Believes Find is Proof of Lost Indian Culture
A government archaelogist believes ancient fire pits
and pottery recently unearthed in south-central Montana are the works
of an Indian culture that disappeared hundreds of years ago from its
home range in modern-day Colorado and Utah.
Glade Hadden, a Bureau of Reclamation archaeologist, said evidence
found at the site near Bridger strongly suggests the area was inhabited
by Fremont people, an Indian culture known for its masonry work and
fine pottery.
"There is no doubt in my mind," Hadden said.
His could be a controversial conclusion, but it could also provide a
clue to determining what happened to the Fremont people, who are
believed to have disappeared from their home range in the 14th
century.
Nice vintage href="http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Jamestown%20Find">Jamestown
wine cellar believed unearthed
Eight glass bottles have been unearthed in a
brick-walled space that may have been the wine cellar of a house dating
from the close of the 1600s in Jamestown.
The intact, gourd-shaped bottles, which were found without corks, were
likely empty when they were stored in the cellar, said Bill Kelso,
director of archaeology for the Jamestown Recovery Project.
Archaeologists initially believed they contained remnants of wine.
"We looked at them closer and it doesn't look like that's a possibility," Kelso said Friday.
An intriguing question: href="http://www.tidepool.org/original_content.cfm?articleid=122793">When
Does Garbage Become Archaeology?
A rusted cooking pot, an old stove top, bits of china
and pottery. Exploring in the woods around a backcountry chalet in
Montana's Glacier National Park, we poked through the remains of
garbage --everything from glass chips to bed springs. We prodded these
remnants of the past: Historic rubbish.
Knowing the National Park Service classifies these dumpsites as
archaeological, we carefully let our findings be. But our search posed
questions: When does garbage become historic and thereby protected?
What separates junk left to rot and historic treasures in our national
parks and wilderness areas?
Certainly, we prize broken bits of pottery left from the Anasazis of
800 or so years ago in our southwestern sanctuaries, because their
shards provide clues to our ancient cultural history. And we place
cherished recent architectural creations--Mount Rainier's Paradise Inn
built in 1916; Grand Canyon Lodge, built in 1927-28; and Glacier's
Going-to-the-Sun Road, completed in 1932--on the Register of National
Historic Landmarks.
But in national parks and wilderness areas where early 20th century
ethics allowed garbage to be dumped in a pile and galvanized phone
wires to crisscross the mountains, the line between historic refuse and
just plain trash blurs.
Traditionally, as the article quotes someone, 50 years is considered
"archaeological" when something is found. The bane of CRM (Cultural
Resource Management) archaeologists are can dumps -- piles of cans
(from canned food and such) that were dumped over a period of a few
days or weeks 40+ years ago. They're found all over the place out west
and they're a pain to record. One might think "Who cares?" but mind
this sentence: cleaning up these dumpsites removes a window
into more recent human history. Collections of castoff trash hide clues
to how hikers behaved in the backcountry in the 1940s and how they
interacted with the environment in the '60s, just on the cusp of the
"50 year" benchmark. We might think we know all about what
happened 40 years ago, but in many ways we don't. We really don't have
a good institutional memory of what campers were doing out in the
wilderness in the recent past, what they took with them, what they left
behind, etc.
The answer, btw, is probably unanswerable. Like many things in archaeology, "it depends".
From South Africa href="http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=qw1089932941491B261">Two
more burial sites found in Kimberley
Two more burial sites have been discovered in Kimberley, the SABC reported on Thursday.
The finding comes after last May's discovery of 180 unmarked graves in the city.
The area where the graves were found is north of the city centre and
developers and archaeologists are divided as to what should be done
with the matter.
Archaeologists say that more than 5000 graves could be lying in the
area. Subsequent to that, they say, the area should be
preserved.
RIP href="http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1089970241289201.xml">Dr.
Miriam (Scharf) Balmuth, 79, renowned archaeologist
When Dr. Miriam (Scharf) Balmuth joined Tufts
University's Department of Classics in 1964 as an assistant professor,
she was a pioneer in a field normally closed to women.
Balmuth, 79, who taught at Tufts for four decades and was one of the
early women to achieve eminence in her field, died of cancer June 30 at
her home in Santa Fe, her residence since 2001.
One of the first women to be hired in the department - and, five years
later, one of the first to receive tenure - Balmuth opened the field to
new generations of women as she rose through the academic ranks, took
part in numerous digs, and became internationally known.
Dem old bones. . . . href="http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/exeter/07162004/news/27126.htm">Human
bones may be 300 years old
An excavator working at a new subdivision Thursday
unearthed the skeletal remains of at least three human bodies that may
have been buried as many as 300 years ago.
The bones were discovered around 9:30 a.m. when a worker was excavating
in the area of the Hamilton Heights housing development off Plummer
Road, Epping police Lt. Michael Wallace said.
The worker immediately stopped digging and police were notified about the unusual discovery.
Though the bodies were not buried in a box or a coffin to protect them,
Wallace said they appeared to be "pretty well preserved."
Field School alert href="http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp?S=2049680">Students
finding clues to how early Cades Cove settlers lived
Archaeologists and college students are finding clues about the lives of early Cades Cove settlers.
A team from the University of Tennessee is conducting small "digs"
around the John Oliver cabin as part of the Smoky Mountain
Archaeological Field School. They're turning up some relics from the
Olivers' time in the cove, the early 1800's.
Graduate assistant Elijah Ellerbush says the cove represents one of the
earliest European-American settlements in the mountains. The project
also looks for relics from the Cherokee Indian era and prehistoric
peoples.
The researchers have identified an area of fieldstones they believe was from the first cabin the Olivers built.
They've also unearthed nails, pieces of pottery, glass and glazed
ceramic shards believed be from an English plate. And there are pieces
of stone, likely flaked from weapons or tools.
That's the whole thing. Not really an "alert" since it's already
started either. At any rate, we should have thought of posting about
this earlier in the season, but hey, we forgot, being the eminently
important archaeologists we are. Every summer legions of undergraduates
fan out across the country to attend field schools. These are usually
real archaeological projects that use students getting credit as
excavators. It's pretty much the only way to get the needed experience
to go on any other digs, unless you can volunteer somewhere.
Choose your FS carefully, however. You want one that's actually
teaching you to excavate properly, not one that just gets students for
their strong backs. Oh, and get one in a pleasant location with a
director that looks after basic creature comforts, too.