A STORY OF FREEDOM • THE FORT MIMS' MASSACRE • THE MIRADOR BASIN MAYA american archaeologyFALL 2007 a quarterly publication of The Archaeological Conservancy Vol. 11 No. 3

Searching For Evidence

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$3.95 MimbresMimbres CultureCulture

american archaeology a quarterly publication of The Archaeological Conservancy Vol. 11 No. 3 fall 2007 39 COVER FEATURE ARL

39 WHAT BECAME OF THE MIMBRES? T BY TIM VANDERPOOL

An excavation in southwest New Mexico TREJO / could answer questions about this fascinating culture. MONICA 12 CLARIFYING AN HISTORIC EVENT BY WAYNE CURTIS 12 In 1813 some 250 soldiers and settlers were massacred at Fort Mims. Archaeologists are trying ALABAMA HISTORICAL COMMISSION to understand the details.

18 SAVING THE MIRADOR BASIN BY MICHAEL BAWAYA ’s Mirador Basin and its rich Maya legacy are endangered. Archaeologist Richard Hansen and his supporters have an ambitious plan to save it. 26 SIMULATING PREHISTORIC LIFE BY DAVID MALAKOFF The archaeological record can tell researchers what happened, but not why it RABINOWITZ happened. Computer simulations could reveal the causes of prehistoric events. 18 Y

32 A STORY OF FREEDOM JERR BY RACHEL FEIT How did emancipated slaves make the transition to free men and women? 2 Lay of the Land A community archaeology project in Houston is searching for answers. 3 Letters 44 new acquisition 5 Events JOINING FORCES 7 In the News The Conservancy partners with other preservation organizations to save an important Hopewell site. Possible Discovery of Aztec Ruler’s Tomb • Ancient Explosion May Have 46 new acquisition Affected Clovis People • Climate PRESERVING A DAN RIVER VILLAGE Change Leads to Early Agriculture The Bryant site has great research potential. 50 Field Notes 47 new acquisition 52 Reviews A TEAM EFFORT The Conservancy joined with Sarasota County and other 54 Expeditions parties to save the Little Salt Springs site. COVER: Darrell Creel (right) consults 48 point acquisition with crew member Elizabeth Toney THE LEGACY OF THE MARKSVILLE PEOPLE as she excavates a Black Mountain– phase room at the Mimbres site Old The Conservancy obtains a portion of an endangered prehistoric site. Town. Photograph by Matthew Taliaferro

american archaeology 1 Lay of the Land

The Lesson of Old Town

hen I first visited the Old looters, except for the part where they Town site in the late had used a bulldozer to try to get at the W 1970s, it looked like it had valuable Mimbres pots that are placed been bombed by a B-52. The entire over the heads of the deceased. Old DARREN POORE site was covered with holes dug by Town is perhaps the largest and most MARK MICHEL, President

complex of the Mimbres ruins of southwestern New Mexico, and Mim- bres pottery is the most valuable in the . My guide, a leading Mimbres archaeologist, told me the site was damaged beyond hope and no longer worth preserving, even though it was owned by the American people and managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management. No one seemed to care about protecting the nation’s pre- historic legacy. Only a few years later, things began to change. A stiff new federal law was passed to make it a felony to loot or vandalize archaeological sites, and the federal agencies finally began to take their stewardship seriously. As we learn in this issue of American Archaeology (see “What Became of the Mimbres?” page 39), there was, and is, still plenty to learn from Old Town, despite the extensive damage done by looters. Texas archaeologists Harry Shafer and Darrel Creel examined the site and recognized its potential. For the past 18 years, Creel and his crew have been recovering mountains of data about the elusive Mimbres, including important new information about the people who followed the Classic Mimbres. The Conservancy’s staff sees many heavily damaged sites, and we are never quick to write them off. As Old Town proves, even the most badly damaged sites may have much to tell us, and the Conservancy tries to save them as well as the more pristine ones.

2 fall • 2007 Letters

Early Maize Domestication Editor’s Corner Your Summer 2007 news article “Evidence of Ancient Farming Richard Hansen puts in long days. He Found” contains misleading starts around seven in the morning and information about early maize finishes around midnight, sometimes later. domestication. The 9,000– But then he’s directing a huge, multi- year-old date for maize in the disciplinary archaeological project—the Rio Balsas region of west biggest in the , he Mexico is not the time of says—in the Mirador Basin (see “Saving maize domestication. It is a the Mirador Basin,” page 18). Hansen’s calculation based on the degree of crew numbers approximately 300, and 36 genetic difference (mutations) universities are involved in some capacity. between ancestral Balsas teosinte And that’s merely his day job. Unwarranted and maize to estimate the time of He heads the Foundation for Anthro- Sympathy the appearance of the “Eve-gene” pological Research and Environmental I was disturbed by your sympa- that separated the maize evolu- Studies (FARES), an organization dedicated thetic portrayal of treasure tionary line. Ancestral teosinte to the scientific investigation of the Preclassic hunters and underwater explorers kernels have never been found in Maya occupation of the basin. This occupa- in the Summer 2007 article any archaeological context, so no tion produced a very early and very accom- “Searching for Pirates.” One human use of the plant contributed plished society. Hansen says they became a comes away with the impression to the evolution of its mutated “superpower when the rest of the Maya that it is the archaeologists that maize form. Actual domestication world was struggling to find its identity.” are being picky for not letting must have occurred at some later In order to understand this early Maya these plunderers have uncon- time. Evidence of human associa- florescence, FARES is working to preserve trolled access to valuable artifacts. tion occurs archaeologically by the sites in the basin as well as the basin It is enough to see that attitude in the discovery of plant remains itself, which is threatened by looting, drug the general media without having outside the natural distribution trafficking, poaching, and logging. And in to see it in a magazine of your zone of the plant. order to preserve the basin, Hansen is stature. convinced that he has to help the impover- Dr. Irwin Rovner ished local people find ways to feed their E. E. Deschner CEO, Binary Analytical families other than by the aforementioned Canyon Lake, Texas Consultants activities. So economic development, as Raleigh, North Carolina well as archaeological discovery, has become part of his job description. Sending Letters to Hansen insists that his economic development work hasn’t diminished his American Archaeology scientific research; rather, it’s enhanced it. In 2005, Hansen was awarded he National American Archaeology welcomes your letters. Write to us at Order of the Cultural Patrimony of 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517, Guatemala, the country’s highest civilian or send us e-mail at [email protected]. We reserve the right to edit and honor, for his efforts. It seems that the publish letters in the magazine’s Letters department as space permits. long days are paying off. Please include your name, address, and telephone number with all correspondence, including e-mail messages. american archaeology 3

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he Archaeological Conservancy Board of Directors is the only national nonprofit Gordon Wilson, New Mexico CHAIRMAN organization that identifies, Cecil F. Antone, Arizona • Carol Condie, New Mexico acquires, and preserves the most Donald Craib, Virginia • Janet Creighton, Washington • Janet EtsHokin, significant archaeological sites Jerry EtsHokin, Illinois • Jerry Golden, • W. James Judge, Colorado t Jay T. Last, California • Dorinda Oliver, New York in the United States. Since its beginning in 1980, the Conservancy has Rosamond Stanton, Montana • Vincas Steponaitis, North Carolina preserved more than 355 sites across Dee Ann Story, Texas • Stewart L. Udall, New Mexico the nation, ranging in age from the Conservancy Staff earliest habitation sites in North Mark Michel, President • Tione Joseph, Business Manager America to a 19th-century frontier army Lorna Wolf, Membership Director • Sarah Tiberi, Special Projects Director post. We are building a national system Shelley Smith, Membership Assistant • Melissa Montoya, Administrative Assistant of archaeological preserves to ensure the survival of our irreplaceable Regional Offices and Directors cultural heritage. Jim Walker, Vice President, Southwest Region (505) 266-1540 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902 • Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108 Why Save Archaeological Sites? Tamara Stewart, Projects Coordinator • Steve Koczan, Site-Management Coordinator The ancient people of North America left virtually no written records of their Paul Gardner, Vice President, Midwest Region (614) 267-1100 cultures. Clues that might someday solve the 3620 N. High St. #307 • Columbus, 43214 mysteries of prehistoric America are still Jessica Crawford, Southeast Region (662) 326-6465 missing, and when a ruin is destroyed by 315 Locust St. • P.O. Box 270 • Marks, 38646 looters, or leveled for a shopping center, George Lowry, Field Representative precious information is lost. Gene Hurych, Western Region (916) 399-1193 By permanently preserving endangered ruins, 1 Shoal Court #67 • Sacramento, California 95831 we make sure they will be here for future generations to study and enjoy. Andy Stout, Eastern Region (301) 682-6359 8 E. 2nd. St. #200 • Frederick, Maryland 21701 How We Raise Funds: Sonja Ingram, Field Representative Funds for the Conservancy come from membership dues, individual contributions, corporations, and foundations. Gifts and american archaeology ® bequests of money, land, and securities are fully tax deductible under section 501(c)(3) PUBLISHER: Mark Michel of the Internal Revenue Code. Planned EDITOR: Michael Bawaya (505) 266-9668, [email protected] giving provides donors with substantial tax ASSISTANT EDITOR: Tamara Stewart deductions and a variety of beneficiary ART DIRECTOR: Vicki Marie Singer, [email protected] possibilities. For more information, call Mark Michel at (505) 266-1540. Editorial Advisory Board

David Anderson, University of Tennessee • Jan Biella, New Mexico Deputy SHPO The Role of the Magazine: Todd Bostwick, Phoenix City Archaeologist • Pam Edwards-Lieb, Mississippi Chief Archaeologist American Archaeology is the only popular Bill Engelbrecht, Buffalo State College • Mark Esarey, State Park magazine devoted to presenting the rich Charles Ewen, East Carolina University • Barbara Heath, University of Tennessee diversity of archaeology in the Americas. Robert Hoard, Kansas State Archaeologist • Peggy McGuckian, Bureau of Land Management The purpose of the magazine is to help Rick Minor, Heritage Research Associates • Sarah Neusius, University of Penn. readers appreciate and understand the Claudine Payne, Archaeological Survey • Mark Schurr, University of Notre Dame archaeological wonders available to them, Kevin Smith, Middle Tennessee State University • Fern Swensen, North Dakota Deputy SHPO and to raise their awareness of the Ruth Van Dyke, Colorado College • Robert Wall, Towson University destruction of our cultural heritage. By Rob Whitlam, Washington State Archaeologist • David Whitley, W & S Consultants sharing new discoveries, research, and Richard Woodbury, University of Massachusetts activities in an enjoyable and informative way, we hope we can make learning about National Advertising Office ancient America as exciting as it is essential. Marcia Ulibarri, Advertising Representative 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108; How to Say Hello: By mail: (505) 344-6018, [email protected] The Archaeological Conservancy, American Archaeology (ISSN 1093-8400) is published quarterly by The Archaeological Conservancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517. Title registered U.S. Pat. and TM Office, © 2007 by TAC. Printed in the United States. Periodicals postage paid Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517; Albuquerque, NM, and additional mailing offices. Single copies are $3.95. A one-year membership to the Conservancy is $25 and includes by phone: (505) 266-1540; receipt of American Archaeology. Of the member’s dues, $6 is designated for a one-year magazine subscription. READERS: For new mem- by e-mail: [email protected]; or visit our berships, renewals, or change of address, write to The Archaeological Conservancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM Web site: www.americanarchaeology.org 87108-1517, or call (505) 266-1540. For changes of address, include old and new addresses. Articles are published for educational pur- poses and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Conservancy, its editorial board, or American Archaeology. Article proposals and art- work should be addressed to the editor. No responsibility assumed for unsolicited material. All articles receive expert review. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to American Archaeology, The Archaeological Conservancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517; (505) 266-1540. All rights reserved. American Archaeology does not accept advertising from dealers in archaeological artifacts or antiquities.

4 fall • 2007 Museum exhibits • Tours • Festivals Events Meetings • Education • Conferences

I NEW EXHIBITS the symbolism of Olmec, Maya, Aztec, Presidio San Agustin del Tucson and other cultures in the Western Tucson, Ariz.—The new interpretive Hemisphere from 3500 B.C. through the center, Presidio San Augustin del Tuc- Spanish conquest in A.D. 1520–21. The son, recently opened on the site of Tuc- exhibit features a wide range of artifacts son’s original adobe-walled presidio, from the museum’s collections, includ- which was established by Spain in ing sculpture, figurative pottery, and 1775 and in use until 1856. The Pre- ceramic vessels. The function and design sidio is a replica of the northeast corner of each piece reflects the importance of of the original walled fortress, and it the Mesoamerican belief systems. (909) includes a 20-foot-tall lookout tower, 307-2669, www.sbcountymuseum.org with 10-foot-high adjoining walls. (Through November 7) ANIAARCHAEOLOGY MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND

V Interpretive information, displays, and artifacts provide insight into daily life I CONFERENCES, inside the walled compound. (520) LECTURES & FESTIVALS 791-4873, www.tucsonaz.gov/parksan- Chickahominy Tribe 56th Annual OF PENNSYL drec (New Center) Fall Festival & Powwow September 22–23, Chickahominy Tribal San Bernardino County Museum Grounds, Charles City, Va. Native peo- UNIVERSITY Redlands, Calif.—In Mexico and Cen- ples from across the country will join University of Pennsylvania tral America, Mesoamerican creation the Chickahominy Tribe as they cele- stories include five periods, or suns, the brate their 56th annual powwow. The Museum of Archaeology first four ending in cataclysmic disaster longest-running traditional powwow in and Anthropology and the last predicted to do so without Virginia, the gathering will feature constant vigilance and sacrifice. The native dances, drumming, singing, Philadelphia, Pa.—At the turn of exhibition “Five Suns: The Art of and the sale of traditional arts, crafts, the 19th century, the Rio Grande de Coclé, a river in central Panama, Ancient ” presents objects and food. Contact Keith Wynn at changed its course, and people from the museum’s collections, most (804) 966-2448, [email protected], began to find precious gold objects never before on public view, that reflect www.chickahominytribe.org on its banks. The new traveling exhibit “River of Gold: Precolumbian Treasures from Sitio Conte” tells the remarkable story of the museum’s ARD COLLEGE

V Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 1940 excavation at a circa A.D. 450 Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.— to 900 cemetery containing fabulous “Feeding the Ancestors: Tlingit Carved goldwork and beautiful painted Horn Spoons” presents a selection of pottery that was discovered when carved spoons made and collected in the the river changed its course. The 1800s during a time when Tlingit elites exhibition features almost 150 used spoons like these to serve food at artifacts, including 120 spectacular ceremonies, simultaneously sustaining gold objects more than a thousand themselves and the ancestral beings years old, including hammered carved on the handles. Carved horn repoussé plaques, pendants, spoons were among the most powerful, ornaments, bells, bangles, and intimate objects created by the Tlingit beads. (215) 898-4000, people of the Northwest Coast, depicting www.museum.upenn.edu supernatural and ancestral beings, (September 23 through natural phenomena, and animal and December 16)

BURGER, ©PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HAR human characters. (617) 496-1027, www.peabody.harvard.edu (Through March 30, 2008) HILLEL american archaeology 5 Marin Museum of the American Indian Miwok Park, Novato, Calif.—The new exhibition “Rocks of Ages: The Spectacular Diversity of Events Rock Art in California” explores the beauty, mystery, and diversity of the state’s sacred rock art. Native California was one of the most densely and diversely populated areas of pre- Columbian North America, so it’s no surprise to find a wide variety of rock art there. (415) 897- 4064, www.marinindian.com

(Through October 31) AMERICAN INDIAN THE MARIN MUSEUM OF

2007 Midwest Archaeological Conference 15th Biennial Jornada Mogollon October 4–6, University of Notre Dame, Archaeological Conference South Bend, Ind. This year’s conference October 12–13, El Paso Museum of Archae- includes poster and paper presentations, ology, El Paso, Tex. This conference provides tours of the Fort St. Joseph Museum and a forum for the presentation of recent archae- the Reyniers Laboratory for Biocultural ological research in the Jornada Mogollon Studies, a Friday evening reception, and culture region, encompassing far western a Saturday evening banquet and lecture Texas, south-central New Mexico, and by University of Florida professor Ken- northern Chihuahua, Mexico. Open to the neth Sassaman on “Ancestral Perspectives public, the conference gives the community on Archaic Archaeologies.” Contact a chance to interact with the archaeologists

Mark Schurr at (574) 631-7638, Mark. conducting research in the region. For more ©HAL STARRATT R. [email protected], www.midwest- information, contact Marc Thompson at Peabody Museum archaeology.org (915) 755-4332, Thompsonmx@elpaso- Weekend texas.gov, www.elpasotexas.gov/arch_mu- Rock Art Research seum of the Americas Association Annual Symposium October 5–7, Peabody October 5–8, Moab, Utah. The conference 64th Annual Meeting of the Museum, Harvard offers a stimulating and enjoyable way to Southeastern Archaeological Conference University, Cambridge, see some of Utah’s stunning rock art and October 31–November 3, University of Ten- Mass. This year’s event explores the prehistoric learn about recent research in the area. A nessee, Knoxville. Presentations on recent murals of North, Central, special Sunday morning session will be archaeological research in the area will be and South America, the held on rock art preservation issues with a held, as well as a reception for participants. roles they played, their panel discussion focusing on the associa- Contact Boyce Driskell at (865) 974-6525, sources and traditions, and how those traditions tion’s top preservation priorities. Contact [email protected], www.southeasternarchae- are carried on today. Troy Scotter at (801) 377-6901, troyscot- ology.org Join experts for lectures, [email protected], www.utahrockart.org workshops, and a 2nd Annual New Mexico Archaeological Saturday evening cocktail Annual Sun Mountain Gathering Council Fall Conference reception. Contact Catherine Linardos at October 6, Museum of Indian Arts & November 17–18, Hibben Center, Univer- (617) 495-2269, Culture, Milner Plaza on Museum Hill, sity of New Mexico, Albuquerque. This [email protected], Santa Fe, N.M. This cultural celebration is year’s conference will focus on the archaeo- www.peabody.harvard.edu geared to families. It’s filled with activities, logically rich area of north-central New featuring such popular events as Indian Mexico’s Galisteo Basin. Presentations will games, exhibitions, arrow and pottery be held all day Saturday and Sunday morn- making, and spear throwing. Free admis- ing, with a field trip to basin sites Sunday sion. (505) 476-1250, www.miaclab.org afternoon. Contact Kathy Roxlau at (505) 247-4933, ext. 201, [email protected],

6 fall • 2007 Underground in the Chambers Could Be Aztec NEWS Ruler’s Tomb Mexico City excavation could lead to the first discovery of an Aztec ruler’s burial.

exican archaeologists may be on the verge of making Mthe first discovery of an Aztec ruler’s tomb. Using ground- penetrating radar, they have identified several underground chambers beneath a huge monolith that many hope will contain the ashes of the great empire-builder Ahuizotl. Luis Alberto Martos, director of archaeological studies at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), says that aside from the magnetic imaging, the main evidence pointing to the existence of the tomb

OR MONTAÑO MATUS / INAH MATUS OR MONTAÑO comes from the monolith that was

HECT uncovered last year. The 12-foot- wide square stone is carved with a rep- Archaeologist Alvaro Barrera stands next to the monolith that was discovered last year. Several resentation of Tlaltecuhtli, a goddess underground chambers have been detected beneath the monolith. whom the believed devoured the dead and is usually depicted facing Ahuizotl was the last Aztec ruler the stuff of speculation. Martos said into the earth. In this case she is face to die in power. He is credited with he thought it most likely that the up and squatting to give birth, with a consolidating the in the excavation team, led by Leonardo stream of blood flowing from her center of Mexico and expanding it López Luján, will remove the mono- mouth. Even more tantalizing is the south to Guatemala. He was succeeded lith before they dig into the chamber inclusion in the carving of the dates of by his nephew, Moctezuma II, who for reasons of safety. Fractures in the both Ahuizotl’s ascent to the throne in was taken hostage by Hernán Cortés stone were one of the clues that 1486, and of his death in 1502. shortly after the Spanish prompted them to search for chambers The monolith was found in the landed in Mexico in 1519. Ahuizotl’s with radar in the first place. Templo Mayor ceremonial site sit- son, Cuauhtemoc, led the dynasty’s Conditions are also complicated uated in the heart of the great Aztec last resistance against the Spaniards by the water level, which is naturally capital Tenochtilan that later became before being taken prisoner and high—Tenochtitlan was built on an the center of the capital of the New killed in 1525. Nobody knows the island in a lake—and even higher Spain and now lies below modern- whereabouts of Moctezuma’s or during the rainy season, which usually day Mexico City. “We hope to find a Cuauhtemoc’s remains, or the burial lasts until October. tomb, but the chambers could also places of earlier rulers. “Just imagine if it does turn out contain unexceptional offerings or There is little doubt that Aztec to be Ahuizotl’s tomb,” said Martos, perhaps the bones of sacrificial dignitaries were cremated, but for succumbing to the temptation for victims,” Martos said, insisting it was the moment the probable contents just a moment. “We would learn a too early to jump to conclusions. of a kingly burial chamber remain huge amount.” —Johanna Tuckman american archaeology 7

in the NEWS Ancient Explosion May Have Affected Clovis People

Researchers suggest a comet hit North America 13,000 years ago.

group of scientists has recently proposed that a comet exploding Aover North America may have caused the extinction of numerous animal species and the cooling of the Northern Hemisphere, occurrences that severely affected the Clovis people. According to the researchers, a comet or meteor exploded over the North- ern Hemisphere or crashed into the Laurentide ice sheet north of the Great Lakes sometime between 13,000 and 12,800 years ago, leaving a telltale layer of impact debris and resulting in continent-wide . The wildfires would have incinerated vegetation, the main food supply for many larger mammals, including

mammoths and mastodons that, DOUGLAS KENNETT along with at least 13 other species, A black line consisting of extraterrestrial impact debris can be seen at the Murray Springs site in went extinct around the same time. southeastern Arizona. The layer covers extinct animal bones and associated Clovis artifacts. The researchers also propose that the massive impact would have desta- has been providing the research team that contains rare carbon molecules bilized the North American ice sheet, information on the incidence of with extraterrestrial gases such as he- causing a massive rush of cold, fresh Clovis and immediate post-Clovis lium. The highest concentrations of water and ice into the Atlantic and artifacts across North America, data impact materials have been found in Arctic Oceans. This cold water would he is mining from the online Paleo- the Great Lakes region where the have disrupted the world’s ocean Indian Database of the Americas purported explosion occurred. currents and reversed the warming (PIDBA). While recognizing that the “This is still a hypothesis,” said one trend that had begun following the number of projectile points doesn’t of the researchers, University of Oregon last Ice Age, resulting in the 1,000- necessarily reflect the number of archaeologist Douglas Kennett, “but year-long period of cooler climate people, the PIDBA indicates a decline the data is growing from stratified documented in ice cores and known in points between Clovis and imme- sites across North America.” At least as the Younger Dryas Glacial Event. diate post-Clovis times, especially in eight Clovis sites in North America It’s assumed that these events the East and Southeast. have clearly defined layers of impact would have harmed the Clovis peo- The researchers are currently debris just above the Clovis occupa- ple, resulting in “changing technology investigating 20 Clovis-age sites in tion and all date to around 12,900 and life-ways, including an end to the North America. They’ve found years ago. “The fact that it’s there and the emergence of evidence of an impact just above the indicates something happened on a more localized adaptations,” said Clovis occupation in eight of these continental scale that needs to be archaeologist David Anderson of the locations so far. This evidence con- explained,” said Kennett. University of Tennessee. Anderson sists of a layer of soot and charcoal —Tamara Stewart 8 fall • 2007

in the Copán Tomb NEWS Excavated The find suggests a culturally and politically diverse city.

olgate University researchers recently excavated a tomb at Copán, a Maya city in Honduras known Cfor its grand structures and a magnificent stair- way with the longest hieroglyphic text in the Americas. The unusual characteristics of the tomb’s construction and the artifacts and human remains found in it are evidence of an urban state that was more culturally and politically complex than previously thought, according to Allan Maca, who directed the excavation. “The 2005 discovery of the tomb and its subsequent excavation provide unprecedented evidence for political complexity and cultural diversity at Copán,” Maca said. “Over the last few decades, there has been debate regard- ing whether or not Copán was an urban-based territorial state with a strict sociopolitical hierarchy or a chiefdom with a divine leader at the helm and everyone else below him. Most scholars today are agreed on the state model, yet we still struggle with how complex this state might have been.” Maca said his research has proved that Copán “was organized according to a kingly master plan. This suggests a high level of organization.” The remains, seated in an unusual, upright position with legs crossed and flanked by shells, pottery, and jade adornments, suggest the individual was an important political or religious figure.

ALLAN MACA “The tomb we found,” Maca explained, “held an elite member of the Copán kingdom, perhaps part of the The seashells near the entombed body were arranged in such a way to royal family, and certainly someone who played a role in illustrate a cosmological map that apparently marked the deceased as the dynastic or kingly expansion of power and control the center of the world. The shells may also represent the waters in across the valley landscape, rather than being a leader of Maya creation mythology. some local lineage.” The tomb is the first to be found outside the center certainly from a region far from the Copán Valley. “This of Copán. According to Dario Euraque, director of the suggests a potential link to non-Maya peoples,” Maca Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History, the said, “and that may accord with emerging data from artifacts and tomb characteristics were not typically Marcello Canuto and Kam Manahan, who believe there representative of the Maya culture. “This goes against may have been a substantial population of Lenca Indians theories that all populations in the Copán Valley were in the valley, in addition to the Maya. uniquely Mayan,” he said. “There appears to have been “Little by little,” Maca said, “several of us are seeing a cultural mix.” at Copán a cosmopolitan multiethnic urban environment, None of the ceramic vessels found in the tomb are as opposed to one that was strictly Maya and Mayan well known at Copán. They are extremely rare, almost speaking.” —Steven McFadden american archaeology 9

in the NEWS Climate Change Leads to Agriculture Smithsonian researchers connect warmer, moister climate to plant domestication.

vidence from southwestern Mexico links regional climate and E environmental changes to the development of agriculture in the Americas, according to Dolores Piperno, curator of archaeobotany and South American archaeology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. In a report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online, Piperno and her international team of collabo- rators present paleoecological evidence from the Central Balsas Valley of Mexico concerning the influence of climate on agricultural development. Studies of pollen, phytoliths, and charcoal samples recovered from the valley indicate that during the late glacial period (12000–8000 B.C.), the cold, arid climate resulted in dry lake beds. Beginning around 8000 B.C., as the weather became warmer and moister, lowland tropical forests ex- panded, and lake beds filled with water. People were drawn to the lakes and adjacent fertile soils. According to Piperno, “the changes in climate that were associated RUTH DICKAU with the development of agriculture Dolores Piperno extracts a soil core sample. Her team found evidence of maize and squash in the Balsas region were increases in cultivation dating back about 8,500 years along the edges of lakes in southwestern Mexico. temperature, probably by about four to five degrees Celsius, and increases other crops, originated in the tropical like make the seeds easier to harvest in precipitation, probably by about forest,” she said. Among the plants and eat and produce the cob of maize,” 10 to 30 percent. There were also that Smithsonian researchers found said Piperno, who with Deborah M. increases in the atmospheric concen- evidence of were maize and squash, Pearsall is co-author of the book The tration of carbon dioxide that would both of which have wild relatives Origins of Agriculture in the Lowland have increased plant productivity.” growing in and near the Balsas Valley. Neotropics. These changes created new condi- Populations of modern teosinte from “The view that maize was domes- tions that led to novel and ultimately that region are genetically closest to ticated in the Balsas Valley results successful adaptive strategies, includ- maize and appear to be its direct wild from a great deal of very good molec- ing the cultivation and domestication ancestor. ular biology work comparing maize of plants, Piperno said. “Maize was developed in the region with wild varieties to see which of “Many staple foods that are still through various kinds of artificial the wild varieties is genetically closest eaten around the world today, like (human) selection pressure on genes to maize,” Piperno said. maize, manioc, sweet potato, and present in wild maize that did things —Steven McFadden 10 fall • 2007

in the Found NEWS In 19th-Century Cemetery Virginia excavation uncovers ancient artifact.

rchaeologists conducting test excavations at a historical ceme- A tery in Alexandria, Virginia, have discovered a Clovis point, the oldest archaeological item discovered in the city. Researchers with Alexandria Archaeology, the city’s archaeology department, were excavating Freed- men’s Cemetery, a graveyard where, according to historical documents, more than 1,800 blacks who fled the South during the Civil War were buried. “We don’t know at this point if it’s an isolated find,” said Francine Bromberg, the preservation archaeol- ogist at Alexandria Archaeology and coprincipal investigator of the exca-

ALEXANDRIA ARCHAEOLOGY vation. “We’re still in the very early stages of identifying and cataloguing Archaeologists scrape a trench floor to delineate grave shafts. The grave shafts are identified by changes artifacts.” A lithics specialist identified in the color and texture of the soil. the point based on its style. During excavations in 1998 to 2000, the site locations of burials. The excavations who were referred to as “contraband,” yielded other prehistoric evidence such identified 78 burials, and excavations fled to Alexandria, which was then as tool debitage dating as far back as in 2004 revealed 45 more. under Union control. “They arrived the Middle Archaic period. “At this At the time of the earlier excava- in Alexandria destitute and malnour- point we don’t know how much of the tions, Freedmen’s Cemetery was lo- ished,” Bromberg said. “They were site we’re going to dig,” she said. cated on both public and private land. fed and clothed at government The initial excavation of the Earlier this year the City of Alexandria expense,” and they worked various cemetery resulted from construction purchased the land with the idea of jobs in return. The government kept work on the Woodrow Wilson building a memorial park to pay tribute records of the people who died at Bridge, which spans the Potomac to the people buried there. The city that time, including their names, River between Alexandria and Wash- removed the gas station and the of- and in some cases the causes of their ington, D.C. Though portions of the fice building in May of this year to deaths. The cemetery is “ a nationally cemetery were buried beneath a gas make room for the park. Archaeolo- significant site,” Bromberg said, and station and an office building, city gists are now working to identify the finding the Clovis point has made it officials knew of its existence through locations of grave shafts so that the all the more so. historical documents, and they re- burials won’t be disturbed when the Because of time and money alized the construction project could memorial park is built. constraints, the archaeologists may affect the site. Consequently they Freedmen’s Cemetery was estab- not conduct further excavations of conducted test excavations between lished in 1864. As the Union Army the prehistoric portion of the site. 1998 and 2000 to identify the invaded the South, thousands of slaves, —Michael Bawaya american archaeology 11

an Historic larifying Event Archaeologists are working C to uncover the details of the massacre at Fort Mims. by Wayne Curtis CENTER FOR ARCHAEOLOGICALCENTER FOR STUDIES, UNIVERSITYALABAMA OF SOUTH COURTESY This mid-19th-century engraving by Alonzo Chappel, titled “Massacre at Fort Mims,” is a romanticized depiction of the battle, emphasizing the slaughter of civilians and Mississippi Territorial militia. Roughly 250 soldiers and settlers were killed that day in 1813.

across a grassy clearing amid scrappy pines. “The first thing IT COULD BE A LOT WORSE,” we have to do is bail,” says Bonnie Gums, another archaeologist SAYS UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH working the site. Alabama archaeologist Gregory Waselkov, looking over the It’s a cool, hazy Saturday morning in the Tensaw region Fort Mims site. A rain fell the night before, and puddles have of southern Alabama, about 45 miles north of Mobile. A collected on the tarps over shallow pits cut in a stairstep pattern dozen students and volunteers have just arrived in vans, and 12“ fall • 2007

, GREENVILLE, SC T GREENVILLE COUNTYAR MUSEUM OF This early 1800s oil painting, titled “Benjamin Hawkins and the Creek Indians,” shows Hawkins (standing in center), a government agent, trying to assimilate the Creeks into American society by urging them to adopt agriculture and abandon hunting. The policy was a cause of the Creek War, which began at Fort Mims.

they busy themselves hauling out plastic bins full of trowels Indians shifted significantly in the aftermath of this battle and brushes. The dig here is part of a longstanding project away from the government’s policy of cultural assimilation and that has been underway in piecemeal fashion since 1953, toward a new style of American colonialism,” Waselkov wrote when engineers with the Alabama Department of Conserva- in his vivid history about the battle, A Conquering Spirit, which tion plowed through the site with a bulldozer. Throughout the was published last year by University of Alabama Press. decades the general goal has been the same: to coax out the The fallout from the attack was swift: a brash but untested story of who lived here, what their lives were like, and what military officer named Andrew Jackson was dispatched to the precisely occurred on this spot at noon on August 30, 1813. region, and with his troops he undertook an effective campaign In popular histories, that was the day of what’s often that all but eliminated the Redsticks within the year. The Battle called the Battle of Fort Mims. The short version goes like of Fort Mims thus entered the pantheon of historic moments this: about 700 Creek Indian warriors, most drawn from an in the settling of a wild, rough country, a sort of regional version especially hostile faction known as the Redsticks, silently of “Remember the Alamo!” One typical engraving, from 1858, swarmed out of a forest and streaked toward the fort, dressed depicts elegantly attired soldiers variously pleading for their in loin cloths and painted in red and black. lives and valiantly defending their womenfolk as they’re over- Inside the fort, which had been constructed just two whelmed by savage Indians. months earlier, some four hundred people had gathered for Popular mythology aside, the long version of what protection, including about a hundred Mississippi Territorial happened that day was far more intriguing, especially when Volunteers, with the rest settlers from the region. Through viewed through a lens of cultural history. And from the earth, stealth, ferocity, and sloppy preparation on the part of the Waselkov is scratching out clues about life in the fort prior to soldiers, the Redsticks overran the fort. Many victims were the attack—how the residents lived during the weeks before the stabbed or clubbed to death; others died when the attackers set Creeks swarmed through the gates, and how the fort was buildings ablaze. By the time the sun set over the smoldering actually arranged. (For all the importance of the Battle of Fort landscape, some 250 soldiers and settlers, many of them women Mims in the legend and lore of the Southeastern United States, and children, lay dead. It was, Waselkov notes, “one of the historians had until recently only a sketchy and generally faulty greatest victories in the history of Native American warfare.” idea of what actually stood in this remote swath of forest.) The massacre at Fort Mims also proved to be a galvanizing “The battle at Fort Mims, far from being a stereotypical moment in the long and bloody history of relations between clash between white Americans and red Indians,” Waselkov says, Native Americans and white settlers in the southern frontier “opens a window on the social and demographic complexity country. “The prevailing attitude of white Americans toward that truly characterized early America.” american archaeology 13

A 14 details have been confirmed by recent archaeological excavations. archaeological byrecent details havebeenconfirmed the typeofweapon issuedtoMississippiT An ir with debris,firstfrom thehousehold,thenfrom the battle. originally toobtainclaydaubthechimney, andthenwasfilled a shallo come uponacircular depression ofchocolate-colored soilforming named theRandons.Amidsoilcolorofcaféaulait,they earlier concludedisthechimneyofacabinbelongingtofamily a handfulofstudentsare quietlydiggingnearwhat Waselkov had which generatessomecomment. than BBs.One iswhite,onered, andonepink,the last of are Amongtheartifacts threeartifacts. beadsnotmuchlarger are through eventually afinemeshinorder run toexposesmall small trowels, backinthinstripsthat gentlyshaving theearth on trigger guard (above) and trigger (right) from US Model 1795 military muskets, USModel1795 military (above)andtrigger (right)from on triggerguard S R ho ed andwhitebeadsare notunusualonthesite—the w vels are setaside,andthree studentsbenddown with , conicalpit. DO S SOFTSPRINGLIGHTFILTERS the battlebyamemberofburialpar WN Waselkov surmisedthatthepitwasdug THR This map of the fort wasdrawnafter This mapofthefort OUGH THE PINES, er ritorial Volunteers whogar ty . Manyofits Creeks hadtwoclansthatusedthesecolors, Waselkov says.But pinkis not socommon.He rolls thebeadsaround hispalmandscrutinizes them, thensuggeststhatthepinkoneisn’t actuallyunusualatall.It was probably ared beadthatbecamediscolored duringtheintensefire that followed theattack.He says that thethree beadsofferanillustration risoned Fort Mims. risoned Fort of thecomplexsocialstructure thatsurrounded thebattle—onethat belies thegreatly simplifiedaccountingofwildsavages andheroic Anglo settlers. American traderwhoin1797establishedaplantationonmore than 500 acres inthisremote, river-riven ofAlabama,notfarfrom part where theFlorida panhandlepetersout.Following theLouisiana Purchase in1803,theUnited States government soughttobuilda road connectingtheeasternseaboard commercial withitsnew port inNewport Orleans, alinkoriginallycalledtheFederal Horse P road across theirlandsandnearMim’s plantation,whereupon Mims established a ferry service across theAlabamaRiver, service Mims establisheda ferry creating a vital link in the new route. avitallinkinthenew soonmade The ferry creating ath. I western gate. It was found in one of the fort’s wells. gate.Itwasfoundinoneofthefort’s western thefort’s gatecatchfrom iron endofahand-wrought The serrated Samuel Mims, wasnamed,anAnglo- afterwhomthefort loudly arriv against theencroachment ofAmericansettlers. Tecumseh Shawnee whohadlongsoughttounifyandrallyIndians expand intotheirlands. fur viewed thetreaty astheopeningofanotherdoorthatwould it alsobrought dissentamongtheCreeks, someofwhom The militia,withoutdisciplineorcompetentofficers.” authority. The administrationofjustice,imbecileandcorrupt. magistrates withoutdignity knowing eachother, ofeachother. universally distrustful The public confidenceorpriv of are illiterate,wildandsavage, ofdepraved morals,unworthy resided present exceptions) here, inhabitants(withfew noted:“The r back from theriver as asafeguard againsttheoccasionalflood. Mims modestlywealthy, andhebuiltahouseonlow riseset egion, anditsauthor, afterwritingthatabout250families ther encouragethealready implacableAmericansettlersto n 1805,atreaty wasnegotiatedwiththeCreeks the torun ed intheSouth inthefallof1811,andhiswords echoed Into thisvolatile situationcame Tecumseh, thefamed The r In 1804, Thomas Jefferson commissionedareport onthe , thanks in part tosupernaturalsigns.Acomet appear , thanksinpart oad brought mor ate esteem;litigious,disunitedand e thanjustrough-edged settlers— , respect, probity, influence or f all •2007 ed

ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY ALABAMA HISTORICAL COMMISSION ALABAMA HISTORICAL COMMISSION

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ALABAMA HISTORICAL COMMISSION T ameri unlike ano thenfilledwithlogslaidhorizontally,stuck intheearth, not thestockadewasmadeofwidelyspacedpickets concluded doneinthe1840s, onehistorianhad Based oninterviews stockade wasbuiltamatterofdebateandconjecture. stockade walloriginallyran.For decades,ho and linedwithfaintdiscolorations. That, hesays, iswhere the Waselkov risesandpointsoutatrench that’s slightlydeeper most cabinshadbeenbuilthastilyandlackedbasements. today are shallow—generally justaboutsixinchesorso—since and thesettlerspr panhandle wasthenSpanish territory.) panhandle toobtainweapons from theSpanish. (The munitions, theRedsticks sentadelegationtotheFlorida territory. Lookingtoboosttheirsuppliesofarmsand of devastating attacksonsmalleroutpostsacross the believed aseries hadshamanisticproperties—launched named afterred-painted warclubsthattheirwielders calledtheRedsticks— faction A settlements. call, and beganaseriesofraidsonAmerican in thecontinentalUnited States. recordedcluding thelargestearthquake todate roiling thelandwithsome2,000tremors, in- quakes of1811-1812rocked thecentralstates, Shortly thereafter, theNew Madrid earth- a-trembling.his feetandsettheearth would onedayclaphishandsandstomp leaving theSouth Tecumseh vowed thathe many. According tosomeaccounts,before faded asheleft,leavinganimpression on in thenightskyuponhisarrival, andthenit Then camenoonofAugust 30,1813. palisades, seekingrefuge withinthecrampedfortification. outbuildings, anddozens oflocalsettlersmo a stockadefencehadgoneuparound thehomeandseveral to conv inBaton Rouge—who hastilyproceeded stationed then crew Mississippi Volunteers—a largelyill-trainedandill-prepared dispatchedtothe Alabama Tensaw aboutahundred seeing settlements. Toward thisend,theterritorialgovernor over- can archaeology This wasproblematic fortworeasons, American spiesreported backonthetradingmission, A group ofCreeks ralliedbehind Tecumseh’s er t theM v ersized split-rail fence. STUDENT HE P ims plantationintoFort Mims. By July 1813, epar ed formore their attacksby fortifying ITS IN WHICH THE S PATIENTLY DIG The remains of food consumed by fort occupantspriorto thebattleincludedthesecarbonized corncobs. offoodconsumed byfort The remains W w andwhere the aselko ved withinthe v says.No supposed wallsneatlyfollowed boundary. amodernproperty supposed massacr an earliermapsketchedb was vaguely trapezoidal inshape. This notonlycontradicted the stockadeencompassedanarea ofnearlythree acres and wall.Again,earlierstudieshadconcluded location ofthefort over thewall.Some confusionalsopersistedabouttheactual attackers wouldhave foot-andhandholdstoscrambleup record. Anditjustdidn’t makesense:withhorizontal logs, for cr built poorly, withthepostsstuckinshallo upright, rough facealternatingwithsmoothface.It wasalso anderectedstockade was,infact,madeoflogssplitvertically sample, tobesure, butenoughtodrawaconclusion:the ghostly remains of twocharred postswere found—asmall identify soilanomalies,someofwhichw ground-penetrating radar, were deployed in recent years to style andlocationofthewall.High-tech including instruments, ooked line.G t stockadeofthistypehadever appeared inthehistorical Ar chaeology hassincesettledboththedebateso e, butitseemedrathersuspectsinceoneofthe iv en itsshoddyquality y a visitor to the site shortly afterthe y avisitortothesiteshortly submersed inthewaterofawell. preserved as a result ofbeing asaresult preserved This woodenwellpulleywas , Waselkov saysthatit’s er w trenches andin a e excavated. The v er the 15

Slip-trailed, lead-glazed coarse earthenware sherds

Comb-marbled mocha pearlware bowl

These sherds came from a bowl made by a Creek Indian.

The pearlware sherds are from England and the earthenware sherds are American-made. Both were common wares used by American settlers in the region. The Creek sherds ALABAMA HISTORICAL COMMISSION Pearlware sherds. The middle one is burned. were probably made by a Creek woman living near Fort Mims.

surprising the wall remained standing during the attack. The Pensacola.” The researchers have found numerous sherds of excavations also revealed that the fort was almost two-thirds Creek and Choctaw pottery which likely served as kitchen smaller than it was thought to be. implements and as containers for food acquired from the Indians. What was life like inside the cramped palisade walls in the Interactions and trade between the settlers and Native Ameri- weeks leading up to the attack? Waselkov says that the site has cans was robust. “We didn’t really expect that,” he says. offered up some good examples of the material culture, since Also surprising, at least for those brought up with the many of the refugees brought their most valuable possessions simple storyline of savage Indians slaughtering heroic Anglo with them, which typically meant plates and cookware. This Americans, was the fact that many Creeks and Métis—the has included a lot of British pottery, and not much American- French name for those with both Indian and European forebears made pottery, reflecting trade patterns of the time. “Rarely do —resided within the fort walls at the time of the attack. we get American stoneware,” Waselkov says. “It just wasn’t Among them were the Randons, those traders whose cabin brought down much.” was adjacent to the pit where the three beads were found. Perhaps most surprising has been the amount of Indian They were part French and part Creek, but they considered pottery found within the fort, suggesting a more vibrant local themselves to be Creeks. Like many other Métis, the Randons economy than had been presumed. “I’ve been interested in had taken refuge within the fort in late July or early August Creek culture for some time,” says Waselkov. “It was real diverse before the attack. Waselkov says that the historical record by this point. They had slaves and were engaged in the market shows they were among the richest of the region’s Métis level economic transactions and trade with [the Spanish at] traders, and had likely left the tribe to escape the animosity of the other Creek Indians. (William Weatherford, one of the leaders of the attack, was also Métis and had been brought up as an American settler.) The three little beads offer a brief lesson not only in the cultural complexity of the fort at the time of the attack, but also in how the blazing fire that had followed the attack—and which had discolored one of the beads—proved to be both a blessing and a curse to later researchers. Many of the buildings within the fort were constructed largely of fierce-burning heart pine, and when they went up in flames the temperatures reached an estimated 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit. That was hot enough to destroy many artifacts, hot

enough even to cause half of a stout, three-legged cast iron SHARON BLAIR Reenactments of the battle have been taking place at the fort for the last Dutch oven to melt. 22 years. This reenactor portrays a Redstick warrior. The fire hindered the analysis of artifacts, including the 16 fall • 2007

Greg Waselkov sprays water on a freshly troweled unit in preparation for photographing it. Differences in soil colors can indicate features, such as the fort’s palisade trench, and wetting the soil accentuates the colors, making the contrasts more discernable. CENTER FOR ARCHAEOLOGICALCENTER FOR STUDIES, UNIVERSITYALABAMA OF SOUTH more than 25,000 glazed pottery sherds. Stacks of plates and Other questions seem destined to remain outside the scope bowls glazed with lead fused together in the flames; the heat of archaeology, such as what happened during the battle itself. warped, cracked, and discolored many plates. But the fire did The battle did not have clear lines of attack and defense, and so offer a silver lining: it made a reasonably straightforward (if analysis of bullets and weaponry turned up are inconclusive. not wholly dependable) demarcation line: items that had been What’s more, for over a century visitors picked up lead shot and discarded and buried prior to the attack lacked scorching, as dug for gun parts as souvenirs—some local residents recall they were protected from the flames by a layer of soil. Archaeolo- stopping by here to gather shot to use as sinkers for fishing. gists can thus guess which items predated the fort’s construction, Archaeological mysteries also persist. Why have no Red- and which came after. stick clubs been found? Historical accounts, passed down from one of the first men to inspect the scene after the attack, painted a vivid and hellish picture—terrified dogs running silently through the woods, corpses littering the land around the smoldering fort, and hundreds of Redstick clubs still scattered across the ground, each marking a slain enemy. As yet, only one artifact has turned up that might feasibly be construed as a club. Another question is what became of all the bodies? To date no evidence of mass graves has been found. Waselkov hopes to answer some of these questions. “Not that much is known about territorial militias during the War of 1812 in general, about how well they were equipped or how poorly,” he says. “We could address some of that.” The sun is now slipping behind the pines, and the crew begins to wrap up, backfilling some pits and draping tarps over those that will be finished up the following weekend. The day is over, but uncovering the full story of Fort Mims will continue for years. ALABAMA HISTORICAL COMMISSION

The heat of the fires that consumed WAYNE CURTIS is the author of And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New Fort Mims partially melted this iron Dutch oven. World in Ten Cocktails. american archaeology 17 SAVING MiradorTHE Basin

Richard Hansen’Hansen’ss prprojectoject has already “Snake.” We freeze, abrabruptlyuptly focusingfocusing our flashlightsflashlights onon thethe densedense junglejungle vvegetation.egetation. redefined the Preclassic Hansen doesn’t see it, but he hears it, hears its soft slitherslither.. I’I’m readyeady toto bolt,bolt, butbut HansenHansen staresstares atat thethe Maya. Now he’s trying vegetation,vegetation, carefullycarefully proddingprodding itit withwith aa stick,stick, seem-seem- inglyingly moremore curiouscurious thanthan concerned.concerned. RichardRichard Hansen’sHansen’s to preserve the region had a fewfew closeclose callscalls withwith poisonouspoisonous snakessnakes duringduring thethe 2727 yearsyears he’she’s workedworked inin northernnorthern Guatemala’sGuatemala’s where one of the remoteremote 600,000-acre600,000-acre MiradorMirador Basin,Basin, andand that’sthat’s taughttaught him to listen as well as watch when he makes his way Western Hemisphere’s throughthrough thethe jungle.jungle. This prprompts himhim toto explainexplain hishis apprapproachoach toto earliest complex snakes,snakes, howhow hehe rrespectsespects ratherrather thanthan fearsfears them.them. NNoneone societies emerged. of his workers have been bitten because he’s trained societies emerged. themthem toto respectrespect snakessnakes asas well.well. ThoughThough hehe waswas bornborn inin IIdaho, Hansen seems at home in the Mirador Basin jungle. “I love it,” he says. He’s also fascinated By Michael Bawaya by it. “I have a botanist who is taking a complete floralfloral inventoryinventory ofof thethe entireentire basin,”basin,” hehe explains,explains, addingadding thatthat thethe botanistbotanist hashas beenbeen atat itit forfor twotwo andand aa LaLa Danta,Danta, thethe largestlargest pyramidpyramid half years.ears. “For“For thethe firstfirst timetime we’rewe’re gettinggetting aa handlehandle Y RABINOWITZ inin thethe MayaMaya world,world, isis seenseen fromfrom above.above.

on the flora and fauna.” JERR 18 fall • 2007 MATTHEW ADAMS WHITE MATTHEW Richard Hansen has made serving the people in the nearby communities an essential part of his project. In this photograph, Hansen, standing in the background in front of the white board, teaches a group of his workers how to read Spanish. He says his workers are eager to learn.

It seems no detail about the Mirador Basin is insignificant to him. “I’m as excited about a pollen sample in a muck bog as I am about a jade mask in a royal burial,” says Hansen. He believes the more he knows the better he’ll be able to understand how a remarkably advanced civilization—“the first state-level society in the Western Hemisphere,” according to Hansen—emerged here some 2,500 years ago during the Maya middle and late Preclassic periods. Over the years he and his crews have identified 26 major cities and about 60 smaller ones in the basin, about 25 of which they’ve mapped and excavated. But that’s hardly all of it. “There’s several hundred sites out here that we’ve never touched,” Hansen states. He estimates a few more years of mapping are required to determine how many sites the basin holds. Hansen’s goal is “to understand the origins of complex society” as well as the social, political, and economic structure of that society and the causes of its collapse. The Preclassic period, which took place from roughly 2000 B.C. to A.D. 150, was thought to have been the developmental stage of the Maya’s magnificent culture. But in the Mirador Basin, Hansen and other researchers have discovered evidence of huge, grand Preclassic cities that suggest a people at their apogee. “You can fit the whole site of Copán into one building here,” he declares. These structures were built about 1,000 years earlier than monumental architecture at other Maya sites; therefore, he

RICHARD HANSEN refers to the basin as “the cradle of .” When members of a 1930s’ University of Pennsylvania aerial Archaeologists discovered what appears to be a royal burial at expedition spotted ’s huge, jungle-covered pyramids, they Tintal. These vessels were among the grave goods that were mistook them for volcanoes. In the 1960s, the legendary Harvard associated with the burial. american archaeology 19 RABINOWITZ Y JERR Richard Hansen looks out over the Mirador Basin from his perch at the top Mayanist Ian Graham mapped portions of the city. Back in of La Danta. He and his colleagues have identified more than 80 cities 1979, when Hansen began working at El Mirador, the city’s in the area, about 25 of which they’ve mapped and excavated. monumental architecture led archaeologists to believe that it had been built during the Classic period (ca. A.D. 250–950), when the Maya flourished. Hansen was then a graduate student working under the direction of Ray Matheny of Brigham Young University and Bruce Dahlin of Catholic University of America. He was assigned to expose a room in a building called Structure 34. While working there, he was startled to discover Preclassic pottery on the floors of the narrow chambers at the summit. “I couldn’t believe it, because it shouldn’t have been in the building. That building was way too sophisticated.” The style of the pottery, however, was distinctly Preclassic. “It was an amazing moment,” he recalls, “because I was the only person in the world who knew this.” What he knew was not only that archaeologists’ assumptions about El Mirador were incorrect, but so were their assumptions about the Pre- classic Maya. “The whole model was wrong. And here I was, a lowly graduate student going against the big guns at Harvard and Yale and Stanford and Chicago.” This presented a formidable challenge. “You have to be right,” he says. “If I had been wrong, I would have been toast.” He found more Preclassic pottery in and around nearby structures, which corroborated his conclusion. In 1983, the Matheny/Dahlin project ended. “But I was captivated by the basin, by the Preclassic florescence here that was rare or scarce elsewhere.” He returned in 1987 and began work at , the oldest known city in the basin, which dates to about 1000 B.C. In 1988, the Guatemalan government asked him if he would investigate the entire basin. “I believe in regional studies. I think they’re more comprehensive.” So began the

Regional Archaeological Investigation of the North Peten, BIEBER CHARLES DAVID A worker stands on scaffolding during the excavations of the central Guatemala Project, which was later renamed the Mirador structure at the summit of La Danta. The pyramid is roughly 230 feet high. Basin Project. In 1996 Hansen formed the Foundation for 20 fall • 2007

TTHEW ADAMS WHITE TTHEW MA A worker holds a terminal Classic figurine. Though the Mirador Basin cities collapsed around A.D. 150 during the late Preclassic period, La Danta was later

inhabited during the terminal Classic period (approximately A.D. 900) by a small number of people.

Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies, a non- Hansen is also teaching a field school of students, one of profit institution concerned with ancient and contemporary whom is his son, from Idaho State University, where Hansen societies and their environments. is on the faculty. Several of the students are sitting at a long table eating a breakfast of rice, beans, eggs, and tortillas that Hansen, 53, is a big, vigorous man they wash down with a grape Kool-Aid-type drink. Though with an intense mien. Unlike most archaeologists, he’s gained a Guatemala is a major coffee-producing country, the camp coffee measure of celebrity for his work. He’s been featured in dozens of is a strange brew made from blackened tortillas that the documentaries and newspaper and magazine articles, and he’s students eschew. The conversation segues to heath care and also appeared on the TV shows 20/20, World News Tonight, and the cost of anti-malarial pills. Another student told of how the the Australian edition of 60 Minutes. He’s even gotten a taste of camp doctor anesthetized a worker’s mouth with Novocain so Hollywood, serving as a consultant for , Mel Gibson’s all of his rotten teeth could be removed by another worker cinematic take on the Maya. (Some experts have criticized the with a pair of needle-nosed pliers. movie, saying its depiction of the Maya is inaccurate, but After breakfast Hansen leads me, a photographer, and a Hansen largely defends it.) He rubs elbows with wealthy and half dozen students on a short hike to La Danta, the largest powerful people, Gibson among them, who support his project. prehistoric pyramid in the Maya region and one of the largest in Hansen spends about half of the year in the field or in a the world. Most of the roughly 2,000-year-old structure is laboratory in Guatemala City analyzing artifacts. Life at the El covered by jungle, giving the impression that it’s a big hill. Mirador camp features precious few amenities. The crew sleeps There are steps, first limestone and then wooden, for climbing in tents and uses outhouses. Mule train brings in most of the the pyramid’s first three platforms. We ascend to the final struc- supplies. Mimicking the ancient Maya, Hansen built a series of ture by pulling ourselves up with a rope. On one side of the large underground cisterns that collect rain water for drinking pyramid, workers on scaffolding are restoring a wall. The top of and other purposes. There are no showers, and “bathing” La Danta is some 230 feet high, and once we reach it Hansen means making do with a bar of soap and a basin of water. sits on the edge, pleased with this sweeping view of the basin. In addition to directing a huge crew of roughly 300 workers, In the distance we can see mounds that represent some of american archaeology 21

the other cities that were part of the basin’s advanced, powerful, called a codex.) This is one of the reasons that many of the unified society. He has discovered nine other cities that are basin’s sites have been heavily looted, but he’s remedied the similar in size or larger than Tikal, one of the great Maya capitals. problem by hiring armed guards, some of whom were former El Mirador, Hansen observes, was the “seat of the superpower looters, to protect it. Since 1992 he’s spent more than $1 million in the Preclassic.” The story of these people has never been on security. “Wherever I’ve had guards, we haven’t had one told, he says. “We’re looking at the opportunity to reveal the single looter’s trench,” he states. “It’s amazing to see the trans- story for the first time in all of its splendor, from all different formation in these guys,” he says of the looters-turned-guards. angles and perspectives.” This year the Guatemalan government is assuming responsibility Hansen assumes that a “charismatic king” united the cities for security, providing and paying for 40 guards, and there’s in the basin and ordered the grand architecture. He believes the possibility that another 22 will be hired. hundreds of thousands of people once lived here because a Hansen points to a ridge that hides the remnants of a huge labor force was necessary to construct the monumental causeway, one of several that linked the large cities in the basin. buildings. He estimates La Danta alone “required 15 million The causeways were six to 12 feet high and 90 to 120 feet wide man-days of labor to build,” a conclusion he reached through and the oldest of them date to about 2,400 years ago. They experimental archaeology. Hansen’s crew replicated ancient were made of stone, paved with thick walls of plaster, and Maya tools and quarried stone blocks of the same dimensions served for purposes of communication and trade. Though the the Maya used in their structures. They also replicated how archaeologists haven’t found evidence of the types of commodities long it took to transport the blocks from the quarries to the that were traded, Hansen surmises such goods as alabaster, building sites. For example, it typically took “12 men 17 minutes shell, jade, obsidian, corn, cacao, and squash were exchanged. to haul a 1,000-pound block 600 meters,” he says. “What’s The causeways suggest comity between the basin’s cities, phenomenal about the cities in the Mirador Basin is the invest- but the archaeologists have also found suggestions of conflict ment of labor and the extraordinary control of the masses.” with cities beyond its borders. They’ve uncovered evidence of We descend La Danta and head back to the camp. Along large walls and moats, presumably built for security. The wall the way, Hansen points out an old looters trench. A very valuable around El Mirador, for example “must have been 60 feet high type of pottery, called codex pottery, was produced by a small when it was first built,” says Hansen. It was made of limestone group of people living in the Mirador Basin’s ruins after the and probably had wooden palisades. He speculates it could cities were abandoned. (The pottery is so named because its have been a response to potential threats from nearby Tikal, or images appear to have been taken from a sort of early book Teotihuacán, which is near Mexico City. Hansen knows the TTHEW ADAMS WHITE TTHEW MA Local workers have been trained to perform various tasks. These workers are measuring portions of a structure so that it can be accurately recorded. 22 fall • 2007

RABINOWITZ Y JERR El Mirador was thought to be a Classic period city until Hansen discovered Preclassic pottery inside Structure 34, shown here. The building is now exposed and covered by a polycarbonate roof that Hansen designed with his codirector, archaeologist Edgar Suyuc, and aeronautical engineer John Cybulski. The roof was designed to protect the building from such things as the harmful effects of ultraviolet light. american archaeology 23 walls were built as the cities in the basin declined, and he thinks rulers were full of themselves, he explains, running through a they were a symptom of that decline. The Maya collapsed for laundry list of their vices: “stupidity, gluttony, perhaps laziness, an entirely different reason. top-heaviness, over-taxation.” A salient example of their conspicuous consumption was Hansen busies himself with the increasing thickness of the plaster on masks, panels, walls, investigating the countless details and testing his hypotheses, and floors as time passed. The archaeologists analyzed more but having spent nearly three decades researching the Mirador than 100 floors in various cities and found that the average Basin, he believes he has revealed the larger story of the Maya. thickness of floors in the middle Preclassic period, between There was a time when he wondered how the Mirador Basin 800 and 400 B.C., is roughly one to one and one-half inches. cities emerged as a “superpower when the rest of the Maya As time passed, the thickness of the average floor increased to world was struggling to find its identity.” The answer, he’s nearly five inches, and some were almost 15 inches. Why did they concluded, was the mud. “Around 1000 B.C. a band of people build floors that thick?, he asks rhetorically. “Because they could.” found some attractive resources in a marsh,” he says. They The Maya used large amounts of lime to build their struc- “exploited these resources to the max.” These Maya were not tures, so Hansen enlisted a research team from the University slash-and-burn farmers; rather, they used a layer of mud to of California, Berkeley, to study lime production systems. They replenish their productive agricultural fields and terraces. “The discovered it took great quantities of wood and limestone to marshes were the economic engines,” states Hansen. It make small quantities of lime. “They destroyed their environment produced the food that fed the laborers that built the monu- to feed a burgeoning lime production system,” Hansen observes. mental structures as well as surpluses that were used in trade to Drought may have exacerbated the problem. Clay is a natural obtain valuable items. “The number of swamps here is what component of limestone, and having stripped their land of attracted these populations.” vegetation, the clay washed over the agricultural fields and For more than 1,000 years they prospered. Then, in the terraces, eventually burying them. late Preclassic period around A.D. 150, the Maya collapsed in “They didn’t seem to care,” he says of the rulers who the Mirador Basin. Hansen offers a succinct explanation for caused this degradation. “They didn’t worry about the conse- the fall: “conspicuous consumption.” They were at their quences. They had their lime production. They had their big apogee, possessing the resources to indulge themselves, and cities being built.” The commoners recognized the severity of indulge themselves they did. “They were doing just great for a the problem, and when they suffered a scarcity of food they thousand years and then they went overboard,” he says. The lost faith in their rulers and abandoned the basin. “We don’t really know where they went,” says Hansen. Perhaps to the northeast, in which case their descendants could have occupied in Mexico. As the Mirador Basin cities fell, Tikal rose. In the absence of the superpower, Hansen reasons, it was easier for Tikal to expand economically, politically, and militarily.

In 1990 Hansen presented a report on his research to a resident of one of the outlying villages, who responded, “What does this mean for me and my family?” The question caused Hansen to dramatically reinvent his project, making it more beneficial to the area’s living residents. “I came to the conclusion years ago that science is sterile if it doesn’t help the lives of people in some way,” he says. So he designed his project to serve the people in the communities along the edge of the basin as well as archaeology. Hansen says the region is threatened by forces he some- times refers to as “the dark side.” They include looters, loggers, poachers, and drug and human traffickers. He’s concluded that in order to preserve the archaeology in the basin, he must preserve the basin itself. This means confronting the dark side, which has proven to be dangerous. Due to death threats against Hansen, 10 Guatemalan soldiers are guarding his camp. “They thought if they could take me out of the picture it would all go away, so they could log and burn with impunity,” he says. Sitting on the steps of Structure 34, the building in which

he first discovered Preclassic pottery, he explains how this will RICHARD D. HANSEN A partially reconstructed codex vessel. Many of the basin’s sites have be accomplished. been heavily looted by thieves searching for this valuable type of pottery. It’s unrealistic to expect the local people to refrain from 24 fall • 2007

EVOLUTION GRAPHICS This map shows the major cites and some of the smaller sites, which are indicated by dots, in the Mirador Basin. The solid and dotted white lines represent the surveyed and unsurveyed causeways connecting some of the major cities. The causeways were used for communication and trade.

looting, logging, and poaching, and starve as a result. They the executive director of the Global Heritage Fund, a non- need to earn a living, Hansen says, and he’s trying to help profit organization that preserves archaeological and cultural them find alternative ways to do that. Tourism is one of those heritage sites and is supporting Hansen’s efforts. Hansen intends alternatives. “We can generate hundreds of millions of dollars to expose only the fronts of the buildings, leaving the remainder for this country,” he states. El Mirador is a remote site that covered by jungle. This approach keeps the buildings stable, can’t be reached by car. I arrived via a 30-minute helicopter preserves them for future research, reduces the expensive ride from the town of Flores. Those who don’t take a helicopter maintenance that’s a consequence of exposure, and is less face a grueling two to three day hike. Not surprisingly, El disruptive to the animal habitats. Mirador gets only around 2,000 tourists a year, according to But even limited exposure of these structures will require Hansen, while hundreds of thousands visit Tikal and Chichén an enormous amount of time, effort, and money. More than Itzá, in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, each year. $600,000 has already been spent to expose and stabilize He envisions the basin as a roadless wilderness preserve. Danta. However, Hansen says he’s already excavated a lot of “A road into here is the kiss of death,” Hansen says, because it the ruins and backfilled them, so uncovering them again for will result in deforestation. He believes there are other options, tourists won’t require as much work and expense. such as a small-gauge train, that could solve the access problem. Achieving such ambitious goals requires extensive expertise. The track could be laid in a way that would spare the trees. In September of 2006 the U.S. Department of Interior and Such a train would cost about $8 million to build, one-tenth the Guatemalan government signed a 10-year agreement the cost of a road, he says. There are people who have 25-year whereby the Interior Department will provide technical expertise concessions to log the forest, and if he had the authority, to protect the natural and archaeological resources and promote rather than deny those concessions, Hansen would rent the sustainable development in the “Mirador Cultural and Natural trees from the loggers so they wouldn’t be cut down. Zone,” which includes a part of the Mirador Rio Azul National He would also like to see a lodge built at El Mirador to Park, which occupies part of the basin. welcome tourists with “a cold drink, a nice shower, and a nice Hansen’s goals also require large sums of money, so part bed.” Hansen says that, according to the Guatemalan Institute of his time is spent raising that money. The Global Heritage of Tourism, annual tourism revenues associated with Tikal are Fund has committed $5 million over the next three years. The about $220 million, a figure he is confident El Mirador can day before I arrived, Hansen accompanied another of his match or exceed. In addition to remoteness and a lack of supporters, John Paul DeJoria, who cofounded the company creature comforts, El Mirador currently lacks the magnificent that makes Paul Mitchell hair products, to the top of La Danta. exposed structures that draw visitors to Tikal, Chichén Itzá, Hansen states that he has a “fairly good” chance of saving and other popular Maya sites. Exposing La Danta and the the basin. Skeptics may question his ideas of a train to El other large pyramids is an essential part of Hansen’s plan— Mirador and renting trees, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’s “That’ll knock Tikal for a loop,” he claims—but the idea is to turned conventional wisdom on its head. give visitors a different experience than those sites offer. “It will be a jungle, wild life experience,” says Jeff Morgan, MICHAEL BAWAYA is the editor of American Archaeology. american archaeology 25 SIMULATING PREHISTORIC LIFE Agent-based modeling, a form of computer simulation, is helping archaeologists to better understand the decision-making processes of ancient life.

By David Malakoff TIM KOHLER

26 fall • 2007 It’s the summer of A.D.1290, and it’s been a bad day in Robert Reynolds, a computer scientist at Wayne State Uni- the Long House Valley, in what is now northeastern Arizona. versity in Detroit, Michigan. “They let you overcome one of Your daughter has spent all day in search of firewood, but returns the curses of archaeology, which is the inability to experi- home with just a handful of twigs. “The trees are gone,” she ment,” adds archaeologist George Gumerman, a senior says, near tears. A walk through the garden only darkens the scholar in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with the School for Ad- mood. The corn is dying from drought—again. Then, your vanced Research. “You get to create a world, tweak the variables neighbor drops by, looking grim. “We’re leaving; we need to that govern it, watch it evolve, then tweak it again.” find better land,” she announces. “Come with us.” That night, your mind races: “Should we stay…or go?” REVEALING EVERYDAY LIFE Today, we know how the Anasazi answered that ques- Archaeologists like Gumerman are relative newcomers tion. Some 700 years ago, they abandoned their homes and to the world of agent-based modeling. Computer scientists fields in the prehistoric northern Southwest, leaving behind trace the field’s mathematical roots back to the 1940s. But it some of North America’s most famous and most mysterious wasn’t until the 1990s, with the arrival of relatively cheap, ruins. Now, researchers are using some new tools to under- powerful computers and new software tools, that artificial stand why the Anasazi made that choice. Using sophisticated worlds really began to bloom. computer models, the scientists are recreating the Anasazi’s In Growing Artificial Societies, an influential book pub- prehistoric world and reliving their lives over and over again. lished in 1996, Robert Axtell, of George Mason University These virtual worlds, known as “agent-based models,” are in Virginia, and Joshua Epstein of the Brookings Institution, helping illuminate the reasons why the Anasazi flourished where they did, and why they ultimately fled. “Agent-based models are a scholar’s sandbox. You push things around and then see what it all looks like,” says

(Opposite page) Archaeologists from Washington State University and Crow Canyon Archaeological Center prepare to map a large community center in Southwest Colorado. The graph shows precipitation during prehistoric times, information that was incorporated in the computer models to make the simulations as accurate as possible. LIZ LOPEZ american archaeology 27

JEFF DEAN Long House Valley, in northeastern Arizona, is the real-world setting for the simulations of Anasazi settlement and subsistence. The virtual Anasazi reproduce, make decisions about where to locate fields and residences, and die out. The success and failure of these decisions drives population

growth and decline and settlement location, aggregation, and disaggregation during the period A.D. 400–1350.

a think tank in Washington, D.C., noted that surprisingly com- large number of people from an array of academic disciplines. plex patterns could emerge from the interactions of “agents,” Kohler, who has been studying Southwestern cultures for such as people or birds, programmed to follow a few basic rules. decades, has been one of the lead chefs. In the mid-1990s, he For instance, create a world in which highway drivers are given joined up with Axtell, Epstein, Gumerman, Reynolds, and just two orders—slow down when you get too close to the car others to create the first of several simulated worlds that are in front of you, or speed up when you get too far away—and now populated by virtual Anasazi. you end up with traffic jams of mind-numbing complexity. Order artificial birds to follow the bird in front of them, or turn MAPPING ANCIENT MIGRATIONS when nearby birds get too close, and you end up with pulsating At the heart of these worlds are digitized maps that the flocks that twist and shimmer through an artificial sky. researchers divide into thousands of cells. They then use real- These simulations intrigue archaeologists, in part because world studies to provide an array of information for each cell. they hold hope of revealing how mundane, everyday choices— For a map of Long House Valley, for instance, researchers have such as what to eat, where to sleep, and when to weed—shaped drawn on tree-ring and hydrological studies to estimate how the cultures and sites they study. “The problem in archaeology much maize could be grown in each cell for every year from is that we see a pattern on the landscape,” such as the locations A.D. 400 to 1450. They can also add other information, such of Anasazi settlements, says Tim Kohler, an archaeologist at as how much wood, water, or game was available in each cell. Washington State University in Pullman. “And what we really Then, the researchers populate the map with Anasazi want to know is the process that produced that pattern.” “agents,” and let them live and move around under a few basic Kohler uses a Hollywood metaphor. The typical archaeo- rules. In Long House Valley simulations, for instance, the agents logical site is like a “snapshot or series of snapshots in time,” are Anasazi households of five people each. The rules stipulate he says. In contrast, agent-based models “are more like a movie that each individual needs 160 kilograms of maize per year, and with characters and a plot that unfolds.” And Reynolds com- that each household loses about one-third of its annual harvests pares the simulations to cooking. Archaeological sites, with to pests and other problems, and can store just 1,600 kilograms their “compressed layers of debris, are kind of the condensed of maize. When a daughter in the family turns 15, she marries, soup of human existence,” he says. Simulations “allow you to moves out, and starts a new household. Households have to be think about how the soup was made, how the ingredients were located near fields and water (for easy commuting). And when assembled and mixed together.” food stores and harvests drop below a certain threshold, the Cooking up the Anasazi world, however, has required a family must move and seek more productive farmland. 28 fall • 2007 CHARLOTTE HILL-COBB ameri Anasazi hadabandonedLongHouse Valley by extended drought andr an the model,asmallnumberoffamiliesare able tosurvive soil erosion anddecliningagriculturalproductivity. ofthevalley,abandoned thesouthernpart apparently dueto seen inthearchaeological record. By site. By tion’s largestsettlementwaslocatedjust100yards from areal edge, mirroring whatactuallyoccurred. In fact,thesimula- familieshadmigratedtothevalley’sthe artificial northwestern out of the northern Southwest,out ofthenorthern saysKohler. traditional “The simulations suggestthatdrought alonedidn’t force theAnasazi r Scientific American considerations influencedAnasazibehavior.cultural In a2005 helped teaseouthow bothenvironmental conditionsand saysKohler.minimal amountofenergytosurvive,” tell ouragentstousethelandscapeinanoptimumway, tousea Anasazitoseekthebiggestbangforbuck.“Wethe virtual ing how fastcouplesreproduce. Kohler encourage saystherules researchers by, canalsotinkerwiththerules forinstance,chang- back andwatchhow theyrespond tochangingconditions. The Anasazi householdsrandomlyacross themap. Andthentheysit eport that their artificial familiesbehaved muchliketheones thattheirartificial eport can archaeology A After that,however, themodelandreality ways.In part In theLongHouse Valley simulations,theresults have t the start ofthesimulation,researcherst thestart sprinklethe A . D . 1270, boththesimulatedandreal . Anasazihad article, Kohler,article, Gumerman, andReynolds emain inthevalley. In reality, the A . D . 1170,forinstance, A . D . 1305. The agents know about theworldaround themwhenmaking In particular, hesays,theteamiscuriousabout“what the southwestern North America,includingwhatisnow Mexico. study interactionsamongfourprehistoric gr Arizona State University in Tempe. He’s helpingarchaeologists researchers likeMarco Janssen, anappliedmathematicianat from theirown experiencesorthoseofothers.” norcouldtheylearn example, exchange goodsorservices, of theSociety forAmericanArchaeology. couldnot,for “They Kohlernor smart,” concludedinapaperforthe2003meeting exchangedbenefit ofcellphonesornewspapers, information. capturing exactlyhow ancientpeoples,whodidn’t have the however, hasbeenachallengetoagent-basedmodelers.Asis SIMULATING LONELINESS have beenpretty strong.” getting backtogetherwithfamilyorothercommunitiescould munities thathadlostalotoftheirsocialnetworks, thepullof some threshold, theymighthave beenpulledsouth.If com- end,whenthepopulationgotbelowchanges. But, atthevery thattheywereappears mainlypushedoutby environmental problems, orpulledsouthby culturalforces? In thiscase,it debate hasbeen:w That’s changinginthemodelsnow beingassembledby In Anasazi“were earlymodelstheartificial neithersocial Simulating thosekindsofsocialoremotionalfactors, House V Long Anasaziabandonedthesouthern andvirtual real har to maize. ThisillustrationdepictsanAnasazigirltrying by provided ofeachperson'scalories were proportion evidence, thecomputermodelsassumethatahigh Basedonarchaeological villagesinthisarea. sedentary of thegrowth For almost1,500yearsmaizehassupported vest a failing maize crop. It’sthoughtthatboththe vest afailingmaizecrop. alley duetofailingcrops. ere theypushedoutby environmental oups thatlived in 29 JEFF DEAN Long House Ruin features these massive parallel masonry walls that are 90 feet long and 12 feet high. This approximately 400-room gave the valley its name. Long House Ruin is the largest of the sites that were incorporated into the computer simulation.

decisions during periods of stress. Do they get information One possibility is through ceremonies or rituals that bring peo- from other settlements? How is that information exchanged?” ple together even in hard times, and allow them to share news. Modelers are also struggling to capture the emotions that can shape family relations. For instance, Gumerman noticed that in the Long House Valley model, new households founded by artificial Anasazi daughters often were next to Mom’s house. In reality, he says, archaeologists have found that the households were farther apart. Perhaps, he says, the model couldn’t capture the idea that “maybe the new couple wanted to be near Mom, but not too close.” Gumerman says that while the models may never capture those feelings about Mom, or love, or loneliness for that matter, “they do humanize these people for me. When you have to think about how much food they needed, how many babies they had, when they got married, it all adds an element of humanity.” Modelers are having an easier time simulating more concrete things, like how the Anasazi used basic resources like wood and game animals. One study, led by C. David Johnson of the Bureau of Land Management, simulated how Anasazi living in what is now the region of southwestern Colorado used wood. Given that the average household burned more than a metric ton of wood per person per year, “it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, by the 1200s at

least, the population in this region…lived in an environment LIZ LOPEZ This graph shows that in the Long House Valley simulations, the study area that was rather dramatically depleted of forest resources,” wasn’t completely abandoned by agents, even though it was in fact Johnson’s team concluded in a 2005 paper published in Amer- abandoned by the Anasazi. This suggests that some other factors not yet ican Anthropologist. And they suggest that denuded forests modeled, such as the appeal of areas to the south, violence, or other should put archaeologists on the lookout for ways the Anasazi things contributed to the final depopulation. might have adapted to this problem—from making better axes 30 fall • 2007 ZIAD KOBTI

This screen capture is taken from an interactive computer game that uses environmental data from the Anasazi region. Players can control the actions of the head of household for a simulated day. For example, the players can choose from a number of tasks such as agriculture, or hunting and gathering.

to fell bigger trees to changing how they used wood for cook- feeling for the kind of decisions they faced on a daily basis, ing and building shelters. and how risky those decisions could be.” A related simulation is exploring how the Anasazi hunted Other researchers, meanwhile, are exploring how their game and why they started domesticating turkeys. Kohler says models can be used to study not just the past, but also to this world assumes initial abundances of deer, cottontail rabbits, shape the future. The wood-use model created by Johnson’s and hares, then the three major sources of meat. He was “sur- team, for instance, could be modified to help people in devel- prised to see how quickly they just decimated the deer. It turned oping nations manage their forests. And understanding how out to be very easy to overhunt them.” Kohler says the over- ancient Americans responded to climate shifts could help hunting could explain why clear evidence of turkey farming starts water managers prepare for future droughts, which are pre- appearing in the archaeological record after A.D.900. “The house- dicted to become more severe as the globe warms. holds probably weren’t able to get enough meat, so that’s why they Those kinds of applications have only heightened interest may have gone to the trouble of domesticating turkeys,” he says. in agent-based models among the next generation of archaeol- ogists and social science scholars. “I have no lack of students THE ANASIMSZI? who want to learn about these tools,” says Janssen. The problem Some researchers have found their simulated Anasazi is finding appropriate teaching materials and the time and worlds so enlightening, and so entertaining, that they’ve toyed money to assemble the kind of interdisciplinary teams that are with the idea of turning them into games, like “The Sims,” a best suited to using the approach. “It’s a very interesting and popular computer game that simulates everyday life. So far, valuable tool,” he says, “but it can take a lot of time to learn however, only Reynolds has taken the plunge. A few years ago, from each other about the most important questions.” Like, he helped write a game for students called “A Day in the Life should you leave the Long House Valley…or stay? of an Anasazi” for the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Colorado. “It’s kind of a first person game,” he says. “The DAVID MALAKOFF is an editor and correspondent for NPR’s science desk. His player faces choices: do you weed, do you hunt, do you move. article “Uncovering Basques In Canada” appeared in the Summer 2007 issue You know, how do you spend your time? It gives students a of American Archaeology. american archaeology 31

AA StoryStory ofof FreedomFreedom

hen you approach Houston from the west at developers, hoping to profit from the rising land values, have sunset, the downtown skyline appears as a dubbed this neighborhood the West Gray corridor; but for shimmering wall of light. Shrines to the city’s many of the residents whose families have been there for gen- legendary corporate wealth, these steel, con- erations, the neighborhood is still known as Freedmen’s Town, crete, and glass towers designed by the likes named after the emancipated blacks that built it after the Civil ofW Phillip Johnson, I.M. Pei and Cesar Pelli reflect brilliant War. While the rest of Houston’s downtown was radically shades of orange and purple against the darkening horizon. transformed from sleepy burg to thriving metropolis during Just across the highway from Houston’s prosperous busi- the mid-20th century, Freedmen’s Town was neglected. ness district lies a neighborhood of crumbling wooden cot- There is a dearth of information about African-American tages and narrow streets. Until recently most city planners and archaeological sites in Texas, and researchers with the Yates policy makers considered it a slum, though the value of the Community Archaeological Project (YCAP) are working with land is soaring due to the growth of downtown. Real estate current and former residents to investigate and preserve the 32 fall • 2007

AnAn archaeologicalarchaeological projectproject inin HoustonHouston isis searchingsearching forfor evidenceevidence ofof howhow emancipatedemancipated slavesslaves reinventedreinvented themselvesthemselves atat Freedmen’sFreedmen’s Town.Town. TheThe archaeologistsarchaeologists areare alsoalso collaboratingcollaborating withwith Freedmen’sFreedmen’s Town’sTown’s currentcurrent residentsresidents inin anan efforteffort toto examineexamine theirtheir heritageheritage andand preservepreserve theirtheir community.community.

By Rachel Feit

neighborhood’s endangered material culture. Over the past collecting oral histories, old photographs, and documenting 15 years the historic core of Freedmen’s Town, which once the built environment with members of the community. encompassed 40 blocks listed on the National Register of YCAP is attempting to use this data to construct a “freedom Historic Places, has constricted as, block by block, the neigh- narrative” for this post-slavery community. borhood has yielded to bulldozers clearing the way for multi- YCAP is co-directed by Carol McDavid and David storied mixed-use edifices. Weak local preservation ordinances Bruner, both of whom received their initial exposure to have allowed this transformation. Headquartered in, and African-American archaeology while working with Kenneth sponsored by, the Rutherford B. H. Yates Museum, Inc. L. Brown at the University of Houston at the Levi Jordan (Rutherford was the son of Jack Yates, a 19th-century pastor Plantation, a well-known plantation site south of Houston. whose commitment to building social institutions such as The site yielded evidence that allowed Brown and his students parks, schools, and churches for Houston’s blacks has become to glimpse the daily activities of the enslaved, and later the stuff of local legend) in the heart of Freedmen’s Town, emancipated, blacks, and also to peer into their spiritual lives YCAP conducts a field school that is affiliated with the and beliefs. Since 2001 they’ve been investigating Freedmen’s University of Houston and Houston Community College. In Town to see what archaeology can reveal about the neighbor-

addition to unearthing artifacts, the archaeologists are also hood’s early residents and how they made the transition from APRIL RAPIER american archaeology 33 Students excavate under the Pullum House, which was built by Ned Pullum, once one of Houston’s leading black businessmen. The archaeologists have recovered various artifacts, including children’s toys, ceramic tableware, horseshoes, glass bottle fragments, and furniture parts. The house, which was built in the early 1900s, is owned and maintained by the Rutherford B. H. Yates Museum.

slaves to free men and women as they interacted with white Houston, says McDavid, who noted that it was known as “the society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. “People mother ward” by many of Houston’s African-American residents. were creating lives in different ways,” McDavid says. The entrenched racism of the Jim Crow South made Freedmen’s Freedmen’s Town, or Freedmantown, as it was originally Town, according to one resident, “like a city within a city.” called, was established after the Civil War, as thousands of This story of independence and self-determination is crucial to recently emancipated blacks poured into the city from sur- the contemporary neighborhood’s self-identity, and elucidating rounding rural plantations. Within this neighborhood they this story is one of the central goals for YCAP. built homes, churches, schools, and businesses that provided goods, services, and social and religious support to a growing com- Engaging the Community munity that Houston’s white politicians mostly overlooked. The In community archaeology projects, researchers welcome neighborhood became a center of African-American culture in community involvement and they use their data for education, community and economic development, and even social activism. “It is just good scholarship to work with people, to use all the resources you possibly have at your disposal. You do tell stories differently when you are working with descendant communities as research partners,” says historical archaeologist Paul Mullins. This idea has become more popular in American archaeology for approximately the last 20 years. This has to do with the way the discipline evolved in America, where the paradigm for archaeological methodology was established by investigations of prehistoric Native American sites. By the 1960s, these investigations were guided by an objective, scientific approach. The values, ideas, and opinions of living descendants weren’t

taken into account because they were generally considered to APRIL RAPIER Students wash artifacts in the laboratory. be unscientific. 34 fall • 2007

Ethnographic accounts state that African Americans built Freedmen’sFreedmen’s TTown’sown’s brick streets in the early 1900s out of necessity. David BrBruneruner thinksthinks thethe streetsstreets couldcould alsoalso havehave symbolicsymbolic significance.significance. APRIL RAPIER american archaeology 35

Project codirector Carol McDavid screens artifacts.

This began to change during the 1980s as Native Americans demanded a larger role in the investigations of their ancestors, and as archaeologists became more responsive to Native American

issues. This led to the passage of the Native American Graves APRIL RAPIER Protection and Repatriation Act in 1990, which mandated The project’s other codirector, David Bruner, works under the Pullum house. that Native groups have some control over the remains of their ancestors. During this same period, archaeologists also started Thus far the researchers have recovered children’s toys, ceramic questioning some of the foundations of their methodologies, tableware, glass bottle fragments, writing implements, horse- such as the emphasis on scientific objectivity, acknowledging shoes, needles, buttons, and furniture parts. that an individual’s assumptions, concerns, and agendas can The archaeologists have recovered “a fair amount of decorated influence research. ceramics” from Freedmen’s Town, McDavid says, and these McDavid and Bruner consider the participation of current items are of good quality. “They were buying with knowledge and former neighborhood residents to be an essential component and care,” she adds. The items the archaeologists are finding of their project. She notes that YCAP is analogous to projects indicate that it didn’t take long for the former slaves and their some archaeologists undertake in collaboration with Native descendants to ascend to middle-class status, a conclusion that American tribes, but “there’s no NAGPRA for African-American contradicts the stereotypical portrait of the neighborhood’s sites,” she hastens to add. “It’s the right thing to do. I do founders. “I think they had similar aspirations as the larger believe it will result in better science.” She’s confident this society,” says McDavid. approach “makes for better and more complete data” because For McDavid and Bruner, the artifacts are no more impor- the community can offer interpretations of the evidence that tant than the dialogues they stimulate with the community. might not occur to the archaeologists. The items evoke such provocative topics as race, class, gender, and past social practices. When the archaeologists unearthed Symbolic Streets? typeface letters in the yard behind the house of Rutherford On a cool, blustery day Bruner crawled under the Ned Pullum Yates, who owned a printing company, it signified black entre- house, one of the structures owned and maintained by the preneurship during the early 20th century, which is something Rutherford B. H. Yates Museum, where field school students Freedmen’s Town’s current residents take pride in. The archae- were excavating. The house was built at the beginning of the ologists have also found gold-plated pen nibs under the Pullum 20th century, when Pullum was one of Houston’s leading black house. These findings support oral histories and historical businessmen. At one point he owned a brickyard, a shoe repair accounts that education and literacy were important to the store, and two pharmacies. The crew dug test units under the community. The neighborhood’s residents are interested in crawl space on the chance that Pullum had used it to store mer- these discoveries because they help to contradict negative chandise that could reveal information about his businesses and stereotypes about African Americans. “Freedmen’s Town was how they may have differed from those of white Houstonians. prominent, progressive,” says longtime resident Gladys House. 36 fall • 2007

TES MUSEUM, INC. YA RUTHERFORD B. H. The Yates house before and after restoration. The house was originally purchased by the co-founder of the Yates Museum, Catherine Roberts, who did the restoration. Over 80 percent of the original material was saved. The house, which is now a part of the museum, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

“You didn’t have to go to Caucasians for anything; we were self-sustaining.” The Making of Activist Archaeologists According to ethnographic accounts, African Americans built the neighborhood’s brick streets in the early 1900s arol McDavid and David Bruner consider themselves to be activist archae- because the city neglected their pleas for these improvements. ologists. “One of the reasons I do archaeology has nothing to do with “The brick streets of Freedmen’s Town perhaps have symbolic Carchaeology,” says McDavid. What she means by this is she studies the meaning,” says Bruner. While recording these streets, which past not simply to understand it, but also to understand how its ghost haunts are now threatened by urban renewal plans, the archaeologists the present. When she was growing up in Houston and other parts of the uncovered a tiny ceramic die set between the brick cobbles at South, racism was part of the cultural scene. So through her archaeological the center of an intersection near the Rutherford B. H. Yates work she’s trying to understand how society can transcend racism now. That’s Museum and Pullum House. There are ethnographic accounts why she’s focused on sites like Freedmen’s Town and the Levi Jordan of blacks using dice in rituals in other places. Though the die Plantation. “It’s trying to use your archaeology to be a change agent in society is old, they’re uncertain that it was placed there when the —to be a citizen archaeologist,” she states. intersection was built. Bruner’s experience working on African-American sites, many of which are In several intersections the bricks are arranged in a herring- endangered, led him to adopt the same philosophy. He says “there’s an bone pattern that contrasts with their arrangement in other inequality in how history is preserved” that he’s trying to address. Their activist parts of the streets. This herringbone pattern, which is also philosophy has shaped YCAP, and consequently they’ve made community partic- seen on the exterior of the neighborhood’s historic Bethel ipation one of their principal goals. To engage current and former Freedmen’s Baptist Church, may also have symbolic meaning. Bruner, Town residents, the archaeologists have resorted to measures that are unfamil- who recently earned his doctorate studying mortuary symbols iar to many of their colleagues. McDavid, in a former life, was a public relations used on African-American graves in the greater Houston area, executive, and she often uses the tools of that trade to promote YCAP. She may notes the importance of “crossroads” in African and African- be one of the few archaeologists who are nearly as adept at Photoshop and American cultures. Crossroads have been identified as ritual desktop publishing as she is at fieldwork. In addition to digging, she gives focal points in west and central Africa, and they also appear in speeches, writes articles, and designs brochures, posters, and Web sites. Earlier African-American quilt patterns and oral history narratives. this year she was given the John Cotter Award in Historical Archaeology by the The street intersections may have served as “found cosmograms,” Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) for her work with descendant groups. according to some researchers. Cosmograms are graphic In its announcement of the award, the SHA described McDavid as “a major figures that represent a set of cultural beliefs about how the force in helping to explore new avenues of inquiry in historical archaeology.” world is structured, and in some African religions they usually Getting the public to participate in YCAP has been challenging, though consist of two intersecting lines, sometimes surrounded by a they’ve had their successes. Bruner cites a group of kids who took part in a dig, circle or oval shape. The four cardinal directions refer to differ- two of whom were so enthused they declared their intentions to become ent parts of the cycle of life—birth, death, and the transitions archaeologists. But Bruner and McDavid aren’t satisfied with their accomplish- between them. In one of the Freedmen’s Town intersections, ments. “I think we need to be even more visible to the community,” he says. the name of the street is inverted on the embedded tile street McDavid says she’s annoyed by other archaeologists who sometimes marker on the south side of the intersection. Bruner notes that claim, in describing other projects, that their approach to engaging the public is letters and words on African-American graves in the nearby so successful that there are no problems to be solved. “I don’t want to appear Olivewood Cemetery are also inverted, and he surmises that complacent,” she says of her own work. “It’s an ongoing process, one which these inversions could reflect common African cosmologies in requires constant critical reflection and pushing to be better.” which the afterlife is seen as a mirror image of life itself. The —Michael Bawaya american archaeology 37 Megan Quinn (right), YCAP’s lab supervisor, helps a volunteer (center) identify artifacts. Student Apollo Chang (left) catalogues artifacts.

make our presence in the community known.” But so far input from the residents hasn’t significantly informed the

archaeological investigation, though McDavid thinks it will in APRIL RAPIER These are samples of the artifacts recovered from the excavation. (From the future. Many challenges will need to be addressed, including top left clockwise) Two buttons; a finial; two gold pen nibs; the ceramic the fact that YCAP’s predominantly white employees are die found in the intersection and (below) two bone die; two pieces of a sometimes seen as outsiders. kerosene lamp collar. When McDavid first embarked on YCAP, she asked the residents how the project could serve them. They seemed intersections and objects such as the die could be expressions pleased that archaeologists were interested in their history, but of a belief system that are partially derived from west and central they generally embraced YCAP’s work only in so far as it furthered Africa. “It’s nothing that we can concretely demonstrate yet,” he their agendas, such as offering evidence that refutes racist says, “but based on what we know about African-American stereotypes of African Americans, or argues for saving their sites in the United States, it warrants further research.” He adds imperiled community. Some people, especially the residents that they need to talk to more people in the neighborhood to who have recently moved there, simply don’t care about the get their opinions on these matters. neighborhood’s history. “I think more people appreciate it than don’t,” McDavid says of the project. Striving for Acceptance Freedmen’s Town resident Gladys House believes that “The more conversations we have with people, the better our YCAP is an important part of the grassroots effort to fight data,” says McDavid. “We try to make certain the community urban renewal and to keep the spirit of the neighborhood knows they have input into how and what we excavate, we do alive. She asked YCAP to excavate a property she plans to pro bono archaeological work for community members to use develop as a youth center. The archaeologists found household for their own projects, we try to train local kids, and we generally artifacts and the foundation of a stable. “Archaeology is important to me because I like history,” House says. YCAP’s scope and pace, which McDavid acknowledges as being “heartbreakingly slow,” have been constrained by limited funding. There are boxes of artifacts that await analysis and cat- aloguing. But once they have the resources to focus on analysis, she expects community participation to increase, and that the residents will help the archaeologists interpret these items. “The project is very much about process,” states McDavid. “Our archaeology is not used so much for the sake of just scientific discovery as it is for other purposes, although science is still an important part of it.” Those other purposes include exploring how to engage and educate people, which, to McDavid and Bruner, means exploring how to make archaeology relevant and vital. TES COMMUNITY ARCHAEOLOGY PROGRAM YA This is the upside-down street sign at the corner of Andrews and Crosby. RACHEL FEIT is an archaeologist and writer. Her article “Defining the Caddoan This inverted sign may have symbolic meaning. Culture” appeared in the Spring 2003 issue of American Archaeology. 38 fall • 2007 What Became of the Mimbres?

Archaeologists are excavating a site MAXWELL MUSEUM in southwest New Mexico that could yield evidence about the fate of this culture known for their exquisite ceramics. By Tim Vanderpool

A big breeze whips up the Mimbres Valley, rumbling across a creosote bush-dotted ridge, and stirring dust flur- ries around the ancient settlement of Old Town. Below is the , flanked by fertile plains and a few black cows. Standing on this ridge, with sweep- ing vistas of southwest New Mexico, it’s easy to picture the and and artisans of the Mimbres people, whose roots in this region could date back to A.D. 200. But more difficult is piecing together what happened to those Mimbreños after their com- plex culture collapsed a millennium later. There are a number of possible scenarios, one of them being that some of the Mimbreños abandoned this fertile valley. In another scenario they remained, but evolved in a way that changed their signature in the archaeological record. Researchers’ knowledge of the Mimbres, who are known for their beautiful black-on-white painted pottery marked by fantastic creatures and wonderful geometric designs, was greatly diminished

MAXWELL MUSEUM by a century of looting. Sites like Old Town were looted for its valuable ceramics, and consequently precious infor- ARRELL CREEL

mation about this people seemed lost forever. D american archaeology 39 So dire was the situation that the U.S. Bureau of Land “Archaeologists were always trying to work ahead of the Management (BLM), which owns the site, persuaded archaeolo- looters,” says Creel. Now, by moving on to the later Black gist Harry Shafer, then of Texas A & M University, to examine it. Mountain phase portion of the site, his teams are charting new Shafer was directing the excavation of a Classic Mimbres archaeological territory. Holcomb notes that “although that pueblo at the NAN Ranch site near Old Town. Shafer, in turn, phase has been defined, it’s very poorly known.” hired Darrell Creel to investigate Old Town. “One of the reasons Old Town was selected as a research tool was because it A GLIMPSE OF THE MIMBRES had been written off as destroyed,” says Thomas Holcomb, It’s ironic that so much about the Mimbres remains undiscovered. BLM archaeologist in New Mexico’s Las Cruces District. The They were a vibrant culture, expanding across the remote valleys BLM wanted to know if anything worth saving remained. of southwestern New Mexico from A.D. 200 to 1400. In time, Eighteen years later, Creel is still working at Old Town, their villages stretched along the upper Gila River Valley, east to though his investigation is no longer affiliated with Shafer’s. the Black Range, and south to the Mexican border. This culture is As director of the Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory at known largely for its ceramics, architecture—elaborate pithouses, the University of Texas at Austin, Creel has never had trouble grand kivas, and pueblos—and unusual burials with bowls finding students eager to jump knee-deep into the Mimbres covering the faces of the dead. These colorfully painted bowls mystery. And he long ago laid aside any doubts about this typically had crude perforations known as “kill holes.” ruin’s enduring significance. Today, he stands on the crest of By A.D. 1000, Mimbreños had transitioned from pithouses the windswept ridge, gazing down at the mercurial Mimbres to pueblos. During the Classic period (1000 to 1130), the River. “By that first season,” he says, “I knew that Old Town Mimbres River connected an entire network of substantial was worth preserving and keeping,” communities. The pueblos could shelter up to 400 people. In Working among looter-scattered debris from the Mimbres’ the Late Pithouse period (550 to 1000) they probably developed Classic period, which peaked at about A.D. 1110, Creel and irrigation systems that apparently were inspired by the his teams have uncovered everything from floor vaults and , another Southwestern culture. That shift kept the sub-floor burials to odd ritualistic adornments and strange Mimbres anchored in one spot, says Steve Lekson, an archae- holes bored into the floor of a great —sipapus—that were ologist at the University of Colorado. “You can move from one considered passageways to the Underworld. place to another when you’re following rainfall, but a canal Last year, his crew conducted preliminary testing on a doesn’t move. So they were locked in place from the Late group of rooms on a little-explored portion of the site. “There Pithouse period on. Presumably, these were big canals, too, are two components,” he says. “There were a number of pit not just some small canal in the desert.” houses here. On top of them are probably three different room But that’s not to say they were isolated. “The Mimbres blocks from several hundred years later. Our focus is on the were very close to the Hohokam during the Late Pithouse latter, which is called the Black Mountain Phase.” period and very close to Chacoan culture during the (Classic) Archaeologists have wondered what became of the Mimbres Mimbres period,” Lekson says. “But they weren’t just a tail by the Terminal Classic Period, ca. 1130. The deterioration being wagged by either of those dogs. They were a fairly intensified during the Black Mountain phase, which ran from impressive population on their own, with strong ties to the 1130 until about 1300. Some archaeologists believe the Mimbres south and Mexico that probably owed nothing either to abandoned portions of their valley in the 12th century. “By A.D. Chaco or Hohokam cultures.” 1140, entire villages were depopulated or abandoned altogether,” Not surprisingly, not everyone agrees on just how close writes noted Mimbres scholar Harry Shafer in his seminal book the Mimbres were to these cultures. But regardless, evidence Mimbres Archaeology at the NAN Ranch Ruin. “Whether the entire from Old Town does portray them as busy traders. “We find valley was abandoned by A.D. 1140 is a matter of debate, but pottery that was brought in from just about every direction, certainly the bulk of the population had shifted and left the especially late in the Classic period—White Mountains red- middle and upper valley vacant.” The large pueblos were aban- ware, various Cibola area pottery types,” says Creel. “There’s doned and fell to ruin. Shafer and other researchers also note the lots of Chupadero black-on-white from east of the Rio Grande, difference in the valley’s archaeological data after that time. There and a lot of El Paso polychrome.” The remains of scarlet is, for example, an absence of Mimbres black-on-white pottery macaws are perhaps most indicative of a vast trade network. and a change in arrowhead styles. Some archaeologists also cite Coming from the tropics of southern Mexico and Central a transformation from masonry to coursed adobe walls. America, it’s thought the birds were sacrificed during spring- Creel contends that evidence such as post-Classic rooms time rituals. uncovered at Old Town and the continuity of Mimbres-type They were also a culturally curious people, says Lekson. burial sites suggests that these people never completely aban- “In their daily lives, they were corn farmers like everybody doned the Mimbres Valley. He’s also of the opinion that the else. But I think their world was a lot bigger than that. It material culture didn’t change much after 1140. Even if the wasn’t a struggle for existence by any means. These were folks Mimbres briefly abandoned the valley, the evidence suggests they, who could grow lots of surplus corn if they wanted, and do or their descendants, returned and built the Black Mountain– things with it,” such as trade for other goods. phase pueblos. Decline set in around 1130, during the Terminal Classic 40 fall • 2007

TIM VANDERPOOL Darrell Creel (center) discusses excavation strategy with students Matthew Taliaferro (right) and Stewart McCauley (left) during the recent field season.

phase, and for a very long time that’s where the Mimbres story able, says J.J. Brody, professor emeritus of art and art history at dead-ended. By the 1930s looters had gutted many sites such the University of New Mexico, and author of the book Mimbres as Old Town, and the trafficking in stolen Mimbres pottery Painted Pottery. “What they invested in was the painting.” was impeding research. What rich painting it was. Much of the iconography is It’s easy to understand why Mimbres’ wares were so coveted. surreal—such as a bighorn sheep with the tail of a fish, or a The striking black-on-white or red-on-white bowls and jars human figure with the ears and tail of a rabbit. are marked by complex geometric designs and fantastical “So the art involves the creation of potentially disharmo- creatures. But as amazing as the paintings on the vessels are, nious visual structures that the artists balanced against each other the craftsmanship of their exteriors was otherwise unremark- in order to harmonize potentially disharmonious and chaotic american archaeology 41 A selection of bone, shell, and stone artifacts recovered from Old Town

Incised bone ring Malachite bee bead

Bird-shaped mussel shell pendant Pecten shell pendant ARL T TREJO /

Shell pendant Turquoise pendant Chalcedony arrow point MONICA

visual universes,” says Brody. Each painted Mimbres pot can be He has a tested technique for detecting adobe walls. “I conceived of as a metaphor for the world of everyday experience like to get the loose stuff off, and then let the surface dry,” he that is characterized by life and death, rain and drought, night says, noting the clay in adobe walls dries at a different rate and day, relationships among individuals, groups, societies, etc. than the surrounding soil. “Adobe drying out and hardening You can’t have light without dark or harmony without chaos.” up, that’s one of the key things. Then you come back two or Mimbres’ pottery began to change around 1100. “We lose three hours later, and often you see the wall where you couldn’t them when we no longer can recognize their visual traditions,” see it before. It’s amazing how fast it happens.” Brody says, “but that fact alone says nothing, implies nothing, Creel’s teams haven’t missed much during their many about population movements.” summers at Old Town. At times, Creel even rents a hoist, like those used for trimming trees. “It raises you up about 40 feet,” SEARCHING FOR EVIDENCE he says. “You can see Classic period wall alignments that aren’t The wind is blowing harder at Old Town, high above the readily recognizable on the ground.” Mimbres River. This is a tough season in southern New Mexico, He’s taken an ad hoc approach to his work. “This hasn’t but it’s a good time to excavate. “The first half of summer is been a project with one research topic in mind,” he says. “It’s the driest time,” Creel says. “Later in summer, this all gets wet just evolved over the years. In many seasons, we would find with monsoon rains. Then we can easily miss walls—even go something unexpected, and then pursue that the next year. So right through them—and miss floors as well.” we’ve had several different research topics. One year we 42 fall • 2007

DARRELL CREEL Researchers excavate two Black Mountain–phase rooms in 1993. Though some archaeologists believe walls were built with adobe rather than masonry during this period, researchers have found numerous rocks, set both vertically and horizontally, in these walls. The lower portions of most of the Black Mountain–phase rooms investigated at Old Town are primarily masonry, with coursed adobe above.

focused upon a great kiva, and it led to a whole new under- points out two rocks set on edge—a wall’s dead giveaway. “We standing of Mimbres great kivas.” They learned that great kivas think there’s a nice segment in there, and then it breaks up, had dedicatory objects, such as broken pieces of shell bracelets, too,” he says. “These rooms could be eroded down to floor. built into their walls and roofs, and that the kivas, for reasons We just don’t know yet.” unknown, were later deliberately destroyed. They also learned Creel continues to search for more evidence of Mimbres that great kivas at the Old Town and nearby Galaz sites had presence in this river valley after the 12th century, but he’s special interior features, including floor vaults or grooves, convinced they remained here. “To me, continuity is most sipapus, and sub-floor interments, that do not occur in great suggested by the way they buried their dead,” he says. “These kivas at other sites in the Mimbres Valley. people, to the extent we know, were buried inside these rooms, Creel’s crew resumed testing at Old Town’s Black Mountain– some with a killed pottery vessel placed over their face . That’s phase pueblo last year. This season they’re digging there again, a pretty unusual thing to do.” But it is distinctively Mimbres. probing for insights about household organization during that These interments, as well as the aforementioned room blocks, little-known phase. Matthew Taliaferro is a University of have been dated to the Black Mountain phase. Texas doctoral student completing a dissertation on those Then Creel stands, burying his boot toe into a dirt clod. Black Mountain households. But at the moment, he’s simply It’s the tic of a compulsive digger. “When we started looking trying to decipher walls and get a sense of these rooms. “We’re at the Black Mountain–phase pueblo here at Old Town, there hoping to find a larger room suite,” he says. That will allow were only three rooms that archaeologists had fully excavated comparisons “because the rooms are different in ways particular in the area,” he says. “By the end of this season we will have to each group, in the way they’re built, and how they’re used more than quadrupled that sample.” for daily activities.” A hand rests on his hip, fingers gripping a dusty trowel. There’s a lot to learn here, as it’s largely undisturbed by Creel gazes down at one of those rooms, still clinging to its looters. “They didn’t care about this later stuff,” Creel says. secrets. Questions raised by these faint walls span time’s arcane “They were after the (Classic) painted pottery.” But the site annals. It’s likely, of course, that any new revelations will spark offers other challenges. “There are a bunch of pithouses here,” only more debate. That makes Darrell Creel chuckle. “Getting he says. “On top of them are probably three different room archaeologists to agree is like herding cats,” he says with a grin. blocks from several hundred years later. These rooms date “We’re always going to argue about something.” from 1150 to 1300.” This summer’s primary focus “is on the latest use of this complex,” which he hopes will give them TIM VANDERPOOL is a Tucson freelance writer who covers natural history, more information about what happened during this time. He archaeology, and politics. american archaeology 43

new acquisition Joining Forces The Conservancy partners with other preservation organizations to save an important Hopewell site.

he Archeological Conser- vancy, working in conjunc- Ttion with Wilderness East, a central Ohio land trust, and the Conservation Fund, a national envi- ronmental organization, has made an emergency acquisition of the Spruce Hill Earthwork near Chillicothe, Ohio. The acquisition prevented the rare earthwork from being sold at an estate auction, where interest from land developers and other parties was high. The Spruce Hill Earthwork is a Hopewell period (ca. 100 B.C. to A.D. 500) hilltop enclosure encompassing about 140 acres. Its principal feature is a low stone and earthen wall with a stone gateway that circles the top of the hill. Hilltop enclosures are the characteristic Hopewell expression in southwestern Ohio, but the Spruce Hill earthwork is unique in that it’s located in the Paint Creek-Scioto River region of central Ohio. In this THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY MONUMENTS OF part of the state, Hopewell ceremo-

nial centers are typically large geo- ANCIENT metric in the floodplains. Squier and Davis mapped the Spruce Hill Earthwork, which was then unnamed, in 1847. Spruce Hill is also unusual in that The pear-shaped black line in the center of the map represents the earthwork. the wall surrounding the hilltop has a large amount of stone. seems more likely that these structures to having the site scientifically inves- Great structures like Spruce Hill were ceremonial gathering places, and tigated. were described as “hill forts” in the some may incorporate astronomical Federal legislation that author- 19th century, but a closer examina- alignments into their constructions. ized the incorporation of City tion of their configurations indicates Spruce Hill was first mentioned National Monument into Hopewell it’s unlikely they were used for in written accounts in 1811, and it Culture National Historical Park in defense. At Spruce Hill, for example, was mapped by Squier and Davis for 1992 also directed the National Park the wall is not on the summit of the their seminal study A ncient Monuments Service (NPS) to study the feasibility hill, but instead about 50 feet down of the Mississippi Valley, published in of adding Spruce Hill to the park. As slope, an inferior location for posi- 1848. The Conservancy became inter- an aspect of this study, the NPS tested tioning defenders. Also, the builders ested in the site in the mid-1980s, Spruce Hill in 1995 and 1996 and of , the most famous of but at that time the farming family determined that it is a Hopewell- the Hopewell hill forts, incorporated that owned it didn’t want to sell the period construction, based on the over 60 gaps in its enclosing wall. It land. They were, however, agreeable recovery of Hopewell artifacts such as 44 fall • 2007 new acquisition PUBLIC ARCHAEOLOGY SCHOOL IN SEARCH OF the Lost Colony bladelets and potsherds from the short-term loans from their benefac- Sponsored by the south gateway. Following this and tors. Then the Conservation Fund, a Lost Colony Center, other studies, the NPS approved the national nonprofit that promotes Holiday Inn of addition of Spruce Hill to Hopewell land conservation, agreed to make a Williamston and Culture National Historical Park. At low-interest loan to the Conservancy Falcon Motel in the request of the NPS, Representa- on short notice. Hatteras, NC tive Zachary Space has introduced The Conservancy and Wilder- H.R. 2197 to authorize its acquisition ness East were then able to pool their ca 1585 by the park. resources and make a $600,000 cash But by this time, the elderly cou- offer for the property. The family ca 1583 ple that cared for Spruce Hill for agreed to accept this offer, which years had passed away, and their heirs amounted to a fair-market price for were uninterested in maintaining the the 238-acre property, and they can- • Public archaeology classes: be part of the family farm. They decided to auction celed the auction. team excavating the Croatan Indian Site. • Overnight field experiences with the the land to the highest bidder and The Conservancy and Wilder- archaeologists aboard our research vessel. they set an auction date about 90 days ness East will now each have a 50 • Classes in archaeological methods at thereafter. The NPS wasn’t capable percent interest in the property and Jamestown, Virginia and Roanoke Island of responding that quickly. Dean An- will work in partnership to keep the and VIP presentations at Jamestown Fort and Roanoke Island (includes Lost Colony play). derson, the Superintendent of Spruce Hill site and its surrounding Prices start at $135 including room, dinner Hopewell Culture National Histori- Appalachian Cove Forest safe and se- and continental breakfast, 4 people per room. cal Park, turned to nonprofit land cure until the NPS can acquire them Upgraded accommodation packages available. Leave message for reservations 252-792-3440 trusts for assistance. The Conser- for inclusion in Hopewell Culture or email: [email protected] vancy was committed to helping, but National Historical Park. This may the anticipated purchase price of occur in the next two to three years. $500,000 to $750,000 was daunting Since 1980, the Conservancy has on such short notice. been acquiring major Hopewell sites Fortunately, another nonprofit in southern Ohio, including the type- BOOKS land trust, Wilderness East, was ac- site Hopewell Mounds and High tively engaged in preserving natural Bank Earthworks. Both are now areas in the area. When Spruce Hill part of Hopewell Culture National was brought to their attention, they Historical Park. —P aul Gardner became interested in the property for its Appalachian Cove Forest, an in- Conservancy creasingly rare plant community in Plan of Action Coyote Press North America. They were able to P.O. Box 3377 marshal $300,000 in grants and SITE: Spruce Hill Salinas, CA 93912 CULTURE AND TIME PERIOD: Hopewell Specializing in Archaeology, Rock (100 B.C. to A.D. 500) Art, , Ethnography, STATUS: Saved from development Linguistics, Native American Studies by emergency acquisition. and anything closely related. ACQUISITION: The Archaeological We stock thousands of new books Conservancy has an outstanding and reprints, used and rare books, loan of $300,000 from the and the back issues of many journals. Conservation Fund. Money is needed to pay down our debt. Browse or shop online at our newly HOW YOU CAN HELP: Please send redesigned e-commerce website: contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Spruce Hill, WWW.COYOTEPRESS.COM 5301 Central Ave. NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517. E-mail: [email protected] Proud sponsors of: www.californiaprehistory.com american archaeology 45

new acquisition

Preserving a Dan River Village The Bryant site has great research potential.

he Dan River weaves its way across central North Carolina Tand crosses into southern Virginia’s Piedmont before emptying into the Kerr Reservoir on the Roanoke River. The Dan, with its fertile river valley and rich flood- plain, was a focal point of Native American subsistence and settlement in the region throughout much of prehistory. The area has also been the focus of archaeological investigations since the 1930s. Despite the many excavations in the Dan River drainage, the Bryant

site, situated on the river’s floodplain KEITH EGLOFF at the Town of South Boston in Hali- These artifacts, which were discarded by looters, were found on the ground at the site. (Top) A fax County, was not brought to the fragment of a bone scraper; (bottom left) the end of a celt handle; (right) the bottom of a stone hoe attention of professional archaeolo- gists until the 1990s, when reports of looting prompted the state archaeolo- A.D. 1000 and 1450. These patterns transient population to that of semi- gists and others to document and sta- included a much larger population sedentary villages.” bilize it. Based on artifacts collected at than other nearby river valleys, large If it were not for the Town of that time, the site is thought to repre- storage pits associated with the vil- South Boston and the Halifax County sent occupations from the Middle lages, and a particular type of pottery Industrial Development Authorities, Woodland (A.D. 600–900) and Late that is predominantly net impressed the site might still be forgotten and Woodland (A.D. 900–1450) periods. and tempered with sand or crushed left to looters. In order to perma- By 2007, however, the site had quartz. Dan River phase sites are also nently preserve the site, they are been forgotten and the land was found to contain a wealth of orna- donating some 15 acres to the Con- acquired by the Industrial Develop- ments and tools made from bone, servancy. As a permanent research ment Authorities of the Town of shell, and clay. preserve, it will be studied and man- South Boston and Halifax County. No professional research has aged in perpetuity for the benefit of The Conservancy proposed acquiring been conducted at the Bryant site, all Americans. The preservation of Bryant, and upon realizing the impor- and archaeologists are hoping it can the Bryant site is an excellent exam- tance of the site the town and county answer important questions about ple of communities working to pre- agreed to donate it for permanent settlement on the Dan River. “With serve their cultural heritage. preservation. both Middle Woodland and Late —Andy Stout Many of the sites located within Woodland occupa- the Dan River drainage are associated tions present, the with Siouan-speaking peoples that Bryant site has high inhabited this part of Virginia and research potential,” North Carolina. In the area where said State Archaeolo- Bryant is located, archaeologists have gist Mike Barber. For identified a specific set of cultural example, it could shed patterns which are referred to as the light on “the transi- Dan River phase and date between tion from a more 46 fall • 2007 new acquisition

TheA Conservancy Team joined with Sarasota Effort County and other parties to save the Little Salt Springs site.

n 2003, at the request of Martha “Marty” Ardren, of the volunteer Igroup Time Sifters Archaeology Society, representatives of the Con- servancy visited a site known as the Little Salt Springs in Sarasota County. One of the oldest and most unusual sites in Florida, Little Salt Springs has three components. The first is the spring, which is actually a sinkhole that is fed by oxygen- deprived ground water. This sinkhole has preserved human and animal remains dating all the way back to Paleo-Indian times. The spring was caption gifted to the University of Miami in 1982, and since that time archaeolo-

ALAN GRUBER gists have been diving into the spring and retrieving Paleo-Indian and The Middle Archaic midden is one of three components of Little Salt Springs. The midden, which is Early Archaic Indian artifacts, as well approximately 8,000 years old, is located in an area that is being developed for housing. as fossil bones. North of the spring are the other vancy joined the Sarasota County boardwalks. This preservation proj- two components, a later Middle land acquisition department and ect may become a model for saving Archaic (6000 B.C.) midden and a several local archaeologists and other endangered archaeological sites cemetery. The midden contains the preservationists in an effort to acquire and using them for the education and remains of an archaic settlement. all of the Little Salt Springs site. benefit of future generations. The cemetery is located in a marshy As a member of that coalition, —Jessica Crawford area that provides excellent preserva- the Conservancy has tion due to its oxygen-free environ- raised $80,000 in grants ment. Excavations in the cemetery from foundations that during the late 1970s indicated that have gone toward the somewhere between 100 and 1,000 purchase of various human burials are preserved therein. tracts of land that make The items recovered from the exca- up the site. Sarasota vations included artifacts that nor- County has purchased mally do not survive for thousands other tracts. The county of years, including a woven reed mat. will manage the pre- The midden and cemetery are serve and intends to located in an area that is rapidly being turn it into a public developed for housing. Concerned archaeology park featur- that the site would be destroyed by ing a visitor’s center, development and impressed by its museum, interpretive great research potential, the Conser- signs, exhibits, and american archaeology 47

NEW POINT-3

The Legacy of the

acquisition Marksville People TEXAS INDIANS OF ARTIFACTS ONE ST The Conservancy obtains a portion of an endangered prehistoric site.

round 200 B.C. a culture known as the Hopewell ap- A peared in areas of Ohio and Illinois. One of the traits of this cul- ture was the construction of large earthworks and mounds in which high status individuals were buried. These people were buried with finely crafted artifacts made of shell, bone, copper, stone, and pottery. Many of these artifacts were made of non- local raw materials that were im- ported through trade over very long distances. Local expressions of the Hopewell culture can also be found across much of the central and east- ern U.S. In parts of , Arkansas, and Mississippi, the shares many char- acteristics with Hopewell, including the construction of large earthworks and similarities in pottery designs and artifact manufacturing. Conse- quently, Marksville is considered to be the Lower Mississippi Valley expression of the Hopewell. The name is taken from the city of Marksville in east-central Louisiana, which is near the culture’s largest site. The Marksville site, which was first mapped by archaeologist Gerard Fowke in the 1920s, consists of seven mounds, two semi-circular embankments, and perhaps as many as 60 smaller earthen circles. Six of the mounds, including one burial JESSICA CRAWFORD mound, are enclosed within a C- shaped earthen embankment 3,300 Landowner Peter Roy (left) and Louisiana State Archaeologist Chip McGimsey stand in front of a feet long and up to seven feet high. chimney that was once part of the Roy’s cabin. McGimsey has conducted research at the Marksville Together with the river channel State Historic Site as well as the portion of the site that the Roy family sold to the Conservancy. 48 fall • 2007

NEW POINT-3

acquisition forming the eastern boundary of the site’s mounds and embankments, Roy tract acquired by the Conser- site, the embankment separates the Fowke’s 1920s map shows eight cir- vancy contains at least three of the sacred and ceremonial elements of cular earthen rings with depressions eight rings mapped by Fowke, in- the site from the surrounding area. in the center. Aerial photographs cluding the two tested by archaeolo- Louisiana established the Marks- from the 1930s suggest as many as gists. Another ring is preserved ville State Historic Site to protect 42 60 of these rings may have been within the Marksville State Historic acres of the original site. The state present in the fields around the Site. site is open to the public and features embankments. Archaeologists have “The rings are unique earth- a museum. Much of the remainder tested two of these rings, discovering works that presently are known to of the site has been buried beneath the embankments were approxi- exist only at the Marksville site and the growing city of Marksville. How- mately two feet high and 30 to 60 it is very important to preserve as ever, the 16-acre Roy tract, which is feet in diameter. A sunken floor many examples of them as possible adjacent to the state site, was owned with a deep central fire pit lies for study,” said state archaeologist and protected by a local family who within each circular embankment. Chip McGimsey who has worked recently sold it to the Conservancy While the function of these earthen extensively at Marksville. Thanks to so it will be preserved until it is in- rings is unknown, they appear to be the Conservancy’s efforts, the re- corporated into the Marksville State areas used for ceremonial activities maining Marksville rings will be safe Historic Site. associated with the mounds and for that very purpose. In addition to the Marksville large embankments. The Marksville —Jessica Crawford POINT Acquisitions

«

Marksville The Protect Our Irreplaceable National Treasures (POINT) program was designed to save significant sites that are in immediate danger of destruction. american archaeology 49 CONSERVANCYFieldNotes Y GEORGE LOWR Harold Goldman (center), the owner of Southern Lines Company, stands on a barge transporting equipment to Stallings Island. The equipment was used to clear the site of thick growth and fill looters’ pits with sterile soil.

The Stabilization The 24-acre island is in the middle vancy developed a plan to stabilize and of Stallings Island of the Savannah River, approximately secure it. The stabilization required eight miles upstream from the city of heavy equipment, so a barge was SOUTHEAST—The Conservancy Augusta, Georgia. The island features used to transport the equipment and recently completed a four-week sta- a shell mound that covers three acres. men needed to complete the project. bilization project on Stallings Island, A deep midden, stone tools, bone, The Conservancy cleared brush a National Historic Landmark. and ceramics are associated with the from the shell mound area, cleaned Dating to approximately 2500 B.C. mound. looters’ holes, and placed geo-textile the site is known for producing some The site has been disturbed by material in the holes and filled them of the earliest evidence of pottery in looting for 100 years. In 1999 over with sterile dirt. Then the entire site the Southeast. The Conservancy 200 looter pits were identified on the was seeded with grass. A fence now acquired the site in 1997. shell mound alone—so the Conser- encloses the shell mound area and 50 fall • 2007 surveillance cameras are also in place. These measures help to ensure the preservation of one of the most important archaeological sites in the Southeast. Conservancy Wins Preservation Award

SOUTHWEST—This summer, the Arizona Governor’s Archaeological Advisory Commission announced the recipients of the 2007 awards in Public Archaeology. The Archaeolog- ical Conservancy received an award in the Private Sector Archaeology Program for having “significantly contributed to the protection and preservation of, and education about, Arizona’s non-renewable archaeolog- ical resources.” The awards were presented in conjunction with the Governor’s Historic Preservation Honor Awards at a ceremony that was part of the Historic Preservation Partnership Conference held this past June in

SHARON DEWITTE Prescott, Arizona. Southwest Region Director Jim Walker accepted the Eric Jones maps an Iroquois site using a global positioning system. award for the Conservancy. Since beginning preservation of Penn State University. mine the size of each village. Previous work in the state in 1985, the The focus of the research, which work done by Dean Snow of Penn Conservancy has established 26 employed global positioning and State University and Gary Warrick of archaeological preserves in Arizona, geographic information systems, was McGill University in Montreal, nine of which were funded in part to investigate the environmental, Canada, established a ratio between by Arizona Heritage Fund grants demographic, and sociopolitical the size of the village and the number administered by Arizona State Parks. factors that influenced settlement of Iroquois that lived in that village. patterns among Iroquois cultures This ratio allows for an estimation of Iroquois Settlement Research during the period A.D. 1500–1700. village population size without Jones is trying to get an estimate for extensive excavation of house struc- NORTHEAST—During the spring the pre-contact and contact-period tures or other site features. Jones and summer of 2007 noninvasive population sizes and an analysis of hopes to use this ratio to estimate research was conducted at the Con- population trends over the 200-year population sizes and test the effect of servancy’s Powerhouse, Bosley’s Mill, study period. various factors on Iroquois settlement. Steele, and Tram sites as part of a Jones also used ethnohistoric His research also included several dissertation research project carried data and information from previous other sites that are not owned by the out by doctoral candidate Eric Jones archaeological excavations to deter- Conservancy. american archaeology 51 Reviews

Chocolate in Archaeology in Mesoamerica: Washington A Cultural History By Ruth Kirk and of Cacao Richard D. Daugherty Edited by (University of Cameron L. McNeil Washington Press, (University Press of 2007; 168 pgs., illus.; Florida, 2006; 512 pgs., $40 cloth, $27 paper; illus.; $75 cloth; www.washington.edu/ www.upf.com) uwpress) The Chocolate Tree: With its rich A Natural History of Cacao and varied By Allen M. Young ecosystems, it is no wonder (University Press of Florida, that Washington 2007; 240 pgs., illus.; $25 paper; www.upf.com) State has some of the most interesting archaeology in the country. From coastal early For modern Americans, chocolate is a staple of drink and human sites to semi-desert hunter-gatherers to dessert, of snacks and elaborate culinary delights. Chocolate is historic Columbia River tribes first visited by made from the seeds of the cacao tree, native to the American Lewis and Clark, there is an abundance of tropics. To many pre-Columbian societies, cacao seeds and cultural materials dating back to the First Americans and extending to the trading posts of their edible products were literally part of their religion and the Hudson’s Bay Company. Noted archaeologist played a central role in their social and economic systems. Dick Daugherty of Washington State University The sacred drink they made from the seeds was rich in and writer Ruth Kirk have put together a caffeine and bitter to taste (sweet milk chocolate came later). fascinating survey of the region, written for the Cameron McNeil has here assembled an impressive stable of layman and lavishly illustrated with some 150 scholars to examine all aspects of cacao development and use photos, maps, and illustrations, which are in Mesoamerica from its discovery to its use by the modern mainly in color. The authors tell the story by describing Maya. Appearing as early as 1000 B.C., Mesoamerican choco- excavations at sites through place and time, late was an important part of rituals associated with birth, featuring the landowners, archaeologists, and coming of age, marriage, and death. It was probably reserved Native Americans who participated, and the for the ruling elites. sometimes-controversial issues their work Using the latest in Maya scholarship, including the deci- engendered. They discuss the finding of phering of Mesoamerican writing, multi-disciplinary scholars on the Columbia River, and the explore the domestication, preparation, representation, and bitter controversy and important judicial decision significance of cacao, including its widespread use as currency. that followed. They tell the story of Fort Vancouver, the first outpost of the Hudson’s Bay In The Chocolate Tree, ethno-botanist Allen Young chron- Company in the region, and how it changed all icles cacao’s journey out of the tropical , into pre- the people of the Pacific Northwest. At Ozette, Columbian gardens, and finally into vast plantations, where where the Olympic Peninsula meets the Pacific he examines the ecological impact of mass cultivation. Young Ocean, Daugherty and his team found a emphasizes the natural history of the cacao tree, thus provid- wonderfully preserved village that lived off the ing a nice complement to the cultural emphasis of McNeil’s abundant marine mammals. These are only a volume. Taken together, these two studies provide the latest few of the exciting stories of archaeology in the wonderful new regional history. Every region of and most up-to-date analysis of one of ancient America’s most the United States needs a book like this one. important plants and its enormous impact on the native cultures.

52 fall • 2007 John Smith’s Chesapeake Voyages, Reviews 1607-1609 By Helen C. Roundtree, Wayne E. Clark, and Kent Mountford (University of Virginia Press, 2007; Fort St. George: Archaeological Investigation 402 pgs., illus.; $30 cloth; of the 1607-1608 Popham Colony www.upress.virginia.edu) By Jeffrey P.Brain (Maine State As we celebrate the 400th Museum, 2007; anniversary of the founding of 219 pgs. illus.; Jamestown, the first successful $30 paper; English colony in America, www.mainearch- another important book on society.org) the subject has appeared. Captain John Smith is famous for Jamestown saving the colony when it was on the verge of collapse and wasn’t the winning the affections of paramount chief Powatan’s daughter only Pocahontas. But perhaps his most lasting contribution to Ameri- American can history is the detailed descriptions of Chesapeake Bay and the colony native people who lived there. From 1607 to 1609, Smith under- founded by took a series of explorations of the region and recorded his the British findings in copious journals and maps. in 1607. In this outstanding volume, scholars from various disciplines At the retrace Smith’s voyages and explorations and reconstruct the mouth of Chesapeake environment and the native people Smith encoun- the Kennebec River in Maine another tered. It is the earliest ethnographic record of native people in the intrepid group of adventurers founded a United States, which is doubly important given the dearth of the colony in the wilderness and built a fort to archaeological record. Smith discovered that the Algonquin- protect themselves. Led by Captain George speaking Indians lived in communities, presided over by local Popham, approximately 100 men made up chiefs who were subservient to paramount chiefs, who controlled the original settlement. Only one year later, large areas and many villages. In 1608 there were four such the colony was abandoned and the groups on the Chesapeake—the Powatans, the Piscataways, the survivors—Popham died in the winter— Nanticokes, and the Asseateagues. Most of the villages were large returned to England. extended families with as many as 50 people. The larger settle- Fort St. George was lost until the ments had a couple of hundred people living inside a wooden 1990s, when archaeologist Jeffrey Brain of palisade. Thanks to Smith, we have a snapshot of native life in the Peabody Museum of Salem rediscovered 1607–09 that includes social structure, political organization, it exactly where the colonists’ maps showed trade, agriculture, and much more. We also know the names of it. In 1994, Brain’s team confirmed the site many towns and their general locations drawn on Smith’s maps of and excavations continue to this day. This the Chesapeake. volume documents the history of the colony Illustrated with some 60 photos and drawings as well as 34 and of 10 years of excavations there. maps, most of which are in color, this is a beautifully produced Written for the layman, it tells the story of book. Modern archaeologists have located few of the dozens of a failed attempt to establish a colony in a villages described by Smith, and even fewer have been preserved. harsh environment. Amply illustrated with Hopefully, this volume will guide a new generation of archaeolo- photos, maps, and drawings, it is a gists to a vast store of material culture that existed on the Chesa- fascinating history of an archaeological peake when the English arrived. In the meantime, we have an exploration that has yielded amazing results. exciting and detailed account to read. —Mark Michel american archaeology 53

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONSERVANCY

Peoples of the Mississippi Valley When: October 13–20, 2007 Where: Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi How Much: $1,495 ($250 single supplement) Beginning in Memphis and following the Missis- sippi River south to Natchez, our week-long journey covers more than 5,000 years of history ranging from ancient earthen mounds to Civil War battle- fields. The trip offers an exciting opportunity to learn more about the rich and complex mound- builder cultures that flourished along the Mississippi River Valley until the arrival of the Europeans.

While taking in the charms of the Old South, ALAN GRUBER we’ll visit important sites, including Emerald Mound A at Winterville, in Mississippi, is the fifth-largest mound in North America. Mound, the third-largest Mississippian mound in the United States. We’ll also visit sites from historic of the Conservancy’s preserves, such as Mounds, times, including the Grand Village of the Natchez which may be the oldest mound site in North America, are also and the Civil War battlefield at Vicksburg. Several featured on the tour. Master Potters of the Southern Deserts When: October 12–22, 2007 Where: Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico How Much: $2,295 ($350 single supplement)

Join us for a magical journey through time study- ing some of the world’s most beautiful pottery crafted by people from the Hohokam, Mimbres, and regions, and replicated by modern masters today. The trip includes Hohokam ruins and pottery from the Phoenix and Tucson areas, Spanish missions and presidios, and a behind the scenes look at the Arizona State Museum. You’ll also see New Mexico’s Gila Cliff Dwellings, extensive collections of Mimbres LORNA WOLF This stunning example of Casas Grandes–style pottery came from the village pottery, northern Mexico’s Casas Grandes, and of Mata Ortiz in northern Mexico. the potters of Mata Ortiz. Archaeological experts will join us throughout the trip. 54 fall • 2007 JOHN HENDERSON

This structure is found at El Chanal, located north of Colima. The site, which was occupied by the Colima culture, dates from A.D. 1100 to 1400.

Join us in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city, for a journey Archaeology of through the past cultures of western Mexico. We’ll see spectacular stone and ceramic sculptures, pyramids, plazas, shrines, and temples Western Mexico woven into the magical fabric of modern Mexico. We’ll visit many When: March 13–23, 2008 sites, including Ixlán del Río, La Campana, the Matlatzinca culture Where: Mexico site of Teotenango, and the Aztec temple at Matlatzinca. The How Much: $2,695 ($345 single supplement) noted scholar John Henderson will accompany us.

The Archaeological Conservancy charitable gift annuity can: • Increase your financial security by receiving guaranteed fixed payments for your lifetime. • $10,000 minimum donation. • Reduce your tax burden with savings on capital gains and income taxes. • Help protect America’s cultural heritage. To receive more information and our brochure, mail information requests to: The Archaeological Conservancy Attn: Planned Giving 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902 Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517 For more information call 505-266-1540 or email [email protected] Yes, I’m interested in making a planned-giving donation to Protect The Archaeological Conservancy and saving money on my taxes. Current Annuity Please send more information on: Payout Rates archaeological J Gifts of Stock J Bequests J Charitable Gift Annuities Age Rates Name:______sites while 65 6.0% 75 7.1% Street Address: ______increasing 80 8.0% City: ______State: _____ Zip: ______your income 85 9.5% Phone: (______) ______american archaeology 55

Patrons of Preservation

The Archaeological Conservancy would like to thank the following individuals, foundations, and corporations for their generous support during the period of May through July 2007. Their generosity, along with the generosity of the Conservancy’s other members, makes our work possible.

Life Member Gifts of $1,000 or more Anasazi Circle Gifts of $2,000 or more Anonymous Anonymous William and Nettie Adams, Kentucky Helen Ann Bauer, Illinois Bill Caruth, Communities Foundation of Texas, Texas Robert and Helene Beck, California Charles P. Greening, California Carol Condie, New Mexico Roger and Jane Hildebrand, Illinois Donna B. Cosulich, Arizona Joe B. Hood, Texas Janet Creighton, Washington Wyck A. Knox Jr., Georgia Hester A. Davis, Arkansas Darrell W. Mize, Texas Michael and Margaret Feuer, California Leon and Mary Podles, Maryland James and Martha Foght, Illinois Evelyn A. Smith, California Bernice Glozek, Nevada Conrad and Marcella Stahly, New Mexico Rachael A. Hamilton, North Carolina Hervey and Sarah Stockman, New Mexico Walter and Allene Kleweno, New Mexico Bayard and Frances Storey, Pennsylvania William J. Lannin, Illinois Richard and Jean Weick, Oregon Margaret Lial, California Memorie Loughridge, Florida Foundation/Corporate Gifts (in memory of John E. Loughridge) Marion Stedman Covington Foundation, Gavine Pitner, North Carolina North Carolina Thomas W. Richards, Virginia Eugene and Emily Grant Family Foundation, Paul C. Rissman, New Jersey New York James and Lois Rupke, Texas Georgia Power Company, Georgia Charles and Elizabeth Ryland, Virginia Interbel Foundation, California Diana L. Schwartz, California Waterfield Foundation Inc., Indiana J.C. Whetzel, Pennsylvania

Making a Gift Annuity TO MAKE A Americans recognize the importance of charitable giving. The charitable gift DONATION OR annuity is an opportunity to support your favorite charity and provide BECOME A personal and family security. From gifts of cash to appreciated securities to real estate, donating to The Archaeological Conservancy will provide not only MEMBER CONTACT: for our organization, but also for your financial future. You can retain a fixed lifetime annuity payment by providing the Conservancy with a charitable gift annuity. You will receive this fixed pay- The Archaeological ment for life in exchange for your donation. The payment will not fluctuate Conservancy, with changes in the economy, so you will always know how much you will 5301 Central Avenue NE, receive annually. Congress has provided a series of tax benefits for those who donate Suite 902, through a charitable gift annuity. For example, donors will receive an imme- Albuquerque, NM 87108 diate and substantial income tax charitable deduction as well as minimal taxes on capital gains on highly appreciated securities. (505) 266-1540 For more information on how to attain income for life while supporting The www.americanarchaeology.org Archaeological Conservancy, please contact Mark Michel at (505) 266-1540.

56 fall • 2007

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 sup- porting the Conservancy, you not only safeguard our past for your children and grandchildren, you also may save some money.

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

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

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

Whatever kind of gift you give, you can be sure we’ll use it to preserve places like and our LAMB SPRING other 355 sites across COLORADO the United States. Conservancy Preserve since 1995

Yes, I’m interested in making a planned-giving donation to The Archaeological Conservancy and sav- The Archaeological Conservancy ing money on my taxes. Please send more information on: Attn: Planned Giving 5301 Central Avenue NE Gifts of stock Bequests Charitable gift annuities Suite 902 Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517 Name: Or call: Street Address: (505) 266-1540 City: State: Zip: Phone: ( ) -