6.3 fall 02 singles lr

The Sac Riveris erodingthe Big Eddy site.

The Sac Riveris erodingthe Big Eddy site.

american archaeologyamerican archaeologyTHE NEW WORLD FEEDS THE OLD • PREHISTORIC DOGS • PALEO-INDIAN HIGH LIFE

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THEREVIEW

OF ARCHÆOLOGYThe Review of Archaeology offers its readers comprehensive

evaluation of current publications in archaeology

and related sciences, written by members of the panel

of Contributing Editors and by distinguished

guest reviewers. Published twice yearly.

“Essential Reading for the Scholar”

For a descriptive brochure, subscription information,and a list of available back issues, please write to:

Dept. AMARPost Office Box

Williamstown, MA

www.reviewofarchaeology.com

• GUIDED HIKES of ancient pueblos and rock art sites with archaeologists

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american archaeology

american archaeology 1

COVER: In their search for information, the crewat Big Eddy has dug huge and deep excavationblocks. Photograph by Kevin White

a quarterly publication of The Archaeological Conservancy Vol. 6 No. 3

38 new acquisition:L E A R N I N G A B O U T L O U I S I A N A’S FIRST M O U N D B U I L D E R SThe Conservancy acquires the Mott Mounds.

4 0 new acquisition:PREHISTORIC MESA VERDE PUEBLOS IN S O U T H W E S T E R N C O L O R A D O P R O T E C T E DThe Bement and O’Brien sites will answer questions about a little-understood time.

41 P O I N T-2 CAMPA I G N L A U N C H E DThe Conservancy begins the second phase of the POINT program.

42 point acquisition:SAV I N G M O U N D S P R I N G F R O M D E V E L O P M E N TAncient springs in arid southern Nevada provided oases for prehistoric peoples.

43 point acquisition:MACHIAS, MAINE, AND THE MARGARETTAThe Conservancy preserves the site of the first naval battle of the Revolutionary War.

20 EVERY T H I N G N E W I S O L D A G A I NBY BRIAN FAGAN

New World foods became a big part of the Old World’s diet.

26 PALEO HIGH L IFEBY MICHELLE NIJHUIS

An excavation at the Chance Gulch site is giving archaeologists a glimpse of how Paleo-Indians adjusted to high altitudes.

3 2 D O G S T H R O U G H O U T T I M EBY DENNIS JOHNSON

The dog began as a wolf and eventually became man’s best friend.The archaeological record is telling the story of how it all happened.

COVER FEATURE

12 A R I V E R R U N S T H R O U G H I TBY CYNTHIA BARNES

Archaeologists are racing to recover important

information at Big Eddy, an exceptionally well stratified

site in Missouri that is being eroded by the Sac River.

fall 2002

2 Lay of the Land

3 Letters

5 Events

7 In the NewsDisposition of 10,600-year-old Spirit Cave ManStill in Dispute • Ancient Canals Documented inSouthern Florida • Antiquities Dealer Convictedin Landmark Case

44 Field Notes

46 Expeditions

48 Reviews

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2 fall • 2002

Lay of the Land

Archaeologists are hard at work track-ing down the origins of dozens ofNew World foods and their long andponderous paths to domestication.Zea mays, or corn, took 3,600 years tobecome today’s staple feed grain.

By the time Columbus arrived,Native Americans had domesticated300 plants, far more than their Euro-pean conquerors. Plant pollen andseeds preserve well for many cen-turies and they are telling archaeolo-gists what was being grown hundredsof years ago.They also allow scientiststo trace the progress from wild plantto domesticated staple. In modern ar-chaeology, even the tiniest of remainscan play a huge role in telling the

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story of the past, and in the case offood, that story is how the dinner ta-bles of the world were filled.

When Columbus stumbled onto the New World some 500years ago, he started a process

that continues at an ever acceleratingpace today. He was making this planetsmaller and more homogeneous. Inthis issue of American Archaeology,author Brian Fagan focuses on foodand how Columbus’s discoverychanged what we all eat.Try to imag-ine Italy without the tomato,or Irelandwithout the potato.Try to imagine theNavajos without fry bread.

While the exchange of germscost the lives of millions on bothsides of the Atlantic, the exchange offood undoubtedly saved millions bydiversifying the world’s food supply.

The Foods of the World

Letters

Making Sense of the Miami CircleThe summer issueof American Ar-chaeology was out-standing. I lived inMiami from June1999 to September2001 and followedthe Miami Circle story in the press,but the story never made muchsense until I read your article. It did agreat job of telling a complicatedstory in a clear timeline.

I also enjoyed the article “Exca-vating the Gold Rush Ships.” I’vetraveled to San Francisco often, butI’ve only seen one or two articlesabout the ships. That “Forest ofMasts” photo is amazing.

Catherine F. SmithFernandina Beach, Florida

Editor’s CornerI have two dogs, and the idea of doing astory about dogs in the archaeologicalrecord greatly appealed to me. It’s saidthat dogs were the first animals to residewith people and the only animals to livewith people the world over. How did dogsbecome domesticated? What tasks werethey assigned by humans, and did thesetasks change over the course of time?Was there always an emotional bondbetween humans and dogs?

These and other questions crossedmy mind. But as our feature "DogsThroughout Time" reveals, the archaeo-logical record, supplemented by histori-cal and ethnographic accounts, cananswer a number of these questions,but certainly not all of them. Whatarchaeology does tell us is that the rela-tionship between humans and dogs is along, complicated, and at times para-doxical one. Dogs meant different thingsto different people, and to some peoplethey meant little, if anything.

In those days when there were no slippers or newspapers to fetch, dogsserved humans in various other ways,some of which cost them their lives.Some archaeologists surmise that therewas an immediate emotional bond,while others think the emotional connection was awhile in coming. In any case, dogs have proven them-selves to be remarkable animals. Today,as well as thousands of years ago,dogs have displayed an amazing abilityto adjust to their human companions.


Disburse or Disperse?We were fascinated bythe story of the MiamiCircle and we hope youwill follow up with a fu-ture article to describewhat has been learnedabout the purposes ofthe circle and its possi-

ble future as a park.Incidentally, it was interesting to

read that “the police had to disbursethe crowd” demonstrating for preser-vation of the site. Is this the way theydistribute money in Miami?

Carol GeorgopoulosSalt Lake City, Utah

Too Narrow a FocusI find it incredible and sad that DavidGrant Noble could not find a singleplace south of Phoenix worth men-tioning in his article on archaeologicalsites in Arizona.The Hohokam townand its three-story-high puddled-mudbuilding preserved at Casa GrandeRuins National Monument is the equalof any site mentioned in the article.The Arizona State Museum, the pre-mier museum for Native American his-tory and culture, is at least as impor-tant as the Heard. The AmerindFoundation, the Folsom site—theseare not noteworthy?

There is abundant rock artaround Tucson, and Colossal Caveand Kartchner Caverns also seem tobe worth noting, since Boyce-Thompson Arboretum State Park ismentioned in the article.

Werner S. ZimmtTucson, Arizona

Sending Letters toAmerican Archaeology

American Archaeology welcomesyour letters. Write to us at 5301Central Avenue NE, Suite 902,Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517,or send us e-mail [email protected].

We reserve the right to editand publish letters in the maga-zine’s Letters department asspace permits. Please include yourname, address, and telephonenumber with all correspondence,including e-mail messages.

American Archaeology (ISSN 1093-8400) is published quarterly by The Archaeological Conservancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE,Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517. Title registered U.S. Pat. and TM Office, © 2002 by TAC. Printed in the UnitedStates. Periodicals postage paid Albuquerque, NM, and additional mailing offices. Single copies are $3.95. A one-year mem-bership to the Conservancy is $25 and includes receipt of American Archaeology. Of the member’s dues, $6 is designated fora one-year magazine subscription. READERS: For new memberships, renewals, or change of address, write to The Archaeo-logical Conservancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517, or call (505) 266-1540. For changesof address, include old and new addresses. Articles are published for educational purposes and do not necessarily reflect theviews of the Conservancy, its editorial board, or American Archaeology. Article proposals and artwork should be addressed tothe editor. No responsibility assumed for unsolicited material. All articles receive expert review. POSTMASTER: Send addresschanges to American Archaeology, The Archaeological Conservancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM87108-1517; (505) 266-1540. All rights reserved.

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

5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517 • (505) 266-1540www.americanarchaeology.org

Board of DirectorsEarl Gadbery, Pennsylvania, CHAIRMAN

Cecil F. Antone, Arizona • David Bergholz, OhioJanet Creighton, Washington • Christopher B. Donnan, California

Janet EtsHokin, Illinois • Jerry EtsHokin, IllinoisW. James Judge, Colorado • Jay T. Last, California • Dorinda Oliver, New York

Rosamond Stanton, New Mexico • Vincas Steponaitis, North CarolinaDee Ann Story, Texas • Stewart L. Udall, New Mexico

he Archaeological Conservancy is the only national non-profit organization that identifies, ac-quires, and preserves the most sig-

nificant archaeological sites in theUnited States. Since its beginning in1980, the Conservancy has preservedmore than 245 sites across the nation,ranging in age from the earliest habita-tion sites in North America to a 19th-century frontier army post. We arebuilding a national system of archaeo-logical preserves to ensure the survivalof our irreplaceable cultural heritage.

Why Save Archaeological Sites? Theancient people of North Americaleft virtually no written records oftheir cultures. Clues that mightsomeday solve the mysteries of pre-historic America are still missing,and when a ruin is destroyed bylooters, or leveled for a shoppingcenter, precious information is lost.By permanently preserving endan-gered ruins, we make sure they willbe here for future generations tostudy and enjoy.

How We Raise Funds: Funds for the Conservancy come from mem-bership dues, individual contributions, corporations, andfoundations. Gifts and bequests ofmoney, land, and securities are fullytax deductible under section501(c)(3) of the Internal RevenueCode. Planned giving providesdonors with substantial tax deduc-tions and a variety of beneficiarypossibilities. For more information,call Mark Michel at (505) 266-1540.

The Role of the Magazine: AmericanArchaeology is the only popularmagazine devoted to presenting therich diversity of archaeology in theAmericas. The purpose of the magazine is to help readers appre-ciate and understand the archaeo-logical wonders available to them,and to raise their awareness of thedestruction of our cultural heritage.By sharing new discoveries, re-search, and activities in an enjoy-able and informative way, we hopewe can make learning about ancientAmerica as exciting as it is essential.

How to Say Hello: By mail:The Archaeological Conservancy, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517; byphone: (505) 266-1540; by e-mail:[email protected]; or visit our Website: www.americanarchaeology.org

Regional Offices and DirectorsJim Walker, Southwest Region (505) 266-1540

5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902 • Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108Tamara Stewart, Projects Coordinator • Steve Koczan, Site Maintenance

Paul Gardner, Midwest Region (614) 267-1100295 Acton Road • Columbus, Ohio 43214

Alan Gruber, Southeast Region (770) 975-43445997 Cedar Crest Road • Acworth, Georgia 30101

Jessica Crawford, Projects Coordinator

Gene Hurych, Western Region (916) 399-11931 Shoal Court #67 • Sacramento, California 95831

Donald Craib, Eastern Region (703) 780-44569104 Old Mt. Vernon Road • Alexandria, Virginia 22309

Conser vancy StaffMark Michel, President • Tione Joseph, Office Manager

Erika Olsson, Membership Director • Shelley Smith, Membership AssistantLorna Thickett, Membership Associate • Heather Wooddell, Administrative Assistant

Valerie Long, Administrative Assistant

american archaeology ®

PUBLISHER: Mark MichelEDITOR: Michael Bawaya (505) 266-9668, [email protected]

ASSISTANT EDITOR: Tamara StewartART DIRECTOR: Vicki Marie Singer, [email protected]

Editorial Advisor y Board

Ernie Boszhardt, Mississippi Valley Archaeological CenterJames Bruseth, Texas Historical Commission • Jonathan Damp, Zuni Cultural Resources

Allen Dart, Old Pueblo Archaeology Center • Richard Daugherty, Washington State UniversityDavid Dye, University of Memphis • John Foster, California State ParksMegg Heath, Bureau of Land Management • Susan Hector, San Diego

Gwynn Henderson, Kentucky Archaeological Registry • John Henderson, Cornell UniversityJohn Kelly, Washington University • Robert Kuhn, New York Historic Preservation

Mark Lynott, National Park Service • Linda Mayro, Pima County, ArizonaJeff Mitchem, Arkansas Archaeological Survey • Giovanna Peebles, Vermont State Archaeologist

Janet Rafferty, Mississippi State University • Kenneth Sassaman, University of FloridaDonna Seifert, John Milner Associates • Kathryn Toepel, Heritage Research Associates

Richard Woodbury, University of Massachusetts

National Advertising OfficeMarcia Ulibarri, Advertising Representative

5401 6th Street NW, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87107;(505) 344-6018; Fax (505) 345-3430; [email protected]

4 fall • 2002

WELCOME TO THE ARCHAEOLOGIC AL

CONSERVANC Y!

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Events


Museum exhibits • Tours • Festivals

Meetings • Education • Conferences

■ NEW EXHIBITSUniversity of Michigan Exhibit Museum of Natural History Ann Arbor, Mich.—Through photographs,memorabilia, interviews, and sound, theexhibit “Jiingtamok:Exploring the PowwowHighway” explores the meanings and tradi-tions of Native American powwows, with aspecial focus on powwow traditions inMichigan. Numerous native peoples wereinterviewed for the exhibit, and their wordstell much of the story. “Jiingtamok” is theword for powwow in the language of theAnishinabe, native peoples of the GreatLakes region. (734) 764-0478 (ThroughDecember 31)

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The Newark MuseumNewark, N.J.—The traveling exhibi-tion “The Sport of Life and Death:TheMesoamerican Ballgame” examinesthe historical and religious aspects ofthe world’s first team sport, whichbegan around 1500 B.C. in southernMexico with the early Olmec culture.Rubber ballgames, played in a varietyof forms, became one of the definingfeatures of Mesoamerican life.Includedin the exhibit are 175 stunning exam-ples of sculpture, ceramic vessels,jewelry, a rubber ball dating between1200 and 600 B.C., headdresses, jadecarvings of Olmec ballplayer kings,and more. Dozens of cultures are rep-resented, from the early Olmec tothe Aztec, the empire conquered bythe Spanish. (973) 596-6550 (OpensOctober 4)

Museo de La Pintura Mural TeotihuacánaArchaeological Zone of Teotihuacán,Mexico—Located near the Pyramidof the Moon at the archaeological siteof Teotihuacán, this is the country’sfirst museum dedicated to the studyand presentation of one culture’spainted murals.Teotihuacán (“City ofthe Gods”) was a multicultural cityinhabited between 200 B.C. and A.D.700 whose vast influence extendedacross Mesoamerica. The museum’scollection of more than 30 restoredpainted murals is complemented byceramics, sculptures, and other arti-facts recovered from the ancient citythat share similar themes. Guidedtours are available. 011-52-594-958-3282, or e-mail the museum’s direc-tor, Gerardo Ramírez Hernández atdireccion,[email protected] (New Museum)

Anchorage Museum of History and ArtAnchorage, Alaska—Created by theSmithsonian in close cooperation with theAlaska native communities it represents,the traveling exhibition “Looking Both Ways:Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People”combines art, archaeology, history, and oraltradition to follow the Alutiiq people ofAlaska’s south-central coast from ancientto present times. Included in the exhibitare hunting hats, masks, skin clothing,carvings, and archaeological treasures from the Smithsonian collections.(907) 486-7004 (Through December 31)

Orlando Museum of ArtOrlando, Fla.—The new exhibit

“Ancestors of the Incas: The Majesty

of Ancient Peru” showcases more than

250 objects made by all of the major

ancient cultures of the Central Andes

region, including the Chavín, Nazca,

Moche, Chimú, Hauri, and Inca. The

pieces date between 1400 B.C. and

A.D. 1530 and include exquisite

ceramic portrait pots of Moche rulers,

gold and silver royal vessels, rare

inlaid wooden boxes, textiles, and

jewelry of turquoise, mother-of-pearl,

and shell. Included in the exhibit are

17 recent donations to the museum’s

permanent collection of Art of the

Ancient Americas. (407) 896-4231

(Through July 20, 2003)

Events

■ CONFERENCES, LECTURES & FESTIVALSRediscover Cahokia Mound DaysSeptember 14–15, 10 A.M.–4 P.M., Cahokia

Mounds State Historic Site, Collinsville, Ill.

The site’s largest event features ancient

tool- and craft-making demonstrations, as

well as dance performances by Choctaw

Indians from Tennessee and the Haskell

Indian Nations University in Kansas. The

Missouri Atlatl Association Annual Contest

& Demonstration is held in conjunction

with Cahokia Mound Days, with experts

competing with the ancient spear-throwing

devices (atlatls) that were in use prior to

the introduction of the bow and arrow.

(618) 346-5160

Midwest Archaeological ConferenceOctober 3–6, Ramada Plaza Hotel &

Conference Center, Columbus, Ohio.

This year’s conference theme is recent

Hopewellian research, hosted by the

Ohio State University Department of

Anthropology and the Ohio Historical

Society. The conference features a Middle

Woodland pottery workshop, a plenary

session titled “Hopewell Anthropology,”and

a workshop on remote sensing and the use

of other electronic tools in archaeology.

Archaeologist Brian Fagan will make a

presentation following the Saturday

evening conference banquet. For on-line

registration, visit http://monkey.sbs.ohio-

state.edu/textiles/MACconf.htm or call

William Dancey at (614) 292-4115.

2002 Massachusetts Archaeology WeekOctober 5–14, at numerous locations. Learn

about Massachusetts’ past, from the ancient

Native Americans who first settled the area

more than 10,000 years ago to the early

6 fall • 2002

European colonists and later immigrants.

Events include archaeological presenta-

tions, demonstrations, tours of sites and

archaeological laboratories, exhibits, and

family activities. For a complete calendar of

events, check the Massachusetts Historical

Commission’s Web site at www.state.

ma.us/sec/mhc or call (617) 727-8470.

Gran Quivira ConferenceOctober 10–13, Tubac Presidio State Park,

Tubac, Ariz. This year’s Spanish Colonial

conference will focus on the 250th birth-

day of the Presidio, with papers presented

by historians and archaeologists on recent

research at Spanish Colonial sites in the

Southwest. A Saturday evening program

will be held at the nearby Tumacacori

National Historic Park, and an all-day tour

will be led on Sunday the 13th to the

Taranate site just over the border in north-

ern Mexico. (520) 398-2252

59th Annual Southeastern Archaeological ConferenceNovember 6–9, Beau Ridge Resort and

Casino, Biloxi, Miss. Symposium sessions

will be held Thursday through Saturday

morning. A Thursday evening reception will

be held at the Biloxi Maritime & Seafood

Museum,and on Saturday afternoon two 68-

foot Biloxi oyster schooners will take atten-

dees on a tour of the Mississippi Sound and

Biloxi Bay. For on-line meeting registration,

visit the SEAC Web site at www.uark.edu/

campus-resources/seac/seac2002.html

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Southwest Museum’s 12th Annual Intertribal MarketplaceNovember 9–10, Southwest Museum—Mt. Washington, LosAngeles, Calif. Join a gathering of more than 100 artistsand musicians representing Native American cultures fromacross the U.S. The market showcases thousands of hand-made items and includes live music, dance performances,storytelling, and traditional foods. (323) 221-2164

Turtle Bay Exploration ParkRedding, Calif.—Artifacts recentlyreturned from the Smithsonian belong-ing to the McCloud River Wintu Tribe ofnorthern California are part of the newexhibit “Journey to Justice: The WintuPeople and the Salmon,” which focuseson the tribe and its main food source.Numbering as many as 34,000 in themid-1700s, the Wintu were driven fromtheir lands when the area was settledin the 1800s. Due to disease and star-vation, just a few hundred Wintu sur-vived at the beginning of the 20th cen-tury. The 1,500 remaining Wintu arenow seeking recognition by the federal government in order to receive tribalbenefits and they hope that this exhib-it, which includes baskets, ceremonialobjects, and other artifacts will helptheir cause. (530) 243-8890(New long-term exhibit)

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NEWSDisposition of 10,600-year-old Spirit Cave Man Still in DisputeNAGPRA review committee disagrees with Bureau of Land Management determination.

in the

In August of 2000, the NevadaState Office of the Bureau ofLand Management (BLM) deter-mined that current evidencedoes not support cultural or bio-

logical affiliation between Spirit CaveMan and any contemporary nativegroup. The Fallon Paiute-Shoshone,which claims affiliation with SpiritCave Man, appealed the BLM decisionto a Native American Graves Protec-tion and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)review committee last fall. Six of theseven people on the committeefound that the evidence indicatedcultural affiliation between the an-cient remains and the contemporarytribe, and that the BLM did not give afair and objective assessment of allavailable information.The committeerecommended that the Nevada BLMoffice repatriate the remains and fu-nerary objects to the tribe.Their rec-ommendation is non-binding, how-ever, and the Nevada BLM continuesto stand by its original decision.

“We have undertaken an exhaus-tive review of the submitted evi-dence and have found no cultural orbiological continuity between the re-mains and any contemporary group,and no evidence of a shared culturalidentity with the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone tribe,” said Pat Barker, anarchaeologist for the BLM. TheNevada BLM chose not to attend the

review hearing, since it was unawarethat the tribe had submitted new ev-idence to the review committee thatchallenged its decision.

The remains of the 45-year-oldindividual known as Spirit Cave Manwere discovered in 1940 on BLM landnear Grimes Point, Nevada. SpiritCave Man and the items found withhim remained in federal custody,stored at the Nevada State Museum,until radiocarbon dating of a bone in1994 showed the remains to beabout 10,600 years old, making it oneof the oldest complete skeletons ever

found in North America. In accor-dance with NAGPRA, tribes were no-tified about the remains and invitedto file a claim for repatriation.The Fal-lon Paiute-Shoshone tribe filed aclaim on behalf of all Northern Paiutepeople, but after a three-year reviewof the evidence, the BLM office re-jected the tribe’s claim of affiliation,which they say is based on weak ar-chaeological evidence and vaguestatements regarding tribal traditions.

Spirit Cave Man and the materi-als found with him—a rabbit-furblanket, a woven head covering,leather moccasins, and reed socks—will remain in BLM control, whichwill consider any new evidence re-garding affiliation that is submitted.The tribe can appeal BLM’s decisionto the secretary of the interior andtake the case to court, if it chooses, aprospect that Barker sees as likely.“We’ve made our decision. Now it’sup to the tribe if they want to pursueoverturning it,” Barker said.

According to Rochenne Downs,cultural liaison to the Fallon BusinessCouncil, the tribe is consulting attor-neys as well as tribal elders and spiri-tual leaders and plans to continue topursue this and other similar cases.“These 10,000-year-old remains arejust as significant to us as more re-cent burials of members of our tribe,”Downs said. —Tamara Stewart

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This is a reconstruction of the head of the

individual known as Spirit Cave Man.

Work at the Ortona site inFlorida is revealing thepresence of a sophisticatedseven-mile system of hand-dug canals and a large

earthen pond dug in the shape of abaton, a sacred symbol for manySoutheastern Native American groups.While archaeologists have knownabout the site since the canals wereoriginally described in 1839, itstremendous significance was not re-alized until researchers recently de-termined that the canals were builtaround A.D. 300 with the use of shelland wooden tools.

“The original surveyors thoughtthat the canals were military fortifi-cations constructed by Europeansbecause no one at that time be-lieved that Native Americans werecapable of such engineering feats,”said project director Robert Carr ofthe Archaeological and HistoricalConservancy in Miami.

Carr first visited the site in1974 when he was an archaeologistwith the state of Florida. He re-turned in 1985 and again in 1996when, with funding from a stategrant, he began to map and investi-gate the site. Layers of organic soildeposited in the canal soon after itsconstruction yielded radiocarbondates that show the canals werebuilt about 1,600 years ago. Morerecent investigations of the 450-

foot-long baton effigy pond revealedthe presence of butchered deerbones, red ochre, and organic sedi-ments that yielded a radiocarbondate of about A.D. 700. Most of thesite is on private property, and as aresult of these findings, the ownerof this portion of the site plans topreserve the effigy pond.

The Ortona canals are, on aver-age, 20 feet wide and 4 feet deep.Researchers think that the Ortonapeople, ancestors of the Calusa and

Mayami, the two principal tribes ofsouthwestern Florida and the LakeOkeechobee area, used the canalsfor canoe transportation to the Or-tona village site and to bypass rapidsthat were once located along theCaloosahatchee River. The Ortonasite, part of which is located withinOrtona Indian Mound Park, also con-tains a sand burial mound that risesabout 20 feet above sea level, thehighest mound in Glades County.

—Tamara Stewart

8 fall • 2002

NEWSin the

Ancient Canals Documentedin Southern Florida Canoe canal system near Lake Okeechobee is believed to be 1,600 years old.

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Archaeologist Jeff Ranson excavates a test pit to determine the statigraphy of a small mound at the

Ortona site. The mound, which is in Ortona Indian Mound Park, is adjacent to one of the canals.


NEWSin the

A shipwreck discovered in theCaribbean Sea near Playa Damasoff the coast of Panama has

some explorers very excited at theprospect that it could be the Vizcaina,a ship that was scuttled by ChristopherColumbus in 1503 during his fourthand last voyage to the New World. Agroup of private individuals who callthemselves “treasure hunters”and whoare backed by U.S. investors hoping toturn a profit from the project havebegun excavations of the wreck.

The explorers’claim that the shipis the Vizcaina is based on variouslines of evidence, including thewreck’s location, which seems tomatch a description of the scene ofthe Vizcaina’s scuttling, and arma-

ments that are typical of the late 15thand early 16th centuries. If the ship-wreck is in fact the Vizcaina, it wouldbe the first of the nine ships Colum-bus lost at sea to be found.

But experts remain unconvincedand are very concerned about theintentions and lack of expertise ofthe group investigating the wreck,calling the project an “archaeologicaldisaster.”

“All the ‘evidence’ the treasurehunters have that ‘proves’ this is theVizcaina is circumstantial at best,”said Donald Keith, an underwaterarchaeologist who heads Ships of Dis-covery, a non-profit organizationbased at the Corpus Christi Museumof Science and History. “The site is

important not because of the claimthat it could conceivably be the Viz-caina, but because it is early, becausethe artifacts discovered so far areunusual, because it is (or was) well-preserved, and because it undoubted-ly has a great story to tell. The prob-lem is, the only way it will ever tellthat story is if it is properly excavatedby people who know what they aredoing and know what it takes to carrya project like this through the years itwill take to reach fruition.”

Because the law regarding own-ership of archaeological objectsfound at sea is unclear, as underseatechnology improves, more ship-wrecks are being found and plun-dered for profit.—Tamara Stewart

Recognizing the tremendous sig-nificance of archaeologicalsites in the Galisteo Basin of

north-central New Mexico, U.S. Sena-tor Jeff Bingaman, chairman of theCommittee on Energy and NaturalResources, has re-introduced the Gal-isteo Basin Archaeological Sites Pro-tection Act.

During a well-attended Congres-sional hearing held in Santa Fe in Au-gust, Bingaman outlined the tenetsof the bill, which calls for public-private partnerships to protect ap-proximately 4,591 acres containing24 nationally significant prehistoricand historic archaeological sites lo-cated within the Galisteo Basin.Theact is modeled after the Chaco Out-

lier Protection legislation of 1980,which gave the Department of theInterior authority and federalmonies to assist with the manage-ment of sites associated with ChacoCanyon in northwest New Mexico.Testimonies in support of the Galis-teo Basin bill were presented by thegovernors of Cochiti and SantoDomingo Pueblos, administrators ofthe Bureau of Land Management,Mark Michel, president of the Archae-ological Conservancy, local landown-ers, and the State Land Office.

The Galisteo Basin, a rapidly de-veloping, scenic area that lies be-tween Santa Fe and Albuquerque,played an important role in South-western prehistory and early history.

The basin contains a high density ofprehistoric pueblos and petroglyphsites, including 10 pueblo ruins withmore than 1,200 surface rooms,some of the earliest Spanish colonialsettlements in the country, and Span-ish missions dating from the early1600s.The Galisteo Basin ProtectionAct failed to pass when it was firstintroduced in 1999, and since thattime, vandalism, rural residential de-velopment, and erosion have ir-reparably damaged sites within thebasin. Chairman Bingaman hopesthat the bill will be included as partof a year-end compromise.To voicesupport for the act, contact NewMexico Senators Jeff Bingaman andPete Domenici. —Tamara Stewart

Legislation Proposed to Protect Galisteo BasinSupport for protection of New Mexico archaeological sites voiced at Congressional Hearing.

Ancient Shipwreck Discoveredoff the Coast of PanamaTreasure hunters working at the site claim the wreck is Columbus’s Vizcaina.

10 fall • 2002

NEWSin the

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Temples Discoveredat Farming Village near CahokiaLarge public buildings may have served administrative or religious purposes.

Archaeologists working at theGrossmann site, a prehistoricMississippian farming village inShiloh, in southwest Illinois, arecalling the unique site a “Ca-

hokia outpost” due to the particularstructures and artifacts found there.It’s thought that Grossmann is re-lated to the nearby city of Cahokia.

The village, which is believed todate from about A.D. 1075 to 1125,was discovered by archaeologistswith the Illinois Transportation Ar-chaeological Research Program in1997.The following year they exca-vated some 20 early Mississippianhouses. During the last two years, ar-chaeologists with the University ofIllinois have excavated the site withfunding from the National ScienceFoundation and the National Geo-graphic Society.

The University of Illinois ar-chaeologists, led by Tim Pauketat,have found four large, presumablypublic buildings at the site thatthey refer to as “temples.” Pauketatnoted that the average Cahokianhouse was 60 to 75 square feet,while these square buildings, whichare unlike those found at other Ca-hokian villages, were between 300and 435 square feet.Though Gross-mann appears to be a farming vil-lage, these buildings may have beenused for religious or administrative

purposes. Last year Pauketat and hiscrew discovered a cache of 70 stoneax heads made of imported materialthat were deposited in one of thesite’s temples. The site has yieldedother exotic artifacts, including oneof the few known carved red stonefigurines.

“So far, my sense is that theGrossmann site excavations arepointing toward a Cahokia that hadmore control over the agriculture ofthe people than some archaeologistswould have thought before our ex-cavations,” said Pauketat.“Cahokiansdidn’t restrict themselves to the

floodplain of the Mississippi River,but managed the settlement andfarming practices of people all overthe Greater Cahokia region.”

The city of Cahokia served as aMississippian center from about A.D.1050 to 1300 and covered nearly sixsquare miles during its peak in the12th century.The Grossmann site isone of at least eight and likely morethan a dozen large farming villagesin the area that were established inA.D. 1050, the same time that Ca-hokia was founded, and appear tohave served as satellites for the cen-tral city. —Tamara Stewart

University of Illinois archaeologists work at the Grossmann site. The tarps cover the floors of the

village's houses, and the piles of dirt in the background cover the plaza.

Texas FortUnearthedThe site marks the beginnings of the state’s battle with Mexico.

NEWSin the


A n excavation at the site ofFort Anahuac in Texas,where one of the first armed

uprisings of American settlersagainst Mexican rule took place,has uncovered the foundations ofthe fort’s walls.The work confirmsthe site’s location and shape.

Fort Anahuac, which is locatedon a bluff overlooking the TrinityRiver in the southeastern part ofthe state, was established in 1830by Colonel Juan Davis Bradburn,of the Mexican army. The fortwas one of several built in Texas tohelp the Mexican government col-lect tariffs on commercial importsand exports, prevent smuggling,and stop the entrance of moreAnglo-American immigrants intoMexico’s Texas territory.

The fort’s remains are locatedin a park in Chambers County. In2001, the county sponsored a mag-netometer survey performed bythe Texas Historical Commission(THC).“This work confirmed thatthe fort really was on the countypark land, what shape it was, andthat foundations remained,” saidJames Bruseth, the THC’s directorof archaeology.

Following the remote-sensingproject, the THC recommendedthat the county have further ar-chaeological testing performed.The company Hicks & Co. washired to trench parts of the siteand to do some test unit excava-

tions over a two-week period inMay. Rachel Feit, an archaeologistwith Hicks & Co., said work has re-vealed that the fort was diamond-shaped with two diamond-shapedbastions, and that contrary to writ-ten reports, the corners of the fortpointed north, south, east, andwest, rather than northeast, south-east, southwest, and northwest.“It’s kind of interesting,” she said,“because the historical records areinconsistent.” —Martha Mulvany

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New York gallery owner and antiqui-ties dealer Frederick Schultz of Man-hattan received a sentence of 33

months in federal prison and was orderedto pay a $50,000 fine for conspiring to sellantiquities stolen from Egypt.The case hasbeen watched closely by buyers and sellersof antiquities and by museum directors,who see the stiff sentence given to Schultzas an indication of the federal government’scrackdown on sales of ancient objectstaken illegally from their country of origin.

Egypt is one of several countries rich inarchaeological remains that have banned theexport of antiquities. The Schultz case hasclearly established that U.S.courts recognizethe Egyptian antiquities law, and that Ameri-can dealers of such objects may be convictedof trafficking in stolen property.Only ancientEgyptian objects that were privately ownedprior to 1983 can be legally bought and sold.

During last winter’s trial, Schultz, for-mer president of the National Association ofDealers in Ancient, Oriental and PrimitiveArt, had argued that he had been duped bythe British antiquities dealer who had soldhim the items and told him that they camefrom an old family collection.But the Britishdealer, Jonathon Tokeley-Parry, testified thatSchultz had actually helped concoct thestory and assisted in creating false labels forthe objects, obscuring their origin.Tokeley-Parry was recently released from jail inBritain after serving a three-year sentencefor smuggling thousands of ancient objectsout of Egypt in the 1990s. Schultz remainsfree pending his appeal.—Tamara Stewart

Antiquities DealerConvicted inLandmark CaseCourt’s decision upholds foreign antiquities law.

The excavation has revealed this drain, or

aqueduct, which was buried beneath the

fort’s plaza. The archaeologists are uncer-

tain whether it was used to transport fresh

or waste water.

12 fall • 2002

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A River RunA River Runs

Big Eddy is an exceptionally well stratified site in Missouri thatcontains the entire prehistoric sequence of the midcontinent. Butthis unusual site is being eroded by the Sac River, and archaeologists are racing to recover important information before it washes away.

By Cynthia Barnes

Big Eddy is an exceptionally well stratified site in Missouri thatcontains the entire prehistoric sequence of the midcontinent. Butthis unusual site is being eroded by the Sac River, and archaeologists are racing to recover important information before it washes away.

By Cynthia Barnes


s Through Is Through It

14 fall • 2002

A field school student checks the depth in an excavation square. This is

undertaken periodically at the four corners and the center of each square

to ensure that the floor is flat.

This student is using a square profiling shovel to straighten the walls of

a shallow excavation unit. Thirteen students participated in the

six-week field school.

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The Sac River had much to give. Its waters teemedwith fish and mussels. Gravel bars containedabundant cobbles and occasional boulders ofchert-good stone to knap into projectile pointsthat would bring down the animals that gathered

each evening to quench their thirst at its edge.Vegetationclustered thickly along the banks and in the floodplain: In-dian hemp to make fishing lines and nets, oak and hickoryfor food and fuel, marsh elder for oily nutritious seeds.

As the people lived and left and returned again, theriver wrapped the site as neatly as a present.Periodic flood-ing deposited fine layers of alluvial sediment that stackedup like layers of a cake,preserving evidence of some 13,000years of human occupation in the middle of North America.

In 1986, river erosion exposed artifacts to a group ofarchaeologists canoeing the stretch that runs throughCedar County in southwest Missouri.Archaeologists con-ducted preliminary tests that showed the site’s potential,but over a decade passed before funding was secured for aserious excavation.The Center for Archaeological Research(CAR) from Southwest Missouri State University began ex-cavating in 1997.After several months of fieldwork, the sitewas named Big Eddy for a whirlpool located next to it.

The river is now hastened in its natural course by the5,000 cubic feet of water per second that the Army Corpsof Engineers releases frequently from Stockton Dam, lo-cated about six miles upstream.What is being lost—at therate of more than four feet per year—to generate electric-ity is an exceptionally well stratified site containing theentire prehistoric record for the midcontinent. Big Eddyboasts relatively rich Paleo-Indian horizons.

The archaeologists are excavating as quickly as possi-ble.They know that like the river, time is always running.Like the water, it is moving fast.

THOUSANDS OF YEARS, AND NOT A MINUTE TO WASTE

It’s a beautiful day, but Neal Lopinot is not smiling.A tallman with fair, fading hair, he’s scowling at the fluffy cloudsthat offer the field crew relief from the strong June sun.Tomorrow’s forecast calls for rain. Rain means more mud,sticky, silty clay loam that clings to shovels and accumu-lates on boots faster than it can be scraped off. But moreimportantly, rain means less time to excavate.At Big Eddy,every minute counts.

Lopinot cannot be on the site every day, although youget the sense that he’d like to be. His position as directorof CAR keeps him closer to a desk than to the dirt, over-seeing projects, writing proposals, cajoling the corps formore funding to support the costly excavations.“Beingout here runs at least $10,000 a week,” he says.“You haveto pay, feed, and house the crew, rent the trackhoe and

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front end loader, keep the pumps going. It adds upquickly.” Funding from the corps, grants from the NationalGeographic Society, the Green Foundation, the MissouriDepartment of Natural Resources, and donations from pri-vate supporters have helped finance the excavations. Butas with time, there is never enough money.

It is one of the most extensive digs ever undertakenin this region.To date, 10 major excavation areas and twolarge trenches have been opened at the site. During exca-vations in 1997 and 1999, more than 3,000 cubic yards ofdeposits were machine- and hand-excavated at the site.

During the excavations of 2001 and 2002, over 3,000cubic yards have been removed from a single large exca-vation block, known as Block I.The field crews consist ofas many as 30 people, not counting volunteers.

Radiocarbon dating of plant material and associatedstone tools have established that the earliest levels of earlyArchaic occupation (about 11,000–11,500 years ago) ofthe site occurred at about nine feet below the surface.This is also near the top of the relatively rich late Paleo-Indian horizon that dates to about 11,500-12,500 yearsago and extends down to about 101/2 feet below the sur-face. Below that, a horizon dating to about 12,500–13,000years ago that has yielded two broken fluted points ex-tends to about 111/2 feet below the surface.“Pre-Clovis-agegeologic deposits dating back to more than 15,000 yearsoccur about 111/2 to nearly 16 feet below surface,” saysLopinot.“That’s what we eventually want to see, althoughthe stratified Paleo-Indian deposits are extremely signifi-cant and must be carefully excavated before continuingour search for artifacts in the pre-Clovis-age deposits.” Helooks up again, eyeing the clouds.

Field Director Jack Ray shares principal investigatorresponsibilities with Lopinot, and he seems to be on sitearound the clock.While Lopinot is “the plant guy,” Ray’sspecialty is rocks, identifying the geologic provenience ofthe minerals that humans and nature have deposited atBig Eddy. They work well as a team.

Having reached this depth, they would rather exca-vate the site carefully by trowel and plot every artifact, buttime and budget constraints make that impossible. Instead,the crew is shovel-skimming, shaving thin layers of soilcarefully from each excavation unit, listening for the tell-tale scrape that indicates an artifact being disturbed.Theyare also watching closely for the tiny flecks of charcoal

In addition to excavating, CAR director Neal Lopinot’s responsibilities

include raising money to finance this expensive project.

This aerial view of the excavation blocks at Big Eddy was taken in 2001. Block I is in the front center. The smaller blocks with Archaic deposits in the

upper left have since been backfilled. The extent of the erosion is evident along the cutbank.

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that can be radiocarbon dated and thereby date any lithicfinds associated with the flecks. The shovels have hadtheir ends cut off, which makes them less prone to goug-ing the clayey soil.

“At this depth, we’re in the early Archaic deposits,roughly 9,000 to 11,500 years before present,”Ray explains.“During those 2,500 years, we see a proliferation of projec-tile point styles—at least 12 different types.”Eight of the 12known early Archaic point types have been recovered insitu at the site, and another four have been found displacedon the cutbank. Ray smiles mischievously, eyes crinkling.“We expect to find the others as well.They’re here.”

TANTALIZING CLUES

The 1997 excavation established the site as the second-largest known late Paleo-Indian workshop in the region(the largest is at Olive Branch in southern Illinois).Yet, itwas much more than a place where people came to fash-ion new tools to replace broken or useless ones.The vari-ety of both useless and broken tools, as well as those thatcould have continued to be used, indicates that the sitesometimes served as a settlement for numerous peoplesduring a 1,000-year period.

People of the Dalton culture are thought to have livedin the region around 11,500 to 12,500 years ago, but fewradiocarbon dates have been obtained from relativelyundisturbed, well-stratified contexts.The only radiocarbondates considered reliable by many Dalton experts are twofrom the Rodgers Shelter site, located in the nearbyPomme de Terre River valley to the east of Big Eddy.Thismeager number has now been expanded to at least nineas a result of the work at Big Eddy.

Big Eddy has also yielded the first reliable radiocarbondates (about 12,500–13,500 years ago) for organic mate-rial associated with fluted points in the middle of thecountry. This was the first time that fluted points werefound in a well-defined and separate alluvial stratumbelow Dalton points. This suggests what everyone haslong believed: that the lanceolate, but typically unflutedDalton style of projectile point evolved from the lanceo-late, fluted Clovis point style.Yet, research at Big Eddy pro-vides further reasons to reassess this simple evolutionaryscenario and consider the possibility that the evolution ofprojectile point styles was more complex.

The fluted points at Big Eddy are now tentatively iden-tified as Gainey and Sedgwick rather than Clovis. Whilethey could represent relatively early, somewhat contempo-raneous Eastern forms of Clovis, that is, simply spatial vari-ations on a transcontinental theme, it is suspected thatGainey and Sedgwick represent two variants of intervening

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16 fall • 2002

Gary Saunders, a field school student, washes out a bucket at one of six

water-screening stations. Some of the dirt from the excavation blocks is

put in buckets and hauled to the water-screening stations by a 4-wheeler

modified to carry these buckets. The water is pumped from the river.

Jack Ray (with hat) instructs several students. From left to right in fore-

ground are Dina Williams, Michelle Liss, and Shannon Taylor, a teaching

assistant and crew member.

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middle Paleo-Indian types between Clovis and Dalton. Incomparison to Clovis, Gainey and Sedgwick points tend tobe thinner, have more accentuated concave bases andmore elongated flutescars that often extendto or beyond the mid-dle of the points.

Gainey and Sedg-wick points also ex-hibit some Folsom-like characteristics, apoint type that post-dates Clovis. Finally,the stratigraphic oc-currence of the twofragmented points atBig Eddy and radio-carbon dates from thesite and from othersites in eastern NorthAmerica producingsimilar points suggestthat they are middlePaleo-Indian and notcontemporaneous withclassic Clovis pointsfound in the HighPlains and elsewhere.

“There is still agreat deal that weneed to understand, in-cluding the geographicand temporal rele-vance of our pointtypes, but Big Eddy hasthe potential to shedlight on these issues ifwe can excavate alarge enough area atthe site, if we can re-cover enough diagnos-tic artifacts in situ, and,of course, if the mostimportant early andmiddle Paleo-Indian de-posits have not alreadyfallen into the SacRiver,” Lopinot states.

Though a Clovisoccupation has notbeen proven, radiocar-bon-dated materials associated with artifacts recovered inthe fluted-point horizon indicate that the site was usedduring early as well as middle and late Paleo-Indian times.No Clovis-type bifaces have been found in situ by the CAR

team, but a few bifaces that may reflect Clovis use havebeen recovered by artifact collectors from the eroded cut-bank at the site prior to the excavations.

The 1997 dig alsorevealed Mississippian,Woodland, and Archaicoccupation levels, andartifacts such as ceram-ics, projectile points,and various tools. Mis-sissippian utilizationof the site appears tohave been minimal,perhaps related to afew individuals hunt-ing and gathering inthe area, and droppingor discarding a fewtools here and there.During Woodland times,the site also was usedintermittently, althoughfor a time it appears tohave served as a hunt-ing camp.

Archaic use of thesite is another matter.At times, Big Eddy ap-parently was used in-termittently and briefly,leaving little evidenceother than a pile of de-bris generated from re-tooling activities, or ascattering of materialsderived from briefepisodes of campingand food-gathering. Atother times, Big Eddyserved as a settlement,with the accumulationof debris suggestive ofseasonal and perhapseven year-round use.

Big Eddy’s remark-able stratigraphy recordoffers the potential toestablish a chronologi-cal record of chang-ing human adaptationsthroughout prehistory.

The presence of radiocarbon dateable charcoal in the de-posits has allowed the CAR researchers to develop a se-quence of changes in tool styles and adaptive strategies.Thirty-two samples of charcoal have been radiocarbon

Student Michelle Liss uses a hand lens to examine a Pitkin chert flake. Pitkin chert is

an exotic material that is found in northwest Arkansas. A variety of tools and flakes

made of exotic cherts are common in the early Archaic and Paleo-Indian deposits at

the site.

Student Rena Payne takes notes while Burton Purrington, an archaeologist with

Southwest Missouri State University, studies the floor of an excavation unit.

were analyzed in 1997 for stable carbon isotopes, whichindicate the relative abundance of grasslands and forests.From late glacial times to the present, general changesfrom forests to dryer grasslands and back to forests havebeen documented. This correlates with the pattern ofusage at Big Eddy, which was occupied intensively duringcooler, wetter periods.

In 1997, at the same time the Big Eddy excavationwas taking place, the second volume of the findings atMonte Verde, a site in Chile that some archaeologists be-lieve yielded evidence of a pre-Clovis occupation, waspublished.The excitement generated funds for an addi-tional week at Big Eddy, during which time three ex-ploratory excavation units were dug into levels beneaththe lowest Paleo-Indian deposits.“Given that Big Eddy wasso intensively used, it was a good place to look for evi-dence of pre-Clovis occupancy,” Lopinot says.

During that week they found a boulder, weighingabout nine pounds and resting in fine-grained alluvial sed-iment absent of pebbles, cobbles, or other boulders. Its iso-lation suggested that it could have been placed there byhumans. An in situ flake, possibly a human artifact, wasfound one level below the boulder.

Their season ended, the archaeologists reluctantly leftBig Eddy to spend a year analyzing artifacts and data andproducing a monograph of almost 400 pages.

THE EXCAVATIONCONTINUES

In 1999, having secured additional funding, the archaeolo-gists returned to the site for further excavation.They re-exhumed the disturbed fill from the 1997 excavation areaand focused on the lowermost, as-yet-unexcavated Paleo-Indian levels. Radiocarbon analysis of charcoal foundbelow the fluted point levels indicated that the geologicaldeposits dated from about 14,000 to more than 15,000years ago. Several items recovered from these depositsshowed possible human modification:A large broken sand-stone boulder may have been used as an anvil and an ob-long cobble of chert as a hammer. In addition to these twoitems, numerous small chert flakes and chipped cobblesand pebbles were found throughout the deposits.

Three experts in human and natural modifications an-alyzed the sandstone boulder and chert hammerstone, twoof whom concluded that the impact on the rocks resultedfrom nature.The third specialist left open the possibility ofhuman intervention. But Lopinot, Ray, and their lead geoar-chaeologist, Ed Hajic, a research associate of the IllinoisState Museum, still believe these may be pre-Clovis arti-facts for several reasons. Because the sandstone boulderwas found in fine-grained sediments rather than gravel,

18 fall • 2002

dated, and more samples will be dated in the future. Ulti-mately, Big Eddy will be one of the better dated sites inNorth America.

The researchers are also trying to reconstruct climaticand vegetational conditions from late glacial times to thepresent. Paleoenvironmental specialists from the Universi-ties of Iowa and Kansas are providing a detailed record ofdynamic environmental conditions that is necessary tobetter understand changes in human adaptation at BigEddy and in the region as a whole. Forty-five soil samples

Two of the three Indian elephants used in the trampling experiment

are led by their handlers. The point of the experiment was to see if the

elephants could chip the cobbles and pebbles they walked on, just as

mastodons might have done thousands of years ago. Ranging in weight

from 6,760 pounds to 7,950 pounds, the elephants are approximately

the size of mastodons, which apparently were more common in Missouri

than mammoths.

An elephant tramples the gravel pit. The pit was excavated to a depth of

about three inches and was lined with plastic to make the gravel easy to

collect and remove. The gravel was taken from the deepest portions of

the pre-Clovis age deposits at Big Eddy. It was examined prior to the

experiment to ensure that it was unmodified.

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they surmise it was placed there by a person.Also, similaranvilstone-like boulders have also been found in pre-Clovis-age contexts, roughly contemporaneous with thoseat Big Eddy, at the Lamb Spring site in Colorado, the Coop-erton site in Oklahoma, and Bonfire Shelter in Texas.

As for the chert flakes and modified pebbles and cob-bles, it was thought that they could have been the work oflarge mammals, such as mastodons. Putting this theory tothe test, the archaeologists enlisted elephants at theSpringfield Zoo to participate in an experiment recreatinggravel bar conditions at the site during pre-Clovis times.Lopinot and Ray brought in unmodified stones from thesite, which the elephants walked on.The results indicatedthat trampling by Ice Age behemoths likely caused theflakes and chipped cobbles and pebbles.

The archaeologists also investigated a large pile of latePaleo-Indian debris that contained a treasure trove of deb-itage, the flakes and other chipped stone fragments thatare the byproducts of tool-making. Most interestingly, thefeature also contained a San Patrice projectile point in ad-dition to Dalton preforms (incompletely shaped objects).San Patrice projectile points have rarely been found as farnorth as Missouri and are more typical of the Gulf CoastalPlain, which includes portions of Louisiana, Mississippi,Alabama,Arkansas, and Texas.The occurrence of two dif-ferent styles of points poses the possibility that two dis-tinct cultural groups may have occupied the site simulta-neously, at least for a short period of time.

Other artifacts found in the same late Paleo-Indian de-posits—preforms, flakes, scrapers, and projectile points—were manufactured from chert taken from many distantsources.These artifacts give credence to the RendezvousHypothesis, the belief that the Big Eddy site may havebeen a place where different groups met to trade goods,socialize, celebrate, and procure mates before going theirseparate ways.

Heavy rains in May of this year kept the field crewidle and made Stockton Lake much higher than normal.Water has been constantly released from the dam, and theriver is high on the nearby bank. Consequently, most ofthe excavation units are flooded.The crew uses noisy gas-powered pumps to periodically siphon off the water.Small areas are bailed with gallon milk jugs that have beenfashioned into scoops. On some days, Big Muddy seems amore appropriate name for the site.

Crew member Matt White has dislodged a Pitkinflake, creating a ripple of excitement and adding weightto the Rendezvous Hypothesis. The source area for thisPitkin chert is in the Boston Mountains of northeastArkansas. It was brought here by trade or by a Big Eddyoccupant who traveled to and from northeast Arkansas.

Four-thirty in the afternoon is usually quitting time.The crew has been here since 8:00 A.M., with two shortbreaks and a brief lunch.They are thinking about a showerand supper when the announcement is made that work

These artifacts were found at Big Eddy during May and June of this year.

(Top row, from left) A Woodland Kings point, a late Archaic Afton point,

and an early Archaic Hidden Valley point. (Bottom row, from left) Two

refitted fragments of an early Archaic Graham Cave point, two Dalton

points, a late Paleo-Indian San Patrice point worked down into a graving

tool, and two preforms that may also be San Patrice.

Projectile points recovered from Big Eddy include (from left) the base of

a fluted Gainey-like point, a Sedgwick point, a late Paleo-Indian Dalton

point, two early Archaic Graham Cave points, and a late Paleo-Indian or

very early Archaic Packard or Eastern Agate Basin point. The Gainey

point and the Dalton point are composed of exotic chert found in the

White River Valley well to the south.

will continue for another half an hour. There is a goodchance of rain, and tomorrow may be lost.There is barelya grumble from the pit.“We’re losing the site faster thanwe can excavate it, and the crew knows it,” says Lopinot.“Our window of opportunity is limited.With more timeand more money, we could do it. But we’re trying to sal-vage what we can in the time we have. With luck, we’llfind funding for another year.”

He frowns once more at the clouds, picks up hisshovel, and resumes digging.

CYNTHIA BARNES has written for Slate, Better Homes & Gardens, and othernational publications.

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20 fall • 200220 fall • 2002

Everything NewIs Old Again

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Tomatoes and potatoes, maize and chocolate:

the New World made aremarkable contribution to the Old World’s diet.

By Brian Fagan

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We have praised and vilified Christopher Colum-bus for his deeds and misdeeds for over fivecenturies. But no one would argue the factthat he changed the diets of people all overthe world without realizing it.

The conquistadors who followed Columbus to theNew World came in search of gold, to “serve God and getrich.”They found themselves in an exotic world of unfamil-iar animals and plants, inhabited by expert farmers whogrew a great variety of crops in every kind of environmentimaginable: tropical rain forests, highland pastures, semi-arid lands, and northern landscapes with brief growing sea-sons. Fifteenth-century Native American farmers were ex-pert cultivators.They grew cereals like maize and quinoa,tubers and rhizomes like the potato, sweet potato, andmanioc. They raised many varieties of beans,gourds, squashes, and pumpkins. Indiansgrew many varieties of capsicums,commonly known as chili peppers,as well as allspice, arrowroot,cashews, peanuts, tobacco, andcacao.The list goes on and on.

Columbus took back sam-ples of the strange plantsgrown by Native Americans,but he had to throw many ofthem overboard when theyrotted during the voyage.The food revolution, the so-called Columbian exchange,began with a few handfuls ofseeds and tubers displayed atthe Spanish court.Today, NativeAmerican crops like amaranth,maize, and potatoes feed millions ofpeople around the world. In an ironyof history, the wealth generated by the po-tato alone exceeds all the gold and silver ex-ported from the Americas.A single year’s global po-tato harvest today is worth more than $100 billion.

The first success story was tobacco, whose se-ductive charms captivated courtier and commoneralike. Elizabethan grandee Sir Walter Raleigh gavethe narcotic an apocryphal respectability by calmlysmoking it before his execution for treason. Euro-pean settlers began growing tobacco in SantoDomingo in the West Indies in 1531. By 1556, theFrench ambassador to Portugal, Jean Nicot, had in-troduced tobacco to France. Nicotine is named afterhim. Late 16th-century Spanish physicians developed averitable herbal of tobaccos, which they claimed curedno fewer than 16 maladies.Tobacco smoking really tookhold after Virginia colonists returned to England smokingtobacco in clay pipes.“Sotweed” smoking rapidly becamethe height of fashion. By 1610, Sir Francis Bacon wrote

that tobacco smoking was hard to quit.Meanwhile, Seville,Spain, became a major center for cigar manufacture. Beg-gars patched together tobacco from discarded cigars androlled it in paper, forming the first cigarettes. But smokingwas not universally popular. Physician William Vaughnwrote in 1617 that it was an “outlandish weede. It spendsthe braine and spoiles the seede.”

ON HIS SECOND VOYAGE, COLUMBUSBROUGHT HOME CACAO PODS.But it was Hernán Cortés who introduced chocolatedrinking to the Spanish court. He had observed Aztec no-bles quaffing the brew, and he enjoyed it himself. TheAztecs had received large quantities of cacao in tributefrom the lowland rain forests of their empire.As the Span-

ish took over much Maya agriculture and trade, theyestablished a monopoly on cacao production

and turned the beans into a major export.By 1590, they were growing cacao plants

obtained from Venezuela on the islandof Fernando Po (modern Bioko) off

West Africa.Today, more than 8,000tons of cacao leave the island an-nually, 70 percent of Bioko’s ex-port trade.The Spaniards also car-ried cacao to their possessions inthe Philippines. Today, manyPhilippine households still enjoyhot chocolate made from cacaobeans crushed the Aztec way.

Chocolate drinking rapidly be-came fashionable throughout Eu-

rope during the 16th and 17th cen-turies. In 1727, Englishman NicholasSanders first blended chocolate withmilk to produce a delicious hot drink.Physician and collector Sir HansSloane, founder of the British Mu-seum, recommended “milk chocolate”for children. He praised its “lightnesson the stomach and its great use inconsumptive cases.” During the 18thcentury, the Cadbury, Fry, and Rown-tree families launched business em-pires based on chocolate. The brandnames survive to this day. In about

1780, Captain James Ferguson ofthe Royal Navy introducedcocoa to ships in the West In-dies as a low-cost, nutritious

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The physician Sir Hans Sloane (top)

believed that chocolate had a salubrious

effect. Once embraced by the Old World,

chocolate became an industry.

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food.The cocoa issue, soonnicknamed “CI” or “kye”, iswidely used in the RoyalNavy to this day.

Zea mays, Indian corn,was the staff of life for Na-tive Americans from the St.Lawrence Valley in thenorth to the Andes in thesouth. Maize cobs andbeans powered Maya,Aztec,and Inca civilizations. In1620, gifts of maize fromthe local Indians helped theMayflower pilgrims to sur-vive their first terrible win-ter.The following year, thenewcomers planted 20acres on their own accountand enjoyed “God’s goodprovidence,”a bountiful har-vest. The subsequent feastwith Indian guests found its way into American folklore asthe first Thanksgiving.

Columbus and his successors brought maize to the OldWorld from Haiti in 1493.The first serious harvests tookplace in the warm climate of southwestern Asia. “Turkiewheat,” so named by European observers because it wasgrown in Turkey, soon became popular in the Mediter-ranean and the Balkans. Unlike other plants like potatoesand tomatoes,maize was a cereal,and thus attractive to OldWorld farmers. It was productive, tasted good, and could begrown on soils that were marginal for crops like wheat.Por-tuguese and Spanish voyagers soon bore maize to tropicalAfrica, where it took hold at once, being more productivethan the native millet and sorghum.Maize rapidly became astaple throughout eastern and southern Africa, contributingto significant rises in African farming populations. Maizemeal also fed the human cargoes of slave ships crossing theAtlantic to the Caribbean and Brazil.

WHERE WOULD INDIAN CURRY BEWITHOUT THE INDIAN CHILI PEPPER or Hungarian goulash without paprika? The pepperonipizza of last night would have been ghastly without theperipatetic chili. Five hundred years ago, chili pepperswere unknown in the Old World. Columbus sailed to theIndies in search of a new route to the spice lands of Asia.Instead of Asian spices he found aji, which he named “pep-per,” after the black pepper of the East that he was seek-ing. He took samples back to Spain.Within a remarkablyshort time, chili peppers traveled with Spanish and Por-tuguese voyagers to Africa and India, especially on thewings of the slave trade. By 1542, chilis had reached thePortuguese enclave at Goa and the East Indies. Before

1550, chilis had arrived in China. In a nice footnote of his-tory, chilis traveled to Europe and Asia, and then back toNorth America, where European colonists were the first togrow them outside of the Spanish enclaves at Santa Fe andSaint Augustine.Today, the five originally domesticated cap-sicum forms have given rise to hundreds of varieties, manymore than a single supermarket could stock.

The acceptance of new foods and new plants de-pended on their perceived utility, their appearance, andconcerns as to their edibility and potential toxicity. Cropssuch as maize, beans, chocolate, and tobacco were quicklyaccepted in the Old World.The potato and the tomato, onthe other hand, were not.

In about 1570, a Spaniard returning to Europe fromSouth America brought a potato home with him.The un-spectacular, lumpy tuber may have been an afterthought,a curio stuffed into a traveler’s baggage to impress rela-tives back home. Not that the potato was new to the con-quistadors. Indian farmers throughout the Andes culti-vated many varieties of this important staple, often highon exposed hillsides. The tubers were misshapen andoften downright ugly, but they were rich in essential nu-trients and were easily stored.

Potatoes prevented scurvy, provided quick and cheapmeals, and required simple implements to plant and har-vest. Combined with milk or other dairy products, theymade up a diet that was far more nutritionally completethan the bread- and cereal-based diets of 16th- century Eu-rope.You would think that Europeans would have embracedsuch a crop with immediate enthusiasm, but they did not.

Conquistadors regarded the potato and the AndeanIndians who grew them with contempt. It was poor peo-ples’ food, vastly inferior to bread. Inevitably, strong social

This garden at the Catawba Indian Reservation in Rockhill, South Carolina, is a re-creation of an Indian garden, circa

A.D. 1200–1700. The garden features maize, beans, squash, and gourds.

prejudice accompanied the few tubers that came to Eu-rope. Potatoes began their European career feeding pa-tients in Spain in a Seville hospital for the poor in 1573,but they also became a botanical curiosity.The new plantspread from garden to garden in the hands of ardentbotanists and their wealthy patrons. Potatoes appeared inthe pages of herbals, where readers learned that the Ital-ians ate them “in a similar fashion to truffles.” In 1620, theEnglish physician Tobias Venner praised potatoes in hisVia Recta ad Vitam Longam (The Right Road to a LongLife), describing them as “though somewhat windie, verie

substantiall, good and restorative.” He rec-ommended roasting them in the

embers, then dunking them inwine.However cooked,“they

are very pleasant to thetaste and doe wonder-

fully comfort, nourish andstrengthen the bodie.”Ven-ner prescribed them for

the aged and remarked thatthe potato “incites to Venus.”

Despite these goodreviews, manypeople thought

the tubers exoticand poisonous.

Potatoes were aroot crop, notthe kind ofleafy plant thatcould flavor orgarnish roastmeat. The Eng-

lish, not yetmeat and pota-toes folk, consid-

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ered the potato an almost indelicate plant that did not be-long in the diet of a 17th-century gentleman. Its only possi-ble merit was as a famine food for the poor.

In 1662, a Mr. Buckland, a Somersetshire landowner,wrote to the Royal Society of London arguing that pota-toes might help protect the country against famine.TheAgriculture Committee of the Society promptly agreedand urged its landowning Fellows to plant such a crop.John Evelyn, the Society’s gardening expert, wrote that po-tatoes would be good insurance against a bad harvestyear, if for nothing else than to feed one’s servants. In1664, a pamphleteer named John Forster argued in a booktitled England’s Happiness Increased: A Sure and EasieRemedy against the Succeeding Dearth Years that the po-tato was a sure remedy for food shortages, especiallywhen mixed with wheat flour. Deep-rooted social preju-dices among the political and scientific elite preventedthem from setting an example and eating potato dishes.Asfor the poor, many of them preferred to go hungry ratherthan to give up their bread.

French peasants resisted potatoes for generations. Inbad years they made do with inferior or slightly moldygrain, suffered high prices and hunger, and often joinedbread riots. Farmers in the Burgundy region were forbid-den to plant potatoes, as they were said to cause leprosy,the white nodular tubers resembling the deformed handsand feet of lepers. Denis Diderot wrote in his great Ency-clopaedie (1751–76): “This root, however one cooks it, isinsipid and starchy… One blames, and with reason, thepotato for its windiness; but what is a question of wind tothe virile organs of the peasant and the worker.”

In England, the potato was first animal fodder, thenfood for the poor. Across the Irish Sea, the Irish rapidly em-braced the potato as a potential solution to their foodshortages. Quite apart from other considerations, potatoeswere far more productive than oats, especially for poorpeople without the money to pay a miller to grind theirgrain. Soon, the Irish poor depended on potatoes to thevirtual exclusion of anything else, a reliance that laid thefoundations for catastrophe a century and a half later. Bythe early 19th century, they cultivated an easily grown po-

24 fall • 2002

This wood block engraving of a tomato plant shows that, hundreds of years

ago, this fruit bore little resemblance to the tomato of today. The first

tomatoes to reach the Old World were lumpy and had an acidic flavor.

These six samples give an indication of the various types of maize. Much of what is known about ancient maize is based on the study of its shape and

size. The types of maize, (from left) are strawberry pop, lady finger, Hopi blue, reventador, chapalote, and pod corn. Though their ages are not known,

reventador, chapalote, and pod corn share characteristics with maize known to be several thousand years old.

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tato known as the “lumper.” The British consideredlumpers mere cattle fodder, but some Irish dockersbrought them over from London’s docklands, and thelumper became Ireland’s staple crop. Unfortunately,lumpers are exceptionally susceptible to blight. Whenblight attacked the growing lumper crop in 1845, disasterstruck. Over a million and a half Irish died over the nextfour years.A million more emigrated to the United States.

BRIGHT RED TOMATOES WEREANOTHER BOTANICAL CURIOSITY.They made their way across the Atlantic soon after HernánCortés conquered the Aztecs in 1521.Tomatoes soon be-came known as “love fruit,” which seems like a strangename until you learn that tomatoes are a close relative ofthe eggplant, then called the “fruit of the Moors” (pommedes Mours in French), because it was a favorite food ofthe Arabs. By a slip of pronunciation, the tomato becamepomme d’amour, or love fruit.The first tomatoes to reachthe Old World were said by an herbal of 1544 to havebeen eaten with “oil, salt, and pepper.” People were cau-tious of the then acid-tasting, knobbly tomato, unrecogniz-able alongside the smooth varieties of today.

Red tomatoes are said to have been introduced toItaly by two Catholic priests many years later. Italian cookswere the first to use tomatoes in sauces, but it was notuntil 1692, two centuries after Columbus, that the firstrecipe for tomato sauce appeared in an Italian cookbook,and that for a recipe in “the Spanish fashion.” By the late18th century, wealthy Italians regularly enjoyed tomatoes.They became a staple during the next century, as pizza

eating spread through the country. But tomatoes sufferedfrom one major disadvantage. They did not keep, andpoorer Italians needed foods that could be stored forweeks. Once a man named Cirio succeeded in canningtomatoes, they became a universal staple.

The tomato fared less well in northern Europe, whereits resemblance to deadly nightshade, a hallucinogen,caused alarm.Germans called them “wolf peaches,”and theywere avoided.Tomatoes did not become regular fare untilthe late 19th century, again with the advent of canning.

Many native crops are still little known outside theiroriginal homelands. Amaranth was a staple of Aztec lifeand a major tribute commodity.Twenty tons of amaranthreached the Aztec capital from the provinces each year,much of it baked into cakes used in religious ceremonies.The Spanish authorities thought these ceremoniesmocked communion and banned the cultivation of ama-ranth under penalty of death. Fortunately, amaranth farm-ing survived in remote parts of the Andes and Mexico.Thanks to UNICEF and other organizations, amaranth isnow a major crop in Asia, which grows and consumesmore of it than the Americas.

The Columbian exchange sparked a revolution in sta-ple foods, saved millions from unpredictable food short-ages, and has contributed to mushrooming populationgrowth since the 17th century. But the Native Americangarden still grows many nutritious plants largely unknownto the outside world.The culinary revolution will continue.

BRIAN FAGAN is a professor of archaeology at the University of California,Santa Barbara, and the author of many books on archaeology.

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Elephant head amaranth can be grown on poor, arid, and even saline soils. One seed head of this plant can

contain up to half a million grain-like fruits.

This species of tobacco (nicotiana rustica),

which has a higher nicotine content than

common tobacco, was first described in

Europe by Rembrandt Dodoens in 1554.

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PALEO HIGH LIFE

THE LATE PALEO-INDIAN PERIOD

IS POORLY UNDERSTOOD THROUGHOUT

THE SOUTHERN ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION. THE EXCAVATION OF THE CHANCE GULCH SITE

IS GIVING ARCHAEOLOGISTS A GLIMPSE OF HOW

THESE PEOPLE ADAPTED TO LIFE AT HIGH ALTITUDES.

BY MICHELLE NIJHUIS


W hen hopeful gold miners christenedChance Gulch, a sagebrush-speckled valleyunder the high, clear skies and snowypeaks of west-central Colorado, they nevercould have predicted how well the place

would live up to its name.The valley’s archaeological treasures have been dis-

covered, lost, and chanced upon once again.This time, ex-cavators hope their finds won’t be forgotten. More than20 years ago, archaeologists surveyed the patch of Bureauof Land Management (BLM) land because a uranium milland tailings pile were proposed for the area.They foundground stone, thousands of flakes, and a Paleo-Indian pro-jectile point on the surface, enough to stop the mill proj-ect and make Chance Gulch eligible for the National Reg-ister of Historic Places.

But these intriguing finds were apparently buried inagency bureaucracy. Just a few years later, said BLM ar-chaeologist Julie Coleman-Fike, the agency burned sage-brush and planted grasses in the valley as part of a rangeimprovement project. Five years ago, the BLM had moreplans for Chance Gulch.This time, it hoped to dig out apond for cattle.After a staff archaeologist made a routinecheck of the site,he immediately called Coleman-Fike.“Hesaid,‘Julie, you’d better come take a look at this,’” remem-bered Coleman-Fike.“As soon as I saw it, I said,‘Ohhh-kay.’Right away we found several Paleo-Indian points on thesurface, and I knew we had something unusual.”

Coleman-Fike then called Bonnie Pitblado, who hadjust finished her dissertation at the University of Arizona,

where she studied late Paleo-Indian spear points fromUtah and Colorado.The newly minted Ph.D. had accepteda visiting professor post at Western State College in Gun-nison, Colorado, just a 20-minute drive from ChanceGulch. Pitblado’s research had bolstered the idea thatsome late Paleo-Indian people adapted to year-round lifein the mountains, and she was eager to investigate thoseadaptations in a new excavation. Pitblado believes thatChance Gulch was a frequently used campsite during thelate Paleo-Indian period, roughly 8,500 to 11,000 yearsago. If she’s right, it’s one of only a half-dozen such well-documented campsites in the southern Rocky Mountains,and analysis of its artifacts may help to flesh out oursketchy ideas about ancient life at high elevations.

Once the importance of the Chance Gulch site was determined, Bonnie

Pitblado, an expert in Paleo-Indian spear points, was hired to direct the

excavations.

Jacob Dance Jr., of the Ute Mountain Ute tribe, and Amy Cordner screen for artifacts as other members of the crew excavate. Deposits from the site are

screened through one-eighth-inch mesh so that tiny flakes, bones, and shells can be identified.

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Pitblado’s crew of students and volunteers has uncov-ered about 15,000 artifacts and features, including morethan a dozen in-place projectile points and a fire hearthcontaining 9,000-year-old charcoal.The finds are cause forcelebration:The Rockies’ brutal winter temperatures andsoil-scouring winds have erased many of the clues to thehunting and gathering cultures of Paleo-Indian times.“We’re never going to find 9,000-year-old sandals or tex-tiles in an open site in the mountains,” Pitblado said.

EVIDENCEOF A CAMPSITE

Pitblado’s visits to Chance Gulch started off with a bang. Inthe summer of 1999,she and a few colleagues found 13 latePaleo-Indian projectile points on the surface. Most of thefinely flaked points included intact bases,which helped Pit-blado diagnose the points’ late Paleo-Indian origin.

There weren’t any Paleo-Indian artifacts in the firsttwo test pits she dug, but the third “hit pay dirt.” She un-covered two more Paleo-Indian projectile points, eight bi-faces, hundreds of flakes, and several bone fragments. Ra-diocarbon dating indicated that flecks of charcoal in thesoil stratum underlying these discoveries were more than9,000 years old.

With these findings in hand, Pitblado secured a Col-orado Historical Society State Historical Fund grant for alarger test excavation in the summer of 2000. The BLMprovided matching funds and staff and logistical support,and Western State College supplied logistical help. Hercrew uncovered even more late Paleo-Indian projectilepoints, stone tools, flakes, and animal bones, but the year’sbig prize was a fire-cracked rock feature. Hidden in thefeature were flecks of charcoal that dated back about9,000 years.The intact feature was a good sign that the

stratigraphy was undisturbed over the last eight millennia.That theory was supported by Western State geologistJohn Stamm, who dug a series of backhoe trenches at andaround the site.

The evidence from the summer was exciting: ChanceGulch was looking more and more like a busy late Paleo-Indian campsite.A full-scale excavation in 2001, funded bythe same agencies that supported the project the previousyear, yielded two more Paleo-Indian projectile points, morestone tools and animal bones, thousands of flakes, andwhat appeared to be a pit feature originating at the Paleo-Indian level.The bottom of the feature contained a largefragment of ground stone and charcoal f lecks, and thelatter were radiocarbon dated to about 9,000 years ago.

The crew continued to excavate the feature this sum-mer. Early in the season, Pitblado speculated that the pitcould be a storage feature, or even a prehistoric well. Butafter weeks of careful work, she concluded that the pitlacked the symmetry characteristic of a man-made feature.Excavators did collect a cache of seeds from the pit thatwill be analyzed by a botanist at the University of Arizonathis winter, but Pitblado believes rodents most likely col-lected the seeds.The crew also found a second pit, one that

A sediment profile and a pollen column were taken at the Chance Gulch

site last year. An analysis of the pollen samples determined that the

most common plant species in all levels were pine, sagebrush, sunflower,

and chenopods.

This fire-cracked rock feature was exposed in 2000 and a few flecks of

charcoal were preserved. The tandem accelerator mass spectrometer

radiocarbon technique, which can date pinhead-sized charcoal, was used

to determine that the feature is about 9,000 years old.


are seven smooth stones, ranging in size from an inch totwo inches across and incised with simple geometric de-signs such as arrows and crosshatches.A member of thecrew, Megan O’Banion, searched the archaeological litera-ture for references to incised stones. She found a few de-scriptions of similar stones by Great Basin archaeologists,but no interpretations of their function or significance.Though Pitblado has shown slides of the incised stones atconferences and talked about them with colleagues, shehasn’t learned of any other discoveries of such stones inthe Rocky Mountains.

Since the stones were found so close to the surface,their incisions could have been made relatively recently, andtherefore elders from Native American tribes might be ableto identify them.Pitblado showed the stones to Ute elders in

Pitblado calls “unequivocally cultural” because of its sharp,linear margins.Though the field crew didn’t have time tofully excavate it, Pitblado hopes to do this in the future.

SIGNS OF OTHER OCCUPATIONS

Excavators have also turned up evidence of a middle Ar-chaic occupation at Chance Gulch. Charcoal associatedwith another fire-cracked rock feature and a charred logand burnt daub were dated to 3,900 years ago. Projectilepoints, stone tools, bone fragments, and some 2,500 flakeshave also been found at this level. Closer to the surface,the crew has found a 1907 British coin, a quartz crystal, achunk of mica, an oyster shell, and a shark’s tooth. Pitbladowill send the shark’s tooth to a fossil specialist, who willbe able to identify its approximate age from its shape. Shebelieves the tooth may have come from fossil deposits inthe surrounding Gunnison Basin, but can only guess athow it arrived in Chance Gulch.

There are even more unanswered questions about theother objects.All of them came from outside the immedi-ate area, but there are few clues as to how and when.“What some cowboy might have been doing with an oys-ter shell, we have no idea,” said Pitblado.

Perhaps the most surprising of the recent finds—allof which were uncovered within an inch of the surface—

Volunteers Angelique Jacopin and her son Kevin record a Paleo-Indian

biface found in place. The Chance Gulch project introduces archaeology

to people of all ages and backgrounds. This quartz crystal was discovered at the site. Crystals do not occur natu-

rally at the site, so it’s believed that a prehistoric person brought it here.

This engraved stone is one of several recovered at Chance Gulch. The

researchers believe these to be the only such stones found in Colorado

and the Rocky Mountains.

This Paleo-Indian spear point was found on the surface in 1999. The

serrations around the blade are unusual.

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30 fall • 2002

Colorado, but they could not provide clues to the stones’origin or function. She will also show the stones to tribalmembers in Utah.What Pitblado described as “all of these re-ally wacky things”could be much more than just a pile of cu-riosities. They indicate that Chance Gulch may have hadsome ceremonial or spiritual significance.“These non-utili-tarian objects suggest that something special was going onhere,”she said delightedly.“It’s the type of thing we don’t seevery often, especially at an open campsite.These more re-cent artifacts are turning out to be as sexy as the Paleo stuff.”

WORKING THE SITE

Two new crew members were inspecting projectilepoints with Field Director Beth Ann Camp. Patrice Pros-per, who had flown in from Brooklyn late the previousnight, is a student at Hunter College in New York City, andAmber Preston is a senior at Western State College. Bothwere new to fieldwork. Camp, a lithics specialist who hasworked with Pitblado for three years, gave Prosper andPreston a crash course in the site’s history.Then, she fixedthem with her clear blue gaze.“Don’t worry, I’m alwayslooking over your shoulder.You’re never alone,” she saidwith a friendly laugh.

It was obvious she wasn’t kidding.The mood at thesite was relaxed—the conversation consisting of specula-tion about the next cookie break and jokes about the latestdiscoveries—but Pitblado, Camp, and their longtime volun-teers are sticklers for detail.Retired physicist Jerry Morrow,who met Pitblado at an excavation in Wyoming eight yearsago, pinpointed the location of each artifact larger thanone-half inch with the laser beam from his Nikon total sta-tion. As a metrologist with the U.S. Bureau of Standards,Morrow used to deal with microscopic measurements. He

needn’t be quite that persnickety here, though he comesclose. His total station is extremely accurate and extremelyexpensive ($10,000). Morrow volunteers his services andthe total station,which he purchased with his own money.Instruments this sophisticated require skillful operators,and over the course of a six-month period he taught him-self to operate it.

The aptly named Chris Merriman, a student at WesternState and one of the biggest jokers on the site, said the dis-cipline is welcome.“Bonnie busts your stones,” he said ad-miringly,“but you work hard, and you learn what you needto know.” He plans to follow Pitblado to Utah State Univer-sity, where she will be teaching next year.The crew rangesin age from Morrow, a World War II veteran, to teenagerMason Judson.There’s some geographical diversity as well.Kevin Poulton, an archaeological student from London, wasvisiting the United States for the first time and was happy tobe working on a “proper dig.” Sara Lebensold, who studiesanthropology in Montreal,was getting her first taste of field-work.“It’s good to finally get dirty,” she said.

Chance Gulch lies within the homeland of the North-ern, Southern, and Ute Mountain Ute tribes, and Pitbladoconsulted with tribal leaders before she began her full-scale excavation. During her discussions, she met UteMountain Ute heritage specialist Terry Knight. A chanceremark from Knight (“Wouldn’t it be great to get some ofour kids involved with this?”) inspired Pitblado to recruit

Field Director Beth Ann Camp oversees the crew. She is a lithics

specialist and a research associate at Utah State University.

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Volunteer Carl Haberland excavates a pit feature. Haberland and his wife,

Barb, are experienced avocational archaeologists who have worked at

the Chance Gulch site for three seasons.


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high school students from the three Ute tribes in Col-orado and Utah.Two Ute students worked at the site in2001, and five joined the project this year. Pitblado hopessuch diversity will help her field crew learn about presentcultures as well as past ones.“I want the people here tohave a broader experience than just digging in the dirt,”she said.Toward that end, one of the Ute students, GeraldKetchum, addressed one of American archaeology’sthornier problems:“A lot of our elders are very opinion-ated about archaeologists, and they say we should justleave the stuff in the ground, but I think we’ve got to learnfrom the past,” he said, brushing his turquoise-dyed hairfrom his eyes.“Instead of being so secretive about it, we’vegot to share information.”

WHAT THE ARTIFACTS REVEAL

After four seasons of fieldwork, Pitblado is ready to ana-lyze her findings.“We finally have enough data to test ourideas,” she said. Previous research in the Rockies, includingPitblado’s dissertation work, indicates that late Paleo-Indi-ans in the mountains had tool-making techniques distinctfrom those of their lowland kin. But no one knows howmuch time these people spent at various mountain eleva-tions each year, and Pitblado hopes her analyses of ChanceGulch artifacts will help reveal at least part of the answer.

A huge variety of food, from antelope to pine nuts,wasonce available in this area, and water was also plentiful. SoPitblado believes late Paleo-Indians may have stayed put inthe Gunnison Basin for relatively long periods, possiblyeven year-round.

She knows that almost all of the Chance Gulch toolswere made from local stone, which suggests that the latePaleo-Indian people occupying the site had not recentlytraveled to a distant location and procured exotic materi-als. A closer look at the types of stone in the collectionmay give her more clues to group movements in the Gun-nison Basin and beyond. Pitblado also infers the kinds oftools that people were manufacturing at the ChanceGulch site—projectile points, bifaces, scrapers, anddrills—from characteristics of the thousands of wasteflakes they left behind. She can even tell if microscopicflakes were produced by the manufacture of a projectilepoint or from sharpening a dull scraper by analyzing theflakes’ wear patterns.

Pitblado doesn’t yet know if late Paleo-Indians bravedwintertime in Chance Gulch, but she hopes future labanalyses and fieldwork will turn up more information aboutseasonal use. Blood residue analyses of the stone tools mayshow which animals were hunted, and pollen analyses ofthe soil could tell her what the climate was like at thattime. Comparative analyses of late Paleo-Indian and middleArchaic tools from Chance Gulch may also identify differ-ences in survival strategies between the two groups.

The unusually large number of late Paleo-Indian arti-facts makes Chance Gulch an important site, according toJim Benedict of the Center for Mountain Archeology inWard,Colorado.Since archaeologists often assume that high-elevation sites have shallow soil deposits, relatively few ex-cavations have been done in the mountains.“We know so lit-tle that almost every bit of information helps,”he said.

In order to catch up on analysis of the artifacts, Pit-blado may not excavate at Chance Gulch next year, but shedoes plan to conduct additional surveys and excavations atChance Gulch and other sites in the Gunnison Basin.“Thisbasin is just too rich to leave,” she said.“There’s so muchhere, and there’s hardly anyone looking at it.”

Pitblado will also look for late Paleo-Indian sites nearher new home in northern Utah, where little is knownabout late Paleo-Indian life. Pitblado has loved the RockyMountains since she listened to her father sing John Den-ver songs around the family campfire, and she’s pleasedto be establishing a career in her chosen home.“It soundsstrange, but I’ve always known I had to be here,” she said.She expects the mysteries of vanished Rocky Mountaincultures will keep her busy for decades to come.

MICHELLE NIJHUIS is a freelance writer in western Colorado.

These late Paleo-Indian spear points were excavated from the site. That

these specimens are not intact bolsters the argument that Chance Gulch is

a campsite. After a hunt, prehistoric people brought their spears back to

camp, where they manufactured new tips and discarded the broken bases.

32 fall • 2002

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Dogs Throughout Time

Archaeozoologist Susan Crockford

measures dog skulls in her laboratory.

The dog descended from the wolf and eventually became man’sbest friend. The archaeological record provides clues as to howit all happened—and fodder for lively debate. — By Dennis Johnson


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Perhaps no animal represents thewild beast better than the wolf.At the same time, its direct de-scendant, the dog, has becomethe symbol of hearth and home.

Dogs were the first animals to reside withpeople and the only animals found in humansocieties throughout the world. But how andwhen were dogs domesticated and what rolesdid they play in early New World cultures?

Canine archaeological evidence, from inten-tionally broken or excised teeth to ceremonialburials, points to a decisive human touch in creat-ing the dog and the more than 400 breeds weknow today. Skeletal remains retrieved from geo-graphically dispersed sites and dated over a broadspan of time attest to the enduring relationshipbetween man and dog. But as Washington StateUniversity archaeologist Karen Lupo asks: Did dogsmigrate to North America with people or did theycome on their own? Were they already domesticatedwhen they arrived here or still essentially wolves?

Archaeozoologist Susan Crockford, who has lob-bied for more detailed and consistent reporting of ar-chaeological canid remains, cuts to the chase with asuccinct question: What were the roles that dogsplayed in ancient human societies? Were theyguardians, spiritual entities, companions, hunters,haulers, herders—or dinner?

Archaeologists like Lupo, an expert on prehistoricdogs of the eastern Great Basin in Utah,Amy Dansie,formerly with the Nevada State Museum and anauthority on Nevada’s western Great Basin, Crockford,Marion Schwartz of Yale, Darcy Morey of the Universityof Kansas, and other dog-struck colleagues are usingskeletal remains, DNA testing, and sometimes tenuousand contradictory theories to piece together the elusiveanswers to these questions.

Amid this lively debate, archaeologists and other sci-entists can agree on at least one fact:DNA testing has con-firmed that domesticated dogs descended from wolves.Some experts believe the Arabian wolf is the likely grand-daddy of all canines. Besides their physical similarities,these wolves lived in the same areas as many early dogs.Be that as it may, other experts subscribe to the multiplefounding theory: that dogs evolved from wolves at differ-ent times and in different locations that most likely in-clude China, Europe, India, Israel, and North America.

Like most archaeologists, Marion Schwartz believesthat dogs arrived in North America fully domesticated.Thepeople who migrated brought these dogs with them, saysSchwartz, evidenced by the paucity of dog remains in theNew World, especially prior to about 10,000 years ago.While Old World archaeologists have been able to connectthe dots between wolves and domesticated dogs by docu-

menting skeletal changes from about 14,000 years ago, thescattering of canid bones in the Americas is too scant totrace a generational progression.

There’s growing evidence for more than one domesti-cation event, including new genetic research indicatingthat ancient canids associated with particular geographicregions share distinctive mitochondrial DNA sequences.This is especially true among North American dogs. Earlyhistoric accounts describe indigenous Native Americandogs that the archaeological record—now backed by ge-netic studies—indicates may have evolved independentlyof living Old World canines.

Archaeologists have identified at least four distinctbreeds of aboriginal North American dogs.There is the wooldog (see sidebar on p. 36) and the wide-muzzled Eskimodog,which is the largest of the indigenous dogs, resemblinga small wolf in size and shape.The large Pueblo or PlainsIndian dog was closer in size to a coyote,while the small In-

The complete skeleton of Crypt Cave Dog, including a small piece of soft

tissue that showed he had yellow fur, was discovered in the 1950s. This

depiction of the dog is based on those remains, which are believed to be

roughly 7,500 years old.

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34 fall • 2002

dian dog was comparable to a modern fox terrier and camein two varieties: short-faced or with a long, narrow muzzle.

In a survey she conducted of prehistoric canid remainsin the eastern Great Basin, Lupo identified dog remainsfrom 17 sites that covered a time frame from 500 to 10,000years ago. Most appeared to be Pueblo Indian dogs becauseof their skull size and shape.Dansie found broader evidenceof domestic dogs in the western Great Basin extendingback some 3,500 years, and remains of similar dogs havebeen found in almost every pueblo excavation in the south-western United States and other sites dating from A.D. 800

to 1250. By the late 19th century, however, this aboriginaldog was all but bred out of existence both through naturalinterbreeding with European dogs and purposeful cross-breeding for desired traits.

A PREHISTORIC DOG’S LIFE

Why the bond between humans and dog? Because thetwo species’s complex social patterns and communicationsystems are so overwhelmingly in step with each other,explains Morey.“It was an incredibly social relationship,”he states. Like humans, dogs are highly social animals withfinely honed communicative and pack-hunting skills theyinherited from their lupine ancestors, but which are lessmarked in other wild canids such as coyotes and jackals.

Prehistoric Native Americans did not possess domes-ticated goats, sheep, cattle, pigs, or horses. Dogs were theironly domestic animal, and, according to Schwartz, NativeAmericans considered their dogs to be “ambiguous.” Dogswere friends of humans, but akin to coyotes and wolves.As a result, Schwartz wrote in her book A History of DogsIn Early America,“dogs occupied and operated on severallevels: they connected the wild and the tame, and theyjoined nature and culture.”

Clearly identifiable dog remains date back to 14,000years ago in the Old World and to approximately 10,000years ago in the New World. By around 7,000 years ago, it’sbelieved that dogs ranged across the Americas, having ac-companied migrating human populations.

Though the archaeological record on dogs is expand-ing, it remains sketchy. But, supplemented by historic andethnographic accounts, it indicates that dogs performedvarious duties in prehistoric times.“My guess, from all theevidence I’ve looked at, is their main role was spiritual,”Crockford says.“It astonished me that you get the patternof people being buried with dogs all over the world.”

There’s evidence in ethnographic reports of dogs hav-ing special powers, one of which is to be a guardian of thedead in the next world.A remarkable joint burial was dis-covered on the Braden farm in Weiser, in western Idaho,where at least a dozen human burials along with two do-mesticated dogs were exhumed. Radiocarbon testing ofone of the dog bones dates the interments to about 7,500years ago, making the canid remains among the oldest inwestern North America and perhaps the earliest knownexample of intentional dog burials associated with humanburials in the Americas, according to Robert Yohe II of Cal-ifornia State University at Bakersfield and Max Pavesic ofBoise State University.

Both dogs appear to be associated with the remainsof a middle-aged female who was buried with severallarge, ceremonial bifaces and a flaked stone drill. Since thedogs were of different ages and were laid directly with thewoman (who shows signs of having been killed by a spearthrust to the spine),Yohe surmises they were likely her

These late Archaic-period dog burials were discovered in western

Tennessee. The above remains were found at the Big Sandy site and the

lower remains at the Eva site. These carefully interred remains are

approximately 5,000 years old. The purpose of these burials is unknown.

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pets and were sacrificed to allow them to enter the after-life with her.

The earliest known dog burial in North America mark-ing definitive interaction with human society is in Koster,Illinois, located in the Illinois River Valley.There, archaeol-ogists uncovered a shallow pit containing the completeskeletons of three dogs estimated to be 8,500 years old.Darcy Morey, who studied the dog remains, concurredwith other archaeologists that this was an intentional bur-ial and speculates that it demonstrated an affectionatehuman-dog relationship.

Although not associated with a human burial, CryptCave Dog was also treated with apparent reverence.Thedog’s intact skeleton, which was radiocarbon dated toabout 7,500 years ago, was found in Nevada and analyzedby Amy Dansie. He was buried in fish netting, and Dansienotes that shrouding a dog in such a valuable commodityindicates the animal had great value. So does evidence of aseverely broken leg so well healed that Dansie concluded

a human must have tended to it. “He wasn’t runningaround on this compound fracture,” she says.“Someonefed him and took care of him.”

Over time, dogs would assume multiple domesticroles. Dansie suggests that dogs in the Great Basin servedas roving garbage disposals, subsisting on scraps in refusemiddens, evidenced by the concentrated remains of dogpopulations in wetland areas, where food is more abun-dant, and their scarcity in the more arid eastern GreatBasin. Dogs served to limit the accumulation of trash nearhuman habitations while requiring little maintenancefrom human cohabitants.

In the western Great Basin, the Paiutes used dogs todig out small game such as ground squirrels and gophers.The Paiutes went so far as to fashion protective boots fortheir dogs out of badger skin so they wouldn’t hurt theirpaws. Dansie says the Paiutes also used their dogs aswatchdogs, and the canines probably helped them keepwarm during cold winter nights.

The Colima culture flour-ished in Western Mexicoroughly between 400 B.C.and A.D. 500. Their arti-sans created hundredsof different types of ves-sels, the most famous ofwhich are the pot-bellieddogs. Most of these ves-sels date from the lateformative to the earlyclassic period—A.D.100– 500—and very fewhave site proveniencesor firm dates.

These dogs repre-sent a hairless breedraised and fattened forconsumption and sacrifice. It is believed that these dogs were also used for companionship, hunt-ing, protection, and medicinal purposes. The dogs and the dog vessels were buried with the deadalong with other ceramic forms, as well as objects made of cloth, wood, feathers, basketry andfoodstuff. Evidence suggests that the buried objects were related to death and rebirth.

36 fall • 2002

ROUGH TREATMENT

There is evidence that humans loved their dogs as well asevidence that they treated them roughly. Diane Warren, adoctoral candidate in Indiana University’s archaeology de-partment, has discovered a pattern of abuse in the bones

of 2,500- to 5,000-year-old dogs from the southeasternUnited States.“I’m finding a high incidence of broken ribs,broken vertebrae, and healed cranial fractures consistentwith the kind of injuries from dog abuse,” says Warren,whose research on the health of late Archaic dogs may fillin some of the blanks about the health and habits—par-

In the late 18th century,European explorers on thenorthwest coast of North

America recorded two distinctbreeds of indigenous dogs. Oneof them was a medium-sized,dingo-like animal sometimesused for hunting; the other wasa smaller spitz-type, long-haireddog.

Archaeozoologist SusanCrockford calls the former thevillage dog and the latter thewool dog. Crockford, throughthe analysis of dog bones from some 20 sites near theU.S./Canadian border, has foundevidence of two types of dogs that seem to matchhistorical descriptions.

The wool dog was bred forits coat, which Indians shearedoff with mussel shell knives andwove into ceremonial blankets.According to Crockford,measures were reportedly takento keep the two types frominterbreeding, with theirhandlers going so far as tosequester the wool dogs on anisland when they couldn’totherwise be monitored.As aresult, while remains of villagedogs are found across westernNorth America, wool dogsstayed exclusively on theNorthwest coast.

With the arrival of sheep’swool and Hudson Bay blankets,dog wool lost its value.Wooldogs were no longer isolatedand the breed rapidly becameextinct due to interbreeding.

Indigenous West Coast Dogs

These illustrations of the village dog (above) and the wool dog (below) are based on historical

descriptions and remains found at archaeological sites.

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key roles in the myths of some people; in other myths,dogs were scarcely mentioned.”

The injured bones that Warren concluded showhuman-induced trauma came from ceremonial gravesitesunearthed in the 1930s.There, dogs were buried alongsidehumans, perhaps as a religious offering or for companion-ship in the afterlife, while other dogs were interred ontheir own with obvious care.

As Schwartz observes,“There’s so much mystery sur-rounding the peopling of America, including the numberand timing of migrations.”A similar mystery, partly due tothe limited archaeological evidence, surrounds New Worlddogs.“When people are excavating they often don’t rec-ognize dog remains,” Crockford says,“and therefore theyaren’t recorded carefully enough.” Crypt Cave Dog is aglaring case in point.The remains were excavated in the1950s and for decades sat on a shelf in the Nevada StateMuseum, collecting dust.“We had no idea that we had anydogs in the Nevada State Museum until I went looking forthem,” Dansie states.

The mystery is further complicated by the mean-dering trail Canis familiaris took into breed specifica-tion, occasional hybridization with wolves, and apparentextinction of some types, whether engineered by humansor not. But to a number of researchers, it’s a mysterywell worth solving.

Crockford believes that, given the dog’s long historyas a domesticate and its presence at the side of humans inevery habitable corner of the world, it merits a very spe-cial place in archaeology.

Though a great many details of the complex and puz-zling story of humans and dogs are yet to be revealed,Darcy Morey has succinctly defined it:“I think it was, andis, an intense relationship.”

DENNIS JOHNSON is a writer based in Tacoma, Washington.

american archaeology 37american archaeology 37

ticularly what she calls the interpersonal violence—ofpeople who lived in that time and place.

Ironically, many of the canine skeletons bearing signsof trauma came from ceremonial gravesites archaeologistsuncovered in the 1930s. They found some dogs buriedalongside humans, perhaps as a religious offering or forcompanionship in the afterlife, and others carefully in-terred alone. Warren calls it a “strange dichotomy” thatpeople would nurture in death the same animals theyharmed in life.

Morey also found evidence of trauma-inducedpathologies in centuries-old dog bones, though from avastly different era, culture, and clime. He and Danish col-league Kim Aaris-Sørensen, a zooarchaeologist with theUniversity of Copenhagen, studied the skeletal remains ofsled dogs from precolonial- and colonial-era archaeologicalsites of the Thule people in the Eastern Arctic. In a paperthey published in the March 2002 issue of Arctic maga-zine, Morey and Aaris-Sørensen called such traumas con-sistent with the animals having been disciplined as part oftheir management in teams.The archaeological record alsoincludes sled parts, trace buckles, whip shanks, and otherevidence that pack dogs were a traditional feature ofThule life.

In addition to being treated roughly, it’s obvious thatdogs were consumed.The Thule ate dog meat and usedtheir hides for clothing,“We have archaeological evidencethat the dogs were prized, but also eaten,” Dansie states.There were times in the Great Basin when dogs wereeaten during famines, she explains.“They didn’t like to eatdogs, but if they had to, they would eat someone else’sdog.”Though the Paiutes ate dogs when food was scarce,Dansie says there is no evidence in the Great Basin thatdogs were raised for food, as they were in Mexico duringthe time of the Aztecs.

Elizabeth Scott, an archaeologist with Illinois StateUniversity, has analyzed faunal remains at a number of lateWoodland sites in the middle Mississippi Valley and Iro-quois sites in the eastern Great Lakes. She has identifiedinstances of dog consumption, but it amounts to “five per-cent or less” of these peoples’ diets.Though the dog con-sumption could have been ritualistic, Scott’s best guess isthat it was simply “a food preference.”She searched in vainfor a pattern to their dog-eating habits.“I couldn’t find anycorrelation with temporal changes in dog consumption. Icouldn’t find any correlation with social complexity.”

In summing up her analysis of dog consumption,Scott says,“There’s no hard and fast rules and patterns.It’s as variable as human culture.” Her statement couldalso describe the millennia-long, often paradoxical rela-tionship between humans and dogs. “Among somegroups,” Schwartz writes,“eating dogs was strictly taboo,whereas other groups ate them with great relish. Somecultures relied on dogs for transportation and hauling.Others found them to be of no use at all. Dogs played

The skull of an adult male dog buried at Perry, a site occupied during

the Archaic through the Mississippian periods, in northern Alabama.

There is a large healed fracture above the right eye. Although great

care was taken in burying this dog, its injury could have been the

result of mistreatment.

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In recent years, archaeological research inLouisiana has rewritten the book on NorthAmerica’s prehistory. Prior to 1994, most ar-chaeologists agreed that the first sedentary so-ciety in America capable of constructing large

mounds and earthworks was the Poverty Point Cul-ture of the late Archaic period (circa 1700–700 B.C.).The type site for this civilization is the famousPoverty Point site in northeastern Louisiana. How-ever, new research by archaeologists Reca Jones, JoeSaunders, and others has demonstrated that societieswere sedentary and that mound construction beganin Louisiana at least 2,000 years earlier during themiddle Archaic period (circa 3700 B.C.).

These new dates for mound construction are at-tributed primarily to the bountiful environment ofthe lower Mississippi Valley. Though swampy andcovered by a maze of bayous and waterways, thislandscape was very attractive to the Archaic periodpeople, as food was plentiful.These people had notyet learned of agriculture, which was usually a ne-cessity for most sedentary societies. Nonetheless,the abundance of game, fish, and edible plants inthe region allowed them to live off of the land.Themyriad of waterways connected to the MississippiRiver also helped to connect these bayou people toother parts of the continent through trade.The text-books had to be rewritten.The Poverty Point peoplewere the beneficiaries of at least 2,000 years ofmound building tradition.

Mound building in Louisiana continued to flour-ish long after the Poverty Point culture had vanishedas societies grew more complex and as agriculturewas established. Between A.D. 800 and 1200, cornagriculture was introduced to the region, leading toradical social changes. Around A.D. 800, the ColesCreek culture arose in the region.Exhibiting traits ofboth the earlier Woodland and later Mississippiancultures, the Coles Creek people developed someagriculture, and, archaeologists believe, lived in astratified society that had developed elaborate ritu-alistic practices.

Coles Creek mound sites were not fortified like

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the later Mississippian ones, indicating that therewas little warfare, but their mound centers wereequally as large and complex and seem to serve cer-emonial purposes. The Coles Creek people con-structed both burial and platform mounds, alongwith other earthworks, around plazas that were theantecedents of the later Mississippian period sites.“The ceremonial centers of the Coles Creek culturewere the earliest examples of the rectangular

Learning About Louisiana’sFirst Mound BuildersThe Conservancy acquires the Mott Mounds.

38 fall • 2002

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A view of a corner of mound “A”. This is one of the largest mounds in

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mound-and-plaza arrangement,which became widespread in thesoutheastern U.S. after A.D. 1000,”stated University of North Car-olina archaeologist Vin Stepon-aitis.“The Mott site is among thelargest and best preserved of theColes Creek mound sites, and isan extraordinary example of thisearly style.”

The Mott site is located innortheast Louisiana on the westbank of Bayou Macon, an ancientchannel of the Mississippi Riverrich with fish, game, and otherresources. Mott is among thelargest mound centers in theSoutheast, covering nearly 200acres and containing at least 14mounds. Most of the moundsstand between 3 and 12 feet highand most measure about 175feet across. One of the mounds isamong the largest in Louisiana,standing over 28 feet tall and cov-ering a little over 2 acres at itsbase.All of the mounds were con-structed around a 48-acre plaza.

Archaeological investigationof the Mott site began in 1913when it was first described bypioneering archaeologist C. B.Moore. Moore tested all of themounds and observed that manyhad numerous stages of construc-tion. Later investigators fromHarvard University determinedthat at least some of the moundswere constructed during theColes Creek period upon earlierPoverty Point and late Paleo-Indian occupations. However,due to their size, the constructiondates for the largest mounds havenot yet been determined.

Recent investigations onother major mound groups inLouisiana have found that thosesites were constructed earlier and

were inhabited longer than waspreviously believed. A few siteshave even proven to contain veryearly mounds from the pre-ce-ramic, Middle Archaic period. JoeSaunders of Northeast LouisianaUniversity plans to take core sam-ples from Mott’s mounds this win-ter in the hope of determiningwhen mound construction began.

The Mott Archaeological Pre-serve is one of the Conservancy’slargest acquisitions in the South-east. Because of the site’s signif-icance, the Conservancy hadbeen trying to acquire it for overa decade. Ownership of the sitewas divided between the Cupitand Penick families, and recentlyboth families decided to sell.

“A site the size of Mott, andits excellent condition, providearchaeologists with a uniqueopportunity to study the socialdimension of prehistoric cultures,”said Saunders.“It will be possibleto establish the chronologicalsequence of mound constructionat the site. This will provide the

baseline data necessary to esti-mate the population size and levelof social organization associatedwith the development of Mott.”

—Alan and Jennifer Gruber



ConservancyPlan of ActionSITE: Mott MoundsCULTURE and TIME PERIOD:Late Paleo-Indian (9000 B.C.),late Archaic (1700–700 B.C.),Woodland (500 B.C.–A.D. 1200),Mississippian (A.D. 1200–1550).STATUS: There is the potential threat of looting, land leveling,and timber harvesting.ACQUISITION: The Conservancyneeds to raise $200,000 to pur-chase the site.HOW YOU CAN HELP: Please sendyour contributions to TheArchaeological Conservancy,Attn: Project Mott Mounds; 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902;Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517.

This illustration gives a bird’s-eye view of Mott. The site contained at least 14 mounds built around

a 48-acre plaza.

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During the 12th and 13th centuries A.D., whenMesa Verde was flourishing, Pueblo people liv-ing in what is now southwestern Colorado builttheir most elaborate villages, created beautifulpottery and jewelry, and developed a different

form of village layout, possibly indicative of a change inprehistoric social and political organization. But what ledup to this cultural climax,referred to by researchers as theGreat Pueblo period? The Conservancy’s two most recentColorado acquisitions, the Bement and the O’Brien sites,could answer questions about the evolution of Puebloansocial organization during the periods preceding the bet-ter known Pueblo III or Great Pueblo period.

The 16-acre Bement site is located near Mancos andcontains seven masonry architectural units, two probabletowers, multiple pit structures or kivas, midden areas, andan enigmatic series of six parallel sandstone walls.Two oc-cupation periods are represented at the Bement site:Thefirst lasted from about A.D. 750 to 850, and the secondfrom A.D. 1000 to 1150.The 13-acre O’Brien site, locatedabout one mile from the Bement site near Dolores, con-tains several 11-unit pueblos that date from about A.D.1000 to 1150 and an isolated field house that dates to be-tween A.D. 750 and 1150.

“Recent research in the Mesa Verde region has focusedon the investigation of individual households or on largercommunities comprising many households,” said MarkVarien, director of research at Crow Canyon ArchaeologicalCenter in nearby Cortez. There has been almost no re-search on villages such as the O’Brien site that were largerthan a household but smaller than a community.“Research

Prehistoric Mesa Verde Pueblos inSouthwestern Colorado ProtectedThese two well-preserved sites will answer questions about a little-understood time.

there can contribute a great deal to our understanding ofcommunity organization during this time in prehistory. Fur-ther study of the unique features and well-preserved unitsat the Bement site will also make an important contributionto our understanding of ancient history in the Mesa Verderegion.” —Tamara Stewart

ConservancyPlan of Action

SITES: Bement and O’BrienCULTURE & TIME PERIOD: Mesa Verde Anasazi, A.D. 750–1150STATUS: Residential development and vandalism threatenthese sites.ACQUISITION: The Bements have agreed to sell 16.2 acres containing the Bement site for $100,000, and the O’Briens have agreed to sell 13.6 acres containing the O’Brien site for$85,000, both as bargain-sale-to-charity transactions. Additionalfunds are needed for fencing, stabilization of portions of theBement site, management plans, stewardship, and the creationof public displays and informational handouts. The Conservancyhas received a $145,210 Colorado Historical Fund grant andmust raise $78,190 in matching funds by March 2003.HOW YOU CAN HELP: Please send your contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Project Bement & O’Brien;5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902; Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517.

This unusual parallel-wall feature was found at the Bement site. Though

archaeologist Mark Varien has worked in the region for 23 years, he has

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ond POINT campaign. We need toraise $1 million in matching funds bythe end of 2003. It is quite a chal-lenge in these unsettled times, butone I know our loyal benefactorswill support.

We plan to use the POINT-2funds to continue to buy highly en-dangered sites across the country.Areas of special focus are the Algo-nquian sites of the Northeast, thelarge mound sites of the MississippiDelta, the villages and mounds of theOhio River Valley, the Anasazi sitesof the Four Corners, and the villagesites of California’s Central Valley,and nationally significant early-human sites. —Mark Michel

Two years ago, a memberof our board of directorspresented a very specialproposal to the Conser-vancy. He offered to give

us $1 million if we could raise another$1 million to match it. The fundswould be used to quickly acquirehighly endangered archaeologicalsites around the nation—sites thatwere in imminent danger of beingsold or destroyed, as well as thosesites for which a cash offer is requiredin order to make the purchase.

We called it a project to “ProtectOur Irreplaceable National Trea-sures” or POINT, and it has been agreat success. We raised the $1 mil-

lion matching funds and we arequickly spending the money to savehighly threatened sites from coast tocoast. It has been so successful infact that one of our original direc-tors, Richard Woodbury, has pledgeda substantial sum to kick off a sec-

POINT Acquisitions

Cambria

Indian Villageon Pawnee Fork

White Potato Lake

Hunting Creek

GravelineMound

A. C.Saunders

Parchman Place

McClellan

Sumnerville

O’Dell Mounds

IngomarMounds

Martin

Lorenzen

Waters Pond

SquawPointPueblo

FortFoster

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Point-2 CampaignLaunched

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Mound springs are formedwhen mineral depositsfrom spring seepage ac-cumulate over hundreds,perhaps thousands, of

years. In arid areas such as southernNevada, these once-abundant springsprovided rich sources of plants andanimals for native peoples, who usedthe springs and left archaeologicalevidence in the areas surroundingthem. But rapid development inthe Pahrump Valley, about 50 milesnorthwest of Las Vegas, has de-stroyed most of the mounds there.

With the help of amateur ar-chaeologist Don Hendricks, who as-sisted with negotiations, the Conser-vancy used POINT funds to purchase2.5 acres containing a portion of oneof the few remaining intact moundsprings.The site contains prehistoricdeposits that date from the Late Ar-chaic through the Ceramic period,indicating human use of the site forthe last 2,500 years. A later historiccomponent has also been identifiedat the site when Mound Spring likelyserved as a water stop for wagonfreights and stagecoaches that ranthrough the Pahrump Valley in thelate 1800s and early 1900s.

Although very little research hasbeen undertaken at mound springsites, investigations at one in the

Pahrump Valley revealed a prehis-toric habitation site that appears tohave been seasonally used for severalthousand years, most recently bySouthern Paiute people who occu-pied the region after about A.D.1000. Mound springs in the valleyhave also been known to contain theremains of Pleistocene megafaunathat date as far back as 11,000 to13,000 years ago, although no evi-dence of human activity associatedwith the remains has yet been found.

“Mound Spring is a significant

Saving Mound Springfrom DevelopmentAncient springs in arid southern Nevada provided oases for prehistoric peoples.

part of the archaeological record,”said Greg Seymour, an archaeologistwith Las Vegas Springs Preserve, whohas conducted excavations at moundspring sites in the nearby Las VegasValley. “Sites such as these can pro-vide evidence for reconstructing an-cient environments and informationabout prehistoric adaptive strategiesof native peoples in this region. Be-cause most mounds have been lostdue to development, the importanceof this particular one has increasedsignificantly.” —Tamara Stewart

This is one of the few remaining mound springs in the Pahrump Valley, where years of ground water

pumping has lowered the water table to the point that the springs no longer flow.

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In June 1775, the people ofMachias on the eastern coast ofMaine captured the smallBritish warship Margaretta inthe first sea battle of the Revo-

lution. Local residents and Indiansfrom the area soon captured twomore British vessels. Machias was aprosperous lumbering and farmingcommunity located around the up-stream head of a tidal estuary. Thetown then prepared for defense bybuilding a series of earthworks at the“Rim,” a peninsula commanding asharp bend in the upper river, subse-quently named Fort Foster.

In September 1776, the originaldefensive works were strengthenedwith the construction of a temporaryfortification, or breastwork; a lookout;and living quarters for guards. Thesedefensive works, stretching over 200yards, were associated with a floatinglog-and-iron-chain boom stretchedacross the river to prevent ships frompassing up to Machias. On August 13,1777, two British frigates and anarmed brig arrived off Round Islandbelow Machias.The frigates could gono further up the river, so the brigwith all the marines aboard and an-other small vessel proceeded. TheBritish force was stopped by the boomat the Rim. An exchange of fire beganuntil the local militia at the earthworksand blockhouse abandoned the fortifi-cations. The British landed and tookpossession of the battery.

The following day, after cuttingthe boom, the British proceeded upthe river but found strong oppositionfrom more militia and Passamaquoddy,

Penobscot, and Malecite Indians.Thefortifications at Fort Foster were re-taken by the militia and Indians,while the British ships retreateddown the river a short distance.Thedefending forces followed the shipsand exchanged fire with them forabout three hours. The retreatingbrig ran aground at the Rim andcame under such heavy fire that thecrew had to remain below deck.Eventually the brig refloated andcontinued its downstream retreat.The British fleet eventually departedand Machias was not threatenedagain during the Revolution.

The site of Fort Foster is nowwooded, but the breastwork andtrenches are visible as ditches andraised berms of earth parallel withthe shore.The exact locations of thelookout and guards’ quarters are un-known, but these archaeological fea-tures and the expended ordnance

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Machias, Maine, and the MargarettaThe Conservancy preserves the site of the first naval battle of the Revolutionary War.

Fearing that this beautiful site would be purchased for residential development, the Conservancy

used POINT funds to purchase Fort Foster.

and other debris from the exchangeof fire with the ships, successful as-saults by British marines, and later bymilitia and Indian allies must stillexist in this undisturbed battlefield.

The location of Fort Foster wasnever forgotten by local historians.Recently, Alaric Faulker of the Uni-versity of Maine confirmed that theland, now grown to woods, hadnever been plowed. Leon Cranmerof the Maine Historic PreservationCommission mapped the earthworksin 2001 as part of the AmericanBattlefield Protection Program, spon-sored by the Department of the In-terior. In contacting the landowner,he learned that the entire extent ofFort Foster was contained withinone parcel of land of 13.5 acres, thatthe land had been for sale for manyyears, and that the battlefield hadnever been disturbed.

—Donald Craib

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Field NotesC O N S E R V A N C Y

44 fall • 2002

Shortly after the discovery, re-searchers from the Smithsonian In-stitution and the U.S. Geological Sur-vey excavated the site and found thebones of several mammoths, bison,

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Mammoth Skull Excavated at Lamb SpringSOUTHWEST—Researchers at theUniversity of Colorado at Boulderhave excavated the skull and tusks ofa mammoth that died more than10,000 years ago on the Conser-vancy’s Lamb Spring Preserve southof Denver this summer. The mam-moth skull was originally found bySmithsonian researchers in 1981 andreburied for later retrieval.

Led by archaeologist JamesDixon, the researchers recovered theancient skull and took it to the Den-ver Museum of Nature and Science,where a mold and cast will be made.The museum also will have the skullon public display.A cast of the skulland tusks will be displayed at LambSpring next summer as part of an on-going project to develop a museumat the site.

“This site is exceptional becauseit has well-preserved bones of ice-age animals in the spring deposits,”Dixon said.“And because it is locatedin the Denver metropolitan area,Lamb Spring provides unusual op-portunities for public education andparticipation in science.”

The excavation, funded in partby a $75,000 grant from the Col-orado State Historical Fund and a$25,000 contribution from the Dou-glas County Historic PreservationBoard, is part of a larger plan to de-velop Lamb Spring into a museumand education facility. Another grantfrom the Colorado State Historical

Fund was used to help purchaseLamb Spring. The site was discoveredin 1960 by landowner Charles Lambwhen he was digging a stock pondand came upon the mammoth tusks.

University of Colorado Museum and Field Studies instructor Paul Murphey (right) talks with graduate

student Erin King (left) as classmates Andrew Ericson (foreground) and Amy Moe help excavate an

intact young female mammoth skull from the Lamb Spring dig site southwest of Denver.


the Goodall tradition. Goodall is a re-gional variant of the Hopewell cul-ture found in northern Indiana andsouthern Michigan. It is very similarto the Havana Hopewell of Illinois,and archaeologists originally specu-lated that it represented a migrationof Havana Hopewell people up theKankakee River to a new homeland.More recent research has demon-strated that the Goodall tradition is atleast as ancient in Indiana as the Ha-vana Hopewell is in Illinois. It nowseems more likely that Goodall is aresult of Indiana’s local middle Wood-land period inhabitants adopting as-pects of the Havana Hopewelllifestyle.

Old Mobile CelebratesTricentennialSOUTHEAST—The Conservancy’sOld Mobile Preserve in Alabama hasseen a great deal of activity as theCity of Mobile prepared to celebrateits 300th year since French colonistsfirst settled the site on 27 Mile Bluffabove the Mobile River.

Last December, Jay Johnson ofthe University of Mississippi andBerle Clay of Cultural Resource Ana-lysts, Inc., joined Greg Waselkov ofthe University of South Alabama inWaselkov’s ongoing research at thesite in an ambitious remote-sensingproject that hoped to locate the re-mains of Fort Louis de la Louisiane.The log and earth fort served as thecapitol of French Louisiana from1702 to 1711. Despite extensive re-search at Old Mobile, the exact loca-tion is yet to be determined.

The researchers employed a va-riety of remote-sensing technologies

including thermal imaging, conduc-tivity tests, gradiometer surveys, andground penetrating radar (GPR).Some methods proved more suc-cessful than others in revealing newfeatures. While GPR was successfulin identifying some features, the con-ductivity tests revealed others in-cluding three large anomalies. One isbelieved to be a proto-historic Mo-bile Indian occupation; however, theother two features remain unidenti-fied. Waselkov hopes to identifythem when he excavates theseanomalies later in the year.

In January, 400 people turnedout for an on-site ceremony to com-memorate the 200th anniversaryof Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bi-enville’s landing at Old Mobile.Theceremony marked the kickoff of ayear of special events planned tomark the 300 years since Frenchcolonists first settled Mobile. TheConservancy has been hosting anumber of events and educationaltours throughout the year.

Bienville selected the location at27 Mile Bluff, with the approval ofhis brother and expedition headPierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, in mid-January of 1702 as a suitable loca-tion at which to build Fort Louisde la Louisiane and a town. Fromthis locale, the French settled theGulf Coast and the Mississippi Valleyin an attempt to thwart British con-trol of the North American interior.However, within a few years, the lo-cation of Fort Louis proved to be un-satisfactory due to its damp location,occasional flooding, and its incon-venient distance from the coast.Thetown was then moved downstreamto its current location. Bienville laterfounded New Orleans.

and other ice-age mammals. Radio-carbon dating has shown that someof the mammoth bones are morethan 13,000 years old. In the early1980s, Dennis Stanford, a Smithson-ian archaeologist, found spear pointsand other evidence indicating thatpeople hunted and butchered bisonat the spring between 8,000 and9,000 years ago.

“The Lamb Spring site is signifi-cant for many reasons, one of whichis that it has served as a focal pointfor human activity since the end ofthe last ice age,” Dixon said. “Thespring attracted animals, and thewater and animals attracted humans.As a result, the remains of many an-cient camp and hunting sites are lo-cated around the spring.”

The Conservancy Purchases anAddition to the SumnervilleMounds PreserveMIDWEST—The Archaeological Con-servancy has entered into an agree-ment to purchase two additionalacres of land adjacent to our recentlyestablished Sumnerville Mounds pre-serve in southwestern Michigan.Thenew parcel includes the largestmound in the complex and a smallermound. With this POINT Programpurchase, the Conservancy has takenpossession of all the identifiablemounds in the Sumnerville moundscomplex except for one located in apublic park.

Originally encompassing aboutsix acres and including six or moreconical mounds, the Sumnervillemound group likely dates to thefourth century A.D. and has beenconsidered a late manifestation of

T H E A R C H A E O L O G I C A L C O N S E R V A N C Y

46 fall • 2002

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El Castillo, a classic example of the Maya technique ofconstructing a pyramid within another pyramid. FromXunantunich you’ll travel to the recently discovered cere-monial site of Caracol, possibly the largest Maya site inLatin America.

You’ll spend several days investigating the magnifi-cent city of Copán, considered by many to be the crownjewel of the southern Maya. Copán’s famous monument,the Hieroglyphic Stairway, has 63 steps that contain morethan 2,000 intricately carved glyphs.

More of the MayaM A Y A O F P A L E N Q U E A N D Y U C A T Á NWhen: February 13–23, 2003Where: Southern MexicoHow much: $2,495 ($295 single supplement)

From A.D. 300 to 1200, the Maya flourished in the YucatánPeninsula of Mexico. Their splendid cities, which stilltower over the rain forest, testify to the sophistication ofthe mysterious people who built them. Our tour will visitsome of the most spectacular of these cities. You’ll ex-plore the Pyramid of the Magician at Uxmal, one of the

The Amazing Maya B E L I Z E A N D C O P Á NWhen: January 10–19, 2003Where: Belize and HondurasHow much: $2,495 ($295 single supplement)

Our tour begins on the coast of Belize, where you’ll visitBelize City and take a boat ride up the New River toLamanai, a Maya trading center established before Christand occupied until A.D. 1641. From the coast you’ll travelto the inner reaches of Belize and explore the magnificentmountaintop palace of Cahal Pech.

A ferry ride will take you to the ruins of Xunantu-nich, once an important trading center.There you’ll tour

This full-scale replica of Rosalila Temple is featured at the Sculpture

Museum at Copán. Rosalila Temple was originally built in A.D. 571 and

buried within another temple.

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Maya expert John Henderson points to El Castillo at Xunantunich, Belize.


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The Archaeological Conservancy5301 Central Avenue NE • Suite 902

Albuquerque, NM 87108(505) 266-1540 www.americanarchaeology.org

Patrons of PreservationThe Archaeological Conservancy would like to thank thefollowing individuals, foundations, and corporations for

their generous support during the period of May throughJuly 2002. Their generosity, along with the generosity of

the Conservancy’s other members, makes our workpossible.

Life Member Gifts of $1,000 or moreJane Elizabeth Atkeson, Ohio

Winslow Avery Atkeson, ColoradoBetty Banks, WashingtonCyndy Firer, ConnecticutJ. Carolyn Gezon, Utah

Paul and Marjorie Golden, MissouriRuth Hanold, MinnesotaReneé Ingold, California

Douglas Jones, New MexicoMrs. John Kee, Jr., Texas

Jeff Kole, GeorgiaMary Lewis, Colorado

J. E. and Memorie Loughridge, FloridaUrsula Michaelson, California

Paul Rissman, New JerseyCatherine Symchych, Wyoming

Jeanne Vertefeuille, Virginia

Anasazi Circle Gifts of $2,000 or morePete and Christine Adolph, New Mexico

Olds Anderson, MichiganR. W. and Evie Beckwith, Florida

Helen Chatfield, OhioDonna Cosulich, New York

Helen Darby, CaliforniaJ. L. and Martha Foght, Illinois

David and Sue Knop, CaliforniaJack and Pat McCreery, California

Betty Mitchell, IllinoisLawrence and Kathleen Peterson, Colorado

Gavine Pitner, OhioWilliam and Priscilla Robinson, Arizona

Conrad and Marcella Stahly, New MexicoRoddy Stanton, New Mexico

Foundation/Corporate Gifts of $1,000–$29,999Courtland Homes, Arizona

Deupree Family Foundation, ArizonaJordan Family Foundation, Texas

Klutts Family Foundation, LouisianaStockman Family Foundation Trust, New Mexico

Foundation/Corporate Gifts of $30,000 or moreMoore Family Foundation, California

TO MAKE A DONATIONOR BECOME A MEMBER CONTACT:

The Palace and the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque are two of the

greatest architectural achievements of the Maya world.

largest of the Maya cities. At Kabah, you’ll see the stonemosaic of masks that adorns the Palace of the Masks.AtChichén Itzá, a magnificent city founded in the 5th cen-tury and occupied until the 13th century, you’ll see thelargest ballcourt found in Mesoamerica, as well as El Cara-col, a two-tiered astronomical observatory dating from the10th century.

Located deep in the rain forest is the city of Palenque,where you’ll spend a day touring many architectural won-ders. Inside the Temple of the Inscriptions is the tomb ofPacal the Great, who ruled Palenque from A.D. 615 to 683.

Homol’ovi: An AncientHopi Settlement ClusterBy E. Charles Adams(University of ArizonaPress, 2002; 320 pgs.,illus., $50 cloth; 800-426-3797)

Archaeologist Charles Adams has conducted15 years of research at Homol’ovi, a cluster offive Hopi villages and related sites on the Lit-tle Colorado River near Winslow, Arizona,some 60 miles south of the present Hopi vil-lages. Established about A.D. 1260 by theHopis, Homol’ovi became the center of a ro-bust trade in cotton between the Hopis andthe diverse peoples of the region.Attractedby the river’s resources and the ideal climate,the Hopis developed a thriving communitythat lasted only until about 1400. Floods,drought, and soil depletion may have forcedthem to move elsewhere.

The katsina (kachina) religion reachedHomol’ovi around 1350, and the power andbeauty of its ceremonies must have had aprofound impact on the entire region. Atabout the same time, large, enclosed plazaswith big kivas with murals appeared. Someof the villages grew to more than 1,000 sur-face rooms.

Adams deftly uses his research to tell thestory of Homol’ovi.This is a fascinating taleof the rise and fall of a very important settle-ment at a critical time for the people of theSouthwest.Well written in a narrative style, itwill appeal to the archaeologist and the lay-man with an interest in the people of theSouthwest and the Hopi in particular. It is afine example of how archaeology can makean ancient place and people come alive.

Today, most of the ruins are preserved inHomol’ovi Ruins State Park just off busy I-40,where Adams’s research is being developedand interpreted for the visitor. Homol’ovi II isopen to the public.For more information seewww.pr.state.az.us/parkhtml/homolovi.html.

—Mark Michel

Before and AfterJamestown: Virginia’sPowhatans and theirPredecessorsBy Helen C. Roundtree andE. Randolph Turner III(University Press ofFlorida, 2002; 272 pgs.,illus.; $40 cloth; 800-226-3822)

Virginia ethnologist Helen Roundtree andarchaeologist Randy Turner have joinedforces to create the first comprehensiveoverview of the Powhatans—the peoplewho met Captain John Smith at Jamestownin 1607 and who have occupied the Vir-ginia tidelands for the past 1,100 years.

Powhatan was the name of the mainvillage and of the paramount chief of theregion when the English landed atJamestown. It soon became the name ofthe cultural tradition. Starting with six dis-tricts, Powhatan expanded his domain toabout 30 districts by 1607, according toCaptain Smith. Pocahontas was one of hismany children. The Powhatans were thefirst native people to come into extendedcontact with the English. Yet they arelargely a forgotten people as historians andarchaeologists alike have focused on theEnglish settlers.

Roundtree and Turner tell us thePowhatans were part of a larger Algonquin-speaking tradition that dominated the en-tire northern half of the Atlantic coast.Theylived in palisaded villages and they resistedthe European invasion and European cus-toms for 100 years.

Before and After Jamestown pieces to-gether a wealth of archaeological and otherdata to give us an account of thePowhatans.We hope it harbingers a revivalof interest in the Indian side of English set-tlement of America.

Rock Art of the Lower PecosCD-ROM (Rock ArtFoundation, 2002; $35; 888-525-9907)

The Rock ArtFoundation of SanAntonio has producedan exceptional CD-ROMfor Windows orMacintosh vividlyillustrating the spec-tacular rock art of theLower Pecos River inTexas. Containing morethan 200 high-resolutionphotographs, this CD-ROM is an outstandingexample of what can bedone with computertechnology.

Maps and timelinescomplement the rockart photography, givingviewers a compre-hensive picture of theartistic tradition.

48 fall • 2002

Reviews

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