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Cherokees Want All Artifacts Removed From Airport Development Path

Submitted by bat400 on Tuesday, 10 March 2009  Page Views: 2409

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Salvage Archaeology in Franklin, North Carolina.
The leader of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is upset with plans to remove just 25 percent of American Indian artifacts from the site of an airport runway expansion in North Carolina.

The Asheville Citizen-Times reported last week that the Macon County Airport Authority plans to spend $535,000 to remove one-quarter of the artifacts in the expansion area.

Officials want to expand the Franklin airport to make the runway safer and to accommodate larger jets. Airport board attorney Joe Collins said the additional 600 feet added to the runway will make it 5,000 feet long -- the distance needed for jets to take off and land.

But Eastern Band Principal Chief Michell Hicks said the tribe is "totally opposed" to the plan. He says his government had to remove all artifacts found during construction of a new school campus and expects the county to do the same.

Archaeologist Michael Trinkley of the nonprofit Chicora Foundation in Columbia, S.C., said the collection of just 25 percent of the artifacts is "an abomination, it's vulgar, it's obscene, and it is disrespectful."

His company found 1,500 postholes of ancient structures, 200 archaeological features, such as storage pits for food, and 48 possible burials during a dig in 2000 near the site of the planned runway expansion.

"This is perhaps the most significant Native American site that will be found in the region in our lifetimes," he said. "There are very few sites of this size and magnitude .... left that haven't been impacted by roads, cultivation and housing developments."

Hicks said tribal representatives first tried to compromise with the airport board so that the artifacts could be collected and the runway built while respecting the historic significance of the land.

For more, see the News & Observer.


Note: Collection of only 25 percent of the artifacts is "an abomination, it's vulgar, it's obscene, and it is disrespectful."
Contributor Bio for bat400: Located in the Lower Ohio River Valley, United States.

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"Cherokees Want All Artifacts Removed From Airport Development Path" | Login/Create an Account | 5 News and Comments
  
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Stripping and Mapping Entire Area Affected by Planned Expansion by bat400 on Saturday, 27 June 2009
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Since the March news stories a decision has been made to excavate, identify, and document the entire area that will eventually covered by the new runway. As with the original plans, any human remains found during this survey, as well as during the building of the runway, will be (per Federal law) handed over to the Eastern Band Cherokee.

Update on story Macon News 25 June 2009. Of most interest is that the expanded project has uncovered evidence of a palisaded village, a previously unknown type of structure for this area and time period.
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Re: Cherokees Want All Artifacts Removed From Airport Development Path by Anonymous on Friday, 26 June 2009
I can't find an update on this story and today June 26, 2009. But I would like to say some things don't have a price. Trying to prove documentation to your heritage is a strange experience, but to have people with no understanding of these trials to take tangible items that any good archeologist can show the history behind is unthinkable, unspeakable crime to the Cherokee people. All real Americans should care more than they do, but the fact remains we are still unwanted members of a modern society that wants to forget. And to bury more evidence that Cherokees were here first, is like burying evidence of the concentration camps of the Jewish people. To bury our culture artifacts under a runway for jet planes that will not come, is just another attempt to bury the truth. You can bury it as deep as the Mother Earth’s core, but you cannot change the truth with a lie and make it true.
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Re: Cherokees Want All Artifacts Removed From Airport Development Path by AngieLake on Wednesday, 11 March 2009
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On reading the basic facts about this case it seems very disrespectful indeed not to honour the ancestors of the Cherokee by carefully removing the burials. Better still, not to place the runway there at all, and leave them in peace.
I wonder if Diana Gabaldon, the author of the Outlander series, [Cross Stitch, etc.] would be interested in supporting the Cherokees over this? I'm currently reading the book where Jamie and Claire are early settlers in North Carolina, and the local tribes are often referred to. She must have done a lot of research in that area.
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Cherokee Chief Michell Hicks responds to Macon County airport project by bat400 on Tuesday, 10 March 2009
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A more detailed article on the subject can be found at MaconNews.com.

An excerpt:
"Cherokee Tribal Preservation Officer Russ Townsend said last week that the tribe recommends either 100 percent of artifact removal or else abandoning the runway expansion. The tribe has concerns regarding the likelihood that burials will be disturbed during artifact removal and runway construction."
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Re: by Anonymous on Tuesday, 10 March 2009
The Brigantes nation stands side by side with the Cherokee nation in it's utter disgust at their ancestral burials being disrespected and destroyed - totally unaccptable. No-one has any right to disturb them from their final resting place. They were there a long time before us. Respect is everything
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