the mid-1980s Judge suggested that periodic festivals or ceremonies held at Chaco Canyon could have served to regulate the exchange of goods and link the outlying communities with those in the canyon through shared religious beliefs and practices. The canyon great houses may have served to accommodate this periodic influx of people. Known as the Pilgrimage Fair model, this now popular model for Chaco posits that people living in the outlying communities periodically pilgrimaged to Chaco Canyon to receive ritual knowledge and participate in ceremonies that included fairs. In exchange, they brought goods such as corn and other foods, ceramics, raw stone, and in some cases turquoise and other exotic items, and provided labor for the construction and upkeep of the great houses and roadways. Whether participation in the network was voluntary or forced and the extent of Chaco Canyon’s influence over the participants are among the hottest topics in Chaco research today. Gwinn Vivian, a veteran Chaco researcher with the Arizona State Museum, points out that “essentially, there are questions as to the degree of influence from Chaco Canyon—local emulation of a Chacoan style versus direct involvement of canyon leaders in the establishment of some of the outliers.” The various models of leadership currently in debate propose that Chaco society was either egalitarian with voluntary involvement, resembling today’s pueblos, hierarchical to varying degrees, or a powerful state with centralized authority. Differences in physical stature exhibited by american archaeology

a few burials found at Pueblo Bonito, the canyon’s largest great house, reveal that some of these individuals were better nourished than those buried in small house sites in the canyon. To many researchers, this suggests differential access to resources and some form of status and hierarchy, but of what kind? And was leadership or elite status achieved within a person’s lifetime through successful competition with others, or was it ascribed politically or ritually (i.e., at birth)? The obvious amount of labor involved in obtaining materials and building and maintaining the great houses and roadways indicates to some researchers that a centralized authority existed to coordinate and control all of these efforts. “The key issue to Chaco, as I understand it, is whether the great houses were run by chiefs who got their power through the accumulation of wealth, or whether they were primarily ceremonial, run by priests with ritual authority,” says Judge. A minority of researchers see Chaco as more complex politically than modern pueblos. Lekson believes that Chaco was the center or capital of regional polity, a weakly centralized hierarchy that mimicked chiefdoms and kingdoms that were common throughout much of 11th-century North America. According to Lekson, Chaco might have been comparable to the smallest chiefdoms of the contemporary Mississippian peoples of the eastern U.S., but far less complex than contemporary Mexican kingdoms and states to the south. In contrast to the Pilgrimage Fair model, Lynne 17

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH © ADRIEL HEISEY

The two pinnacles of Chimney Rock Pueblo probably functioned as astronomical markers for a local shrine until around A.D. 1076 when a Chacoan great house was constructed on the mesa. From the great house it is possible to observe lunar anomalies near the evening of the full moon at winter solstice, a time that marks important Puebloan ceremonial events.

Sebastian of SRI Foundation in New Mexico proposes that social and political complexity in Chaco was a result of differences in people’s ability to produce and control agricultural surpluses. She suggests that clans or other groups farming the most productive lands were able to develop relationships of obligation with their less fortunate neighbors by sponsoring feasts or assisting them in times of need. Those neighbors then repaid the obligation by supplying labor to build great houses. Ultimately, great house construction is seen by Sebastian as a competitive display of power and wealth designed to attract people to join a particular group. She further argues that leadership roles became institutionalized through time, and the basis of social power shifted from the control of labor to the control of religious knowledge, such as that related to rainmaking.

Understanding Chaco Society—Many archaeol-

ogists stress the need for a better understanding of the nature of relationships within the Chaco system—a subject of considerable debate among experts—in order to explain its society and political structure. What led to the construction of

massive monuments in Chaco and the surrounding region between the 10th and 12th centuries? And what followed? Vivian, Joan Mathien of NPS, and others have proposed that the differences seen within the Chaco system, such as the great house/small house dichotomy, may reflect a variety of ethnic groups, and that these groups can be traced to the outlying communities and later to the historic and modern pueblos of the Rio Grande Valley and those to the west. Numerous Chacoan outliers were investigated in the 1990s, with excavations still being conducted at sites in Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. So far, this work is showing great variability in relationships between the canyon and outlying communities, suggesting the outliers’ relative independence from the canyon and thus arguing against control by a centralized authority. Research on the network of Chaco roads is also changing ideas about relationships within the Chaco system. Rather than serving primarily to connect communities, the roads are now thought to be pilgrimage paths to great houses and sacred geographic places on the landscape as well as symbolic paths marking the cardinal directions, of great importance to native peoples of historic and modern times. For most researchers contemplating these issues, the function of the roads, of the great houses, of Chaco itself, is no longer seen as a primarily utilitarian adaptation to the ensummer • 2003

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH © ADRIEL HEISEY

ing the economic aspects of canyon and outlier relationvironment. Much more complex propositions involving ships and the canyon’s agricultural potential. New research spiritual matters, which are harder to see in the archaeologiconducted within the canyon is revealing agricultural feacal record, are now being used to define Chaco. This is less tures that may provide insight into why Chaco arose to the result of new research than of the different questions such a position of eminence in such an unlikely place. that are being asked and the evolution of archaeological Eric Force (University of Arizona Geosciences Departthought since the early days of Chaco research. “Instead of ment), Gwinn Vivian, Thomas Windes (NPS), and Jeffrey arguments about how complex Chaco was, there is a much richer set of questions ranging from the sources of political Dean (University of Arizona Lab of Tree Ring Research) leadership to the structure of economic relationships,” says recently conducted a study showing that Chacoans built a Barbara Mills of the University of Arizona. masonry dam in the Chaco Wash sometime around A.D. It is difficult to address the complexity of Chacoan 1025. This replaced a breached natural sand dune dam organization when certhat had created a “lake” tain key elements of the within the canyon that equation, such as how likely increased agriculmany people lived in tural productivity. Windes the canyon and surhas undertaken extensive rounding areas, are still dendrochronological unanswered. As Linda sampling of architectural Cordell with the Uniwood at numerous great versity of Colorado in houses and a few small Boulder says, “It’s hard houses to determine when to get a kingdom if they were built, informayou’ve got only a few tion that will inform the hundred citizens.” Early chronology of occupation estimates for canyon within the canyon. population were high “Chaco is, in many based on the immense ways, the prime fact of size of the great houses pueblo history or, at least, and their assumed large pueblo archaeology,” says resident population. Lekson. “Other archaeolThe few professional ogists working in other excavations of canyon areas protest, with justice, great houses have that Chaco gets way too shown, however, that much ink and attention, the first-floor rooms and it does, but no artend to have few dochaeologist would argue mestic features. Little is that the history of the anknown about the upper cient Southwest could be floors of the great written without Chaco houses, adding to the This aerial view shows Pueblo Alto (foreground) and prehistoric road segments that front and center.” confusion. He notes that Chaco lead to the north. An excavation at Pueblo Alto led a number of archaeologists to Current estimates conclude that Chaco’s leaders possessed spiritual rather than economic power. experts, examining the for peak population same data, can arrive at within the canyon range from around 2,000 to 6,000 (for dramatically different conclusions. The lengthy NPS projthose who believe the great houses were residential) comect, with its massive amount of data and fresh perspecpared with an estimate of 55,000 people living in the San tives, did not result in a consensus as to what Chaco was. Juan Basin region. Population estimates are based on the Nor will the project’s end conclude the research of or the number of various features considered to be residential, lively debate about this mysterious place. Chaco will insuch as hearths, and the number of rooms identified deed remain in the consciousness of many researchers within communities. According to Mills, the strong confront and center. trast between population levels within the canyon and the surrounding area lends support to the Pilgrimage Fair TAMARA STEWART is the assistant editor of American Archaeology and the model, in which Chaco Canyon was a ceremonial center Conservancy’s Southwest projects coordinator. that, in between periodic rituals, was largely empty. Environmental studies are also critical to understandFor more information about the Chaco Synthesis Project, visit www.srifoundation.org american archaeology

SUMMER TRAVEL SPECIAL

An Archaeological Tour in the Upper Midwest

By Jack El-Hai

and sparsely populated land dotted with rocky hills. After about 60 miles, turn east on County Road 10 and south on County Road 2. A gravel drive leads you to the visitor center of Jeffers Petroglyphs, a property managed by the Minnesota Historical Society. For thousands of years, native people from a wide area have been visiting this site on spiritual pilgrimages and to make carvings on portions of a 23-mile-long outcropping of red quartzite, a bedrock deposit more than 1.6 billion years old. The visitors center is worth seeing first. An almost wordless multimedia presentation offers scenes of the petroglyphs site in centuries past, showing the activities of native visitors during night and day. Small exhibits cover prairie ecology, the cultural significance of the bison, and the original uses of Indian artifacts. To view the petroglyphs, you first follow a trail through a restoration of native prairie, converted from farmland 30 years ago. It includes the prairie bush clover and many other examples of endangered grasses and

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

he Upper Midwest is not well known for its archaeological treasures, and it’s easy to see why. The region has been utterly transformed in the past 200 years by the loss of 99 percent of its tall grass prairie, the felling of most of its original forests, and the harnessing of much of the land for agriculture. What civilization has accomplished at ground level often makes you ignore the surprises just inches or feet beneath the surface. This tour departs from Minneapolis straight into the fields of southwestern Minnesota on U.S. Highway 212. You quickly descend into the valley of the Minnesota River, a tributary of the Mississippi, with its short trees and boggy ground. Once you cross the river and leave the valley, the land settles into a gentle roll. After about an hour and a half, you reach the town of Olivia and the junction with U.S. Highway 71. This area was once a hunting ground disputed by the Dakota and Ojibwe Indians. Head south from Olivia on Highway 71. This is quiet

Thirty-one of the 195 mounds in Effigy Mounds National Monument are effigies. These mounds are called the Marching Bear Group. These and thousands of other mounds in the region were built by the Woodland Indians between A.D. 600 and 1300.

summer • 2003

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

The pipestone at Pipestone National Monument can be quarried by anyone of Indian ancestry. Pipes fashioned from the malleable stone, like the one above, have figured prominently in the lives of the Plains Indians over the centuries.

plants—a total of more than 200 species. A few minutes of walking brings you to the petroglyphs. Here, with the big sky above, the smell of the prairie in your nose, and the sight of acres of sloping red quartzite at your feet, you really feel as though you are in a place of spiritual resonance. It’s how you would imagine a visit to Stonehenge feels—a site in the middle of nowhere that conveys the sense that you’re at the center of things. A roped trail leads you across the rock, which is noticeably scratched by the passage of glaciers. The degree of cloudiness of the sky, angle of the sunlight, and wetness of the rock determine which of the approximately 2,000 carvings at Jeffers are most easily seen at a given time. Between patches of lime-green and black lichen, the rock carvings depict thunderbird tracks, buffalo, atlatls, turtles, deer, hands, human profiles, and narratives that might relate to hunting. Because of the extreme hardness of the rock, the larger and deeper carvings must have required extended or repeated visits by their makers. Nobody knows which Native American groups made the earliest carvings. In recent centuries, members of the Dakota tribes inhabited the area, and it’s possible that the Ioway, Otoe, and Cheyenne did as well. The site and its carvings still carry spiritual significance for Native Americans in the region. On the way back to the visitors center, you can follow the northern loop of the trail, which passes by buffalo rubbing rocks, large quartzite boulders burnished to a glassy sheen by the rubbings of countless buffalo over 10,000 years. The tour continues by heading south from Jeffers and after a few miles going west on Minnesota Highway 30. american archaeology

The town of Pipestone, and Pipestone National Monument, lie 70 miles ahead. Pipestone National Monument, another site sacred to Native Americans, covers a small area, but it is a place of great cultural significance. Here, around one thousand years ago, Native Americans discovered in Pipestone Creek a narrow band of reddish, malleable pipestone between the much harder strata of quartzite. The Indians began carving the pipestone to create pipes and other ceremonial objects, and eventually these highly valued pipestone pieces were traded throughout much of North America. The pipestone carving continues today. Native people work the quarries during the summer and fall, and in recent years the National Park Service has issued quarrying permits to people of about 40 different tribal affiliations. Only Native Americans are eligible to quarry the pipestone. After spending some time in the visitors center, which includes multimedia presentations, small exhibits on quarrying methods and the spiritual significance of pipestone, and a gift shop where you can buy Indian-carved pipestone objects, you can tour the quarries and the surrounding area by following a mile-long circular trail. A tall mound of rubble marks the site of the Spotted Pipestone Quarry, which is still in use. Workers pump groundwater from the pits, use hand tools to painstakingly break the pipestone out from the surrounding layers of harder rock, and cart off the debris. You will come across the pouches of tobacco or food on the branches of nearby trees that quarriers have left in appreciation for the harvest of stone. Before returning you to other currently and formerly 21

used pipestone quarries near the visitors center, the trail swings by a waterfall and tall outcrops of the quartzite that stands above the sloping layer of pipestone. Natural erosion has made two of the stony towers resemble human faces. At the top of another outcrop are the carved initials of the party of the Nicollet Expedition of 1838, a U.S. government-sponsored exploration of the Upper Mississippi region whose members included Joseph N. Nicollet and John C. Fremont. As you drive off the grounds, you will see six large boulders to the right, at the base of a hill. Made of granite, a rock not native to the region, the stones may be remnants

of the largest glacial boulder ever carried into Minnesota. According to a native legend, the boulders are the home of spirits that guard the sanctity of the pipestone quarries. From the quarries, turn south on U.S. Highway 75. Twenty minutes of driving will take you to Blue Mounds State Park, the home of a herd of about 50 bison. In addition to an ambitious effort to restore the native prairie, the park includes—atop the Blue Mound outcrop of quartzite—a mysterious 1,250-foot-long line of rocks. On the first days of spring and autumn, you can see that the rocks are arranged to align with the rise and fall of the sun. Nobody knows who labored to create this seasonal

Norse in Minnesota? id 14th-century Norse explorers sail their longboats across the North Atlantic, through Hudson Bay and Lake Winnipeg, then up the Red River before trekking overland to create a tombstone-sized monument in interior Minnesota? This notion is championed at the Runestone Museum in Alexandria, Minnesota. The centerpiece of the museum is the Kensington Runestone, one of the most controversial ar tifacts ever to bedevil American archaeology. The 200pound slab of car ved graywacke bears a runic inscription usually translated as “8 Swedes and 22 Nor wegians on an exploration journey from Vinland westward. We had our camp by 2 rocky islets one day’s journey nor th of this stone. We were out fishing one day. When we came home we found 10 men red with blood and dead. Ave Maria save us from evil. We have 10 men by the sea to look after our ships, 14 days journey from this island. Year 1362.” The stone was discovered in 1898 by a Swedish farmer who was clearing land near Kensington, Minnesota. Its authenticity The 40-foot-long "Snorri" is a three-quarter-scale replica of a Viking merchant vessel. was immediately suspect, and This boat, which is said to be named for the first European child born in the New World, most scholars consider it a hoax. is part of the museum's Norse collection. However, proponents of the stone’s authenticity have worked assiduously to counter the arguments against it. The debate usually focuses on the minutiae of Scandinavian philology, medieval epigraphy, and the geophysical processes of stone weathering. Avoiding such tedium and tendentiousness, the Runestone Museum endorses the stone’s authenticity. In addition to the Kensington Runestone, the museum houses a 38-foot replica of a Norse longboat, and archaeological and historical exhibits relating to early life in Minnesota. The Runestone Museum is located at 206 Broadway, Alexandria, Minnesota, and is easily reached from Exit 103 on I-94. Look for the giant statue of Big Ole.—Paul Gardner

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MATT THOMPSON/RUNESTONE MUSEUM

HANS ANDERSSON

indicator, or why. Another few miles of travel south on Highway 75 brings you to Interstate 90, a main cross-continental highway. Turn east. In the next 165 miles, you’ll pass by the small cities of Worthington, Fairmont, Albert Lea, and Austin. Should you be interested in an attraction completely unrelated to archaeology, take Exit 178B in Austin and follow the signs to the SPAM Museum south of the highway. A new attraction situated in the shadow of the Hormel meatpacking plant, the museum pays homage to every conceivable facet of the canned meat’s status as a cultural icon. Minnesota Highway 56 curls southeast approximately seven miles east of Austin to U.S. Highway 63 just above the Iowa state line. Follow Highway 63 south to eastbound Iowa Highway 9 and pass through the city of Decorah. As you approach the Mississippi River, the terrain becomes hilly. Continue south on Iowa Highway 76, and after about 25 miles you will reach Effigy Mounds National Monument, perched high on the bluffs above the great river. Eagles glide the air currents above the bluffs, which were undoubtedly just as serene and spectacular 3,000 years ago, when people of the Early Woodland period began building large mounds above the river. The first mounds in the area were conical in shape. Later, about 1,500 years ago, people of the Late Woodland period constructed effigy (or animal-shaped) mounds in the same area. They ceased building mounds by about A.D. 1250 when the ancestors of today’s Ioway and Otoe people were living here. Although american archaeology

there were once more than 10,000 Indian mounds in northeastern Iowa, agriculture, development, and vandalism combined to eliminate traces of nearly all of them by the middle of the 20th century. An exhibit in the visitors center details the work of Ellison Orr, an amateur archaeologist who extensively studied and surveyed the mounds of this part of Iowa, and shows how the methods of examining the mounds have changed over the decades. Other exhibits describe the lives of the Woodland people, display breastplates, spearpoints, and other items excavated from mounds, and speculate on the meaning of the mounds, which were used for both burial and ceremonial purposes. Divided into north and south units, the park covers thousands of acres of bluffs, hardwood forest, and mound sites. The mounds in the north unit are the most accessible. An easy two-mile path called the Fire Point Trail begins at the visitors center and goes by several conical and linear mounds before reaching the Little Bear effigy mound. Excavations of this mound uncovered evidence of a prehistoric fire pit, but no human remains. From Little Bear, the trail leads you by spectacular rows of conical mounds pointing toward Fire Point, a bluff rising hundreds of feet above the Mississippi. The mound closest to the bluff edge contained the remains of at least eight burials. Although trails in the north unit offer views of several other effigy mounds, the greatest concentration of these mounds is in the south unit, accessible by trails that 23

ancient, which held cremated remains along with tools and pottery. The Dakota Indians of more recent times used these mounds for their own burials, often wrapping the bones of the deceased in buffalo hides. After the Dakota ceded the land to the U.S. government in the 1850s, the mounds fell victim to grave robbers and the destructive practices of 19th-century amateur archaeologists. In one mound, investigators found eight limestone-walled compartments containing human remains, bear teeth, and mussel shells. In another was a body whose face had been applied with red clay, producing a death mask. Today only six mounds remain. As recently as 1987, visitors could climb the mounds, but fences now protect them. Although most of the mounds have been destroyed, having any at all in an urban park is highly unusual, and a visit there is inspiring, showing how ancient structures can survive in a large American city. From Indian Mounds Park, it is an easy drive to the Science Museum of Minnesota, which features a 10,000-square-foot Dinosaurs and Fossils Gallery, artifacts from the ancient Mississippian cultures of the Upper Midwest, and a strong ethnographic collection of artifacts from the Indians of the Upper Plains. Nearby are the Minnesota History Center and its collections of native and early European-American artifacts, and His-

would take approximately half a day to hike. From Effigy Mounds, drive a few miles south on Highway 76 to Marquette, Iowa, where you can cross the Mississippi River to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. Here you will begin a drive north at the river’s edge along Wisconsin Highway 35 that will take you through La Crosse. Although the area between the towns of Trempelau and Fountain City is lovely, the scenery becomes more spectacular at the widening of the Mississippi called Lake Pepin. The town of Stockholm offers quaint cafes and shopping for crafts hunters. A few miles further north is a high bluff called Maiden Rock, famous for its connection with an Indian legend about a young Indian woman who jumped to her death from its peak. When you reach U.S. Highway 63, cross the Mississippi and enter Red Wing, Minnesota. Travel north on U.S. Highway 61 into St. Paul, about 50 miles, and turn west on Interstate 94, which will give you a memorable view of the skyline of Minnesota’s capital city. Take Exit 243, turn right at Mounds Boulevard, and follow it into Indian Mounds Park. This park, one of the oldest in the Twin Cities, encompasses an area above the Mississippi River on which nearly 18 Indian mounds once stood. Members of the Hopewell culture, prolific mound builders of about 2,000 years ago, constructed the most

Jeffers Petroglyphs features carvings of humans, deer, elk, buffalo, turtles, thunderbirds, atlatls, and arrows that date to 3000 B.C. The petroglyphs served many functions, including recording important events, depicting sacred ceremonies, and emphasizing the importance of animals and hunting.

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toric Fort Snelling, where living-history displays and archaeological work illuminate life in a military outpost of the 1820s. Across town in Minneapolis you’ll find the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, an encyclopedic art museum with many African, Asian, and Mediterranean items of archaeological interest.

When You Go: JEFFERS PETROGLYPHS Near Comfrey and Windom, Minnesota (507) 628-5591 • www.mnhs.org Hours: May and September: Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sunday, 12–5 p.m. Memorial Day to Labor Day: Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.–8 p.m.; Sunday, 12–8 p.m. Fees: $4, discounts for seniors and children PIPESTONE NATIONAL MONUMENT Pipestone, Minnesota (507) 825-5464 www.nps.gov/pipe Hours: Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m.-6 p.m.; Friday through Sunday, 8 a.m.–8 p.m.; 8 a.m.–5 p.m. Labor Day through Memorial Day Fees: $5 families, $3 individuals BLUE MOUNDS STATE PARK Luverne, Minnesota • (507) 283-1307 www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/blue_mounds/index.html Hours: 9 a.m.–9 p.m. Fees: $4 vehicle permit SPAM MUSEUM 1937 Spam Blvd., Austin, Minnesota (507) 437-5100 www.spam.com Hours: Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sunday, 12–4 p.m. (Closed Mondays, Labor Day through April 30) Fees: Free admission EFFIGY MOUNDS NATIONAL MONUMENT Near Harpers Ferry, Iowa (563) 873-3491 • www.nps.gov/efmo Hours: 8 a.m.–4:30 p.m. (extended hours during summer) Fees: $5 vehicles, $3 individuals, children under 16 free INDIAN MOUNDS PARK St. Paul, Minnesota (651) 632-5111 www.ci.stpaul.mn.us/ depts/parks/userguide/ indianmounds.htm Hours: Sunrise to 11 p.m. Fees: Free admission

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In this tour of parts of three states, you’ve covered about 750 miles and visited sites that are among the most sacred to the Upper Midwest’s native people. Now you know a bit about what lies hidden beneath the fields of grain. JACK EL-HAI is the author of Lost Minnesota: Stories of Vanished Places.

SCIENCE MUSEUM OF MINNESOTA 120 W. Kellog Blvd., St. Paul, Minnesota (651) 221-9444 • www.smm.org Hours: Monday through Saturday, 9:30 a.m.–9 p.m.; Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–9 p.m. Fees: $8 adults, $6 seniors and children; additional fees for Omnitheater and 3D Laser Show MINNESOTA HISTORY CENTER 345 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul, Minnesota (651) 296-6126 or 800-657-3773 www.mnhs.org Hours: Tuesday, 10 a.m. –8 p.m.; Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sunday, 12–5 p.m. Fees: Free admission MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS 2400 Third Ave. S., Minneapolis, Minnesota (612) 870-3131 www.artsmia.org Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.–9 p.m. Fees: Free admission HISTORIC FORT SNELLING At the junction of Minnesota Highways 5 and 55, St. Paul, Minnesota (612) 726-1171 www.mnhs.org Hours: Memorial Day through Labor Day: Wednesday through Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sunday 12–5 p.m. September and October: Saturdays 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Sundays 12–5 p.m. Fees: $6 adults, $5 senior citizens, $4 children ages 6–12, under 6 free RUNESTONE MUSEUM 206 Broadway, Alexandria, Minnesota (320) 763-3160 www.runestonemuseum.org Hours: Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m.; Saturday 9 a.m.–3 p.m (Summer hours 9 a.m.–4 p.m.); closed Sunday (Summer hours: 11 a.m.–4 p.m.) Fees: $5 adults, $4 seniors, $3 students, children under 7 free

BRANSON REYNOLDS

Anna Boozer runs dirt through a screen under a blazing sun. The dirt is screened in order to find tiny artifacts.

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Learning of Spanish Colonial Life

This historic pueblo potsherd was found during last season’s excavation. It’s typical of the types of sherds found at the site.

The 18th century is glimpsed at an excavation in New Mexico.

KELLY BRITT

BRANSON REYNOLDS

By Pamela Salmon

rchaeologist Nan Rothschild first worked in the Southwest from 1989 to 1991 at Zuni Pueblo in western New Mexico. There, she said, “I became interested in what it meant to be Hispanic in the 18th century in New Mexico, and I wanted to excavate an historic site in the Rio Grande Valley.” This desire brought her to San José de las Huertas, a Spanish Colonial site located within the northern reaches of the Sandia Mountains. The site is approximately one mile north of Placitas, New Mexico, a mixed community of Hispanic descendants whose ancestors worked the land and rural-oriented suburbanites who commute to work in nearby Albuquerque. San José de las Huertas is part of a 25-acre parcel owned by The Archaeological Conservancy. An archaeological survey in 1972 and an excavation of a two-room house in 1983 by archaeologists working for companies building liquid hydrocarbon and carbon dioxide pipelines close to the area confirmed the site’s archaeological significance. This led the Cortez Pipeline Company to donate 12 acres to the Conservancy in 1986. The Conservancy later obtained an additional 13 acres from several other landowners. “Spanish Colonial sites are rare and endangered,” said Jim Walker, the Conservancy’s Southwest regional director. He identified them as one of the Conservancy’s top preservation priorities. The Conservancy owns five Spanish Colonial sites, four in New Mexico and one in Arizona. Most of the significant sites have been obliterated by modern development, according to Walker. In fact, of approximately

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This obsidian projectile point was also discovered during the excavation. It is less than an inch long.

Nan Rothschild and two crew members excavate a large house with adobe walls. Rothschild was surprised to find the structure’s foundation stones just a few inches below the surface.

GETTING TO WORK Having identified a site, the archaeologists had to determine the activities and technologies, not to mention sources of funding, that would help them achieve their goals. They also had to apply for permission from the Conservancy to work The working conditions at San José de las Huertas are challenging. In addition to dealing on the property. Walker believed Rothschild with the heat, the crew has to work around the abundant cholla cacti. and Atherton could put together an account of life at Las Huertas that would contribute not only to the 200,000 recorded archaeological sites in New Mexico, less body of archaeological research, but also to the historical than 100 are intact Spanish Colonial sites. He believes that continuity of descendants still living in the region. They San José de las Huertas is “the most intact Spanish Colonial also embraced the practice of conservation archaeology, a village in New Mexico, if not the Southwest.” requirement of the Conservancy. Rothschild concurred. “I had collected information “The old idea of archaeology was that you dig everyfrom other excavations and I realized this would be the thing up because you don’t want to miss anything,” experfect site.” Las Huertas fit the bill for Rothschild because plained Walker. “The knowledge of those old sites is it’s protected by the Conservancy, in good condition, and frozen at that time because there is no way to apply new apparently had few disturbances after it was abandoned. ideas or new technologies. We want to make sure impacts Rothschild and Heather Atherton directed the dig. are minimal so that portions of a site are available for fuRothschild is the chairwoman of Barnard College’s anthroture research.” pology department, and Atherton is a graduate student at Rothschild and Atherton developed a budget for the Columbia University. They had some expectations about excavation that took into account everything from the what they would find at Las Huertas relative to the physical cost of field equipment to laboratory analysis to first aid. layout of the village and the social hierarchy of its residents. They estimated that their project would cost between They studied documentation from excavations at other $33,000 and $39,500. At approximately $6,000, curation Spanish Colonial sites, particularly in the Caribbean and was one of the most expensive items in the budget. Findnorthern Mexico, and they researched historical archives reing and paying for the space to properly store the materigarding Spanish Colonial activity in New Mexico. But Ather28

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ton explained the limitations of this research: “Because (written) history is told by the literate, the elite, and government, we get only one view. Archaeology gives us other information.” Rothchild’s and Atherton’s goals complemented one another. While Rothschild is particularly interested in social relationships among the settlers themselves and with their Native American neighbors along the Rio Grande, Atherton focused on how Spanish policy, including the crown’s imperialist and secular goals, affected the behaviors of the residents of remote villages. She said during this time period Spain was changing from a policy of dominating the natives through religious conversion to one of natural resource extraction. Historical documents say San José de las Huertas was permanently settled in 1765 by nine Spanish families who petitioned the Spanish governor of New Mexico for legal claim to the property in the form of a land grant. It appears to have been occupied until 1826, with as many as 300 people living there at its peak during a comparatively peaceful period in the early 1800s. Susan Blumenthal, who explored the property with her archaeologist father in the 1950s, mentioned the valley was a haven for hippies in the 1960s.

HELGA TEIWES

The three pots shown above (from left, A, B, and C) were recovered during a 1980 excavation. The pots were found in a storage pit beneath the floor of a two-room house. It's believed that they were used to store grain. The illustration below shows where the pots were found in the storage pit. Pots A and C were largely intact, while pot B was broken in several places.

PATRICK CARR IMAGING AND DESIGN

als that result from excavating, such as artifacts and field notes, can be challenging. They arrived at this expense based on the expectation of storing 24 to 26 boxes of materials. If necessary, they were prepared to conclude the excavation prematurely so as to avoid exceeding that amount of material.

The archaeologists applied for a grant from the Earthwatch Institute, an organization that promotes conservation of natural resources and cultural heritage through partnerships among scientists, educators, the general public, and businesses. Earthwatch provided both money and volunteers who, at their own expense, would work with the researchers for five weeks. The women also obtained a grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, which supports research in anthropology. For parts of the last four years the researchers have worked at Las Huertas, with the first year spent mapping, assessing surface artifacts, and surmising what an excavation would reveal. The second and third years were dedicated to refining surface and subsurface mapping using magnetometry and soil resistivity testing, which measure surface and subsurface features through variations in the magnetic and electrical conductivity of the ground. They combined the results from these techniques with topographic maps and 1980 aerial photographs from the Conservancy to develop an overlay of features as seen from the air, ground, and below ground. In the fourth year, the summer of 2002, the archaeologists, with help from the Earthwatch volunteers, conducted test excavations. Their crew painstakingly dug, scraped, and swept the hardpan with small trowels, picks, and brushes. They caused as little disturbance as possible while searching for the remnants of what once was an active subsistence-farming village. Half of the crew of four men and 12 women are volunteers who paid more than $800 each to toil for a week under clear blue skies in 95-degree temperatures. “You have to be in good physical shape to do this,” said a volunteer from San Diego as she took a break at a picnic table under a blue canopy. Other members of the crew

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The Conservancy Expands Its Preserve Last December, the Conservancy acquired its fourth contiguous tract of land at San José de Las Huertas. The acquisition of a 1.4-acre lot marks the final stage of a 16-year quest to obtain one of the best-preserved Spanish Colonial villages in the Southwest. This acquisition was funded by a generous contribution from the late Jane Sandoval, a longtime Conservancy member. Containing housemounds and features, the lot was part of a small subdivision that marks the beginning of a new era for the isolated Las Huertas valley. Originally home to a succession of Anasazi, Spanish Colonial, and Mexican farmers, the small valley has seen hippies in the 1960s, land speculators and pipelines in the ’70s and ’80s, and rambling new suburban homes in the ’90s and ’00s. Though the valley will continue to evolve, San José de Las Huertas is preserved.

joined her. They chatted excitedly about the pieces of bone, pottery, and adobe they found, and then voted to have Krispy Kreme doughnuts for breakfast the next morning. “We’ve got a hoof,” announced volunteer Bob Keeler, who is working at Area 7, one of nine excavation pits placed strategically throughout the 80-by-100-square-yard area on which the crew is allowed to dig. Keeler is a teacher of anthropology and Latin American studies at Clackamas Community College in Oregon City, Oregon, and a veteran of many Earthwatch expeditions, which provide him with information that he uses in the classroom. The white-bearded Keeler toiled in a 12-inch-deep midden that is laced with ash. “This is a pit that someone dug,” he said. “It has a lot of charcoal and some slag, which suggests blacksmithing or copper smelting. That’s what makes this exciting. It’s more than just a garbage pit.” Historical documents indicate that a copper mine, located slightly east of the excavation site, was probably active in the late 1800s. Maribel Dana, a volunteer who teaches high school near Riverside, California, worked along with Keeler. She put a piece of charcoal into a clear, plastic bag and dated it, gave it an identification number, and noted the excavation pit and the depth at which it was found. Then she fingered a small artifact that appeared to be copper ore. “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” she said. “To me, it’s like finding little jewels.” Atherton told Keeler and Dana that metal tools were scarce at Las Huertas and surmises that the copper was probably used to repair the few tools that the inhabitants did have. Denise Mullen, a teacher at Albuquerque’s James Monroe Middle School, worked in Area 2. Here, the volunteers focused on the shape and direction of a long adobe wall. Small pieces of debris were put in a plastic bag 30

and labeled. Later, researchers will determine whether the pieces are adobe, plaster, or charcoal. Like Keeler, Mullen is a frequent volunteer and uses information from her digs in her classroom. “I want my students to be aware that archaeology is in their own backyard,” she said. The aerial and magnetometry maps indicate that the village was laid out in a typical Spanish Colonial arrangement with four walls and a plaza in the center. However, the maps also show some structures outside the walls, a variation from the standard village design. The location of the village suggests that Las Huertas was isolated and vulnerable to raiding by marauding bands of nomadic Indians, principally Navajo, Apache, and Ute. Because of the dangers in such settlements, Rothschild and Atherton believe Las Huertas was inhabited by people who were willing to live with the risks in exchange for land of their own. More than likely, they say, these people were at the lower socioeconomic levels of Spanish society. They also hypothesize that a social hierarchy existed within the community, since living spaces appear to vary in size and are found outside the walls. Rothschild suggested that a group called genizaros was on the lower rung of the Las Huertas social hierarchy. “Genizaros were detribalized Indians who had a reputation for being good fighters,” she said. “What we think is that they were Indians who had been captured by the nomadic groups and then ransomed to work in the Spanish homes. They didn’t have any land, and they couldn’t go back to their original communities.” Because of the village’s distance from any imperial governing body, Atherton believes that the residents of Las Huertas exercised substantial social freedom. Both Rothschild and Atherton think the location of Las Huertas lent itself to frequent cross-cultural interaction, and possibly intermarriage, among the Spanish settlers and the nearby Indians. Such encounters make relationships particularly intriguing, said Rothschild. She observed that while traditional Spanish imperialistic contacts with Pueblo Indians in the Rio Grande Valley were based on religious conversion and domination, those between the Spanish at Las Huertas and the neighboring Pueblo Indians were based on survival and congeniality. For example, historical documents note that the apparent lack of a church at Las Huertas prompted its residents to attend weddings and funerals at the church at neighboring San Felipe Pueblo.

DEVELOPING CONCLUSIONS Other signs of cross-cultural contact are expected to be confirmed by further analysis of the several thousand artifacts retrieved by the excavators. In addition to the metal fragments, numerous pottery sherds from various Pueblos have been found. The sherds are identified by their colors, patterns, surface textures, and tempers. European creamware, so named because of its ivory-colored glaze, and majólica, earthenware covered with tin and summer • 2003

Kelly Britt exposes the foundation of a structure that had been altered. The archaeologists are uncertain BRANSON REYNOLDS

whether this structure was a large house or two smaller dwellings.

lead glazes from Spain or Mexico, are also present, all of which lead Atherton to conclude that there probably was no on-site production of pottery. Atherton suspects that the crude grinding and cutting stone implements found at the site represent the types of tools most often used by the inhabitants. Manos and metates were used for grinding vegetables and seeds, and points and scrapers for hunting and cleaning animal carcasses. The site has also yielded more sophisticated implements such as symmetrical, fluted, and other shaped cutting tools and more developed grinding tools; but it’s thought these were either obtained through local trade or discarded by nomads. Atherton does not believe any major trade caravans, like those that visited Santa Fe or Albuquerque, came through Las Huertas. However, she noted that the magnetometer data showed subsurface parallel depressions running roughly on an east-west axis through the village. She suggested these depressions might have been a road for animal-drawn carts that possibly connected to a network of trails that led to other villages. While Rothschild and Atherton pondered relationships, lifestyles, and daily activities at San José de las Huertas, the volunteers washed artifacts that could provide vital information about these matters at a small empty rental house near the University of New Mexico. They sat at eight-foot tables covered with sheets of blue plastic. On top of each table were three blue plastic tubs filled halfway with water. The volunteers sipped wine and talked about everything from the Meyers Briggs personality test to where to shop in Albuquerque to how to say “hot dog” in various languages. Atherton brought bagged artifacts to the group. “You american archaeology

can drybrush metal and bone and wash slag and pottery,” she explained, “but don’t do anything with wood.” The volunteers took the bags, double-checked their contents to ensure that the artifacts are categorized correctly, and washed those they could. They were careful not to wash anything that appeared to be adobe, plaster, or charcoal. The cleaned artifacts were then rebagged The remainder of the work is left primarily to Atherton. She has about 250 bags, each of which contains multiple artifacts. She has selected a handful of researchers to perform the necessary analyses. The faunal fragments will go to a University of Washington scientist and the slag to one at the University of Arizona. The analysis of the botanical and soil samples have yet to be assigned. Atherton will analyze the ceramic, lithic, and metal materials. When the analyses are complete, Atherton will pack the artifacts in one-cubic-foot archival boxes. She estimates that she will only need about 15 of them. The boxes will be stored at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology in Albuquerque in a humidity- and temperature-controlled environment and made available for study by other researchers. Atherton expects to complete her fieldwork this summer. The Las Huertas project will flesh out research done in the early 1960s by archaeologists with the University of New Mexico and the subsequent work that was done there. “As far as I’m concerned the whole valley is of extreme significance,” said neighbor Susan Blumenthal. She believes the area was once teeming with activity. With the excavation and analysis of each artifact, Rothschild and Atherton endeavor to understand that activity. PAMELA SALMON lives in New Mexico and is the author of Sandia Peak: A History of the Sandia Peak Tramway and Ski Area.

THE NEIGHBORHOOD BONEBED

The concentration of bison bones at the Kaplan-Hoover site is so dense that there is no room for archaeologists to stand. Therefore Larry Todd and his team have to lie on boards that are positioned over the bed in order to excavate.

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Bison bones were discovered during construction of a housing development near Denver. Little did the construction workers know they had stumbled upon the single largest Late Archaic bonebed in North America. Working in the shadow of new homes, excavators are learning the story of the people and animals that lived here nearly 3,000 years ago. In order to protect the fragile bones from the elements, the small site is covered in Quonset hut-like fashion by a durable plastic material.

By Catherine Dold Photography by Willie Gibson

ot many archaeological excavations come complete with a brand new sidewalk, curbside mailbox, and a few swing sets nearby. But then, most excavations are not located smack in the middle of a large new housing development. Some 60 miles north of Denver, out among the rapidly disappearing farms and rangelands that surround the tiny prairie town of Windsor, Colorado, the Kaplan-Hoover Bison Bonebed site perches on a hillside. Just a few feet to the east sits a new house. Directly west is another new house, along with piles of construction materials. Eventually, yet another home may sit on the Kaplan-Hoover lot, but for the moment only a large white tent adorns the hillside. Inside the tent, a small propane heater wards off the chill of an approaching snowstorm, and 10 students from nearby Colorado State University (CSU) lie sprawled across planks of wood, suspended above a hole in the ground. Covered in dust and dirt, bamboo digging tools

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at hand, each student carefully reaches into the hole and slowly extricates one bone at a time from what appears to be a bottomless cauldron. They use bamboo tools rather than metal because the former do far less damage to the fragile bones. Plainly visible below them is a dense jumble of body parts—several complete skulls, snaking spines, dozens of legs and ribs, and more. Most are bison remains; a few are from wolves or other carnivores. The bones, explains Larry Todd, an archaeologist at CSU and director of the excavation, are the leftovers of a single bloody event that took place late one summer some 2,700 years ago: a bison kill, in which human hunters trapped scores of animals in a small gulch or arroyo, killed them, butchered them for food, and left the carcasses behind to rot. Scavengers, decay, and hundreds of years of water flowing to the Cache la Poudre River below reassembled the bones into the tightly packed jumble seen today, the bonebed. Bison kill sites are fairly common on the plains, Todd says. But most kills involved no more than 30 animals. When he first started exploring this site, he says, “I thought 33

I’d go out on a limb and say there might be 50 animals here. We soon found out how wildly wrong we were.” Standing at the edge of the pit, watching his students work, Todd says, “At a bare minimum there are 250, maybe 300 animals here. That makes this the single largest bonebed in North America for the time period.” To date, thousands of bones have been extricated from the 55-square-foot pit, including more than 120 complete skulls, and the bottom is nowhere in sight. The sheer number of animals makes the site significant. But it is also expected to reveal substantial information about the lives of the people and the animals who lived on the Colorado prairie in the Late Archaic period.

This bison skull is one of more than 120 that have been recorded. The archaeologists can see that there are many more skulls in the bonebed.

Though this hammer stone (left) was not found at the site, it’s believed to be the type of tool used by hunters to break the bones, from which they occasionally extracted marrow. This is one of the few bones recovered from the site that contained marrow.

This replica stone knife is similar to knives found at the site. It’s believed that the knives were used to cut meat from the bones.

The entire site was nearly lost forever. The bonebed had settled to at least 18 feet below the surface when, in 1997, construction workers began grading the land for roads and homes. Carving out a hillside with heavy equipment, they nicked the top of the bonebed. The workers saw the bones, but they continued to develop the site. Later, a volunteer with the Denver Museum of Nature & Science happened to stumble upon the site. Word traveled, and soon Todd went looking for the bonebed along with a student. They didn’t have much luck at first. “We spent the day driving from one new housing development to another, and we couldn’t find it,” laughs Todd, waving a hand at the sea of new homes that can be seen from the hillside. During a second search they found the site and knew immediately it was worth exploring. “We walked up the hill and saw bison bones. One of the first ones we picked up had cut marks on it. That was pretty good evidence that they’d been butchered by humans, rather than getting trapped in a blizzard or something.” Todd tracked down the property owner, Lester Kaplan, and got permission for an initial excavation. “We were lucky that the construction plans didn’t call for the grade to go deeper, because I’m sure they would have just dug it all out,” says Todd. “We were also lucky that Kaplan was willing to let us work here. He could have just sold the bones at a flea market.” Later, when it became clear that the bonebed was larger and more important than originally suspected, Kaplan agreed to let the researchers use the site until 2004. It was named in recognition of Kaplan and Gary Hoover, the owner of the construction company. Since the excavation began an entire community, River West, has been built around it. Construction crews have paved miles of roads, installing nearby Meander Road and Pioneer Place, houses ranging from modest duplexes to “prairie palaces” have sprung up on the hillsides, and scores of new residents have arrived. And just a few feet from the edge of the new suburban landscaping, students in the tent have pulled more than 10,000 bones and artifacts from the ground. summer • 2003

MICHAEL ROTHMAN

Late Archaic hunters may have used prehistoric spears called atlatls to kill bison, as depicted in this illustration. There is some uncertainty about the type of weapon because, though the archaeologists have found stone points at the site, they have found no shafts. This, however, is not surprising, given that the shafts would have been made of perishable material.

american archaeology

“The arroyo ran north-south and made a steep-sided natural corral 12 to 15 feet deep,” he explains. The bison were likely grazing near the river, to the north, and were quietly herded into the trap. “You put a couple of people at the edge of the herd and the animals will slowly graze away from them, into the arroyo. You don’t want to start a stampede.” Once the animals were contained, perhaps by a wooden gate at the end of the arroyo, he says, the hunters probably stood above them and killed them with spears topped with stone projectile points. “It was like shooting fish in a barrel.” Radiocarbon dating of bone and charcoal found in the bonebed— likely from hearths built along the top of the arroyo—shows that the kill happened about 2,700 years ago. Analysis of teeth found there indicate it took place in late summer-early fall, and that it was a single event. Most bison calves are born during a twoweek period in late spring, Todd explains. Looking at the teeth of the youngest animals found—which molars have erupted, how worn the teeth are—reveals the age of the calves Having slaughtered the bison, the Yonkee then performed the difficult work of removing the meat from the bones and which in turn tells him preparing it for storage. that the kill occurred five months after the calving period, or late summer. The tricated in one piece. Some are broken into many pieces. fact that all the young animals were the same age tells him Some, says Todd, are like “excavating oatmeal.” that they were slaughtered at the same time. Not all of the bones will be taken out of the ground. “It looks like this was a fairly large kill to get meat for This year, the researchers plan to excavate a three-footwinter storage,” says Todd. “There might have been 150 wide cross section of the bonebed to get an idea of how people working on this site. They would have had to deep it is and how it is shaped below the surface. Whatprocess the animals quickly because the meat would start ever bones remain after this season will stay there. The site to go bad. Plus, it would attract grizzlies and wolves, makmight then be preserved with a homeowner’s covenant. ing it a dangerous place.” Or it might just disappear under more suburban landLooking at cut marks on the bones—nicks left bescaping. “We thought about trying to buy the lot, but it hind by butchering tools—gives him a good idea of how was too expensive,” says Todd. Kaplan is donating the exthe hunters processed the animals. “They probably started cavated bones to the university, but there are no funds to by stripping off the big meat masses to dry and store,” secure the site for future research. Todd says. “They probably went for the hump first, beAs with Baker’s bones, every single one of the thoucause there are 40 to 50 pounds of meat there.” Indeed, sands of items excavated to date has generated 29 points 40 percent of the higher vertebrae examined have cut of data. Todd estimates that he and his students could marks, while few lower vertebrae show signs of butcherspend the next 10 years analyzing it all. He has already ing. A high number of cut marks on jaw bones indicates spent considerable time analyzing the initial findings—the the hunters also removed many tongues. first 4,000 bison bones extracted—and has developed Not all parts of the animals were processed, however. some theories about just what happened here. 36

summer • 2003

MICHAEL ROTHMAN

The work is slow going. Erin Baker, an undergraduate student, says she has removed and catalogued just two bones so far this morning. Now working on a wolf scapula, she hangs over the pit and uses a small brush and a pointed bamboo stick to carefully clear away dirt that is encasing the bone. Once she works it free, she’ll wrap it in tinfoil, label it, and send it to a laboratory at CSU. Already she has recorded 29 different data points on the scapula—its location, position, length, width, whether or not it was articulated, and more. Some of the bones are in good shape and are easily ex-

Larry Todd addresses students who are reconstructing bison bones in a laboratory. The lab work is painstaking, and Todd estimates it could take another five years to process all of the recovered bones. A replica of a six-month-old bison skeleton commands the students' attention. Todd has noted a resemblance between part of the bison’s thoracic vertebrae and the ears of a mouse. This prompted a student to crown the skeleton with Mickey Mouse ears.

The hunters apparently paid little attention to the brains or bone marrow. And in contrast to what has been seen at other kill sites, they left behind large amounts of usable meat. Not surprisingly, the site was very popular with carnivores. Nearly 99 percent of the bison front leg bones examined show damage by other animals. According to the researchers, this degree of carnivore modification is far higher than at any other plains kill site. More definitive answers to what the people did at the Kaplan-Hoover site, and how that reflects their social and environmental interactions, will come only after processing all of the more than 10,000 bones and artifacts extracted and several years of studying the data. “The real excitement of archaeological discovery these days usually takes place late at night in front of the comamerican archaeology

puter screen, when the data starts coalescing in a way that the patterns start to make sense, when the cut marks and skull frequencies and animal ages and the tools used all start to bring out some coherent picture,” says Todd. “The fieldwork is only the beginning.” At the CSU laboratory, graduate student Paul Burnett demonstrates how the bones are processed. Each one is cleaned with a toothbrush and water, then left to dry. Broken bones are painstakingly glued back together. All are labeled with a felt tip marker, sorted by type, and filed away in clear plastic boxes. Already, some 80 boxes are stacked floor to ceiling in the lab, full of femurs, vertebrae, and other bones. Intact skulls line the shelves. Dozens more foil-wrapped bones are piled in a corner, fresh from the field and awaiting their turn at the sink. The most fractured bones, the ones that the researchers haven’t been able to reassemble, lie on the counter. 37

Each bison bone is eventually scrutinized under magnification, says Burnett. “We look for cut marks from tools, breakage, tooth marks from carnivores, pathologies such as arthritis. We need to sort out the human and nonhuman patterns of modification.” They will also carefully examine all of the non-bison bones found on the site, the stone projectile points, and the thousands of sharpening flakes they have found—the tiny shards of stone that break off from points when they are sharpened. One of the most intriguing issues that Todd would like to explore, once all the data is assembled, is why two distinct types of projectile points were found at the site. Some of the points appear to be linked to the Yonkee culture, which is more commonly found further north, in Wyoming and Montana. They show a characteristic Yonkee style and are made of a type of stone found in Wyoming. Their presence at the site seems to indicate that the Yonkee people were traveling further south than was previously known. Other points show a different style and were quarried from a stone source much closer by. Finding both styles at one kill site raises some interesting questions, says Todd. First, if two separate cultural groups were at the site, how did they interact? “It could be that the Yonkees came down and made the kill and were butchering the animals in another group’s territory and the other people came over and chased them away,” he says. “Or, we could be seeing communal hunting between the Yonkees and the other group. So it could have been regional conflict or regional cooperation.” Analyzing the thousands of flakes of each style found at the site, seeing how many there are of each, will give them a rough measure of how many people of each group were at the site and may help them to figure out what was going on. Second, what might have prompted the Yonkees to travel to a new area? Data on climatic conditions, garnered from tooth analysis, might help answer that question. As teeth grow they lock in clues about temperature and rainfall, in the form of specific ratios of oxygen and carbon isotopes. Todd plans to chemically analyze the teeth of animals from several age groups, which will allow him to reconstruct the conditions for several years before the kill. “We can figure out the monthly temperatures for about 15 years before the kill,” he says. That will help him to evaluate two possible environmental triggers for their travel. Were the Yonkee people coming further south because environmental conditions were bad and bison were getting harder to hunt? Or was it for the opposite reason: a period of increased rainfall resulted in more grass and bison, and the Yonkee traveled there in pursuit of the expanded herds? The researchers also hope to learn more about the hunting and butchering strategies of the people and what that says about the animal populations. These hunters 38

were not known to store large amounts of food. So why did they kill so many bison—clearly more than they could use—at this site? If it was a small, local population of animals it would not have made sense to kill them all at once. Could it be that the bison were part of a large migratory herd that presented a one-time bountiful hunting opportunity, and the extra meat left behind in the arroyo was seen as a bit of winter insurance? On the other hand, bison are smart. “Maybe the hunters knew that if any survivors got away they wouldn’t be able to pull the same trick on them next year, so they got as many as possible this year,” speculates Todd. DNA analysis might help to answer those questions, by showing whether the animals were from a small, genetically homogenous population, or from a larger, more diverse group. A Native American visitor to the site has suggested another scenario for the seeming wastefulness: Perhaps the humans killed extra bison to help out their other “relatives,” the coyotes, wolves, and bears. Some of the other animals found at the site, in fact, might not have been scavengers; the wolf bones found could be from wolf-dog hybrids that were used as pack animals. Those bones will be examined for signs of arthritis that could indicate they were carrying heavy loads. All of these possible relationships between the humans and the animals intrigue Todd. “I try to get people to think of humans as part of the ecosystem, rather than separate from it,” he says. Clearly, the scavengers that fed at the site had diets that were closely related to human behavior. “Prehistoric wolves probably relied on these leftovers. There would have been hundreds of thousands of pounds of meat left here. “The implications of that are if you want to talk about modern wolf or bear management, somewhere you need to take into account that these animals adapted in large part to interacting with humans. The notion that a wolf is a wild animal out there not interacting with people, and that is how we have to preserve it today, is not the truth. They’ve been interacting with people for years.” Human interaction played a role in the evolution of bison, too. “For the last 10,000 years, bison have been getting smaller and more agile,” says Todd. “The evolutionary force that could create that is predator avoidance. We tend to think of bison as this romantic image of wild North America, but those living today are the way they are in part because of interactions with humans.” DNA analysis of the Kaplan-Hoover bison may help to further clarify this relationship by yielding information about herd sizes and their movements, two consequences of being hunted. The Kaplan-Hoover excavation concluded in April. The bones that were extracted will remain at the university. Todd hopes the bones left in the ground will remain undisturbed, right in the middle of River West, near the swing sets. CATHERINE DOLD lives in Boulder, Colorado. Her work has appeared in Discover, Smithsonian, and the New York Times. summer • 2003

Preserving America’s Antiquities By Andrea Cooper

A law enacted at the turn of the 20th century has had a tremendous impact. It continues to be relevant today.

BRANSON REYNOLDS

Using the powers granted him by the Antiquities Act, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the Grand Canyon a national monument in 1909.

or nearly a hundred years, a surprising tool has been essential to our nation. This tool defended the sheer-walled canyons and ancient Pueblo dwellings at Bandelier National Monument. It revealed our prehistoric ancestors at Russell Cave. It embraced towering redwoods at Muir Woods. And it protected the unique American wonder called the Grand Canyon. Without this tool, places of extraordinary beauty and archaeological significance might have been lost.

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The American Antiquities Act of 1906 doesn’t have a sexy name. But in its 97th year, the act is still powerful and controversial. Widely recognized as the first general statute on archaeological and historic preservation in the U.S., it laid down the principles and philosophy of American archaeological law for generations to come, and gave birth to more than 75 national monuments. “It was a landmark piece of legislation, and the effect on the nation has been far greater than its creators ever imagined,” said Mark Michel, president of The Archaeological Conservancy. 39

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NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION / ART RESOURCE, NY USFS

without much fear of recrimination. Some simply looted, Though it might be hard to imagine anyone arguing hoping to sell their finds for a handsome price. Others, against protection of the Grand Canyon, the act and its notably amateur archaeologists and explorers, believed uses have been disputed since President Theodore Roothey were saving objects sevelt signed it into law. by recovering them, even The act faced serious court if they eventually sold challenges in the 1970s, their finds. The new law rallying archaeology advomade it clear that our arcates to lobby Congress for chaeological past belongs a strong supplementary to the people as a whole, law, the Archaeological Renot to individuals. sources Protection Act of In its nuances, the 1979. Last year, the act suract defined a new way of vived a new court chalthinking. “It suggested lenge following President the objects’ primary value Clinton’s designation of is in what they can tell us several new national monuabout the past,” Mcments, including Canyons Manamon said. It was of the Ancients, in the Mesa Verde region of southwest Theodore Roosevelt established 18 national monuments during his presidency. Six now the responsibility of the federal government to Colorado. were created primarily to preserve historic and prehistoric structures and objects. protect and interpret the In three paragraphs, the nation’s archaeological and historical resources so our peoact defined our national standards for archaeological and ple might learn about the past. historic preservation. Each paragraph imparted a separate Section two put presidential muscle to work. It gave and lasting benefit. The first section created basic public polthe President of the United States power to declare “hisicy concerning archaeological resources. It declared that on toric landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and any land owned or controlled by the federal government, inother objects of historic or scientific interest” as national dividuals could not “appropriate, excavate, injure, or destroy” any historic or prehistoric ruin or monument, or any monuments. The law applied only to land the federal govobject of antiquity, without permission. The net effect? ernment owned or controlled. Even so, it restricted mon“It established a national interest in American archaeouments from most commercial activity. To some people in logical sites. The places and objects within them were of the U.S., then and still, those are fighting words. public interest, and any single individual couldn’t go onto “It was very astute politically that this was number federal land and take away an object,” said Frank Mctwo in the act,” said Raymond H. Thompson, a retired Manamon, chief archaeologist for the National Park Service. professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona Until the act, people removed archaeological objects and former director of the Arizona State Museum. “Politicians knew there were plenty of people in the West who wanted to preserve land for their own private use.” Had this provision been highlighted in the act, “it would have killed it immediately,” Thompson said. Section three offered an assurance: The federal government would grant permission to examine ruins, excavate archaeological sites, or gather objects of antiquity to those “properly qualified to conduct such examination...for the benefit of reputable museums, universities, colleges, or other recognized scientific or educational institutions...” In 1906, archaeology was a young discipline in this country. Many Americans were unfamiliar with what it could achieve. “The act really gave a shot in the arm to professional archaeology as an appropriate way of researching artifacts,” McManamon said. Considering the impact of the law, it’s probably not surprising the debate to enact it lasted 25 years. In 1882, Byron May proudly brandishes human remains looted from an archaeologimany groups became alarmed about the growing vandalcal site in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. This photo helped conism at American Indian ruins. Collectors, some from vict May and his partner, William Smyer, of looting under the Antiquities other countries, were taking objects from such spectacular Act in the late 1970s.

BRANSON REYNOLDS

These ruins are found at Wupatki National Monument near Flagstaff, Arizona. President Calvin Coolidge made Wupatki a national monument in 1924.

sites as Chaco Canyon and bringing them home. One Swedish explorer, Gustav Nordenskiold, excavated at Mesa Verde; his collection ended up in the Finland National Museum, much to the chagrin of many Americans. At the same time, major public exhibitions, including the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, exposed more people to American antiquities. This young nation lacked the grand monuments of the Old World. But it could take pride in its natural glories, from Niagara Falls to Yellowstone. Why, then, did it take so long to get a law passed to protect our archaeological history? Former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, in a commentary on the act, identified several reasons that sound familiar today. “As has been heard regularly since, detractors of the effort to provide protection and preservation first argued that the government couldn’t possibly protect all of these resources,” Babbitt wrote. “Others, already alarmed by the creation of forest reserves, objected to creation of another means by which the President could set aside large areas of the public domain for conservation or preservation.” Those who favored commercial uses of public land believed too much land would be set aside for the “public good.” Even proponents of antiquities legislation disagreed about what should be included. The Smithsonian Institution wanted to control archaeological research in the West. A variety of Eastern universities were opposed to the Smithamerican archaeology

sonian’s intentions. Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior wanted to set up archaeological sites as national parks. “The groups were working towards the same goal but presenting entirely different bills to Congress to accomplish it,” said Thompson. “Congress responds when competing players get together and present a unified front.” The act resulted from a most unlikely trip. Archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett of Santa Fe invited Iowa Congressman John Lacey, the powerful chairman of the House Committee on Public Lands, to see cliff dwellings and other archaeological marvels for himself. Lacey, an ardent conservationist, accepted the invitation, traveling by rail to the Southwest. The pair embarked on a two-week trip. Think about that for a minute—a congressman giving you two weeks of his time, traveling by horse and buckboard through treacherous desert and ravines, hauling provisions and camping every night. “In 1904, going to Chaco Canyon must have been a fantastic adventure,” said Michel with a laugh. That trip to the edge of nowhere left a deep impression. Lacey sponsored the version of the Antiquities Act that passed in 1906. President Theodore Roosevelt promptly took advantage of his newfound power, declaring such varied sites as Gila Cliff Dwellings in New Mexico, Devils Tower in Wyoming, the Petrified Forest in Arizona, and the Grand Canyon national scientific or historic monuments. The National Park Service, established just 10 years later in 41

WILLIAM STONE

The Gila Cliff Dwellings in southwestern New Mexico were proclaimed a national monument in 1907. These dwellings were built in the late 13th century.

1916, gave the federal government an efficient way to administer the new national parks and monuments. Until then, a hodge-podge of agencies, including the Army, had managed these resources. The act even protected archaeological sites from the government itself. When the Tennessee Valley Authority constructed dams on the Tennessee River during the Depression, officials made an effort to rescue archaeological information before sites were destroyed. Later, the Federal Power Commission, which grants authority to build interstate and intrastate power lines, required that all archaeological work be done in advance of construction. “It’s since been established that any use of the power of federal government—including indirect action such as the issuing of permits—can open the door for protection of archaeological remains,” said Thompson. Presidents throughout the 20th century, including Wilson, Hoover, Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Carter, declared national monuments and provoked some fights. One memorable uproar came during wartime, according to historian Ronald Lee. In 1943, use of the act for establishing new monuments “came to an abrupt halt following the proclamation of Jackson Hole National Monument in Wyoming by President Franklin D. Roosevelt,” wrote Lee in a history of the act. “President Roosevelt’s action aroused tremendous and bitter opposition in Wyoming and in Congress.” No more national monuments were proclaimed for 18 years. Several presidents after Roosevelt created national monuments during their very last days in office. Even with the controversy, two laws later strengthened the basic principles of the Antiquities Act. The Historic Sites Act of 1935 says the government has a responsibility 42

to provide technical assistance to historic American sites, buildings, objects, and antiquities of national significance, even those on private land. The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 broadened the government’s responsibility to provide recognition and technical assistance to historic properties of local or state significance. Of course, simply recognizing archaeological information is valuable doesn’t mean it will be protected. The Antiquities Act didn’t stop theft, because few federal agents or archaeologists were at sites to prevent it. “There was almost no enforcement of the anti-looting provisions until the 1970s. No one was pushing for it,” said Michel. Besides, the penalties weren’t all that strict: a fine of not more than $500, imprisonment for not more than 90 days, or both. Then a court case threatened the very foundation of the act. In 1974, Ben Diaz of Phoenix was arrested for removing Apache religious objects from the San Carlos Reservation. Diaz appealed because the objects were only a few years old. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in his favor and found the criminal provisions of the Antiquities Act unconstitutional because they did not clearly define such terms as “object of antiquity,” “ruin,” and “monument.” The decision made a bad situation worse. In the early 1970s, prices soared for prehistoric Indian pottery from the Southwest. “Professional looters armed with backhoes and front-end loaders were taking apart entire pueblo ruins in search of treasure. They left nothing behind,” Michel wrote in one account of the time. A year after the Diaz case, two men were apprehended while looting a Mimbres ruin in the Gila Forest. The Diaz ruling didn’t apply because they were in a different jurisdiction; eventually they were found guilty under the Antiquities Act. But the trend was clear: the nasummer • 2003

BRANSON REYNOLDS

In a controversial use of the Antiquities Act, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made Jackson Hole, Wyoming a national monument in 1943. It is now part of Grand Teton National Park.

tion needed a tougher law with harsher penalties that went after organizers and dealers in stolen antiquities. That feeling was reinforced in 1977 when Scott Camazine, a Harvard medical student, was arrested while looting a prehistoric ruin on the Zuni Reservation in New Mexico. At trial, the U.S. magistrate ruled the Antiquities Act was unconstitutionally vague. The government couldn’t appeal because of a legal technicality. Now the Antiquities Act was void in New Mexico and all of the western states of the Ninth Circuit. Working for the Society for American Archaeology, Michel led the charge for a new law to supplement, not replace, the Antiquities Act. He was racing against time—in 1978, the Antiquities Act was declared invalid in Arizona. Michel worked closely with Congressman Morris Udall of Arizona and Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico to introduce the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) in February 1979. President Carter signed it into law later that year. ARPA prohibits looting, trafficking in, transporting, or receiving looted artifacts from federal lands. Depending on the value of the stolen artifacts, penalties include up to $20,000 and two years of jail. Anyone cavalier enough to loot a second time faces a possible five years imprisonment and $100,000 fine. ARPA also imposes civil penalties to cover damages and restoration costs for ravaged sites. The latest brouhaha over the Antiquities Act arose in american archaeology

2000, when former President Clinton created the 164,000-acre Canyons of the Ancients National Monument to protect thousands of Anasazi and other ruins in the Mesa Verde area, including villages, cliff dwellings, shrines, and rock art. Though the executive order allowed for existing cattle grazing and natural gas development to continue, his action was challenged in court by the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which opposes preservation efforts in the West. The U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia recently upheld Clinton’s use of the act. Some leaders in archaeology, such as the Park Service’s Frank McManamon, believe our laws aren’t tough enough because they don’t cover what occurs on private land. That may be the next frontier for archaeological law. Until then, we can credit progressive legislators 100 years ago for protecting American archaeological treasures. As Ronald Lee wrote, “This generation, through its explorations, publications, exhibits, and other activities, awakened the American public to a lasting consciousness of the value of American antiquities, prehistoric and historic. This public understanding, achieved only after persistent effort in the face of much ignorance, vandalism, and indifference, was a necessary foundation for many subsequent conservation achievements.” ANDREA COOPER has written most recently for Reader’s Digest, Saveur, and National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” 43

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One of the Largest Prehistoric Pueblos in the Galisteo Basin Preserved

MARK MICHEL

Pueblo played an important role in New Mexico’s history.

These standing sandstone masonry walls are found at Las Madres Pueblo. Las Madres, a 14th-century pueblo, is part of the Galisteo Pueblo preserve.

hile thousands of people were leaving Chaco Canyon, the San Juan Basin, and Mesa Verde in the greater Four Corners area during the late 12th and 13th centuries, the Galisteo Basin in central New Mexico witnessed the establishment of farming communities. By the beginning of the 14th century, the scattered Galisteo Basin communities coalesced to form eight extremely large pueblos. Galisteo Pueblo is one of these that survived into the Spanish Colonial period, occupied by people the Spanish referred to as Tanos and who are now known as the Southern Tewa. The pueblo’s landowners, prompted by their concern for the site’s long-term preservation and their desire to have research conducted there, recently donated a preservation 44

easement containing the 62-acre site to the Conservancy. “We are thrilled that we have been able to work with the landowners to permanently protect this site, which is one of the most important in the Southwest,” said Mark Michel, the president of the Conservancy. Galisteo Pueblo, located on the bank of Galisteo Creek, contains an estimated 1,580 ground-floor rooms in 25 adobe roomblocks, and an undetermined number of kivas and plaza areas. Six prominent roomblocks containing about 570 rooms are thought to be the remnants of the site’s historic period dwellings. Early Spanish documents frequently mention Galisteo Pueblo, sometimes referring to it as the Pueblo Ximena visited by Coronado in 1540. Don Juan de Oñate, summer • 2003

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a Spanish general, visited the pueblo in 1598 while establishing mission districts in the area. By 1626, a large Spanish mission with a church and a convento for priests had been built at the pueblo. From the Galisteo mission, priests regularly journeyed to serve nearby San Cristóbal Pueblo and other branches of the Galisteo parish, known as visitas. Over time, Spanish pressures to convert the New Mexico tribes to Catholicism increased, as did demands for grain, produce, and crafts. These circumstances, combined with drought and periodic raiding by the Plains Indians, prompted native peoples to organize the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, a successful uprising that drove the Spanish from New Mexico. During the revolt, the natives of Galisteo Pueblo killed the resident priests. Some Galisteo Pueblo resi-

FEDERAL LEGISLATION to create an archaeological protection district in the Galisteo Basin passed the Senate in March. The legislation was sponsored by New Mexico Senators Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici. A bill has also been introduced into the House of Representatives by New Mexico Representatives Tom Udall and Heather Wilson. american archaeology

dents occupied Santa Fe, where many of them were later killed or sold into slavery by Spanish Governor don Diego de Vargas during the reconquest. After 1700, some of the surviving Southern Tewa peoples of the Galisteo Basin migrated to First Mesa, now on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. Their village, named Hano, is still there. The Spanish re-established Galisteo Pueblo in 1706 under the name Nuestra Señora de los Remedios and forced 90 Indians to resettle there. Smallpox and Comanche raids took their toll however, and toward the end of the century the pueblo’s dwindling inhabitants moved to nearby Santo Domingo Pueblo, a Keresan-speaking village. After 1782, Galisteo was no longer considered to be a living pueblo. In 1912, Nels Nelson, an archaeologist with the American Museum of Natural History in New York who visited and investigated many of the larger Galisteo Basin sites, conducted test excavations at the pueblo and made a site map. This is the only professional excavation undertaken at Galisteo Pueblo, which has tremendous archaeological potential. “Galisteo Pueblo is one of the most enigmatic of the Galisteo Basin Pueblos,” said Eric Blinman of the Museum of New Mexico’s Office of Archaeological Studies. “Despite the prominent place of the mission at Galisteo Pueblo in the pre-revolt Spanish Colonial occupation in New Mexico, the church has not been located with confidence. There is an excellent potential for investigating the site with remote-sensing approaches, especially working out the

details of the historic component.” Las Madres, an isolated 14th-century roomblock containing about 60 rooms located on a prominent sandstone spur just across the creek from Galisteo Pueblo, is also included in the preservation easement. Nelson conducted limited test excavations at the site in 1914 and created a site map. In the early 1960s, archaeologist Bertha Dutton excavated about 85 percent of the site with the intent of documenting the migration of Mesa Verde peoples into the Galisteo Basin. Dutton concluded that migration from Mesa Verde could not account for the founding population of Las Madres. This past spring a meeting was held to create a long-term management plan for the preserve. The Conservancy, together with the Museum of New Mexico and community volunteers, and in consultation with Santo Domingo Pueblo and other native peoples, plans to create a site map, analyze and rebury human remains, and stabilize exposed and eroding areas of the site. —Tamara Stewart

Galisteo Pueblo

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Organization Donates a Thoroughly Researched Site NEW MEXICO PUEBLO IS CONSIDERED THE FORERUNNER OF LARGE 15TH-CENTURY NORTHERN RIO GRANDE COMMUNITIES.

SAR

rroyo Hondo Pueblo, located five miles southeast of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is among the best-researched and best-documented sites in the Southwest. That is due to the School of American Research’s (SAR) efforts, which include five excavation seasons, nearly 20 years of analysis, and nine published volumes. Studies conducted at this massive pueblo have given researchers a fundamental understanding of late prehistoric pueblos in the northern Rio Grande Valley. Perched on the edge of the deep Arroyo Hondo gorge, the pueblo was established in the early A.D. 1300s, growing to about 1,000 rooms and perhaps as many inhabitants by 1330. Researchers consider this large community, which was temporarily abandoned around A.D. 1345, reoccupied in the 1370s, and finally abandoned by 1425, to be representative of both the precursors and the prototype of the big puebloan settlements that arose in the area prior to Spanish contact in the 16th century. “The School of American Research’s multidisciplinary study of Arroyo Hondo provided a unique, comprehensive understanding of 14th-century ancestral puebloan life,” said Douglas Schwartz, president emeritus of SAR, principal investigator of the research project, and editor of the Arroyo Hondo publications. “Our research has clearly shown that this pueblo and perhaps other large late prehistoric communities in the area were the result of the merging of local populations, not the result of inhabitants migrating from the Mesa Verde region, as has been proposed by some.”

In the 1970s excavators from the School of American Research exposed an unusual above-ground "D" shaped kiva at Arroyo Honda Pueblo.

Systematic excavations conducted at the site focused on architecture, site organization and growth, dietary and ecological reconstruction through plant and animal remains analysis, as well as ceramic, artifact, and skeletal analysis. Many large prehistoric pueblos in the region lie beneath historic components, making them difficult to excavate. But Arroyo Hondo’s relatively short occupation and the absence of subsequent occu-

Arroyo Hondo Pueblo

pations have facilitated interpretation. Despite years of research, Schwartz estimated that 75 percent of the site’s deposits remain preserved. SAR, which is based in Santa Fe, acquired Arroyo Hondo in the 1930s. Richard M. Leventhal, the organization’s current president, explained how the school’s focus has changed over the last 30 years: “As an anthropological research center and think tank, the school now focuses not on specific research but rather on broad global issues. It has become clear that it will be most beneficial for the Arroyo Hondo site to be cared for by a professional stewardship organization.” This spring, the SAR’s board of managers donated the 20-acre site to the Conservancy, which will work closely with SAR’s staff to design a long-term management plan for the site and to backfill several of the exposed rooms. Schwartz will continue to participate in research at the site. —Tamara Stewart summer • 2003

Protecting a Hopewell Earthwork

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Old Fort is one of the largest prehistoric earthworks in Kentucky.

SQUIER AND DAVIS

n their book Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, Squier and Davis, in the mid-19th century, referred to the Portsmouth Works as a “singular and interesting series of works” situated on the “beautiful plain at the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio Rivers.” Today, two of the three mound complexes making up this monumental Hopewellian earthwork have disappeared beneath the sprawl of Portsmouth, Ohio. However, south of the Ohio River, one important complex remains remarkably intact. Kentucky’s Old Fort Earthwork is a 15-acre square enclosure with walls 820 feet long and up to 10 feet high. The southern and western walls are in pasture and remain nearly pristine, as are two parallel walls that stretch to the west. The northern and eastern walls of the square remain intact even though modest homes were built upon them beginning about 50 years ago. In 1999, the Conservancy, having purchased two houses that were in disrepair, demolished them and restored a 150-foot section of the eastern wall. This year, through a bargain-sale-to-charity from Karen Kissinger and Barry Esham, the Conservancy purchased an additional property that includes a three-bedroom house along with a five-acre tract of land. This is the second-largest tract of land within the enclosure and spans the length of the earthwork from its north wall to its south. Since it contains a sample of all parts of the earthwork, the property’s research potential is especially valuable. The Conservancy’s goal is to preserve the entire earthwork, and this acquisition gives it ownership of about one-third of the earthwork’s interior. As one of the largest prehistoric earthworks in Kentucky, the Old Fort has received much attention from archaeologists. It was first mentioned in a 1791 letter, and explored and mapped by Squier and Davis during their investigations of the mound-builder phenomenon. In the beginning years of the 20th century, Gerald Fowke of the Smithsonian Institution excavated there, and later it was the site of a Works Projects Administration excavation during the Great Depression.

Conservancy Plan of Action

Squier and Davis produced this map of the Portsmouth Works.

The excavations indicate that the Old Fort is likely a construction of the early Hopewell period, circa A.D. 1 to 200. In addition, the work has documented a rather elaborate construction sequence. Rather than fitting the earthwork into the existing landscape, considerable effort was expended to fill ravines and level slopes prior to construction. Apparently the dimensions of the earthwork and its orientation—820 square feet and 45 degrees offset from the cardinal directions—were established beforehand and the landscape modified to accommodate it. —Paul Gardner

SITE: Old Fort Earthwork, Esham tract CULTURE & TIME PERIOD: Hopewell, A.D. 1–200 STATUS: Threatened by residential development. ACQUISITION: The Conservancy is purchasing the house and five-acre

Old Fort

property for $130,000 as a bargain-sale-to-charity. HOW YOU CAN HELP: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Kentucky Project, 5301 Central Ave. NE Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517

american archaeology

STONE ARTIFACTS OF TEXAS INDIANS

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Conservancy Obtains Pine Island Canal

MERALD CLARK, FLORIDA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

A UNIQUE EXAMPLE OF PRE-COLUMBIAN ENGINEERING IN FLORIDA IS PROTECTED.

Canals served as highways for the Calusa and their neighbors, connecting communities and providing protected pathways for trade, tribute, and information.

ver the last decade, there has been a growing interest among archaeologists in the study of ancient technology and engineering. While the habitation areas, middens, and items of material culture remain important subjects for study, many researchers have determined that a site cannot be fully understood without examining the infrastructure that supported it. The Pine Island Canal is a case in point. The canal is one of the most remarkable extant examples of Pre-Columbian ingenuity. Con-

structed by the Calusa Indians of Florida perhaps as early as 2,000 years ago, the 2.5-mile canal crossed the north end of Pine Island in Lee County, facilitating travel between the Calusa’s Gulf Coast towns and those to the east in Florida’s interior. The waterway, ranging from 18 to 23 feet wide, was large enough to accommodate most Calusa canoes. “The Pine Island Canal was not a simple or casually-dug ditch,” said George Luer of the University of Florida. “Careful planning went into its placement on the landscape and

intensive effort went into its construction and maintenance.” The Calusa had to deal with matters of topography, tides, ground water, and varying types of soils. For example, if the canal had been filled by tides, the effects of erosion and siltation would have made it extremely difficult to maintain. The canal was engineered to keep the water level stable and at a depth of about 3.5 feet throughout its length. This was challenging, given that Pine Island’s peak elevation is 13 feet above sea level. Tides, evaporation, summer • 2003

N E W P O I N T- 2

MERALD CLARK, FLORIDA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

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The Calusa made the canal deep enough and wide enough to accommodate most of their canoes.

elevation, and the flow from the underground water table affected the water level. The canal was dug down to hardpan clay, which didn’t absorb much water. This clay is found at varying depths. In some places, the Calusa dug through the hardpan to reach the water table, and thereby

filled the canal with fresh water. To control water flow, Luer believes that the Calusa likely used a series of eight stepped impoundments, which presumably functioned like locks, and a series of auxiliary channels to divert excess flow. During the dry months of winter, the water ta-

bles would drop and the canal would go dry for a period, which allowed for maintenance and repair. This past spring, the Conservancy acquired its first portion of the Pine Island Canal. A booming real estate market in south Florida threatens the remains of the canal with destruction by development. Research on the canal coupled with ongoing investigations at a number of the surrounding Calusa sites, such as Pineland and Useppa Island, will help us to better understand the enigmatic seafaring Calusa people. The Pine Island Canal project is a partnership of the Conservancy and the Calusa Land Trust and Nature Preserve of Pine Island. —Alan Gruber

POINT Acquisitions Martin

Lorenzen

Cambria

White Potato Lake Leonard Rockshelter

Indian Village on Pawnee Fork

Sumnerville

Fort Foster

O’Dell Mounds McClellan Squaw Point Hunting Creek Mound Pueblo Ingomar Spring Parchman Place Mounds A. C. Wilsford Pruitt Saunders Ranch Mott Mound Graveline Waters Pond Mound Jaketown

Pine ★ Island

The Protect Our Irreplaceable National Treasures (POINT) Program was designed to save significant sites that are in immediate danger of destruction. american archaeology

C O N S E R V A N C Y

Field Notes The Cambria Preserve Expands WEST—Another parcel has been added to the Cambria Archaeological Preserve on California’s Pacific Coast. The Conservancy, along with its local partner, Greenspace, The Cambria Land Trust, purchased the new parcel last December. The first parcel was purchased in 2000 using POINT funds. An acute water shortage in Cambria is making

coastal property extremely difficult to develop, and thus affordable for conservation groups. The Cambria site dates to about 6000 B.C. and was inhabited by Chumash and Southern Salinan people who engaged in an annual cycle of fishing, hunting, and harvesting wild plants. Because the site was used for 8,000 years, it contains a very long record of climate change,

technological development, and shifts in cultural development. The site was first tested by archaeologists in 1978. It contains stone and bone tools, projectile points, stone and shell pendants, and other ornaments. It is one of the oldest and best preserved prehistoric villages remaining on California’s coast. Most of the others have been destroyed by development and coastal erosion.

Donation Doubles Size of Reservoir Ruin SOUTHWEST—The donation of four acres by Don and Linda O’Brien last December doubled the size of the Conservancy’s preserve at Reservoir Ruin in southwestern Colorado. Originally established in 2000, Reservoir Ruin is a masonry pueblo that was occupied around A.D. 1050. It is likely that the pueblo residents migrated north from Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico and built Reservoir Ruin, as the masonry construction and structures are similar in style and form to those found in Chaco. Reservoir Ruin is one of a number of large Chaco-style pueblos that can be found in the central Mesa Verde region. Two important structures are located on the preserve, as well as extensive refuse associated with the original occupations. Other features located on U.S. Forest Service land that is adjacent to the preserve include a great house and a great kiva, as well as nu50

summer • 2003

merous other small structures. The Conservancy and the Forest Service jointly manage the preserve.

Research Continues at Albert Porter Pueblo SOUTHWEST—Researchers with Crow Canyon Archaeological Center are continuing an excavation at Albert Porter Pueblo, a large village site in the Mesa Verde region of southwestern Colorado. The project includes test excavations of pit structures, trash middens, and the exterior of roomblock faces. Albert Porter Pueblo was established as a preserve in 1988 when the Porter family donated the 12-acre site to the Conservancy. The pueblo may have been occupied as early as the Basketmaker III period (A.D. 500–750). The most intensive occupation of the site dates from the Pueblo II (A.D. 900–1150) and Pueblo III (A.D. 1150–1300) periods, during which time the site appears to have served as a center for the Woods Canyon community, a large village site located about a mile away and excavated by Crow Canyon in the mid-1990s. Community centers in the Mesa Verde region are recognized by the presence of a distinctive, multi-storied public building known as a great house, which was surrounded by smaller residential buildings. Great houses are often viewed as local expressions of Chaco Canyon’s influence during the late 11th and early 12th centuries. Crow Canyon hopes to refine Albert Porter Pueblo’s chronology and reconstruct the site’s occupational history in hopes of determining what role it played. The researchers are also trying to measure the extent of Chaco’s influence and ascertain if a change in community organization occurred between the american archaeology

Chaco (A.D. 1050–1150) and postChaco (A.D. 1150–1300) periods. This transition was marked by the

area’s most severe drought and is the least-understood time period in Pueblo prehistory.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL TOURS INVITES YOU TO TAKE YOUR GRANDCHILDREN TO PERU

Join us on our archaeological study tour specially designed for grandparents and grandchildren. While travelling to Peru’s major monuments and museums with our special scholar, grandparents will be sharing the irreplaceable experience of discovery with their grandchildren. August 7–18, 2003 led by Professor Daniel H. Sandweiss, University of Maine This unique tour begins in Lima and includes a three-day visit to Cuzco, two days at legendary Machu Picchu, a flight over the Nazca lines, and a fascinating marine bird reserve on the Ballestas Islands. Additional highlights include fossil hunting in Cerro Blanco, visits to ancient stone fortresses, colonial churches and colorful markets. We have also planned special events with English-speaking Peruvian children, a dancing horse show, and a folkloric music program.

271 Madison Avenue, Suite 904AMC New York, NY 10016 Tel: 212-986-3054 E-mail: archtours@aol.com www.archaeologicaltrs.com

Reviews Aztecs Edited by Eduardo Matos Moctezuma and Felipe Solis Olguin (Royal Academy of Arts/Abrams, 2003; 520 pgs., illus., $85 cloth; http:// abramsbooks.com)

Prepared to accompany one of the greatest exhibitions of Aztec culture ever assembled at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, Aztecs documents in glorious color one of the world’s most impressive civilizations. But it’s much more than a beautiful catalog. Leading experts on the Aztec civilization contribute nine articles that cover everything from the origins of this once nomadic people to their literature and philosophy. They explore their religious beliefs, rulers, war culture, and everyday life. The catalog was produced by scholars from 66 institutions in Mexico, the United States, and Europe. The heart of the book, however, is the more than 500 superb color photographs of 359 statues, ceramics, codices, and other items that make up the exhibit. Aztec architecture that survived the conquest is buried under modern Mexico City, so this is the core of the surviving material culture. While this volume draws heavily from the two great museums in Mexico City, seldom-seen masterpieces from around the world are also included. Take, for example, the splendid shield depicting a monster made of feathers and sheet-gold on agave paper, leather, and reeds. It is one of the treasures of Aztec art: a gift from Cortés that now resides in Vienna. Several Aztec illustrated manuscripts are included in this volume, like the Codex Mendoza, which was prepared shortly after the conquest by an Aztec scribe who did the pictorial text that was annotated with Spanish explanations. It is an encyclopedia of Aztec history and culture that is permanently housed at Oxford University. Aztecs is a magnificent book that historians, archaeology buffs, and students of Mesoamerican art should not miss.

Talking Birds, Plumed Serpents, and Painted Women: The Ceramics of Casas Grandes Edited by Joanne Stuhr (University of Arizona Press, 2002; 90 pgs., illus., $35 paper; www.uapress.arizona.edu)

Casas Grandes (or Paquimé) is a stunning adobe site in the Chihuahuan Desert of northern Mexico that flourished from about A.D. 1200 to1450, reaching its zenith after the fall of Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde. Because of its remote location, only the most dedicated of tourists make it to this magnificent ruin. In this volume, the Tucson Museum of Art has assembled a stunning collection of Casas Grandes’s exquisite and unusual pottery. The pottery is perhaps the most dramatic of the ancient Southwest, with its abstract naturalistic designs of macaws, snakes, and birds. Humans are portrayed in a variety of poses that challenge modern art historians to produce a viable interpretation. All of this is imbedded within complex geometric designs that tickle the fancy and seem more modern than ancient. Joanne Stuhr, curator of the Tucson Museum of Art, Christine and Todd Van Pool of the University of New Mexico, Eduardo Gamboa Carrera of the Instituto National de Arte y Historia, and John Ware of the Amerind Foundation provide interpretive essays on the art, archaeology, and culture of Casas Grandes. Charles Di Peso pioneered the study of Casas Grandes with extensive excavations between 1958 and 1961 that produced a great deal of information and some grand theories. In recent years, Mexican and American archaeologists have rediscovered the lure of the Chihuahuan borderland, producing much needed information about this region. This volume is an important contribution as well as a feast for the eyes. Luckily, the tradition did not die with the demise of Casas Grandes. Some 550 years later, local villagers have resurrected the pottery tradition of ancient times and now produce exquisite pieces for sale throughout the United States and Mexico. More than 300 potters now shape ceramics that frequently surpass those of the ancients and bring income to the impoverished region.

summer • 2003

Before California: An Archaeologist Looks at Our Earliest Inhabitants By Brian Fagan (AltaMira Press, 2003; 399 pgs., illus., $25 cloth; www.altamirapress.com)

Reviews

Famed archaeologist Brian Fagan has produced a captivating and readable account of the first 12,000 years of California history. A professor of anthropology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, Fagan isn’t a California scholar, but when the Society for California Archaeology drafted him to put the hundreds of scientific source materials into a readable narrative, he rose to the occasion. With its long coastline and varied topography, you would expect a lot of variety in the early cultures of the Golden State. Northwest salmon fishers, Bay Area shell mound communities, Central Valley wetland villagers, desert foragers, and the sophisticated coastal societies of the Channel Islands were a few of the diverse groups that made the state their home. Dramatic rock art is a critical part of California prehistory, and Fagan gives it the full treatment it deserves. From Chumash cave paintings to Coso Mountains petroglyphs, rock art is essential to the spiritual world of California natives. Before California is a book for the general reader as well as the enthusiast. Fagan shows how archaeologists work to pry information from bone, shell, and stone fragments. Oral histories from historic California Indians also play an integral role. Using boxes set in the text, Fagan explains techniques and details without interrupting the narrative. Ample maps and illustrations make the story more understandable. Students of California history will find Before California a welcome addition to the story of the Golden State. Etowah: The Political History of a Chiefdom Capital

Archaeology the Comic

By Adam King (University of Alabama Press, 2003; 216 pgs., illus., $30 paper, $55 cloth; www.uapress.ua.edu)

By Johannes H. N. Loubser (AltaMira Press, 2003; 184 pgs., $25 paper, $69 cloth; www.altamirapress.com)

A hundred years of excavations have produced a wealth of artifacts from Etowah, one of the largest and most important mound centers in the Southeast. Marble statues, copper embossed plates, and other exotic items testify to the importance of Etowah to the trade network. The size of the mounds reflects its political power. Archaeologist Adam King pulls all this information together in this well-illustrated volume. Preserved as a Georgia State Park northwest of Atlanta, it is a fascinating place to visit.—Mark Michel

Follow young Squizee as she discovers the inner workings of archaeology after her family’s farm is looted. She learns from professional archaeologists how to survey, excavate, analyze, interpret, and preserve archaeological sites. This book-length comic presents the complexities of modern archaeology and is sure to get the attention of the beginning student. It should become a powerful teaching tool for budding young archaeologists.

american archaeology

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

Celebrating Ceramics MASTER POTTERS OF THE SOUTHERN DESERTS When: October 3–13, 2003 Where: Southern Arizona, southern New Mexico,

and northern Mexico Join us for a magical journey through time studying some of the world’s most beautiful pottery crafted by people from the Hohokam, Mimbres, and Casas Grandes regions, and replicated by modern masters. The trip includes Hohokam ruins and pottery from the Phoenix and Tucson areas, Spanish missions and presidios, and a behind-the-scenes look at the Arizona State Museum. You’ll also see New Mexico’s Gila Cliff Dwellings, extensive collections of Mimbres pottery, northern Mexico’s Casas Grandes, and the potters of Mata Ortiz. Archaeological experts will join us throughout the trip.

JIM WALKER

How much: $1,995 ($350 single supplement)

This stunning example of Casas Grandes–style pottery came from the village of Mata Ortiz in northern Mexico.

Tracing the Footprints of a Nation COLONIAL CHESAPEAKE TOUR When: October 12–19, 2003 Where: Washington, D.C.,

Jamestown features one of the country’s premier archaeological digs.

From early European settlements to later colonial capitals, the Chesapeake Bay region has played an important role in the founding and development of our nation. Join the Conservancy for a week exploring the area’s rich and diverse historic culture. Our exciting journey will take us from the historic shipping city of Alexandria, Virginia, where tobacco merchants once dominated the shores of the Potomac River, to the home of the summer • 2003

LYNDA RICHARDSON/APVA

Virginia, and Maryland How much: $1,895 ($350 single supplement)

DAVID WITLEY JIM WALKER

Father of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. Along the way we’ll visit the first capital of Maryland, St. Mary’s City, explore the bay-front town of Annapolis, stop in at Mount Vernon, explore Jamestown, and experience the colonial flavor of Williamsburg. Local scholars will share their expertise and explain how archaeology assisted them in interpreting the region’s past.

The California Desert Rock Art tour showcases some of the country’s most remarkable rock art. Visitors explore the extensive ruins at Monte Albán, a city built by the Zapotec and Mixtec.

The Wonders of Oaxaca OAXACA When: October 30–November 8, 2003 Where: Oaxaca, Mexico How much: $1,995 ($250 single supplement)

Join us in Oaxaca, Mexico, during one of the most unusual festivals anywhere—the Day of the Dead. On this day, people prepare home altars and cemeteries to welcome the dead, who are believed to return to enjoy the food and drink they indulged in while alive. The Day of the Dead is one of celebration. You’ll have opportunities to explore Oaxaca’s museums and markets. Our tour also explores the Mixtecan and Zapotecan archaeological sites in the region, including Mitla, Monte Albán, San José Mogote, and Dainzú. You’ll also visit several villages featuring weaving, pottery, carved animals, and other local art. An expert in the region’s archaeology will accompany us.

american archaeology

Art Set in Stone CALIFORNIA DESERT ROCK ART When: November 2–9, 2003 Where: Southern Nevada and Southern California How much: $1,695 ($295 single supplement)

The Conservancy’s week-long tour focuses on the extraordinary rock art found throughout the Mojave Desert. Created hundreds of years ago during sacred ceremonies, initiations, and shaman rituals, these rock art sites present an array of unforgettable images from diverse cultures. Beginning in Las Vegas, Nevada, you’ll visit the Atlatl Rock Petroglyphs. Continuing to Southern California we will explore the Blythe itaglios, found along the banks of the Colorado River, and the petroglyphs at Corn Spring, a sacred site in the Chuckwalla Mountains. In the northern Mojave Desert, you’ll see rock art ranging from 200 to 4,000 years old. David Whitely, one of the foremost experts on prehistoric rock art and the author of A Guide to Rock Art Sites of Southern California and Southern Nevada, will accompany the tour.

CHA UVET CA VE

Patrons of Preservation The Archaeological Conservancy would like to thank the following individuals, foundations, and corporations for their generous support during the period of February 2003 through April 2003. Their generosity, along with the generosity of the Conservancy’s other members, makes our work possible. Foundation/Corporate Gifts Life Member Gifts of $5,000–$29,999 of $1,000 or more

THE ART OF EARLIEST TIMES Jean Clottes Stunning photographs of rock art from the oldest-known cave site in the world — one of the most important archaeological finds of the twentieth century. This large format book is the first publication to do justice to the extraordinary art of Chauvet Cave. 176 color photographs, 30 maps Cloth $45.00

The University ofUtah Press (800) 773-6672 www.upress.utah.edu

BOOKS

Anonymous Betty Banks, Washington Robin Marion, New Jersey Mr. & Mrs. Melvin V. Simpson, New York Michael R. Waller, Oklahoma

Anasazi Circle Gifts of $2,000 or more Carol M. Baker, Texas Mrs. W. O. Darby, California Robert A. Robinson, California Mr. & Mrs. Ian Silversides, North Carolina Mr. & Mrs. Hervey S. Stockman, New Mexico

Foundation/Corporate Gifts of $1,000–$4,999 Greenlee Family Foundation, Colorado The Phase Foundation, Maryland TO MAKE A DONATION OR BECOME A MEMBER CONTACT:

The Archaeological Conservancy

The Roy A. Hunt Foundation, Pennsylvania (in memory of Earl Gadbery)

Bequests Bertha I. Stamper, Arizona

New Living Spirit Circle Members Olive L. Bavins, California Richard Dexter, Wisconsin Mr. and Mrs. Arthur J. Faul, Arizona Veronica Frost, Ohio Deborah Leitner Jones, Maryland James A. Neely, Texas Jan and Judith Novak, New Mexico Margaret P. Partee, Tennessee Caryl Richardson, New Mexico Dee Ann Story, Texas Ann M. Swartwout, Michigan Mr. and Mrs. Ronald L. Taylor, Virginia Robert Zimmerman, Nevada

5301 Central Avenue NE • Suite 902 Albuquerque, NM 87108 (505) 266-1540 www.americanarchaeology.org

Coyote Press P.O. Box 3377 Salinas, CA 93912 Specializing in Archaeology, Rock Art, Prehistory, Ethnography, Linguistics, Native American Studies and anything closely related. We stock thousands of new books and reprints, used and rare books, and the back issues of many journals. Browse or shop online at our newly redesigned e-commerce website: WWW.COYOTEPRESS.COM E-mail: coyote@coyotepress.com

Making a Lasting Legacy Established in 2002, the Living Spirit Circle has become an essential component of the Conservancy’s continued success in identifying and preserving America’s most endangered archaeological resources. Formed to recognize those members who have provided for the Conservancy in their estate plans or through charitable gift annuities, the Living Spirit Circle is made up of more than 50 dedicated and generous individuals. Membership in the Living Spirit Circle is an easy and very meaningful way to support the Conservancy’s work now and in the future. Planned giving allows you to specify how your assets will be distributed after your lifetime. According to Veronica Frost of Ohio, “The better we can understand the past, the more we can understand of ourselves and possibly make a difference in the now.” Veronica, who has been a member of the Conservancy since 1990, joined the Living Spirit Circle in 2003. Providing for the Conservancy in her estate plans was important because “archaeological sites give me an appreciation for the strength of human spirit and respect for the human being’s adaptability to nature.” The continued support of members like Veronica will ensure the preservation of the past for the benefit of the future. By joining the Conservancy’s Living Spirit Circle today, you can ensure our nation’s cultural heritage for years to come. —Kerry Elder

Proud sponsors of: www.californiaprehistory.com

summer • 2003

NEW AND NOTEWORTHY TITLES FROM CAMBRIDGE The Phoenicians and the West

The Early Settlement of North America

Forager-Traders in South and Southeast Asia

Politics, Colonies, and Trade Second Edition

The Clovis Era

Long Term Histories

Gary Haynes

Maria Eugenia Aubet

0-521-81900-8, Hardback, $80.00 0-521-52463-6, Paperback, $29.00

Edited by Kathleen D. Morrison and Laura L. Junker

0-521-79161-8, Hardback, $70.00 0-521-79543-5, Paperback, $25.00

Figured Landscapes of Rock-Art Looking at Pictures in Place

Edited by Christopher Chippindale and George Nash 0-521-81879-6, Hardback, $95.00* 0-521-52424-5, Paperback, $36.00*

Aspects of Empire in Achaemenid Sardis

The Archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa Timothy Insoll Cambridge World Archaeology 0-521-65171-9, Hardback, $80.00* 0-521-65702-4, Paperback, $29.00*

Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily The Royal Diwan

Elspeth Dusinberre

Jeremy Johns

0-521-81071-X, Hardback, $90.00

Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization 0-521-81692-0, Hardback, $70.00

Family and Social Policy in Japan Anthropological Approaches

Edited by Roger Goodman Contemporary Japanese Society 0-521-81571-1, Hardback, $60.00 0-521-01635-5, Paperback, $22.00 *Prices subject to change.

The Archaeology of Southern Africa Peter Mitchell Cambridge World Archaeology 0-521-63307-9, Hardback, $110.00 0-521-63389-3, Paperback, $40.00

0-521-81572-X, Hardback, $75.00 0-521-01636-3, Paperback, $27.00

Hindu Kingship and Polity in Pre-Colonial India Norbert Peabody Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society 9 0-521-46548-6, Hardback, $55.00

The Archaeology of Seafaring in Ancient South Asia Himanshu Prabha Ray Cambridge World Archaeology 0-521-80455-8, Hardback, $95.00* 0-521-01109-4, Paperback, $35.00*

Images of Myths in Classical Antiquity Susan Woodford 0-521-78267-8, Hardback, $70.00 0-521-78809-9, Paperback, $25.00

800-872-7423 us.cambridge.org/archaeology

Make your mark in time. Some Conservancy members think the only way to help save archaeological sites is through membership dues. While dues are a constant lifeline, there are many ways you can support the Conservancy’s work, both today and well into the future. And by supporting the Conservancy, you not only safeguard our past for your children and grandchildren, you also may save some money.

Parkin Archeological State Park parkin, arkansas

Began as a Conservancy Preserve in 1985

Place stock in the Conservancy. Evaluate your investments. Some members choose to make a difference by donating stock. Such gifts offer a charitable deduction for the full value instead of paying capital gains tax.

Give a charitable gift annuity. Depending on your circumstances, you may be able to make a gift of cash and securities today that lets you receive extensive tax benefits as well as an income for as long as you live.

leave a lasting legacy.

SPENCER TIERNY

Many people consider protecting our cultural heritage by remembering the Conservancy in their will. While providing us with a dependable source of income, bequests may qualify you for an estate tax deduction.

Yes, I’m interested in making a planned-giving donation to The Archaeological Conservancy and saving money on my taxes. Please send more information on: ❏ Gifts of stock

❏ Bequests

❏ Charitable gift annuities

Name: Street Address: City: Phone: (

State: )

Zip:

Whatever kind of gift you give, you can be sure we’ll use it to preserve places like Parkin Archeological State Park and our other 225 sites across the United States. Mail information requests to: The Archaeological Conservancy Attn: Planned Giving 5301 Central Avenue NE Suite 402 Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517 Or call: (505) 266-1540

American Archaeology Magazine | Summer 2003 | Vol. 7 No. 2

Articles inside

point acquisition CONSERVANCY OBTAINS PINE ISLAND CANAL

THE NEIGHBORHOOD BONEBED

AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL TOUR IN THE UPPER MIDWEST

new acquisition ORGANIZATION DONATES A THOROUGHLY RESEARCHED SITE

new acquisition PROTECTING A HOPEWELL EARTHWORK

LEARNING OF SPANISH COLONIAL LIFE

UNDERSTANDING CHACO CANYON

PRESERVING AMERICA’S ANTIQUITIES

new acquisition ONE OF THE LARGEST PREHISTORIC PUEBLOS IN THE GALISTEO BASIN PRESERVED