"A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 100 OBJECTS" FEATURES HOPEWELL EFFIGY PIPE

A Hopewell animal effigy pipe from the Mound City site in Chillicothe is featured alongside iconic artifacts, such as the Rosetta Stone and a giant stone head from Easter Island, as one of the 100 objects selected by Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, to tell the "History of the World."

The Mound City pipe is one of more than 200 such pipes discovered by Ephraim Squier and Edwin Davis in 1846. The pipes had been broken and placed together in a ceremonial deposit beneath the floor of a structure used for ceremonies. At some point, when the ceremonies were completed, the structure was burned down and the site was covered with a mound. The Squier and Davis collection, which includes the remarkable pipes, is in the collections of the British Museum.

William C. Mills, Curator of Archaeology for the Ohio Historical Society, discovered a similar deposit including more than 80 effigy pipes in 1915 when he excavated Tremper mound in Scioto County. Tremper Mound was built on the site of a long, roughly rectangular timber hall with three, small rounded chambers at one end. Mills found the pipes in a deposit in the floor of the middle of the three chambers. As at Mound City, the pipes had been broken and deposited on the floor of the structure, which was then burned and buried beneath the large mound.

The Tremper pipes are featured in the Ohio Historical Society's new exhibit "Following in Ancient Footsteps."

Here is a link to the episode of the BBC radio program about the Mound City pipe:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sfgx2


Brad Lepper

RESPONDING TO "THE LOST CIVILIZATIONS OF NORTH AMERICA" DVD – PART 2: FALSE MESSAGES IN STONE

The November/December 2011 issue of The Skeptical Inquirer includes the second part of a three part series of articles evaluating claims made in the documentary The Lost Civilizations of North America. The articles are written jointly by Kenneth L. Feder (Central Connecticut State University), Terry A. Barnhart (Eastern Illinois University), Deborah Bolnick (University of Texas, Austin) and me.

In this article, my co-authors and I refute the alleged archaeological evidence for ancient Old World civilizations in America:

"The artifacts given the most screen time in the documentary are the so-called Newark 'Holy Stones.' In fact, the narrator refers to the controversy surrounding the interpretation of these artifacts as a case study that 'demonstrates the division between some diffusionists and most mainstream archaeologists.' If the producers of the documentary sincerely believed this statement, then it is difficult to understand why they feature only the diffusionist side of the argument. What makes this one-sided presentation particularly perplexing [or maybe not] is that one of the scientists interviewed (one of the authors of this article) has written extensively on the Newark 'Holy Stones' and therefore could have ably represented the 'mainstream' view."

The scientist who has written extensively on the Newark "Holy Stones" is me. So, why didn't the producers include my "mainstream" views about these elaborate archaeological forgeries in the documentary? Good question. They interviewed me on two separate occasions and never once asked me about my views on the "Holy Stones." In e-mail correspondence during the video production process I made my views quite clear to one of the producers and even sent him electronic copies of my articles. Nevertheless, you will look in vain for any "mainstream" views about these curious stones in the documentary.

In the article, my co-authors and I point out the many errors of fact and interpretation in the documentary's treatment of the "Holy Stones." They are not authentic ancient artifacts. They are scientific forgeries intended to undermine a particular theory gaining prominence at the time of the forgeries:

"The Newark 'Holy Stones' represented an attempt to encompass the prehistory of the New World within the biblical history of the Old World, thereby undermining the dangerous doctrine of polygenesis, which sought to provide a scientific justification for both the enslavement of African people and the forced removal of American Indians from their homelands."

This is not a coincidence.

I am reminded of a quote from Matthew Canfield Read, an early archaeologist that lived in Hudson, Ohio (my boyhood home). He wrote that frauds and forgeries such as the Newark "Holy Stones" and, more recently, Piltdown Man, "will always in some way represent the ideas of the time of the forgery."

In part three of our review, we discuss problems with the claims made in the documentary about the “molecular archaeology” of Native America.

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

For more information about the Newark "Holy Stones" see my article on the Ohio Archaeological Council's webpage:
http://www.ohioarchaeology.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=255&Itemid=32

The two surviving "Holy Stones" can be viewed at the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum in historic Roscoe Village:
http://www.jhmuseum.org/


CORRECTION

It grieves me to point out an error that appears in the Skeptical Inquirer article. In the discussion of the Newark "Holy Stones," we refer to the narrator as a "he," when the video was quite clearly narrated by a woman. As first author of this article, I take full responsibility for this error. It was not in our original text, so it must have been inserted by a well-meaning editor, but all the authors had the opportunity to review the galley proofs and we did not catch the mistake.

I attribute the error to the subtle and unconscious sexism that pervades our society and to which most of us imagine we are immune until we are caught out in such a mistake. I extend sincere apologies to Anne Sward Hansen who performed admirably as the narrator of this production.

FORT ANCIENT EARTHWORKS – PLACE OF PILGRIMAGE

In the 23 October Columbus Dispatch, columnist John Switzer features the Fort Ancient Earthworks and the idea that this grandest of monumental hilltop enclosures was a place of pilgrimage for the Hopewell culture 2,000 years ago.

He quotes site manager Jack Blosser who suggests we think of the earthwork as a church – but not just any church. The scale of Fort Ancient could accommodate a vast congregation. Three-and-a-half miles of earthen embankments enclose about 100 acres of ceremonial space. This is far more space than would be needed to serve the needs of the local population, so this may have been built for big ceremonies that attracted celebrants from hundreds of miles away. This could explain the wealth of exotic raw materials brought to Ohio Hopewell sites from across North America – copper from the Great Lakes, mica from the Carolinas, shells from the Gulf of Mexico, and obsidian from Wyoming. Perhaps these precious materials were offerings brought by pilgrims from distant lands.

According to Jean and Joyotopaul Chaudhuri, writing in A Sacred Path: the Way of the Muscogee Creek, the oral traditions of the Creek Indians refer to their ancestors making pilgrimages in the spring and autumn to "special mounds." The Muskogoee Creek tribe was part of a coalition of tribes that lived in the area now encompassed by the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. Perhaps it was their ancestors that brought the mica to the Ohio pilgrimage centers.

John points out that ancient DNA obtained from the teeth of a few individuals from the Hopewell Mound Group near Chillicothe has revealed genetic connections with modern tribes from across much of North America – from tribes as diverse and widespread as the Apache, Micmac, Ojibwa and Yakima. This is another clue to the cosmopolitan nature of the Hopewell earthworks. People came from far and wide to Fort Ancient bearing offerings of exotic raw materials. Some may stayed and married into local tribes. Others may have returned home with a wife or husband from Ohio. John writes, “Imagine if DNA from other mounds were to be compared. Perhaps other tribes would also be linked to the Hopewell.”

The importance of Fort Ancient as a place of special power was recognized long past the end of the Hopewell culture at around A.D. 400 and pilgrimages continued into the historic era. Warren K. Moorehead, the Ohio Historical Society’s first Curator of Archaeology and the person most responsible for the fact that Fort Ancient has been preserved as a public park, recorded a story heard in his youth that the pioneer Simon Kenton often had observed groups of Shawnee Indians visiting “the place en route to the Ohio” in order to pay “homage to the spirits of its makers.”

Make your own pilgrimage to Fort Ancient and the other magnificent surviving earthworks built by this great Native American culture.

Here’s the link to read John’s column in its entirety:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/10/23/pilgrimage-unearths-hopewells.html

The DNA evidence to which John refers is summarized in previous OHS Archaeology 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 ARCHAEOLOGY EXHIBIT FEATURES CONNECTIONS WITH NATURE

The Ohio Historical Society's new archaeology exhibit "Following in Ancient Footsteps" is located in a special gallery at the Ohio History Center. Large windows provide an abundance of natural light and allow views of a garden area containing native plants and bird feeders. Many of the birds you can see flitting about the feeders are the same species of birds the Hopewell artisans rendered so faithfully in the amazing effigy pipes they ultimately shattered and buried in Tremper Mound. Excavated in 1915 by OHS archaeologists, many of the pipes were restored and are on display in this gallery. A birdsong interactive exhibit allows you to hear echoes of the same songs heard by the shamans in the forests of ancient Ohio.

If you haven't visited the Ohio History Center lately, I urge you to come soon and enjoy this unique museum experience!

For more information about Tremper Mound and the cache of effigy pipes discovered there, see the Ohio Historical Society's online First Ohioans exhibit:
http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=622

Halloween Sphinx: Part II

Earlier this week in part I of this blog, I talked about some of the 1,200 known species of sphinx moths – members of the family Sphingidae. As noted, common names for these typically include sphinx moth or hawk moth while the caterpillars are often called hornworms. One of the more beautiful members of this fascinating family is the Pandora Sphinx, which I discussed in Part I.

But I promised that this would also have some connection to Halloween. What possible relationship can there be between sphinx moths and Halloween?

My volunteers and I recently came across an infamous moth in our collections. This very large sphinx moth has long been associated with the supernatural and evil. Not long ago, this species was featured in the movie, The Silence of the Lambs. It was mentioned in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and was a symbol in the artwork of the Japanese metal band, Sigh’s Hail Horror Hail album.

Aside from their looks, if disturbed this moth can actually expel air from its pharynx producing a loud squeak – accompanied often by flashing their brightly patterned abdomen! That alone might have led to the moth’s ignoble reputation, but its appearance was even more important. Edgar Allen Poe even wrote a story about this moth, in his story Sphinx (though he used an antiquated taxonomy for it).

So – who is this infamous member of the Sphingidae family – the one with a reputation of evil and supernatural? It’s the Death’s-head Sphinx Moth, or Death’s-head Hawk moth, Acherontia atropos. The name, obvious when you see one or its photo, comes from light yellow or whitish pattern in the darker background of the thorax. The pattern looks very much like a skull – such as the skull of pirate’s skull and crossbones.

The adult moths often feed on honey in beehives. Interestingly enough, they have developed one or more methods to protect themselves from attack from the bees – which are normally quite aggressive to intruders. Some scientists think their high-pitched squeak may mimic the “piping sounds” of a queen bee, upon which worker bees freeze momentarily. Unfortunately, this has never been directly observed in a hive, and once the moth drinks honey, it cannot squeak for as long as 30 minutes. They also have at least four different chemicals that seem to mimic the odor of the bees. Since the hive is dark, scent is very important to bees – so they may be “scent invisible” to the bees. Regardless of which (or both) of these really is at work, these moths move about the hive boldly, the bees accept them readily, even though they are stealing precious hive resources. Of the three species in this genus (all of which host the death’s-head pattern) the one we have illustrated attacks only colonies of European Honeybee, Apis mellifera, which is the species we have domesticated.

The Death’s-head moth caterpillars feed on a wide assortment of host plants, including potatoes, nightshade, peppers, ash trees and other members of the Olive family and Catalpa. The larvae can grow to as much as 4 or 5 inches long, and (like other “hornworms”) have a large dorsal horn at the rear of their abdomen. They may be yellow or brown, with bold markings. In some cases, the markings may suggest a snake – which some workers hypothesize may give them some protection from birds.

The natural range of these moths is the United Kingdom, southern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. However, as honeybees have been introduced to the U.S. and many of their host plants, these strange-looking moths occasionally appear in the U.S.

More information on these fascinating moths is available at the website of the Natural History Museum of London’s website at: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/species-of-the-day/evolution/acherontia-atropos/index.html

Bob Glotzhober, Senior Curator, Natural History

Footnote: The specimen we found is part of our education collection and not cataloged, as it was not collected in Ohio. According to the label, it was collected in 1970 by John Condit in Ethiopia, Harar Province on the grounds of the H. Sellassie University.

Bees for Pumpkins

Ohio, along with the rest of the nation, celebrates Halloween and Thanksgiving with pumpkins. The annual Circleville Pumpkin Show (October 19 -22, 2011) has been a major event for that Ohio city since 1903.

Native to the southwest and Central America, pumpkins and related squash were part of American Indian agriculture’s famous “three sisters” of squash, beans and corn. American Indian agriculture spread these across the nation, greeting European colonists in part by introducing these plants to their diet.

But without bees to pollinate pumpkins and squash – none of them would ever survive. Long before Europeans introduced the European Honeybee to North America, several species of native bees were pollinating squash and pumpkins. We have these native bees and the Native Americans who spread the squash and pumpkins to Ohio, and all the way to the East Coast, to thank for adding pumpkins to our diet and to our now expanded American culture.

Growers of squash and pumpkins need to aware of the importance of native bees and honeybees in pollinating their crops. Indiscriminate pesticide use can kill off the bees as well as pests – ruining a pumpkin crop.

To learn more about native bees and their impact on pumpkins and squash, go this website from the Xerces Society: http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs095/1102968923571/archive/1108023695532.html

Bob Glotzhober

Ancient Earthwork Reconstruction Blog

Check out the Ancient Earthwork Reconstruction Blog!

It's "intended to be a tool for researchers to reconstruct and analyze these ancient earthworks in their intended three dimensional settings," but it's fun to just look at the amazing images! They will give you a different perspective on the magnificent earthworks of ancient America!

Here's a link to the blog:
http://earthworkreconstruction.blogspot.com/

OHIO – "THE HEART OF IT ALL" FOR OVER 15,000 YEARS

The inaugural issue of the Journal of Ohio Archaeology features my article, "Ohio -- 'the heart of it all' for over 15,000 years." It is an overview of Ohio prehistory focusing on the most current interpretations of what David Hurst Thomas has called "some of America's most spectacular archaeology."

"Located between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River valley with a cornucopia of natural resources, including abundant high quality flint, is it any wonder that Ohio was a Paleoindian Garden of Eden, one of the world’s few hearths of plant domestication, and a setting for one of the most spectacular cultural florescences in this (or any other) hemisphere?"

I also call for professional archaeologists to devote more energy to public education about our ancient American Indian heritage:

"In this period of deficit reduction and budget slashing, it is even more important that we convey to the public the value of the past, else they may decide it does not warrant their support . That value is not just abstract and esoteric. With Ohio's incredible archaeological resources, heritage tourism could be an economic engine for the state."

Published by the Ohio Archaeological Council, the Journal of Ohio Archaeology is a fully electronic, refereed journal that publishes original papers on the archaeology of Ohio and the surrounding region.

You can read the entire text of my paper at the following link:
http://www.ohioarchaeology.org/joomla/images/stories/figures/2011/article%201--lepper%202011%20final.pdf

Brad Lepper

RE-DISCOVERING OHIO'S ANCIENT EARTHWORK SITES -- LECTURE BY DR. JARROD BURKS

Halloween Sphinx Moth: Part I

For several years our volunteers in the natural history collections at the Ohio Historical Society have working on cataloging a backlog of butterflies and moths. It is a slow, delicate and tedious project, which would never get accomplished without the help of our volunteers.

When we first started a computerized catalog of collections during the late 1970s and early 1980s, memory space on main frame computers were much more limited than even the simplest desktop or laptop computer today. As a result, we decided to only catalog two or three representative of each species, leaving the others uncataloged in groups of insect cabinets and drawers. As computer memory has expanded we now are trying to catalog everything – so that a researcher or an exhibit planner can see via computer the entire spectrum of our collection. This is valuable especially for researchers, who might want to compare many specimens for color variation, size variation, etc. In the insect world especially, it is still possible to discover by close examination of a collection that what we originally thought were specimens of a single species are actually two closely related species – perhaps one even being a species new to science! That dream, plus better collection management in general, drives us to get everything in our collections in both a hard catalog and a computer database catalog. You can view that computerized catalog online at http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/portal/collections-p.shtml then selecting “Online Catalog” either in small print at the top of the page or in the sidebar.

Recently, our volunteers were cataloging about a dozen drawers full of moths in the family Sphingidae. Members of this family are generally known as sphinx moths or hawk moths, while their larvae are often known as hornworms (AKA the Tomato Hornworm which many people are familiar with when they eat the leaves of our tomato plants.).

Some of the hawk moths are among our faster flying insects – able to reach speeds up to 30 miles per hour. [As a dragonfly fan, I have to add that large dragonflies have clocked accurately up to 35 miles per hour – but even 30 mph is really fast for an insect.]

World-wide there are 1,200 known species of Sphingidae, with the largest numbers in the tropics. In North America there are 123 species, with 43 known from Ohio.

One of the species I enjoy the most is the Clearwing, or Hummingbird Moth, Hemaris thysbe. These yellow, red and black moths are about just less than two inches long. Most of their wings are clear of the scales typical of most Lepidoptera, and therefore partially transparent. They hover near flowers with fast moving wings that almost disappear due to the speed and transparency – making them look very much like a hummingbird. Unlike a hummingbird, instead of a long beak, they have a long coiled proboscis (think elephant trunk or tongue) that they uncoil to reach out and sip nectar. Many people see them and think at first they are a hummingbird. They are cool!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder – but a lot of sphinx moths and even their caterpillars are quite spectacular to those of us who are not “bugged” by insects. Perhaps the most beautiful of all the Sphingidae is the Pandora Sphinx, Eumorpha pandorus, the photo of this adult taken in Missouri. Even the Pandora caterpillar is bold and colorful, as shown in this image from Fort Hill State Memorial in Highland County, Ohio.

The Pandora Sphinx caterpillar can grow to 3.5 inches long, and may be cinnamon (like this one), green, orange or pink. They feed on the leaves of Virginia Creeper, grapes and related plants.

But wait! I titled this blog “Halloween Sphinx Moths” – and I have not said anything at all scary or in any way related to Halloween. Oops. You did not notice that the title also said “Part I”. Watch for my next blog, coming out in time for Halloween!

Bob Glotzhober, Senior Curator, Natural History

Wild in the City!

As naturalist within a historical museum, I get called upon to rescue birds, bats and bugs that find their way into our buildings and cannot find their back out. Most of these finds are the ones that most people would expect. A starling flies in through the loading dock or an open door. A house mouse sneaks in near the garbage dumpster. Occasionally, these finds are a little more “interesting.” Big brown bats are common enough in urban environments, and occasionally they find cracks to squeeze into to hibernate. These tend to show up in our buildings in late winter or early spring, when warming weather starts to stir them, and instead of going outward, they go inward. Marlin Perkins I’m not – but usually an insect net captures these critters and (weather permitting) they are released back outside none the worse for wear.

Slightly rarer than the bats are other critters that might be less anticipated. Not all end up inside our buildings, but some interesting ones have. The last week of September this year, I got a phone call from our archaeology staff saying they had cornered a critter. Could I please come and get it. They told me it was a snake and being held in the bottom of an empty trash can. One of them joked about the “boa constrictor.” No one in this crowd was concerned, although I do know some people in some offices would have been frantic.

It turns out that this was a Northern Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi) – which is a harmless little guy. This one was about 10 inches long, about average for the species which runs from 8 to 12 inches. They seem well adapted to “city life” – eating worms, slugs, snails and small insects.

As you can see, it was quite small!

I should not have been too surprised. We had another one in the archaeology collections building just last year, and I’ve pulled them a couple of times from our museum back hallway near emergency exit doors. On one sunny recent afternoon after work, riding my bike on a local bike path, I counted six Northern Brown Snakes out sunning themselves in about six miles of bike path – about half of which was not good habitat (dense shade) for a cool afternoon.

Our collection’s building complex is totally surrounded by a blacktop parking lot, in the middle of an urban environment. There are only two “habitats” nearby. One is a narrow stretch of growth along a set of railroad tracks – which rail workers kill back on a regular basis. The other is an overgrown, vacant lot, about 1.5 acres, that abuts one side of our property, currently for sale for future business development. This small field is probably the source of our annual influx of brown snakes and has also yielded Deer Mice and Meadow Voles, both of which you generally think of as more “rural.” While I’m sure they don’t limit their range to that field – we sometimes see hunting Red-tail Hawks. Earlier this week, I almost stepped on a Woodchuck which had its den almost on top of the nearby intersection of a major city street.While we’ll probably never see any endangered species (outside of a Peregrine flying overhead chasing our pigeons) it is amazing how little space some wild critters need to survive. Provide just a little bit of an old “abandoned” field, and quite a bit of diversity can thrive.

Naturally, not all wildlife can thrive in such a stark environment. We could probably add a few species to our observation list, but it is limited. Many, perhaps most plants and animals need much more space and much more diversified habitat, or a specialized habitat. Those are becoming harder and harder to find. But there is a basic principle operating here, even if somewhat limited in its scope. Give the animal (or plant) enough of the right habitat, and they can survive. We just need to figure out how much space and what are the critical environmental elements that need to be in it. That is what all conservation biology is about. Then we need to be willing to protect enough of that habitat. We need to recognize that diversity of wild plant and animal life is beneficial to us in many, many ways. Nature is tough – if we give it a chance!

Bob Glotzhober

NEW ARCHAEOLOGY EXHIBIT INCLUDES CERHAS INTERACTIVE EARTHWORK RECREATIONS

The new archaeology exhibit at the Ohio History Center, "Following in Ancient Footsteps," includes a major donation from the University of Cincinnati’s Center for the Electronic Recreation of Historical and Archaeological Sites (CERHAS).
EarthWorks: Virtual Explorations of the Ancient Ohio Valley presents interactive virtual reconstructions of some of the most spectacular ancient architecture in the world. Cultures flourishing in the American heartland 8 to 24 centuries ago built earthen effigies, embankments, mounds, roadways, and enclosures of astonishing size and precision. Some stretch for miles. Many contained exquisite ceremonial artifacts. Some are astronomical markers more exact than Stonehenge.

Exhibit visitors may choose up to 90 interactive video topics, many also reinforced on exhibit panels and a timeline. What sets the EarthWorks experience apart is the way it makes these ancient sites memorable, engaging, and broadly meaningful as never before: through visualization, spatial navigation, and multi-voiced interpretation.

There are Teacher Guides available for EarthWorks, which are available on the CERHAS webpage: http://earthworks.uc.edu/ETEteacherGuides.htm

The Ohio Historical Society extends its thanks to John Hancock, co-founder of CERHAS and Professor of Architectural History at the University of Cincinnati for providing this marvelous interactive experience for our new exhibit!

John is shown on the right in this image standing next to Richard Shiels, Director of the Newark Earthworks Center at the Ohio State University Newark Campus (center) and OHS Curator of Archaeology Brad Lepper (left).

OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL COUNCIL FALL MEMBERSHIP MEETING OCTOBER 22, 2011

The Ohio Archaeological Council is holding its Fall Membership meeting at the Ohio State University-Newark Campus in Hopewell Hall, Rooms 64 & 68 on Friday, October 22nd, 2011.

Join us between 9:30 and 10:00 for donuts, bagels and coffee followed by four papers on a variety of topics related to Ohio archaeology. Of special interest for the OHS Archaeology Staff is the report by Dr. William Romain on his research team’s work at Serpent Mound.

Here is an excerpt from the abstract for his paper, which is scheduled for 11:15:

“The Serpent Mound Project seeks to expand our knowledge of Serpent Mound through non-invasive and minimally invasive techniques and new technologies. In this presentation, preliminary results of our 2011 work at Serpent Mound are provided. Among the results discussed are findings relevant to geodetic survey, LiDAR imaging, magnetic gradiometer survey, hand-coring, electric resistivity survey, and GeoProbe mechanical coring.
Together these new technologies and techniques provide unique perspectives and new understandings of one of Ohio's most enigmatic earthworks.”

In the afternoon, there is a special workshop on the variety of ceramic types found on archaeological sites in Ohio. Martha Otto, Curator Emerita for the Ohio Historical Society, is bringing a selection of ceramics from the OHS collection.

The public is welcome to attend!

START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME!

The introduction of agriculture generally is considered to mark the beginning of the Neolithic Revolution. In unilinear models of cultural evolution it represents the spark that ignites a cascade of cultural transformations from sedentary villages with increasingly hierarchical social organizations to cities, states and eventually empires. None of this social complexity was possible without the security provided by intensive food production.

An article in the July issue of American Antiquity, however, calls into question the inevitability of this sequence. Christopher Watts, archaeologist with the Royal Ontario Museum, along with Christine White and Fred Longstaffe of the University of Western Ontario, present the results of their analysis of human remains from the Krieger site in southwestern Ontario. I summarize the paper in my September column in the Columbus Dispatch, but offer here a few supplemental observations.

The Krieger site was occupied by people of the Western Basin Tradition. This archaeologically defined culture lived along the western margins of Lake Erie, including northwestern Ohio, eastern Michigan, and southwestern Ontario, from AD 900 to 1600.

Basically, what Watts, White and Longstaffe found, was a surprising disjunction between what the archaeological record appeared to indicate about the diet of the Western Basin people and what the bones of those people revealed.

The archaeological record indicated that the Western Basin people were hunters and gatherers that lived in small groups with no large, permanent villages. The new analyses of the carbon, nitrogen and oxygen isotopes present in the bones of the people showed that they were eating a lot of maize.

This came as a surprise because when cultures shift from hunting and gathering to farming, there is supposed to be a series of other changes that go along with that change in subsistence like a line of falling dominoes. One of my former professors said that the decision to abandon the mobile life of a hunter-gatherer to become a farmer was the opening of a Pandora's Box of unfortunate consequences for humanity. Among them were unbalanced nutrition, resulting in such novelties as decreased stature and an increased frequency of cavities and abscesses, increased susceptibility to disease, increasing social inequality and especially gender inequality, an increased frequency of warfare and a general deterioration of the environment due to over-exploitation of resources in the more confined territories of farming communities.

The Neolithic Revolution wouldn't have been so revolutionary if people had just planted their crops and gone on following the same old ways of life as before. But it appears that this is exactly what the Western Basin Tradition folks did.

So, just maybe, the Neolithic Revolution wasn't an inevitable result of the inexorable processes of social evolution. People could make choices as to how they would respond to technological innovations such as agriculture.

Surprises like this, that appear to violate longstanding assumptions about the way the world works, are wonderful, because they demonstrate that, in spite of our various cultural and personal biases, we actually can learn new things.

Another important lesson of this research is the demonstration of the potentially enormous value of curating ancient human remains in museums where they can be studied with the latest scientific methods. We always are developing new techniques for learning about the past and, as this analysis of the Krieger site people shows, we can learn things from human remains that we couldn't find out in any other way.

Here is a link to my Columbus Dispatch column:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/science/2011/10/09/agricultures-role-in-our-societies-not-so-simple.html

Here's the reference for the original scientific article on which the column is based:

Watts, Christopher M. Christine D. White, and Fred J. Longstaffe
2011 Childhood diet and Western Basin Tradition foodways at the Krieger site, southwestern Ontario, Canada. American Antiquity 76 (3):446-472.

Brad Lepper

HAMMER THAT STARTED A WORLD WAR FEATURED ON NBC4 NEWS

NBC4 meteorologist Ben Gelber came to OHS to report on the discovery of the iron head of a blacksmith's hammer at the archaeological site of Pickawillany, now part of the Ohio Historical Society's Johnston Farm & Indian Agency.

In the summer of 2011, archaeology field school students from Hocking College in partnership with OHS archaeology staff, discovered the hammer as part of their on-going research project at the site. The hammer is an iconic artifact that represents, as much as any single artifact could, the essence of historic Pickawillany.
In the summer of 1752, the Miami Indian village of Pickawillany was, according to the English explorer Christopher Gist, "one of the strongest Indian Towns on this Part of the Continent." In 1751 he wrote that it consisted of four hundred families and was daily increasing. Pickawillany had become such an attractive location due to the presence of English blacksmiths who provided better quality and cheaper merchandise than the French. And, unlike the French, they could provide onsite "tech support" for the European muskets and other trade goods so valued by the Miami and other tribes of the Ohio country.

On June 21st 1752, a large force of Ottawa Indians and French troops attacked Pickawillany killing or driving off its inhabitants. Some consider this the first battle of the French and Indian War. So, in a way, this hammer started a world war.

Gelber interviewed OHS Curator Brad Lepper and Hocking College professor Annette Ericksen.

WALK WHERE THE HOPEWELL WALKED: OPEN HOUSE AT OCTAGON EARTHWORKS SUNDAY 16 OCTOBER 2011

The Ohio Historical Society, in conjunction with the Newark Earthworks Center at The Ohio State University at Newark and the Greater Licking County Convention and Visitors Bureau, is hosting an open house at the Octagon Earthworks on Sunday October 16th. The entire site will be “golf-free” and open to visitors.
This is the final open house of 2011, so take advantage of this opportunity to enjoy the magnificent earthworks in all their autumn splendor!

The Octagon Earthworks is a part of the Newark Earthworks, a complex that is 2,000 years old and at one time covered approximately four square miles. The Newark Earthworks is recognized as a National Historic Landmark and has been declared Ohio’s official prehistoric monument. Along with other Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, the Newark Earthworks are on the U.S. Department of the Interior's Tentative List for nomination to the UNESCO World Heritage List!

Although much of this monumental earthwork complex has destroyed by more than a century of urban development, the most significant parts remaining are the Octagon, Great Circle and Wright earthworks. Together these three earthworks comprise the Newark Earthworks, one of more than 50 sites administered by the Ohio Historical Society, a nonprofit organization that serves as the state’s partner in preserving and interpreting Ohio’s history, natural history, archaeology and historic places.

The Newark Earthworks Center is an interdisciplinary academic center at The Ohio State University's Newark Campus, which studies, teaches about and promotes appreciation for Ohio earthworks. Among other projects, the NEC provides school tours at the Great Circle and Flint Ridge and programming on public access days.

The mission of the Greater Licking County Convention and Visitors Bureau is to promote tourism and attract visitors and conventions to Licking County.

For further details or to schedule a group or school tour, please call 740-344-1919 or 800-600-7178.

There are no public restroom facilities at the Octagon Earthworks. Admission is free for the open house.