Burn Prairie, Burn!

The “official” end of the Pleistocene ice age has been set at 10,000 years ago. As the climate warmed – it kept warming. About 6,000 to 8,000 years ago the climate of Ohio was much warmer and drier than today, and the region experienced an expansion of the western prairies in what has been called the Prairie Peninsula, or more graphically, the Thousand Year Drought. Perhaps as much as half of Ohio was covered with prairie at that time. Then the climate cooled and became moister, eventually giving us the climate we have today. Prior to 1800, Ohio was 95% forested – but we still had about 1500 square miles of prairie. Today, probably less than 1% of that prairie is left, but many folks have been working to restore sections of Ohio’s prairies.

Here at the Ohio History Center, we have a small demonstration prairie in our outdoor Bird Sanctuary and Archaeology Hands-on area. It is only about 1,000 square feet and is the area just in front of me in the photo. In order to survive in Ohio’s moist, cool climate, prairies need to be burned to kill off invading shrubs and trees. Today, we also burn to kill off invading exotic species.

Burning in Ohio requires a special permit from the Ohio EPA. In Columbus, it also requires a permit from the city’s Fire Department, which requires a plot map and an inspection of the area by the Fire Department. Of course, you also need a day with low winds and dry conditions. With all the rain we had last year and through the winter – it takes a series of warm, dry days.

Back in mid-February I started applying for permits – thinking I had plenty of time. As you all know – Ohio’s spring avalanched down on us with many days of temperatures 25 to 30 degrees above normal. Grass and other plants started greening up sooner than normal! Green grass does not burn well.

We finally got all our permits in order, and four days of dry weather in a row – so on Thursday, March 22nd it was Burn Day. Steve Lee of our grounds crew helped me get hoses and rakes and a broom ready – in case the fire would break out of the prairie and into the lawn or the American Indian gardens (behind me in the photo above). I phoned Security to alert them, and they called the State Highway Patrol facility, which is just across the road from our prairie. Then I called the Fire Department dispatcher to alert them in case anyone seeing smoke might call it in. Linda Pansing of our Archaeology Unit was present to record the event in these photos.

Since our prairie is so small, we have not bothered buying the drip torches that folks who do this more might use. Instead, my little propane map torch from home was used to ignite the dry grass. Unfortunately, the previous night’s dew was still present – and the fescue lawn grasses invading our small prairie were already quite green. So it took a bit of torch work to get things going good.

We have both Big Blue Stem and a little Indian Grass in our prairie. Eventually, these dry grasses started to take hold. Notice the Highway Patrol parking lot behind the fence across the road – and the Highway Patrol car coming up the road. He stopped to check us out! Guess not everyone got the message – but I’m glad they keep an eye on things!

After numerous efforts, the fire finally started act a bit more vigorous. On a good burn, a single match would torch the whole place – so this is nothing to be casual about.

Notice the green stems sticking up in the left front of this image. That is an invasive bush honeysuckle. Our fire never got hot enough to really kill this plant or three other honeysuckle seedlings in our small prairie. So the torch was handy again to burn the stem hard and kill it.

For perhaps one or two minutes only, our fire really took off. While nasty looking here – this was a small area. The flames were nothing like the fifteen or twenty foot high flames that can develop in a larger prairie burn.

After a short burn, the fire exhausted itself. With the “green, green grass grew around, all a round” Steve and I never needed to use the water hose nor the broom or rakes to control the flames. We did carefully walk the entire area to check for any remnant hot spots. As long as we had the hose, we doused the area to be absolutely certain everything was out before we left for other tasks.

Prairie grasses and forbs are adapted to fires – it’s part of their evolutionary background. They have deep roots, which will readily send new blades up after the burn. The black ash adds potash back into the soil to further stimulate their growth. Most of the invasive plants (including native trees and shrubs) do not survive fires – if (unlike ours) they are hot enough. So a good burn every few years really benefits a prairie.

We have perhaps 15 acres of prairie that we have restored at Cedar Bog Nature Preserve in Champaign County. (See http://www.cedarbognp.org/index.htm ) In an area like that, the goal would be to burn one fourth to one sixth of the total prairie every year, leaving most of it standing to support over-wintering butterflies and other important insects that make the prairie their home. Unfortunately, too much rain and reductions in staff at OHS and the ODNR (who typically help us with our burns) have prevented us from burning there for several years now. A good prairie burn will be a priority for Cedar Bog next year – but obviously with a large prairie it takes a lot of well trained and well equipped workers to keep it both safe for the staff and effective for the prairie.

Come visit our little demo prairie at OHC in Columbus and our larger prairies at Cedar Bog. July and August are hot and dry – peak conditions to see the prairie flowers in their finest! With prairie grasses six to eight feet high and all sorts of prairie wildflowers mixed in – they are sight worth seeing.

Bob Glotzhober
Senior Curator, Natural History

Leo Hemlocks Suffer Long-term Impacts

Managing natural areas is a combination of science and art. This is a widely accepted idea which reflects that natural area management requires a lot of scientific background knowledge about the ecology of a system, plus a bit of gestalt feeling about what will likely work. Experience strengthens hard knowledge to develop that gestalt and together the best possible management takes place. However, being partly art, sometimes things don’t work perfectly as planned. We don’t yet know enough (and never will) to be perfect natural areas managers – but we are getting better. Sometimes, when operating on the dual principles of science and art, things appear to be working well – at first.

Leo Petroglyph State Memorial is a 12.24 acre site operated by the Ohio Historical Society and, in recent years, with our partner the Friends of Buckeye Furnace. Leo is located in Jackson County a few miles north of Jackson and a couple of miles off of U.S. 35 near the tiny berg of Leo. It was preserved primarily due to the 37 plus petroglyphs carved into the sandstone bedrock, presumably about 1,000 years ago by American Indians. It is a wonderful example of symbolic petroglyphs, with stylized figures of birds, animals, human and animal footprints and other images.

Leo Petroglyph is also important for the natural area that surrounds it. A half-mile nature trail winds down the hill from the kiosk sheltering the petroglyphs into a steep sided gorge cut by a small stream through the Mississippian Sharon sandstone conglomerate rocks. Cliffs range from twenty to sixty-five feet high, and Eastern Hemlocks (Tsuga canadensis) line the ravine and some of its slopes. Many other interesting features and wonderful spring wildflowers augment the site – including the rare Round-leaved Catchfly (Silene rotundiflora).

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the land immediately west of the memorial was strip mined for coal. The staff of the Ohio Historical Society first tried to restrict the mining further from our boundary. Then they tried to obtain mitigation, which was at least somewhat successful. Natural History staff conducted breeding bird surveys and water sampling to establish baseline data and to document changes as the mining progressed. While staff was not happy with the potential impacts, it appeared that the mitigation efforts were working. No significant deterioration of the stream or the breeding bird life was noted. All was well – or so it seemed.

Fast forward thirty plus years. A walk along the eastern edge of the gorge reveals apparently healthy hemlocks with reasonable regeneration taking place. In fact, in one section above the top of the cliffs on the east side is a dense grove of seedling and sapling hemlocks that is quite vigorous.

However observations in the bottom of the gorge, especially on the western cliff edges and slopes shows a number of dead hemlocks and hemlocks snapped off half way up or uprooted by the wind. More importantly, there are very, very few seedlings or sapling hemlocks on the west side of the ravine. The very top of the slopes here are a mixed association of oaks and other hardwoods – a condition that is as it was thirty years ago. But today the band of hardwoods is narrower than it was before the strip mining removed additional trees outside the memorial’s boundary. Apparently, the narrower band of hardwoods was enough to provide some protection for the hemlocks – but over an extended period of time it was not enough. The prevailing westerly winds drive through this band of trees, and the hot afternoon sun beats through them. The combined impact has not only allowed the topping and uprooting of some hemlocks, but more importantly, the habitat along the western edge of hemlocks is now warmer and drier. Seedlings don’t survive. Replacement of those trees that die of old age or of wind damage is not taking place.

Natural areas, especially forest lands, often change very slowly to surrounding impacts. The literature suggests that hemlocks are long-lived, with trees sometimes reaching 600 years old or more. Time is an important consideration. As we manage natural areas we need to consider not only what we can see taking place right now, but we need to learn from experience and learn how to look 30 or 50 or 100 years out into the future. We are currently trying to do that at Leo Petroglyph.

The Ohio Historical Society is exploring ways to add a buffer from the west winds and the hot afternoon sun. Of course, adding a buffer means finding funds and a willing landowner. We have started a process to find a grant or other sources of funding. Naturally, most grants require matching funds. If you are interested in helping by making a donation for the Leo Petroglyph Natural Area Fund, contact Kathy Wyatt in the OHS Development Office at kwyatt@ohiohistory.org . We’ll keep you posted on our progress. Hopefully land purchase, cost of a protective fence and planting of trees and shrubs can proceed fairly quickly. Success from the viewpoint of the hemlocks might be a long time in coming. After all, our lives are a blip in the lives of a hemlock forest.

Bob Glotzhober
Senior Curator of Natural History

FORT ANCIENT TO HOST SPRING 2012 MEETING OF THE OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL COUNCIL

The Spring 2012 meeting of the Ohio Arch-aeological Council (OAC) meeting will be held on Friday May 4th at the Fort Ancient State Memorial in Warren County, Ohio. Fort Ancient is the premiere Hopewell-era hilltop enclosure in the United States. It is owned jointly by the State of Ohio and the Ohio Historical Society and operated by the Dayton Society of Natural History.

Presentations on Ohio archaeology will begin at 10:30 AM. As part of the program, Jack Blosser, Fort Ancient Site Manager, will present an introduction to the Fort Ancient Earthworks and Dr. Robert Riordan, of Wright State University, will give a talk and walk (weather permitting) on his research at the Moorehead Circle, located just to the west of the museum.

The OAC is a private, non-profit corporation registered with the State of Ohio in 1975 as a charitable scientific and educational organization promoting the advancement of archaeology in Ohio. The OAC consists of professional archaeologists, avocational archaeologists, and interested students of Ohio archaeology. Membership is open to all persons and institutions with an interest in Ohio archaeology

You don't have to be a member to attend the meeting, but we encourage you to join and show your support Ohio archaeology!

For more information about the Spring meeting or about the OAC in general, check out the Ohio Archaeological Council's webpage: http://www.ohioarchaeology.org/joomla/index.php

For more information about the Moorehead Circle, check out the following previous blog posts:
Secrets of the Moorehead Circle:
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2011/08/secrets-of-moorehead-circle.html

Moorehead Circle:
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2007/04/moorehead-circle.html

Dragon Spring! A Green St. Patrick’s Day Ode

Being an avid fan of dragonflies, and a lover of all things spring, I’m compelled to share this observation. Islay Cowie and Kerr Gibson reported seeing a Common Green Darner on Saturday, March 17th at Blendon Woods Metro Park. This park is on the northeast side of Columbus – for those of you technically inclined and not from Ohio – put that in Franklin County, Blendon Township at roughly N40° 4.5’ and W82° 52.7’.

Out of 556 records of specimens and photo records in the Ohio Odonata Society’s database, the earliest record we have for a Common Green Darner is April 5th. I recall sight records (which we don’t record in our database unless backed by a photo or specimen) as early as April 1st – but never before any observations from March. It has been a truly mild winter and an early spring this year. In limited field trips over the last two weeks I’ve also noted Spring Beautys blooming and Friday at Leo Petroglyph in Jackson County, a hillside full of Yellow Corydalis. Spring has sprung! Returning to Odonata, Islay’s e-mail alert on the sighting related that “Kerr's comment -- of course it would be a green darner on St. Patrick's Day.”

Early sightings of Common Green Darners (Anax junius) are common – even if such an early sighting is unique for us in Ohio. They are the result of a mystery yet to be totally solved – the migration of Green Darners and about a dozen other species of dragonflies. In Ohio we appear to have two separate populations of Common Green Darners. One is a resident population, resulting from eggs laid last summer, which hatch and overwinter as larvae. These larvae are typically fairly large during late winter – in their last or near last instars (referred to as FO or F1 instars – out of about a dozen or so molts they go through as a larva). They may measure an inch long, which is not the largest dragonfly larva, but good sized just the same. These green darner larvae enter spring ready to emerge – but do not emerge until the pond they are in becomes much warmer. This emergence is typically in June – and their species name, “junius” is quite appropriate at this latitude.

The other Ohio population of green darners is derived from individuals that laid eggs last summer, but completed their entire life cycle in a single season, emerged as adult dragonflies in August or early September, then migrated south. At least that is the strongly supported hypothesis that is widely accepted by dragonfly researchers – but not fully proven yet. A few years ago some experiments were done with tiny radio transponders glued to the body of half a dozen green darners. The researchers were able to track them for only about six days – but as suspected, they moved south in spurts, resting in-between at various ponds and wetlands. It is hypothesized that these may move all the way to areas along the Gulf Coast. Huge migratory swarms have been noted from time to time – one observed by Summit County naturalist Mike Green was estimated to contain between 500,000 and 1,000,000 dragonflies! Again, we presume these breed and lay eggs in southern waters and overwinter in the deep south as larvae. When those southern waters warm enough, they emerge – and migrate north. The fact that our earliest Common Green Darners are all fresh and have un-tattered wings strongly suggests that they did not overwinter as adults, but are freshly emerged adults that moved north from further south where warmer waters allow for earlier spring emergence.

Several researchers are seeking more data to more completely understand the story of migration in dragonflies. Regardless of the status of that research or where it leads us, seeing a Common Green Darner in late March or early April is an exciting event and one that tells us that Spring has arrived. Even if we see colder weather over the next month or so, we know the climatic tide has turned! Watch for these harbingers of spring and enjoy the season.

Bob Glotzhober

Senior Curator, Natural History

PART TWO OF REVIEW OF "LOST CIVILIZATIONS" DVD NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

Part Two of the response to the Lost Civilizations of North America DVD, written by several colleagues and myself and published in the Skeptical Inquirer magazine, is now available online at the Skeptical Inquirer's website:

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/civilizations_lost_and_found_fabricating_history_-_part_two_false_messages

Entitled "Civilizations Lost and Found: Fabricating History - Part Two: False Messages in Stone," the article focuses on the alleged archaeological evidence for claims of Pre-Columbian contacts between the Middle East and eastern North America.

The Bat Creek Stone and the Newark Holy Stones forgeries are featured as examples of how this so-called evidence was manufactured by well-intentioned or not-so-well-intentioned counterfeiters.

Brad Lepper

OCTAGON EARTHWORKS OPEN HOUSE APRIL 15 & 16 2012

Come to the Octagon Earthworks at Newark for a rare opportunity to experience the entire site.

For much of the year, visits to the Octagon Earthworks by the general public are limited to viewing the earthworks from an observation platform located just off the parking lot. From this vantage point you can see into the large circular enclosure, the massive octagon, and the neck of parallel walls that connect these two earthworks. In addition, you can walk past the Moundbuilders Country Club building and follow a trail around the circular earthwork to a point where you can view the "Observatory Mound."

A few times each year, however, golfing is suspended at the park and you are free to experience the entire site! Two of these open house dates have been set for April 15th and 16th.

Come and stand atop the Observatory Mound – a unique feature of the Newark Earthworks.

Imagine the enclosure beneath you filled with throngs of people dancing, singing, drumming, or playing panpipes and waiting for the Moon to rise in alignment with the opposite gateway of the Octagon.

Walk through the avenue of parallel walls connecting the Circle with the Octagon. Such walls were a common element of Hopewellian earthworks, but this is the only remaining site where the walls are preserved and where you can actually experience the architecture for yourself -- but only during these occasional open house dates.

Stay tuned to this site for announcements of future dates!

Brad Lepper

INSIGHTS INTO HOPEWELL POPULATION MOVEMENTS THROUGH STRONTIUM ISOTOPE ANALYSIS

Biological anthropologist Dana Beehr has opened a new window onto the lives of Hopewell people that lived in Illinois and Ohio. In her University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign PhD dissertation she reports the results of her study of the chemical composition of teeth from 43 individuals buried at the Utica and Albany mound sites in Illinois and 38 individuals from the Hopewell Mound Group in Ohio.

Specifically, Beehr looked at the relative proportions of two isotopes, or varieties, of the element strontium that had been incorporated into the structure of the teeth of these people over the course of their lives. The relative proportions of these isotopes vary from place to place allowing scientists to determine whether individuals buried in an Ohio mound might actually have come from some other part of the country. Beehr's results provide a wealth of information regarding the lives of these individuals as well as insights into the broader patterns of population movement during this remarkable period of Ohio’s past.

Among her results is the observation that the Hopewell Mound Group in Ohio was “experiencing higher levels of immigration than the two Illinois sites.” Based on their differing ratios of the two strontium isotopes she identified five “potential immigrants” at the Hopewell Mound Group. Beehr reports that these five people appear to match the isotopic signature of Minnesota populations, but she cautions that these data do not prove that this was their actual homeland. There might be other areas that will prove to have similar strontium isotope signatures once samples from these areas are tested.

Four of the potential immigrants were females suggesting that the Hopewell practiced what is known as patrilocal residence – meaning males remained in their home communities and females left home to live with their husband’s families. Two of these female potential immigrants, however, were represented by either an isolated skull or mandible. Often, these detached skulls and mandibles are interpreted as trophies of war, but since these were older females and not males, who are more likely to have been warriors, Beehr argues that this interpretation is unlikely. Perhaps they are the remains of venerated women -- equivalent to Christian saints whose bones were cherished as relics because they were believed to possess spiritual power.

Beehr concludes that the Hopewell Mound Group not only had the largest number of potential immigrants of the three sites she studied, but that it had the most variability in strontium isotope ratios, “suggesting that its population came from a wider variety of potential homelands than the other sites.

Moreover, Beehr notes that her study may be underestimating the amount of migration in these Hopewell groups, since immigrants may have been coming from other regions that happened to have similar strontium isotopic signatures.

Regardless, these results affirm the importance of the Hopewell Mound Group as a particularly important center of the Hopewell culture, which attracted large numbers of people from different regions. The idea that the monumental Hopewell earthwork complexes were pilgrimage destinations for a wide area of eastern North America is consistent with these data.

Beehr’s research, undertaken with teeth from 25 ancient human remains curated by the Ohio Historical Society (the other 13 Hopewell individuals are curated by the Field Museum in Chicago), hints at how much we still can learn from these traces of ancient human lives and reminds us of the value of the respectful curation of these few actual witnesses of the amazing achievements of the Hopewell culture. Their testimony is helping to fill in the blank pages of Ohio’s history.

Here is a link to Beehr's dissertation:

http://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/29673/Beehr_Dana.pdf?sequence=1

Brad Lepper

ANCIENT AMERICAN PILGRIMAGE: COMMUNITAS OR COSTLY SIGNALING?

Archaeologists John Kantner of the School of Advanced Research and Kevin Vaughn of Purdue University claim, in their paper published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, that “religiously motivated cooperation in the form of pilgrimage is a neglected element in discussions of cooperative behavior among humans.”

They propose a new model of pilgrimage based on human behavioral ecology and decision theory. They argue that religious affiliation can lead to a number of social benefits, but it’s also something that can be faked with relative ease. So unscrupulous people simply could pretend to believe and so enjoy the benefits of affiliation without going to the effort of actually fulfilling their religious responsibilities. Such individuals would be parasites that could pose a threat to the solidarity of the group.

One solution to this threat would be for the group to require the faithful to demonstrate their faith with some form of clear signal that is so costly that anyone considering cheating would be unwilling to undertake it. Kantner and Vaughn propose that pilgrimage can be explained as just this sort of costly signaling. They look at two case studies of spectacular monumental architecture, Cahuachi in Peru and Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, which they argue are pilgrimage centers that emerged as a result of costly signaling both by the leaders of each center and the pilgrims who came to them.

I summarize the basic elements of Kantner’s and Vaughn’s paper in a column in the Columbus Dispatch and even extend their argument to encompass the major earthworks of Ohio’s Hopewell culture.

For some time now I have thought that the most monumental of the Hopewellian earthworks, such as those at Newark and Fort Ancient, were pilgrimage centers attracting devotees from across eastern North America. Pilgrims may have brought offerings of beautiful objects crafted from exotic raw materials and engaged in ceremonies that possibly included helping to build the earthworks. I agree with the ideas of the anthropologists Victor and Edith Turner who argued that pilgrims coming to such magical places to participate in these activities would feel a sense of communitas, or sublime unity, with one another. The spiritual union formed thereby naturally would translate into the forging of other unions with more down to earth concerns, such as the arrangement of marriages and the negotiation of trade partnerships.

Kantner and Vaughn mention the Turner model of commun- itas, but conclude that pilgrimage is not just about achieving communitas and it’s not even necessarily a cooperative endeavor at all.

These are fair points and I think their costly signaling model is more comprehensive and has more explanatory power than communitas by itself. Moreover, I now think costly signaling had a lot to do with the Hopewellian florescence. Nevertheless, I still think communitas played a role in Hopewell pilgrimage.

One of my reasons for continuing to argue for the importance of communitas is that I have seen it develop in the small groups of people that Dr. Richard Shiels and his colleagues at the Ohio State University’s Newark Earthworks Center have led on modern pilgrimages from Chillicothe to Newark that sought to reenact the ceremonial processions of the Hopewell that may have followed the Great Hopewell Road.

Communitas is a powerful unifying force and can contribute to an explanation for why people would joyfully embrace the costs of costly signaling.

Here is a link to my column in the Dispatch:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/science/2012/03/04/study-pilgrimage-a-costly-signal.html

Here is the full reference to Kantner’s and Vaughn’s paper:
Kantner, John and Kevin J. Vaughn
2012 Pilgrimage as costly signal: religiously motivated cooperation in Chaco and Nasca. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31:66-82.

For more about my ideas about Hopewell pilgrimage, see these previous blog posts and articles:

The Newark Earthworks: a place of pilgrimage
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2009/08/newark-earthworks.html

Fort Ancient Earthworks – place of pilgrimage
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2011/10/fort-ancient-earthworks-place-of.html

Lepper, Bradley T.
2004 The Newark Earthworks: monumental geometry and astronomy at a Hopewellian pilgrimage center. In Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian art of the ancient Midwest and South, edited by Richard V. Townsend and Robert V. Sharp, pp. 72-81. The Art Institute of Chicago and Yale University Press, New Haven.

2006 The Great Hopewell Road and the role of the pilgrimage in the Hopewell Interaction sphere. In Recreating Hopewell, edited by D. K. Charles and J. E. Buikstra, pp. 122-133. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

Finally, for more information about the Newark Earthworks Center’s “Walk with the Ancients” hike along the projected path of the Great Hopewell Road start with this link:
Walk with the Ancients
http://newark.osu.edu/earthworks/Pages/WWTA.aspx

Brad Lepper