Stuff I've Found

In Archaeology we call this fire-cracked-rock, or FCR. It’s a rock that has been altered and or broken by deliberate heating. The rocks are common in many Archaeology sites, but are particularly prevalent in south central America. In many cases, fire-cracked rock results when stones were used to line hearths or were heated to provide a longer lasting heat source.

 

HISTORICAL DATA SHOWS TRAIL OF TEARS IMPACT ON CHEROKEE SKULL SIZE

Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of Tennessee have found that environmental stressors – from the Trail of Tears to the Civil War – led to significant changes in the shape of skulls in the eastern and western bands of the Cherokee people. The findings highlight the role of environmental factors in shaping our physical characteristics…READ MORE AT…http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/04/2014/historical-data-shows-impact-on-cherokee-skull-size

Working in Archaeology is a connection to the past.

One of the greatest joys of Archaeology is unearthing an artifact that may not have been touched for a thousand years or more. You hold history in your hand. At that moment you have an indelible bond with the person who last touched it. Was the piece flaked off as the flintknapping plied their craft; or is it a tool worn to a nub and tossed away? We can all read about the past, but working as an Archaeologist you can experience it.

Above are some of the pieces I've found: 

Back Row: All the pieces except for the big one on the right are flakes. Those are the pieces that break off when the tools or weapons are being formed. The big one is a bi-facial. That’s a piece that has been worked on both sides. The craftsman will hone or smooth a piece to finish their work. We don’t know if this piece was finished or broke while being formed and discarded. 

Second Row: This is a 450 million-year-old Crinoid fossil that had been carefully chiseled out of a probable limestone formation and made into a necklace. 

First Row: The piece on the left was a spearhead. We can determine this by the size of the piece. The one in the middle is an almost formed arrowhead. As it was being worked a small part flaked off and the piece was tossed away. The one on the far right is a scrapper. In fact, it resembles a small wood plane. The type of tool used by woodworkers to extract small slices of wood. This piece would have been used to clean the hides of any fat or muscle still attached to the hide. 

Who is the Kennewick Man

The skull depicted below may change what is to believed the history of the United States. Found along the Columbia River in 1996 in Kennewick, Washington, first the skull and then most of the skeleton remains date from 8500 B.P. to 4500 B.P. but is not Mongoloid, the typical Native American ancestor. The finding caused a furor among the Native American community, so much so it took the Ninth Circuit United States Court of Appeals to keep in the possession of  the US Department of the Interior; instead of being skirted away and immediately buried as the Native Councils wanted to do. Why did the ancient bones of one person cause such a problem? Because if analyzed to be of non-Native descent then the term Native American would no longer apply. In fact those of Western Europe would be the Native American's.

I conversed with the Laura Phillips the Archaeology Collections Manger at the Burke Museum of Natural History, where the remains resides about what testing has been done since the court's decisions and she said we recently asked the same question. She referred to their blog for the answer: http://burkemuseum.blogspot.com/2011/07/ask-burke-kennewick-man-updates.html

  To read one of the original investigators, James Chatters, findings click here: http://www.mnh.si.edu/arctic/html/kennewick_man.html

Archaeological dig aims to save Native American burial mounds

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130317/WILLIAMSON10/303170033/Archaeological-dig-aims-to-save-Native-American-burial-mounds?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1 - The Tennessean



The 1,800-year-old site has long been known to historians. But Heape, vice president of the Native History Association, was still excited to see state archaeologists slowly burrowing into the dirt last week...CLICK LINK TO READ MORE..

The Adena Mounds

http://www.adena.com/adena/ad/ad01.htm



About 1000 B.C. we can mark the beginning of a new period for man in North America. This period, which lasted until about 700 A.D., is called the Woodland Period. It is during this time that a new culture emerged and made significant settlements in what is now known as West Virginia. These people are known to us today by the general term of the Mound Builders. They were so named for their practice of creating earthen burial mounds and other earthworks. The Mound Builders lived over a wide range from the Atlantic, the Midwest and the Ohio Valley to the Mississippi Valley. The term "mound builders" refers to several cultures that span a period of about 20 centuries...CLICK LINK TO READ MORE...

Hopewell Civilization

http://archaeology.about.com/od/athroughadterms/g/adena.htm - About Archaeology

 The Hopewell civilization (also called Adena in some regions) is a prehistoric culture of the American middle west. Recent evidence has pretty much proven that Adena is indistinguishable from the Hopewell of the central North American continent, although there may some regional variations...

Prehistoric Indian archaeological sites in NM national monument reopen after fire, flooding - Daily Journal

http://dailyjournal.net/view/story/28c0de248fff4d28b186e850afbd98da/US--Back-to-Bandelier/