Alabama Archaeological Society

Pay your dues or send a donation to AAS (a non-profit organization) online! Go to Dues & Donations for instructions for this simple and quick way to be a part of archaeology in Alabama.

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This most recent issue of Stones and Bones is available for free right here! Join AAS and receive great issues like this one at home. Click Here for a free copy of Stones and Bones!

Here is an excellent article from Alabama Heritage, Winter 2011, Issue 99,  about Alabama's Archaeological Sites and How important they are Click Here

Here is a free photography scale for taking pictures of artifacts, open in mspaint, and be sure your printer settings are set to 100% Free Photo Scale!

Upcoming Archaeology Events in Alabama

The 2013 Summer Meeting of the Alabama Archaeological Society will be held June 29, 2013 at Oakville Indian Mounds in Danville, Alabama.  Registration is $4 for Society members and $5 for non-members, with no charge for children under 12. The program will include a few speakers and presentations about the history and archaeology of the park and the local area in the morning, with a walking tour of the park and other sites after lunch. In the event of extreme weather it will be a driving tour. If you have artifacts you would like to learn more about, the various members in attendance could likely shed some light on them for you. Park information can be found at http://www.oakvilleindianmounds.com/ Lunch will be a typical southern picnic with a charge of $5 to offset cost, or you may bring your own lunch or drive to a nearby town on your own.

 

Archaeology Job Announcement

We’re looking to hire an “Interpreter of Archaeology” at Old Cahawba ASAP. Job would involve working with the public mostly, so has to be a “people person.”   Closing date for applications is March 6^th!  The classification in the state system would be “Archaeologist, Historic Sites Option.” http://personnel.alabama.gov/Documents/Announcements/101554_A.pdf

 The State of Florida Arrests Several for Stealing and Selling Artifacts, read the full story here.

 Florida protects its archaeological sites and artifacts, on the ground and underwater. Let's hope Alabama continues to do the same!
http://madisonfloridavoice.net/?p=32970

Here is a slide show of some of the destroyed sites and recovered artifacts, many of which were dredged from Florida state waters: Note the damage that occurred at some of the locations.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/myfwcmedia/sets/72157632872560173

The 2013 AAS Winter Meeting

             Over 70 AAS members and guests enjoyed the evening reception at the Delchamps Archaeology Building and Museum Friday nite and on Saturday, the presentations illuminating the new research of Alabama’s prehistory and history.  Our hosts, the University of South Alabama (USA) Center for Archaeological Studies (CAS) staff, the Archaeology Museum staff and the AAS Southwest Chapter (Mobile) are to be commended for a wonderful meeting.  Not to be forgotten are the sponsors of our meeting who graciously donated funds to subsidize our meeting: MRS Consultants (Tuscaloosa), Brockington & Associates (Norcross, GA), Wiregrass Archaeology (Dothan/Mobile), Panamerican Consultants (Tuscaloosa), Tennessee Valley Archaeological Research (Huntsville), Southern Research Historic Preservation Consultants (Waverly Hall, GA), New South Associates (Stone Mountain, GA), and the Southwest and the East Alabama chapters of AAS.  We had plenty of food and drinks Friday and Saturday during and after the meeting – more than enough, really!

            Saturday’s presentations began with Dr. Kristrina Shuler (Auburn), who discussed her study of skeletal material that focused on the stress markers found at the junction of ligaments/tendons/muscles and bone in “Upper Limb Entheseal Change with the Transition to Agriculture in the Southeastern United States: A View from Moundville and the Central Tombigbee River Valley.”  Next, Tara Potts (CAS) discussed how the analysis of maps and subsequent testing of potential locations resulted in the discovery of an important Creek War town with “Holy Ground: A Historic Creek Village and Battlefield.” This virtually undisturbed historic site has since been purchased by the Archaeological Conservancy for preservation.  Teresa Paglione (USDA NRCS) gave an overview of how volunteers have been used to research and map sites in “NRCS and AAS Volunteer activities: Riverview, Jimmerson and MT 99.”  Dr. Phil Carr (USA) described stone beads and their production in "The Organization of Prehistoric Chert Bead Technology." He showed examples of chipped, ground and drilled stone beads and the tools used to make them.  Before the first morning break, we heard from Kassandra Williams, a Troy student, regarding several surveys and sites adjacent to wetlands in  “Soggy Sites: Surveys of Selected Wetland Reserve Program Lands.”

            After the break, Hamilton Bryant (Auburn) gave an overview of the newest discoveries at a site that has been intermittently tested by university fieldschools over the last decade with “Trenches, Remote Sensing and Soil Cores: Investigations at the Ebert Canebrake.”  The site includes several structures as well as a palisade wall clearly visible via remote sensing. We then had a bit of a different topic just over the state line with the discussion of an underwater site by Rebecca Booker (U West FL). “Life in a Floating Lumber Camp: An Archaeological Survey of a Submerged Site on the Escambia River” was a unique look at the structural remains (and aerial features) of an industry that involved removing cypress logs in wetlands and swamps. Returning to a more familiar subject, Scott Butler (Brockington and Associates) discussed “Prehistoric Site Distributions in West Central Alabama-Results of the 2011 Survey of the I-85 Extension Corridor.”  After Scott, we were treated to an in-depth look by Ned Jenkins (AL Historical Comm./Ft. Toulouse) at a favorite subject – “where de Soto slept” – aptly entitled “The Hernando deSoto Entrada through Central Alabama: September-November, 1540.” Ned discussed following – or rather recognizing the clues to locating the specific trails and sites de Soto and his troops visited.

            After lunch we convened our Business meeting, which included reports by our treasurer and publications editors as well as elections.   We also announced the recipient of the Mahan Research Award.  Representing the Huntsville Chapter, Ben Hoksbergen accepted the $500 grant, which will be used for a C-14 date.  The winner of the $500 AAS scholarship was Rachel Briggs, a doctoral student at the University of Alabama. (We did not receive any applications for the undergraduate scholarship.)

            Following the election, presentations resumed with Dr. Ashley Dumas (UWA) presented "Updates on the Fort Tombecbe Archaeological Project" which included finding the French walls, bread ovens, a “Public Archaeology” event on National Archaeology Day (October 20) and an opportune visit by Alabama’s US Senator Jeff Sessions, whose departure was delayed by a rainstorm – thus allowing more time to see Alabama history first-hand and talk to the archeologists about the interpretations of the artifacts and features in context.  Ben Hoksbergen (Redstone Arsenal) described how sites and features discovered eroding from the riverbank were investigated with "Water, Time, Gravity...Money:  Salvaging Archaeological Data on the Tennessee River Bank along Redstone Arsenal."  Our next speaker, Jeremy Davis, PhD candidate at Alabama, gave us an update on what has been found by remote sensing and testing at Moundville just since our summer meeting- with “On Common Ground: Memory, Identity, and the Remaking of Communal Tradition at Early Moundville.” The results of a ground penetrating radar survey together with limited testing has enabled the interpretation of different types of magnetic anomalies which should result in a map of Moundville depicting its buried structures. Next was another Auburn graduate student, Kelly Ervin, who presented an analysis of the shellfish recovered on sites with “Woodland Exploitation of Freshwater Mollusk in the Upper Alabama Drainage.”  The bivalve species were identified to better understand the mid-late Woodland subsistence strategy and the environments where such shellfish thrived – or used to thrive since some are now extinct due to the construction of dams, sedimentation and slow-moving, warmer waters. Finally, we returned to Moundville for Brandon Thompson’s (UA Office of Archaeological Research/Moundville) “Preliminary Results of the 2012 Mound P Flank Excavations.” The excavations are necessary prior to the construction of a ramp and viewing platform from the museum to the mound.

            The Friday evening reception (6-8pm) allowed everyone time to visit the museum and to chat with other AAS members and the general public in a leisure atmosphere -without having to worry about missing presentations or a long drive home in the dark.  Saturday was a full day of presentations – but we still had time to return to the museum for snacks and drinks for an hour or more before everyone had safe drives home to Pensacola, Mobile, Birmingham, Florence, Eufaula, Opelika, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, Selma, Montgomery . . . .   If you missed the meeting --- you missed a really good one!

 submitted by: Teresa Paglione

Figuring out things that come to the Alabama Archaeological Society

About once every two or three months, it is not unusual for me to receive emails from people trying to identify an artifact or two - or more. Usually I relay a little information about the artifact type, its age and where they might find more information. Occasionally, someone brings an artifact or a frame with projectile points or even a bucket of artifacts to an AAS chapter meeting. Last summer, when I presented a PowerPoint-aided lecture on the use of remote sensing in archaeology to the Cullman Chapter of AAS, Robbie Camp, the chapter president, showed me an engraved palette in his possession. As told to him, the palette was found in a garden bed in the Dothan area of southeast Alabama.
Upon first look the palette – real or not - is fairly impressive. The stone is a ¼ inch thick and is 9 inches by almost 12 inches in size with an engraved or repeatedly scored design that measures 6.5 to 7.5 inches in diameter. The design, however, is not typical of the palette designs or vessel decorations seen in southeastern prehistory; it resembles one of those Celtic knots famous for the interlaced patterns. The actual scoring or engraving of the interlocking design is a little irregular – in some places it is deep and thick and in others it is very thin and shallow – but that might be expected from an unfinished product. In addition, the rock itself appears to be a lamellar or layered (sedimentary) shale or siltstone -- or very weathered limestone – also not typically used as a palette. Although ‘Robbie’s Palette’ is impressive, we were pretty sure it was not authentic – that is, not prehistoric or Native American-made, but I wanted to get do some research and more expert opinions since I haven’t had much personal experience with this particular artifact type.
A check of the archaeological literature reveals that although palettes have been found throughout the southeast during the Mississippian period most of them appear to have come from either Moundville or Etowah. (The Mississippian period occurs as early as 850AD to as late as 1700AD – depending on the location; in Alabama, we normally refer to it as 1000-1450AD). The palettes from Moundville have been well described by CB Moore in 1905 and 1907 and as recently as 2009 by Jim Knight (Univ. of Alabama). The palettes of Etowah were the subject of a recent article in American Antiquity, the journal of the Society for American Archaeology (Steponaitis and others 2011). (Incidentally - probably the most famous palette is the Rattlesnake Disc - the State Artifact of Alabama.)
The palettes of Moundville and Etowah are both similar in size and shape with common decorative themes found in Mississippian art. Both appear to be locally made - that is, the material used was common to the Moundville or Etowah general region. When these palettes were first described in the late nineteenth century, they were believed to be plates for holding food or calendars for marking time. In 1905, CB Moore however, suggested their use as palettes for mixing paint. That interpretation still holds today. Residue from colorful minerals has been found on many palettes, suggesting a functional use – not as a mortar for grinding mineral but to hold the minerals or ‘paint’. Their function was perhaps spiritual and symbolic – used in rituals or ceremonies.
I also emailed photographs of Robbie’s Palette to several other archaeologists in Alabama. Everyone agreed the design was certainly not one that resembled palettes that had been previously found. The best clue was offered by Hunter Johnson (Tennessee Valley Archaeological Research, Huntsville). While at the University of Alabama, Hunter worked on a palette manufacturing site in Tuscaloosa that contained masses of broken palettes, palette fragments, and sandstone debris; he noted that he had never encountered a palette with the interior design completed before the exterior portion or rim of the palette was finished…. Robbie’s Palette has a finished interior (the engraved interlocking design) but the rock itself is not ground or polished to a finished edge.
In addition, I also asked a geologist and a soil scientist to examine the palette material itself since it didn’t appear to be sandstone to me. Both indicated it was clearly not sandstone or limestone but mudstone. Mudstone is frequently encountered in early clay deposits that have been exposed along eroded creekbanks. It is a general term that includes claystone, siltstone,
shale and argillite. It is significantly softer than sandstone and thus much easier to score or engrave.
So . . . It seems to be the consensus among several Alabama archaeologists that ‘Robbie’s Palette’ is not of prehistoric origin or use. There are just too many red flags to point to this particular palette as an authentic Mississippian period artifact:
(1) The shape is not typical of southeastern palettes;
(2) The engraved design is not typical;
(3) The material itself was not typically used in the manufacture of palettes; and,
(4) The edges have no definite shape and yet there is already an interior design (although it is not completely finished or polished).
That being said, it is a nice piece of artwork well worth the $25 that Mr. Camp paid. Plus, now it offers Robbie Camp and me an opportunity to discuss a curious and unusual artifact as well as discuss its “authenticity” as a Native American Indian artifact.
Teresa Paglione
(This is a slightly modified reprint of a 2012 Stones and Bones AAS newsletter article.)
References:
2013 Personal Communications, Greg Brannon and Bill Smith.
2012 US Geological Survey. http://tin.er.usgs.gov/geology/state/sgmc-lith.php?code=2.1.1
2011 VP Steponaitis, SE Swanson, G Wheeler and PB Drooker, “The Provenance and Use of Etowah Palettes,” American Antiquity 76(1), pp 81-106.
2009 VJ Knight and VP Steponaitis, “A Redefinition of the Hemphill Style in Mississippian Art” In Visualizing the Sacred: Cosmic Visions, Regionalism and the Art of the Mississippian World, edited by GE Lankford and others. University of Texas Press.
1905 CB Moore. Certain Aboriginal Remains of the Black Warrior River. Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. (Also available in edited versions from Univ. of Alabama Press www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Moundville-Expeditions-of-Clarence-Bloomfield-Moor,832.aspx and Capitol Book and News www.capitolbook.com/Clarence_Moore.htm).

View a large version of this artifact here. palettelarge.jpg

Here are some Weblinks to current ongoing excavations in Alabama

http://www.museumoftheblackbelt.blogspot.com/ - Fort Tombecbe excavations, an early French Fort on the Tombigbee river.

http://moundvilleplazaproject.wordpress.com/ -Current work being conducted at Moundville using remote sensing techniques.

http://pensacolacolonialfrontiers.blogspot.com/ - Spanish site in Florida just south of Atmore (Mission San Joseph de Escambe, 1741-1761)

http://freetravelwithus.com/Alabama/Moundville/Moundville_Page.htm a great video about Moundville can be found here.

New Website and Organization to Help Protect Alabama's History

The Coalition to Protect Alabama’s History (C-PAH) is a non-partisan, grassroots organization dedicated to protecting Alabama’s irreplaceable cultural heritage. C-PAH's primary mission is to educate citizens and lawmakers about the importance of preserving the unique remains of Alabama’s history found in its archaeological sites, both on land and underwater.  Check out the website at http://www.c-pah.org/

This letter was received by the president of AAS, Teresa Paglione, and other members of AAS and AHA. AAS also urges our legislators not to forget to fund our historic and cultural agencies throughout the state.  Rather than repeat what is in Dr. Olliff's letter, it is presented here in full.  Even though this posting is a little late to influence this year's legislation, we can start now by reminding our 2012-2013 representatives that we are paying
attention to their actions it comes to Alabama heritage!

Alabama Historical Association
April 17, 2012

At the 2012 Alabama Historical Association Business Meeting, Dr. Ed Bridges asked us to act in the interest of Alabama History by urging our legislators to not starve historical and cultural agencies in the state.  As you know,
Governor Bentley's General Fund Budget severely reduced or eliminated funding for many such agencies, though the savings are not significant.  The House has passed a version of that budget, threatening to leave a number of state agencies adrift.

Certainly we can debate the role of government and the shortfall in the General Fund.  But if the state starves these historical agencies, they will die and not return when times get better.  State agencies cannot run on the
kindness of private contributions, and they are not commercial enterprises that can sell a product or service.  We might offer the AHA as a counter-example, but it took since 1947 to build the current AHA infrastructure and without the significant-and hidden-contributions of state agencies (particularly universities) the AHA would be unable to provide more than a short annual business meeting.  A state agency cannot operate this
way; the people would not allow it, and rightly so.

So please contact your legislators.  Ask them to support Alabama History by restoring funding or finding alternative funding for those agencies that have seen their appropriations stripped or eliminated.

You can find contact information for your Representatives here:
http://www.legislature.state.al.us/house/representatives/houseroster_alpha.h
tml

And for your Senators here:
http://www.legislature.state.al.us/senate/senators/senateroster_alpha.html

Marty Olliff, President 2012-2013
Alabama Historical Association

Check Back Soon for Information about Upcoming Digs and Public Archaeology Activities