Featured Title:
Redhead, the new thriller by Ian Cook 'a compulsive read' |
 |
| The Secrets of the Avebury Stones |
 |
| Login |
|
Don't have an account yet? You can create one. As a registered user you have some advantages like your own home page, fewer ads, and your contributions link to your page. |
| Who's Online |
There are currently, 95 guests and 1 members online.
You are a guest. To join in, please register for free by clicking here |
| |
Moderated by : Andy B , TimPrevett , coldrum , Klingon , MickM , TheCaptain , bat400 , davidmorgan , Runemage , SolarMegalith , sem
The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map : Index >>
Stones Forum >> North American Finds Discovered by Development
|
 |
| Page 3 of 6 ( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 ) |
| Author |
North American Finds Discovered by Development |
bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1332
from South Central Indiana, US
 OFF-Line
|  Posted 29-11-2009 at 04:58
Ancient Artifacts Discovered At Sugarhouse Site in Philadelphia.
Submitted by coldrum ---
Archaeologists trying their luck at the future site of a Philadelphia casino have hit it big. Hundreds of artifacts, including more than a dozen small tools and a fire pit dating from 1500 B.C., have been found by archaeologists working at the site of the future SugarHouse casino along the Delaware River.
According to Mark Shaffer, a preservation specialist for the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the pieces collected over the last month have doubled the number of American Indian artifacts gathered at the site since 2007.
Construction is already under way for the new casino. The area being excavated now will be used as a parking lot.
Source: http://cbs3. com/local/ artifacts. sugarhouse. philadelphia. 2.1324229. html (This reference may not be available now.)
Also see the Philadelphia Inquirer story: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20091118_Treasure_trove_of_history_found_at_SugarHouse_site.html
The artifacts were found at this location: http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=39.964066&lon=-75.131287&z=15.4&r=0&src=msl
[ This message was edited by: bat400 on 2009-11-29 05:00 ]
 Profile
 Reply
|
bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1332
from South Central Indiana, US
OFF-Line
| Posted 05-12-2009 at 05:12
Prehistoric bones found stop Southside subdivision construction
Building of houses put on hold
CORPUS CHRISTI — A homebuilder has halted new construction after prehistoric Native American bones were found near a Southside subdivision.
Nueces County Medical Examiner Ray Fernandez on Monday examined two partial skeletons found in the 8000 block of Wooldridge Road near Oso Bay. He determined the bones were prehistoric and will ship the bones to a University of North Texas anthropologist for verification, Nueces County Medical Examiner’s chief investigator Ric Ortiz said.
An archeologist also examined the bones and determined that they are Native American, said Texas Historical Commission Archeological division Director James Bruseth.
Hogan Homes, which is selling lots in the neighborhood near where the bones were found, stopped new construction until a company-hired expert determines the size of the burial site found.
“Texas Health and Safety Code does not allow building of homes or other improvements over the top of a human cemetery,” Bruseth said. “A part that has not been developed is where the remains are coming from.”
Once the remains are returned from Denton, they will be given to a Native American group so they may be repatriated, Ortiz said.
As part of the repatriation process, Fernandez’s office needs to submit an inventory of the bones to the federal government, and it must be published in a federal registry, Bruseth said.
Texas cemeteries, including ancient ones belonging to American Indians, are protected by state law.
For more, see the article by Jaime Powell: http://www.caller.com/news/2009/dec/02/prehistoric-bones-found-stop-southside/
Profile
Reply
|
bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1332
from South Central Indiana, US
OFF-Line
| Posted 02-01-2010 at 21:16
Submitted by coldrum ---
Native American artifacts believed to date back thousands of years have been recovered from the planned site of a new industrial plant in southwest Ohio.
SunCoke Energy Inc. found some items as it prepared to build a plant to help supply coke for AK Steel's Middletown Works. The Knoxville, Tenn.-based company hired an archaeological firm to excavate two sites near a creek.
Officials say several hundred prehistoric artifacts were recovered, mostly fragments from arrowheads, spearheads, and evidence of stone tool making. They are believed to be from the era between 8000 B.C. and 1200 A.D.
http://www.examiner.com/a-2394644~Ancient_artifacts_found_at_Ohio_plant_site.html
Another article can be found here: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2009/12/30/Firm-investigating-artifacts-at-Ohio-sites/UPI-47801262195526/
[ This message was edited by: bat400 on 2010-01-15 05:11 ]
Profile
Reply
|
bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1332
from South Central Indiana, US
OFF-Line
| Posted 04-01-2010 at 04:24
Archaeologists Nearing The End Of Dig At Former Tennessee Indian Village
Submitted by coldrum ----
Will Public Have Chance To See The Artifacts? Not Planned, But It Might Be Possible
Archaeologists digging at a Woodland Indian village site along the Nolichucky River where a new bridge is planned for Allens Bridge Road are expected to finish work in a few weeks.
The artifacts that have been found will then be studied, catalogued, documented, and eventually stored in archival boxes under the supervision of the State of Tennessee Archaeologist. There are no current plans for them to be placed on public exhibit, although that possibility exists, according to Tennessee State Archaeologist Mike Moore.
The dig is known as the "Birdwell Site," because it is located on land purchased from Jay and Ann Birdwell for relocation of the two-lane bridge built in 1976. Jay Birdwell, whose Still Hollow Farm and agritourism venue borders the river, said Tuesday in a telephone interview that the crew from the University of Tennessee Archaeological Research Laboratory stopped work before Christmas and do not plan to return until Jan 4. The UT diggers are working under contract to the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT), performing work required by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1966.
Alan Longmire, a TDOT archaeologist based in Johnson City, said Tuesday in a telephone interview that the UT diggers "have only got a couple of weeks left" to complete the field work. Gage and Longmire have said in the past that the next phase of the project will take place in the archaeological lab in Knoxville. There, a separate team will study, catalog, and document what has been found at the Birdwell site, and begin working on a report to TDOT.
If the report satisfies TDOT, Longmire said, that agency will tell the state Historic Preservation office that the project is finished, and provide maps and pictures to supplement the UT report. Bid-letting for construction of the bridge is now "tentatively" set for June 11, 2010.
Asked what will happen to the artifacts, Longmire said, "UT's going to hang onto them for quite a while." The artifacts "are generally the property of the state," he said. "There really hasn't been anything spectacular found," he said.
"I know that annoys people, when they see us working" for months. As archaelogists, Longmire said, "We get excited about small fragments of pottery" that don't look very impressive to the untrained eye.
What has been found has supported the original idea that the Birdwell site was a large village, rather than a camp, and that it was used for extended periods of years, and then abandoned, only to be used again, over a period of several centuries.
Several burial sites have been found, examined, and then covered back up. A few remains had to be moved, and an agreement in that regard that was worked out with five Native American tribes: the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, The Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, the Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma.
The overall site has also yielded numerous arrow points, spear points, and burn pits, trash pits and evidence of toolmaking that indicated long-term use. Longmire said he does not know what the final plans are for any artifacts uncovered by the dig. "If someone wanted to provide room to put them on display, that would be an arrangement that would have to be worked out with the state archaeologist," Longmire said.
Gage said earlier this year that the majority of the finds in the "multi-component" site are from the "Middle Woodland" period, 2,000 to 3,000 years ago.
Evidence has been found, Gage said, "of a lot of storage to maintain this site probably for a long duration during the year," instead of just as a temporary stopover. He said it seems likely that the site was "not only a camp but a good-sized village occupying a lot of the bottom land" along the river.
A good overview of the dig site is available from the covered deck of "The Farmer's Wife," an agritourism venture operated by the Birdwells.
Much more can be found at http://www.greenevillesun.com about this Greene County Tennessee site.
[ This message was edited by: bat400 on 2010-01-04 04:28 ]
Profile
Reply
|
bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1332
from South Central Indiana, US
OFF-Line
| Posted 15-01-2010 at 05:08
Quote:
|
On 2009-11-29 04:58, :
Ancient Artifacts Discovered At Sugarhouse Site in Philadelphia.
Submitted by coldrum ---
More at the Sugarhouse dig, also submitted by coldrum.
|
|
Archaeologists working at the SugarHouse casino site between Fishtown and Northern Liberties have concluded their field work without finding any trace of a Revolutionary-era British fort, a casino spokeswoman said yesterday.
But the abundance of Native American relics unearthed during the dig, some dating back 3,000 years, has drawn the interest of a New Jersey band of the Leni-Lenape Indians.
Casino spokeswoman Leigh Whitaker said archaeologists from A.D. Marble & Co. of Conshohocken found "thousands of artifacts," ranging from Indian artifacts to fragments of pottery. "The field work is complete," Whitaker said. "The next step is for our archaeologists to catalog all the items that they did find."
The Sand Hill Band of the Lenape has made an official request to Gov. Rendell to view the artifacts.
"We thought what they would mostly find would be colonial things," said Chester Shadow Walker Robinson, a Cherokee chief from New Jersey. "We know there was a Lenape burial ground in that area." He said that if there were any human remains, "we'd like to reclaim them for proper burials."
Laura Zucker, a spokeswoman for the Sand Hill band, said the descendants of the Lenape also have asked the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission if they could inspect the items.
"We want to see if there are any ancestral relics or items of antiquity, and sit down to discuss what will become of them," Zucker said.
Whitaker said many of the Native American items were stone fragments from tool-building. Many were found near an ancient hearth on the 22-acre site, between Northern Liberties and Fishtown on Delaware Avenue.
Historians say ancient trails that were heavily used by tribes - which became Frankford and Germantown Avenues - ended near the waterfront. Before the arrival of European settlers, tribes would encamp on the Delaware to fish and hunt, returning to inland settlements in the winter, said Ken Milano, a Kensington historian.
For more, see: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/80102677.html
[ This message was edited by: bat400 on 2010-01-15 05:09 ]
Profile
Reply
|
bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1332
from South Central Indiana, US
OFF-Line
| Posted 20-01-2010 at 04:30
Remains found in Carmel Valley are 3,000-year-old Native American woman.
Submitted by coldrum --
The skeletal remains of a Native American woman who likely lived more than 3,000 years ago were uncovered by trenching work at Carmel Valley Ranch, [Monterey County, California]. Construction workers uncovered the ancient grave Friday, and appropriate county and state officials were notified, said county Planning Director Mike Novo.
Salinas archaeologist Gary Breschini went to the site with a coroner's deputy, which he often does when possible remains of Native Americans are discovered.
Breschini said the partially uncovered remains were those of a woman, probably 28 to 30 years old, who lived with members of the Esselen tribe more than 30 centuries ago.
Breschini said the woman likely was laid to rest in an isolated burial site. Only two or three pieces of shell were found, and there was no village or major Native American site nearby, he said.
Under state law, the California Native American Heritage Commission designates the deceased's "most likely descendant," and that person is responsible for deciding how to handle the remains. Louise Miranda Ramirez, tribal chairwoman of the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Nation, was designated as the person to make arrangements on how to handle the remains.
Work was halted Friday until a county planner and archaeologist could examine the site to determine how extensive it was, Novo said. It's not unusual for construction workers to uncover Native American resources in the county, but "to find bones is not that common," he said.
For more, see http://www.montereyherald.com/local/ci_14178626?nclick_check=1.
[ This message was edited by: bat400 on 2010-01-20 04:34 ]
Profile
Reply
|
bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1332
from South Central Indiana, US
OFF-Line
| Posted 15-03-2010 at 02:37
A point to the past: Sightseeing snowbirds dig up a piece of history
Submitted by coldrum --
A random turn led John Colwell and Katherine Frank to a piece of ancient civilization.
“We were just sightseeing,” said Frank, a resident of Halifax, Nova Scotia. “That is what we love to do. We really do enjoy exploring this part of Florida.”
Frank and her fiancé, who have been coming to Walton County for years, were just “cruising” when they decided to turn onto 30A at Inlet Beach instead of driving down U.S. Highway 98.
“We were just walking through the scrub trying to get closer to the house,” Colwell said, “and that is when Katherine noticed something. Just the tip of it was sticking out of the ground when I saw it,” Frank said. “So I bent down and started to dig it out of the sand.”
After digging it out, the couple realized they had a perfectly intact arrowhead that was about 2 inches long and about an inch-and-a-half wide.
Gail Meyer, museum manager for the city of Fort Walton Beach Heritage Park and Cultural Center, said the arrowhead appears to be real after viewing pictures of it. “It is made from material I would expect to see in the area,” she said. “It appears to be a Late Archaic/Early Woodland time period point.”
The Late Archaic period was between 8000-1000 B.C. and The Early Woodland period ranges from 1000 B.C.-1 A.D.
Meyer said the first thing we need to know is that the people living here at the time were not Cherokee, Creek, or Choctaw Indians. “Their history was not recorded as written words. They certainly had a name for themselves, but we do not know what is was.”
Meyer said there are several similar projectile points in the artifact collection at the Indian Temple Mound Museum. While most of these points were projected, Meyer said they were often used on spears, arrows, blow gun darts, and lances.
“Most tools in any toolbox are never used for only one purpose,” she said. “The edge on a spear would make a perfect cutting edge or drill in a pinch. They were also used as a weapon, a hunting tool, a food utensil or a grain cutter.”
James Matthews, historic archeologist, with Prentice Thomas and Associates in Fort Walton Beach said there have been several groups of Native Americans that moved in and out of Walton County throughout the years.
“The area around Hogtown Bayou was excavated in the early 1900s by the Smithsonian Institute,” he said. “They found a burial cemetery and other artifacts that dated back to the Archaic Period.”
In 1984, archeological researchers studying an Indian mound in Sandestin said it had proven a treasure trove of information about the area’s Native American population.
“That is great,” Colwell said. “I am even more excited now, to the point that the hair on the back of my neck is standing up.”
For more, including a photo of the tool find, see http://www.waltonsun.com/news/piece-4388-snowbirds-photos.html the Walton Sun
[ This message was edited by: bat400 on 2010-03-15 02:40 ]
Profile
Reply
|
bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1332
from South Central Indiana, US
OFF-Line
| Posted 25-04-2010 at 04:37
Abundant food and leisure time: Site tells story of what Hilton Head Island was like 4000 years ago.
Submitted by coldrum --
As volunteers work to renovate a house on Hilton Head Island's north end to serve as the focal point of a planned Gullah museum, a much older treasure sits undisturbed nearby -- a 4,000-year-old Indian camp. The camp was discovered 27 years ago, when Jerre Weckhorst happened upon a fragment of a prehistoric clay bowl as he dug a water main in 1983.
Though the fragment was small, he knew what he'd found and what it meant. He stopped the water main work immediately.
Weckhorst handed off the fragment to Mike Taylor, then executive director of the Museum of Hilton Head Island. Taylor recognized the clay piece as an example of millenia-old, fiber-tempered pottery, the first kind of pottery made in North America.
Taylor then alerted Michael Trinkley, an archeologist from the nonprofit Chicora Foundation. Trinkley suspected he'd come upon one of the few nearly intact archaeological sites of prehistoric coastal island Indian life. The find dated from the period known as Stallings, between 3500 and 1000 B.C.
By 1986, a team of archaeologists had extracted more than 25,000 prehistoric artifacts from the site. Trinkley estimates there are still thousands more buried in Fish Haul Creek Park, which the town now owns and protects from artifact scavengers and development.
The find was significant enough to secure the site a place on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
"It was incredibly exciting," Trinkley said.
ANCIENT LIVES
The site helped archaeologists learn what life had been like for the American Indians who lived in the Lowcountry as they made the transition from wandering hunter-gatherers to a more settled lifestyle. The Stallings-era Indians in coastal Georgia and South Carolina were the first in North America to learn to make pottery. As they were creating these objects, across the Atlantic, early Britons were cobbling together Stonehenge and the first Latins were settling in Rome.
The Indians, who probably traveled to Hilton Head in the winter and camped along Fish Haul Creek, used Spanish moss to temper their pottery so it would hold together during the firing process.
Their days on the island were largely focused on looking for food, Trinkley said.
Their choices were abundant. Archaeologists have found mounds of discarded oyster and turtle shells, deer and bird bones, and hickory nut shells, a source of protein.
Though the Indians spent long hours foraging each day, Trinkley says they had a lot in common with the vacationers who visit the island seasonally now.
"Food was so plentiful that they probably had a great deal of leisure time," he said. "They probably loafed around."
For more, see Hilton Head South Carolina's Island Packet.
Profile
Reply
|
bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1332
from South Central Indiana, US
OFF-Line
| Posted 18-06-2010 at 04:58
Artifacts reveal Fort Jackson, South Carolina history.
Submitted by coldrum -- The open house described took place in April 2010.
People bivouacked at Fort Jackson, South Carolina before the U.S. Army took over the property.
Long before.
The most extensive archaeological dig ever at the fort has uncovered evidence of human camps up to 9,000 years old.
USC and Army archaeologists have been studying sites at Fort Jackson for several years. The findings aren't stunning - artifacts from that period are common throughout the state. But until recent years, archaeologists believed concentrations of artifacts from the Archaic period were likely only along major waterways. The Fort Jackson site is on sandy uplands, several miles from the Wateree River and even farther from the Broad.
"You were not supposed to find stuff like this in the sand hills," said Chuck Cantley, archaeologist with the S.C. Department of Archives and History.
Researchers now are finding plenty of artifacts from that time - the Archaic period - on high ground. Audrey Dawson, the chief investigator at the Fort Jackson site, and her crew have found five dense concentrations. They uncovered sandstone they believe is from hearths, quartz that has been chipped to create tools and projectile points, and rare pieces of pottery.
The artifacts include stone from the mountains of North Carolina and coastal areas of South Carolina and Georgia, hinting at wandering groups. But it's also clear someone sat in these woods and chipped quartz to make points.
It's also ideal for military training and, in the future, barracks. Basic archaeological work that began in 1989 found enough evidence to prompt Fort Jackson officials to ban digging and heavy vehicles on 74,000 square meters.
But fort expansion plans now call for a future barracks complex on a portion of the archaeological site, so the Army is trying to find as much of the history as it can before construction begins.
"Fort Jackson does a wonderful job of locating and avoiding sites," Dawson said. And when they need to use a site "we get as much out of the sites as we can so there's nothing left to destroy."
Since the simple 1989 assessment, archaeologists have done more detailed digs at about 200 to 250 sites, said Chan Funk, a contract archaeologist at the fort. The dig Dawson is leading is the first Phase 3 dig that delves even more extensively into the past.
The Army and the archaeologists wanted to give the public a peek at the dig and its findings before it ends in a few weeks.
"One of the main goals of archaeology is to educate the public and inform people about the past," Dawson said. "We want to reach out to the public and let them see what we've found."
Read more:
http://www.thestate.com/2010/04/24/1258028/artifacts-reveal-fort-jackson.html#ixzz0czdMLU3X
[ This message was edited by: bat400 on 2010-06-18 05:02 ]
Profile
Reply
|
coldrum
Joined:
17-09-2002
Messages: 780
OFF-Line
| Posted 19-06-2010 at 18:38
Anthropologists explore treasures near Lake Koshkonong
Traffic will one day race over an archeological treasure trove off Highway 26 near Lake Koshkonong, where a group of Milwaukee anthropologists believe they’ve found remnants left by some of Wisconsin’s earliest residents.
For weeks, crews from the Great Lakes Archeological Research Center, Milwaukee, have been recovering prehistoric American Indian artifacts on a saddle-shaped, 2-acre strip of wooded land at the corner of Pond Road and Highway 26 just south of Fort Atkinson.
The dig is being done through the Wisconsin Department of Transportation in anticipation of the expansion of Highway 26, which is slated for 2013, officials said.
Surveyed as the “Finch Site,” the area is formed by two wooded glacial hills wedged between the east side of Highway 26 and a low-lying marsh area.
Tentative state plans would put the northbound lanes of the new, expanded Highway 26 over about 80 percent of the site. Only the east edge of the site would remain untouched as state and privately owned property, officials said.
For now, the site is a hive of scientists in boots, floppy hats and dirt-caked jeans. They move around a growing maze of shallow pits being dug to unearth tools, weapon points, pottery and other artifacts with ages ranging at least as far back as 500 B.C. to the time of European explorations in the 1600’s.
The site is undisturbed by modern plows.
“Finding a pristine site like this is very exciting and very rare,” said Ricky Kubicek, an archeologist with the Great Lakes Archeological Research Center. “As we bring up (artifacts), most of them are as they were left off by the original (inhabitants).”
Kubicek supervises a crew of 15 archeologists who are under a tight deadline to recover as many artifacts from the site as possible. The crew will work until August and hopes to unearth about 50 percent of the artifacts surveyors believe exist on the property, department of transportation officials said.
The excavations isn’t being done willy-nilly, site archeologist Ryan Harke said. Crews are using soil analysis to find artifact deposits known as middens.
Harke said middens are recognizable because they create breaks in normal soil layering. He said they stick out like sore thumbs, and they’re chock full of artifacts.
“They’re like ancient garbage dumps,” Harke said.
Kubicek said some middens have concentrations of discarded items that show ancient people used certain spots at the site for specific tasks, such as tool making or pottery crafting.
With a shovel and a trowel, archeologist William Eichmann scraped away a 5-centimeter layer of black topsoil from a pit on the site’s north end.
Eichmann dropped the soil into a bucket and poured it through a large mesh sieve. The sieve caught some key artifacts: flakes of chert rock, possibly discarded by weapon makers in the Mississippian era of prehistoric Native Americans.
“Feel these remnants,” Eichmann said. “Even after being in the ground all this time, they’re still almost razor sharp.”
He said the people who likely left behind the shards ranged the glacial hills of southern Wisconsin to the Galena area in northwest Illinois from 1,200 to 500 years ago.
Eichmann said he could tell the shards were from weapon point production because their color shows they were heated, a process commonly used by ancient toolmakers.
While crews have found no human remains at the site, other items include pottery and tool fragments from the Woodland people, an ancient native group that lived in the region 2,500 to 800 years ago.
One significant artifact crews unearthed came from the south end of the site, on a tree-choked hill overlooking a bog to the east.
Kubicek said he believes it’s a Folsom point, a type of stone spear head used by hunters in the Paleo era—one of the earliest prehistoric cultures in Wisconsin.
“It’s probably isolated. It’s the only item we’ve found from that period,” he said.
Kubicek said if crews find pieces of carbon or burned plant material near an artifact, lab workers offsite could use carbon dating to come within decades of pinpointing its age.
“That system’s gotten better over the years. It’s usually pretty damn close,” Kubicek said.
Kubicek said if the weapon from the south hill actually is a Folsom point, it could be 10,000 years old.
The bulk of artifacts found at the site will be sent to UW-Milwaukee for further analysis of their composition, age and what cultures might have used them, Kubicek said.
Some of the items could end up in museums, or at state-supported historical societies, as part of an agreement between the state, Native American groups and scientists involved in the dig, officials said.
Currently, there are no plans to make the site a protected historical site.
“It’s a matter of getting a reported document of the pictures and the history of what was there. It’s about documentation now and preserving the documents that are recovered,” Department of Transportation highway project manager Mark Vesperman said in a phone interview.
After that’s done, Vesperman said, the Finch site’s days are numbered. It’s on private property, but sale is pending. Soon, the state will take over the bulk of the site.
Vesperman said he’s aware people passing on Highway 26 are curious about all the workers, tarps and buckets at the site.
“We could put a sign out warning people that it’s an archeological site, but that’s like the Wizard of Oz telling people not to look behind the curtain,” he said.
Vesperman said crews won’t necessarily turn away visitors who are curious about the dig, but people aren’t allowed to interfere with the work or do any digging of their own.
Kubicek said because the area is so undisturbed, crews are prepared for a continued flood of visitors to the site. He expects to find significant items until the very end of the dig.
As he walked along a foot-beat path past two open pits near the bottom of a hill, Kubicek stopped to pick up a small, white fragment lying in the dirt.
“Huh,” he said, tossing the piece back to the ground. “Nothing but a deer bone.”
http://gazettextra.com/news/2010/may/02/anthropologists-explore-treasures-near-lake-koshko/
Profile
Reply
|
coldrum
Joined:
17-09-2002
Messages: 780
OFF-Line
| Posted 19-06-2010 at 18:39
Ancient Artifacts Found in Albemarle County
Archaeologists recently made a potentially exciting discovery at an estate in Albemarle County. Buried artifacts found show that Native Americans possibly settled in the area 3,000 years ago on what's known now as Morven Farm. The University of Virginia Foundation owns Morven and last summer began phase one of the archaeological dig. The findings are giving researchers a better idea of who lived here a long time ago.
"We think this arrowhead is possibly over 2,000 years old," said Van Smith, Program and Development Manager at the University of Virginia Foundation.
An incomplete arrowhead chiseled by Indians and a shard from a piece of their pottery were among some of the artifacts found by archaeologists.
"It's fascinating to think that long before Columbus set sail this rock was in the ground and lost in the sands of time here at Morven," said Smith.
The University of Virginia Foundation commissioned an archaeological survey of the land after historical documents and accounts hinted Native Americans once settled at Morven. A team of archaeologists led by Steve Thompson from Rivanna Archaeological Services dug 2,000 test pits across 250 acres. The pits now filled in, were two feet square and extended down to the clay subsoil.
"It's possible there's more material below it, that this is a stratified site. That there are levels of earlier occupation below the level that we reached," said Steve Thompson.
The archaeologists also uncovered an ox shoe that was used by tenant farmers in the 18th century. Tenant farmers were considered the middle class at the time but very little is known about them.
"A class of people we know very little about from the historical record and even less about from the archaeological record though they certainly made up an enormous part of colonial society," said Thompson.
The findings will help researchers understand how the Indians and the tenant farmers lived, from what they ate to what they wore.
The University of Virginia Foundation hopes to begin phase two of this project where they will narrow in on specific sites on the property and do further archaeological digs.
http://www.nbc29.com/Global/story.asp?S=12414446
Profile
Reply
|
coldrum
Joined:
17-09-2002
Messages: 780
OFF-Line
| Posted 19-06-2010 at 18:40
Discoveries might reveal origins of Southeastern N.C.'s first inhabitants
A local captain and his crew have discovered a unique rock and nearby artifacts that might help reveal how the first people came to Southeastern North Carolina thousands of years ago.
Geologists said the rock, called black chert or novaculite, was previously thought to be available in vast quantities only in the mountains of Arkansas. Zulu Discovery, a local underwater exploration company, found a very dense version of the rock dozens of feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean off Wrightsville Beach. Chert was used by the first people in North America, called Paleo-Indians, to create the stone tools they needed to survive.
The discovery of black chert off local shores could rewrite America's prehistory by supporting a theory that Paleo-Indians might have come to the continent via a coastal route rather than by land, said Phil Garwood, a geology instructor at Cape Fear Community College who first identified the local rock as chert. The exact route Paleo-Indians followed will always remain a mystery, but clues have come in the form of the tools they left behind.
“This is a piece of the puzzle,” Garwood said.
In collaboration with CFCC, Zulu Discovery founders Capt. Jim Batey and his son Rusty Batey hope to find grants and other sources of funding to continue their research and exploration of the areas where they've found the rock and artifacts. The Bateys don't want to reveal the exact depths or locations of their finds, fearing the disruption by other divers of their efforts to study the material.
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20100509/ARTICLES/100509684/1004?Title=Discoveries-might-reveal-origins-of-Southeastern-N-C-s-first-inhabitants
Profile
Reply
|
coldrum
Joined:
17-09-2002
Messages: 780
OFF-Line
| Posted 19-06-2010 at 18:45
Prehistoric pet? Dog burial found in O.C.
It might have been a treasured pet, or the victim of traditional destruction of property after its owner's death. The reason for its burial remains a mystery.
But 18 centuries ago, someone carefully positioned the body of a small dog in what was likely a shallow grave in the marshlands of Laguna Canyon, then turned over a stone grinding bowl to cover the animal.
Four years ago, the dog's burial place was discovered by archaeologists keeping watch for artifacts during the widening of Laguna Canyon Road.
On Thursday night, scientists will give a talk on the discovery of the dog burial, among fewer than 10 ever found in Orange County. The talk, hosted by the Pacific Coast Archaeological Society, is free and open to the public.
The dog was a techichi, or "small Indian dog," of a type that was about the size of a terrier and that is now extinct. But the scientists involved in the discovery know little else, including why it was buried at all.
"It might have been just a pet burial," said Paul E. Langenwalter II, a research archaeologist who teaches archaeology at Biola University. "But it could be destruction of property. It was common to kill the dog along with burning or destroying any other personal property upon the death of the owner."
The dog would have had erect ears and tail and stood about 15 inches high at the shoulder. A radiocarbon date places it at about 1,790 years ago, Langenwalter said.
Ancient pet burials are uncommon, he said; fewer than 10 have been found in Orange County, an area rich in Native American artifacts, and only a few dozen are known statewide.
Even more intriguing are the positioning of the dog and the placement of a "cairn" — a rock marker, in this case a large acorn grinding-bowl or metate — on top of it.
"The cairn is rare, and the burial position — having been folded sideways — is entirely new to archaeological knowledge within California,"Langenwalter said.
While dog burials are usually associated with Native American villages, the area where the dog was found likely served only as a frequently used campsite.
Langenwalter, archaeologist Roderick McLean of LSA Associates, Inc., and Joyce Perry, an Acjachemen scholar and manager for the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, will give a talk on the find at the Irvine Ranch Water District, 15600 Sand Canyon Ave., Irvine, beginning at 7 p.m. Thursday.
http://www.ocregister.com/news/dog-252748-burial-href.html
Profile
Reply
|
coldrum
Joined:
17-09-2002
Messages: 780
OFF-Line
| Posted 19-06-2010 at 18:45
A 12,000-year-old find in Keene
Just beyond the grind of machinery and trucks working to build a state of the art middle school in Keene lays the remnants of the life that used to be there. Before machines, before planes and cars, before the first settlers from strange lands, people were here. They built fires and carved tools, had families, and most of all, existed.
"The history of Keene says that Native Americans never lived here," said Robert Goodby, a Stoddard Archeologist studying the historic finds at the site of the new Keene Middle School off of Maple Avenue. "And here we have evidence of them living here 12,000 years ago. ... It's significant because of its age, that it's so undisturbed and the fact that you can stand here 12,000 years later and speculate that this was someone's home for a short period of time based on where the artifacts are coming from."
Goodby is leading a team of archeologists excavating four areas on the site of the new Middle School. The site in only one of two this old known in Cheshire County -- the other was discovered in the late 1970s in Swanzey -- and only one of 15 of this age in the state. The exact location of the dig is being kept secret to prevent looters from desecrating the sites and to preserve the team's own painstaking work which has continued seven days a week for months.
Goodby was first hired by the Keene School District to examine the historic significance of the site as part of the permitting process to build near a wetland.
And it was good they did, since the team has discovered bits of history dating between 12,000 and 13,000 years old.
"Not very much at all is known about these people," Goodby said. "What is very special about this site is that this is one of the very early sites. These were some of the first people to come into this area and the end of the ice age."
Through digging deep soil test cores all across the flat and wet land area at the site, a geologist was able to get an historical picture of what the area looked like when the first people arrived in what was not yet Keene.
"He was able to determine that the site originally had small streams coming across it from the melting glacier and (the streams) were depositing the sand and creating this level surface," Goodby said. "By the time the first people got here, (the terrace) was exactly where it is now."
He went on to say that at the time the Ashuelot River was also much closer to the site, making it an ideal spot to set up camp, Goodby said.
"It's a nice level sandy terrace right next to a huge wetland. You know there's all sorts of good things to eat and a lot of natural resources there," he said.
Click below to view a slideshow by New Hampshire Union Leader photographer Bob LaPree about the project:
The archeologists started out digging in small test areas last fall. Where they found chips of stone, likely from tools, they opened up the area for further exploration. Moving in a methodically slow fashion, the excavators dug one meter squares. They divided those squares into four quarters, each about 50 cm. They then dug down, 5 cm at a time.
"Everything that we find is very precisely located, because, to make sense of what people were doing here, we need an accurate map of where every tool was found," Goodby said. "That's one of the critical things about archeology. A lot of people think, ‘oh archeology means finding lots of cool stuff.' Yeah it does, but what we're really trying to do here is learn about what the people were doing. And we can only do that if we recover the tools scientifically."
So far the artifacts have been found in oval clusters. Goodby speculates that these areas were where the people pitched tents or other shelters.
Primarily, the explorers have found a variety of stone tools that would have been used for processing animal hides, such as scraping tools. They've also found tools for making things out of bone and antlers as well as tools for engraving and splitting. But what's even more significant is what the stone tells the archeologists about the people who used them.
"We're learning for one thing that they had connections that extended all over Northern New England," Goodby said. "They were getting their stone from quarries as far away as northern Maine. And from sources in far north New Hampshire." He said there's evidence some of the stone may have come from Berlin and Jefferson.
He said they may have gotten this by following the caribou migratory routes, as that was their main game animal. He also said it may indicate that they were connected to other bands of people at this time so the stone moved from family to family.
Goodby also believes the type of stone they are finding in Keene as compared to the stone found in Swanzey in the 1970s, will ultimately prove the Keene site is even older than the Swanzey site.
Another exciting find was a stone fireplace that still had remnants of burnt fire wood in it. Next to the hearth, the archeologists also discovered what they believe to be burnt caribou bone. Goodby said testing will be done on the bone to determine the animal and the wood to determine what species of trees were in the area when these people lived there.
Goodby said he has two more weeks to gather what he can from the sites before construction on that part of the property continues on the middle school.
However, the significance of the site will not be lost once the areas are covered over with the new school, said William Gurney, Co-Superintendent of SAU 29.
He said school officials will be building the finds into the curriculum so that students will understand the importance of the history right there in their backyard. He also said replicas of the stone tools will be on permanent display inside the school.
"The curriculum has been a little bit lacking when it comes to the original inhabitants in New England," Gurney said. "Now the students will be able to hold replicas of the actual artifacts in their hands and see exactly what the real tools looked like and touch and hold them…. It's just great."
Further, the school district will receive a comprehensive report on the findings and Goodby also expects to give lectures and publish his findings at some point. Though a scientist through and through, Goodby can't hide his excitement for what they are discovering.
"To put it in context, I have been doing archeology for 25 years," he said. "And this is the neatest site I've ever seen. This is really a very important site."
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=A+12%2C000-year-old+find+in+Keene&articleId=54601353-dc58-4c2a-854b-2b2dc842cf69
Profile
Reply
|
coldrum
Joined:
17-09-2002
Messages: 780
OFF-Line
| Posted 19-06-2010 at 18:46
Native site on Patuxent could date to 1000 BC
When they first detected traces of an 800-year-old wigwam on a bluff over the Patuxent River last year, archaeologists celebrated what they said was the oldest human structure yet found in Maryland.
Now, deeper excavation at the site — the front lawn of a modest rental house — is yielding details of much earlier settlement, extending its history back to at least 3,000 years ago.
"As far as I know, it's older than anything in Maryland, Virginia and Delaware, perhaps the oldest structures in the Chesapeake region," said Anne Arundel County archaeologist Al Luckenbach, leader of the dig.
And that's just the age that's been established by carbon 14 dating. Slicing deeper in the sandy bluff overlooking the Patuxent's broad marsh, Luckenbach's crew has found stone tools suggesting humans were exploiting the river's abundance as long as 10,000 years ago.
Called Pig Point, the site is producing a gusher of ancient artifacts —decorated pottery, tools crafted from stone and bone, ornaments and food waste that have begun to fill in the details of life along the Patuxent River centuries before Europeans arrived.
"Some of the ceramics that have come out of this site are really just astounding," said Maureen Kavanagh, chief archaeologist at the Maryland Historical Trust and a specialist in ceramics.
There have been pot fragments with incised angular decorations or rims crimped like a pie crust — both different from any ever found in Maryland. Diggers found an intact paint pot the size of a child's fist, and a miniature, decorated pot the size of a thimble.
"These really have us scrambling to figure out what they represent," Kavanaugh said. "Some of these artifacts are one of a kind, and we don't have an easy way of fitting them into our mental template … It's a great, great site."
Archaeologists say some of their discoveries are so exotic in this region, they suggest Pig Point was a center of trade among native people as far-flung as Ohio, Michigan and New York.
Even today, the town site overlooks broad expanses of wild rice and Tuckahoe — river plants that would have helped to feed the native people. Geese, heron, osprey, bald eagles still patrol the shores. Tiny fish roil the shallows.
Trash middens unearthed in the dig are yielding the remains of freshwater mussels, oysters, fish, beaver, muskrat, otter, deer, duck, nuts and more. Archaeologists have also found carbonized corn kernels, evidence of agriculture.
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-06-12/news/bs-md-indian-village-site-20100528_1_archaeologist-al-luckenbach-native-people
Profile
Reply
|
coldrum
Joined:
17-09-2002
Messages: 780
OFF-Line
| Posted 20-06-2010 at 12:20
NEW SCHOOL SITE YIELDS ANCIENT TOOLS
More Photos For This Story
Published: Friday, June 18, 2010
Tools made about 11,000 years ago were found at the Maple Avenue site of Keene’s new middle school, which Stoddard archaeologist Robert Goodby said could “easily be one of the most important (archaeological) sites in the state, if not New England.
Goodby began his site review, overseen by the N.H. Division of Historical Resources, in November. The review is a federal requirement for projects that are constructed near wetlands. In addition to the high number of artifacts, few Granite State sites hold older finds, except one in Swanzey where 11,600-year-old stone tools were found.
The first items found at the Keene site were small chips of tools — the residue of Paleolithic people making sharp instruments like arrows — from material quarried as many as 200 miles away in Berlin or Vermont.
The Paleolithic period stretches across a broad swath of the timeline of the planet: from about 10,000 B.C. to about 2 million B.C.
http://sentinelsource.com/articles/2010/06/18/news/local/free/id_404071.txt
[ This message was edited by: bat400 on 2010-07-12 04:57 ]
Profile
Reply
|
bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1332
from South Central Indiana, US
OFF-Line
| Posted 12-07-2010 at 05:01
Submitted by coldrum --
Illinois student finds ancient treasure in excavation.
A 27-year-old student has found what appears to be an ancient pottery fragment during an excavation at the Edwardsville campus of Southern Illinois University.
Bryan Clemons found a palm-sized piece of pottery this week believed to be about 2,000 years old.
Clemons is 1 of several anthropology students excavating two acres at the university.
He says being able to touch a piece of pottery someone made so many years ago is a connection to the past.
The region around Edwardsville is rich with ancient history.
In nearby Collinsville is the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. It's believed to have been inhabited from roughly 700 to 1400 A.D. Experts say it was among the most complex societies of prehistoric North America.
Information from: Belleville News-Democrat, http://www.bnd.com />
http://www.kwqc.com/global/story.asp?s=12678340
Profile
Reply
|
bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1332
from South Central Indiana, US
OFF-Line
| Posted 12-07-2010 at 05:06
Submitted by coldrum --
Record arrowhead discovered in western Kentucky creek.
For Darrel Higgins, finding an ancient arrowhead in a creek isn't surprising, it's actually expected. Finding a record-setting artifact that dates back to an estimated 14,000 to 18,000 years? Definitely unexpected.
Higgins has been hunting creek beds for artifacts since he began finding them on farmland when he was a child. But nothing he had found compared to the 9 3/4 inch by 2 3/4 inch specimen he recently found in western Kentucky. The item, described as a clovis point made of buffalo river chert, was submerged in a creek bed when Higgins stumbled upon it.
“As soon as I picked it up, I knew what I had,” he said. “It's usually a long walk back to my truck. Not that day, I was walking on air.”
Higgins was reluctant to specify where he found the clovis, but said he immediately went to his long-time friend and artifact expert Tom Davis in eastern Kentucky to have the item authenticated. Davis dated the clovis back to the days of when prehistoric man roamed the earth and hunted large game. By measurement, it sets a North American record.
“There are some skeptics because of the size of it. But it's a record. There's one as long found in Washington state but it's not as wide,” Higgins said.
Higgins had it authenticated again during the Genuine Indian Relic Society show in Temple, Texas and was able to show it off to enthusiasts. He said he has had some buyer interest but is looking for the right price to take it off his hands. It currently is securely locked away.
The process of discovering an item that has been buried for so long is mainly fueled by rain and erosion. Higgins said that arrowheads, spearheads and other artifacts were left behind or lost at campsites and kill sites near creeks. A creek served as a source for water for early man as well as a place to find wild game to hunt for food.
“Erosion washes away the dirt, especially after deep rains. A deep freeze followed by a deep rain knocks chunks of dirt off and then a second or third rain exposes anything in the dirt,” Higgins said.
“Creekwalking,” as Higgins calls it, now takes up most of his free time. A typical day of creekwalking could take anywhere from five to ten hours and empty a tank of gas as he travels around the region.
“As soon as you spot one it's like a time warp. You wander back through time and think about when it was used and when it was lost,” Higgins said.
http://www.murrayledger.com/articles/2010/06/20/top_story/news01.txt
Profile
Reply
|
Andy B
Joined:
13-02-2001
Messages: 7000
from Surrey, UK
OFF-Line
| Posted 24-08-2010 at 15:59
Artifacts dating back to 5000 B.C. found in Rutland Town
Ancient artifacts dating back roughly 7,000 years ago to 5000 B.C., were found by state archeologists on land near Thomas Dairy in Rutland Town recently.
John Thomas, one of the landowners, said the pointed projectiles looked like arrowheads and were discovered in at least two different locations on his property.
“One was close to Carey’s Auto and another abuts the development on Blue Ridge acres,” Thomas said Tuesday.
The discovery occurred as a part of an archeological dig — a standard procedure prior to subdivision — by the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation.
Scott Dillon, a survey archeologist with the division, said 16 projectiles were found at one location and appeared to be intentionally buried together in a pit. He said the relics studied by experts from the Northeast Archaeology Research Center Inc. were from the Native American era.
“These findings are quite rare and priceless. They really paint a picture of people living in the Rutland area 7,000 years ago.”
Dillon said the artifacts included stoneworking tools, fire-cracked rock and containers for cooking.
“They would heat up rock and drop the rock into the pot to heat up the food,” Dillon said of the Native American people who used these tools. When asked how much these items are worth, Dillon would not put a price tag on them.
“People do sell projectile points, but their monetary value is insignificant compared to their cultural value,” he said. “Their cultural value far outweighs the possibility of selling an artifact on eBay.”
After the discoveries were made, the state created buffer zones around the sensitive material and put a restriction on the land for anything but agriculture use.
Despite the buffer zone determination, four lots on the Thomas property were subdivided, a portion of which will soon be sold to the federal government to build a 70,000-square-foot Armed Forces Reserve Center.
On Tuesday, an Act 250 permit was granted for the Thomas subdivision, according to Bill Burke from Rutland’s Act 250 office.
Regarding the artifacts, Thomas said although the findings are not a financial burden yet, he feels they could be in the future.
“Anytime anyone encumbers the land, I feel that it could be a problem or expense very easily,” Thomas said.
When asked how he feels about the discovery of ancient relics on his land, Thomas answered bluntly.
“I feel that if these historic preservation people want to preserve these artifacts, they should put them in a museum and leave me alone.”
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100624/NEWS01/706259999
Profile
 Email
Reply
|
coldrum
Joined:
17-09-2002
Messages: 780
OFF-Line
| Posted 25-08-2010 at 11:03
Luke Air Force Base artifacts will be excavated
Archaeologists hired by Luke Air Force Base will excavate seven sites where hundreds of Native American artifacts have been found to clear the way for construction of the military's largest solar array.
Base officials were aware of the artifacts sites before recently launching a project to install more than 50,000 solar panels manufactured by SunPower Corp. The panels, paid for by Arizona Public Service Co., would generate power that the utility company would sell to its Valley customers. Luke would receive a fixed electricity rate for providing land for the panels.
Federal and state laws require agencies like the military to preserve historic artifacts before building on federal or state land and to consult with various groups. For the Luke project, officials have invited 16 Arizona tribes, the State Historic Preservation Office, the Washington, D.C.-based Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and Glendale to weigh in. Tribal leaders will tour the sites next week.
"The tribes do need to be a part of the process," said John R. Lewis, executive director of the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona. "They take that very seriously."
Such sites may include ceremonially significant artifacts that tribes want to reclaim, he said. Human remains and funerary materials must be reburied. And other artifacts may serve to document the history of the tribes.
The process could delay the solar project.
Base officials hope to begin excavating the sites in October and begin installing solar panels in January, said Jeff Rothrock, Luke's environmental chief.
But other projects have taken months to work out formal agreements with tribes and historic-preservation agencies on how artifacts should be collected, said Ann Howard, senior archaeologist at the State Historic Preservation Office.
Another factor is how extensive the archaeological discoveries are.
On an initial survey of the land, private Tucson archaeological firm Statistical Research Inc. found well-preserved pottery shards, stone hammers, grinding tools, arrowheads, a shell and burned rocks, indicating areas that were used for making tools and cooking, according to a draft report.
Collecting those items would take less time. But the sites could hold ruins of homes or hearths underground. Nearby digging in previous years failed to turn up features below the surface, but the likelihood of their presence is high, the report says.
Finding an underground room could require archaeologists to spend more time excavating, Rothrock said.
"It's a wild card," he said. "Depending on how substantial they are, we may be able to deal with the current construction schedule." If not, construction crews may build around the sites until archaeologists finish.
The artifacts are believed to come from the Formative Hohokam period or earlier Archaic period, from 300 B.C. to A.D. 1400.
After excavating, Statistical Research plans to study the items and publish research. Luke officials will arrange public outreach such as an event or brochure if significant historical discoveries are made.
The items then will be archived in a private, climate-controlled Air Force facility in Gila Bend.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/08/20/20100820luke-air-force-base-artifacts-excavation.html#ixzz0w15pKfl7
Profile
Reply
| |
| Go to Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|
|
|
|
|
IMPORTANT NOTES: This site uses COOKIES. Please do not use this web site if you do not agree to our Terms and Conditions of use.
If you plan to visit ancient sites in person, please make sure you follow our Charter.
Articles, photographs and comments are the property of their respective authors or contributors, please contact them for permission to reproduce. Site design ©1997-2012 Andy Burnham.
|
Main News