#5 Florida Ice Age Site with Early Human Remains to be Excavated- Jan, 2014
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| A woolly mammoth reconstruction in the Royal BC Museum, Wikimedia.org |
Excavation of one of the most important Ice Age sites in North America – the Old Vero Man site in Vero Beach, Fla. – is expected to begin in January 2014. Members of city and county government and the Indian River Farms Water Control District also will be on hand to witness the culmination of years of renewed local interest in the site, first discovered 100 years ago.
Scientists believe the Old Vero Man site, famous for the discovery of Vero Man in 1915, contains significant fossils and artifacts, including human remains at least 13,000 years old, along with the remains of extinct animals, according to Adovasio. Adovasio and MAI research archaeologist C. Andrew Hemmings, Ph.D., will direct the project.
Around a century ago, workers digging the main drainage canal in Vero Beach uncovered evidence of mastodons, saber tooth cats, ground sloths, mammoths and other fossils, as well as human remains. The discovery of parts of a skull and 44 bones of a human skeleton became known as “Vero Man.”
As is often the case in the scientific debate over early Americans, the Old Vero Man site is steeped in controversy, largely centered on whether the human remains in Vero were of a more recent age than the extinct animal bones due to mixing of geological layers. The Vero site remains in the literature on early American inhabitants, but its status is unresolved.
“From the beginning, Vero was one of the more infamous archaeological sites in North America because it was seen as such a threat to the then perceived wisdom that no humans had lived here during the last Ice Age,” Adovasio said. “Like Meadowcroft and Monte Verde, it was the subject of vitriolic abuse by the alleged experts at the time. Largely because of that abuse and the less than rigorous field methods, Vero went off the radar. But, because of the phenomenal preservation of Ice Age plant and animal materials at that site, this new excavation will serve to illuminate a time frame in the American Southeast that no other site can, with or without human associations. Whatever information is in there, we are going to get it.”
After analysis at Mercyhurst, it is anticipated that artifacts will return to Vero Beach for display, according to OVIASC’s Randy Old. OVIASC hopes to create a State of Florida-approved repository in Indian River County for that purpose.
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| A fossilized bone with a mastodon or mammoth carved into it was discovered by amateur fossil hunter and local resident James Kennedy. The artifact is “one of the oldest pieces of prehistoric art in the Western Hemisphere.” Adapted from Chip Clark/Journal of Archaeological Science |
Adovasio and Hemmings, meanwhile, believe the pending excavation will bring new answers to questions about the controversial site. Adovasio is known for his meticulous excavation of the Meadowcroft Rockshelter, widely recognized as the earliest well-dated archaeological site in North America, with evidence of human habitation dating to ca. 16,000 years ago. Hemmings, an expert on the oldest Paleoindian sites in the U.S., received his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Florida and has worked on submerged and other ancient sites across Florida. The pair brings not only a wealth of expertise, but some of the latest methods used in modern scientific excavations for which the MAI is renowned.
“The new excavation in Vero will bring current analytical techniques to the soil layers, bone fragments, seeds, pollen and other materials discovered, and more complete and perhaps new answers to the questions of who were the people found there and how they lived and died,” Old said.
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#4 Evidence of Foreign Invasion of Georgia in 1100 AD? - Feb, 2014
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| Model of Rood’s Creek Indian Mounds in Kirby Interpretative Center. (c) 2004 LostWorlds.org |
Known as the Cool Branch Site by, it was the first “Mississippian” town in that part of Georgia. The Mississippian culture was a Native American culture that built towns featuring earthen pyramids built around central plazas. These villages were often surrounded by a palisade wall made from upright logs sharpened to a point at the top. Mississippians also produced pottery in different styles and using a different method (shell tempering) than other native groups. They also shared a construction technique of building prefabricated walls which they erected by placing the bottom portion in a pre-dug trench that was then back filled providing stability. Mississippians also shared religious iconography featuring feathered serpents and eagle men.
Archaeologists have argued for years over how the Mississippian culture developed. One group has held that Mississippian towns have all the traits of being built and inhabited by foreign tribes. Some have argued that this culture had its ultimate origins in Mexico although not all archaeologists who agree with the “invasion” theory support the Mexican origin theory. These claim the invaders simply came from powerful Mississippian settlements to the west such as Moundville in Alabama or Cahokia in Illinois.
A second theory is that Mississippian culture was the result of natural cultural evolution of local tribes. As these tribes grew in size and faced similar challenges they responded in similar ways resulting in what is called the Mississippian culture.
Cool Branch was not the first Mississippian site in Georgia. That honor goes to the Ocmulgee Mounds site in Macon. (Evidence at this site also suggests it was created by foreign invaders.) But it was the first Mississippian site on the lower Chattahoochee River.
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| Distribution of Averett, Wakulla and Rood pottery on lower Chattahoochee River. (c) 2002 John Blitz & Karl Lorenz. Used under fair use provisions of copyright law. |
Pottery Styles Tell the Tale
Researchers wanted to understand how the Mississippian culture emerged in this area of Georgia.First they mapped all the pottery styles along this section of the Chattahoochee River. What resulted was a map showing one type of pottery, known as Averett, dominated in the north around Columbus, Georgia and another type, Wakulla, dominated in the south near the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers. Finally the Mississippian type, known as Rood, dominated in between these two types.
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| Cool Branch Incised pottery style. (c) 2014 Georgia Indian Pottery Site. Used under fair use provisions of copyright law. |
Research clearly showed that both Averett and Wakulla had a deep history in the local area. Thus the people who made this pottery were locals who also had a long history there. But the Rood style pottery simply showed up all-of-a-sudden around 1100 AD and was more similar to styles from Moundville, Alabama than to these two local styles. In fact, the researchers showed there was almost no overlap between these pottery styles– Rood style only showed up in Mississippian villages and Averett/Wakulla only showed up in their respective villages. Whoever these three groups were they didn’t appear to have much interactions with one another. Thus the researchers proposed that the Mississippians settled in an uninhabited buffer zone between two local tribes. The fact that there was no local culture in this uninhabited area which could evolve into Mississippian strongly supported the argument that the Mississippians were invaders.
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| Plan view of the Cool Branch site (9QU5). (c) 2002 John Blitz & Karl Lorenz. Used under Fair Use provisions of copyright law. |
Fortifications and Frontiers
The Cool Branch site was surrounded by “an 850 meter long palisade wall with tower bastions spaced 35 meters apart.” When the first Europeans landed in America, their initial settlements always included forts surrounded by walls. As these settlements grew and expanded into the frontiers this pattern would be repeated as walled forts were built first followed by settlements. The Mississippian culture followed this exact pattern along the Chattahoochee. The Cool Branch site appears to be the first fortified settlement which was then followed by more settlements. As the researchers concluded, “palisade construction was employed as a strategic technology to acquire and hold new territories on the Mississippian frontier.” <p.127> This settlement pattern further supports that the Mississippians were invaders.
Aftermath of Invasion?
Averett sites do contain pottery styles from cultures just north of them and likely formed alliances with these tribes as a result of this Mississippian invasion. But by 1300 AD, two hundred years after this Mississippian invasion, Averett styles disappeared from the archaeological record.
The Wakulla culture responded differently to this invasion. Cultures began to reorganize themselves in the Mississippian manner. They began building villages with earthen pyramids similar to those of their Mississippian neighbors.
The Mississippians expanded and built numerous other settlements throughout their new colony. Sites such as Rood’s Landing and Singer-Moye would feature massive earthen pyramids and become some of the largest Mississippian settlements in Georgia showing the power of these invaders.
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| Mound centers in the lower Chattahoochee- Apalachicola River Valley between 1100-1250 AD. (c) 2002 Used under fair use provisions of copyright law. |
Causes of Invasion
Seashells and salt were important trade items throughout most of North American history. The Chattahoochee River was an important trade thoroughfare for the transportation of shells and salt from the Gulf Coast to the mountains of north Georgia. Mississippian invasion may have been in response to trade issues and the fact that the focus of their interactions appear to be on the Wakulla to the south and not the Averett to the north suggests it was coastal trade products such as shells and salt that were their focus.
Survival
After 1400 AD Fort Walton style pottery continued in popularity but the invaders’ own Rood style pottery disappeared.
Sources:
#3 Native Americans Built Poverty Point in Less Than 90 days, Research Confirms - Apr, 2013
Academics consistently underestimate ancient civilizations but even more so with ancient Native American civilizations, possibly due to old grudges, lack of understanding, and cultural biases. It is believed that only people who practiced wide-spread agriculture could develop the necessary food supplies to establish complex societies and civilization. Despite all evidence that pushes back the date of the earliest civilizations and the complexity of the “primitive” people who built them, historians continue to stick to old notions. That is the case with the amazing site of Poverty Point in Louisiana. This was one of the earliest complex civilizations in the Americas dating to around 1700 BC. The latest studies have stunned researchers at the speed with which its giant earthen pyramid was constructed, and with simple and "archaic" tools.
Nominated early this year for recognition on the UNESCO World Heritage List, which includes such famous cultural sites as the Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu and Stonehenge, the earthen works at Poverty Point, La., have been described as one of the world’s greatest feats of construction by an archaic civilization of hunters and gatherers.
New research offers compelling evidence that one of the massive earthen mounds at Poverty Point was constructed in less than 90 days, and perhaps as quickly as 30 days, an incredible accomplishment for what was thought to be a loosely organized society consisting of small, widely scattered bands of foragers.
“What’s extraordinary about these findings is that it provides some of the first evidence that early American hunter-gatherers were not as simple as we’ve tended to imagine,” said study co-author T.R. Kidder, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.
“Our findings go against what has long been considered the academic consensus on hunter-gatherer societies — that they lack the political organization necessary to bring together so many people to complete a labor-intensive project in such a short period.”
The study offers a detailed analysis of how the massive mound was constructed some 3,200 years ago along a Mississippi River bayou in northeastern Louisiana.
Based on core samplings and sophisticated sedimentary analysis, the study says that Mound A at Poverty Point had to have been built in a very short period because an exhaustive examination reveals no signs of rainfall or erosion during its construction.
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| Study co-authors Anthony Ortmann (standing) and T.R. Kidder (center) evaluate the Mound A excavations at Poverty Point. Katherine Adelsberger (seated left), then a Washington University graduate student (now professor at Knox College), and Rachel Bielitz, then a Washington University undergraduate, look on. |
“We’re talking about an area of northern Louisiana that now tends to receive a great deal of rainfall,” Kidder says. “Even in a very dry year, it would seem very unlikely that this location could go more than 90 days without experiencing some significant level of rainfall. Yet, the soil in these mounds shows no sign of erosion taking place during the construction period. There is no evidence from the region of an epic drought at this time, either.”
Part of a much larger complex of earthen works at Poverty Point, Mound A is believed to be the final and crowning addition to the sprawling 700-acre site, which includes five smaller mounds and a series of six concentric C-shaped embankments that rise in parallel formation surrounding a small flat plaza along the river. At the time of construction, Poverty Point was the largest earthworks in North America.
Built on the western edge of the complex, Mound A covers about 538,000 square feet [roughly 50,000 square meters] at its base and rises 72 feet above the river. Its construction required an estimated 238,500 cubic meters — about eight million bushel baskets —of soil to be brought in from various locations near the site. Kidder figures it would take a modern, 10-wheel dump truck about 31,217 loads to move that much dirt today.
“The Poverty Point mounds were built by people who had no access to domesticated draft animals, no wheelbarrows, no sophisticated tools for moving earth,” Kidder explains. “It’s likely that these mounds were built using a simple ‘bucket brigade’ system, with thousands of people passing soil along from one to another using some form of crude container, such as a woven basket, a hide sack or a wooden platter.”
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| Kidder analyzes the varied colors and layers of the soils of Mound A, which are a result of the building process. Indians carried basket-loads of dirt weighing roughly 55 pounds and piled them up carefully to form the mound. |
To complete such a task it would require the full attention of some 3,000 laborers and the community gathered for the build must have included as many as 9,000 people, the study suggests.
“Given that a band of 25-30 people is considered quite large for most hunter-gatherer communities, it’s truly amazing that this ancient society could bring together a group of nearly 10,000 people, find some way to feed them and get this mound built in a matter of months,” Kidder says.
Soil testing indicates that the mound is located on top of land that was once low-lying swamp or marsh land — evidence of ancient tree roots and swamp life still exists in undisturbed soils at the base of the mound.
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| A group of school students visits the Washington University excavations of Mound A at Poverty Point. While doing work at the site, researchers collaborate closely with the Louisiana Office of State Parks to conduct educational and outreach efforts that enhance understanding of the rich history and archaeology of America’s native inhabitants |
Mound A at Poverty Point is much larger than almost any other mound found in North America; only Monk’s Mound at Cahokia is larger.
“We’ve come to realize that the social fabric of these societies must have been much stronger and more complex that we might previously have given them credit. These results contradict the popular notion that pre-agricultural people were socially, politically, and economically simple and unable to organize themselves into large groups that could build elaborate architecture or engage in so-called complex social behavior,” Kidder says. “The prevailing model of hunter-gatherers living a life ‘nasty, brutish and short’ is contradicted and our work indicates these people were practicing a sophisticated ritual/religious life that involved building these monumental mounds.”
Sources:
Courtesy WUSTL.edu. Original story appeared here: http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/24857.aspx
#2 Study of Pipestone Artifacts Overturns a Century-Old Assumption - Jan, 2013
Mistakes occur in archaeology all the time, bad or incorrect information leads to misleading conclusions. The tragedy is when we continue to deliver misinformation because it is easier and because historians are lazy. It is much easier to go down a beaten path than to beat out a shorter and better route, and this mistake is made all the time in the academic world. It goes as far as ignoring new evidence and indisputable truth simply to avoid the time and work it takes to research new leads in our history and establish them as fact. Countering academic opposition and stigma can be difficult and mistakes in our records are never fixed because of this, the article below punctuates that point.
“This is how mythology becomes encased in science…This study really says to the archaeological community, you need to go back to the drawing board….You’ve been telling stories for decades that are based on essentially misinformation.”
CHAMPAIGN, lll. — In the early 1900s, an archaeologist, William Mills, dug up a treasure-trove of carved stone pipes that had been buried almost 2,000 years earlier. Mills was the first to dig the Native American site, called Tremper Mound, in southern Ohio. And when he inspected the pipes, he made a reasonable – but untested – assumption. The pipes looked as if they had been carved from local stone, and so he said they were. That assumption, first published in 1916, has been repeated in scientific publications to this day. But according to a new analysis, Mills was wrong.
In a new study, the first to actually test the stone pipes and pipestone from quarries across the upper Midwest, researchers conclude that those who buried the pipes in Tremper Mound got most of their pipestone – and perhaps even the finished, carved pipes – from Illinois.
The researchers spent nearly a decade on the new research. They first collected the mineralogical signatures of stone found in traditional pipestone quarries in Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri and Ohio. Then they compared the material found in those quarries to the mineralogical makeup of the artifacts left behind by the people of Tremper Mound.
Less than 20 percent of the 111 Tremper Mound pipes they tested were made from local Ohio stone. About 65 percent were carved from flint clay found only in northern Illinois and 18 percent were made of a stone called catlinite – from Minnesota.
The researchers are still puzzling over how most of these materials made it to Ohio from Illinois, and are baffled by another new discovery. Pipes from a site only about 40 miles north of Tremper Mound, an elaborate cluster of immense mounds known as Mound City, were carved almost entirely from local stone. Mound City was inhabited at about the same time or shortly after Tremper Mound, and the pipes found there are stylistically very similar to the Tremper pipes.
These results should remind archaeologists that things are not as simple as they sometimes appear, said Thomas Emerson, the principal investigator on the study and the director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey (ISAS) at the University of Illinois.
“This is how mythology becomes encased in science,” he said.
The study also confirms that the people who produced these pipestone artifacts, known today as members of the Hopewell tradition, were more diverse and varied in their cultural practices than scientists once appreciated, Emerson said.
Read the full story here: http://news.illinois.edu/news/12/1218pipestone_ThomasEmerson.html
#1 Native American Eternal Flame Behind New York Waterfall - May, 2013
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| ‘eternal flame’ lit by Native Americans perhaps thousands of years ago that still burns today behind a waterfall in western New York |
Nestled behind a waterfall in western New York state is an eternal flame whose beauty is only surpassed by its mystery. It is one of a few hundred "natural" eternal flames around the world, fed by gas seeping to the Earth's surface from underground, said Arndt Schimmelmann, a researcher at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind.
But even within this rarefied group, this flame is special. Perhaps lit by Native Americans hundreds or thousands of years ago, it is fed by a new type of geologic process that hasn't been recorded before in nature, Schimmelmann told OurAmazingPlanet.
Typically, this type of gas is thought to come from deeply submerged, ancient and extremely hot deposits of shale, a kind of rock. Temperatures have to be near the boiling point of water or hotter to break down the large carbon molecules in shale and create smaller molecules of natural gas, Schimmelmann explained.
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| Credit: Giuseppe Etiope et al / Marine and Petroleum GeologyView full size image |
A curiosity "nobody believed in"
In this case, though, the rocks that feed the flame are only warm — "like a cup of tea" — as well as geologically younger than expected, and shallow, Schimmelmann said. Those findings suggest the gas is being produced by a different process, whereby some sort of catalyst is creating gas from organic molecules in the shale, he said.
"This mechanism has been proposed for many years, but it was a curiosity that nobody believed in," Schimmelmann said. "We think there's a different pathway of gas generation in this location and that there probably is elsewhere as well." If that's true, and gas is naturally produced this way in other locations, "we have much more shale-gas resources than we thought," he added.
Originally, Schimmelmann and his colleague Maria Mastalerz, of the Indiana Geological Survey, were tasked by the U.S. Department of Energy to estimate the total amount of methane that seeps out of the ground in parts of the eastern United States. To help, they recruited Giuseppe Etiope, a researcher at the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy, and world expert on natural gas seeps and eternal flames, Schimmelmann said.
A flame eternal
Etiope guided the researchers to the aforementioned eternal flame in Chestnut Ridge Park in western New York, calling it "the most beautiful in the world," Schimmelmann said. They also looked at a "permanently burning pit" in Cook Forest State Park in northwestern Pennsylvania, although this eternal flame is not as special because it’s supplied by an old gas well, Schimmelmann said. The team reported their findings on the New York eternal flame in a study published in the May issue of the journal Marine and Petroleum Geology.
Their results were consistent with estimates that about 30 percent of all methane emitted worldwide comes from natural sources such as these gas seeps. When possible, it can actually be beneficial to set fire to these gas seeps to create "eternal flames." Fire converts methane to carbon dioxide, which traps about 20 times less heat than methane in the atmosphere, Mastalerz told OurAmazingPlanet.
However, "macro seeps" that can be lit and form eternal flames remain rare. In most cases, gas percolates through soil — where methane-eating bacteria convert it into carbon dioxide, Schimmelmann said — or it comes out in a location that can't sustain combustion. In the case of the New York flame, gas percolates in a naturally hollowed-out chamber, where the flame flickers eternally.
The New York gas seep also features the highest concentration of ethane and propane of any seep in the world, according to the study.
Douglas Main
Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.
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