Chapter 6. Found field: Encountering a ridged garden bed archaeological site, Wing Reach, in Wisconsin, USA

Multi-element and lead isotope characterization of early nineteenth century pottery sherds from Native American and Euro-American sites

The United States Forest Service’s current approach to natural and cultural resource protection allows livestock grazing on and around Native American archaeological sites throughout the American southwest. The damage caused by thousands of cattle moving through these sites each year is irreparable and will continue unless the Forest Service changes its approach to resource management or Congress amends the statutes that have allowed these incompatible dual uses to occur coextensively. This Paper will explain the historical evolution of the Forest Service’s approach to natural and cultural resource management, the statutory bases guiding its current planning practices, and ultimately, it will explain how the Forest Service’s current land management planning practices erroneously assume that livestock grazing, per se, does not adversely impact native archaeological sites. Finally, this Paper will offer suggestions by which Congress or the Forest Service could amend the current livestock grazing program on national forest lands to better protect archaeological sites.

Multi-offset ground penetrating radar data for improved imaging in areas of lateral complexity — Application at a Native American site

This paper examines the complexity of Neo-Pagans’ interest in Native American archaeological sites and identifies potential strategies for heritage managers regarding the issue. The methodology identifies the behaviour of Neo-Pagans at the English Heritage site Stonehenge in the UK, with the National Historical Park Chaco Canyon in the US, and compares the academic discourse regarding this issue from a post-colonial perspective. A particular emphasis on Native American voices in the discourse is empathized, but also engages with academics that identify as Neo-Pagan. The findings are that unlike in the UK, Neo-Pagans have been in direct conflict with indigenous stakeholders in the US, and few concrete solutions have been put in place by heritage mangers. Neo-Pagans may consider themselves stakeholders of Native American archaeological sites, but their history and demographics place them in a more privileged position than tribal members. In considering the differences of the results of Neo-Pagan engagement at Stonehenge versus Chaco Canyon, it is crucial that more education is conducted by site managers to ensure that Native American stakeholders are respected, and that they have precedent for access over their own sacred landscapes and archaeological sites.

In situ shallow subsurface reflectance spectroscopy of archaeological soils and features: a case-study of two Native American settlement sites in Kansas

: John Milner Associates, Inc., under a subcontract with Geo-Marine, Inc., under a main contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District Cultural Resources Section, conducted an archeological Phase I survey for the Air Combat Command at two Over-the-Horizon Backscatter-East Radar (OTHB-E) sites in the towns of Columbia Falls and Moscow, Maine, from August 4 through August 27, 2003. This work was conducted to partially satisfy the Air Force obligations under Sections 110 and 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, in anticipation of the closing of these properties. As a result of this archeological survey, three newly identified Native American sites (77.7 ME, 77.8 ME and 77.9 ME) and one newly documented historic archeological site (ME860-001) were identified at the Columbia Falls radar station. No archeological sites were identified at the Moscow radar station. The three newly identified Native American sites at the Columbia Falls radar station have the potential to provide significant information regarding Native American occupation and use of a little known portion of Washington County, Maine. Phase II archeological site evaluations are recommended for all of the Native American sites identified in the Columbia Falls radar station. No further archeological work is recommended for site ME860-001 or at the Moscow radar station.

We integrate witness tree distribution, Native American archaeological sites, and geological and topographic variables to investigate the relationships between Native American populations and pre-European settlement forest types on the Allegheny Plateau, northwest Pennsylvania. Detrended correspondence analysis of witness tree data separated the presettlement forests into oak–hickory–chestnut and beech–hemlock–maple communities. Oak, hickory, and chestnut forests were centered on Native American village sites. Using archaeological data, an index of Native American influence (NAI) was derived to reflect the intensity of Native American land use across the landscape. In a comparison among species, mean NAI value of oak, hickory, and chestnut trees was significantly higher than that of beech, maple, and hemlock. Logistic regression demonstrated that among geology type, landform, elevation, aspect, slope, and NAI, NAI was by far the most significant predictor of oak, hickory, and chestnut distribution. Although cause and effect of this relationship cannot be tested, we suggest that long-term Native American activity selected for the disturbance-adapted oak, hickory, and chestnut. We contend that Native American agriculture, burning, and resource extraction could have converted maple–beech–hemlock to oak–hickory–chestnut, or at least reinforced the dominance of this forest type.

This report deals with three episodes of archeological work that began in 2005 and concluded in 2010 for the proposed U.S. Highway 271 Mount Pleasant relief route in Titus County, Texas. The early part of the work was done for the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), Environmental Affairs Division. The later part was done for PTP, LP, acting on behalf of Titus County. The work was done to address the requirements of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and the Texas Antiquities Code and was governed by the terms of Texas Antiquities Permit Nos. 3786, 4303, and 5495. The project involved 11 Native American archeological sites: 41TT6, 41TT846, 41TT847, 41TT851–41TT854, 41TT858, 41TT862, 41TT865, and 41TT866. The overall goal was to assess these 11 sites in terms of their eligibility for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and designation as State Antiquities Landmarks, and to conduct data recovery excavations at any that were found to be eligible. The project began with intensive auger or shovel testing at all 11 sites in July–August 2005. Formal testing was done between December 2006 and February 2008, and data recovery excavations were undertaken at three sites—George Richey (41TT851), William Ford (41TT852), and James Richey (41TT853)—between January and June 2010. In total, the excavations consisted of the following: 1,147 auger tests at 10 sites and 31 shovel tests at the eleventh site; 386 backhoe trenches covering 2,695 m2 and 225 m2 of manual excavations at all 11 sites; and machine excavation of 215 sample units measuring 2.0 m long and 1.0 m wide on average and trackhoe stripping of about 6,875 m2 at the 3 data recovery sites. The excavations identified 378 cultural features, mostly postholes and pits, with much smaller numbers of burials, burned rock concentrations, artifact clusters, and middens. The artifacts recovered consist mainly of 11,713 ceramic sherds and vessels and 8,729 lithic tools and debitage. Most of these remains relate to occupation of the project area during the Middle–Late Caddo periods (a.d. 1250–1700), with minor amounts resulting from earlier and later use during the Paleoindian, Archaic, Woodland, Early Caddo, and Historic Caddo periods. The primary Middle–Late Caddo components at the three fully excavated sites represent use as rural farmsteads within a dispersed local community associated with the Titus phase Caddo. At least four of the tested sites were occupied less intensively during this same interval.

The magic of improbable appendages: Deer antler objects in the archaeological record of the American South

Introduction to Special issue

Osteometric data from archaeological remains are fundamental in zooarchaeological analyses of domestic dogs. We apply recently developed methods to a small sample of dog remains recovered from the Ewing site, a multicomponent precontact Native American site in Vermont, northeastern North America. We measure dimensions of limb bone ends and pulp‐width ratios from dental radiographs to estimate dog body mass and age at death based on published regression equations. Our analysis estimates the body mass of the Ewing dogs and demonstrates adult size differences characterized dogs in the precontact Northeast. Their range in size is consistent with supporting hunting activities rather than regular load transport. The range of ages of dogs in the sample suggests that dogs did not die only of old age. All of the Ewing dogs were butchered for food and/or skins. The osteometric analysis of the Ewing dogs contributes much needed osteometric data on dogs in northeastern America. Our results highlight the potential of small samples, legacy collections, and the importance of building a quantitative, comparative, osteometric dataset for the region.

The authors surveyed subadult human skeletons from Native American archeological sites in the United States for evidence of skeletal lesions associated with scurvy. Geographic regions surveyed include the Midatlantic area, the Southeast (Florida), the Southwest, and the Plains. The prevalence of probable subadult scurvy ranged from zero in the Plains samples to 38% in a small sample from Florida. These data indicate the likelihood that scurvy was a significant childhood disease in many Native American groups. Reasons for variation in prevalence remain speculative but include regional and seasonal variation in food types and abundance, cultural patterns of storage and utilization, periodic food shortages, and the relative importance of corn in the diet. These factors are part of a nutritional complex that is related to disease prevalence which can be studied through evidence seen in archeological human remains.

In recent years preservation of sacred Native American burial sites has received renewed attention. Such sites have suffered various threats: modern highway or urban construction, careless artifact seekers, even university anthropology programs. Grave robbers are not the only threat. Anthropologists themselves must ask when it is appropriate to explore graves as archaeological sites, and does it matter whether the graves are those of Native Americans or of white people. These are not new questions but a new sensitivity to the questions is appearing. (We seldom dig up graves of New England Calvinists in the name of archaeological necessity; yet we seem to attack Indian graves of lesser antiquity.)l Wendy Rose, as a Native American anthropologist and poet, addresses this particular confrontation because it is of direct personal, professional, and tribal importance to her while at the same time she engages the more universal problems of fragmentation vs healing unity of her (and our) world. Although, as she has said, she is not that kind of anthropologist (she is a social anthropologist rather than historical), she meets the problem in the profession generally. Rose highlights the need for both understanding and sensitizing with the epigraphs preceding each section of her major collection, Lost Collection. Two epigraphs to Part I may serve as illustrations: ...you tell people where a site is, and they start to dig it...and the only thing they are looking for...is arrowheads and beads. And some people like to collect skulls. (Archaeologists, 1972) For sale: American Indian skull, guaranteed authentic. Good condition, $300 or best offer... (published ad, 1972). At the 1982 MLA Convention in Los Angeles, Wendy Rose, interviewed by Carol Hunter, identified the world she faced at that time: There's a bookstore in San Francisco that is famous for selling alternative literatures, especially 'beat' literature. Literary people come from all over the world to go there. I'm talking about 'City Lights.' I went in there and I asked for The Names, by N. Scott Momaday, the year it came out. After looking around without success, I asked the clerk who told me to check 'anthropology.' I did and, although that book wasn't there, the section was full of poetry and fiction by Native authors who were not anthropolgists. Scott Momaday was there, along with Leslie Silko, Simon Ortiz, and others. I returned to the clerk and pointed out that there were a lot of books shelved in the wrong section. He said that Indian authors belong in anthropology no matter what they wrote. We wound up arguing and he ordered me out of the store (43). As poet, Wendy Rose helps prove that Native writers are creating art rather than merely writing anthropological description. Scholars speak of her stunning visual imagery (Wiget 102) and of the counterpoint between formal diction and a sarcastic tone (102). In the introduction to Lost Copper, Scott Momaday describes her poetry as a hawk's shadow that glides upon the canyon wall:...the shadows of language upon the substance of earth (ix). The figure seems akin to Frank Lloyd Wright's illustration of structural with a sliding knot; the shape sliding along several lengths of rope of different composition keeps its integrity in spite of the changes of substance. The key to Rose's poetry is movement (suggested by both the shadow and the sliding knot). Sliding (or sometimes jostling) across time and place, Rose's poems, like Wright's sliding know, create an aesthetic with universal ideas sliding from the past through present situations, giving artistic coherence to fragments. Phenomena cohere for people in a manner which for them, in their particular cultural milieu, saves the appearances.2 If unaware of differences in the perception of phenomena a modern Angloamerican reader may make assumptions from his or her own technological

The sea mink (Neovison macrodon (Prentiss, 1903): Mustelinae) was an unusual late-Cenozoic example of an organism that had rapidly evolved toward a marine niche. Except for the otters, it was probably the most aquatic member of the Musteloidea. Its status as a separate species has not been resolved. A larger relative of the American mink (N. vison), it inhabited the shores of New England and possibly the Canadian Maritime Provinces until it was hunted to extinction in the 19th century. Skeletal and skin specimens were not collected by zoologists, but the former are known from Native American archaeological sites. The hypothesis that the sea mink showed dental divergence from N. vison, an indication of systematic and ecological distinctness, was tested on 111 dentally mature mink specimens originally collected from the Turner Farm archaeological site (Penobscot Bay, Maine). These teeth, dating from about 5,000 to 250 years ago, were compared with 158 other specimens measured for this study and published data from 78 individuals, representing 4 subspecies of N. vison and 22 additional musteloid genera. Thirteen dental measurements were taken on all species and studied using regressions, principal component analysis, and significance testing. Based on comparisons with American mink, it appears likely that the archaeological specimens included primarily N. macrodon but also N. vison. Although pairs of species within the Lutrinae and genus Mustela showed divergence comparable to that of N. vison and N. macrodon, the dental proportions of male and female N. vison and of the several N. vison subspecies were nearly identical. These analyses suggest that N. macrodon was sufficiently distinct from N. vison to support its recognition as a separate species.

In 2001, an outbreak of acute respiratory disease occurred among persons working at a Native American archeological site at Dinosaur National Monument in northeastern Utah. Epidemiologic and environmental investigations were undertaken to determine the cause of the outbreak. A clinical case was defined by the presence of at least two of the following symptoms: self-reported fever, shortness of breath, or cough. Ten workers met the clinical case definition; 9 had serologic confirmation of coccidioidomycosis, and 8 were hospitalized. All 10 were present during sifting of dirt through screens on June 19; symptoms began 9–12 days later (median 10). Coccidioidomycosis also developed in a worker at the site in September 2001. A serosurvey among 40 other Dinosaur National Monument workers did not find serologic evidence of recent infection. This outbreak documents a new endemic focus of coccidioidomycosis, extending northward its known geographic distribution in Utah by approximately 200 miles.