American Archaeology Magazine | Spring 2005 | Vol. 9 No. 1 by American Archaeology Magazine

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DEMYSTIFYING THE MAYA • COLONIZING WESTERN FLORIDA • THE PSEUDOARCHAEOLOGY PHENOMENON

american archaeology SPRING 2005

$3.95

a quarterly publication of The Archaeological Conservancy

Vol. 9 No. 1

NEW RESEARCH at Moundville

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Journey Back in Time with archaeological tours

20000 BC Caves and Castles (15 days): Prof. Roy Larick, U of Iowa, brings the Ice Age to life as we examine the painted and incised Paleolithic art in northern Spain and southern France.

424 BC Sicily and Southern Italy (17 days):

3500 BC

Join Dr. Robert Bianchi, archaeologist and art historian, as we study Greek temples and theaters, Roman villas, Pompeii, the amazing "Bronzes of Riace" and unsurpassed collections of classical art.

Malta, Sardinia and Corsica (18 days): See these legendary islands with Dr. Mattanyah Zohar, Hebrew U, and explore megalithic temples, nuraghic villages and mysterious cult sites.

1400 BC

175 BC

The Splendors of Ancient Egypt

Sri Lanka (18 days): Explore one of

(20 days): Visit the monumental archaeological treasures with our Egyptologist, Prof. Lanny Bell of Brown U, as we travel from Cairo to the Delta and sail up the timeless Nile from Luxor to Aswan.

the first Buddhist kingdoms with Prof. Sudharshan Seneviratne, U of Peradeniya. Discover magnificent temples and palaces, huge stupas and colorful rituals as we share the roads with elephants and walk in the footsteps of kings.

Journey back in time with Archaeological Tours. We’ve been taking curious travelers on fascinating historical study tours for the past 30 years. Each one is led by a noted scholar whose knowledge and enthusiasm brings history to life and adds a memorable perspective to your journey. And every one of our 37 tours, from Ireland to China, features superb itineraries, unsurpassed service and our time-tested commitment to excellence. No wonder two-thirds of our clients choose to travel with us again and again. For more information, visit www.archaeologicaltrs.com; e-mail archtours@aol.com or call us at 212-986-3054; toll-free 866-740-5130. Or write to: Archaeological Tours, 271 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10017. And see history our way.

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american archaeology a quarterly publication of The Archaeological Conservancy

Vol. 9 No. 1

spring 2005

COVER FEATURE

NEW REVELATIONS AT MOUNDVILLE MOUNDVILLE ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARK

BY MIKE TONER

New research tells of this community’s beginning and end.

DEMYSTIFYING THE MAYA BY DAVID MALAKOFF

Archaeologists once believed that the Maya mysteriously collapsed over a short period of time. This notion is facing a stern challenge.

COLONIZING WESTERN FLORIDA BY KC SMITH

The Spanish colonized eastern and western Florida. An investigation shows how differently they approached the two regions.

WORKING TOGETHER BY ALISON STEIN WELLNER

THE PECULIAR PHENOMENON OF PSEUDOARCHAEOLOGY BY KENNETH L. FEDER

Is the popularity of pseudoarchaeology reason for concern?

new acquisition A WOODLAND VILLAGE TURNED FRONTIER TOWN The Conservancy’s latest preserve in Michigan has had a number of important occupations.

new acquisition HOHOKAM SITE PRESERVED WITHIN SUBDIVISION The Shamrock Estates preserve is a model for cultural resource management.

TIM BARKER

When the Eastern Pequot wanted to know more about their history, they consulted an archaeologist.

point acquisition THE CONSERVANCY ACQUIRES A PLAQUEMINE CULTURE SITE

2 Lay of the Land 3 Letters 5 Events 7 In the News New Dating Technique Applied to Prehistoric Hawaiian Temples • Evidence Supports Accounts of Aztec Sacrifice • Middle Archaic Site Found in Colorado

50 Field Notes 52 Reviews 54 Expeditions

Bayou Portage Guidry is an important prehistoric mound site.

point acquisition IN PURSUIT OF THE FIRST MOUND BUILDERS The Conservancy preserves Louisiana’s Caney Mounds site.

american archaeology

COVER: Perched atop Mound B, Moundville’s tallest structure, is a reconstructed version of the paramount chief’s house. Photograph by Richard Alexander Cooke, III

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Lay of the Land gists are working for the Eastern Pequot tribe in Connecticut to help the tribe better understand their history. This is not an isolated incident. All across America, archaeologists are working closely with tribes. More and more tribes are establishing their own historic preservation offices to gain a greater knowledge of their own history. They are hiring more archaeologists every year—both Native and non-Native. They are building state-of-the-art curation facilities and visitor centers on tribal lands with tribal money. The Conservancy works closely with these tribal archaeology programs to identify and preserve archaeological sites that are important to the tribes and the nation.

MARK MICHEL, President

For too many years, archaeologists were rightly viewed as non-Natives doing research on Natives. This situation is changing fast as the tribes devote more resources to studying their own past and more Native Americans become archaeological professionals. It is a positive development that needs all of the encouragement it can get.

Archaeology learning adventures! Excavation andTravel programs in the Southwest and the world beyond.

he legal battle over the remains of Kennewick Man, the 9,400year-old skeleton found near Kennewick, Washington, in 1996, seemed to pit Native Americans against archaeologists for control of the nation’s history. While that dispute did indeed emphasize (and exaggerate) conflict over the handling and disposition of human remains, it was only part of the story. Spurred to some degree by the need to join forces to implement the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, archaeologists and Indian tribes are working together more than ever before. In this issue of American Archaeology, we tell how non-Native archaeolo-

DARREN POORE

An Improving Relationship

Native American Art & Archaeology of New Mexico An intimate look at New Mexico’s rich legacy of Native arts & crafts—through the artists’ eyes. July 10–17, 2005

Woven Containers: A Navajo Basket Weaving Workshop Create your own beautiful basket, guided by World-class Navajo weavers Lorraine and Sally Black. July 24–30, 2005

Seasons & Cycles: Pathways of Pueblo Women A fascinating exploration of the lives and times of Pueblo Indian women through history. July 31–August 6, 2005

The Excavated Past © Branson Reynolds

Walk through a millennium of intrigue in this retrospective study of archaeology in the Mesa Verde region. August 21–27, 2005

Near Mesa Verde in Southwestern CO For information and reservations or for a Free 2005 program catalog 1-800-422-8975/www.crowcanyon.org CST 2059347-50

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

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Letters NPS Too PC

Ban “Anasazi”

I was astounded to read in the Winter issue that the national parks were banning certain books from their bookstores. When I read who the authors were, I was even more surprised. Some of our best archaeological authors are banned because they did not use the correct wording for Anasazi (oops, sorry, Ancestral Puebloan) or photographed rock art. I have read many books by the banned authors and will support them in any way I can, even if it means returning all the books I have purchased from the Park Service over the years (after all, they are now considered “culturally incorrect”). It is, as one of the authors, Polly Schaafsma, stated, a “terrible infringement on intellectual freedom.” Political correctness has gone much too far. Perhaps a note attached to the inside of the cover of these banned books explaining how some groups feel about some of the wording in the text would be a smarter way of handling the situation. For example, “This book is rated politically incorrect by some cultures” might be a solution. I will write the National Park Service to complain. American Archaeology is a terrific magazine. Keep up the great work. Tina Nupuf Canoga Park, CA american archaeology

For a long time, I have been bothered by your use of the term “Anasazi.” Pueblo people have made it clear that this term is an inappropriate name for their ancestors. By contrast, in articles about historic-period sites, you respect African-Americans by using the term they prefer for themselves and their forebears. I was moved to write by your article on banned books in national park bookstores. Every bookstore in the world has criteria for choosing stock. No bookstore carries every book that is printed, or even every book on a particular subject. If you ran a bookstore, I doubt that you would carry titles that are considered disrespectful of the people about whom the books were written, especially if those people are your co-workers and neighbors. Chris Judson Los Alamos, New Mexico

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.

Editor’s Corner Our feature “The Peculiar Phenomenon of Pseudoarchaeology” examines the popularity of bogus archaeology and its effects. The article’s author, Ken Feder, an archaeologist with Central Connecticut State University, has been studying and writing about this subject for some 20 years. He teaches an introductory course in archaeology, and over the years he’s polled his students regarding their acceptance of various myths supported by pseudoarchaeology. In 2003 he asked his students if there is convincing evidence that the lost continent Atlantis exists. Thirty-three percent of his students either strongly or mildly believed that such evidence exists. Twenty-two percent expressed strong or mild disbelief in this evidence. Forty-five percent had no opinion. Some people might find it surprising, perhaps even shocking, that only 22 percent of these university students believe Atlantis to be a fiction. Feder explained that his is the first archaeology class that many of these students take, and their previous exposure to the subject often comes in the form of television shows that glamorize pseudoarchaeology. Reviewing the poll with that in mind, the results aren’t so surprising. The students who believe in Atlantis may also believe in other myths, such as extraterrestrials visiting Earth in prehistoric times to nudge human civilization along. To Feder and other archaeologists, this susceptibility to myths is no small matter. They think it suggests the public’s inability to distinguish science from pseudoscience. No small matter, indeed.

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WELCOME TO THE ARCHAEOLOGIC AL CONSERVANC Y!

he Archaeological Conservancy is the only national non-profit organization that identifies, acquires, and preserves the most significant archaeological sites in the United States. Since its beginning in 1980, the Conservancy has preserved more than 295 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

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5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902 Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517 • (505) 266-1540 www.americanarchaeology.org Board of Directors Vincas Steponaitis, North Carolina, CHAIRMAN Cecil F. Antone, Arizona • Carol Condie, New Mexico Janet Creighton, Washington • Janet EtsHokin, Illinois Jerry EtsHokin, Illinois • W. James Judge, Colorado Jay T. Last, California • Dorinda Oliver, New York Rosamond Stanton, Montana • Dee Ann Story, Texas Stewart L. Udall, New Mexico • Gordon Wilson, New Mexico C o n s e r va n c y S t a f f Mark Michel, President • Tione Joseph, Business Manager Lorna Thickett, Membership Director • Sarah Tiberi, Special Projects Director Shelley Smith, Membership Assistant • Valerie Long, Administrative Assistant Yvonne Woolfolk, Administrative Assistant R eg i o n a l O f f i c e s a n d D i r e c t o r s Jim Walker, Vice President, 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, Vice President, Midwest Region (614) 267-1100 3620 N. High St. #207 • Columbus, Ohio 43214 Joe Navari, Field Representative Alan Gruber, Vice President, 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 Andy Stout, Eastern Region, (301) 682-6359 717 N. Market St. • Frederick, MD 21701

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 Scott Anfinson, Minnesota Historic Preservation • Darrell Creel, University of Texas Linda Derry, Alabama Historical Commission • Mark Esarey, Cahokia Mounds State Park Kristen Gremillion, Ohio State University • Richard Jenkins, California Dept. of Forestry Trinkle Jones, National Park Service • Sarah Neusius, Indiana University of Penn. Claudine Payne, Arkansas Archaeological Survey Douglas Perrelli, SUNY-Buffalo • Judyth Reed, Bureau of Land Management Ann Rogers, Oregon State University • Joe Saunders, University of Louisiana-Monroe Kevin Smith, Middle Tennessee State University Art Spiess, Maine Historic Preservation• Ruth Van Dyke, Colorado College Robert Wall, Towson State University • Rob Whitlam, Washington State Archaeologist Richard Woodbury, University of Massachusetts • Don Wyckoff, University of Oklahoma National Advertising Office Marcia Ulibarri, Advertising Representative 5301 Central Ave. NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108; (505) 344-6018; Fax (505) 345-3430; mulibarri@earthlink.net American Archaeology (ISSN 1093-8400) is published quarterly by The Archaeological Conser vancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517. Title register ed U.S. Pat. and TM Office, © 2005 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 Conser vancy 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 Conser vancy, 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 Conser vancy, 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 exper t review. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to American Archaeology, The Archaeological Conser vancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517; (505) 266-1540. All rights reser ved.

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

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Tours

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NEW EXHIBITS SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN

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Brooklyn Museum of Art Brooklyn, N.Y.—The new installation “Living Legacies: The Arts of the Americas” features the museum’s worldrenowned collection of indigenous art from North, Central, and South America, dating from about 3000 B.C. to the present. The installation is organized to illustrate the diversity and continuity of artistic traditions. It includes thematic exhibitions such as “Enduring Heritage: Arts of the Northwest Coast,” which features sculptural objects, and “Stories Revealed: Writing without Words,” which emphasizes the universality of the indigenous pictorial tradition. (718) 6385000 (New long-term installation) Field Museum Chicago, Ill.—“Treasures of the Americas: Selections from the Anthropological Collections of the Field Museum” includes some objects that have rarely, if ever, been on public display. These magnificent objects, including an exquisitely crafted Ice Age spearpoint, and a buckskin dress embellished with thousands of beads, illustrate the diversity and sophistication of indigenous cultures across the Americas. (312) 922-9410, www.fieldmuseum.org (Through May 30)

CONFERENCES, LECTURES & FESTIVALS The Central States Anthropological Society (CSAS) 82nd Annual Meeting March 10–12, Miami University Marcum Conference Center, Oxford, Ohio. The meeting is open to cultural and physical anthropologists, archaeologists, linguists, applied anthropologists, and other interested scholars. It offers an excellent opportunity to present and discuss current ideas and research in the field. Call Joyce Lucke (812) 376-6717, www.iupui.edu/~csas 35th Annual Middle Atlantic Archaeological Conference March 11–13, Atlantic Sands Hotel and Conference Center, Rehoboth Beach, Del. Anyone interested in the archaeology of the Middle Atlantic area is welcome. The conference will feature the latest information on a wide variety of archaeological sites ranging in time from the earliest Paleo-Indian to those of the 20th-century. www.maacmidatlanticarchaeology.org

Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center, New York, N.Y.— The new exhibit “George Catlin and His Indian Gallery” includes more than 100 portraits, landscapes, and scenes of tribal life by the lawyer turned painter. Catlin traveled thousands of miles from 1830 to 1836, following the trail of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and visited 50 tribes living west of the Mississippi River from present-day North Dakota to Oklahoma. The exhibition includes Native American artifacts collected by the artist that have not been shown with the paintings in more than a century. (212) 514-3700, www.nmai.si.edu (Through September 5)

MUSEUM OF MAN

Museum of Man San Diego, Calif.—A fascinating world of icy glaciers, snowy tundras, wooly mammoths, saber-toothed cats, Neanderthals, and Cro-Magnon people will be explored in the new exhibit “Frozen in Time: Life in the Pleistocene Ice Age,” a glimpse of life on earth more than 40,000 years ago. The exhibit explores how humans survived the extreme cold, how their cultural and social behavior was affected by climate, and how artistic expression became part of their daily lives. (619) 239-2001, www.museumofman.org (Opens March 5)

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Saint Louis Art Museum

Arizona State Museum The University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz.—More than 60 spectacular textiles fill two galleries for the exhibition “Navajo Weaving at Arizona State Museum: 19th-Century Blankets, 20th-Century Rugs, 21stCentury Views.” Admired the world over, Navajo textiles are among the most compelling of the native Southwest art forms. Beginning in the 19th century, the weaving of the Navajo people took on epic significance as representations of the land, people, culture, and way of life. Learn what significance the art form still holds for the Navajo people through the voices of 21st–century weavers. In conjunction with the exhibit, join Navajo weavers, artists, collectors, leading scholars, researchers, museum curators, and others for “Navajo Weaving Now! A Symposium” at the museum April 14–17. (520) 621-6302, www.statemuseum.arizona.edu (Through May 1)

SAINT LOUIS ART MUSEUM

Old Pueblo Archaeology Center 11th Anniversary Celebration

39th Annual Meeting of the Society for California Archaeology

March 26, Old Pueblo Archaeology Center, Marana, Ariz. Old Pueblo will celebrate its 11th anniversary with guided tours of the Yuma Wash archaeological site, Native American arts and crafts, Tohono O’odham food vendors, artist demonstrations, children’s activities, and live music. This free event benefits Old Pueblo’s Children’s Archaeology Education Programs. (520) 798-1201, www.oldpueblo.org

April 21–24, Hyatt Regency Sacramento at Capitol Park, Sacramento, Calif. Following a Thursday evening reception and free public lecture on prehistoric climate change in California, the 2005 meetings will begin with a Friday morning Plenary Session entitled “Native American Influences on the Structure and Composition of Prehistoric Ecosystems.” A Saturday night banquet will feature a lecture by paleontologist Paul Koch of UC Santa Cruz on extinction of Pleistocene megafauna in North America. (530) 7563941, www.scahome.org/events/2005

70th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology

American Rock Art Research Association Annual Conference

March 30–April 3, Salt Palace Convention Center and the Salt Lake City Marriott Downtown, Salt Lake City, Utah. This major conference features a wide variety of forums, symposia, workshops, poster presentations, and tours of local archaeological sites. (202) 789-8200, www.saa.org/meetings

May 25–30, Reno/Sparks, Nevada. This year’s conference will include rock art education and conservation workshops for students, presentations about recent and ongoing rock art research, and field trips to local sites. (888) 668-0052, www.arara.org

Firehawk Powwow at Moundville Archaeological Park April 8–10, Moundville Archaeological Park, Tuscaloosa, Ala. Intertribal dancing, storytelling, flute playing, and demonstrations of various arts and crafts are featured throughout the powwow. Visitors can sample Native foods and purchase one-of-a-kind handmade items that represent the works of several different tribes. (205) 371-2234

Colorado’s Archaeology and Historic Preservation Month Celebrate Colorado’s rich cultural and historic heritage at locations across the state throughout the month of May. This year’s theme is “Preserving Colorado’s Native Heritage.” (303) 866-3395, www.coloradohistory-oahp.org California Archaeology Month Lectures, workshops, tours, demonstrations, and more events related to California archaeology will be held throughout the month of May at locations across the state. www.scahome.org/educational_resources/ index.html spring • 2005

ARIZONA STATE MUSEUM

Events

St. Louis, Mo.—Created by the Art Institute of Chicago, the traveling exhibition “Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South” explores the civilizations that flourished in the Ohio, Tennessee, and Mississippi river valleys between 2000 B.C. and A.D. 1600. Their settlements transformed the region into a complex political and economic network often linked by waterways. Some of these settlements, such as Cahokia, were the first major urban centers in North America. The exhibit includes some 300 masterworks of stone, ceramic, wood, shell, and copper. Gallery talks with curator John Nunley will be held at 11 a.m. on March 22 and 6 p.m. on March 25. (314) 721-0072, www.slam.org (Through May 30)

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New Dating Technique Applied to Prehistoric Hawaiian Temple System The results indicate rapid sociopolitical change.

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P. V. KIRCH

esearchers working on the island of Maui in Hawaii have determined that the shift in ancient Hawaiian sociopolitical structure from a chiefdom to one headed by a divine king occurred in less than 60 years and possibly as few as 30. Uranium-thorium, a radiometric dating technique formerly used primarily in geological contexts, was used to analyze dedicatory offerings of coral that were found in temples. This technique enabled researchers to pinpoint the dating of temple construction to between A.D. 1580 and 1640. “Earlier radiocarbon work showed a period of temple expansion, but it could not be narrowed down to less than 200 years,” said archaeologist Patrick Kirch of the University of California at Berkeley. “Warren Sharp has refined the thorium dating technique, which is a lot more accurate and does not require calibration, showing the imposition of a temple system occurred over a very short period of time.” Sharp, a geochemist at the Berkeley Geochronology Center in Berkeley, co-authored the study with Kirch, which appeared in the January issue of the journal Science. Oral traditions and early historical documents refer to a consolidation of power that occurred during the protohistoric period. This involved the emergence of a distinct class system with rulers considered the descendents of the gods, the replacement of kinship-based control of land with a system of land tenure controlled by the divine king, agricultural intensification, and the imposition of a system of tribute and forced labor. american archaeology

This aerial photograph shows a large stone-walled temple in Kahikinui. Coral offerings on the temple were dated to approximately A.D. 1580.

According to oral traditions, this change in ideology coincided with the merging of two Maui chiefdoms under the control of the leader Pi’ilani, and it’s reflected in monumental architecture such as temple systems. While archaeologists knew that these changes in Hawaiian sociopolitical structure took place, they were uncertain of the time during which the changes occurred. Kirch and Sharp dated seven temples in the ancient district of Kahikinui on southeast Maui, and one temple at Kawela on Molokai Island. Delicate surface structures known as verrucae were still preserved on the coral found in the temples, indicating that the coral was harvested live. By determining the coral’s age, they could therefore determine the date

of the offering. The coral dates all came back within a range of about 60 years, indicating the rapid rise of a ritual control hierarchy. “What we have found looks like the archaeological signature of a king who conquered the entire Island of Maui, increasing his territory from about 500 to more than 2,000 square kilometers,” said Kirch. He thinks that a similar process was taking place across the channel on the larger island of Hawaii, and plans to date a series of temples located there using the same method. “This demonstrates how quickly a sociopolitical system can change in the lifetime of one king,” he said, “going from a simple chiefdom to a more elaborate archaic state.” —Tamara Stewart 7

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Middle Archaic Site Found in Central Colorado Unusual residential site is 4,000 years old.

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CENTENNIAL ARCHAEOLOGY, INC.

rchaeologists working at a construction site south of Denver, Colorado, have discovered an unusual 4,000-year-old Middle Archaic residential site. The archaeologists were conducting a cultural resources survey in advance of the construction of a reservoir near the town of Parker by the Parker Water and Sanitation District. Erik Gantt, an archaeologist with Centennial Archaeology, Inc., a contract firm hired to conduct the survey, said the crew discovered a McKean complex site. McKean is a “ubiquitous cultural complex on the Great Plains between 5,000 to 3,000 years ago,” Gantt said. These residential sites, which date to the Middle Archaic period, are more often found in Wyoming. “To find something this large in this region is pretty significant,” he said, noting that it’s the only McKean residential site discovered These points were recovered from the site. The two points in the top row are thought to be about 2,000 years old. The older McKean points are in the middle row. The bottom row consists of a in this area. The site was identified by the style Mallory point and a worked stone that was probably being fashioned into a pendant. of the majority of the projectile points found there. The site has yielded approximately 12 points. uncovered evidence of about six pithouses in the form of All but two of them are McKean style, which has a stem basin-shaped stains in the profile of the cut bank along the with an indented base. The other two points are thought edge of a nearby creek. He believes they were domed to be about 2,000 years old. structures that probably were covered with hide or brush. Gantt, who is directing the project, said his crew has “We’ve found hearths and internal storage features inside the houses,” he said. The 4,000-year-old age derives from two radiocarbon dates of charcoal associated with structure fill and an external hearth. They’ve also found cutting and scraping tools, manos and metates, and bison remains. As they’ve excavated only one quarter of the site, Gantt was uncertain of the size of the residential area. “It’s definitely beginning to be village size,” he said. Gantt expects to find more animal remains as the excavation continues. However, he noted that “bone preservation at the site is pretty terrible” due to the acidity of the soils and the freezing and thawing that occurs with seasonal change. Work at the site stopped in February due to changes in construction priorities, and it’s expected to resume in spring. Gantt said the entire site will probably be destroyed during the construction of the reservoir. Archaeologists have discovered a number of pithouses at this residential area. —Michael Bawaya

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DNA Test May Identify Jamestown Remains A high-ranking burial may be that of one of the colony’s leaders.

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APVA

he remains of a high-ranking male colonist who was ceremoniously buried just outside the James Fort site at Jamestown, in Virginia, appear to be those of Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, the principal promoter and a leader of the Jamestown Colony. A native of Suffolk, England, Gosnold briefly explored and colonized one of the Elizabeth Isles, and discovered and named Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard. “If this is Gosnold, then we’ve found the lost-to-history burial of one of the most influential and moving spirits behind EnglishAmerican colonization, hence a founding father of modern America, and one of that elite group of daring English mariners of the Age of Exploration,” said William Kelso, the director of archaeology at Jamestown.

This decorative staff, found along one edge of the coffin lid, was the most compelling evidence that this was the burial of a high-ranking person.

Archaeologists found the burial under a pit filled with artifacts that date to the 1630s, which suggests that the interment may be from the early years of the settlement. Douglas Owsley, a forensic osteologist at the Smithsonian Institution, concluded that the remains are those of a European male who died in his mid- to late 30s. Based on this evidence, Kelso and his staff have narrowed the possible identity of the burial to three colonists, one of whom is Gosnold. Archaeologists are hoping to

match DNA from the burial with mitochondrial DNA from a descendent from the maternal line of the Gosnold family to confirm his identity. Only two candidates for a DNA match have been identified: Gosnold’s sister, Elizabeth Tilney, and his niece, Katherine Blackerb, both of whom are believed to be buried beneath different churches in England. The Church of England agreed to allow researchers to use ground-penetrating radar to search for their remains. —Michael Bawaya

Preservation Measure Defeated in Virginia Strong opposition kills artifact-hunting legislation.

ue to intense opposition, a provision was stripped from a bill in the Virginia legislature that would have made it a criminal offense to hunt for artifacts on private property without the landowner’s written permission. The provision, which carried maximum penalties of one year in prison and a fine of $1,000, also addressed artifact hunting on public lands. The provision was stripped in a subcommittee in response to a flurry of e-mails opposing the legislation. “I would say I got 100 e-mails or so in opposition to the bill. Some of them were real nasty,” said Delegate Ken Plum, who tried to shepherd the bill through the subcomamerican archaeology

mittee. The other members of the subcommittee also received similar correspondence. Some of the correspondence claimed that Plum and his colleagues were trying to take away one of the public’s constitutional rights. “They describe themselves as being relic hunters,” Plum said of the people who opposed the bill. “There’s no question that the wave of opposition had its intended effect.” Stripped of this provision, the bill, which also reestablishes the position of state archaeologist, passed the legislature’s House of Delegates and is being considered by the Senate. Plum said the Senate is also likely to pass the bill. Virginia has had no state archaeologist for several years

because of a lack of funding. The process “was a real eye opener to me,” Plum said, explaining that he had been unaware of the popularity of artifact hunting in Virginia and didn’t anticipate the fierce opposition. Plum and another legislator noted the lack of support for the bill by the state’s archaeologists. “There was support from the archaeological community,” countered Barbara Heath, the president of the Council of Virginia Archaeologists, a professional organization. But Heath added that she was uncertain if the support for the provision measured against the opposition it faced. —Sarah Tiberi 9

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in the

NEWS

Evidence Supports Tales of Aztec Sacrifice

Excavations at Mexican sites are corroborating Spanish accounts of human offerings.

AP / NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HISTORY AND ANTHROPOLOGY

ecent excavations at 15th- and 16th-century Aztec sites in the Valley of Mexico are turning up details of Aztec sacrifice that appear to corroborate early Spanish accounts and pictorial texts. Researchers have long thought that the Spanish documents describing horrific and widespread Aztec sacrifice that included children and other innocents were exaggerated in order to justify Spanish treatment of native peoples. But evidence indicates such sacrifices, which often consisted of a variety of brutal techniques that sometimes involved children, did occur. The Aztecs, who established the city of Tenochtitlan in A.D. 1325 and dominated the Valley of Mexico during the 15th and 16th centuries, were a warrior society that appeased their pantheon of gods through human sacrifice, among other offerings. Aztec mural paintings, carvings, and pictorial texts and Spanish accounts describe Aztec priests decapitating or cutting out the hearts of their victims. Other depicted forms of sacrificial death include being stoned, crushed, skinned, clawed, buried, or sliced to death, as well as being tossed from the tops of temples. Although many researchers have argued that sacrifice was largely confined to captured warriors, children were frequently depicted as victims. It’s thought that children were chosen because of their purity. This past winter, a burial pit containing the burned skeletal remains of eight children was discovered at the Aztec community of Ecatepec just north of Mexico City. Sacrifices depicted in the Magliabecchi codex, an early 17th-century Indian pictorial text, show victims being burned alive, as well as human body parts being stuffed into cooking dishes while people eat and the god of death looks on. Archaeologists with Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have recovered cooking dishes identical to those depicted in the codex adjacent to human skeletons and disarticulated human bones with suspicious striations that may indicate cannibalism.

Archaeologists excavating an Aztec settlement have found physical evidence, such as these ceramics, to support the accounts of gory sacrifices.

During an archaeological salvage project undertaken last year in Rancho el Terremote, Cuautitlán, INAH archaeologist Inés Carranza Solano discovered a round crematory pit containing the burned remains of several adults along with fragments of Tlaloc effigy vessels, indicating the individuals were sacrificed as offerings to the Aztec god of rain and fertility. At the Templo Major, the ceremonial quarter in the middle of the sacred precinct of Tenochtitlan, chemical analyses of the stucco floors have shown that they were soaked with blood in prehistoric times. While recent archaeological evidence appears to corroborate the occurrence and methods of Aztec sacrifice, many researchers still feel that early Spanish conquerors and chroniclers exaggerated the numbers of sacrificial victims, claiming tens of thousands to have been killed to honor one event. Discovery of sacrificial victims is accelerating, however, and it is becoming apparent that early accounts and images were at least partially accurate. —Tamara Stewart spring • 2005

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Prehistoric Mogollon Village Rediscovered

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Epley’s Ruin offers a glimpse of southeastern Arizona’s prehistory.

STEVEN DITSCHLER

irst discovered in 1897 by archaeologists Jesse Walter Fewkes and Walter Hough, Epley’s Ruin has been rediscovered along U.S. Highway 70 in southeast Arizona near Safford. Fewkes and Hough found a large adobe ruin with numerous house mounds and a possible ballcourt and platform mound along the Gila River. The site, estimated to be some 200 acres, was considered lost to the Safford Basin’s residential and agricultural activity. But routine archaeological clearance and subsequent salvage excavations along the roadway for the planned installation of fiber optic cables uncovered the site’s remains last year. Epley’s prehistoric components date between A.D. 1000 and 1300. Later historic artifacts and features discovered at the site date primarily to the early 20th century. Considered to be Mogollon, but with clear influences from neighboring Hohokam peoples, the site contains two distinct prehistoric residential areas. An 11th-century, possibly seasonal, habitation consisting of several shallow pithouses, storage pits, and irrigation canals was found in the western portion of the site. In the eastern portion a 14thcentury adobe-and-cobble roomblock, several midden areas, one pithouse, six borrow pits, 18 other pits, three small irrigation canals, and eight burials were identified, one of which was a cremation. “This site is very significant to the archaeology of the Safford Basin,” said CaraMia Williams, project crew chief with Tierra Right-of-way Services, the Tucson-based company that was hired to undertake the archaeological clearance. “Archaeological work within the region has been limited, and little is known about the prehistoric community. Although this excavation was only a sample of the site, it is going to provide new information on the settlement system, technology, economy, and overall social organization of the area.” Five adobe rooms were excavated within the roomblock, all of which demonstrated signs of remodeling and appear to have been in use for a considerable period of time. One of the rooms contained a large number of ornamental artifacts, including 20 small turquoise mosaic tiles, a stone pendant, a shell bracelet fragment, a stone bead, and a shell bead, indicating some degree of interaction with more distant cultures.

american archaeology

This roomblock contains five rooms. A large number of ornamental artifacts, such as turquoise mosaic tiles, were found in one of the rooms.

“The Safford Basin was somewhat of a crossroads at this time in prehistory,” said Fred Huntington, archaeological project manager for Tierra. “There are influences from the Hohokam, Mountain Mogollon, and Mimbres Mogollon.” The site’s proximity to the Gila River and its Mogollon affiliation indicate an affinity with the Gila River Indian Community, which has already accepted several of the human remains and associated artifacts. Fieldwork was completed in January, and researchers are now focusing on artifact analysis, including radiocarbon dating and lithic material sourcing. All recovered artifacts will be curated at the Arizona State Museum. —Tamara Stewart 11

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By David Malakoff

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For years archaeologists believed that the Maya, one of the most accomplished ancient cultures, mysteriously collapsed during a short period of time. Recent research indicates that the causes of their downfall are more complex than mysterious, that they occurred over an extended period of time, and that some cities never collapsed.

D. AND A. CHASE, CARACOL ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT

veryone loves a mystery. And perhaps no mystery has so delighted archaeology buffs for the last 150 years as the question of what happened to the ancient Maya, who centuries ago built majestic monuments—and then abandoned them, seemingly overnight, leaving behind ruins and indecipherable inscriptions. Researchers have attributed the Maya collapse to various factors ranging from war and political instability to drought and disease. Mystery lovers looking for a neat, satisfying solution to the collapse will be disappointed, however. Over the last few decades, archaeologists have amassed evidence ranging from pottery fragments and stone structures to ancient pollen grains and translated glyphs that undermines many once cherished notions about the lost civilization. The findings have shattered the presumption of the Maya as a peace-loving people living in a united empire that was pushed into the abyss by a single catastrophe. In its place, scholars are painting a new portrait of a complex, fragmented culture rife with warring city-states. Between A.D. 750 and 950, many of these communities succumbed to a combination of problems, rather than a single calamity. But some flourished even as nearby settlements withered. Others never really “collapsed” at all, instead taking several centuries to shift to new ways of life. And the popular perception that the Maya disappeared entirely is surely news to the millions of descendents still living in the region. “It’s turning out that the Maya aren’t necessarily mysterious, they are just very, very complicated,” says David Webster, an archaeologist at Pennsylvania State University, who has spent 30 years excavating Maya sites. “But that’s not a story everyone wants to hear.”

BIRTH OF THE MAYA MYSTIQUE To understand why this view of the Maya isn’t universally accepted, archaeologists point to the stubborn persistence of what the late Gordon Willey, an influential Mesoamerican archaeologist, once called the “Maya Mystique.” This This stucco mask is found on the summit of Caana, the largest and one of the latest structures at Caracol, in Belize. Caracol’s residents were carving stone monuments as late as A.D. 859.

american archaeology

mystique is a set of beliefs that dominated Maya studies for decades and still holds sway in some quarters. It began when President Martin Van Buren appointed John Lloyd Stephens, an American lawyer and adventurer, to be “special ambassador to Central America” in 1839. Stephens arrived in Guatemala and promptly began “looking for the government to which he was accredited, and which he never could find,” a friend later wrote. But he did “discover something which would prove more interesting to his countrymen than any diplomatic correspondence.” It was the Maya ruin of Copán, in western Honduras. In a now-famous passage of his Incidents of Travel in Central America (1841), Stephens described what he saw: “The city was desolate... It lay before us like a shattered bark in the midst of the ocean, her masts gone, her name effaced, her crew perished, and none to tell whence she came, to whom she belonged, how long on her voyage, or what caused her destruction.... All was mystery, impenetrable mystery.” The book was a runaway best seller that informed several generations of Maya scholars and a public eager to hear tales of discovery in dangerous, exotic locales, Webster writes in an upcoming book of essays, Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public. Over the next century, explorers poured into the Maya region, which stretches from Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula down to Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize. They began excavations and marked dozens of new sites, including major settlements at Chichén Itzá in the Yucatán, Palenque in Chiapas, and Tikal in Guatemala. They found mounds of broken pottery, rows of tall, carved stone slabs and pillars known as stelae, and sacred texts. By the 1950s, a small clique of influential archaeologists interpreting these finds arrived at a few key conclusions. Although there were dissenters, the conventional wisdom went something like this: the Maya were rather peaceful, agrarian people whose pyramids and central squares were used only for religious purposes. And the collapse, which was marked by the end of monument building sometime in the ninth century A.D., was probably caused by a peasant revolt, or perhaps an invasion. These researchers also helped fine-tune the timeline for roughly 3,000 years of Maya history, dividing it into 13

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It’s now thought that the collapse of Maya cities occurred at different times in different places for different reasons, such as the amount of rainfall. CHARLOTTE HILL-COBB

The southern lowlands were the focal point of the collapse. Cities in the northern lowlands generally survived. The collapse dates given for some of the cities on this map are based on their latest dated monuments or buildings.

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three periods: the Pre-Classic, which spanned from about 2000 B.C. to about A.D. 250, when the first monuments begin to appear; the Classic, from A.D. 250 to 950, during which the monument building reached its peak; and the Post-Classic, from 950 to 1500, when Spanish explorers arrived. Subsequently archaeologists further refined the chronology, using differences in pottery styles and other criteria to create a Terminal Classic period, from about 830 to 950, during which the collapse occurred.

NEW THINKING

VICKI MARIE SINGER

By the 1960s and early 1970s, however, a new generation of researchers was dismantling the mystique and challenging the accepted chronology. Breakthroughs in deciphering Maya writings helped discredit the idea that the Maya built vacant, ceremonial centers. Archaeologists came to recognize the massive structures and squares as the richly appointed palaces and precincts of Maya kings and their courts. The glyphs, and the discovery of obvious fortifications and weapons, also helped lay to rest the myth of the peaceful Maya, showing that they sometimes engaged in combat. Meanwhile, increasingly sophisticated investigations at a number of sites suggested that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, people didn’t necessarily disappear from Maya cities after they stopped building monuments.

At Caracol, in Belize, the presence of ceramic artifacts outside the urban centers suggests that “the stelae disappear at least 40 or 50 years before the people begin to abandon the city,” says archaeologist Arlen Chase of the University of Central Florida in Orlando. Chase and his wife, Diane, have been working at Caracol since the 1980s. Earlier researchers often missed these remaining populations because they focused on the urban centers where the Maya elites lived, and ignored the suburbs, archaeologists say. “For all practical purposes, the first 70 years of systematic Maya archaeology consisted of the study of temples, observatories, tombs, ballcourts, sweat baths, and other great buildings at the epicenters of major sites,” Webster writes. A newer generation of scholars, he says, has carried the work into outlying areas where the inhabitants didn’t erect massive monumental architecture. The investigations of the outlying areas are helping researchers refine population estimates by providing insight into how much food the Maya could produce, store, and trade. These estimates, however, remain a source of controversy. But there is nearly universal agreement that, over time, Maya populations declined. In the book The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands: Collapse, Transition, and Transformation, archaeologists Arthur Demarest, Prudence Rice, and Don Rice conclude that 2.6 million to 3.4 million people lived in the Maya lowlands in A.D. 800.

The observatory at Chichén Itzá, in Mexico, is seen here. The city’s residents were still constructing public buildings after A.D. 1000.

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By A.D.1000, however, they estimate that number had dropped to just one million. “Call it a collapse or what you want, but obviously something was going on,” says Chase.

THE EMERGING COMPLEXITY OF COLLAPSE What, exactly, that “something” was remains a source of lively debate. Archaeologists say the end of monument building marks a major shakeup in the Maya elite—probably the fall of some dominant political culture. But virtually all archaeologists now reject the idea that the entire culture rapidly collapsed at about the same time and in the same way, due to one or a few main causes. Instead, they say that each Maya site offers its own complex story of decline and abandonment, and some appear to have flourished for decades or centuries even while neighboring settlements wilted. Archaeological evidence suggests that the inhabitants of the southern lowland settlements of Quiriga and Naranjo in Guatemala, carved their last stone monument around A.D. 810. The last monuments that have been found at other southern lowland sites are of a similar time 16

period. But monument building continued at other sites during this time. Caracol’s inhabitants, for instance, carved stone monuments as late as A.D. 859, according to the Chases. In Tikal, the workers wouldn’t lay down their tools for another 10 years. Northern cities such as Uxmal actually begin to blossom then, erecting new monuments and homes for a booming population. Similarly, signs of final abandonment vary from place to place. Some settlements show no signs of life—such as pots, fire pits, or trash heaps—after the mid- to late 800s. Others still had sizable populations when the Spanish explorers arrived. A few are even inhabited by indigenous people when archaeologists arrive in the late 19th century. It is difficult to envision a single mechanism—such as drought, invasion, or revolt—that could explain such variation, says Prudence Rice, of Southern Illinois University Carbondale. “You can’t paint the Maya lowlands of A . D . 700 to A . D . 1100 with a broad brush; there are too many different things going on at the same time over too big an area,” she says. But archaeologists are recognizing some common threads in the Maya decline. One is war. “In parts of the spring • 2005

BRUCE T. MARTIN

The Palace from the Temple of Inscriptions at Palenque, in Mexico. The last known date on a monument or building in Palenque is A.D. 799.

JOHN MONTGOMERY

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lowlands, the violence got so out of hand that probably east.” Monuments in Tikal and Copán, for instance, record nobody was secure,” says Webster. At Caracol, the Chases the elevation of kings allied with Teotihuacán around A.D. 400. have found burned buildings and the body of an unburied One scenario, he says, is that the slowly spreading problems child that hint at the city’s violent end. Such fighting may prevented leaders from avoiding downfall in times of trouble have weakened Maya elites, and made it impossible to by calling in chips—such as extra food, labor, or military maintain the agriculture and trade necessary to sustain help—from distant allies. large urban populations. Another factor in the Maya collapse was almost cerBut what were they fighting over? Sometimes it was tainly population pressure, according to Webster. Growing resources, such as stone, water, or land, argue some populations exacerbated the agricultural challenges experts. Others, however, favor cultural or of plant diseases and insects. Studies of religious differences. Divine kings, pollen and silt at the bottom of the refor instance, may have been pitted gion’s lakes show the Maya also deforagainst those who favored a differested some of their lands. Evidence ent political system. of forest clearing is seen in the layWhatever the root cause, the ers of lake silt laden with tree violence prompted some populapollen that are covered by layers tions to flee to stronger, more seladen with pollen from crop cure settlements, says archaeoloplants and associated weeds. gist John Henderson of Cornell The thick layers of silt likely reUniversity. In the lower Ulua sulted from the massive top River Valley, which lies about 100 soil erosion that can follow miles east of Copán in Honduras, deforestation and farming. a project led by Henderson and “When I hear people say the Rosemary Joyce of the University Maya were masters of susof California, Berkeley, has found tainable agriculture, I just evidence of just such a shift. In laugh,” he says. the early A.D. 700s, Henderson Drought probably also says, “you see dozens, even hunplayed a role, especially dreds of small villages spread given that Maya cities often out along the valley. But come lacked easy access to water. 800, they disappear. It’s pretty For years, paleoclimatolomuch the same trajectory as the gists have argued that the Maya lowlands.” collapse coincided with an But the valley’s population unusually dry period in the doesn’t necessarily disappear, region. The drought scehe says. “They move on, and apnario draws on several lines pear to reaggregate in fewer of evidence, such as complaces.” One of those places was puter models that suggest the town of Cerro, which sits on that the unusually cool an elevated hilltop in the midtemperatures of that time dle of the valley. Although the would have led to reduced team has found no obvious forrainfall, and sediment and tifications, “it is clearly a locafossil samples from the retion chosen with an eye to degion’s lakes, which contain fense,” he says. Stela 10 at Seibal, in Guatemala, is among the last known chemical isotopes that can monuments produced by the Maya. Its dedication date is A.D. 849. The tensions that produced be used to estimate rainfall. such shifts may have had their But it’s difficult to exorigins far earlier, far outside the Maya realm, Henderson beplain why some cities, especially those in the historically lieves. “I see the Maya world coming apart near the end of a dryer north, were able to withstand the change in the larger domino effect that started centuries earlier further weather, while others in the more humid south were not. west in Mesoamerica,” he says. The ancient city of TeotiOne explanation may be how well the Maya took care of huacán (near what is now Mexico City), for instance, “comes their local forests, argues archaeologist Justine Shaw of the apart around 600. There were a lot of interconnections College of the Redwoods in California. Deforestation tends among these cultures, and it’s hard to see how Teotihuacán’s to make local droughts worse, Shaw notes in a 2003 paper collapse would not have had a major ripple effect to the in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica, since trees offer american archaeology

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BRUCE T. MARTIN

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Altar Q shows the portraits and names of 16 kings who ruled Copán, which is located in Honduras. This portion of the altar shows Yax-K'uk'-Mo' (center, left),

shade, hold moisture in the ground, and even promote rainfall. So Maya regions with greater deforestation may

have been the hardest hit, Shaw says, possibly starting a cultural domino effect: “Divine kings became unable to guarantee sufficient rainfall. The surplus production needed to support elites and full-time specialists was no longer available. Warfare aimed at solving the problem aggravated the situation by disrupting the agricultural cycle and displacing farmers.” Soon, the end was near. Webster, for one, doesn’t put much stock in such drought-related theories as the primary reason for the decline, calling them “the latest fad.” And the Rices are certain they won’t be the last word on the subject. “We’re still working to integrate all of this information that often points in opposite directions,” says Prudence Rice. “People may not agree on the answers, but the whole discussion of the Classic to Post-Classic transition is becoming much more sophisticated.” And while Don Rice says he hates connecting the word “mystery” to Maya studies, Webster says many other archaeologists still count on it to sustain the interest of both funders and the public, even as they use the money to overturn some of the most hallowed myths generated by the Maya mystery. The mystery “was present at the birth of Maya archaeology,” he writes. “And it will probably persist until the end because both archaeologists and the public prefer simple answers to complex historical processes—and the frisson of a good human catastrophe well-removed in time.”

DAVID MALAKOFF is an editor and correspondent with National Public Radio This incensario from Caracol dates to the Terminal Classic period, approximately A.D. 830–950, during which many cities collapsed.

in Washington, D.C. His article “The Vestiges of Northern Slavery” appeared in the Spring 2004 issue of American Archaeology. spring • 2005

D. AND A. CHASE, CARACOL ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT

the first king of the Copán dynasty, who reigned from A.D. 426–437, and Yax Pasah (center, right), the last great king of Copán, who reigned from A.D. 763–820.

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New Revelations at Moundville

Researchers have extracted new information about this community’s elites from Mound Q (shown here), as well as from other mounds.

Recent research at this well-known Mississippian town is providing a picture of its rise and fall and the var ying behavior of its elites.

VERNON JAMES KNIGHT

By Mike Toner

ohn Blitz peers intently at the potsherds in his hand. One is an undistinguished piece of reddish clay, the other a fragment of dark gray ceramic. To most people they are merely broken bits of ancient pots. To Blitz, they confirm that, nearly a thousand years ago, two very different cultures met and mingled in eastern Alabama along one of prehistoric America’s most important cultural divides. “These artifacts aren’t particularly fancy, but I like to american archaeology

tell my students it’s not what you find, but what you find out,” Blitz says. “And these two types of pottery are quite informative because they bridge two cultures.” “Look at this,” he says, thrusting the sherds under a magnifying glass. “This one, the one with reddish bits of fired clay, is what the Woodland people used to strengthen their pots for use on open fires. The gray one is tempered with little bits of mussel shell. That’s a later technique, definitely from early Moundville.” 19

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ery of Moundville, Blitz hopes to piece together a picture of emerging Mississippian culture—a record of tools and midden deposits that reflect the beginnings of the social stratification so characteristic of Moundville and other chiefdoms. The 340-acre park south of Tuscaloosa protects one of the largest intact Mississippian sites in the country—a prime example of the indigenous city-states that arose in the Southeast a thousand years ago with the advent of large-scale agriculture. For 500 years, these mound cities, supported by an economy of maize, beans, squash and

MOUNDVILLE ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARK

For weeks, Blitz’s University of Alabama field school has been excavating a clearing near the entrance to Alabama’s Moundville Archaeological Park, which is located south of Tuscaloosa. The low, grassy rise is Mound X, the 24th mound discovered at the site. Embedded in the mound, they have found a line of post molds from the palisade that once encircled Moundville. The superimposition of the postholes on the mound itself means that the mound predated the fortified perimeter, which was erected between A.D. 1200 and 1250. By sampling Mound X and other sites on the periph-

The rattlesnake disk is the best-known artifact found at Moundville. Recent analysis of its stone and iconographic style have shown that both were locally produced.

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Moundville’s two largest mounds, B (foreground) and A (center), stand out in the aerial photograph. Moundville has been investigated since the 1860s and consequently it’s better understood than many other Mississippian centers.

other crops, dominated the cultural landscape of the region. The remnants of these cities are among the most complex archaeological sites in Eastern North America today, and despite more than a century of investigations at Moundville, surprises continue to unfold. Recent studies by archaeologist Vernon James Knight of the University of Alabama anthropology department, and by University of North Carolina archaeologist Vincas Steponaitis, have not only provided new insights into the rise and fall of Moundville itself but also altered some long-held notions about the people who once ruled it. Until recently, Mississippian life was viewed through the lens of earlier archaeological investigations that emphasized burials, burial goods, and the kinds of artifacts found in museum showcases; material that painted Mississippian life with broad brush strokes. Knight and Steponaitis have focused on many of the details that others passed over— microscopic bits of bone and cornhusks in the ancient middens, flakes of paint, and tiny fragments of copper. Aided by tools unavailable to earlier investigators—from computers to analyze the distribution of recovered artifacts to ground penetrating radar to map the foundations of long-vanished structures—they have documented details of Mississippian life that would have been impossible at less preserved sites. american archaeology

Knight, who has spent much of his career studying Moundville, says the old view of Mississippian cities being ruled by a monolithic elite that controlled a community’s land, labor, trade, crafts, and rituals may be a conceptual “crutch that glosses over complex and variable social realities.” Moundville, he says, changed markedly over time. And the elites who presided over it engaged in surprisingly diverse activities that appear to have varied from mound to mound. “Past studies looked at some of the differences between chiefs and commoners, but the more closely we look at the elites themselves, the more differentiation we see.” Knight was surprised to discover during recent excavations at Mound Q, a modest mound at the edge of the city’s central plaza, that it was not the temple or shrine he had been expecting. Instead, he found the outlines of “modest, multiple, permanent structures” and simple pits for storing food, but no evidence of periodic feasting. Although there were clear signs that the occupants enjoyed elite status—middens yielded evidence of choice cuts of meat, and lots of passenger pigeon bones, a Mississippian elite delicacy—the mound had a decidedly lived-in look. He found the mound’s middens “densely packed with debris carrying the strong flavor of domestic routine”— utilitarian cookware, animal bones and seeds that he says 21

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This arrow point of quartz crystal was recovered during excavations in Mound V.

Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s—are housed at the Erskine Ramsey Archaeological Repository at the Moundville site. “Moundville has incredible stylistic diversity of artifacts,” says Steponaitis. Some of these artifacts were produced at Moundville, others were obtained from other regions via trade. Moundville was part of an active trade network that extended from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes. Steponaitis has analyzed items from these collections in an attempt to identify a “coherent regional style.” Identifying this style—a process that consists of an analysis of the iconography as well as the materials from which the artifacts were crafted—will help him and other researchers determine which artifacts were made at Moundville, and that in turn speaks to the question of the activities of the elites. Excavations at Mound G, on the opposite side of the city’s plaza from Mound Q, suggest differences between the two mounds’ inhabitants. Mound G was higher. Its residents dined on exceedingly rare dishes like shark, peregrine falcon, and bison. Analysis of their faunal remains

VERNON JAMES KNIGHT

reflect a widely varied diet. Paint palettes, sandstone saws, flakes of worked stone, and fish bone needles that appear to have been used for tattooing, show the occupants of Mound Q were also heavily engaged in craftwork, with much of the material imported from hundreds miles away. Fragments of crushed human skulls, feet and hands, suggest that they may have displayed skulls or other bones, but Knight found no indication of sacrifices. The increasingly detailed understanding of Moundville’s history that Knight, Steponaitis, Blitz, and other researchers have gleaned is possible, in part, because most of the archaeologists who conducted Moundville’s early investigations published their findings, and cataloged and preserved what they collected. Such a scientific approach was unusual at that time. Artifacts excavated from the major mounds by the famous archaeologist C. B. Moore in 1905, back when the site was still part of a cotton plantation, now reside with the Museum of the American Indian. In addition to other small collections at the Smithsonian Institution and the Alabama Museum of Natural History, more than 600,000 artifacts—and 2,100 sets of human remains excavated by the

University of Alabama field school students record trench profiles at Mound Q. The mound underwent several stages of construction, and some evidence of these stages can be seen in the trench walls.

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JOHN BLITZ

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VERNON JAMES KNIGHT

Two researchers use ground-penetrating radar to map the dimensions of Mound X. Gradiometry, another type of remote sensing, was also used.

show that, unlike lesser elites who consumed all but the bones of their game, Mound G’s elites were given to waste. Their debris included little evidence of the craftwork that their neighbors on Mound Q engaged in. From the evidence, Knight believes this group of elites was more reclusive and less involved in interactions with the lower classes. Knight is convinced that further excavations will show that each of Moundville’s 24 mounds, and their occupants, had a distinct character. He and Steponaitis believe that the entire city was built as a sociogram—an architectural plan based on a social order of clans that, in effect, put everyone in his or her place.“The highest ranking clans were situated along the northern edge of the plaza, and the ranks decreased progressively as one moved along both sides of the plaza to the South,” says Steponaitis. Over the last decade, Knight and Steponaitis have also worked to document the changes in Moundville through time. Building on the work of earlier investigators, they have used radiocarbon dates, ceramic styles, and changes in iconography to piece together a 500-year chronology tracing the city’s rise to glory, an abrupt mid-life transition, and its ultimate demise. Like other chiefdoms, Moundville rose where it did because of the area’s resources—the Black Warrior valley’s fertile soils, abundant water, and long growing season. The largest earthen pyramid, Mound B, towers 58 feet above the surrounding plain. From the summit, one can see the orderly layout of the site’s flat-topped mounds, truncated pyramids arrayed in a vast arc around a central plaza. The american archaeology

plaza covers an area larger than a dozen football fields. In Moundville’s heyday, the city was protected by a three-milelong wooden palisade with sentry platforms ever 100 feet.

Vernon James Knight (right) reviews field records of the floor of Mound Q.

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John Blitz’s interest in the circumstances that engendered the founding

JOHN BLITZ

and early development of Moundville led him to investigate Mound X.

The wall shielded the town on three sides. The fourth side was the river. “This was clearly a planned community,” says Knight. “We know from extensive dating that all of the mounds were built within a generation or so. It was a case of build it and they will come. And they came. Once the palisade was up, everybody moved inside. By 1250, this was a real town, complete with crying babies, barking dogs, and smoke from cooking fires.” The city grew swiftly. “The shift to an agricultural economy ameliorated local food shortages, enabled denser concentrations of people, and created a source of wealth that could be mobilized and manipulated for political ends,” says Steponaitis. After 1250, however, things began to change. Outlying villages grew rapidly and Moundville’s population began to shrink. As the number of residents dwindled, however, burials within the city soared—but not, apparently, because of pestilence. At about the same time, the defensive palisade was dismantled and never rebuilt. Knight says the extensive radiocarbon dating of burials and artifacts on the mounds during that period suggests Moundville was largely a vacant ceremonial center. “All of a sudden, poof, it was transformed from a classic Mississippian chiefdom into what was essentially a necropolis, a giant cemetery controlled by the elites who lived on

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University of Alabama students work at Mound X. Though it was previously recorded as a mound, there was uncertainty as to whether this low rise was the product of man or nature. The investigation confirmed that it was in fact manmade, and that it’s the community’s oldest mound, dating to the Early Moundville Phase, circa A.D.. 1150–1250.

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top of the mounds,” says Knight. From a city of a few thousand, Moundville’s population dwindled to perhaps 300. No other necropolis has been identified in a Mississippian city, consequently Knight was initially hesitant to use the term, which invokes images of Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. But he says the thousands of burials during that period, in contrast to the dwindling population reflected in dates from mound middens, makes the conclusion hard to avoid. “The people who ruled Moundville during this period were essentially funeral directors,” he says. “And based on the number of burials we see from this period, they seem to have convinced everyone in the valley that they needed a burial at Moundville to start their journey into the afterlife.” Abrupt changes in the art of the time, which was suddenly rife with themes of the afterlife, suggest that Moundville was now ruled by elites who extracted tribute in return for burials on now sacred ground. The art contains themes of knotted snakes, eagle-like raptors, a spitting crested bird, winged serpents, and a curious upraised hand with a single eye in the center of the palm. Recent studies of Mississippian iconography suggest such images are related to the path of souls after death. These themes are still invoked today in the oral traditions of some Native Americans. By 1350, however, Moundville was failing even as a necropolis. “During this period, we see an increase in burials outside the city, so apparently a lot of people weren’t playing the elites’ game anymore,” Knight says. “By 1400, the lights were going out. Many mounds at the site were totally abandoned, and by 1450 only a handful had anyone

JIM WALKER

VERNON JAMES KNIGHT

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This incised pottery vessel was found while excavating the earth lodge in Mound V. Moundville’s artifacts have a wide range of styles.

living on them. De Soto and his men came through the area in the 1540s, but never mentioned Moundville or hinted there was a major center here.” “It’s a pretty common pattern all through history,” says University of Tennessee archaeologist David Anderson, a specialist in Mississippian mound sites. “They have a few good years, a few bad years, and then a few more bad years and they fall apart. They rarely last more than a few centuries.” Though Moundville was in decline by the early 15th century, some work was still being done there. In 2001, Knight used a gradiometer, an instrument that senses subtle variations in soil density, to map the outlines of a sunken 50-foot-square earth lodge at Mound V, one of the several mounds he’s worked at. This is the only earth lodge found and it’s one of the most recent structures discovered at Moundville, dating to the early 1400s. It has a tunnel entrance and is thought to have served as a council house. “It was so big that we would never be able to excavate all of it, but remote sensing enabled us to map the entire structure,” he says. “We’ve made a lot of progress in our understanding of Moundville in recent years, but we still have a long ways to go,” says Steponaitis. “The collections we have will continue to be analyzed and then, of course, there are still things to be learned from the site itself.” “It’s amazing,” agrees Blitz, watching his field crew scraping away the soil of Mound X in search of Moundville’s beginnings. “Despite extensive excavations here for over a century, much of this site is still completely unexplored.”

MIKE TONER is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. His series on threats to archaeological resources, Vincas Steponaitis has been analyzing collections from Moundville to identify the iconography as well as the material from which the artifacts were made.

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“Past in Peril,” won the Society for American Archaeology’s Gene S. Stewart Award in 2001. 25

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COLONIZING

SERRES 1743 / COLOR BY CHARLOTTE HILL-COBB

Western Florida

This drawing of Presidio Isla de Santa Rosa was done by artist Dominic Serres in 1743.

The Spanish established settlements in both eastern and western Florida. An investigation of Presidio Isla de Santa Rosa, an outpost near present-day Pensacola, reveals how remarkably different these settlements were. By KC Smith

eautiful, but remote and inhospitable. This description came to mind as I drove along Santa Rosa Island’s two-lane road from the National Park Service ranger station toward one of northwest Florida’s finest archaeological finds, Presidio Isla de Santa Rosa. I was traversing the western end of a 50mile-long barrier island that is part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore. Protected and pristine, this landscape nonetheless is rearranged regularly by tropical storms and occasional hurricanes that make landfall on the narrow spit. Santa Rosa Island is a haven for nesting birds, nature lovers, sunbathers, and anglers, but 250 years ago, its western tip was home to a determined outpost trying to secure another foothold in Spain’s northern dominion of La Florida. As I motored along, enchanted by the exotic but harsh landscape, I asked myself, “What would cause anyone to settle here?” A short walk through scrubby under26

brush led to a clearing where staff, students, and volunteers from the University of West Florida’s (UWF) Archaeology Institute worked under a tent city that protected excavation units and field crews from the blistering sunshine and regular rainfall. I was greeted by Judith Bense, the director of the Archaeology Institute and the project’s principal investigator. For 25 years, her research in Florida’s western panhandle has helped to explain the cultures—native, Spanish, French, British, and U.S.—that have occupied the area. Bense calls Presidio Isla de Santa Rosa the “crown jewel” of the three fortified frontier settlements that protected Spanish West Florida from French intrusion between 1698 and 1763. “The site had a very dynamic and rich history. It was destroyed by a catastrophic hurricane, immediately abandoned, and left virtually untouched until modern times,” said Bense. “It was the largest Hispanic colonial settlement on the Gulf.” spring • 2005

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The Spanish Foothold The archaeological features in Santa Rosa’s soft sands are so fragile that this excavator was dressed in stockinged feet and confined to a boardwalk while doing her work.

Although Pensacola was visited by Spanish explorers and mariners in the early 1500s, the first colonial venture occurred in 1559 with the fateful expedition of Tristán de Luna y Arrellano. Luna’s fleet of 11 ships—carrying supplies, arms, tools, and 1,500 settlers, soldiers, and servants—had been anchored in the bay only a month when a devastating hurricane struck. Deprived of most of their possessions and several ships, the colonists barely survived before abandoning the site in 1561. For the next 137 years, Spain ignored West Florida in favor of its east coast settlement at St. Augustine, founded in 1565, and a productive system of Catholic missions that radiated northward and westward. Protecting the treasure fleets that sailed from Cuba back to Spain along Florida’s perilous seaboard was a strong incentive for securing a colony along the route in eastern Florida. In addition, the eastern half of La Florida still had substantial populations of Indians to convert, press into service, or rely on for resources, whereas the western half was largely depopulated of natives due to early 16th-century contacts with Spanish

RON GARDNER

In 2002, UWF archaeologists began field research to identify the boundaries and spatial arrangement of the site, the composition and social organization of the community, and the archaeological correlations between Santa Rosa and the other Pensacola Spanish colonial presidios, which Bense also excavated. She and project director Norma Harris, an expert in historic-era Native Americans of the region, also sought to augment a growing body of data about the nature and function of presidios, a distinct type of settlement that protected Spain’s North American Borderlands. Another objective—to nominate Santa Rosa as a National Historic Landmark—prompted a partnership between the university and the National Park Service, Gulf Islands National Seashore, which manages the island.

A hand auger was used to bore through the spoil to determine the northern extent of the settlement. Through the years, dredging operations have discharged up to 30 feet of sand on top of the original colonial shoreline, complicating the

JUDY BENSE

task of identifying Santa Rosa’s boundaries.

Sheets of clear plastic were erected over the excavation units to enable the researchers to work during frequent downpours.

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RON GARDNER / JUDY BENSE

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These sherds were recovered during the excavation. Most of the ceramics found at Santa Rosa were made in Mexico, or by Native Americans, but many were also made in England, France, Holland, Germany, and China.

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expeditions that resulted in widespread epidemics of EuWhen Pensacola was returned to Spain in 1722, little ropean diseases. This lack of indigenous support influremained of Santa María. The Viceroy of Mexico ordered enced the demographics and economy at all of Pensacola’s construction of a new settlement on Santa Rosa Island, presidios, because it meant that the labor force had to be and the site selected near the western tip, bounded by transported from New Spain (Mexico). Unlike the hunwater on three sides and a swamp on the fourth, seemed dreds of other presidios established throughout the Spansecure and defendable. But storms visited the community ish borderlands, the Pensacola presidios were colonies of several times—requiring rebuilding that is reflected in the mostly creole men of mixed Spanish and Indian descent archaeological record—before a three-day hurricane in who were forced to build and defend military installations 1752 flattened all but two structures. In the aftermath, reson the far western border of La Florida. idents hastily retreated to the mainland, leaving the buildSpain was forced to refocus its attention in the 1680s ings and their possessions to settle into the sands of time. when France began to explore the lower Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico. To prevent this adversary from using Pensacola as a base for harassing Spanish commerce, the Because of its strategic location and hardwood trees that viceroy of New Spain authorized the establishment of a were eyed for shipbuilding, the island became U.S. govnew settlement, and Santa María de Galve was founded on ernment property after Florida became a territory in 1821. Pensacola Bay in 1698. The presidio was occupied by a Until bridges linked it to the mainland, its remote location small group of military men, officials, and civilians, a large also protected the buried presidio, although shoreline contingent of Mexican convicts and conscripts, and a few erosion, a World War II railroad bed, and a drainage ditch African slaves and immigrant Indians. Essentially a penal dug 40 years ago for mosquito control have impacted the colony, the townsite was supported by undependable supsite. In addition, the northern perimeter has been covered ply ships from Mexico and reciprocal but illicit trade with by spoil from periodic dredging of the bay. the French at Mobile. Santa María was attacked unrelentThe presidio remains were discovered in 1962 by G. ingly by Indians from Georgia and Alabama, who were enNorman Simons, an amateur archaeologist and curator at couraged and supplied by British Carolinians. In 1719, the Pensacola Historical Society. Simons contacted archaewhen France fought Spain in the War of Quadruple Alologist Hale Smith of Florida State University, who diliance, troops from Mobile captured and burned the prerected a summer field school with students and volunsidio, and the Spaniards retreated. teers in 1964. Smith excavated 11 irregular trenches, Bense directed the excavation of Santa María, located uncovering one small structure entirely and portions of on the Pensacola Naval Air Station grounds, from 1995 to others, and numerous refuse pits, hearths, and other fea1998. Studying the fort and associated buildings, and the tures. He also collected nearly 30,000 artifacts. Smith’s nearby civilian village, the researchers discerned clear stabrief study demonstrated the archaeological potential of tus distinctions that were apparent in the artifact concentrations and structures they discovered. Based on evidence such as the different areas where high and low status artifacts were found, Bense concluded which barracks were inhabited by the officers, soldiers, and convicts. These findings provided baseline data that informed the excavation of Presidio San Miguel de Panzacola in 1999 and 2000, which existed from 1752 to 1763 in what is now downtown Pensacola, and the Santa Rosa project. Presidio Santa Rosa was the last studied because of its remoteness, pristine preservation, and rich archaeological remains, and the challenges uncovering those remains presented. This map shows the locations of the three Spanish presidios within Pensacola Bay.

CHARLOTTE HILL-COBB

Modern Discovery

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Judy Bense, Norma Harris, and laboratory director Jan Lloyd devise a strategy for the day’s excavations.

Presidio Santa Rosa, prompting a survey by Bense in 1985. Unfortunately, Smith’s field documentation is lost but for a few drawings and a summary report. Reconciling his work with the UWF excavation was one of many challenges that Bense and Harris faced. In 2002, Bense’s team established a grid and mapped the site. They employed a metal detector and a magnetometer, which registers disturbances in the earth’s magnetic field, to determine where to excavate. More than 100 shovel tests revealed artifacts, intact deposits, and features, and some of Smith’s excavations. An historic document from 1723 says the presidio included a warehouse, paymaster’s office, powder magazine, bake oven, governor’s residence, 32 houses for officers and civilians, and a lookout tower. Greater detail was provided by a drawing from 1743 by the artist Dominic Serres. Seen from Pensacola Bay, the settlement includes a fort, church,

main street, houses with fences, and myriad structures. The artifacts recovered in 2002 were clustered in discrete areas, with high-status items such as window glass in the western portion of the presidio, and low-status items such as Indian ceramics in the east, near a marshy area called Siguenza Slough. In 2003, Bense and Harris identified the site boundaries and located major structures, such as the fort, church, and houses of officials and soldiers. Bense also initiated a historical research program, undertaken by UWF history professor John Clune and his students, to add to the small cache of documents already uncovered in archives in Europe, Mexico, and the U.S. This program has revealed many details about life at Presidio Santa Rosa including the effect of several powerful storms, trade, and the makeup of the population. Digging at the presidio was a challenge because the white, sandy substrate is, as Bense put it, “tricky, subtle, and fragile.” Changes in soil color and consistency that are obvious at most archaeological sites often were scarcely discernible. When the sand was dry, it was difficult to keep unit walls straight, and they were sometimes dug at an angle so they wouldn’t collapse. The water table is a mere two or three feet below the surface, and that often determined the depth of excavation. Fifty inches of rain made their work all the more challenging. Despite efforts to protect open units, rising groundwater threatened to undercut walls and cause their collapse. The coup de grâce was delivered in late June by Tropical Storm Bill, which halted operations for a week. To prevent the destruction of the site and keep the project going, wellpoints were installed adjacent to excavation areas to remove subsurface water. This involved boring holes about seven feet deep, inserting a perforated pipe into each hole, and then pumping the water that collected in these pipes into an outflow pipe that emptied into Seguenza Slough. The well points allowed the excavation to continue, but the high water table limited the digging. Nonetheless, the crew recorded 78 colonial features and recovered nearly 45,000 artifacts.

This drawing illustrates the continuous process of building, repairing, and rebuilding structures that took place at Santa Rosa. The lines represent the different construction episodes that occurred in this part of the site.

In 2004, with the hum of the wellpoint pumps in the background, the crew examined units that were flooded in the previous season, as well as new areas that promised additional data about the community structure. “The 2004 season took us from first base to home plate,” said Bense. “We identified significant architectural remains, including four complete house floors with artifacts above but not below, numerous burned or collapsed structures, and examples of multiple building episodes. These features not only added details, but they also verified the site’s integrity.” Those details included the sizes of buildings, sequences of building and rebuilding, details of construction techniques, and identifying inside and outside areas of structures. spring • 2005

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The Summary Season

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JUDY BENSE

The unusual artifacts included earrings, bracelets, cufflinks, keys, painted and etched glass, porcelain, and rosary beads. The most enigmatic objects were a collection of clay human and animal figurines, all from the same area of the site. Bense suspects that they may reflect a tradition of home shrines among peasants in the Mexican countryside, where most Santa Rosa residents came from. The crew also recovered numerous items commonly found at historic sites, such as bricks, glass, pottery, metal hardware, and faunal remains, as well as the gunflints, bullets, and gun parts typical of a military post. While the nature of the artifact concentrations uncovered in the 2002 season seemed to clearly suggest which social class occupied what area, as was the case at Santa Maria, by the end of the project the lines of demarcation were less clear. The artifacts overwhelmingly are of Mexican origin and manufacture, which is atypical of assemblages found at other Hispanic colonial sites in Florida. “By this time, a distinct Mexican culture had emerged from the blending of Spanish and native peoples,”

A group of excavators established the profile of a trench wall. They worked quickly because once the wall was exposed to the fierce sun, the sand soon dried out and sometimes blew away. Consequently, the archaeological information revealed by the different colors and

RON GARDNER

textures of the sand was lost.

One excavation unit revealed seven distinct building episodes in which walls were replaced or new structures were constructed. Harris called the collapsed, burned, and overlain structures “a testimony to the impact of storms and an environment that caused building materials to rot quickly.” Because many of the structures were large, she believes they were either high-status or public buildings. “This place was an artifact trap,” said Bense. “Possessions were abandoned after the hurricane, and attempts to salvage them were impossible because everything had been swallowed by the sand. Consequently, we recovered artifacts that we don’t see elsewhere. Moreover, they have a very international flavor—for example, Dutch, French, English, and Chinese pottery as well as Spanish, Mexican, and native wares—which reinforces the presidio’s reliance on importation and trade for survival.” american archaeology

In 2004, a local contractor, Thompson Pump and Manufacturing Company, donated two large diesel pumps, equipment, and labor for a well-point system allowing archaeologists to continue digging when groundwater levels were extremely high.

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RON GARDNER

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These students documented a complicated complex of wall trenches and features associated with a structure that burned sometime after 1750.

noted Harris. “That culture was imported to Santa Rosa by the people who came to occupy the presidio.” In contrast, residents of the St. Augustine presidio and many other settlements in East Florida primarily were of European descent. Artifacts such as women’s jewelry reveal that, while Santa Rosa began as a penal colony, it later counted women and children among its residents. The archaeological evidence is corroborated by historic supply lists that include items such as petticoats. These documents indicate this change occurred about the midpoint of the presidio’s existence, but there is no explanation as to the reason for this change. In the process of recovering over 80,000 artifacts and identifying numerous structures and features, they confirmed the site’s archaeological and historical significance, meeting the criteria for a National Historic Landmark designation. While final conclusions await the analysis of artifacts, field data, and historical records, a picture of life for Santa Rosa’s residents already has emerged. “The members of this community lived in flimsy, wooden structures outside the boundaries of the fort,” said Bense. “Because there were no farms, haciendas, or significant Indian labor, they relied on unpredictable imports and trade to survive. And they struggled constantly with the environment.” The historical documents are full of complaints about the lack of supplies from Mexico. 32

Bense and Harris agreed that the excavations of the two other presidios was a prerequisite to tackling Santa Rosa. “On a scale of 1 to 10, Santa Rosa was a 9.5 in terms of its pristine nature. It was a single component site with high integrity and a substrate that protected the presidio’s artifactual and architectural remains,” Bense noted. “By providing models of what to expect in the way of material evidence and community organization, Santa María and San Miguel prepared us for Santa Rosa’s difficult archaeological and environmental circumstances. If we had started at Santa Rosa, we would have missed much of what was going on here. “In many ways, Santa Rosa was different from the other Pensacola presidios. However, viewing them as a group, we now realize that the history of Spanish interaction in West Florida was very different from East Florida. They were two different worlds. East Florida had contact with and support from Spain, Cuba, the gold fleets, and local natives. West Florida had none of that. It had contact with Mexico and to some extent Mobile. This was a colony of New Spain, and the people who were living here, most against their will, were Mexicans. That’s news!” coordinates the Florida History Fair and the Florida Heritage Education Program at the Museum of Florida History in Tallahassee. KC SMITH

To learn more about this project, visit the Web site www.uwf.edu/anthropology/research/presidioSR.cfm

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Working Together Native Americans have often been suspect of archaeology. But when the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation wanted to learn more about their history, they consulted an archaeologist. BY ALISON STEIN WELLNER

t 7:00 a.m. on an August day a caravan of cars and SUVs rolled onto the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation reservation in North Stonington, Connecticut. Near the tribe’s ceremonial circle—a clearing in the woods rimmed by a double row of posts and with a fire pit in the center—14 college students piled out of the vehicles. They all set about spraying their arms and legs with insect repellent, the first of many attempts to keep the mosquitoes and ticks at bay on this hot and humid day. Amidst the minor melee, it was not easy to spot Stephen Silliman, the University of Massachusetts, Boston archaeologist who ran this field school. “Look for the old guy with a beard,” one of the students remarked. Silliman, 33, is hardly an old guy. Intense, wiry, with a brown close-clipped beard, wearing a loose t-shirt and hiking boots, he didn’t look that much older than the students he supervises. Silliman stood near the spot where the crew entered the woods, clearly eager to get down to busiChief Hockeo raises a ceremonial hand-carved wooden peace ness. The field school was entering its pipe as a blessing at the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation's annual fifth and last week on this day, wrappow-wow celebration. The archaeological team was invited to, and recognized during, this community event. ping up its second season.

A. VINCENT SCARANO

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TIMOTHY MURPHY

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Archaeologist Stephen Silliman, Tribal Councilor Kathy Sebastian, and Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Roy "Two Hawks" Cook discuss the significance of an ancient projectile point and stone celt, which are believed to be several thousand years old, that were found in a trash pit dating to the 1800s. These discussions, both in the field and out of it, have been critical to the success and direction of the archaeological project.

The crew trooped down a steep slope into the heavily wooded land that makes up the bulk of the Eastern Pequot’s reservation, which is one of the oldest in the nation. The Pequot Indians once controlled all of Connecticut, east of the Connecticut River, as well as portions of the coast, and most of Eastern Long Island, New York. In 1637, colonial soldiers staged a surprise ambush of the Pequot’s fort in Mystic, Connecticut. Some 500 to 600 Pequot were burned alive or otherwise killed by colonial soldiers, a conflict that has become known as the Pequot War. The colonial government dispersed survivors. Some were sold into slavery, while others were placed under the supervision of other tribes. In 1683, the colonial government settled the remaining Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation on these 225 acres, and records show that the land has been occupied ever since. Another group of Pequots, the Mashantucket, were settled on a different reservation not far from the Eastern Pequots. They are now a separate tribe, although the Eastern Pequot view the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation as cousins. It’s the Mashantucket Pequots who founded the 34

extraordinarily successful Foxwoods Resort Casino, which looms near the woods where Silliman and his crew worked. And not far from that casino is the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, a much-lauded institution that houses, in part, the results of over two decades of archaeological research, the fruits of a longterm relationship that the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation have had with Kevin McBride, an archaeologist at the University of Connecticut. It was McBride who recommended Silliman for the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation’s archaeology project. In 2002, the Eastern Pequot’s tribal council began planning for historic preservation programs and potential development on the reservation. They determined that an archaeological investigation could help them identify sacred areas that they didn’t want to disturb, while deepening their knowledge of the tribe’s culture and history. “Since we never before had an archaeological project on our reservation, we didn’t know exactly what was here,” said Kathy Sebastian, Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation Councilor and Historic Preservation Advisor. spring • 2005

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For his part, Silliman was intrigued by the idea of studyartifacts point to the place having been occupied in the ing an area continuously occupied by the tribe for several end of the 18th century or early 19th century,” Silliman centuries. “The land has great long-term significance and stated. These finds, along with similar artifacts found at potential evidence of 321 years of community persistence the smaller house site, suggest that the Eastern Pequot and change,” he said. While there are plenty of historical were acquiring goods as well as making their own during documents showing that people occupied the land since the early 19th century. Silliman believes that they pur1683, there was a great deal to learn about what transpired chased these goods, rather than acquired them by trade. during that time. How did the Eastern Pequot relate to the Historical documents show that some tribal members Euro-Americans? Were they buying goods or making some earned wages working off the reservation as farm laborers, of their own, growing crops, hunting and gathering? How whalers, and serving in the military, and that some Eastern did they use the land and build their homes? “There is an Pequot made and sold wood-splint baskets. Analysis of the oral history, but once you get back into the early 1700s and coins recovered from the site could reveal more informa1800s, there are not quite as many stories, probably because tion about the commerce that took place there. of the passing of time,” he said. The Eastern Pequot’s interThe discovery of fish, pig, sheep, and cow bones gave ests and Silliman’s converged nicely. a glimpse of their diet. At the smaller house site, stone Down the hill, through the woods, scrambling over walls that once likely formed an animal pen suggested that moss-covered rocks, ferns, and fallen branches, the crew arrived at a feature they were excavating. A foundation sill and a pile of rocks that could be a collapsed chimney indicated that a house once stood here. It was likely a European-style frame house, said Silliman, roughly 15 square feet in size. About half of the students set to work here, digging excavation units. The other half were dispatched to a second feature, another, smaller house located further downhill. During the project’s first season, Silliman’s crew conducted a survey of the entire reservation and dug approximately 230 shovel-test units. In 2004 they dug about 250 more. The tribe knew of about six houses on their land prior to this project, sites that were obvious because of visible foundations, cellars, or chimney falls. After the first season, that number more than doubled. “Most tribal members hadn’t realized quite how much his- Student Melissa Smith uses a laser transit to map rock fences, foundations, stone enclosures, and tory is buried out there,” said Silliman. topographic features. The laser transit gathers very precise distance and elevation measurements. As the crew settled into work that day, sounds of scraping and clinking mixed with the amithey practiced agriculture. There’s also evidence of huntable buzz of typical college student conversation: baseball, ing game. “We found those two gunflints in the main weekend exploits, food, the occasional flirtation. Linda Mchouse we are studying this summer,” said Silliman. “SomeCall, a member of the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation who one was using that gun for something, and there’s every worked alongside the students that summer, listened and expectation that it was probably for hunting.” Various pipe smiled almost imperceptibly. Sunbeams filtered through stems and bowls of Euro-American manufacture indicated the trees as McCall screened excavated dirt in search of the Eastern Pequot were using tobacco. small artifacts. The crew also found a projectile point, soapstone The recovered artifacts associated with the Europeanbowl fragment, and stone celt that likely date to the style house include buttons, knives, spoons, bent nails, Late or Terminal Archaic, roughly somewhere between gunflint, window and bottle glass, glass beads, fragments 5,000 and 2,700 years ago. These items were discovered of stoneware, redware, pearlware, and creamware. “The in a 19th-century trash pit, which suggests they were american archaeology

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were continued. Eastern museums developed an appetite for Native artifacts, and Westward expansion fed that appetite. In the infamous Sand Creek Massacre in 1864, the skulls and bones of Natives massacred by the U.S. Army were defleshed and sent to Washington D.C. for study and display. Nineteenth-century archaeology was marked by a disregard for the value of Native American’s knowledge of their past and present—their spiritual tradition, oral history—in favor of what could be determined through archaeological study, according to Thomas. While modern archaeologists are far more sensitive to the concerns of Native Americans, generally speaking, the latter still view the former with distrust. The Eastern Pequot Council was mindful of this troubled history, but based on their observation of the partnership between McBride and the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and their discussions with Silliman, who conveyed his desire to honor their land, traditions, and contemporary practices, they concluded archaeology could serve their purpose. Even so, the Tribal Council was not entirely at ease with the idea of an archaeological project at first, explained

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embedded in a much older site that was disturbed when the pit was dug or that they were the possessions of the 19th-century inhabitants. The participation of tribal members such as McCall and Darlene “Tubby” Fonville was an integral part of the agreement between the Eastern Pequot and Silliman that resulted in a remarkably cooperative and productive relationship. Native Americans have often been at odds with archaeologists. America’s first scientific archaeologist, Thomas Jefferson, had his slaves excavate a native burial mound on his property in Virginia in the late 1700s. With this, Jefferson pioneered the basics of the scientific method of archaeology. By turning a sacred cemetery into a laboratory, Jefferson’s project served as a precursor to the 19th-century anthropological approach that considered Native people as less-thanhuman objects of scientific study, specimens of the natural world, not unlike a mastodon, wrote David Hurst Thomas, in his book Skull Wars. This approach deeply offended many Native Americans. As the science of archaeology expanded far beyond Jefferson’s backyard, the precedents established there

Student Elizabeth Swinning uses a tape measure and line level to measure the depth of an excavation unit. Swinning and another researcher were excavating a rich 19th-century trash deposit near a collapsed house foundation. The crew often had to contend with large tree roots and rocks while excavating.

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Native Americans and Archaeology

Darlene "Tubby" Fonville, one of the Eastern Pequot interns, takes a break from her screening tasks. Fonville has participated in both field seasons of the archaeological project.

Sebastian. “Our primary concern was to avoid any digging in our known burial grounds or grave sites,” she said. “We also wanted to be sure the ground wouldn’t be disturbed in any big way, with big equipment like bulldozers, and then, of course, we wanted to be sure that anything that was found would be treated carefully, and would be treated according to our traditions.” As a result, Sebastian recommended a detailed protocol to the Eastern Pequot Council to guide the tribe’s relationship with the archaeological research team. The protocol addressed such issues as the discovery of human remains and the handling of artifacts. If human remains were found during the course of excavating, the digging would stop immediately. Thus far, no human remains have been discovered. Silliman is allowed to analyze and house artifacts at the university, but he has agreed to return them to the Eastern Pequot upon their request. At least one tribal member worked with the crew at all times, learning about archaeology while keeping a separate inventory of the items taken out of the ground—a “check and balance,” Sebastian said. Hence the presence of tribal members McCall, Fonville, and Royal Cook, Jr., who goes by the name “Two Hawks.” Two Hawks played an important role in assuring the council that the archaeological project would honor the american archaeology

The relationship “needs to be maintained,” observed archaeologist Jonathan Damp. The relationship he referred to is the delicate one between Native Americans and archaeologists. Native Americans, for various reasons, have often held archaeologists in low regard. But there are some indications that the relationship is indeed being maintained. Davina Two Bears said it’s incorrect to define this relationship as being between Native Americans and archaeologists, given that a growing number of Native Americans are archaeologists. Two Bears, the manager of the Flagstaff, Arizona, office of the Navajo Nation’s archaeology department, happens to be a Navajo archaeologist. “I think Native Americans have always been interested in archaeology. It’s our history,” Two Bears said. Becoming an archaeologist is a way to “respect and protect” archaeological sites. Her office (the Navajo archaeology department has two others) is affiliated with Northern Arizona University. Working with the university, the Navajo archaeology department hires and trains Native American students, most of whom are Navajo, in archaeological field methods and Navajo culture. There are about 30 employees in the three offices. Two Bears said that, in the minds of many Native Americans, archaeologists are stigmatized as grave robbers. Nonetheless, she thinks the Navajo are becoming more accepting of the science. “We are constantly explaining to our own people the benefits of archaeology,” she said. Damp, who is not a Native American, is the director of the Zuni Heritage and Historic Preservation Office as well as head of Zuni Cultural Resources Enterprise, a cultural resources management firm owned by the tribe. “In many ways it’s very rewarding,” he said of his work with the Zuni, adding that the tribe is very supportive of the archaeological work. The two organizations employ approximately 30 people, and the great majority of them are Zuni. “I think some of them are the finest field archaeologists I’ve ever worked with,” he said, though they don’t have degrees in the discipline. Archaeologist Stephen Silliman, who works with the Eastern Pequot, believes that archaeologists and Native Americans have gotten along better in the last 10 to 15 years. He said the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act was “the catalyst” that prompted additional discussions between the two parties. He noted that the highly publicized legal battle between Native Americans and scientists over Kennewick Man can give the impression that the two parties are in constant conflict, but Kennewick Man is “a unique situation” that has little bearing on archaeologists who do not work on ancient human remains. Miranda Warburton, who preceded Two Bears as manager of the Navajo’s Flagstaff office, described the relationship as being only “marginally” better than it was in the past. Most archaeologists “don’t care what Natives have to say,” stated Warburton, who is not Native American. “It’s a real uphill struggle for the Natives to have a voice in the practice of archaeology.” —Michael Bawaya 37

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This fragment is from a 19th-century refined earthenware ceramic vessel. The design and color suggest that the piece is likely "mocha ware," a pottery style that was common from the early-to-mid 18th century.

and realize it’s nothing of archaeological significance, you throw it in the garbage. I mentioned that to Tribal Council, in an attempt to be as honest as I could about how the lab work would probably go. Their reaction was, ‘Do not throw that stuff away; we want it back.’ The land is a key element to them as a community,” he said. Silliman tried to keep the community as involved in the project as possible. For example, during the field school he sent the tribe weekly e-mail updates about the dig. He would like to arrange for tribal members to come to his lab at the university to observe the work that takes place there during the year. As the day ended, the students readied themselves for the long uphill hike back to their cars. Two Hawks and McCall reflected on the field school. “At first,” Two Hawks said, “I didn’t know what to expect.” McCall nodded. He wondered whether the students “would have a feeling for the land.” But he was surprised and pleased by the caring they showed. “They wouldn’t kill a bug, they wouldn’t cut a branch,” he said. “They’re just students. But in their hearts, they are dedicated to the land.” The respect that developed between the crew and the tribe has been remarkable. This summer, Two Hawks made each member of the crew a medicine bag, just like the one he wears around his own neck. “It’s a token of honor,” he explained. “A token of the bond that we’ve formed.”

tribe’s traditions and beliefs. Before the field school started, the students participated in a half-day orientation at the tribe’s longhouse that included a smudging ceremony, administered by Two Hawks, to purify them. When the crew finished excavating a unit, Two Hawks performed a special ritual. “I take a handful of tobacco, and I say a prayer, and I let it drop slowly [into the unit], until the prayer is done,” he said. “We’re making an offering back to the land, back to the Great Spirit and the Mother. We’re offering it to them, and hoping they accept our offering for ALISON STEIN WELLNER is an award-winning writer whose work has disturbing the land and their peace. I’m letting them know appeared in the Washington Post, Psychology Today, Sierra, and other that I love them, that we love them,” he said. publications. The Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation’s protocol meant that Silliman accommodated requests that he wasn’t used to. For example, “at the end of the day, the tribal council wants one of their key tribal members out there, like Two Hawks, to get a count of all the bags of artifacts, and to do this on a daily basis. That’s something that no one has ever asked me to do before,” Silliman noted. “I don’t take that as questioning my professionalism, or that they’re thinking that I’m dishonest and going to run off with something. I know that some tribal members were uncomfortable with the removal of cultural objects at first, and this accounting shows them that everything is okay.” He also agreed to return anything that he’s collected that’s not an artifact, such as a rock, or a piece of wood. Student Julie McNeil and Eastern Pequot intern Linda McCall map a 19th-century house. The large rocks “Normally, if you find that in the lab that surround them are the house’s collapsed chimney, which they subsequently excavated portions of. 38

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The Peculiar Phenomenon of Pseudoarchaeology WHAT IS THE APPEAL OF PSEUDOARCHAEOLOGY? WHAT PROBLEMS DOES ITS POPULARITY POSE? By Kenneth L. Feder

TIM BARKER

vast and splendid civilization is tragically destroyed more than 10 millennia ago in a natural cataclysm of imponderable proportions. Extraterrestrial aliens from a world inconceivably distant and different from our own, land on earth, share knowledge with our ancestors and, in so doing, instigate the evolution of the world’s first civilizations. Are these and other equally intriguing tales little more than fantasy, or might they reflect a secret and repressed ancient history of humanity, a past denied by stodgy archaeologists? To be sure, they are compelling and entertaining, filled with adventure, romance, tragedy, and triumph. They are, perhaps above all else, deliciously american archaeology

surprising; we didn’t learn any of this in history class. Maybe that’s why so many people believe them. These intriguing possibilities about the ancient world provide the raw material for stories far more interesting than the dreary research concerning projectile points and potsherds done by archaeologists. However, though they don’t lack for drama, these stories do lack for evidence. The attempt to support these notions with dubious or fake archaeological evidence is pseudoarchaeology. How pervasive is pseudoarchaeology today? The television listings give some indication. In any given week a viewer can likely find ostensible documentaries that, at the very least, sensationalize human antiquity. Atlantis, pharaoh’s 39

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There are claims that Atlantis has been found in several different locations. This is an artist’s interpretation of what Atlantis looks like. This illustration is based on a sonar image taken off the coast of Cuba.

curses, extraterrestrial visitors to earth in antiquity, pre-Norse visits to the New World by various groups, and astonishingly advanced technologies in very ancient times are the usual fare.

Intriguing Tales Consider the claim at the core of the recent popular book, 1421: The Year China Discovered the World by Gavin Menzies. Menzies proposes that 71 years before Columbus set sail, a fleet of more than 100 Chinese ships carrying 10,000 sailors circumnavigated the earth and explored, among other places, America. The problem with his argument, which is largely based on ambiguous old maps, is that there are no convincing early 15th-century artifacts found in firm archaeological contexts that offer proof of the early presence of Chinese explorers or colonists in America. Compare this to the analysis of a Norse presence in the New World 500 years before Columbus. Admittedly, many archaeologists were skeptical of finding the Vinland referred to in Norse sagas in the New World. That skepticism disappeared, however, with the discovery and excavation of the L’anse aux Meadows site on Newfoundland, in eastern Canada. The Norse artifacts recovered at the site included a ring-headed bronze pin, a soapstone spindle whorl, and typical house remains. These artifacts and charcoal radiocarbon dated to more than 1,000 years ago won over the skeptics. Though artifacts like the rune-inscribed Kensington Stone found in west-central Minnesota continue to generate heated debate, the archaeological evidence at L’anse 40

aux Meadows and the scatter of Norse artifacts found throughout the eastern Canadian Arctic have shown conclusively that the Vikings reached the New World. A precociously sophisticated lost civilization, far older than that of Egypt, Mesopotamia, or the Maya is another common theme of pseudoarchaeology. Atlantis is the bestknown example. The literary creation of the Greek philosopher Plato, Atlantis is portrayed by him as a powerful, sophisticated, wealthy, but evil empire. Plato created a warlike Atlantis as a plot device in one of his dialogues in order to test the mettle of a hypothetical, perfect society governed by the rules Plato laid out in his best known work, The Republic. U.S. congressman and prolific author Ignatius Donnelly revived the Atlantis myth in the late 19th century, asserting that Atlantis had been a real nation that had greatly affected all other ancient civilizations. Donnelly’s belief in Atlantis was rooted in his insistence that the archaeological achievements of ancient peoples on both sides of the Atlantic were so sophisticated and similar—with pyramids, arches, metallurgy, agricultural systems, and written languages—there must have been a common, highly advanced source. For Donnelly, that source was Atlantis. Donnelly recognized that archaeological evidence would be needed to support his Atlantean speculations. In fact, in the final paragraph of his book, Atlantis, The Antediluvian World, published in 1882, he suggests that in 100 years time, the great museums of the world might be filled spring • 2005

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There have been a number of claims that tablets crafted by prehistoric Native Americans were the works of various Old World cultures. The

CHARLES PUGH

Wilmington Tablet, shown here, was made by the Adena culture.

with archaeological artifacts and implements from Atlantis. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Atlantis was intended as a fiction and the lack of any archaeological evidence for its existence shows that it was nothing more. Swiss author Erich von Däniken purports that extraterrestrial visitors played a crucial role in human prehistory and history. He advanced this argument in a very popular book of pseudoarchaeology, Chariots of the Gods. I read Chariots of the Gods when I was an undergraduate student in the early 1970s. I remember being immediately struck by a peculiar pattern. Von Däniken provides dozens of examples of technological sophistication in the archaeological record of Asia, Africa, and the Americas that he felt were so beyond the capabilities of the indigenous people, they must have been inspired by contact with a higher power, i.e., extraterrestrials. Interestingly, von Däniken seemed reluctant to ascribe any archaeological evidence in Europe to extraterrestrial involvement; I counted only two such examples in the book for the entire European continent. His pseudoarchaeology seems based on the libel that ancient civilizations, especially those outside of Europe, could not have been developed by the people themselves, but must have been inspired by what amounts to an extraterrestrial Peace Corps. The attempt to deny a connection between American Indians and the more impressive elements of the archaeological record seen in the New World is common in pseudoarchaeology. For example, as European settlers spread across the American Midwest in the 18th and 19th centuries, they encountered the widespread remnants of substantial monuments of earth. Many of these were conical in shape, some just a few feet high, but others towered over the landscape. Within these conical mounds were found human burials, often accompanied by substantial assemblages of artistically impressive grave goods of clay, stone, copper, and mica. Other earthworks consisted of extensive walls enclosing round, square, or even octagonal plazas of up to 50 american archaeology

acres. Still other mounds had been built as enormous effigies, representing on a monumental scale animals like bears, birds, and even snakes. Larger still were earthen pyramids, truncated at the top as if to provide an elevated platform for a temple or palace. Who built the mounds and produced the artistic objects found within them? The obvious answer was the ancestors of the native people of America. Unfortunately, many Americans of European descent refused to believe that America’s aboriginal inhabitants possessed such capabilities. Consequently, it was thought that some other group was responsible. So was born the myth of a race of moundbuilders who had originated somewhere in the Old World. But scholars, including Thomas Jefferson, excavated the mounds and found no evidence to indicate that the Indians didn’t build them. In a project funded by the Smithsonian Institution, beginning in 1882, archaeologist Cyrus Thomas and his crew investigated 2,000 mounds in 21 states, collecting 40,000 artifacts. This archaeological evidence showed unequivocally that the moundbuilders had been Indians.

The Kensington Runestone was found in Minnesota. It tells the story of a Norse expedition that originated in Vinland in A.D. 1362. Most archaeologists doubt the runestone’s authenticity because no evidence of a Norse encampment was found with it, and because L’anse aux Meadow, the only proven pre-Columbian Norse settlement, was long abandoned by then.

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Serpent Mound is an effigy mound in the form of an enormous snake. It is an example of the remarkable prehistoric mound-building tradition of the Native Americans. European settlers thought that the Native Americans lacked the sophistication to construct these mounds, which led to the myth that they were the works of more advanced, Old World cultures. This myth still endures.

Nonetheless, the notion that Old World people could have made the artifacts within the mounds persisted. The 1860 discovery of the so-called Keystone in Newark, Ohio, immediately east of a series of substantial earthworks, is an example of this persistence. The Keystone looks a bit like a plumb bob with Hebrew writing on all four of its faces. The writing suggested it had been ancient Hebrews—the Wandering Jews of history—who had built at least some of the remarkable earthworks of North America. However, the Hebrew lettering was modern in appearance, an anachronism on an object that ostensibly dated to the period of Ohio mound construction some 2,000 years ago. Therefore many people recognized the Keystone as a hoax. The discovery five months later in Ohio of another anomalous artifact was highly suspicious as well. Called the Decalogue for its inscription of the Ten Commandments, this artifact bore a more appropriate, archaic version of the Hebrew language, dating to a time similar to that of mound construction. As Brad Lepper, a curator of archaeology at the Ohio Historical Society, points out, this “improvement” in the Decalogue probably resulted from its maker learning from the rather obvious inauthenticity of the Keystone. Despite an extensive program of mound excavations over the last 100 years, professional archaeologists have never found any genuine Hebrew—or any other—inscriptions in association with the mounds. The Keystone and Decalogue are viewed by most archaeologists, historians, and linguists as crude hoaxes. american archaeology

Why Worry About Pseudoarchaeology Do people actually believe pseudoarchaeology, or is it all just harmless entertainment? Data on the actual impact of pseudoarchaeology books and television programs is hard to come by. However, I have been polling students at my university for more than 20 years, (the number of students polled is roughly 2,000 to 2,500), surveying their responses to claims about Atlantis, extraterrestrials, psychic archaeology, and America’s exploration and settlement by ancient Celts, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Hebrews, and so on. The majority of the students neither strongly agrees nor disagrees with these claims. For example, when I last polled them in 2003, only about one percent strongly believed the ancient astronaut hypothesis and an additional five percent thought it could be true. That’s good news. However, I have also found that a disturbingly large fraction of my students—anywhere from one-third to one-half, depending on the claim—are fascinated by these claims but admit that they don’t know enough to accept or reject them. In 1983, I polled archaeologists who taught at universities concerning their views about the impacts of pseudoarchaeology. It was apparent at the time that, while many were concerned about the inability of students to skeptically assess extraordinary claims about the human past, few had the time or inclination to do much about it. Fortunately, this appears to have changed somewhat. For example, in the mid-1980s I first circulated the draft of a textbook that debunked pseudoarchaeological claims. Sixteen publishers turned down the proposal, primarily because they didn’t be43

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lieve that university archaeologists felt the need or had the time to discuss such things in class. That book, Frauds, Myths and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology, ultimately was published, as was another book responding to pseudoarchaeology, Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory, by Stephen Williams. It is gratifying to report that both of those books have become staples in courses on pseudoarchaeology offered by anthropology departments throughout the United States and Canada. That these textbooks have survived and even thrived (Frauds is currently going into its 5th edition) is clear evidence that plenty of teaching archaeologists recognize the challenge posed by pseudoarchaeology and devote some time to it in their introductory classes or even teach an entire course focusing on the issue. A highly significant difference between the 1980s and today is the existence of the Internet, a virtually limitless, open forum for ideas, scientific and otherwise. Certainly, the Web affords a soapbox for all manner of pseudoarchaeological claims. A Google search of the phrase “The Lost Continent of Atlantis,” for example, generates over 84,000 hits. A search of the phrase “Ancient Astronauts” produces more than 300,000. By comparison, a Google search of the phrase “debunking Atlantis” generates almost 6,000 hits, and a search under “debunking Ancient Astronauts” produces a little more than 4,300. The Web also allows archaeologists to get their message out and a handful of them have developed sites responding directly to claims of lost tribes, sunken continents, ancient astronauts, and the like. My personal favorite, in fact, is titled Fantastic Archaeology! Lost Tribes, Sunken Continents and Ancient Astronauts (http://www.uiowa.edu/~anthro/fantasti/cultindex.html), produced by Larry Zimmerman and Richard Fox. Ultimately, how troublesome is pseudoarchaeology? Consder that a low opinion of the capabilities of ancient peoples—or, at least some ancient peoples—seems to reside at its core. The archaeological record is filled with examples of spectacular architectural achievements, sophisticated technologies, wonderful artwork, and glimmerings of science. Much of pseudoarchaeology is based on the belief that indigenous peoples were incapable of produc44

(Top) The Keystone was found in association with a mound site in Newark, Ohio, in 1860. It bears a Hebrew inscription on each of its four faces, which some people claimed was proof of an ancient Jewish presence in Ohio. (Bottom) The Decalogue is a limestone tablet covered with Hebrew letters. Like the Keystone, it’s considered to be a forgery.

ing these things. Needless to say, this reluctance to give much of ancient humanity its due is troubling to scientists who have devoted their professional lives to illuminating the accomplishments of those people. Fascination with and acceptance of pseudoarchaeological claims also seems to be part of a broader inability on the part of the public to distinguish science from pseudoscience. The results from my most recent student polling is an indication of this. Fifty-three percent expressed strong or mild belief in psychic power, 25 percent in the claim that UFOs are alien spacecraft, and 18 percent in the efficacy of astrology. Garrett Fagan, a classical archaeologist at Penn State University, became so concerned about what he perceived to be an insufficient and unsystematic professional response to pseudoarchaeology that he organized a workshop on the subject at the 2003 annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America. It was extremely well-attended and even drew the interest of a publisher. Fagan, in fact, is now editing a book titled Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public, based on contributions to that workshop. The various articles in the book share a common perspective: it is important, but not sufficient, to be reactive to unsupported claims about the human past as they come up. Fagan believes that archaeologists also need to be proactive, promoting the discoveries of genuine archaeology to the public, and not just debunk the junk. Indeed, he has a point. Archaeologists cannot abandon the public forum to the pseudoarchaeologists. We need to show an interested public—one that supports archaeological research through the purchase of books, visits to museums and sites, and contributions to organizations working to preserve the past—that the true stories of antiquity, inspired by the hard evidence of archaeology, are every bit as intriguing, fascinating, and enthralling as the stories told by the pseudoarchaeologists.

KENNETH L. FEDER is a professor of anthropology at Central Connecticut State University. He is the author of several books including Frauds, Myths and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology. spring • 2005

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A Woodland Village Turned Frontier Town The Conservancy’s latest preserve in Michigan has had a number of important occupations. he Fosters site, located in Saginaw County, Michigan, is a great example of a Late Woodland Native American Village and a Euro-American frontier town. The area has a rich history and prehistory. Native American villages were found here from about A.D. 700 to 1100, and from approximately 1300 to 1400. Later, Euro-Americans moved to the area. The current owners, Ken and Nadine Smith, are the direct descendents of Gardner Foster, who founded the town in 1859. The Foster family started a general store, a pickle production operation, and a winery. Fosters soon became a busy frontier town with a hotel, blacksmith shop, and bar. Most of the Fosters site is now nothing more than a plowed field, but below the surface lie some of the richest intact archaeological remains in Michigan. Excavations at Fosters in the late 1960s and early 1970s revealed deposits buried at a depth of three or more feet. These included organic remains dating to the earliest occupations of the site. The site was primarily a stone tool workshop during its earliest occupations. The surface is littered with many tools and the debris from their production. Prehistoric ceramics also are found on the surface. Two distinct types have been found at Fosters suggesting two prehistoric occupations. Mackinac sherds represent the earlier Woodland culture, and shell-tempered sherds reflect the latter occupation. This pottery change is important to the archaeological record because it reflects a cultural change that took place in this part of Michigan before A.D. 1100. The Fosters site may also shed some light on the history of the Sauk and Fox nations. Around A.D. 1400 the Native American village at

AMY NICODEMUS

These stone tools were recovered from the Fosters site during excavations in late 1960s. The site was used as a lithic workshop and its surface is littered with worked stone.

Fosters was abandoned. The people living at Fosters then may have been the ancestors of the Fox and Sauk, though more research is needed to confirm this. The Fox and Sauk moved west to what is now the Green Bay, Wisconsin, area. Fosters may hold some of the answers as to why the Fox and Sauk left the area. The Fosters site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, and on the State Register of Historic Sites in 1974. The land has been in the Fosters family for 145 years, and the Smiths were worried that it would be developed for housing or destroyed by the next owners. The preserve consists of 10 acres near the Flint River and will ensure the survival of one of the last remaining sites in Saginaw County. —Joe Navarri

Conservancy Plan of Action SITE: Fosters CULTURE & TIME PERIOD: Late Woodland to Historic A.D. 700–1880s STATUS: The site is threatened by agriculture and residential development. ACQUISITION: The Conservancy is purchasing 10 acres for $23,000. HOW YOU CAN HELP: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Fosters Project, 5301 Central Ave. NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517.

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Hohokam Site Preserved Within Subdivision The Shamrock Estates preserve is a model for cultural resource management. ife in the Phoenix Basin has always been dependent upon, and limited by, water, with prehistoric settlements focused around the Salt and Gila rivers and their various tributaries and springs. Between A.D. 200 and 1450, the Hohokam culture flourished in the southern and central regions of what is today Arizona. They built platform mounds, ballcourts, and pithouse dwellings while using extensive canal irrigation to farm the Salt and Gila river valleys. As fieldwork continues in the Hohokam area, stimulated in large part by the construction of housing developments, researchers are getting a clearer picture of these highly resourceful, well-organized people. A Hohokam hamlet with as many as 30 pithouses discovered during the development of a 340-acre subdivision in Gilbert, east of Phoenix, was recently donated to the Conservancy for permanent preservation. Testing of the site determined that it was occupied during two periods in prehistory, from A.D. 800 to 850 during the late Gila Butte Phase, and from 1150 to 1200 during the Sacaton Phase of the Classic Period.

NORTHLAND RESEARCH

This hamlet-sized Hohokam site is similar to Shamrock Estates in its size and age. It’s located approximately three miles away from Shamrock.

Cooking hearths and outside activity areas were identified at the site, known as the Shamrock Estates Archaeological Preserve. Based on what’s known about typical Hohokam settlements, it’s thought that additional domestic features are likely to exist in association with the pithouses, including cooking and storage pits, as well as trash mounds. The site’s architectural features and associated artifacts suggest that it was seasonally occupied for the collection and initial processing of wild plants and other resources. The developer, Taylor Woodrow Arizona Inc., donated the land to the Conservancy. This winter, Conservancy staff placed a layer of geotextile material and 10 inches of soil over the site, which will be leased back to Taylor Woodrow to be used as open space within a planned community park for the subdivision. A long-term management plan was also created for the preserve. Once

the community is built, the Conservancy plans to make annual presentations to the homeowner’s association regarding the site’s significance and the importance of cultural resource preservation. “The Conservancy sees this effort as an important experiment in cultural resource management designed to integrate archaeological preserves into modern neighborhoods,” said James Walker, the Conservancy’s Southwest regional director. “We hope that the Shamrock Estates Archaeological Preserve will be used as a model by other developers seeking creative solutions to the presence of cultural resources within proposed developments.” A similar preservation project was completed in 2003, whereby a large Hohokam community was preserved as an open space park within the Cortero Ranch Subdivision in the Town of Marana, northwest of Tucson. —Tamara Stewart spring • 2005

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N E W P O I N T- 2

The Conservancy Acquires A Plaquemine Culture Site Bayou Portage Guidry is an important prehistoric mound site. ho are the Plaquemine people? That is the question archaeologist Mark Rees of University of Louisiana at Lafayette intends to answer. Three years ago, Rees initiated the Plaquemine Mounds Archaeological Project (PMAP) to identify Plaquemine culture sites in southcentral Louisiana and to learn more about these poorly understood lateprehistoric people. Much more is known about the Plaquemine’s Mississippian and Caddoan neighbors. The Plaquemine were moundbuilders who flourished in the Lower Mississippi River Valley from about A.D. 1200 to 1700. They were probably the ancestors of the historic Natchez, Tensas, and Chitimacha Tribes. The Plaquemine culture appears to have arisen from the earlier Hopewellian-influenced Coles Creek culture that dominated the region from about A.D. 700 to 1200. The Plaquemine constructed monumental earthworks and farmed maize and other crops. But unlike the Mississippians, who often concentrated their population in fortified towns, the Plaquemine usually lived in isolated farmsteads and hamlets that were oriented around ceremonial mound centers. Based on historical accounts of the Natchez, researchers believe that the Plaquemine mound centers were occupied by the chief and a few other elites who were usually members of the chief ’s family. For special celebrations and rituals, the general population would also gather at the mound center for short durations before returning home. Like the Natchez, it is believed that the Plaquemine were sun worshipers. Sixty percent of the known Coles

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MARK REES

american archaeology

This map of the site shows the four large mounds, A, B, C, and D, that surround the central plaza.

Creek and Plaquemine sites in PMAP’s research area are heavily damaged or destroyed, and more sites are being lost every year. Thus, when Rees brought Bayou Portage Guidry to its attention, the Conservancy began negotiations with the landowners, the Broussard family, to acquire the site. Located near the town of Breaux Bridge, Bayou Portage Guidry is the largest mound center located in PMAP’s research area. This wellpreserved, 13-acre site consists of mounds, middens, borrow pits, and habitation areas. Four large mounds, linked by causeways, surround a central plaza. Two smaller house mounds stand just beyond the central plaza area, and a seventh mound, discovered in thick woods when the Conservancy had the property surveyed, lies a few hundred yards away. The site was strategically located along a waterway of the same name that connects the Atchafalaya

River and Bayou Teche. Radiocarbon dates obtained from the site indicate that mound construction and habitation occurred around A.D. 1200 to 1350. The research on the site is ongoing. “Portage Guidry is clearly one of the most important late prehistoric mound sites in south-central Louisiana,” stated Rees. “Strong associations with Coles Creek ceramic assemblages and similarities with other well-known sites make Portage Guidry a critical place for examining Plaquemine development. Its affiliation with the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana presents an unusual opportunity for understanding late prehistoric-protohistoric culture history. Portage Guidry’s acquisition by the Conservancy is a noteworthy and commendable accomplishment.” The Conservancy would also like to thank the Broussard Family for working with us during the three years it took to complete the acquisition. —Alan Gruber 47

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N E W P O I N T- 2

In Pursuit of the First Moundbuilders a cq u i s i t i o n

The Conservancy preserves Louisiana’s Caney Mounds site.

ow old are the first Indian mounds constructed in America? For years, most archaeologists agreed that the Late Archaic period Poverty Point culture in Louisiana (c. 1800–500 B.C.) constructed the earliest major earthworks in North America. Archaeologists thought that the older cultures lacked the social complexity, technology, and sedentary lifestyle required to construct monumental earthworks. However, recent research on sites in Louisiana such as Banana Bayou, Hedgepeth Mounds, Frenchman’s Bend, and Watson Brake by archaeologists like Joe Saunders and others changed the old notions by the mid-1990s. Numerous radiocarbon dates from these sites, combined with diagnostic artifacts and soil dating processes like pedogenesis, showed that mound construction began at least 2,000 years earlier than was previously thought, thus placing the earliest mounds into the pre-ceramic Middle Archaic Period. (c. 3500–3000 B.C.) Archaeologists have now begun to re-examine a number of sites around the Southeast to determine if mound construction at those sites also began in the Middle Archaic period. Their work has led to some remarkable new discoveries. Among the most significant of these discoveries is Saunders’ recent work at the Caney Mounds in Louisiana. The Caney Mounds site is a 78acre, six-mound complex located in eastern Louisiana that was first recorded by James Ford of Harvard University in 1933. Ford was followed 48

ALAN GRUBER

Radiocarbon dating indicates that the Caney Mounds are more than 5,000 years old. They are among the earliest major earthworks in North America.

by a variety of professional and avocational archaeologists who performed a number of surface collections over several decades indicating that every major period of human occupation in Louisiana, from PaleoIndian through historic period, were represented at the site. In 1970, noted Louisiana archaeologists Clarence Webb and Jon Gibson mapped Caney and excavated portions of the site. Along with producing the first map of the site, they uncovered significant occupations from the Poverty Point and Marksville (a local derivative of Hopewellian Culture, c. 200 B.C.– A.D. 400) phases. Based on their findings, Gibson and Webb reasonably concluded that the mounds at Caney must be

Poverty Point period in origin. In fact, the site was the largest Poverty Point culture site and the largest mound complex in the region. For these reasons alone, Caney was considered highly significant. As early as the 1970s, Webb and Gibson called for the site’s preservation and urged the landowner to refrain from farming the site. The owners agreed, and the site remained intact until 1998, when new owners permitted an irrigation pivot to be erected on the site and cultivation to creep onto the lower portions of the mounds. In 2000, after completing his groundbreaking work at Watson Brake, Saunders turned his attention to other mound groups in Louisiana that he thought could contain Midspring • 2005

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N E W P O I N T- 2

a cq u i s i t i o n dle Archaic mounds. Gibson and Webb’s map of the Caney Mounds soon caught his attention. Caney and Watson Brake sites are of similar size and both contain an arc of mounds that follow a Pleistocene escarpment. The Caney complex contains an arc of five mounds that follow the escarpment, plus a sixth mound located to the west across a broad open plaza. Like Watson Brake and Frenchman’s Bend, Caney was located along the same ancient channel of the Arkansas River. Saunders cored the mounds at Caney to determine if they had Middle Archaic period origins. His coring produced materials that yielded two radiocarbon dates with a calibrated range of 3540–3360 B.C. and 3630–3370 B.C., perhaps indicating that Caney is the oldest mound complex known. Researchers of the Archaic period, such as Brigham Young’s John Clark and the University of Florida’s Ken Sassaman, have asserted that Caney is the benchmark site for the Middle Archaic, and that its design is possibly the prototype for all other mound sites of the era. But Saunders disagrees. “It’s true that Caney has a number of similarities

with Watson Brake and other sites,” he explained. “But, with only two radiocarbon dates, I would have to say that I think that Caney is more likely contemporaneous with other sites like Watson Brake.” Beginning in 1997, the Conservancy tried unsuccessfully to acquire the Caney Mounds. The property changed hands twice during that time. Finally, thanks to POINT Program funds and willing sellers, the Conservancy purchased the site late last year. “The remarkable thing about Caney that is different from the other pure Middle Archaic sites,” said Saunders, “is that Caney is a multi-component site. It was reoccupied by various later cultures. Though coring and pedogenesis indicate that at least some of the mounds were constructed in the Middle Archaic period, I think it’s likely that later cultures augmented the mounds and possibly constructed a couple others themselves.” More work needs to be done to determine when each mound was constructed. “It will be a great site for comparative study for Middle Archaic, Poverty Point, and Marksville Periods.” —Alan Gruber

POINT Acquisitions

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

Caney Mounds

Bayou Portage Guidry 49

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CONSERVANCY

Field Notes SOUTHWEST—Last July, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, archaeologists Barbara Roth, Robert Hickson, Jodi Dalton, and their crew conducted a magnetometer survey and excavated a couple of pithouses and one extramural hearth at La Gila Encantada, a Three Circle-phase pithouse village near Silver City, New Mexico. The magnetometer study identified a cluster of structures at the north and south ends of the site and a large depression in the middle, a layout found at other sites along the nearby Mimbres River. The pithouses were large, deep, and well constructed, with plastered hearths and floors, and large central posts. This type of construction indicates a sedentary occupation. However, a large internal storage pit, the kind indicative of seasonal rather than year-round occupation of the site, was located inside one of the features. Artifacts recovered from the site also indicated that groups might have been living there during the winter, rather than year-round. Numerous plant-processing tools like choppers were recovered from the site, as were a few manos and metates. The remainder of the tools consisted of well-made projectile points of obsidian and chert and unifaces made from rhyolite. The ceramics include decorated and brown ware similar in style and form to those found at other Three Circle sites. 50

JAKE HICKERSON

La Gila Encantada Research Continues

Researchers work at La Gila Encantada. They excavated a few large, well-constructed pithouses with plastered hearths and floors. The recovered artifacts include projectile points and plant-processing tools.

The biggest difference between La Gila Encantada and the sites along the Mimbres River appears to be that groups at La Gila Encantada did not live at the site permanently, but instead moved around more than was previously thought. More research is planned for next summer to address more questions about habitation patterns and trade relationships between upland and riverside communities.

Conservancy Adds to Old Fort Earthworks Preserve MIDWEST—In November 2004 the Conservancy made an emergency

POINT acquisition of a small parcel of land on the eastern wall of the Old Fort Earthworks in South Shore, Kentucky, across the river from Portsmouth, Ohio. The Portsmouth area, at the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio rivers, was a center of ceremonial activity during the Hopewell period, circa 100 B.C. to A.D. 400. A complicated and sprawling complex of earthworks and mounds, documented as early as the 1790s, was located here. Squier and Davis mapped the Portsmouth complex during their seminal study of prehistoric earthworks in the 1840s, and the University of Kentucky conducted a small excavation there in

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1939. The Old Fort Earthworks survives today as four earthen walls about eight feet high enclosing an area of about 13 acres. Two additional walls extend at right angles from the western wall forming a causeway. The complementary causeway on the eastern side is no longer visible. Residential sprawl has been a persistent threat to the earthworks. The eastern and southern walls were divided into lots beginning in the 1960s, and today they are mostly overlain with a collection of modest houses and aging trailers. The Conservancy learned that a lot with a mobile

home was going to be sold to a neighbor. The neighbor intended to build a swimming pool on the lot that would destroy significant archaeological deposits. The Conservancy immediately began negotiations with the lot owner, and took title to the lot and a 20-year-old mobile home. The mobile home will be sold and removed and the lot will be stabilized with a ground cover. This acquisition is the fourth of about 16 parcels the Conservancy hopes to acquire to finalize the Old Fort Earthworks Archaeological Preserve.

Fieldwork Opportunities Q Ranch Archaeology Field Project May 12 – July 31 near Young, Arizona. The Q Ranch Pueblo is a 250-room, 3-story pueblo dating from A.D. 1265 to 1380. A smaller pueblo of approximately 60 rooms and other prehistoric and historic sites are situated within the study area. Q Ranch represents one of the largest and most important prehistoric sites in the region. The Arizona Archaeological Society has been conducting fieldwork at the site since 1989. The 2005 season will focus on completion, backfilling, and stabilization of incomplete excavations in Pueblo I, and the continuation of a detailed architectural study of the entire Pueblo I complex. Excavations will continue at Pueblo II, in order to understand the relationship between the two pueblo units. Historical archaeological projects to be conducted this year include establishing the location of the original ranch-house, and documenting the structural changes and growth of the historic ranch. Contact Brenda Poulos at (623) 465-9038, brendapoulos@yahoo.com Investigating Late Prehistoric Farmers in the lower Upper Ohio River Valley May 17 – June 17, Pennsylvania. The California University of Pennsylvania field school will be held at the Hughes H. Jones site, a prehistoric habitation site dated to the 12th and early 13th centuries A.D. On the basis of nine field seasons, substantial settlement and subsistence data in the form of dwelling outlines, over 100 pit features, and extensive faunal and floral remains have been obtained. Students in this year’s final field school will continue delineation of the settlement plan, which resembles that of the preceding Late Woodland Period pattern of

american archaeology

scattered sets of households, each having its own set of features and burials. The excavations will afford archaeologists the opportunity to study the changes in the social and economic strategies and tactics surrounding the transition to a diet emphasizing a greater reliance on maize and other cultigens. Contact John P. Nass, Jr. at (724) 938-5726, nass@cup.edu Virginia Commonwealth University-Shirley Plantation Archaeological Field School May 23 – June 24, Virginia. This summer’s excavations are part of long-term archaeological research at Shirley Plantation and Virginia Commonwealth University’s Rice Center. The research at these two adjacent properties seeks to identify and comment upon the role of the James River in the development of historic settlements from 1607 until the time of the Civil War, seeking responses to a range of issues, including: the spread of European settlements and goods up the James River from Jamestown to the fall line; the effect of the movement of Europeans, and their goods and ideas, on James River Indian populations; land use histories and settlements patterns of historic James River properties; architectural, landscape, and style characteristics of James River settlements; and the role of the James in Civil War military and domestic strategy. Contact Amber Bennett at (804) 827-1111, abennett@vcu.edu

Late Archaic Bison Kill at the Certain Site June 1 – June 30, western Oklahoma. Excavation continues at the 2,000- year-old Certain bison kill site. The goal is to further probe the many kill and processing areas as well as expand into a possible cliff jump locality. Students will learn bonebed excavation techniques, soils and stratigraphy, and Paleo-Indian archaeology. Field trips to nearby archaeological sites will provide comparative information for discussions. The site is on a beautiful western Oklahoma dude ranch with horseback riding and all the fun of the Old West. Contact Leland Bement at (405) 325-7215 or (405) 325-7604, Lbement@ou.edu Guinea Community Archaeological Project July 5 – July 29, New York. Guinea was home to African Americans who worked for the elite “river families” along the Hudson River, one mile away. Guinea’s inhabitants had small farms along a nearby mill stream. The fifth season at Guinea will continue excavation of the home and yard of Primus and Elizabeth Martin, who were the leaders of this community. Students will learn basic excavation techniques and artifact identification. We will hold a workshop on interpretation of animal bone and teeth. Landscape use is a key issue. Contact Christopher Lindner at (845) 7587299 or (845) 758-7628, lindner@bard.edu

To learn more about field schools and volunteer opportunities, you can view postings on the Web at www.archaeological.org by clicking on the “fieldwork” link. You can also order the Archaeological Institute of America’s Archaeological Fieldwork Opportunities Bulletin by calling (800) 791-9354.

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Reviews Hopi Oral Tradition and the Archaeology of Identity By Wesley Bernardini (University of Arizona Press, 2005; 256 pgs., ills., $45 cloth; www.uapress.arizona.edu)

The 14th century A.D. was perhaps the most dynamic of any for the Puebloan people of the American Southwest. In 1300, the Four Corners area had been abandoned and Puebloan people lived in at least 16 separate locales west of the Rio Grande Valley. One hundred years later they had coalesced into only three—the same three that remain today—Hopi, Zuni, and Acoma pueblos. Through a century of unprecedented population movement these prehistoric groups evolved into the tribes of today. Archaeologist Wesley Bernardini turns to Hopi oral tradition to help trace the movements of these people, and traditional archaeological techniques to confirm site locales. Hopi history is really a history of each of its clans that traces movements from village to village until arriving at the Hopi Mesas in northeastern Arizona. Archaeologists are turning more and more to native traditional knowledge to assist their research. In this volume Bernardini demonstrates how many sources of information can come together to give us a much clearer picture of what happened many centuries ago.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed By Jared Diamond (Viking, 2005; 575 pgs., illus., $30 cloth; www.penguin.com)

The rise and fall of cultures and civilizations is a central theme of archaeology throughout the world. Collapse is the sequel to Jared Diamond’s best-selling and Pulitzer Prizewinning Guns, Germs, and Steel, which tackled the difficult question of how and why some cultures developed faster than others. More specifically it tries to explain why European civilization developed technologies and immunities and allowed them to dominate the world in the 19th and 20th centuries. A professor of geography at UCLA, Diamond draws heavily on archaeological research to tackle the corollary question of why some cultures fail, but others do not. Taken together the two books examine some of the most fundamental questions of human development in ways that are both original and challenging. Diamond is primarily an environmental determinist who looks closely at the most fundamental elements of human existence—food and fuel. This work is limited to those collapses with a significant environmental dynamic, though he freely admits that factors other than the environment can lead to collapse, as in the case of the Soviet Union. In Collapse, as in Guns, Diamond examines case studies to draw universal conclusions, and two of his case studies are of particular interest to American archaeologists: the Maya and Chaco Canyon. Easter Island and Greenland are closely related. Diamond narrows the cause of cultural collapse to five reasons— environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, friendly trading partners, and society’s response to environmental problems. More than one of these central causes is often a factor, and collapse can come very quickly—even near the peak of development. Diamond finds that each society’s political, social, and economic institutions determine what response, if any, is made to these problems. It would be easy to criticize this study as simplistic, but that would be unfair. In both Collapse and Guns Diamond challenges the reader to examine fundamental questions of human development that lead to fundamental truths that may be general, but make the point nonetheless. spring • 2005

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The Ohio Hopewell Episode: Paradigm Lost, Paradigm Gained By A. Martin Byers (University of Akron Press, 2004; 674 pgs., illus., $60 cloth; www.uakron.edu/uapress)

When Europeans first entered the Ohio Valley, they discovered numerous large earthen structures—mounds (often containing burials), timber constructions that were ritually destroyed and covered with earth, and embankment earthworks usually in geometric shapes. For the next 200 years these earthworks mystified and challenged archaeologists, who are still unsure of their function and meaning. Much studied in the 19th and early 20th centuries, serious research diminished after 1930. Only since the 1970s has a new generation of archaeologists tackled the perplexing questions of the Ohio Hopewell. The culture is named after Captain M. C. Hopewell, whose farm contained the largest and richest of the earthwork complexes. It was purchased and preserved by The Archaeological Conservancy in 1980 and is now part of Hopewell Culture National Historical Park near Chillicothe, Ohio. A. Martin Byers, an archaeologist at McGill University, has produced the first book-length study of the Ohio Hopewell in a generation, focusing on the mounds and earthworks that are the central features of the culture. Byers’s thorough analysis of the earthworks leads him to embrace the theory that they were part of a world renewal ritual known as the Sacred Earth principle. Geometric shapes were the unique expression of the Ohio Hopewell. Their elaborate mortuary practices were a form of sacrificial renewal of the cosmos. Byers’s views are original and controversial, but they are well documented and convincingly argued. This volume is certain to stimulate more interest and more research on one of North America’s most fascinating ancient cultures. It is long overdue. —Mark Michel american archaeology

Reviews Touring Gotham’s Archaeological Past: 8 Self-Guided Walking Tours through New York City By Diana diZerega Wall and Anne-Marie Cantwell (Yale University Press, 2004; 200 pgs., illus. $18 paper; www.yalebooks.com)

Humans have lived in America’s biggest city for at least 11,000 years—Native Americans, Dutch settlers, African slaves, and people from most every country in the world. They all left their mark on the city in the form of a rich archaeological record. Fresh from the success of their earlier book, Unearthing Gotham, archaeologists Diana Wall and Anne-Marie Cantwell decided to share this rich legacy with the world. The eight walking tours fit nicely into a pocket guide that will take you to a side of the Big Apple seen by only a lucky few. You will learn of 1,000-year-old trading routes, sacred burial grounds, and 17thcentury villages. From Wall Street to the Statue of Liberty, Queens, and Brooklyn, you will learn about the lives of colonial farmers and merchants, Revolutionary War soldiers, and 19th-century hotelkeepers. The guide takes us to 87 archaeological sites throughout the city. Each of the eight walking tours covers a different part of the city with different archaeological themes. The authors say they had lots of fun putting this book together. People who use it will have a lot of fun, too, while discovering New York’s rich archaeological past.

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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

Effigy Mounds of the Upper Mississippi Valley CONICALS, PLATFORMS, A N D W AT E R PA N T H E R S When: June 9–13, 2005 Where: Wisconsin and Iowa How much: $799

Thirty-one of the 195 mounds in Effigy Mounds National Monument are effigies. These mounds are known as the Marching Bear Group.

In what is now Wisconsin, prehistoric Native Americans constructed about 20,000 earthen mounds, more than in any other area of comparable size. We’ll visit the best surviving examples of these fascinating constructions with an emphasis on the sites of the Effigy Mound Culture, the characteristic moundbuilder culture of the upper Midwest. Some of the sites we’ll visit include Lizard Mound Park, Nitschke Mound Park, and the Panther Intaglio. The tour will begin and end in Milwaukee.

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

($175 single supplement)

UPCOMING TOURS

Ohio Moundbuilders When: October 21–25, 2005 How much: $895 ($175 single supplement)

SQUIER AND DAVIS

Hundreds of years ago in what is now part of southern Ohio, a complex culture of moundbuilders flourished. The Hopewell and Adena cultures, which dominated the eastern United States from 800 B.C. to A.D. 400, left behind extensive mounds, some towering more than 50 feet high. Visit some of the most awe-inspiring mounds of the Hopewell and Adena. Serpent Mound is one of the tour’s remarkable attractions.

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Chaco Canyon in Depth When: September 17–25, 2005 How much: $1,695 per person

($230 single supplement)

TAC

Explore the vast cultural system of Chaco Canyon and the extensive network of outlying communities that developed in northwestern New Mexico and southwestern Colorado from A.D. 800 to 1140. We’ll visit spectacular great houses in Chaco Canyon and hike to some of the most impressive remote sites in the canyon. Chaco Canyon boasts some of the most impressive ruins in the Southwest.

Cliff Dwellers When:

October 5–15, 2005 How much:

$2,095 per person ($390 single sup.)

MARK MICHEL

They rank among the most amazing archaeological sites anywhere: walls and windows, towers and kivas, all tucked neatly into sandstone cliffs. Visit some of the most famous of the Four Corners region’s cliff dwellings, as well as modern-day pueblos and several Conservancy preserves. Cliff Palace is one of Mesa Verde National Park’s most spectacular attractions.

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Patrons of Preservation The Archaeological Conservancy would like to thank the following individuals, foundations, and corporations for their generous support during the period of November 2004 through January 2005. Their generosity, along with the generosity of the Conservancy’s other members, makes our work possible. Life Member Gifts of $1,000 or more Anonymous Paula Atkeson, Washington D.C. Elizabeth W. Ayer, New Mexico Susan J. Bauer, Georgia Olive N. Brewster, Texas Wesley Cowan, Ohio Dr. and Mrs. Arthur Cushman, Tennessee Hester A. Davis, Arkansas Michael and Margaret Feuer, California Bernice Glozek, Nevada Mr. and Mrs. Jim Gunnerson, Nebraska Robert S. Hagge Jr., Wisconsin Coburn Haskell, Ohio Nancy L. Holt, New Mexico Mrs. John L. Kee Jr., Texas Rudolf Keller, Pennsylvania James I. McAuliff, California Rick Minor, Oregon Frances H. Minton, Utah Robert P. and Willow Powers, New Mexico Lanny M. Proffer, Colorado Susan Mayer Reaves, Florida Thomas W. Richards, Virginia Carol A. Robertson, California Harlan Scott, Delaware James Sprowls, Arizona Kathleen Tweed, California Jon T. Walton Jr., Michigan Patricia Widder, Arizona Malcolm Hewitt Wiener, Connecticut Robert Willasch, Maryland

Anasazi Circle Gifts of $2,000 or more Anonymous (2) Ethan Alyea Jr., Indiana Nina Bonnie, Kentucky Barbara and Nance Creager, Texas Janet Creighton, Washington Jerry and Janet EtsHokin, Arizona Arthur and Mary Faul, Arizona David W. Gibson, Missouri Jim Heckenbach, California Yvonne Johnson, Arizona David B. Jones, Minnesota Steven and Judy Kazan, California Nelson Kempsky, California Jay Last, California Roland and Martha Mace, New Mexico Mark D. Menefee and Stephanie K. Wade, Maryland J.C. Morris, Virginia Dorinda Oliver, New York Robert A. Robinson, California June Stack, Pennsylvania Barbara Ann Watkins, Nevada Karl and Nancy Watler, Colorado Gordon and Judy Wilson, New Mexico Carol Wilson-Tocher, Oregon Foundation/Corporate Gifts of $1,000–$4,999 The Phase Foundation, Maryland Foundation/Corporate Gifts of $5,000–$9,999 Philip R. Jonsson Foundation, Texas Texas Historical Commission, Texas Foundation/Corporate Gifts of $10,000–$24,999 Laurel Foundation, Pennsylvania

The Advantages of Annuities Tax time is approaching and many people are wondering if there are ways to reduce their tax liability while increasing their charitable contributions. One option that many Conservancy members have used is a gift annuity. This unique program allows the Conservancy to pay the donor a certain specified annuity for life in exchange for a gift of money or securities. The annuity payment remains stable, and it’s guaranteed for as long as you live. Capital gains taxes can be minimized if you use highly appreciated assets to fund your gift. You will also be entitled to a substantial income tax charitable deduction in the year you make the gift. Each gift annuity is flexible and suits your specific needs. For example, you have the option of naming a beneficiary to receive the annuity. You also have the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve helped preserve archaeological sites across the nation.

TO MAKE A DONATION OR BECOME A MEMBER CONTACT:

The Archaeological Conservancy 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902 Albuquerque, NM 87108 (505) 266-1540 www.americanarchaeology.org spring • 2005

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BOOKS

CHAUVET CAVE The Art of Earliest Times Jean Clottes

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

Stunning photographs of rock art from the oldestknown 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 ART OF THE SHAMAN Rock Art of California David S. Whitley “In the masterful Art of the Shaman, a book as pleasing to look at as it is to read, David S. Whitley, an archaeologist who has written extensively on prehistoric art and religion brings together ethnographical analysis, art interpretation, and findings from the esoteric field of neuropsychology to shed new light on this mystery.” —American Archaeology

The University of Utah Press

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128 color photographs Cloth $45.00

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NEW AND NOTEWORTHY FROM CAMBRIDGE The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople

Ancient Maya

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The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization

African Archaeology Third Edition Edition

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Case Studies in Early Societies 3

$90.00*: Hardback: 0-521-83236-5: c.398 pp. $39.99: Paperback: 0-521-54002-X

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Raymond Corbey $65.00*: Hardback: 0-521-83683-2: c.220 pp. $23.99: Paperback: 0-521-54533-1

Now in paperback…

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers Richard B. Lee and Richard Daly, Editors $34.99*: Paperback: 0-521-60919-4: c.531 pp.

The Parthenon and its Sculptures Michael B. Cosmopoulos, Editor $75.00: Hardback: 0-521-83673-5: 232 pp.

Studies in Ancient Greek and Roman Society Robin Osborne, Editor Past and Present Publications $80.00: Hardback: 0-521-83769-3: 402 pp.

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The Art of Greece and Rome Second Edition

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MAKE

YOUR MARK IN TIME.

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

PLACE STOCK IN CONSERVANCY.

THE

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

GIVE

A CHARITABLE

GIFT ANNUITY.

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

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

LAMB SPRING COLORADO Conservancy Preserve since 1995

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

Bequests

Charitable gift annuities

Name:

The Archaeological Conser vancy Attn: Planned Giving 5301 Central Avenue NE Suite 902 Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517 Or call:

Street Address: City: Phone: (

Whatever kind of gift you give, you can be sure we’ll use it to preserve places like Lamb Spring and our other 295 sites across the United States.

State: )

Zip:

(505) 266-1540

American Archaeology Magazine | Spring 2005 | Vol. 9 No. 1

Articles inside

Expeditions

Reviews

Field Notes

new acquisition

point acquisition

new acquisition

THE PECULIAR PHENOMENON OF PSEUDOARCHAEOLOGY

WORKING TOGETHER

Letters

COLONIZING WESTERN FLORIDA

Lay of the Land

DEMYSTIFYING THE MAYA

NEW REVELATIONS AT MOUNDVILLE

Events