PERUVIAN ARCHAEOLOGY FEATURED AT MIDDFEST INTERNATIONAL IN MIDDLETOWN

Middfest Interational Peru 2011 welcomes five internationally renowned archaeologists to the region as part of the celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the uncovering of Machu Picchu. Headlining the list is famed Peruvian archaeologist Dr. Luis Jaime Castillo de Butters, one of Peru's most distinguished scholars. Dr. Castillo serves as the Scientific Director of the San Jose de Moro Archaeological Program and is the Principal Professor at Pontificia Unviversidad Catolica del Peru in the field of Archaeology.

"The Art of Preservation and the Archaeological Treasures of Peru," is the result of a major grant from the Ohio Humanities Council. Scholars from Peru and the United States will present programs all weekend long from September 30th through October 2nd, as part of this year's celebration of all things Peruvian! Topics will include the rise of civilizations in ancient Peru, the Nasca Lines, and the Incan civilization. A special exhibit on Machu Picchu coming directly from the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. on Hiram Bingham's discovery and a replica of the Senora de Cao, an important Mochica find from the Weiss Foundation, will be exhibited in the Middletown City Building as part of this special event.

Among the issues discussed will be the history of the World Heritage List and the inscription of Peruvian sites. This will be important for Ohioans to consider as we look to the possibility of the future inscription of the Fort Ancient Earthworks, the Newark Earthworks, the many sites comprising Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, and Serpent Mound as World Heritage sites.

For more information, check out the Middfest International website:

http://www.middfestinternational.org/

WAS THERE WATER IN THE DITCH AT THE GREAT CIRCLE?

Pioneer Ohio archaeologist Caleb Atwater, author of the earliest published description of the Newark Earthworks, said that when he saw Newark's Great Circle, "…the ditch was half filled with water." Yet virtually none of the many subsequent archaeologists who studied the site made any mention of there being water in the ditch – and there certainly is no water in the ditch anymore.
I recently came across a newspaper account of an archaeological investigation undertaken in 1887 in which an excavator was hired by the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society (now the Ohio Historical Society)"to sink a hole in the bottom of the moat." According to the newspaper account, the excavation revealed that the ditch had been lined with "a fine gravel and cobble stone" that presumably would have enabled it to hold water. Unfortunately, the results of this excavation were never published formally and I have been unable to find any field notes or other records in the OHS archives that would allow this account to be substantiated. (For whatever reason, I don't take it for granted that everything published in a newspaper is an established fact.)

The interior ditch is an important element of the architecture of the Great Circle. None of the other major earthworks at Newark had one, so the builders didn't need to dig a ditch in order to build an enclosure. So they made a conscious decision to put a ditch inside the Great Circle. It must have been important and one reason for it may have been to create a barrier of water appropriate for certain kinds of ceremonies that the Hopewell conducted here and not at the other earthworks.

Kenneth Tankersley, archaeologist at the University of Cincinnati, and U.C. graduate student Emily Culver are conducting research at the Great Circle to answer this important question. They extracted a series of sediment cores from the ditch to see if they could identify soil layers consistent with water having been present. Culver reported the preliminary results of these investigations in her Masters thesis.

According to Culver, there is evidence for an "anthropogenic [human-made] buried soil placed as a ditch lining" at a depth of between 1.3 and 1.5 m below the current surface. X-ray diffraction analysis of the different layers in the soil cores indicates that calcite and other water soluble minerals are absent from the layers above the inferred ditch lining. According to Culver, this is due to the presence of water in the ditch from the time of its construction through the historic era. By the time Atwater visited the site, sometime prior to 1820, several generations of tree's roots and burrowing animals had punched enough holes in the lining to allow the water to begin to seep out of the ditch.

Culver argues that the water-filled ditch may have had both practical and symbolic functions. It may have provided drinking water during a dry climate episode, while serving as a social or religious expression of separation.

Whatever the correct interpretation for why the Hopewell created architectural barriers of both earth and water at some enclosures, knowing that the Great Circle's ditch did, indeed, once hold water is an important discovery that changes how we understand this amazing site and how it was related to the larger complex of earthworks of which it was but one part – and the only part with a water-filled ditch.

Brad Lepper

Is Taxidermy Valuable for a Museum?

I recently received a web-posting with links to an article about museums and taxidermy specimens. The author, Rachel Polquin muses in her article (see http://www.alumni.ubc.ca/2011/trek/2011-spring/the-beastly-art-of-taxidermy/ and book she has written) about the philosophical meaning of old mounted animals in museums and cites an example of one museum in Britain where “they destroyed all the old, musty, taxidermy specimens a few decades ago.” She has recently curated an exhibit of old taxidermy mounts at the Museum of Vancouver. The article is an interesting read.

One thing she says in her article is; “While I never advocate the making of new taxidermy, I believe that taxidermied animals, as old and musty as they might become, can be reinterpreted as not just something to look at, but something to think with.”


Yes! Taxidermied specimens can and should become something to think about. The Ohio Historical Society has on exhibit “Buttons” – the last documented wild Passenger Pigeon, which was shot in Pike County, Ohio in 1900. We are approaching the 100th anniversary of the death of Martha – the last captive Passenger Pigeon and the last of its species, which died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. That bird was mounted as is housed by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Viewing either of those mounted Passenger Pigeons should get all of us thinking about how we have impacted species in the past and the present. What can we do now to keep common species from becoming endangered and endangered species to become extinct?

However, I find the first part of Polquin’s statement incongruous with her other sentiments. If old taxidermy mounts have value – why not create the same value for the future by preserving specimens currently? Certainly I can understand not promoting the shooting of a California Condor or a Whooping Crane to make an exhibit – but if one dies from other causes, why not preserve it for the future – when perhaps it could be as important to society as our Passenger Pigeons are to us today? In our museum we almost never go out and trap and shoot animals to make exhibit mounts – but they are often readily available as road kills or window kills and are to us a valuable resource.

What about taxidermy mounts of more common species? It is certainly possible that species common today could become endangered tomorrow. Look at the sudden and catastrophic demise of ash trees since the accidental introduction of the Emerald Ash Borer into the Detroit-Toledo area in 2002! Just a few years ago I planted several ashes since they were hardy and abundant, native and very attractive. My ash trees are now threatened, and many millions have already died.

House Sparrows (aka English Sparrows) have become a significant nuisance species in North American since their purposeful introduction from Europe as early as 1850. An estimated 150 million House Sparrows in North American compete with native species, create messy nests around our homes, tear up home ventilation and insulation and even spread disease. From the 1950s to the 1970s in the UK their native populations were at between 9.5 and 12 million birds. In the last 25 years, their populations have crashed by 62% -- and they are now a “red listed” species of high conservation concern in the UK. What has caused this? Will they eventually become extinct in their native habitat? Will mounted specimens become invaluable? It is hard to know at this point, but it shows us that we often cannot predict drastic changes in common wildlife species.

But even if the animals are common, and will remain common, do not taxidermied mounts offer a great educational value? Sure, almost anyone would prefer to watch the live animal up close and personal, vibrant and alive with all their wonderful behavior. But even with zoos and parks, sometimes we cannot make the same extreme close examination in the wild that we can of a mounted specimen. Photographs are also great and offer many advantages, but they don’t carry the same impact as being inches away from a six-foot-tall Bison. Our museum’s education staff have often watched children and adults totally engaged in looking at mounted animals. A few people may be “creeped out” by the mounts, but many, many more are fascinated by them. Zoo animals don’t stand still as readily for close inspection. I know of one scout group who spent the greatest part of their visit studying our mounted animals. High school students study them to help learn how to identify the species, a skill that can be fun but can also serve them in the “Envirothon” competitions. (Learn more about Ohio’s Envirothron at http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/tabid/8652/Default.aspx ) The up close look shares not only the shape and color of the animal, but the size as well. Proportions of legs, wings, muscle groups, etc. also help us understand adaptations of the animals for their environment.

Then there is also the scientific value of taxidermied specimens. Measurements can be made, which added with many other specimens, can lead to an understanding of size ranges or color changes as they vary with geographic setting. Traces of pesticides or pollutants used many years ago can be detected in the specimen and tell us something of their life history and how it was impacted. DNA can be taken from a few hairs, feathers, or skin fragments where the specimen was sewn together, helping us understand the genetics of changing populations over the years. Many, many research projects have used taxidermied specimens, as well as their less aesthetic cousins, the study skin.

So, I would definitely “advocate the making of new taxidermy.” What are your thoughts on this subject?

Robert C. Glotzhober
Senior Curator, Natural History

NEW DISCOVERIES AT FORT RECOVERY

On November 4th 1791, the Miami Indian Chief Little Turtle and the Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket (who was not, by the way, an adopted white captive) led a coalition of tribes against the invading U.S. Army of Gen. Arthur St. Clair. A force of about 1,200 Indian warriors attacked St. Clair’s camp at the site of the modern city of Fort Recovery in Mercer County, Ohio, killing more than half of the 1,400 soldiers and sending the survivors fleeing in panic. It's harder to estimate casualties on the Indian side, but according to one reliable estimate they lost only 21 killed and 40 wounded. This was the most spectacular military victory ever achieved by North America's indigenous people over the U.S. Army – greater even than Sitting Bull's annihilation of a portion of Custer’s 7th Cavalry.

Two years later, on Christmas Day, an American army led by Gen. Anthony Wayne returned to the site of this devastating defeat. They found a landscape so covered with bones that they had to rake the piles aside to make room to erect their tents. On the following morning some of the soldiers collected and buried the remains, including between 400 and 600 human skulls, while others began work on building a fortification. Wayne named it Fort Recovery since it was to be a dramatic symbol of the recovery of the U.S. Army. This fort became a base for Wayne's ultimately successful campaign against the Indians of the Ohio Country and the fort itself became one of the benchmarks of the Greeneville Treaty line.

The Ohio Historical Society and the Fort Recovery Historical Society (FRHS) maintain the site of Fort Recovery, which includes a recreation of the two blockhouses and the connecting stockade wall. But Chris Keller, Ball State University (BSU) archaeologist and volunteer for the FRHS told me recently that "we really know very little about the actual construction, dimensions, or typology of Fort Recovery.”

In an effort to learn more about Fort Recovery and the battles of the Indian Wars waged across this bloody ground, a team of archaeologists from BSU, including Keller, Mark Groover, and Mark Hill of BSU are searching for traces that might be preserved amid the yards and back alleys of the modern city of Fort Recovery. I describe some of the results of this search in my August 21st column in the Columbus Dispatch.

The team worked with Jarrod Burks of Ohio Valley Archaeology, Inc. to conduct a remote sensing survey of some likely locations, which they subsequently investigated through excavation. In one unit the team discovered traces of what is likely to prove to be one of the walls of the original fort in a miraculously preserved patch of ground just across the street from the restored fort.

Artifacts found in these excavations include the center band from a 1766 Charleville Musket, a musket ball and two pieces of a broken spoon, all of which relate to the period of the Indian Wars and so either are objects left behind in the wake of St. Clair's defeated Army or material discarded by Wayne's men during the construction of the fort.

This just goes to show that important traces of the past can be preserved almost anywhere! The BSU team deserves enormous credit for their efforts to recover these priceless fragments of Ohio's story.













Here is a link to my column in the Columbus Dispatch: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/science/2011/08/21/scientists-find-more-secrets-at-ohio-fort.html

Hooked on Pickawillany

One of the more surprising objects recovered by Hocking students during the 2011 archaeology field school at Pickawillany was a large iron and brass hook. At a level just above the bottom of Feature # 10 the metal detector indicated what was thought to be a series of smaller individual metal objects. Careful excavating by students Erin Rowland and Chloe Sampson revealed a large hook-shaped object nearly 40 inches long. Looking like an oversized fish hook it was made of at least 3 shorter lengths of round iron stock hammer welded together to make a single bar with a relatively small 2 inch diameter loop or eye at the proximal end. The approximately lower one fourth of the hook was fashioned from what possibly might be round brass stock that looked to be fitted to a socket at the end of the iron portion. The tip of the hook was tapered but blunted so that the very tip was not overly sharp. It was probably the combination of two different metals that caused the metal detector to give conflicting readings. What was the hook used for? To hang animals while they were field dressed and the hide removed? Possibly. The dull point would lessen the chance of the hook tearing through the animal's hide. Perhaps it was a grappling hook of sorts that was fastened to a rope and thrown ashore from a boat or canoe as it was landing or perhaps from the shore to a boat to accomplish the same thing. Who’s to say? Maybe it was just something made by a blacksmith at Pickawillany and only he knew what it was all about. My father was a highly skilled craftsman that could make just about anything out of metal and often quickly fashioned things for a specific purpose that might be used only once or twice before taking up permanent residence in the barn - so to speak. Perhaps it was one of those. At any rate it appears to have outlived its usefulness and ended up in the bottom of a refuse pit. Besides the hook, Feature #10 contained the leg hold trap previously posted as well as blade of a folding knife, a French fusil butt plate, several gun flints, a number of glass trade beads and a quantity of animal bones. There was also another object recovered that will be discussed in a later posting. Feature #10 was remarkable for the variety of objects recovered. It is one of a cluster of pits all containing black-smithy type items and may in fact indicate the location of the blacksmith’s area at Pickawillany. The answer to that question awaits further research. If a reader has an idea of what the hook was all about please drop us a line.

Bill Pickard

CIVILIZATIONS LOST AND FOUND – A RESPONSE TO "THE LOST CIVILIZATIONS OF NORTH AMERICA" DVD

The latest issue of the Skeptical Inquirer, "the magazine for science & reason," includes the first in a three-part series of articles written by archaeologist Ken Feder, historian Terry Barnhart (a former Curator of History for the Ohio Historical Society), physical anthropologist Deborah Bolnick and me responding to the claims put forward in the video documentary The Lost Civilizations of North America.

The title of this first article is "Civilizations Lost and Found: Fabricating History. Part One: An Alternate Reality."

We previously issued a brief statement that addressed our concerns with this documentary in general terms, but in this series of articles we refute many of the more serious errors of fact and interpretation that appear in this video in a much more substantive way. We are enormously grateful to Kendrick Frazier, the editor, for recognizing the need for a fulsome response to the important issues raised in the DVD and for allowing us to spread our discussion over three issues!

Perhaps the most important take-home message in the entire series of articles is that "…there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that the cultural developments exhibited in the archaeological record [of North America]… were in any way inspired by visitors or migrants from Africa, Europe, or Asia." And, in view of my recent appearance on the television program Ancient Aliens, we could have added "visitors or migrants from other planets" to that list!

Check out the article and watch for the rest of the series in the coming months!


Here is a link to our previous "Statement about the Lost Civilizations of North America DVD":
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2010/12/commentary-on-lost-civilizations-of.html


Brad Lepper

HOPEWELLIANS: THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE INTERACTION SPHERE

In her unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Biological affinities among Middle Woodland populations associated with the Hopewell Horizon, Elizabeth Pennefather-O'Brien explores the biological relationships between and among the varieties of Hopewell culture across eastern North America.

Termed "traditions," these varieties include the Scioto Hopewell in southern Ohio, Havana in Illinois, northern Missouri, Wisconsin, northwestern Indiana and southwestern Michigan, Crab Orchard in southern Illinois, southern Indiana and western Kentucky along the Ohio River, and Marksville in the lower Mississippi River valley.



Pennefather-O’Brien looked at crania (skulls) from sites in all of these regions. For example, the Albany Mounds, Klunk Mounds and Utica Mounds from the Havana region, Crooks Mounds in the Marksville region, and the Hopewell Mound Group and Turner Mounds in the Ohio Scioto region. By studying subtle variations in features of these crania, Pennefather-O'Brien was able to compare them from region to region and develop estimates of "biological distance," or degrees of relationship.

Biological distance studies generally show that groups tend to be isolated by geographic distance, which simply means that, in general, the farther apart two groups are the less they tend to interact with one another. Therefore, all other things being equal, the farther you are from someone, the less likely it is that you will be closely related. Pennefather-O’Brien determined, however, that “the typical isolation by geographic distance model does not fit with the Middle Woodland Hopewell Horizon associated samples.” Surprisingly, some widely separated Hopewell groups were more closely related to each other than they were to other groups that lived closer to them.

Pennefather-O’Brien found that samples from Utica Mounds and Klunk Mounds, both Havana sites, and Turner Mounds from the Scioto region are not statistically different, suggesting that these groups “may have originated from the same population or are genetically similar because of maintained social and biological interaction.”

In addition, she found that “In general, there are fewer significant differences between sub-groups for females than there are for males, indicating that there was much more similarity among the females and perhaps patrilocality was practiced.” This means that Hopewell men tended to stay in the areas where they were born while women tended to move to go live with their husbands. For example, females from Albany Mounds were not significantly different from the females at Turner Mounds and Utica Mounds. And females from the Hopewell Mounds were “more similar” to females from Crooks Mounds and Klunk Mounds. One interpretation of this observation is that women from the Havana and Marksville regions may have been coming to Ohio to marry Scioto Hopewell husbands.

Pennefather-O’Brien also compared the relationship between biology and status as measured by burial in a tomb with lots of mortuary offerings. She found that “In general, tomb associated and non-tomb burials from the same site are not significantly different from one another, with the exception of the two sub-samples from Turner Mounds. These two sub-samples appear to originate from or represent different populations” In other words, at most Hopewell sites, high status individuals came from the same population as lower status individuals. This indicates that the big shots weren't missionaries from other regions and there wasn’t a caste system that kept high class folks from marrying lower class folks.

Something different, however, is going on at the Turner site where the high status people buried in tombs seem to be different from the people given less sumptuous burials. Determining what's going on here will be a fascinating problem for further study.

Pennefather-O’Brien concludes that sites within the recognized regional traditions of Ohio Scioto, Crab Orchard, and Marksville “are related to one another” biologically and not just culturally. This means that the Hopewell Interaction Sphere involved more than the movement of exotic raw materials and marvelous works of art. People regularly moved between and among these distant regions -- perhaps as pilgrims making periodic visits to the great ceremonial centers.

Pennefather-O'Brien received her Ph.D. from Indiana University in 2006.

For more information about the biology of Hopewell groups, see these earlier blog entries:

Ancient DNA from the Ohio Hopewell
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2006/06/ancient-dna-from-ohio-hopewell.html

Ancient DNA from the Illinois Hopewell
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2006/10/ancient-dna-from-illinois-hopewell.html

New Study of Ancient DNA reveals population history of northeastern North America
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2008/09/new-study-of-ancient-dna-reveals.html

ARCHAEOLOGY AS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT

The August 6th issue of the New Scientist includes an interview with Sada Mire, the only working archaeologist in Somalia. Her insights are fascinating, but I was particularly struck with her answer to the question “Why should archaeology be a priority when there are so many problems facing the Horn of Africa, including famine?” In her answer, she stated her belief that “cultural heritage, including archaeological heritage” was “a basic human right. Even people who are refugees or internally displaced need not only food and security, but also a cultural heritage to understand their situation and to preserve their identity and dignity.”

This is something to keep in mind as Ohio and other states face our own, trivial by comparison, economic problems. Archaeology is not a luxury, it is a basic human right!

Mire has a website devoted to Somali Heritage and Archaeology:

http://www.somaliheritage.org/index.php

Check it out!

NEW DISCOVERIES AT SERPENT MOUND

The Ohio Historical Society finally is replacing the out-dated toilet facilities at Serpent Mound. (If you've ever been to the site and had occasion to use the existing toilets, I think you'll be as pleased about this development as we are!)

In order to make sure the installation of the new sewer lines did not destroy any important traces of the archaeological record at this world-class site, OHS contracted with Jarrod Burks of Ohio Valley Archaeology, Inc. to conduct a remote sensing survey of the area. Jarrod identified some locations where important features (hearths or storage pits, for example) might be present, so the line was re-routed to avoid them.

Then OHS hired the archaeological contract company ASC Group, Inc. of Columbus to excavate test pits along the path of the sewer lines to make sure no artifact concentrations that might not have been picked up by the remote sensing would be lost.

Kevin Schwarz, the lead archaeologist for this project, offered the following thoughts on doing archaeology at Serpent Mound:

"It was a thrill for the three archaeologists from ASC Group, Inc. to be able to do excavations at the Serpent Mound State Memorial. Serpent Mound is one of the best known and most important effigy mounds in North America and indeed the world. However, despite this level of importance very little is known about the archaeology of the ridge top area around the serpent."

The ASC team made some great discoveries, including the Adena spear point (called a Cresap point) and small drill shown in the picture, which will help to fill in our broader understanding of the way ancient people used the entire landscape before, during and after Serpent Mound was built.

Kevin added the following thoughts at the conclusion of fieldwork: "During the eight days that we were working at Serpent Mound State Memorial we had many positive interactions with visitors to the site who shared their enthusiasm and interest in what we were finding and in what the artifacts might tell us about the Native Americans who made Serpent Mound."

SECRETS OF THE MOOREHEAD CIRCLE

The 2011 season of the Wright State University Archaeology Field School at the Fort Ancient Earthworks winds down this week and the revelations continue to be astounding. More so than for any other excavation I have been involved with (and in this case my involvement has been peripheral), each new excavation unit yields more questions than answers.

Dr. Robert Riordan believes that, for much of the Hopewellian occupation of the Fort Ancient site, the Moorehead Circle was the beating heart of this monumental hilltop enclosure -- in spite of that fact this location within the Fort Ancient Earthworks was not marked with a great mound and, indeed, was so nondescript as to entirely elude notice by the generations of archaeologists that studied the site. It was only discovered by a remote sensing survey in 2005.

The effort involved in the construction of the complex of structures that we now know made up this nexus of ceremony was extraordinary. At a minimum, the Hopewell builders dug, with simple tools into soil that challenges the shovels and trowels of the modern archaeologists, hundreds of deep post holes, they cut and trimmed hundreds of large trees with stone axes to build the woodhenges and other timber structures, and they hauled tons of limestone cobbles for pavements and chinking stones for postholes up the 270 feet of steep bluff face from the Little Miami River. And the evidence for all of this only has been uncovered and studied over the past handful of years.

In another decade, I predict these discoveries will have transformed our understanding not only of the Fort Ancient site, but also perhaps of the broader ceremonial lives of the people of the Hopewell culture. It is exciting to see the evidence as it emerges from the ground, but the excavations are only the beginning of the process. It will be from the tedious hours of lab work and analysis that the answers to some of those burgeoning questions begin to crystallize.

Brad Lepper