The Saga of Burrows Cave Compiled by Glen W
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The Saga of Burrows Cave Compiled by Glen W. Chapman- August 2001 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION By James P. Scherz Col. Russell E. Burrows Emerging from Burrows' Cave "We can ask why the Burrows Cave Rock Art Pieces, are not in public museums or written about by prominent scholars in our institutes of public learning. The answer is that these pieces, like thousands of similar inscribed rocks, have been rejected as modem fakes by some important authorities in archaeology without analysis or proof of forgery. Such data, if authentic, contradict the currently held belief of what happened on the soil of the New World in the distant past. And such offensive basic data tends to be rejected without analysis in preference to popularly held beliefs on such subjects. Only a very brave American scholar in archaeology who might want to give the Burrows Cave pieces a fair investigation would dare to do so. His or her overwhelming peer pressure would be that such things cannot be found in the New World. When honest inquiry does eventually occur, such investigators should be acclaimed for their bravery and dedication to the scientific method. But in the early part of the Burrows Cave story, real investigation and analysis has been completely up to other people trained in the hard sciences where truth is defined by a fair analysis of the basic data, and not by previous beliefs of the so-called experts in such things. "(America's Pre- Columbian Monroe Doctrine by James P. Scherz ) Russell E. Burrows (also Col. Burrows) discovered "Burrows' Cave" in 1982, and shortly thereafter retrieved several thousand rock art pieces from it. These curious pieces of carved and polished white and black marble and slate have created considerable excitement, skepticism, and heated controversy in certain circles, after Burrows tried to establish liaison with appropriate authorities and experts he thought would be interested in studying and preserving the pieces and the cave itself, where he says more such pieces remain. 1.Opposing Belief Systems On one hand, some people (representing positions of established authority who could have preserved the rock art pieces that Burrows brought forth) have ignored them, rejected them and even accused Burrows of faking the work. On the other hand, another group (consisting of interested amateurs who have handled and pondered the pieces) has gone to great lengths in creating stories of fiction and fantasy about how the pieces came to be in Burrows Cave. Included in this later group was Jack Ward, then operator of a local museum in Vincennes, Ind., to whom Burrows loaned about 2000 rock art pieces for display and study. Jack Ward, years before, during his career in highway construction in Illinois and Indiana, had come into contact with other rocks in the region, which he said had man-made modifications on them. He had even written a book (largely historical fiction) relating to what he said were Old World-type artifacts collected from fields in Illinois and Indiana. (This was before he became involved with Burrows Cave.) His book Ancient Archives Among the Cornstalks contains about 1/3 facts and description of marked rocks, but is mostly historical fiction based on an ancient hero who Jack said married a prostitute in a Mediterranean city and came to this country. Taken as a historical novel, the book can be interesting reading, provided that one keeps in mind that Jack made up the story. But as Jack advanced in age, the newly-discovered pieces from Burrows Cave seemed to convince him of the truth of his own novel. He preached his story with evangelical vigor as if trying to gain converts to his new story about ancient peoples who came to America from the lands of and in the days of the Old Testament. Chief Raz, he said, had formed a group called "The Flying Dove United Company" to move copper between the New World and the Old. Jack loved to elaborate on his hero Raz and his descendants, who Jack said lived in America in the vicinity of Vincennes, Indiana. The new scriptures for his story were the marks on the rocks from the Burrows Cave, which Jack said he had learned how to decipher. Between 1982 (when Burrows discovered the cave and delivered many hundreds of the rocks to Jack Ward) and 1991, it appears that neither Ward nor those working with him made any sort of an adequate catalog of the art pieces Burrows had loaned to the local museum. But during this time there appeared numerous articles about the pieces in certain amateur journals such as that of the Epigraphic Society. Many of these articles have been attacks on the pieces as being fakes (and therefore indirect attacks on Russell Burrows). The content of the attacks has been largely based on the fact that the art work and script found on the rocks vary from styles that American epigraphers (studends of ancient inscriptions) have seen on rocks from other parts of the New World. Even Dr. Barry Fell (a pioneer in bringing to light ancient Western Old World-type scripts found along the eastern parts of the Americas) has said that the Burrows Cave rocks are fabrications. Reportedly, Barry Fell's statements were made without examining the rocks themselves. It appears that his stand was taken based on sketches, non-scaled photographs of the pieces, and opinions of his colleagues. Many of the rock pieces from Burrows Cave clearly have on them marks that must be classified as some sort of script or ancient writing. It also seems that the epigraphy (ancient script) on these rock pieces does not correlate with that which American epigraphers have found in the New World, mostly along the eastern part of North America. The types of script that Dr. Fell and his colleagues have been working with correlate to that on ancient pieces found in Western Europe and Africa; the marks on the Burrows Cave pieces do not correlate so nicely. It appears to me that by merely using sketches or photos of the pieces from Burrows Cave, some people have concluded that the script is not like that found on ancient artifacts in Western Europe and Africa and therefore must be faked. If this is really the reason they have taken their stand against the Burrows Cave art pieces, then they have used the following logic to form their opinions: the rocks can not be real because they do not contain the type of ancient Western writing that should be on them if they were real. The same sort of logic was used by those who have attacked Barry Fell's work about possible pre- Columbian contacts from western Europe and Africa to America. For example, conventional experts have said that the Ogam-type writing that Dr. Fell and others have reported finding in America is an Irish writing system and cannot be found in the New World. In their logic system, it follows that Fell's work on Ogam and other Western Old World scripts in America are fabrications. It seems to me that some the Burrows Cave material has been attacked by use of the same type of logic. The art and script on the rocks from Burrows Cave is not like that found on pieces that researchers are familiar with from western Europe and Africa, and so, not fitting the mold of what they expect, it is dismissed as impossible or a fabrication. And it follows that if the Burrows Cave pieces are modern fabrications, then they are not worthy of preservation and careful analysis. I disagree with this sort of filtering system being used to decide what data is preserved for future study. 1.a) Attempts to Deal with the Belief-Based Trap Being trained in the "hard sciences", where our view of the world must continually change to be in agreement with new basic data, I find it offensive when belief systems in other fields selectively determine what data they will preserve and examine, often ignoring, suppressing, or destroying basic data that seem offensive or threatening, and, in effect, keeping such data from the view of the rest of us. My natural reaction is to champion the cause of preserving basic data and giving it fair and thorough analysis, regardless of the uncertainty in the data. Over the years, I have seen so much evidence of white historians and scholars ignoring, repressing, or destroying data relating to the history of the Native Americans, that I have made a study of how a culture represses unpopular data. I have called the results of this study "the rules of ism-ism." These rules can be used to predict how belief-based systems ignore, dismiss or repress data, or modify it to be more in line with our beliefs. These rules are useful when working with old Indian legends; and I have found them to also be useful for understanding what might otherwise seem irrational actions of modern governments (including our own). Furthermore, I have been amused at the way these rules work for predicting how many of my colleagues who profess the scientific principle, but are subconsciously driven by their own belief systems, will react when in unfamiliar situations. Since it appears to me that some American epigraphers used the same kind of belief-based stands against the Burrows Cave pieces as others have used against the pioneering work of Dr. Fell, I see a pattern here for human reaction that I simply must try to "capitalize" on. These reactions are perfect examples for explaining the principles of ism-ism which can be used to predict what people will see and what they will not see based on their belief systems.