AA Fall08 Front End.Indd

HOHOKAM DISAPPEARANCE • NEW DEAL ARCHAEOLOGY • THE 920-MILE DIG americanamerican archaeologyarchaeologyFALL 2008 a quarterly publication of Vol. 12 No. 3 The Archaeological Conservancy

UncoveringUncovering 1818thth-Century-Century FrenchFrench andand IndianIndian TradeTrade $3.95

AA fall08 front end.indd 1 8/19/08 3:21:25 PM AA fall08 front end.indd 2 8/19/08 3:21:59 PM american archaeologyfall 2008 a quarterly publication of The Archaeological Conservancy Vol. 12 No. 3

COVER FEATURE 20 CONTACT COMMERCE BY DIANE CLAY An 18th-century village in northern Oklahoma is yielding information about early trade between the Wichita Indians and the French.

12 THE 920-MILE DIG BY MIKE TONER An immense cultural resource management project has its risks and rewards.

26 A NEW LIFE IN NEW PHILADELPHIA GARY LAWSON GARY BY MALCOLM GAY The town of New Philadelphia was founded by a freed slave in 1836. It was inhabited by blacks and whites during a time of racial strife. Archaeologists are investigating the abandoned town to learn about its race relations.

32 WHAT BECAME OF THE HOHOKAM? BY TIM VANDERPOOL The Hohokam thrived for centuries in southern Arizona before mysteriously collapsing. An ambitious research project offers insights into the causes of the collapse.

38 A NEW DEAL FOR ARCHAEOLOGY BY DAVID MALAKOFF During the Great Depression, New Deal programs gave people various jobs, including digging archaeological

sites. Despite being untrained, excavators working in WWW.GEORGIAHISTORY.COM SOCIETY HISTORICAL THE GEORGIA southwestern Pennsylvania made an important contribution. 2 Lay of the Land 44 new acquisition 3 Letters A GLIMPSE OF THE SUSQUEHANNOCK The Upper Leibhart site is one of the last major 5 Events villages inhabited by this culture. 7 In the News George Washington’s Childhood Home 46 new acquisition Found • Mississippian Site Destroyed • PRESERVING AN UNUSUAL PUEBLO-PERIOD VILLAGE Civil War Sloop Disovered The Wancura-Johnson site could provide a clear picture of its prehistoric occupants. 50 Field Notes 52 Reviews 47 point acquisition KEEPING A LATE ADENA MOUND INTACT 54 Expeditions The Conservancy preserves the Dorr 2 Mound in Southeastern Ohio.

48 point acquisition COVER: Archaeologist Richard Drass photographs a postmold that was A PICTURE OF THE PLAINS VILLAGE TRADITION uncovered at the Bryson-Paddock site. The Flaming Arrow site apparently played a role Photograph by Gary Lawson in the Hidatsa origin myth.

american archaeology 1

AA fall08 front end.indd 1 8/26/08 10:00:46 PM Lay of the Land

A Look at Contract Archaeology

ontract archaeologists do the the Bureau of Land Management to vast majority of fi eldwork in supervise this work. Cthe United States today. Hun- In this huge project the principal dreds of fi rms are working on projects contractor did highly professional across the country fi nding and mitigat- work, but another fi rm involved in the ing archaeological sites in advance of project did not perform so well. This is construction. They often receive little too often the case with contract archae-

attention from other archaeologists ology. A bigger problem is the compul- DARREN POORE and the public, but the work they do is sion to dig up (or salvage) archaeologi- Mark Michel, President vital. In this issue of American Archae- cal sites that are in the path of projects. preservation that meets the standards ology we focus on one large project More and more, contract archaeologists of conservation archaeology. Progress (see “The 920-Mile Dig,” page 12) that and regulators are seeing the folly in is being made, but more needs to be involves an underground cable running using this approach for every site. They done to make preservation instead of from Texas to California. The contract are working with the Conservancy and salvage one of the options of contract archaeologists found dozens of sites— others to preserve sites in place, be it in archaeology. some that are extremely important. It the middle of a subdivision or along a is the job of state historic preservation highway. Often the construction can be ofﬁ ces and federal land managers like moved a short distance to allow in situ

2 fall • 2008

AA fall08 front end.indd 2 8/19/08 3:22:23 PM Letters

The Indy Effect I read “How North American Agriculture Began” (Spring Editor’s Corner 2008). What a fantastic and enlightening article. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) Your magazine always has was established in 1935 by Franklin Delano superb, informative articles Roosevelt to combat the soaring unemploy- that keep us archaeology ment caused by the Great Depression. Dur- afi cionados in the loop. ing its short existence, the WPA employed Speaking of which, there millions of people in numerous endeavors, is a new Indiana Jones one of which was archaeology. WPA offi cials movie out called Indiana found the fi eld to be particularly attrac- Jones and the Kingdom tive because excavations employed many of the Crystal Skull, and people at relatively little expense, and they it seems to be inspiring didn’t compete with private enterprise. kids to become more Archaeology has changed a great deal interested in archaeology. over the last 70 years; many of its practitio- I noticed as I was picking ners boast Ph.Ds and they can utilize remark- up your magazine that there was a group of kids reading your able technology in their investigations. But latest issue and talking about Indiana Jones and how archaeology is as our feature “A New Deal for Archaeology” conducted. Movies really infl uence the public, and Indiana Jones is (see page 38) shows, Depression-era work- introducing archaeology to a younger generation. ers, many of whom were untrained, made Paul Dale Roberts a signifi cant contribution to archaeology Elk Grove, California in southwestern Pennsylvania and in other parts of the country as well. In addition to providing employment, References Required the excavations in Pennsylvania’s Somerset I am a long-time member of the Conservancy and I greatly enjoy read- County served to prove that Native Ameri- ing American Archaeology. However, I do fi nd it occasionally quite cans had occupied the region for millennia. frustrating that the articles typically do not provide references of any As for the rest of the country, Depression- kind. I am mostly interested in being able to follow up on a particu- era archaeological projects made the public larly good article such as the recent “How North American Agriculture aware that there were many more sites than Began.” It would greatly enhance the value of the article and the impact they realized, according to John Jameson Jr., of the magazine should articles provide a few references for readers to an archaeologist at the National Park Ser- pursue on their own. This might lead, for example, to more volunteers vice’s Southeast Archeological Center, who on digs, contributions to funding, etc. But that requires an informed has written about this period. The public readership. I look forward in the future to American Archaeology pro- also came to realize that these sites were viding its readers opportunities for digging on their own. endangered by development, looters, and George Rumney other threats. Bowie, Maryland “During the New Deal, a whole generation of archaeologists concentrated on native and historic period cultures in the Sending Letters to American Archaeology United States,” Jameson added. “This is the American Archaeology welcomes your letters. Write to us at 5301 Central Avenue NE, basis for modern Americanist specialization Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517, or send us e-mail at [email protected]. of many university departments today.” We reserve the right to edit and publish letters in the magazine’s Letters department as space permits. Please include your name, address, and telephone number with all correspondence, including e-mail messages.

american archaeology 3

AA fall08 front end.indd 3 8/19/08 3:22:35 PM Welcome to The Archaeological Conservancy!

he Archaeological Conservancy is the only national nonprofit Board of Directors organization that identifies, Gordon Wilson, New Mexico CHAIRMAN acquires, and preserves the Cecil F. Antone, Arizona • Carol Condie, New Mexico most significant archaeological Donald Craib, Virginia • Janet Creighton, Washington • Janet EtsHokin, Illinois sites in the United States. Jerry Golden, Colorado • W. James Judge, Colorado t Since its beginning in 1980, Jay T. Last, California • Dorinda Oliver, New York the Conservancy has preserved more Rosamond Stanton, Montana • Vincas Steponaitis, North Carolina than 365 sites across the nation, Dee Ann Story, Texas • Stewart L. Udall, New Mexico ranging in age from the earliest Conservancy Staff habitation sites in North America to Mark Michel, President • Tione Joseph, Business Manager a 19th-century frontier army post. Lorna Wolf, Membership Director • Sarah Tiberi, Special Projects Director We are building a national system of Shelley Smith, Membership Assistant • Melissa Montoya, Administrative Assistant archaeological preserves to ensure Caitlin Lanigan, Administrative Assistant • Patrick Leach, Administrative Assistant the survival of our irreplaceable cultural heritage. Regional Offices and Directors Jim Walker, Vice President, Southwest Region (505) 266-1540 Why Save Archaeological Sites? 5301 Central Avenue NE, #902 • Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108 The ancient people of North America Tamara Stewart, Projects Coordinator • Steve Koczan, Field Representative left virtually no written records of their Paul Gardner, Vice President, Midwest Region (614) 267-1100 cultures. Clues that might someday solve 3620 N. High St. #307 • Columbus, Ohio 43214 the mysteries of prehistoric America Josh McConaughy, Field Representative are still missing, and when a ruin is destroyed by looters, or leveled for a Jessica Crawford, Southeast Region (662) 326-6465 shopping center, precious information 315 Locust St. • P.O. Box 270 • Marks, Mississippi 38646 is lost. By permanently preserving George Lowry, Field Representative endangered ruins, we make sure they Gene Hurych, Western Region (916) 424-6240 will be here for future generations to 6130 Freeport Blvd., #100H • Sacramento, California 95822 study and enjoy. Julie L. Clark, Field Representative How We Raise Funds: Andy Stout, Eastern Region (301) 682-6359 Funds for the Conservancy come 8 E. 2nd. St. #200 • Frederick, Maryland 21701 from membership dues, individual Sonja Ingram, Field Representative contributions, corporations, and foundations. Gifts and bequests of money, land, and securities are fully tax american archaeology® deductible under section 501(c)(3) of the Publisher: Mark Michel Internal Revenue Code. Planned giving editor: Michael Bawaya (505) 266-9668, [email protected] 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: Dennis Blanton, Fernbank Museum of Natural History • Todd Bostwick, Phoenix City Archaeologist American Archaeology is the only Sarah Campbell, Western Washington University • Pam Edwards-Lieb, Mississippi Chief Archaeologist popular magazine devoted to presenting the rich diversity of archaeology in Bill Engelbrecht, Buffalo State College • Charles Ewen, East Carolina University the Americas. The purpose of the Gayle Fritz, Washington University • Barbara Heath, University of Tennessee magazine is to help readers appreciate Robert Hoard, Kansas State Archaeologist • Robert Jeske, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and understand the archaeological Barbara Little, University of Maryland • Peggy McGuckian, Bureau of Land Management wonders available to them, and to raise Patricia Mercado-Allinger, Texas State Archaeologist • Rick Minor, Heritage Research Associates their awareness of the destruction of Mark Schurr, University of Notre Dame • Fern Swensen, North Dakota Deputy SHPO our cultural heritage. By sharing new David Whitley, W & S Consultants • Richard Woodbury, University of Massachusetts discoveries, research, and activities in an enjoyable and informative way, we hope National Advertising Office we can make learning about ancient Marcia Ulibarri, Advertising Representative America as exciting as it is essential. 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108; (505) 344-6018, [email protected] By mail: How to Say Hello: American Archaeology (issn 1093-8400) is published quarterly by The Archaeological Conservancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, The Archaeological Conservancy, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517. Title registered U.S. Pat. and TM Office, © 2008 by TAC. Printed in the United States. Periodicals postage paid 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM, and additional mailing offices. Single copies are $3.95. A one-year membership to the Conservancy is $25 and includes receipt Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517; of American Archaeology. Of the member’s dues, $6 is designated for a one-year magazine subscription. READERS: For new memberships, renewals, by phone: (505) 266-1540; or change of address, write to The Archaeological Conservancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517, or call (505) by e-mail: [email protected]; 266-1540. For changes of address, include old and new addresses. Articles are published for educational purposes and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Conservancy, its editorial board, or American Archaeology. Article proposals and artwork should be addressed to the editor. or visit our Web site: No responsibility assumed for unsolicited material. All articles receive expert review. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to American Archae- www.americanarchaeology.org ology, 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 • 2008

AA fall08 front end.indd 4 8/19/08 3:22:46 PM Museum exhibits • Tours • Festivals Meetings • Education • Conferences Events

■ NEW EXHIBITS San Diego Museum of Man San Diego, Calif.—Witness centuries of Latin America’s ancient past through the new exhibit “Gods & Gold: Ancient Treasures From Mexico to Peru.” The exhibition features the museum’s stunning collections of Mexican, Central Ameri- can, and South American archaeological objects, including rare gold and jewelry, exotic ﬁ gurines, intricate stonework, and exquisite pottery created by such cultures as the Maya, Aztec, Inca, and many others. (619) 239-2001, www. museumofman.org (New long-term exhibit)

East Benton County Historical Society Kennewick, Wash.—The new traveling exhibit “Kennewick Man on Trial,” developed by the MUSEUM OF INDIAN ARTS & CULTURE ARTS MUSEUM OF INDIAN Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, explores the important legal, ethical, and sci- Museum of Indian Arts & Culture entiﬁ c issues raised by the discovery of the 9,000-year-old archaeological remains known as Santa Fe, N.M.—Located along the central Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico Kennewick Man, unearthed in July 1996 in Ken- and separated by that great river, Cochiti and Santo Domingo Pueblos newick. Through illustrations, text, and quotes, shared a ceramic tradition for centuries until increasing contact with the exhibition presents a variety of views on outsiders ushered in tumultuous changes that set the pueblos on divergent issues under debate, including federal law and paths. “A River Apart: The Pottery of Cochiti and Santo Domingo Pueblos” examines the pottery traditions of the two pueblos through the museum’s Native American human remains, how people collection of 250 ceramic masterpieces, presenting a fascinating case ﬁ rst came to the Americas, and changing ideas study in how cultures develop; how art, culture, and community are about race. (509) 582-7704, www.ebchs.org interwoven; and how art is created, interpreted, valued, bought, and sold. (Through December 28) (505) 476-1269, www.indianartsandculture.org. (Opens October 19)

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.—The new exhibition “Remembering Awatovi: The Story of an Archaeological Expedition in Northern Arizona, 1935–1939” goes behind the scenes of the last archaeological expedition at an ancient sacred Hopi site. By the 1600s, Spanish missionaries had brought new religion, regulations, and tactics of coercion and control to Awatovi, leading the Hopi to burn it, symbolically killing the village so that its people might move forward to a new place. Although the Hopi initially intended the village to remain undisturbed, they later allowed a group of archaeologists from Harvard and other institutions and several local Hopi men to explore the site. Part history of archaeology and part social history, the exhibit reveals what the archaeologists found. (617) 495-3045, www.peabody. harvard.edu (September 25 through March 30, 2009) PEABODY MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY ARCHAEOLOGY MUSEUM OF PEABODY american archaeology 5

AA fall08 front end.indd 5 8/19/08 3:22:55 PM Field Museum of presentations regarding Utah rock Events Chicago, Ill.—Explore the grandeur art, particularly focusing on the Escal- and complexity of one of the world’s ante area, Grand Staircase/Escalante great civilizations through the new National Monument, and the Capitol exhibit “The Aztec World.” Within the Reef National Park area, as well as span of 200 years, the Aztecs went topics regarding rock art preserva- from a nomadic group to one of the tion and recent research. There will be most powerful and infl uential societies, fi eld trips to local rock art sites. Con- achieving political and military domi- tact David Sucec at (801) 359-6904, nance over large parts of the Meso- [email protected], or go to www. american world in the 14th through utahrockart.org early 16th centuries. At its pinnacle, Aztec culture had rich and complex 2008 Midwest Archaeological Conference mythological and religious traditions October 15–19, Hyatt Regency, Mil- as well as remarkable architectural and waukee, Wis. Learn about the latest artistic accomplishments. Through hun- research in the region through poster dreds of spectacular artifacts and works and paper presentations, tours of local of art, visitors can trace the Aztec’s sites, and an evening banquet and remarkable rise and fall. (312) 922-9410, lecture. Contact Robert Jeske at (414) www.fi eldmuseum.org (October 31 229-2424, [email protected], or go to through April 19, 2009) www.midwestarchaeology.org

■ CONFERENCES, Eastern States Archaeological Federation LECTURES & FESTIVALS 75th Annual Meeting JANNELLE WEAKLY, ARIZONA STATE MUSEUM STATE ARIZONA JANNELLE WEAKLY, 15th Annual New Mexico Archaeology Fair November 6–9, Lockport, N.Y. The September 26–27, Daniel Fernandez meeting consists of four days of presen- Arizona State Museum Park, Los Lunas, N.M. This annual cel- tations, poster sessions, and symposia The University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz.—Explore the art of the potter ebration of the region’s history and concerning archaeology in the Eastern and the science of the archaeologist culture focuses on ancient pueblos, El U.S. There will also be tours to local as the museum celebrates 2,000 Camino Real, the Civil War, and the rail- sites including Fort Niagara. Contact years of native pottery-making road. Highlights include hands-on tradi- Bill Engelbrecht at (716) 884-6094, traditions in the Southwest. With tional arts and crafts, an atlatl-throwing [email protected], or go to more than 20,000 ceramic vessels, competition, historic re-enactments, www.esaf-archeology.org the museum’s collection of Southwest live music, and food. Contact Glenna Indian pottery is the world’s largest 65th Annual Meeting of the and most comprehensive. Eight Dean at (505) 827-3989, glenna.dean@ years in the making, “The Pottery state.nm.us, www.nmhistoricpreserva- Southeastern Archaeological Conference Project” features the Arnold and tion.org November 12–15, Hilton University Doris Roland Wall of Pots, the Agnese Place, Charlotte, N.C. This year’s confer- and Emil Haury Southwest Native The 31st Biennial Great Basin ence features presentations, symposia, Nations Pottery Vault, a state-of-the- Anthropological Conference and posters on recent archaeological art conservation laboratory, and a October 8–11, Portland State University, research in the Southeast. Contact brand new interpretive gallery. The Portland, Ore. The theme of this year’s David Anderson at (865) 974-2960, exhibition includes a fully interactive, multi-media virtual vault, and video gathering is “Beyond the Fringe: Interac- [email protected], or go to www. interviews with archaeologists and tions Between Great Basin Peoples and southeasternarchaeology.org native potters. (520) 621-6281, www. Their Neighbors.” There will also be a statemuseum.arizona.edu/exhibits symposium honoring the contributions Cahokia Mounds 6th Annual (New long-term exhibit) of anthropologist Kay Fowler, as well as Indian Market Days ﬁ eld trips to local sites. Contact Virginia November 28–30, Cahokia Mounds Butler at (503) 725-3303, butlerv@pdx. State Historic Site, Collinsville, Ill. Enjoy edu, or go to www.gbac.whsites.net/ a weekend of unique shopping at what meeting.html was once the capital of the Mississip- pian culture. Native American artists Utah Rock Art Research (URARA) and vendors will offer jewelry, paint- 28th Annual Symposium ings, crafts, clothing, weavings, carvings, October 10–13, Escalante, Utah. The baskets, pottery, and sculptures. (618) weekend will feature a broad range 346-5160, www.cahokiamounds.com 6 fall • 2008

AA fall08 front end.indd 6 8/26/08 10:05:36 PM In the NEWS

George Washington’s Childhood Home Finally Found Archaeologists discover the house after a long search.

fter seven years of searching for the childhood home of Ameri- Aca’s ﬁ rst president, researchers with The George Washington Founda- tion have found evidence of the foundation of his house and thousands of artifacts relating to the domestic life of the Washington family at Ferry Farm in Virginia. While historians knew his early home was somewhere on the 600-acre farm, their search was complicated by the remains of ﬁ ve farmhouses and their associated outbuildings that also lie on the property. “We narrowed it down to three possible locations and sat down as a group to decide which one to pursue,” said David Muraca, The George Washington Foundation’s director of archaeology.

© 2008 THE GEORGE WASHINGTON FOUNDATION THE GEORGE WASHINGTON © 2008 Muraca oversaw the investigation along with University of South Florida histo- An aerial view of the surviving architectural footprint of the Washington family house. rian and archaeologist Philip Levy. The Two stone-lined cellars are in the center of the picture. team spent two years investigating the remains of a structure that, they eventu- regarding the family’s possessions and tobacco at the farm, and later switched ally learned, dated to around 1710 and the internal divisions of the house. Some to wheat and corn. He sold the farm was the house of Maurice Clark, an ear- half million artifacts have been recov- in 1774 after he had moved to Mount lier occupant. The next foundation the ered, including numerous ceramic wig Vernon and his mother to Fredericks- archaeologists chose turned out to be curlers, bone-handled toothbrushes, an burg. Nearly a century later, Ferry Farm the remains of the Winter Bray House, unusual carnelian bead made in India was a staging ground during the Civil which replaced Washington’s house for export to West Africa, and a well- War for Union soldiers attacking Fred- after it was destroyed in the 1830s. smoked Masonic kaolin clay pipe. The ericksburg. By this time the Washing- Then they excavated the third founda- pipe has symbols on all sides, but the ton house had been replaced, and the tion, which proved to be Washington’s major Masonic symbols are on the side troops demolished the new house and home. “We now have the opportunity of the bowl facing the smoker. Wash- its associated features. to ﬁ ll in major gaps in Washington’s ington had joined the Fredericksburg Archaeologists have located the childhood and to better understand Lodge of the Masons in 1752. family’s kitchen and slave quarters. “We how he became unique,” Muraca said. Known as Washington Farm in are still looking for 1740s’ outbuildings Washington and his family moved his day, the estate later became Ferry and landscape features,” said Muraca. to Ferry Farm in 1738, when he was six Farm because of the ferry that linked “Eventually we hope to replicate as years old. Following his father’s death it to Fredericksburg, located across the nearly as possible the Washington house in 1743, a tax inspection of the prop- Rappahannock River. After his father’s and associated features near the original erty provided detailed information death, Washington, then 11, grew foundations.” —Tamara Stewart american archaeology 7

AA fall08 front end.indd 7 8/19/08 3:23:14 PM In the NEWS Québec Site Yields Clues About First French Settlement Archaeologists are studying colonists’ diet to learn about life there.

rchaeologists investigating the fi rst French settlement in North A America are fi nding, to their surprise, that’s there’s very little evidence that the colonists ate native foods. Archaeobotanical evidence from the Cartier-Roberval site in Canada’s Québec City suggests that the French primarily consumed European foods such as wheat, barley, lentils, peas, dates, and olives. They have also found minute amounts of maize and sunfl ower seeds, two New World foods that came from local Native Americans. Allison Bain, an archaeologist with Laval University in Québec City, who is supervising the archaeobotanical analysis, said she and her colleagues were expecting to fi nd

more evidence of native foods. UNIVERSITY OF LAVAL LABORATORY ARCHAEOLOGY ENVIRONMENTAL The archaeologists are analyzing Crew members Jacynthe Bernard (left) and Isabelle Bêty process samples food remains to learn about what the for archaeobotanical analysis. colonists ate, information that will help the archaeologists draw conclu- since 1960, when the Viking village at soil,” Bain said. The more than 2,000 sions about what life was like at the L’Anse aux Meadows was uncovered seeds her team has recovered thus far colony. The settlement was established in Newfoundland. The archaeologists inform her conclusions about the colo- in 1541 by Jacques Cartier who, on his have located one of the forts, where nists’ diet. She added that, because the third trip to Canada, was searching for they believe the colony’s elite resided, archaeologists have located only the gold, diamonds, and a passage to Asia. and they are searching for the other. “In elite residences, they can’t be certain According to historical documents, the terms of early European settlements, the evidence speaks to the average colony had two forts and about 300 this site ranks with Jamestown, the fi rst colonist’s diet. to 400 colonists, a number of whom English colony in the New World,” said Samson said due to diminished were killed by the Indians and disease. Gilles Samson, an archaeologist with supplies, Roberval had to ration food The documents also state that food Québec’s Culture Ministry who co- through a hard winter. He sent ships was being rationed by 1542, and that directs the project. “The fact that the back to France for more provisions, but the colony was abandoned in 1543 by fort was burned is providential for us,” when they arrived they learned that Cartier’s successor, Sieur de Roberval, Samson said, “because lots of organic war had started with Spain and Rober- who was called back to France due to material was preserved: charcoal, burnt val and his armaments were needed. its war with Spain. It was burned down clay elements, seeds, nails, rings, keys, The settlement’s failure halted French either by Roberval or by the Indians brass, a canon ball, and colored glass.” colonial dreams in Canada for more after the French departed. The archaeologists have a fl oat tank than 60 years, setting the stage for Cartier-Roberval, which was dis- on site that they use to recover seeds Samuel Champlain’s historic founding covered in 2005, is considered one of buried in excavated dirt. “It’s necessary of New France in 1608. the most important fi nds in Canada because we’re processing so much —Steven McFadden 8 fall • 2008

AA fall08 front end.indd 8 8/19/08 3:23:27 PM In the NEWS Excavation Reveals New Orleans’ History Archaeologists ﬁ nd evidence of oldest French Colonial structure.

rchaeologists have found what they believe to be the earliest Astructure from French Colonial New Orleans. The discovery was made during excavations in St. Anthony’s Gar- den, located behind St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans, the nation’s oldest active cathedral. “We uncovered a small hut made of posts and planks sunk directly into the ground that lays askew the current street alignment,” said Shannon Lee Dawdy, a University of Chicago archaeologist who directed the excavation. The hut dates to New Orleans’ frontier phase, sometime between 1717 and 1722. Native American pottery sherds and French ceramics, as well as the bottom of a wine bottle from the early

ADELA AMARAL ADELA 1700s, have been recovered adjacent to the hut. Many sherds resemble Creek St. Anthony’s Garden is located behind St. Louis Cathedral, the country’s oldest active cathedral. and Choctaw pottery and suggest a signifi cant Native American contribution thousands of artifacts representing French-born architect Jacques N. B. de to the building of the city that has gone nearly 300 years of history at site. “One Pouilly in the mid-19th century, incor- unrecognized in the historical record. of the most remarkable artifacts recov- porating parts of the earlier structure. The researchers have found ered is the small silver crucifi x with a The researchers have uncovered Christ fi gure attached which we found evidence that the site served as a in the area of Pere Antoine’s hut and kitchen garden maintained by the Capu- yard,” said Dawdy. Pere Antoine was a chin fathers in the French Colonial era, Capuchin priest who wielded great and later hosted an ice cream stand and infl uence over the French colony from fl ower market during the antebellum the 1770s till the early American period period. By analyzing phytolith samples, of the 1820s. A fi re destroyed most of which are mineralized remains of plant the city in 1788, and the beloved priest cells, the researchers hope to identify allowed residents who had lost their which species were being cultivated. homes to build temporary structures in This marks the fi rst time this technology the garden next to his small hut. has been used to analyze samples from The existing cathedral is the third a North American urban garden site. church built in this location. The fi rst The investigation is part of the church was completed in 1727, and the planning phase of a major restoration second church, built after the 1788 fi re, of the garden that was prompted by

SHANNON LEE DAWDY was dedicated on Christmas Eve, 1794. Hurricane Katrina’s toppling numerous A silver cruciﬁ x recovered during the dig. The present church was built by the trees. —Tamara Stewart american archaeology 9

AA fall08 front end.indd 9 8/19/08 3:23:38 PM In the NEWS Important Mississippian Site Destroyed Developer fined for incident.

developer paid the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency A $144,000 in an out-of-court settlement for damaging an important archaeological site in Lebanon, Illinois. In late June, about an acre of the Pfef- fer site, an ancient village related to the nearby Cahokia Mounds, was obliter- ated when developer Thomas Bow’s crew removed tarps marking the site to begin construction of a road leading to a housing development. Nearly all of the dirt and artifacts at the site that had not been excavated by archaeologists was bulldozed during the construction of the road, and apparently removed.

Archaeologist Tim Pauketat of the JEFF KRUCHTEN University of Illinois, who has long Archaeologist Brad Koldehoff of the University of Illinois assesses the damage. been involved with studies in the area, expressed dismay after he surveyed the we’ve dug at, a new story of the rise immensely important to understanding site. “This is a very important site for of Cahokia has emerged. Immigration what caused Cahokia to emerge. At the the beginnings of Cahokia,” Pauketat is central; Cahokia had some sort of high point of its development, Cahokia said. “This was an ancient town popu- pull on people, and religion might have was the largest urban center north of lated for a short period of less than a been important, which is what the Pfef- the great Mesoamerican cities. “This century during the initial formation of fer site seems to be telling us.” destruction is a signiﬁ cant loss,” he said. Cahokia. Based on this site and others Pauketat said that Pfeffer is —Steven McFadden

Early Anasazi Multistory Architecture Discovered Highly unusual structures found in southeast Utah.

hile conducting a survey buttress for the structures. One of the The structures were dated primarily by of the Comb Ridge area in sites, known as Arch Canyon Ruin, has analysis of associated ceramics. Wsoutheast Utah, archaeolo- an array of beam seats in a cliff wall The Anasazi began building multi- gist Winston Hurst and his colleagues that suggests the wall once supported a storied great houses at Chaco Canyon have documented the remnants of structure as high as four stories. around this time, but those structures very unusual multistory roomblock Though the structures are no featured thick walls. It’s believed that construction dating to the late A.D. longer extant, Hurst’s crew also found Chaco Canyon received an inﬂ ux of 800s and early 900s, a time when the some wall remnants that indicate the immigrants about this time from the Anasazi were primarily building single- buildings were made of thin walled northern San Juan area, which includes story structures. masonry typical of single-story struc- Comb Ridge. The migrants’ experience Hurst’s crew found holes carved tures of the period. “It’s pretty ﬂ imsy with multistory buildings might have into cliffs that served as seats for beam stuff,” Hurst said of the construction contributed to the development of at several sites, leading him to conclude techniques. “They’re the kind of struc- Chaco’s superior architecture. that the cliffs were used as a supporting tures that can’t survive a long time.” —Michael Bawaya

10 fall • 2008

AA fall08 front end.indd 10 8/26/08 10:01:58 PM In the NEWS Civil War Sloop Discovered in Florida Researchers ﬁ nd the state’s ﬁ rst blockade-runner. THE FLORIDA AQUARIUM THE FLORIDA Divers from The Florida Aquarium take precise measurements of the wreck site that will be compared with 19th-century nautical records.

rchaeologists recently discov- archaeologists located a wreck that they blockade-runner, Capt. James McKay ered a shipwreck believed to be believe to be the Kate Dale. “She’s in used the vessel for that purpose dur- A a Civil War–era blockade-runner exactly the right place and is seriously ing the Civil War. McKay shipped in the Hillsborough River at the top of burned,” said Morris. “We’ve excavated cotton and other goods to Caribbean Tampa Bay. The wreck is believed to be three test units into the vessel and are ports in exchange for rum, food, and the Kate Dale, the 80-foot-long, single 97.5-percent sure this is Kate Dale.” medicine. Under cover of the night, mast vessel that was burned and aban- By examining the ship’s construc- a special force of Union troops made doned in the fall of 1863. The vessel tion features, Morris has determined their way up the river where the Kate was discovered during a submerged that the ship was built in the mid-19th Dale, loaded with cotton, and another cultural resources survey funded by century out of oak and pine. He plans blockade-runner known as Scottish the State of Florida and coordinated by to excavate several more test units Chief, were moored, overrunning the the non-proﬁ t Florida Aquarium, Inc. in this fall in order to get a better under- two vessels and setting them ablaze. It Tampa. standing of the hull. “This is the ﬁ rst is thought that the Scottish Chief was Marine archaeologist Billy Ray blockade-runner that’s been found in later towed downriver to the bay and Morris, an expert in hull analysis and Florida,” he said. “We were pleasantly salvaged. Kate Dale remained where interpretation, led a team of divers with surprised with how well preserved she she had been burned, sinking ever The Florida Aquarium that were search- is.” High tannic acid content in the river deeper into the mucky river. ing for three Civil War–era blockade- preserved the wood extremely well, The hull, which for years has sur- runners, one of which was the Kate even leaving tool marks visible on the faced during low tide, will remain in Dale, that were known to have sunk in hull. About one-third of the hull is left. the Hillsborough River, where local res- that part of the river. Using sonar, the Though it wasn’t designed as a idents monitor it. —Tamara Stewart american archaeology 11

AA fall08 front end.indd 11 8/19/08 3:24:02 PM The 920-Mile Dig This remarkable project covered 920 miles and investigated 268 sites, which are indicated by the yellow circles. Archaeologists uncovered thousands of objects, including the following:

A grooved ax recovered from Last Water Ruin, a large Hohokam site along the Middle Gila River east of Coolidge, Arizona.

A shell bracelet recovered from a Patayan I (a.d. 700–1050) camp in the Arizona desert west of Phoenix. The bracelet, made from a clam from the Gulf of California, exemplified the extensive shell jewelry trade that was common during the Hohokam era in southern Arizona. im Kearns / map by bob estes by T im Kearns / map

photos by by photos This Dragoon complex zoomorphic shell pendant was uncovered at a site near Dragoon, Arizona. The site was occupied during the 9th and 10th centuries a.d.

12 fall • 2008

AA P12-19 AT&T.indd 12 8/26/08 10:14:12 PM A huge cultural resource management project presented difficult challenges and yielded important information.

By Mike Toner

Archaeologists found numerous worked sherd discs made during the Mimbres Mogollon Late Pithouse period (a.d. 550–1000) at a site west of Deming, New Mexico.

Jornada Mogollon arrow points taken from several prehistoric camps in the Salt Basin region of west Texas.

american archaeology 13

AA P12-19 AT&T.indd 13 8/19/08 3:34:52 PM Tim Kearns Spools of fiber optic cable conduit are ready for installation along the AT&T right of way west of Lordsburg in southwest New Mexico. he spine of AT&T’s nationwide fiber From its inception, this project faced a daunting array of logistical, jurisdictional, and organizational challenges— optic network slices across the land- things Kearns concedes “they don’t teach you in graduate scape of four Southwestern states— school.” In many ways, the experience reflects the com- plexities, and the promise, of the new face of archaeology in a scant sliver of desert terrain that America, the world of cultural resource management. Kearns and others at WCRM had to coordinate the has provided a disproportionately interests of historic preservation offices and highway depart- richT glimpse of thousands of years of human ments in three states, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, 24 Native American tribes, dozens of culture. No more than 40 feet wide for most county and municipal agencies, uncounted private landown- of its route, the meandering right of way ers, two giant telecom companies, and a bevy of engineering, environmental, and construction contractors. The firm’s for the AT&T’s NexGen/Core underground archaeologists walked virtually the entire 920-mile right of cable traverses semi-arid plains, deserts, way, scanning the surface for artifacts and other objects that might merit further investigation. At the height of activity, mountain passes, dry washes, ranches, oil Kearns oversaw 10 teams of 10 people each in four field fields, and cities for 920 miles from Lamesa, offices in three states. There were physical challenges, too. On the day excava- Texas, to Blythe, California. tion began in Arizona, the temperature hit 116 degrees. In the Permian Basin of West Texas and eastern New Mexico, For AT&T, the route is a vital link in the 16,000-mile, heavy concentrations of poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas $350 million backbone of the nation’s telecommunications from nearby oil wells—hydrogen sulfide gas is a natural future. For Tim Kearns, an archaeologist for Western Cultural byproduct of gas and oil production that usually dissipates Resource Management (WCRM), it became a unique window in the air—sickened excavators and forced them to evacuate on at least 5,500 years of human activity—from the hearths some sites. In southern New Mexico, they were periodically of prehistoric hunter-gatherers to the bullet-riddled tin cans checked out by Border Patrol agents looking for drug smug- of a 19th-century wagon camp. In all, Kearns and his crews glers and illegal aliens. have investigated a total of 268 archaeological sites, col- At one site, WCRM had to call the local sheriff to get lected more than 346,000 artifacts, and accumulated more access to private land. At another, Kearns was ordered off than 300 radiocarbon dates that help sharpen the chronol- the property by an irate landowner on horseback—a con- ogy of cultural development across the region. frontation Kearns blames on himself for neglecting to get “The right of way is a very slender slice across the land- the landowner’s permission to cross his property in order scape, but it’s packed with archaeological resources,” Kearns to get to the right of way. The archaeologists had to suspend says. “This part of the Southwest has been populated for at work during space shuttle launches because an existing least 13,000 years, so there has been lots of time for cultural cable buried along the right of way transmitted secure data debris to accumulate.” for NASA, and there were concerns that excavations might 14 fall • 2008

AA P12-19 AT&T.indd 14 8/26/08 10:20:52 PM cut the cable and disrupt critical communications. The dynamics of the 920-mile dig reflected the need to Back when the first telephone cable was buried along balance legal requirements, archaeological integrity, and the the same right of way in the 1940s, no one worried about desires of the client who is paying the bills. “I remember what it might do to archaeological resources. But times a meeting we had with AT&T in January 2000,” says Pam change. When AT&T and their partner, PF.Net Communica- Smith, the BLM’s lead archaeologist for the project in New tions, sought permits from the Bureau of Land Management Mexico and Texas. “When they told us they were hoping to (BLM) to expand the right of way in order to install six new start construction that August, I just laughed.” She knew the fiber optic cables, the BLM required that they adhere to a law archaeological work would take much more time, and the that has become a cornerstone of American archaeology. excavations, in fact, weren’t finished until mid-2003. Under Section 106 of the National Historic Preserva- To expedite the project, the archaeologists often exca- tion Act, which was passed in 1966, construction projects on vated with backhoes. Though it’s not standard procedure, federal lands require an assessment of cultural resources that they sometimes, with BLM approval, let construction crews might be affected. If they are deemed significant, action is also lay cable in their open trenches before they were finished required to record or preserve them. As a result, field archae- recovering data. “We agreed to work from west to east, ology, once dominated by researchers from museums and uni- because that was the direction they were laying cable, and versities, is now done primarily by firms like WCRM that are there were times in Arizona that we were working hard to hired to survey, assess, record, and salvage cultural resources stay in front of the construction crews,” Kearns says. in the path of development. The American Cultural Resources AT&T’s cable did not touch an inch of reservation land, Association estimates that as many as 10,000 cultural resource but, in order to comply with the Native American Graves management archaeologists do $1 billion of work a year. Protection and Repatriation Act and other laws, WCRM was Few of these projects, however, are as complex, costly, still obligated to contact 24 tribes to solicit concerns about lengthy, or productive as the one that Kearns has directed for sacred or ancestral sites, human burials, traditional resource the last eight years. AT&T won’t disclose how much it spent to gathering areas, and other potentially sensitive locations. comply with the law, but people familiar with the project say “A number of tribes like the Comanche, the Chiricahua the cost of surveying, excavating, and publishing the data— Apache, even the Kiowa up in Oklahoma have some histori- which has yet to be done—runs in the millions of dollars. cal connections with the land, so we had to ask them if they Tim Kearns An archaeologist records an ancient campsite while conducting a survey in West Texas. Subsequent excavation of the site exposed a Late Archaic hearth that was radiocarbon dated to roughly a.d. 300. american archaeology 15

AA P12-19 AT&T.indd 15 8/26/08 10:21:02 PM Tim Kearns

Researchers exposed a series of hearth and storage pit features dating from 800 to 400 b.c. at the Early Agricultural period village of Las Capas along the Santa Cruz River in the Tucson Basin. The crew had to work in a utility corridor between a freeway and a railroad, and the Arizona Department of Transportation required that a concrete barrier (upper right) be erected to protect the archaeologists and motorists.

wanted to be kept abreast of our activity,” says Kearns. Twenty Prior to the late 1970s, “archaeology in our state tended tribes asked to receive project reports for review. Of those, to focus on more spectacular sites like the pueblos and two—the Tohono O’Odham (formerly the Papago) and the Chaco Canyon,” says New Mexico Deputy State Historic Pres- Ákimel O’ Odham of the Gila River Indian Community—got ervation Officer Jan Biella. “Sites in the southern part of the directly involved in the project when Kearns’ teams found state are much more subtle, so there has been less excava- nine sets of human remains, which were repatriated to them tion there, and consequently much less is known about it.” for reburial. Biella is lavish in her praise of WCRM and AT&T, the lat- Deciding whether a site merited excavation or not was ter for its willingness, even in the face of schedule pressures, no simple matter. “Each state has different criteria for deter- to support additional archaeological work when it was war- mining what makes an archaeological site,” Kearns says. “As ranted. In 2004, New Mexico’s Cultural Review Committee professionals, we are charged with the responsibility of iden- honored both companies for “preservation, interpretation, tifying cultural resources and evaluating their significance, appreciation, and understanding of New Mexico’s cultural but we make our recommendation to the lead agency and heritage.” state historic preservation officers, who ultimately have the Not all cultural resource projects turn out so well. It final say.” was the BLM’s and PF.Net’s dissatisfaction with the work At a site near Carlsbad, New Mexico, Kearns and his of another contract firm in Texas—including the discovery crew decided that a disturbed surface scatter of burned rock of sites that they had failed to report—that led to WCRM and two chert flakes did not merit further investigation, but becoming the sole archaeological contractor for the project. New Mexico officials disagreed. “They were right,” he says. “This has been one of the longest and most complex under- We exposed an intact hearth within a disturbed burned rock takings of its kind,” Kearns says. “I’ve been in archaeology concentration. We recovered 20 stone artifacts, some fresh- over 30 years and I’ve learned that you can never really pre- water mussel shell, and charred agave. Radiocarbon assays dict what you’re going to find. I expected a lot of sites, but run on the agave returned two dates between 880 and 790 the most rewarding thing about this project was seeing the b.c. It wasn’t a dynamic site, but it did contain significant diversity of America’s heritage in the Southwest.” information and we acquired another little piece of the “What we have learned largely reinforces what we archaeological puzzle.” understood about the human chronology of this area, but it 16 fall • 2008

AA P12-19 AT&T.indd 16 8/26/08 10:21:17 PM gives us a better picture of some of the origins of the later way. Archaeologists believe these middens were the prod- cultures and how they lived and interacted,” he says. The ucts of nomadic hunter-gatherers who lived on the fringes two great prehistoric cultural traditions that dominated the of more settled areas of the Southwest. The oldest previously region, the Hohokam and Mogollon, have been extensively reported was dated to approximately 1900 b.c. But charcoal studied, but their antecedents and some of the subcultures gathered by Kearns’ teams showed that some ring middens are less understood. are much older. “We have two dates of more than 4,500 At one remote site in West Texas, the archaeologists years,” he says. unearthed a lithic and ceramic assemblage that suggested Other midden sites yielded a wide range of artifacts and interaction between different peoples. The site, thought to radiocarbon dates, some as recent as a.d. 1400. “These later have been occupied on multiple occasions between 4800 middens contained abundant ceramic sherds, stone tools, b.c. and a.d. 1400, contained pot sherds from the El Paso and other domestic waste associated with the later Forma- region, 230 miles to the southwest, and the Sierra Blanca tive period Eastern Jornada. It implies an organizational region of New Mexico, 200 miles northwest, and a piece of shift in settlement and subsistence from a foraging lifeway obsidian from the Jemez Mountains near Santa Fe, 300 miles where groups camp at specific resource patches to a more to the northwest. “These items were probably obtained in logistically oriented lifeway where subsistence resources are trade, but they provide an indication of exchange networks collected from diverse locations and returned to a central that were operative between the Plains and Puebloan cul- camp,” he says. tural areas,” says Kearns. In southwestern New Mexico the team also found some intriguing antecedents of the classic Mimbres culture, a peo- Archaeologists have long been intrigued by the burned ple best known for their exquisite painted ceramics. Part of rock-ring middens that are scattered throughout the Trans- the larger Mogollon tradition, the Mimbres were agricultural- Pecos region of western Texas and southeastern New ists who, by a.d. 1050, populated hundreds of small pueblos Mexico. The circular features, up to 40 feet across, typically in the river valleys of southwestern New Mexico. Given that have a central hearth where people roasted agave and other agriculture requires water, the archaeologists were puzzled desert succulents. Ten of them were found in the right of by their discovery of pithouses and early Mimbres ceramics Tim Kearns Looking for tiny artifacts, a crew member screens dirt from a site on the open plains of the Llano Estacado in West Texas. The site is in the Permian Basin, a well-explored oil field (an oil well can be seen in the distance), and the excavation ended prematurely due to the threat of poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas, a byproduct of oil development. american archaeology 17

AA P12-19 AT&T.indd 17 8/19/08 3:35:40 PM Joshua Jones Joshua Project director Tim Kearns (left) consults with two members of his crew during the excavation of a burned rock-ring midden at a multicomponent Archaic and Eastern Jornada Mogollon site southwest of Carlsbad, New Mexico. The rock-ring midden, which was dated between 2830 and 2460 b.c., is one of the earliest known examples of these large agave roasting ovens.

along a dry wash at Jones Springs Draw west of Deming. Dragoon cultural complex, which was centered in the Texas Tens of thousands of lithic and ceramic artifacts and fau- Canyon region east of Tucson. Although the Dragoon occu- nal remains, as well as a suite of radiocarbon dates, showed pied an important cultural frontier between the Mogollon that the sites were intensively occupied between a.d. 200 and and Hohokam peoples, WCRM’s crews were the first to exca- 1000, during Early and Late Pithouse periods that preceded vate Dragoon sites in 40 years, according to Kearns. the stone and adobe homes of the Classic Mimbres period. The artifacts they unearthed suggest the Texas Canyon The remains of corn, mesquite beans, and wild seeds attested area was indeed a busy crossroads in the period from about that inhabitants had a diversified economy that included a.d. 800 to 1100. Mixed in with the Dragoon’s distinctive agriculture. An evaluation of soil types and the topography brownware, the archaeologists found sherds from the Mog- provided the likely explanation. During the prehistoric past, ollan culture to the east, Trincheras and Babocomari to the the Mimbres River had changed course. Based on the lack of south, Hohokam to the west, and the Anasazi to the north. later Mimbres ceramics, the archaeologists suspect the river channel shifted prior to the rise of the Clas- sic Mimbres. “We now believe that the most intense use of these sites was between a.d. 200 and 1000 at a time when the river flowed south,” says Kearns. After that it was occupied only briefly, perhaps as a seasonal farmstead. “Because of the paucity of early Mimbres sites that have been excavated in the lowland desert, these sites provide critical insight into settlement, subsistence, and the exchange networks

of the time.” Tim Kearns Elsewhere, excavation of six Colonial period (a.d. 750–1000) Hohokam ceramic figurines from Last Water Ruin in southern sites in southeastern Arizona has Arizona. Ceramic figurines are relatively common at Hohokam sites and they suggest a provided a rare glimpse of the connection with the Mesoamerican cultures of west Mexico. 18 fall • 2008

AA P12-19 AT&T.indd 18 8/26/08 10:22:45 PM several centuries between a.d. 500 and 1450,” says Kearns. “This is the period that culminated with the construction of monumental adobe buildings and compounds like those preserved at the nearby Casa Grande National Monument.” Within the narrow right of way, the archaeologists unearthed the remains of 16 Hohokam houses, hearths, storage pits, trash-filled borrow pits, human cremation burials, and thousands of ceramic and stone artifacts. “The burials were in shallow pits,” Kearns recalls. “These were very small fragments of bone. It appeared that they had cremated the individual, collected the remains and buried them. It also appears that they had been disinterred later and ground up or pulverized, possibly in a ceremony designed to hasten the disintegration process.” Between Phoenix and the California border, the archaeologists also excavated a rare site attributed to the Patayan tradition, a major but largely unknown culture that was con- temporaneous with the Hohokam. The Patayan, or “Ancestral Yuman,” villages are thought to have been located along the Colorado River and are now believed to be deeply buried by alluvial deposits. Kearns’ team found a small camp with the burned remains of a brush shelter. “It wasn’t much more than a shallow depression covered with upright branches out there in the middle of the western desert of Arizona that we dated a.d. 970 to 1040,” he says. “The shelter was the sort of thing you might see among Africa’s Kalahari bushmen or Australian aborigines. We also found upland Patayan ceramics from the mountains to the north, lowland Patayan ceramics from the Colorado River, and Hohokam ceramics from the Phoenix Basin, so these people were clearly interacting with others across a large territory.” With so much evidence of mobility in the prehistoric Southwest, Kearns hopes the analyses of ceramics from a number of the sites, once completed, will provide a more

Tim Kearns precise and sophisticated view of the exchange networks Last Water Ruin also yielded this Hohokam obsidian projectile point. that existed. In spite of the cost and the delays that resulted, the There was jewelry made from shells from the Gulf of Califor- telecommunications giant expressed pride in the outcome. nia, and obsidian points, which chemical analysis identified “While building an important communications network, the as coming from sources almost a hundred miles away. AT&T team found it very fulfilling to help recover artifacts The cross-cultural nature of the Dragoon is also reflected that will contribute to our understanding of human culture,” in their mixed burial styles. The archaeologists found one set said Tony Fea, executive director of network planning and of remains buried in a shallow grave, in the Mogollon style, engineering. and another cremated set of remains, reflecting Hohokam “The emergence of cultural resource management has tradition. taken archaeologists into areas that were largely ignored,” Further west in Arizona, the right of way cuts through Kearns says. “As a result, where we once had only a handful, the heartland of the Hohokam, whose sophisticated canal we now have thousands of Archaic period sites—as well as irrigation systems, spanning hundreds of miles, supported other similarly unimpressive but important sites that repre- agriculture and large, long-lived prehistoric settlements in sent most of the period of human occupation in this part the Phoenix and Tucson basins. Because the area is so heav- of the country. Cultural resource management has made a ily urbanized today, the archaeologists sometimes found significant contribution to American archaeology.” themselves working behind concrete safety barricades as traffic whizzed by a few feet away. MIKE TONER is a Pulitzer Prize–winning writer in Atlanta, Georgia. His “One site, Last Water Ruin, was one of a series of large article “Before and After Columbus” appeared in the Summer 2007 villages along the Middle Gila River that were occupied for issue of American Archaeology. american archaeology 19

AA P12-19 AT&T.indd 19 8/19/08 3:36:20 PM Contact Commerce CAMILLA HEASTY CAMILLA An artist’s depiction of the 18th-century Wichita village now known as the Bryson-Paddock site. When French traders made their way into northern Oklahoma, they encountered the Wichita, who exchanged bison hides for European goods. Researchers are investigating an 18th-century Wichita village to learn about the effects of contact. By Diane Clay

of a heavily fortiﬁ ed 18th- Wichita chose this site, with its views of hilltop mesas, nearby The remnantscentury Wichita Indian chert quarries for making tools, and expanses of open prairie village, now known as the Bryson-Paddock site, are buried in that prevented surprise attacks from adversaries. an overgrown pasture on the steep banks of the Arkansas River Archaeologists have known of the site for decades, just south of the Oklahoma-Kansas border. It is clear why the and it was investigated in the 1920s and ‘70s. That research 20 fall • 2008

AA P20-25 Bryson Paddock.indd 20 8/19/08 3:44:05 PM gary lawson gary Excavators work at the site during last summer’s field school. The archaeologists have determined that the village was heavily fortified. american archaeology 21

AA P20-25 Bryson Paddock.indd 21 8/19/08 3:44:22 PM gary lawson gary Field school students screen dirt for small artifacts in the tall grass surrounding the excavation area.

revealed that the Wichita traded with the French there, but served as fashionable bed coverings in Europe, and they many of the details remained a mystery. “There are differ- were also used to make various items such as belts to drive ent views of the site, and as we dig, we resolve some of the machinery during the Industrial Revolution. issues. This is one of the earliest sites with European artifacts Historical records of French and Spanish explorers, in Oklahoma and the largest fortification of the Wichita that including Coronado, document encounters with the Wichita, has been found,” said Susan Vehik, an archaeologist with the although there is no record the Spanish encountered the University of Oklahoma who codirects the investigation of Wichita at Bryson-Paddock or the neighboring Deer Creek Bryson-Paddock. Among the unresolved issues are the age of village, about two miles downstream. The first two excava- site, the extent to which the French affected the Wichita, and tions failed to answer the question of whether Bryson- why the village was so heavily fortified. Paddock was a Wichita village or a trading post built by the In 1926, with the financial backing of future Oklahoma French, who were then making their way north along the Governor Ernest Marland, historian Joseph Thoburn, the Arkansas River. head of the Oklahoma Historical Society, hired archaeologist Vehik and her codirectors, Richard Drass, also of the Otto Spring to excavate the site. Thoburn became aware of University of Oklahoma, and ethnohistorian Stephen Perkins the site after receiving reports from Oklahoma farmers and of Oklahoma State, who began their investigation of Bryson- an amateur archaeologist that thousands of artifacts were Paddock in 2003 at the invitation of the current landown- being uncovered by plows. Though the excavators discov- ers, have concluded Bryson-Paddock was a heavily fortified ered 11 trash mounds, no further research was done at the Wichita village positioned to benefit from trade with the site until 1974, when archaeologists found evidence of a French. Vestiges of the site’s structures suggest native con- house and arbor along with several more trash mounds. They struction, as do the tools the archaeologists have recovered. also uncovered a piece of fabric, gun parts, and colored glass The researchers have discovered bison bones and vari- beads. That project ended in 1975. ous artifacts, such as dozens of stone hide scrapers, ceremo- Researchers determined that Bryson-Paddock was one nial clothing decorations called tinklers, metal stock, French of several major places where Wichita Indians met French gun parts, and bison scapula that were used to dig trenches. trappers and traders from the Poste aux Arkansas, or Arkansas They also found several deep postholes, which supported Post, the first European trading post in the lower Mississippi tall stockade fences or palisades. Valley, which was located downstream from Bryson-Paddock It’s possible that they uncovered the remains of a circu- at the junction of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers. lar thatch house that includes a hearth-like area containing large amounts of charcoal and bison bones. The discovery of several postholes suggests they may have found another traded with the Wichita structure that appears to have sat on top of, or intersected The Frenchfor a number of years in with, a fortification ditch that had been filled with trash. the early to mid-18th century, exchanging goods such as “These are the biggest postholes I’ve seen in 40 years of guns, fabric, axes, scissors, and kettles for large quantities of archaeology,” Vehik said. “There are far more posts in this bison hides that they transported to New Orleans, and some area than we have found in other areas of the fortification of which were eventually shipped to Europe. Bison hides ditch, suggesting a possible house.” She added that analysis of 22 fall • 2008

AA P20-25 Bryson Paddock.indd 22 8/26/08 10:23:39 PM Richard Drass, Stephen Perkins, and Susan Vehik have codirected the investigation since 2003. The Wichita made tinklers, which were used to decorate the postholes and the ditch fill will be necessary before she clothing, from brass or copper that they cut from metal and her colleagues can arrive at any conclusions. pots obtained from the French. Two more fortification trenches were uncovered this season, making this the most heavily fortified Wichita village known. “One fortification is pretty good, but three—that’s a lot, and there may be more,” Vehik said. “There’s nothing like this recorded in the southern Plains.” The trenches appear to be about three feet deep and six to nine feet wide, and each probably supported a palisade. They encircle a portion, but not all, of the village. The trenches suggest that Bryson-Paddock was a heavily populated village, since digging them with bison scapulas would have required a tremendous amount of labor. The archaeologists believe the fortifications were built to protect the Wichita from the Osage, who, according to historical records, often attacked Wichita villages. There’s no archaeological or historical evidence of conflict between the Wichita and the French. “The presence and extent of fortifications at native villages on the southern Plains was almost unknown before work at Bryson-Paddock, and now we know the Wichita were building extensive fortifications by at least 1730, if not much earlier,” said Drass. “Such extensive fortifications imply The Wichita traded for various metal goods, such as pots. significant conflict that may relate to changes brought about This is a fragment of a pot handle. by the inclusion of horses and guns in native societies.”

said much of the historical documenta- Perkins tion concerning Bryson-Paddock and Deer Creek comes from Spanish interrogations of French traders who visited the villages while traveling west to Santa Fe, in what is now New Mexico, intent on engaging the Spanish in trade. The relationship between France and Spain was strained in the early 1700s and the French traders were arrested, interrogated, and often sent to the Spanish vice regal government in Mexico City. Perkins said throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the Spanish were concerned about the French trading guns to the Wichita and other tribes, such as the Comanche.

gary lawson gary “They had very different agendas, the French and the A fragment of a clay pipe. These were made Spanish,” Perkins said, referring to those nations’ reasons for by the Wichita for smoking tobacco. american archaeology 23

AA P20-25 Bryson Paddock.indd 23 8/19/08 3:45:24 PM still an uncommon and expensive material for the Wichita; they had to trade for it,” Drass said. Nonetheless, the Wichita subsequently adopted metal scrapers. The French demand for hides may have brought about changes in the relationships between Wichita men and women. The men killed the bison and the women performed the more labor-intensive task of processing the hides. Ethno- graphic evidence indicates that there have been times when Wichita society was matrilineal and matrilocal. But Perkins and Vehik suspect the men took several wives, though for different reasons. Perkins theorizes the men engaged in polygyny to increase the household workforce and thereby profit more from commerce, as other tribes trading with Europeans had done. Vehik surmises that, due to the toll of warfare, the women outnumbered the men, and therefore the Wichita resorted to sororal polygyny, whereby a man marries a set of sisters. Though sororal polygyny was not an economic decision, it could, like Perkins’ assumption, increase the size of the household and its productivity. A larger household would likely have required a larger house, so the researchers examined the size of lodges at Bryson-Paddock and found that they were larger than lodges at pre-contact Wichita sites. The bigger lodges are also in evidence at the Longest site, located on the Red River between

Oklahoma and Texas, where these Wichita are thought to RICHARD DRASS In 2006 the researchers excavated one of the site’s three known have moved after abandoning Bryson-Paddock. fortification trenches.

exploring the New World. The French were interested in occupation dates “free commerce,” the Spanish in conquest and colonization. Bryson-Paddock’s are a subject of Consequently, the Spanish were troubled by the thought of debate among the researchers. Vehik believes the site dates natives armed with guns on the periphery of their expand- back as far as 1680, Drass predicts about 1720, and Perkins ing empire. The Wichita previously inhabited parts of south- reserves judgment pending a closer examination of the docu- ern Kansas (Coronado encountered them there in 1541) mentary evidence. Vehik’s opinion is based on a 1680 account and other parts of Oklahoma. Living at Bryson-Paddock put of French explorers finding two Wichita villages on the Arkan- them beyond the reach of the Spanish empire and its fron- sas River as well as the knowledge that some of Bryson- tier settlements in New Mexico and Texas. “It seems evident Paddock’s European artifacts were manufactured by 1680. that the Wichita strategically located themselves in northern “I suggest occupation from around 1720 simply because Oklahoma understanding the opportunities and constraints the trade goods appear fairly evenly distributed across this that existed at this time,” Perkins said. site, suggesting that exchange with the French was consis- Commerce with the French was the main opportunity, tent and regular,” Drass said. “Trade before 1720 in this area and the archaeologists have concluded that, in order to would probably have been sporadic and many goods may obtain more guns and other goods, the Wichita expedited have reached the Wichita only through other native groups. their hide tanning process by making a number of changes We might expect some areas of the site to contain few or no to their principal tool, the hide scraper. This conclusion is trade goods if they were occupied during this early period. based on a comparison of more than 900 scrapers from However, it is a very large site and only a small part of it Bryson-Paddock with scrapers recovered from earlier pre- has been systematically investigated. The earliest occupation contact Wichita sites. The Bryson-Paddock hide scrapers areas may not yet have been investigated.” show less workmanship—they were not hafted or heat- Historical documents from the 1740s describe Bryson- treated, as were earlier Wichita scrapers—suggesting they Paddock and Deer Creek, but it’s uncertain how early the were produced quickly so that more hides could be pro- sites were occupied. Maps that date as early as 1701 depict cessed. Despite being introduced to metal by the French, Wichita villages on the Arkansas River. These were probably the Bryson-Paddock residents fashioned their scrapers from made from descriptions by French traders or from other stone. “The stone scrapers were as efficient, if not more effi- native groups, and it’s not certain the villages were Bryson- cient, than metal scrapers, and the stone for tools was readily Paddock and Deer Creek. available from local gravels and quarries, whereas metal was Researchers believe this group of Wichita moved to the 24 fall • 2008

AA P20-25 Bryson Paddock.indd 24 8/19/08 3:45:35 PM RICHARD DRASS A researcher excavates a bell-shaped storage pit in 2004. Bell-shaped pits were easy to seal, and they also could be covered and concealed if the Wichita left the village to hunt bison.

Longest site in the late 1750s. Historical accounts tell of a In addition to dating Bryson-Paddock, the researchers smallpox epidemic in 1751 and 1752 that could have affected intend to complete a detailed map of the village, which they the village, and Vehik said they were having trouble defend- believe covers about 30 acres. They would also like to inves- ing themselves against the Osage. According to another his- tigate Deer Creek, which, unlike Bryson-Paddock, is mostly torical account, the Spanish attacked the Longest site in 1759 unplowed, but covered with trees and patches of poison ivy. in retaliation for the Wichita, Comanche, and other native “It would be useful to compare the fortifications and other groups in north Texas attacking the area around San Antonio. structures at Deer Creek with Bryson-Paddock,” said Drass. There’s more uncertainty about the occupation dates of “Comparison of the artifacts may also indicate whether one other Wichita sites in Oklahoma and, in hopes of establishing site served as the primary trade center with the French.” He a reliable and reasonably precise chronology, the archaeolo- added that the assumption that the two sites were occupied gists are experimenting with thermal luminescence dating, simultaneously hasn’t been confirmed. a technique that measures the last time soil was exposed to The historical record of this period is “meager,” Drass said, light. Regina DeWitt of the Physics Department at Oklahoma so it’s for archaeology to reveal the story of French-Wichita State University will analyze soil samples from Bryson-Pad- contact. “Each excavation at the site attempts to refine the dock that are associated with bison bones and charred pot- information we have about Wichita life during this period,” he tery. DeWitt said thermal luminescence dating has an error said, noting “there are many questions still to be answered.” rate of 10 percent, which in this case means about 30 years. That’s not accurate enough to resolve the debate over when DIANE CLAY is a freelance writer based in Oklahoma City. Her work has Bryson-Paddock was founded, but Perkins said it could be appeared in The Oklahoman, the New York Times, USA Today, the New York more useful at some of the other poorly dated Wichita sites. Post, and the Rocky Mountain News. He said they tried radiocarbon, the more common dating technique, in the past, but the error rate was so great that it To learn more about the Bryson-Paddock excavation, visit the Web site proved to be useless. www.ou.edu/cas/archsur/Bryson-Paddock/fieldschool.htm american archaeology 25

AA P20-25 Bryson Paddock.indd 25 8/19/08 3:45:45 PM A New Life in New Philadelphia

Freed slave Frank McWorter founded the town of New Philadelphia in 1836, a time of racial turmoil. The town was inhabited by blacks and whites, and it prospered for several decades before being abandoned. Archaeologists are working with descendant families to learn about the town and the nature of its race relations. Researchers excavate a house site during last summer’s ﬁ eld school. By Malcolm Gay Archaeologist Terrance Martin, wearing a red baseball cap, screens DOUG CARR, ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM DOUG CARR, ILLINOIS STATE excavated dirt for tiny artifacts. 26 fall • 2008

AA p 26-31 new philly.indd 26 8/19/08 3:48:50 PM tepping away from the three-foot mound of earth that’s grown beneath his screen, Terrance Martin grasps a tiny sliver of bone between his thumb and forefinger. Amber with age and encrusted with more than a century’s worth of dirt, the bone is no larger than a matchstick. Still,S Martin thoughtfully turns it over in his fingers, inspecting it more closely in the mild June sun. “It looks like a squirrel bone,” said Martin, an archaeologist at the Illinois State Museum who specializes in bone identifica- tion. “We’re finding a lot of small game: squirrel, rabbit, a little fish.” Minute though the bone is, it informs Martin’s and his colleagues’ study of dietary habits of the denizens of the mid-19th- century town of New Philadelphia, Illinois. Founded in 1836 by Frank McWorter, a former slave who purchased his own freedom, New Philadelphia has vanished into the rolling hills of Pike County in western Illinois between the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. Now something of a celebrity, McWorter, who bought his own and many of his family members’ freedom, is thought to be the first free African American ever to found a town. New Philadelphia’s historical record is rich: Not only do investigators have the original 1836 plat map, they also have census data, tax records, newspaper articles, and oral histories from descendant families. These records describe New Philadelphia as a racially diverse community that was roughly one-third African-American and two-thirds white. It shows that the town functioned as a commercial hub for the area and was home to a wheelwright, a blacksmith, cobblers, a cabinetmaker, a physician, a Baptist preacher, and a merchant. Still, the documentary record only goes so far in explaining what life was like in New Philadelphia, and in 2004 Martin, along with co-investigators Christopher Fennell of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Paul Shackel of the University of Maryland, began an investigation of the site. The researchers wanted to better understand how consumer choices changed over the years as more goods reached the country’s interior and how racism impacted such markets and consumer choices before and after the Civil War. The archaeologists, who were later joined by Anna Agbe-Davies of DePaul University in Chicago, wanted to determine whether New Philadelphians’ dietary habits varied along racial or regional lines, and they also wanted to better understand the town’s spatial context so as to determine whether black and white New Philadelphians lived side by side, or whether the town, though ostensibly integrated, maintained a de facto segregation. “The McWorters were the founders of the town and defi- nitely important, but what we’re interested in is all the people of the community,” said Martin. “That’s what’s really interesting because you’re seeing people from New England, the mid-Atlantic, and the upland South, so we’re trying to do a social history and ethnology of the town based on an interdisciplinary approach to archaeology and the historical record.”

The history of New Philadelphia cannot be separated from the story of its founder, Frank McWorter. Born a South Carolina slave in 1777, at the age of 18 McWorter moved to Kentucky with his owner (and likely father) George McWorter, who soon left for Tennessee leaving young Frank in american archaeology 27

AA p 26-31 new philly.indd 27 8/19/08 3:49:04 PM charge of the Kentucky operation. By the turn of the century, New Philadelphia Four years after his arrival in Kentucky, McWorter mar- had largely returned to farmland. Nonetheless, Free Frank ried Lucy, a fellow slave at a nearby farm, in 1799. Though and the town’s legacy of racial integration lived on in the oral their marriage was not legally recognized, Frank had a modi- history of the town’s residents and their descendants. “The cum of freedom, and in his spare time he began earning local and descendant communities long knew the history of wages by working at other farms. McWorter increased his New Philadelphia, so they organized a non-profit organiza- earnings during the War of 1812 when he began a saltpeter tion that started talking with us,” said Fennell. “Of course, our mining and manufacturing operation. By 1817, he earned the first question was: is the archaeology intact?” $800 necessary to purchase Lucy’s freedom. Two years later, To answer that question, the archaeologists conducted a McWorter, who became known as “Free Frank,” bought his survey at the site during the summers of 2002 and 2003 and own liberty for the same price. He eventually bought the they found roughly 6,000 historical artifacts, as well as evi- freedom of 15 of his relatives. dence of a 7,000-year-old prehistoric site beneath the town. McWorter began purchasing land, and in 1830 he moved Confident that the site was intact, the archaeologists, with his family to Illinois, where he had bought 160 acres in Pike input from the descendant community, formulated their County. He purchased another 80-acre parcel, which he sub- research questions and began excavating in 2004 courtesy divided to create the 42-acre town. McWorter commissioned of a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation. a survey and registered New Philadelphia in 1836. The town The survey revealed a large concentration of artifacts prospered, and census records report that its population that corresponded with a since demolished structure shown peaked in 1865 when it had 160 residents spread across 29 in a 1939 aerial photograph of the property. After perform- households. ing a geophysical survey, archaeologists began excavating Fennell said New Philadelphia succeeded despite the the area and soon discovered an intact storage cellar that times. “This region was absolutely torn by racial strife and vio- was thought to have been associated with a house in block 9 lence,” he said. “There are pro-slavery and abolitionist clashes of the town plan. They knew from the historical record that across the Mississippi (River) and all surrounding us. There’s African-Americans had used the cellar, which they surmised also strong oral history evidence that residents in the area of from tax records was likely built in the mid-19th century. New Philadelphia were involved in the Underground Railroad The cellar yielded a trove of household artifacts— and helping escaped slaves.” thimbles, buttons, children’s toys, ceramics, and glassware. malcolm gay Rusted tinware fragments separate the sherd of a whiteware plate (left) and an intact bluish glass Coca-Cola bottle (right). These items, as well as the neck of another bottle, were recovered from a house site. 28 fall • 2008

AA p 26-31 new philly.indd 28 8/19/08 3:49:12 PM A rchive s y Photo Photo y m i l Fa McWorter

The New Philadelphia school (left) also served the community as a general meeting place where church services, social functions, marriages, funerals, and other events were held. This late 1800s picture shows a market that was set up next to the school.

By comparing the ceramic patterns and glazes against a database chickens, rabbits, passenger pigeons, and fish, but of known ceramic styles, the archaeologists were able to date the there was little evidence of cattle. The distinctions sug- artifacts to the mid- to late 19th century. The artifacts were reveal- gest that blacks and whites initially retained discrete ing as to the degree to which race affected consumer choices. “In regional dietary habits. This data, along with the town’s a lot of studies we’ll see that people from different regional or segregated cemeteries, imply there may have been ethnic backgrounds make entirely different choices in terms of limitations to the town’s racial integration. the ceramics they use, or the architectural style of their house,” said Fennell, whose team has now uncovered the remains of a dozen structures. “But here we find that consumer goods are pretty much uniform across households.” Shackel is working on a paper that will explore the significance of the similarity of these goods, which seems to suggest a high degree of cultural exchange between the town’s white and black inhabitants. “You really have people who are operating in the same cultural milieu. They have the same markets to draw on, and, theoretically, they have similar options,” said Agbe-Davies. “Given that fact, archaeologists can use sites like New Philadelphia to refine our techniques and come to more nuanced understandings of how differences might still be expressed in material culture.” New Philadelphians’ similarity in tastes did not extend to their diets. The documentary record showed that successive African-

Library American families had inhabited the house in block 9. The archaeologists wondered whether those black families who arrived in New Philadelphia from Southern states had maintained a classic upland South diet while their white neighbors, who hailed from New England, maintained their own eating habits. “These are people who moved up from the South—Kentucky, Tennessee. They’d raise pigs and chickens but supplement their diet with wild game,” said Martin. “Meanwhile, in other sections of town, we’ve excavated cellars of people who came from the Northeast—they came down with the so-called Yankee tradition—and there’s more

Sandra McWorter and Linco l n Pre s identia McWorter Sandra beef found on those sites.” The cellar contained roughly 1,000 animal bones—by far This bronze sculpture of Free Frank McWorter was created the excavation’s biggest faunal discovery—that came from pigs, by his fifth-generation descendant, Shirley McWorter Moss. american archaeology 29

AA p 26-31 new philly.indd 29 8/19/08 3:49:25 PM tate M useum Doug carr, Ill i no s S tate Abdul Alkalimat (formerly known as Gerald McWorter), a direct descendant of Frank McWorter and a professor of African American studies at the University of Illinois, gives a talk on the history of African-American communities and the impacts of racism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Alkalimat’s talk was one of the events in a speaker series offered through the field school.

It also appears that the schools were segregated. The are searching for the school, but they haven’t found conclu- white children were educated at a nearby school, and oral his- sive evidence of the structure. “We find slate pencils, so we tories and documentary records suggest that Frank McWorter have found some of the artifacts for the school,” said Fennell, was trying to build a small school for the town’s black chil- “but we haven’t found the foundation footers.” dren. (The State of Illinois did not provide for the education They have, however, found a considerable amount of of African-American children until 1874.) The archaeologists information about the town’s spatial context. They have located evidence of a merchant and a blacksmith as well as uncovered several residences, a few cellars, a well, and a privy. “The archaeology has told us things that weren’t in the historical record at all, ” said Fennell. “This summer our field lab tent is located near a feature that was an early well.” It was filled with 1840s and 1850s artifacts. After it ceased to be a well, it became used for refuse, and then they pushed soil over it and a house was put on top of that. There was no indication that we would find a house or a well here— there’s no record of it.” Investigating the spatial context—for example, determin- ing if blacks and whites lived next door to one another—is another way of assessing the degree of racial integration. One complication facing the archaeologists as they try to determine who lived where is the methodology of the 19th century census. Census takers did not necessarily move methodi- cally down a street. Rather, they could often zigzag, crossing streets and backtracking as they searched for occupants. “If you just read the census records it’d be very hard to draw a map of the town. You really need to layer it with multiple lines of evidence to draw the sort of detailed spatial maps that we achieve by adding the historical data to the oral histories and the archaeological record,” said Fennell. “It’s really refining our view.” The researchers have discovered that, for the most part, New Philadelphia was an integrated town. “We have not

seen evidence of segregation within the town in terms of malcolm gay A bottle, which probably contained patent medicine, was uncovered the spacing of households and businesses or the types of during the excavations. It dates to the late 19th century. housewares they used,” said Fennell. 30 fall • 2008

AA p 26-31 new philly.indd 30 8/19/08 3:49:35 PM resources swayed the federal government to place New Philadelphia on the National Register of His- toric Places in 2005. But it is also a stark reminder of the racial tensions that pervaded the country and perhaps led to New Philadelphia’s demise. By 1857, a railroad linked the town of St. Joseph, in western Missouri, to Hannibal, located on the banks of the Mississippi in eastern Missouri. Another railroad track, which began on the eastern edge of Pike County, connected the area to the commercial centers of the East. A railroad running through Pike County would connect the two lines and would be a great boon to any community located along this new stretch of track or the death knell for any it bypassed. The historical record reveals that merchants in Hannibal—a town with an active slave market— came to dominate a holding company that funded the rail line. When the railroad tracks were laid, they ran in a straight line across Pike County until they approached New Philadelphia, at which point the tracks were routed around the town. “If you take all the reasons of why a railroad would go somewhere, none explains the arc they built around New Philadelphia,” said Fennell, who believes racism caused the town to be bypassed. “I don’t have direct evidence, but you can see them going out of their way—at great expense and no rational business reason—to avoid New Philadelphia.” Sixteen years after the railroad bypassed New Philadelphia, a clerk noted on the town’s original plat map that in 1885 the east side had been largely depopulated and was being treated as a large agricultural parcel. Frank McWorter didn’t witness the railroad’s

tate Museu m Doug carr, Ill i no s S tate completion in 1869, having died 15 years earlier at Field school student Shalonda Collins uses a laser transit to take the ripe age of 77. But his wife Lucy did. She died measurements within an excavation block. in 1870 at the age of 99. But even though Frank, Lucy, and their town of One of the most remarkable discoveries New Philadelphia are gone, they live on in the work of the the archaeologists made was during the summer of 2005, just archaeologists and the descendant communities. They are before the town’s descendant families arrived for a reunion. petitioning the federal government to give the site National While carefully excavating a house owned by relatives of Historic Landmark status, which is awarded to significant Frank McWorter, the archaeologists uncovered a Union army historic places that vividly illustrate or interpret the heritage uniform button from the Civil War. of the United States. Fewer than 2,500 historic places have “We line up all this data, and we know that Louisa received this distinction. McWorter and Casiah Clark resided there. We also know that “The descendant community has told us that they don’t Frank’s grandson, Squire, fights in the 38th Infantry Colored want to just hear a story of how white racism killed New Unit in the Civil War, and now we find a Civil War Union Philadelphia,” said Fennell. “Instead, they want to follow the button in Louisa’s house,” marveled Fennell. “So we have families and see how they overcame that adversity. The town every probability that this is Frank’s grandson’s war button.” may have died, but families didn’t.” The archaeologists attended the reunion and presented the button to the descendant family. “It’s wonderful when you MALCOLM GAY is an editor-at-large for St. Louis Magazine. can get that kind of personal connection with the artifacts,” Fennell said. To learn more about the New Philadelphia excavation, visit the Web site The Union button and the wealth of other archaeological www.histarch.uiuc.edu/NSF/fieldschool.html american archaeology 31

AA p 26-31 new philly.indd 31 8/19/08 3:49:45 PM What Became of the Hohokam?

oncrete canals weave through the dusty flats around conclusions of an extensive research project funded by the Phoenix, bringing precious water to thirsty farms. National Science Foundation offer new insights into the Though modern Phoenicians might give them little Hohokam demise. Rather than simply crediting drought thought, these canals have ancient precursors that or other environmental factors, the archaeologists paint a Conce reached for miles across the desert valley, irrigat- picture of a Hohokam society that was disrupted by a rela- ing beans, squash, and corn to feed the Hohokam, one of the tively small migration of people from northeastern Arizona’s Southwest’s major prehistoric cultures. Kayenta region—a complex portrait rife with conflict and Beginning around a.d. 450, the Hohokam grew steadily cooperation, segregation and integration, and ultimately a for nearly a millennium; then a decline is evident around a.d. melding of cultures that ended in collapse. 1350. By the time Spanish missionaries arrived in southern The archaeologists rely heavily on the theoretical model Arizona in the late 1600s, some 40,000 Hohokam seem to of “coalescence” that takes into account the impacts of have disappeared. migration and aggregation, a process where people move What was their fate? That question has long bedeviled from many small settlements to a few large ones. They argue experts, because the evidence is frustratingly scant. But the that Kayenta migration caused social stress, compelling the 32 fall • 2008

AA p32-37 Hohokam.indd 32 8/19/08 4:06:12 PM AA p32-37 Hohokam.indd 33 By Tim Vanderpool Tim By american archaeology 1950s and 1940s the in done was than differently very tion Migration went outofvogue.” nations, having to do with cultural evolution and adaptation. expla- internal moretowards and migrationawayfrom shift replacinggroup.another 1960s,the in Then there wasreal a the material culture in an area, with one group migrating and in changesﬁarchaeologist’sfor explanation every was it rst “Migration has had a long in history archaeology,” he says.“At for Desert Archaeology, calls it a fresh take on an old subject. problems. perceived or real overwhelming other of variety a to to threats.led turn in response That in aggregate to Hohokam project focuses onafactorthathadbeenignoredfor decades. have longdebatedthecausesoftheirdecline.Anambitiousresearch early 15thcenturytheirremarkableculturecollapsed,andarchaeologists The HohokamflourishedinsouthernArizonafor centuries.Butbythe But that’s no longer the case.the longer that’sno But ‘‘Wemigra- conceptualize Principal investigator Jeffery Clark, with Tucson’s Center

San Pedro Valley was thecatalystthatcausedHohokam’s collapse. likebelieve theLower thattheKayentamigrationintoHohokamterritories southeastern Arizona, isdepictedinthiscolorizedillustration. Researchers Reeve Ruin, adefensibleKayentaenclave intheLower SanPedro Valley in

major sites throughout the Southwest that existed betweenexisted that Southwest the throughout sites major location,the about size, more4,000 of than period time and Mapping Company. This huge contains database information Archaeology, Northern of Arizona,Museum the and Western nities Database, which was amassed by the Center for Desert from several sources, one of which is the Coalescent Commu- of amigration.” consequences the and scale the predict us,can of we front cess. says. Clark accident,”an of migrationsort wasthat was view the where A . D . 1200and1700. The database “was designed to study trends in settlement oplig vdne o te aet mgain came migration Kayenta the for evidence Compelling

If we have all the environmental and social variables in

“We now look at migration as a predictable pro- predictable a as migration at look “Wenow 8/19/08 4:06:39 PM 33 THE AMERIND FOUNDATION, INC., DRAGOON, AZ. ORIGINAL PEN-AND-INK DRAWING BY MRS. MAC SCHWEITZER, ARTIST. COLORIZED BY CHARLOTTE HILL-COBB This map shows the various migrations that occurred over time. The majority of the Hohokam were settled in the Phoenix Basin, and they tended to resist the Kayenta, forcing them to the periphery. There were far fewer Hohokam in the Lower San Pedro Valley, and consequently there was less tension between the two peoples. It’s thought that after the collapse of the settlements in the Lower San Pedro Valley, most of the Hohokam and Kayenta moved east to the Upper Gila/Mimbres area. It’s possible that they subsequently moved to the Rio Abajo and Zuni areas.

social conflict forced the Kayenta people from the Four Corners area southward. Some of them traveled as far as 180 miles, reaching the Hohokam’s agricultural areas in southern Arizona. “My work,” Lyons says, “is focused upon finding traces of Kayenta groups in central and southern Arizona, and also in New Mexico, mainly through ceramics.” He’s found that “one of the most important markers in tracking the movement of (Kayenta) groups out of the Four Corners region is an artifact called a perforated plate. It’s essentially a pottery dish that has holes punched in a row around the circumference of the vessel. The best evidence we have is that they are pottery- Evolution Graphics size and, by extension, population at 50-year intervals,” says making tools first used by people in the Kayenta region Clark. “This is the period when most ancient Native Americans about a.d. 500. And at about a.d. 1250, we start seeing them were living in above-ground masonry buildings rather than for the first time south of the Little Colorado River,” which pithouses, so it is much easier to estimate settlement size and runs through the east-central part of the state. room counts than in earlier periods.” Co-investigator Brett Hill Lyons believes the perforated plates, which have also helped establish the database. Hill, an archaeologist at Hendrix been found in the Hohokam region, arrived via migration College in Conway, Arkansas, specializes in GIS mapping. rather than trade because they’re “a simple tool used in the The archaeologists also conducted test excavations at household” and would have had little exchange value. “It’s 29 sites in southeastern Arizona’s San Pedro River Valley and also not the kind of thing that neighboring groups would analyzed extensive collections at the Pueblo Grande Museum want to copy. It’s not flashy or decorated.” He considers them and Archaeological Park in Phoenix, the Museum of Northern “objects that really encode cultural identity. Like recipes Arizona in Flagstaff, and the Arizona State Museum in Tucson. that are passed down through generations.” Lyons’ reason- Rounding out the research team is Patrick Lyons, a ceramics ing is supported by the Coalescent Communities Database, expert and head of collections at the Arizona State Museum. which indicates that the population of the Kayenta region dramatically declined around this time while the population he Hohokam established a sophisticated agricultural in southern Arizona increased. system and built hundreds of irrigation canals across the Having established evidence of migration, the research- TPhoenix Basin and other river valleys in southern Arizona. ers studied its impact. “They were very different people In the Phoenix Basin, where the largest irrigation systems from the Hohokam,” Clark says of the Kayenta. “They prob- are found (some are over 10 miles in length), their villages ably spoke a different language, had a different culture, and were scattered along the canals. The bigger villages were a different religion. But unlike some migrations—and even typically located near the main canal head gates that con- though they were a minority—the Kayenta maintained their trolled the flow of water from the Salt River. The Hohokam identity in exile. Not only were they maintaining their tradi- thrived in southern Arizona until about 1300, when their tions in each area they moved into, but they also maintained fortunes began to change. At about that time, drought and connections with other Kayenta migrants in nearby areas, 34 fall • 2008

AA p32-37 Hohokam.indd 34 8/19/08 4:06:50 PM forming a larger migrant community.” According to Lyons, that pattern is typical. “If you look at the idea of diaspora, of the movements of immigrants into different host populations, they have opportunities to work themselves into those communities.” The Kayenta essentially recreated the communities they had known. “They built pueblos just like they had in northern Arizona. They built kivas just like they had in northern Arizona. They even maintained connections with the groups back home to get raw materials to do things like they did in the old days.” But the Kayentas’ desire to maintain their own culture came at a cost—especially for the Hohokam, who in turn moved from more dispersed settlements into more aggregated communities, presumably for defensive reasons. “Kay- enta migrations impacted different parts of the Hohokam world differently, with the greatest initial effect on peripheral valleys to the north and east of the Phoenix Basin,” Clark says. There was some level of conflict and social tension in all the river valleys over limited resources, but problems were greatest to the north of the Phoenix Basin where migrants A rc h aeology came in contact with the largest Hohokam centers. “Evi- dence of conflict can be seen in fortified settlements near migrant-local boundaries and the creation of unoccupied buffer zones.”

esert C enter for D esert But conflict between the two peoples wasn’t inevitable. “In the smaller valleys and basins to the east of Phoenix,” Clark This modern southeast Arizona canal, which may have been built upon says, “local and migrant groups developed trade relations, a Hohokam canal, is thought to resemble its ancient predecessor.

The extensiveness of the Hohokam canal systems, which are represented by the white lines, is seen in this map of the Lower Salt River Valley of the Phoenix Basin. original map J. Brett Hill/ additions & colorization c h arlotte ill-co bb additions & colorization Hill/ J. Brett map original american archaeology 35

AA p32-37 Hohokam.indd 35 8/19/08 10:54:13 PM which probably bore religious symbols. It was widely traded to the Hohokam, suggesting that they may have eventually adopted Kayenta ideology and crafts. “In the late 1300s and early 1400s, Salado polychrome was produced in settlements occupied by the descendants of both Kayenta and Hohokam groups,” Clark says.

egardless of whether migrants and locals were fighting or getting along” he says, “one thing is clear: groups “Rremained aggregated even in areas where tensions were decreasing.” In the Phoenix Basin, aggregation led to overcrowded settlements. Following the logic of the coalescent model, the archaeologists suspect that too many people living in close quarters facilitated the spread of diseases and contributed to a general decline in health, and the agricultural lands around the large villages became exhausted, all of which resulted in lower birth rates and higher mortality rates for both groups by the late 1300s, a conclusion that is

corroborated by the Coalescent Communities Database. Museu m H all and S harlot Peter Pilles A perforated plate used by the Kayenta to make pottery. This While some people tried to maintain the large villages, artifact is one of the most telling signs of Kayenta migration. others continued moving to the outskirts, settling at the ends of the canal systems where the lands were still fertile. Some ideologies, and institutions that fostered integration. Descen- of these peripheral areas were already occupied by Kayenta dants of both groups intermingled, moved into the same migrants who were not allowed to settle in the large villages. villages, and ultimately formed a new identity that included As Hohokam villages near the headgates declined because aspects of both cultures. In these areas many Hohokam they exhausted nearby fields, these peripheral settlements groups ultimately obtained Kayenta-influenced pottery became increasingly important. This shift in the value of produced by these migrants and their descendants,” he says. land possibly changed the balance of power between the “They may have also adopted aspects of their religion.” Hohokam and the Kayenta minority, increasing social ten- That pottery was the distinctive Salado polychrome, sion and accelerating collapse. rizona College A rizona haeology and E astern A r c haeology esert Center for D esert Salado polychrome pottery, such as this jar, was a Kayenta-influenced style that was embraced by the Hohokam. 36 fall • 2008

AA p32-37 Hohokam.indd 36 8/19/08 4:11:17 PM Clark, “to find sites in the southern Southwest that date after 1450 and prior to Spanish settlement” more than 200 years later. The handful of sites archaeologists have identified during this time have very different characteristics. Rather than grand dwellings, they are humble brush structures with plain pottery. “They may have been remnant groups who just stuck around, radically changing their lifestyle,” Clark says. In the end, the archaeologists argue, social and economic upheaval led to abandonment, which, according to Clark, supports the archaeologists’ view “about the way migration affected both Kayenta and Hohokam. This migration ultimately played a role in the depopulation of the southern Southwest in the late 1300s and m Museu H a ll a nd Sha rlot early 1400s.” “I think they’ve provided the best evi-

Peter Pilles dence so far to indicate that there was a pueblo migration,” says Allen Dart, executive director of Tucson’s Old Pueblo Archaeology Center. “They’ve been able to track the migration more into the core of the Hohokam area.” That migration “probably did cause profound changes in Hohokam culture.” “Nobody until now has tried to look at the socioeconomic context and what happened to the local people,” says Jeff Dean, an archaeologist at the University of Arizona. Dean, who notes that “there are as many opinions as there are archaeologists in the Hohokam area,”

Adriel Heisey Adriel adds that he “pretty much” agrees with their The ruins of a defensible Hohokam village are seen in the foreground of this conclusions. photograph of the Lower San Pedro Valley. Having been awarded a new grant by the National Science Foundation, Clark, Lyons, and By this time the Kayenta and Hohokam groups “were Hill will now try to determine what became of the people mixing in an attempt to form viable communities in the face who left. “In the southern Southwest, the only place where of demographic collapse,” says Clark. “These communities populations were increasing in the late 1300s and early required at least some minimum number of people to fill 1400s is along the Upper Gila River tributaries of southwest social roles and maintain canals.” It appeared that “a new New Mexico,” says Clark. “We think some groups are migrat- hybrid identity was emerging at the end that mixed Hohokam ing out of southeastern Arizona and establishing new settle- and Kayenta traditions, even as settlements were failing.” ments there. They probably didn’t last very long, but not a Clark thinks that a drought, and possibly floods that lot of research has been conducted at these sites. Ultimately damaged the irrigation systems, compounded the problems. some groups moved somewhere else, to the ancestral Zuni “People probably could have survived by reverting to a dis- Region or the Rio Abajo region of the Rio Grande.” persed lifestyle,” he says. “But social stress or conservatism Though it’s far too early to draw any conclusions about kept people aggregated despite the fact it was a non-sustain- the next phase of this research project, Clark is confident able way of life. about the initial conclusions. “The importance of Kay- “Kayenta groups were always a minority population,” he enta migration has been underemphasized in Hohokam says, “and it is hard to say whether one group was growing or archaeology,” he says. “In general, the importance of migra- declining more than the other, but the fates of both groups tion had been underemphasized in archaeology from the in the southern Southwest were closely connected. It wasn’t 1960s until the mid-1990s. Now it’s back with a vengeance.” just one group collapsing while another was thriving.” Several decades of serious decline culminated in depop- TIM VANDERPOOL is a Tucson freelance writer who covers natural history, ulation, after which time the Hohokam and Kayenta nearly archaeology, and politics. His article “Exploring the Ancient Southwest” vanish from the archaeological record. “It’s very hard,” says appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of American Archaeology. american archaeology 37

AA p32-37 Hohokam.indd 37 8/19/08 4:10:21 PM w a NEW DEAL for Archaeology

Edgar Augustine (center) displays a small ceramic pot recovered during the excavation of the Hanna site in the winter of 1935–36. This was the ﬁ rst New Deal project he directed. On Augustine’s left is 80-year-old crew member Marshall Turney. STATE MUSEUM OF PA, PA HISTORICAL AND MUSEUM COMMISSION HISTORICAL PA MUSEUM OF PA, STATE 38 fall • 2008

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Franklin Roosevelt’s various New Deal programs put people back to work during the Great Depression. Excavating archaeological sites was one of the many jobs people were given. The excavators in southwestern Pennsylvania were largely untrained and the conditions they faced could be challenging. Nonetheless, these workers made a considerable contribution to the archaeology of the region. By David Malakoff

70-year-old liquor bottle isn’t the kind of artifact to promote the life of the mind through art, literature, and that wows most archaeologists. But the bottle, science. “In 1933, Washington began funding archaeological found in 1994 at a prehistoric rockshelter in projects,” says Means, and Black seized the opportunity to Pennsylvania, still creates a bit of a buzz for Ber- push for projects in her home county. nard Means, an archaeologist at Virginia Common- The first initiative—a survey of potential archaeologi- Awealth University in Richmond, Virginia. cal sites, many of which were found by interviewing farm- The bottle is a tangible reminder of a largely forgotten ers and artifact collectors—got underway in early 1934. It chapter in American archaeology. During the Great Depres- turned up a wealth of sites that were often located in fields sion of the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal where plows had uncovered pottery fragments, bleached put a small army of the unemployed to work, digging up animal bones, and stone artifacts. Armed with the survey the nation’s past. One of those New Deal excavators left the results, state archaeologist Donald Cadzow went looking for liquor bottle behind at the Pennsylvania site, called Martz federal funds. The search paid off, and in early 1935 the state Rockshelter. More importantly, Means says these excavators hired a local civil engineer and amateur archaeologist named left behind a trove of findings that archaeologists are still Edgar Augustine who in turn hired crews to start digging using today. “They had very little training or expertise, but in Somerset County. The work would continue, with some they made some remarkable and lasting contributions,” he interruptions, for the next five years. says. “American archaeology is better off for the New Deal.” Augustine “was a remarkable guy dealing with a very A highway literally led Bernard Means to the story of challenging situation,” says Means. Although he had no formal New Deal archaeology in Pennsylvania. In the early 1990s, training in archaeology, Augustine had to recruit unemployed he was part of a team conducting archaeological surveys men and train them to carefully excavate and document in the path of a planned road through Somerset County in sites. It was an “unsatisfactory arrangement,” Augustine dryly southwestern Pennsylvania, near the Maryland border. Learn- ing that archaeologists had worked in the area in the 1930s, Means began combing through archives at the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. What he found was eye-opening. “There were stacks of documents, hundreds of photographs, even some artifacts,” he says. “Some of it looked like it hadn’t been touched since the 1940s…it was still stored in cigar boxes from the 1930s.” Opening a box, he says, “was like opening up a whole new world.” As Means leafed through the material, he became increasingly curious. Who were these archaeologists who had per- severed through the nation’s greatest economic catastrophe to produce such detailed maps and field notes? The answer, he discovered over the next few years, began with a woman named Flora Black. “She was a prominent person in Somer- set County—her husband was a judge—and she was very interested in the area’s heritage,” says Means. Black’s interests ultimately landed her a seat on Pennsylvania’s Historical Commission, which put her in a good position to influence how the state spent some of the New Deal money that began flowing from Washington in the 1930s. The idea behind Roosevelt’s New Deal was straight- forward—use taxpayer dollars to put some of the nation’s

7.5 million unemployed back to work. Many of the projects Hi s torical Pa Mu s eu m of Pa, State and Mu s eu m C o mm i ss ion Two men uncover a feature at Fort Hill, the last village site involved building infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and excavated by New Deal workers in Somerset County dams. But the architects of the New Deal also were keen in 1939 or 1940. american archaeology 39

AA P38-43 WPA.indd 39 8/28/08 2:39:56 PM torical Hi s torical Pa Mu s eu m of Pa, State and Mu s eu m C o mm i ss ion

Workers excavate the Emerick site, one of the easternmost recorded Monongahela villages, in the fall of 1937.

noted in a document discovered by Means, but the newly to just about completely cover the county, making tests and minted foreman was able to find some good candidates. interviewing native sons,” Augustine reported to Cadzow in Means has identified nearly 70 of the New Deal dig- the summer of 1936. Those “native sons” were often aware of gers. He says they tended to be very old or relatively young, the sites. At the Jacob Peck Fairfield Farm near Meyersdale, because middle-aged men were less likely to be unemployed. for instance, Means says the family called one artifact-filled Regardless of age, all of the recruits, who included out-of- pasture “Indian field.” work miners and farmers, were required to “supply their Keeping the crews employed also meant working own round pointed shovels and four-inch pointing trowels,” through bad weather, including drenching rain and even according to another memo. Early on, Augustine’s crews blizzards. Indeed, the first New Deal dig began during a bit- included nearly 30 workers, but by the end of the program ter cold snap, conditions that the excavators became familiar the teams were a half or a third of that size. The workers’ with in later years. Pictures found in the archives, Means says, wages were barely enough to live on—an average of just 25 show “guys out in the middle of winter, working in their best cents an hour for a 30-hour week. clothes. They weren’t doing that because of the archaeology, Recruiting workers wasn’t Augustine’s only headache. they were doing it because they needed a job.” He often had to look after transportation, food, and, at some Such practical concerns, however, were framed by an sites, housing. At times, that meant hiring farmers to excavate overarching scholarly goal: to challenge the conventional sites beneath their own fields. “Some farmers responded to wisdom of the time that prehistoric Native Americans had Augustine’s energetic devotion to archaeology by providing never occupied Somerset County. Means says the New Deal him and several of his crew with room and board while they diggers achieved that goal and more. “Their work is still the worked,” Means noted in a 2000 article for Pennsylvania broadest done in the area to date,” he says. “They had the Heritage Magazine. For instance, in March 1938, Augustine labor to expose a lot of sites.” noted that “three of the boys and I live at the Powell home- Overall, the archives include records from about 18 exca- stead… and we are full of sauerkraut and sausage.” vations at villages, rockshelters, and a campsite, along with Most importantly, Augustine had to take great care in numerous artifacts and photographs. Most notably, Means choosing where to dig. If the site was too small, it wouldn’t says the excavations have contributed to our understanding provide much work for his crew, and then Augustine risked of the Monongahela culture, which flourished in and around losing his meager funding. So he opted for sites that appeared the Ohio River Valley from about a.d. 1000 to 1600. The Som- to have numerous features and plentiful artifacts, ensuring erset County digs “are a tremendous source of information the work would be time consuming and last for weeks or on the Monongahela,” says Means, including a detailed look at months. “The goal of keeping people employed was just how they built and designed their semi-circular villages. as important, and sometimes maybe more important, than Still, Means says it is clear the work didn’t meet modern doing the archaeology,” says Means. “Augustine was always archaeological standards. Although federal officials provided lining up work, thinking a couple of sites ahead.” field methods to guide the diggers (an innovation that is now On slow days, Augustine sometimes took his crews scout- standard practice) and required that the findings be docu- ing. “We loaded them in the Flivver (his car) and proceeded mented, some of the records are incomplete and confusing. 40 fall • 2008

AA P38-43 WPA.indd 40 8/19/08 4:18:25 PM In theory, Cadzow, the state archaeologist, was supposed Monongahela village, based on the excavations at a site called to be ensuring quality control. But Means says that, in fact, Fort Hill. The idea, Means says, was to give the public a glimpse Augustine essentially ran the show and that ultimately led to of the ancient past that the New Deal excavators were reveal- trouble with federal officials. In June 1938, they shut down ing. Archive photographs show partially reconstructed shel- Augustine’s projects for nearly a year until they were assured ters on the site, but the plan ultimately was abandoned. that he had proper technical supervision and plans for curat- The excavations, too, ended in June 1940, as war spread ing the recovered artifacts. Politics may have also played a in Europe. Pennsylvania state officials began to consolidate role in Augustine’s troubles; he was a Republican and had the piles of paper and artifacts that had emerged from Som- been accused of favoring members of his own party for jobs, erset County. One researcher, Mary Butler, took data from though Means says there’s little evidence to support that. three of the sites and published a 1939 monograph that Given the circumstances, however, Means says Augustine Means says is still a defining work on Monongahela culture directed excellent projects. One saving grace is that Augus- in the region. In 1941, the state hired a Harvard graduate stu- tine’s engineering background made him a consummate dent named Francis Cresson to summarize, with help from mapmaker. “His maps and diagrams are really, really good,” Augustine, the Somerset County digs in another monograph, Means says. Augustine was very careful about “presenting the but it was never published. dimensions and exact locations of post holes, storage pits, The story of New Deal archaeology in Somerset County graves, cooking fire pits, and other features,” Means noted in might have ended there had it not been for the state’s desire his Pennsylvania Heritage article. to build a new leg of State Road 219 around the town of Mey- Augustine’s precision did not always extend to his ersdale in the mid-1990s. After Means discovered the records, speculating about how ancient people used the Somerset he realized that they might help the state focus its archaeo- County sites, however. “When he did engage in speculation, logical surveys and perhaps save time, money, and effort. some of his interpretations were far-fetched and sensational- For instance, it turned out that the Martz Rockshelter istic,” Means wrote in a 1998 paper in the Journal of Middle was directly in the path of the new highway and due to be Atlantic Archaeology. For example, after the diggers found destroyed. But how much of the site had the New Deal work- human bone at a Martz Rockshelter, Augustine concluded it ers already excavated, and how much would Means have to was “unequivocal evidence for cannibalism.” document? To find out, Means took a team to the site in 1994 Augustine’s active imagination and passion for his work and discovered that the rock face was virtually unchanged can also be detected in his proposal to reconstruct a complete from its appearance in photographs from 1938. Once they

The crew takes a lunch break while excavating the Hanna site during the bitterly cold winter of 1935–36. The workers huddle Hi s torical Pa Mu s eu m of Pa, State and Mu s eu m C o mm i ss ion around fires burning in old drums that were partly fueled with coal that had fallen from passing trains. The striped canvases were strung to break the fierce winds. american archaeology 41

AA P38-43 WPA.indd 41 8/19/08 4:18:33 PM Excavations at the Peck 1 site in the fall and winter months of 1936–37 uncovered a mid-14th century a.d. village that was expanded twice to accommodate new residents.

started excavating, they realized that the Depression-era sizes within a given village and that the sizes of these groups workers had excavated most of the site, so extensive mitiga- influenced the village’s layout. At some sites, for example, two tion wasn’t required. That telltale liquor bottle was a vestige or three dwellings that could have housed 15 to 20 people of the New Deal excavators. “It had clearly been put there by were clustered together, suggesting an extended family or them,” he says, noting that it was found some 10 feet below several families living together. Other sites showed evidence the surface tucked in a crevice. It was the only artifact those of larger clusters of dwellings that could have housed 30 to earlier workers left behind, and Means found it poignant as 100 people, possibly indicating some kind of clan. In both he knew from historical records that once this project ended cases, the villages featured a central plaza where residents a year would pass before the next began. could mingle. He also found that, contrary to prevailing There have been very few excavations of entire Monon- theories, smaller villages didn’t necessarily evolve into larger, gahela villages since the Depression era, according to Means; more complex communities over time. Instead, some vil- consequently, researchers have had difficulty seeing the lages, whether small or large, simply maintained their size complete picture of how these ancient people lived. There- as years passed. fore Means thoroughly reviewed the New Deal documents Means also has had organic materials from a number because he realized they could provide a more complete of the sites radiocarbon dated—a technology that didn’t picture, and possibly new insights, into Monongahela cul- exist when Augustine’s crew worked there. “The dates show ture. “These aren’t historical curiosities,” he says.“They still that the sites are a little younger than traditionally thought,” have real value.” he says. “Most of the material dates from a.d. 1350 to 1450. In recent years Means has re-analyzed records from sev- People used to think they dated from a.d. 950 to 1250.” eral sites, concluding that there were social groups of various Such findings have helped renew interest in Pennsyl- vania’s prehistory, Means says. “People in the area are still fascinated by the past and want to make connections,” he says. “It makes a difference when communities know their past.” In Somerset County, that means both understanding a record of human occupation that now stretches back at least 10,000 years as well as the story of the New Deal workers that helped produce a clearer portrait of the Monongahela. Indeed, both stories are likely to get more attention next year, when Pennsylvania is planning to celebrate the era of New Deal archaeology. “It has left us a great legacy,” says Means. “And it’s worth celebrating.”

DAVID MALAKOFF is a writer living in Alexandria,

Virginia. His article “The Development of and Mu s eu m C o mm i ss ion Hi s torical Pa Mu s eu m of Pa, State The crew excavating the Troutman site built a small structure Glazeware” appeared in the Spring 2008 around their campfire to protect them during the winter. issue of American Archaeology. 42 fall • 2008

AA P38-43 WPA.indd 42 8/19/08 4:18:42 PM Putting People to Work and Advancing Archaeology

Though their primary goal was to put people to work, New Deal archaeological projects had a considerable impact on the field. The Depression and the post–World War II boom were the two events during which archaeology received significant public funding, according to John Jameson Jr., an archaeologist at the National Park Service’s Southeast Archeological Center. The center curates some eight million artifacts, many of which were recovered by New Deal excavators. Because they’re labor intensive, archaeological projects

g eor iahistory.com www. S ociety H istorical the Geor g ia served the goal of employing people. These projects took place throughout the country, though The Irene Mounds were excavated from 1937 to 1939 by a crew of African American much of the work was done in the women under the direction of a few archaeologists. These Mississippian mounds, which Southeast. “Field and laboratory were located on the outskirts of Savannah, Georgia, were subsequently destroyed. personnel were often large in number, reaching a scale not previously seen in American archaeology and rarely equaled since,” Jameson wrote in “Public Archaeology in the United States,” an essay that appeared in the book Public Archaeology. “During the New Deal, a whole generation of archaeologists concentrated on native and historic period cultures in the United States. This is the basis for modern Americanist specialization of many American university departments today.” Many of the workers were untrained in archaeology and the quality of the projects was uneven. “There was some work that was done really well and stands up today,” Jameson says, while other projects don’t. “The people in the ‘30s and ‘40s were doing the best they could,” he says, adding that “there’s good and bad work in any era.” Jameson notes that the crew working at Ocmulgee National Monument in central Georgia uncovered a prehistoric earth lodge, part of which was still intact. The crew managed to reconstruct the portion that was destroyed. “It’s pretty amazing they could do that in the ’30s,” he says. According to Jameson, New Deal projects made the public aware of the myriad archaeological sites that were endangered, then as now, by looting and construction. These projects also provided formative experiences for some of the leading archaeologists

ical C e n ter A rcheolo g ical of the 1960s and ‘70s such as Joffre Coe, John Cotter, and A.R. Kelly. These archaeologists had to manage large projects that uncovered vast collections. The New Deal projects, Jameson wrote, yielded “masses of data and collections resulting in new knowledge and making the development of new synthesis of

outheast S outheast S ervice, Park n al Natio data and artifact classification schemes Ocmulgee National Monument’s reconstructed earth lodge. possible.”

american archaeology 43

AA P38-43 WPA.indd 43 8/26/08 10:34:54 PM new acquisition

A Glimpse of the Susquehannock The Upper Leibhart site is one of the last major villages inhabited by this culture.

he fi rst recorded encounter between the Susquehannocks Tand Europeans occurred in 1608 when Captain John Smith, the leader of the Jamestown colony, was exploring the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Susquehanna River. Smith’s Algonquian interpreter referred to the Native Americans in this area as Sasquehanough. Smith described them as seeming “like giants to the English.” Regardless of their actual physical stature, the Susquehannocks played a signifi cant role in the shap- ing of the New World in the 17th century through trade, alliances, and warfare involving a host of Native groups and France, England, Sweden, and Holland. The Susquehannocks occupied palisaded villages of longhouses that stretched from New York to the Ches- apeake Bay in Maryland, and they sustained themselves through trade, agriculture, hunting, and fi shing. They were loosely related linguistically and culturally to the Iroquois of New York, though the two often fought each other. Despite their strategic position, by the late 17th century they had been decimated by disease and warfare, and driven out of the Susquehanna River Valley. First mapped by Europeans in 1670, the Upper Leibhart site is a Susquehannock village situated on a

hilltop overlooking the Susquehanna AND MUSEUM COMMISSION HISTORICAL PA River in southeast Pennsylvania. This photograph of a museum display shows artifacts that were recovered from nearby Occupied from 1665 to 1675, the sites along the Susquehanna River. The artifacts, which are similar to those found at site may have been home to as many Upper Leibhart, include a European armored vest. 44 fall • 2008

AA fall 08 back end.indd 44 8/19/08 4:20:07 PM new acquisition

3,000 to 1,000 years ago have been found. One unique burial contained a complete Point Peninsula period (500 B.C. to A.D. 800) pottery vessel as well as a birdstone of banded slate, a cache of blades, and disc shell beads. Conse- quently, in addition to the Susquehan- nock village, the site has tremendous research potential concerning earlier occupations. Despite the extensive digging of the cemeteries, the majority of the site remains intact. The Grove family recently acquired the property containing the 12-acre Upper Leibhart site at auction and has offered to sell it as a bargain sale to charity at $410,000. The Conservancy has signed a six-month option to purchase the site and is partnering with the Lancaster-York Heritage Region, the Farm & Natural Lands Trust of York County. The Pennsylvania Department

PA HISTORICAL AND MUSEUM COMMISSION HISTORICAL PA of Conservation & Natural Resources is These European and Susquehannock artifacts were found at the nearby Lower Leibhart site. providing a matching grant towards the project, and the Conservancy is con- as 1,200 people at its peak, and it is by the Pennsylvania State Museum in tributing $100,000 towards acquisition believed to be one of the last major vil- 1956 uncovered a complete longhouse and will manage the 12-acre site as a lages inhabited by the Susquehannocks measuring 92 feet by 24 feet. The Penn- permanent research preserve. Located prior to their defeat by the Iroquois sylvania Historic & Museum Commis- on a terrace overlooking the scenic around 1675. sion conducted subsequent research Susquehanna River, the site sits on land It’s known that amateurs exca- in 1975. that could be sold for high-end residen- vated the site as far back as 1910, and Various Native American artifacts tial development if it’s not preserved. from the 1920s to 1970s members of as well as European items such as pot- —Andy Stout the Leibhart family periodically exca- tery, glass trade beads, gunﬂ ints, kaolin vated some of the cemeteries, reveal- pipes, and gun parts were discovered. ing over 100 graves in the process. A In addition, a variety of Early and Middle Conservancy professional excavation sponsored Woodland period ceramics dating from Plan of Action SITE: Upper Leibhart CULTURE AND TIME PERIOD: Susquehannock, Contact period A.D.1650–1675 STATUS: The site is threatened by residential development. ACQUISITION: The Conservancy needs to raise $100,000 by December 1, 2008. HOW YOU CAN HELP: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Upper Leibhart, 5301 Central Ave. NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517.

american archaeology 45

AA fall 08 back end.indd 45 8/19/08 4:20:28 PM new acquisition Preserving an Unusual Pueblo-Period Village The Wancura-Johnson site could provide a clear picture of its prehistoric occupants.

he Conservancy has negotiated an option to purchase the Wancura-Johnson site, a Pueblo I and early Pueblo TII village in southwest Colorado. The site was occupied during a time when the people in the heart of the Mesa Verde region were migrating to other areas, including Chaco Canyon. While these migrations were occurring, residents of Wancura-Johnson chose not to move from the region. The site is unlike many others in southwestern Colo- rado. For example, other large sites, such as the Conser- vancy’s James A. Lancaster Preserve, were occupied for long periods of time and developed complex community inter- actions evidenced by the construction of large multistory architectural units grouped near great house-like structures.

The structures could include a number of ceremonial rooms JIM WALKER and circular tower features. The earlier occupations were The rocks scattered about this photograph are the remains buried under later and larger ones. of a collapsed roomblock. Wancura-Johnson, which is one of the largest known village complexes of its type in the area, lacks a great The Conservancy needs to raise $121,000 by next July house-like structure and has instead groups of single-story to complete the purchase of the site, which is in good shape. residences and one great kiva that served as the cultural and This money is also needed to stabilize features, develop an ceremonial center of this early Puebloan community. It also educational program, and establish a team that will pro- has a large bedrock and berm reservoir constructed on a duce a management plan for the next 100 years as well as natural outcrop of sandstone bedrock that was designed to recruit volunteer site stewards to lead tours and monitor capture, store, and manage rainwater runoff. It was occu- the property. The educational program includes producing pied between A.D. 880 and 980, and there were no large-scale interpretive signs that will be displayed at local museums later pueblo occupations of the site. This discrete occupation and visitor centers as well as preparing a brochure that will provides a clear picture of the early Puebloan period that’s be given to visitors taking tours led by Conservancy staff and not often seen at other sites in the region. volunteers.—Steve Koczan Conservancy Plan of Action

SITE: Wancura-Johnson CULTURE AND TIME PERIOD: Pueblo I and early Pueblo II, A.D. 880–980 STATUS: The site is located in a rapidly developing rural residential area. ACQUISITION: The Archaeological Conservancy has an option to purchase the site. The purchase price and the costs of developing management and public education programs is $121,000. HOW YOU CAN HELP: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Wancura-Johnson, 5301 Central Ave. NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517.

46 fall • 2008

AA fall 08 back end.indd 46 8/19/08 4:20:43 PM new POINT-3

STONE ARTIFACTS ARTIFACTS STONE TEXAS INDIANS OF acquisition Keeping a Late Adena Mound Intact The Conservancy preserves the Dorr 2 Mound in southeastern Ohio.

uring the Middle Woodland period, Native American com- Dmunities began constructing large earthworks in what is now a town named The Plains in southeastern Ohio’s Hocking Valley. As its name suggests, The Plains, which is located a few miles northwest of Athens, is a relatively ﬂ at terrace in an area of hilly terrain. Within The Plains is an archaeological district called The Wolf Plains, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. During the Late Adena period, the people of the Hocking Valley built more than 30 earthworks, including 22 coni- cal mounds and nine circular enclosures, in The Wolf Plains. No habitation sites

JOSH MCCONAUGHY have been identiﬁ ed, suggesting the area was used solely for ceremonial or The gently rising Dorr 2 Mound is seen in the center of this photograph. ritual purposes. A recent excavation of The mound is approximately eight feet tall. one of these mounds, known as Armit- age, by archaeologist Elliot Abrams of people who once inhabited the valley. to preserve it. The Conservancy used Ohio University, revealed a single fully Most of the remaining earthworks emergency POINT funds to make the articulated male burial surrounded by in this complex are privately owned purchase. 14 cremations. Charred materials from and could be destroyed as The Plains Local government ofﬁ cials are Armitage Mound provided a radiomet- expands, therefore the Conservancy is planning to connect the Athens High ric date of approximately A.D. 125. trying to obtain sites as they become School campus to a community bike Unfortunately, most of these earth- available. The Conservancy purchased trail. The new stretch of trail would works were destroyed by development one of those sites, the Dorr 2 Mound, be built near the Dorr 2 Mound. Once and excavations during the late 19th from the Gamertsfelder family in June. that portion of the trail is built, the Con- and early 20th centuries, a time when Having spent their lives in the area and servancy hopes people using the bike archaeologists didn’t use conservation witnessed the destruction of many of trail will visit the mound. By saving the techniques. Today, the few remaining the mounds, the Gamertsfelders were Dorr 2 Mound and making it accessible mounds are scattered amid modern concerned about the loss of the local to the community, the Conservancy’s commercial buildings and residential cultural heritage, and consequently interests in preservation and education houses as reminders of the ancient they sold Dorr 2 to the Conservancy are well served. —Josh McConaughy american archaeology 47

AA fall 08 back end.indd 47 8/19/08 4:21:07 PM new POINT-3 acquisition A Picture of the Plains Village Tradition

The Flaming Arrow site apparently played a role in the Hidatsa origin myth. PAUL GARDNER PAUL

Flaming Arrow, located on the banks of the Missouri River, dates to roughly A.D. 1100, making it one of the oldest Plains Village Tradition sites in the region.

rchaeologists have known about second preserve in North Dakota. of life much like that seen by Lewis the Flaming Arrow site, which is Archaeologists classify it as an Initial and Clark. Alocated about 40 miles north of Plains Village Tradition site, and it Plains Village Tradition sites are Bismarck on the east bank of the Mis- was inhabited by the ancestors of the typically sizable communities of large, souri River, since the 1940s. A limited historic period Mandan and Hidatsa semi-subterranean lodges surrounded excavation took place there in 1983, nations. The Mandan and Hidatsa still by a ditch and stockade. Their sub- and geophysical surveys in 1997 docu- reside along the Missouri River in sistence economy combined fall and mented the subterranean features of the central North Dakota, and are perhaps winter hunting, particularly of bison, approximately three-acre site without best known for their role in the Lewis with spring and summer horticulture. disturbing the archaeological deposits. and Clark Expedition, which spent the The principal crops were corn, beans, Flaming Arrow, which dates to winter of 1804–05 in this area. The squash, and sunﬂ owers. Surplus food about A.D. 1100, is the Conservancy’s Plains Village Tradition reﬂ ects a way was cached in large underground 48 fall • 2008

AA fall 08 back end.indd 48 8/19/08 4:21:18 PM new POINT-3 acquisition

storage pits and was vital for surviving Arrow, named by archaeologists in home on the market. When a number the region’s long winters. reference to Charred Body’s dramatic of prospective buyers mentioned their An interesting aspect of the Flam- arrival, is located. plans to recoup part of their invest- ing Arrow site is its relationship to Flaming Arrow is one of the earli- ment by selling the land that included the Hidatsa origin myth. The Awatixa est known Plains Village Tradition sites the site as a building lot, the Streifels subgroup of the Hidatsa believe they in the region. The site’s pottery displays realized that the integrity of Flaming came to inhabit their central North characteristics of the preceding Wood- Arrow could not be guaranteed. Dakota homeland when their culture land period, suggesting Flaming Arrow Remembering their earlier con- hero, Charred Body, transformed him- was a precursor of the more fully versations with the Conservancy, they self into an arrow and fl ew down from developed Plains Village styles that contacted the Midwest Offi ce to see if heaven to earth. The impact stuck him would come later, as well as a fascinat- it was still interested in obtaining this fast to the ground and allowed his evil ing example of congruence between important site on short notice. The nemesis, Fire-Around-the-Ankle, to set science and mythology. Conservancy quickly negotiated a bar- him afl ame. Charred Body eventually North Dakota archaeologists sug- gain sale to charity, using POINT emer- prevailed, however, and founded 13 gested that the Conservancy acquire gency acquisition funds to purchase a separate villages that became the 13 the site in 2004, but at that time the four-acre riverfront parcel containing clans of the Hidatsa. Hidatsa legend landowners, Mark and Amy Streifel, the site for $30,000. The Streifels then states that the fi rst of the 13 villages were not interested in subdividing their sold their house and the rest of their was located on the east bank of the property, which encompassed the site. land, confi dent that this important part Missouri River at the mouth of present- Earlier this year, however, the Streifels of North Dakota’s heritage would be day Turtle Creek. This is where Flaming decided to relocate, and they put their preserved. —Paul Gardner

POINT Acquisitions Flaming Arrow

Dorr 2 Mound

The Protect Our Irreplaceable National Treasures (POINT) program was designed to save signiﬁ cant sites that are in immediate danger of destruction.

american archaeology 49

AA fall 08 back end.indd 49 8/19/08 4:21:33 PM CONSERVANCY Field Notes

More Discoveries at Barton NORTHEAST—Archaeologist Bob Wall, with the help of Towson University fi eld school students and members of the Archaeological Society of Maryland, completed another season of fi eldwork at the Barton site this summer. Previ- ous research at the site has revealed at least three different native occupations from the Late Woodland and Contact periods. This season Wall focused primarily on an area near a Late Woodland structure identifi ed in 2006. The investigation revealed several basin-shaped features and a charred grass mat that extended from the rear of the structure toward a previously identifi ed palisade that encircles the village. Test excavations were also done in the Contact-period area, uncovering postmolds that may represent another

palisade trench or the remains of a BOB WALL structure. Two shallow middens were Members of the Towson University fi eld school and the Archaeological Society of Maryland exposed in this area in previous fi eld excavate the Barton site. The researchers examined several different occupations. sessions. Prior excavations also uncovered Cheyenne village that was burned in This study combined the site’s his- Paleo-Indian and Archaic components, the early 18th century by the Dakotas. torical documentation, the extant col- and this season Wall and his crew also It became the Conservancy’s fi rst North lections recovered from earlier excava- investigated the Paleo-Indian level. Dakota preserve in October 2003. tions, and a limited geophysical survey Barton’s oldest occupation has been A spate of recent research has of the site. Of particular interest was radiocarbon dated to 10000 B.C. demonstrated the importance of the the discovery of a 1798 letter written site. In 2007, the National Park Service by an army surgeon that described the raised the issue of nominating Biester- site at that time. The letter also related Recent Research feldt for National Historic Landmark an Objibwa man’s claim that the site status, the highest distinction the was a Cheyenne village burned by the at Biesterfeldt United States bestows upon a cultural Objibwa. A number of later accounts MIDWEST—The Biesterfeldt site in resource. Toward that end, researchers also ascribed the Biesterfeldt site to the southeastern North Dakota is a well- Rinita Dalan, George Holley, Michael Cheyenne while crediting its destruc- preserved complex of earth lodges Michlovic, Erik Gooding, and Harold tion to the Dakotas. surrounded by a ditch and earthen Watters Jr. produced a comprehensive In May 2008, Biesterfeldt was wall. It has long been thought to be a signifi cance study of the site. the site of the National Park Service’s 50 fall • 2008

AA fall 08 back end.indd 50 8/19/08 4:21:48 PM been the case at Biesterfeldt. Historical and native accounts agree that it was inhabited by the Cheyenne, who had recently arrived from the east, and that it was burned by their enemies. But Biesterfeldt’s artifacts and architecture do not show eastern influences, and the recent investigation indicates that the site was not burned. It remains, however, the only known site on the Sheyenne River dating to the early historical period, so if the Cheyenne were ever in the region, they were probably at Biester- feldt. Reconciling the archaeological data and the traditional accounts will

frank zeck likely prove a challenging problem for The circular depressions in the center of this aerial photograph of the Biesterfeldt students of the region’s past for some site are semisubterranean earthlodges. time to come.

Archaeological Prospection Workshop. This annual workshop is held to inform archaeologists about recent advances in nondestructive geophysical methods of exploring sites. Biesterfeldt was used as the field laboratory for exploring the uses and limitations of electromagnetic conductivity, magnetic susceptibility, metal detection, ground penetrating radar, and thermal photography. About 40 students and 15 instructors partici- pated, for four days transforming the remote cow pasture into a center of high tech research. In the summer of 2008, Michlovic, Holley, and Dalan led the Minnesota State University–Moorhead archaeological field school at Biesterfeldt. The researchers completed the geophysical and microtopographic mapping of the site that began during the National Park Service workshop, and they reopened some of the areas excavated by Wil- liam Duncan Strong in 1938. The field school confirmed that the site has great research potential. Research often raises as many questions as it answers, and this has american archaeology 51

AA fall 08 back end.indd 51 8/26/08 10:35:54 PM Reviews

Pottery and Practice: The Expression of Identity Time’s River: at Pottery Mound and Archaeological Hummingbird Pueblo Syntheses By Suzanne L. Eckert (University of New Mexico Press, from the 2008; 215 pgs., illus., $35 Lower cloth; www.unmpress.com)

Mississippi Pottery and Practice is a River Valley case study that focuses on the pottery of two small, Edited by Janet 14th-century pueblo villages Rafferty and Evan Peacock in the Lower Rio Puerco (University of Alabama Press, 2008; 552 pgs., illus., $85 cloth, $50 paper; area of New Mexico: Hummingbird Pueblo and Pottery Mound. www.uapress.ua.edu) Through analyzing the data collected from these two sites, Suzanne Eckert seeks to identify social practices and cultural infl uences that Mississippi State University archaeologists ultimately determine the design and technology of those groups’ Janet Rafferty and Evan Peacock have pottery. assembled this comprehensive overview Eckert, an assistant professor of anthropology at Texas A&M of the prehistory of the Mississippi River University, specializes in the analysis of ceramic design, technology, Valley from southeastern Missouri to central Louisiana, the site of a proposed and formal properties, particularly as seen in the archaeology of interstate highway. The heart of the area the American Southwest. Based on the data, she argues that pottery is the culturally rich and economically designs and techniques were employed to establish social identity poor Mississippi Delta, also known as the and boundaries between various sub-groups, while still maintaining Yazoo River Basin in northern Mississippi. and advertising village-wide identifi cation. She focuses on using mate- Highway construction is sure to have a rial culture to determine prehistoric ethnicities and social boundar- dramatic impact on the rich archaeological resources of the area. ies between groups of people who might traditionally be broadly Fourteen noted scholars examine the categorized as belonging to one uniform culture. latest archaeological research from the Practice theory is coming into its own among North American region and they provide the reader with archaeologists, in large part because it encompasses a variety of a view of the prehistoric mound builders analyses. Rooted in Marxism but not bound to it exclusively, practice who lived there. They have focused on the theory emphasizes infl uences that contribute to human behavior. It primary data rather than on broader issues like trade, social organization, and cultural is especially useful for studying material culture, because it deems complexity. Among the topics covered objects to be a result of various social and practical infl uences. are the paleoenvironment, settlement Eckert’s analysis of the pottery leads to the conclusion that the patterns, dating, bioarchaeology, ceramics, early Pueblo IV period was probably dominated by the movement of and lithics. kin groups between various villages. This was much more the case Time’s River contains a wealth than with the later, more stable Pueblo people of the region. It is a of information that professionals and story of migration and integration that includes a ritual system based amateurs alike will fi nd fascinating and useful as the impact of a new major on a pan-Southwestern cosmology. highway unfolds. We can all hope that this Heavily documented and at times technical, this book will type of planning will lessen the adverse appeal most to those scholars and laypeople who appreciate a dem- impacts of such a major disruption. onstration of contemporary cultural anthropological practice theory applied to ancient Southwest potteries. —Cynthia Martin

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AA fall 08 back end.indd 52 8/19/08 4:22:12 PM Reviews

The Teotihuacan Trinity: The Sociopolitical Structure of an Ancient Mesoamerica City By Annabeth Headrick (University of Texas Press, 2007; 256 pgs. illus., $55 cloth; www.utexaspress.com)

In A.D. 400, Teotihuacán was one of the largest, most glamorous cities in the world. Located a few miles north of modern Mexico City, it awes visitors in its size The Ramseys at Swan Pond: and magnifi cence even after being in ruins for some 1,300 years. It The Archaeology and History is organized along the three-mile-long Avenue of the Dead that ends at the massive Pyramid of the Moon. Dozens of smaller temples line of an East Tennessee Farm the route, as does the massive Pyramid of the Sun. Heavily studied by By Charles H. Faulkner modern archaeologists as well as by successor groups like the Aztecs, (University of Tennessee Press, 2008; 184 the precise nature of its political and religious organization remains pgs., illus., $40 cloth; www.utpress.org) unclear. A number of key elements of Mesoamerican cultures are missing, like royal tombs, ball courts, and hieroglyphs. The stone Ramsey House was built in 1797 In this groundbreaking volume, art historian Annabeth Headrick for Francis Alexander Ramsey, a prominent early settler of East Tennessee. In 1952, it of the University of Denver analyzes Teotihucán’s art and architec- was purchased by the Association for the ture and proposes a new model for the city’s political organization. Preservation of Tennessee Antiquities to She presents powerful, if circumstantial, evidence that the great city save it from certain destruction, and it is was ruled by great kings. They were faced with competing spheres now an outstanding house museum, even of infl uence—kin-based groups with powerful leaders and military though most of the original outbuildings that orders named after animals that provided their insignia. In advancing contained much of the daily life of the farm this “trinity” model, Headrick is departing from traditional Teotihucán are gone. Beginning in 1985, distinguished University of Tennessee archaeologist Charles studies. Until now, the city’s disparate groups were thought to have Faulkner began excavations at the farm been peacefully organized. Headrick emphasizes the importance that were to last more than 20 years. This of warfare in society and in maintaining internal order. The military is the story of one of the longest historical orders were closely allied with the kings, and together they kept the excavations in the country. kin groups in check, while wars of conquest brought in tribute and Historical archaeology is relatively new sacrifi cial victims. But in the end, each needed the other to keep the in the United States, and this is a great case study of how it works and the many city stable. things that can be learned from it. Combining This study is the fi rst scholarly work to put the great city in the documentary records with traditional context of its powerful neighbors to the south, including the Maya archaeological techniques, Faulkner has been and the Mixtecs. Clearly trade and contact among these groups was able to coax a wealth of new information critical to the development of all. Well written for laypeople and illus- about the Ramsey Farm. This very readable trated with 131 black and white images, The Teotihuacan Trinity is account is the result of his 20-year labor of love that spans more than 200 years of an outstanding contribution to Mesoamerican scholarship. occupation and also mirrors most of the —Mark Michel history of the region.

american archaeology 53

AA fall 08 back end.indd 53 8/19/08 4:22:27 PM THE ArchAeological Conservancy

Belize and Tikal When: March 13–22, 2009 How Much: $2,795 per person ($400 single supplement)

Our tour begins on the coast of Belize, where you’ll tour Belize City, see Altun Ha, and take a boat ride up the New River to Lamanai, a Maya trading center established before Christ and occupied until a.d. 1641. From the coast you’ll travel to the inner reaches of the country and explore the splendid mountaintop palace of Cahal Pech. A ferry ride will take you to the ruins of Xun- antunich, once an important trading center. There you’ll tour El Castillo, a classic example of the Maya technique of constructing a pyramid over an older pyramid. From Xunantunich you’ll visit the recently excavated ceremonial site of Caracol, the largest Maya site in Belize. You’ll also visit Yaxhá, a city 19 miles southeast of Tikal that features an impressive series of plazas and platform groups. Then you’ll spend two days exploring Tikal, a mag- nificent Maya center situated in the Petén rain for- est. Thought to have had a population exceeding

75,000, Tikal once spanned an area of more than 25 jim walker square miles. John Henderson, a noted Mesoameri- Archaeologist John Henderson points to El Castillo, can scholar, will lead the tour. a huge pyramid at Xunantunich in Belize. Upcoming Spring 2009 Tours Fierce Peoples of Florida’s Mangrove Coast For over a thousand years, the Calusa, Tocobaga, and Semi- nole people dominated southern Florida. They developed complex civilizations, created breathtaking artwork, and constructed monumental earthworks. Time and again, they defeated those who attempted to subjugate them. This exciting journey will take you from the ancient mound center jim walker jim walker at Crystal River to the manmade island of Mound Key, the Useppa Island is one of the destinations on the tour. Calusa’s capital, to the Everglades’ river of grass. The entire island is a site. Along the way, you will visit the key sites of Florida’s original inhabitants, explore the unique estuarine environ- wildlife such as manatees, dolphins, and alligators. Scholars ment these people inhabited, and encounter a variety of of Florida’s past will join the tour to offer their expertise. 54 fall • 2008

AA fall 08 back end.indd 54 8/19/08 4:22:37 PM Aztecs, Toltecs, and Teotihuacános Two thousand years ago, cultures that have long since vanished from Central Mexico constructed magnifi- cent temples and pyramids. Today, these monuments remain a testament to the fascinating people who built them. This tour takes you to a number of sites, including those once inhabited by the Olmec, a culture once known throughout the region for its art. You’ll also visit the monuments of the Aztec, a civilization conquered

m a rk mic h el by the Spanish. You’ll explore Teotihuacán, once a great urban center with a population of 200,000. Teotihuacán was once one of the great cities of the New World. Colonial Chesapeake /Historic J a mestowne tion Virgini a /Historic va APVA Preser APVA Jamestown attracts thousands of visitors each year.

From early European settlements to later colonial capitals, the Chesapeake Bay region has played an important role in the founding and development of our nation. Come join the Conservancy as we spend a week exploring the area’s rich and diverse history. Our exciting journey will take us from Jamestown, the first permanent English colony O lsson in North America, to the historic shipping city of Alexan- E rik a The San Juan River tour features beautiful scenery. dria, Virginia, where tobacco merchants once dominated the shores of the Potomac River. Along the way we’ll visit the first capital of Maryland, St. Mary’s City, explore San Juan River Trip the bay-front town of Annapolis, stop in at Mount Vernon, Join our river adventure through the heartland of the Ana- and experience the colonial flavor of Williamsburg. Dur- sazi world. From the vantage point of Utah’s San Juan River, ing our adventure, local scholars will join us to share their you’ll experience one of the most scenic regions of the expertise and explain how archaeology has assisted them Southwest. in interpreting the region’s past. american archaeology 55

AA fall 08 back end.indd 55 8/26/08 10:36:56 PM 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 2008. Their generosity, along with the generosity of the Conservancy’s other members, makes our work possible.

Life Member Gifts of $1,000 or more Suzanne Forrest, Texas Olive L. Bavins, California Jerry Golden, Colorado L.G. Byerley Jr., Texas Rachel A. Hamilton, North Carolina Bill Caruth, Communities Foundation of Texas, Texas David B. Jones, Minnesota Guy Folger, Oklahoma David and Sue Knop, California William Fulkrod, New Mexico Margaret Lial, California Carol and David King, Illinois Joanne Lyman, New York Howard A. Morrison, Pennsylvania Jacqueline B. Mars, Virginia James Parkey, Texas Hugh Th. Miller, Michigan Leila D. J. Poullada, Minnesota Betty Perkins, New Mexico William and Priscilla Robinson, Arizona Cynthia R. Rink, Washington Conrad and Marcella Stahly, New Mexico Paul C. Rissman, New Jersey Bayard and Frances Storey, Pennsylvania Harlan Scott, Delaware Joan Wilkins, North Carolina Rosamond Stanton, Montana Burton D. Williams, Montana Susan and Glyn Thickett, Arizona

Anasazi Circle Gifts of $2,000 or more Foundation/Corporate Gifts Betty J. Annis, Colorado The Ruth and Robert Satter Charitable Trust, Rosemary Armbruster, Missouri Connecticut Betty Banks, Washington Sidney Stern Memorial Trust, California Thomas D. Barrow, Texas Carol Condie, New Mexico Hester A. Davis, Arkansas Bequest James and Martha Foght, Illinois Jeanne Fox, California

Making A Gift Annuity

Americans recognize the importance of the economy, so you will always know charitable giving. The charitable gift annuity is how much you will receive annually. an opportunity to support your favorite charity Congress has provided a series of tax and provide personal and family security. benefi ts for those who donate through a From gifts of cash to appreciated securities to charitable gift annuity. For example, donors real estate, a donation to The Archaeological will receive an immediate and substantial Conservancy will not only provide for our income tax charitable deduction as well organization, but also for your fi nancial future. as minimal taxes on capital gains on highly You can retain a fi xed lifetime annuity appreciated securities. payment by providing the Conservancy with a For more information on how to attain charitable gift annuity. You will receive this fi xed income for life while supporting The payment for life in exchange for your donation. Archaeological Conservancy, please The payment will not fl uctuate with changes in contact Mark Michel at (505) 266-1540.

56 fall • 2008

AA fall 08 back end.indd 56 8/19/08 4:23:02 PM AA fall 08 back end.indd 57 8/19/08 4:23:13 PM AA fall 08 back end.indd 58 8/19/08 4:23:26 PM