NAGPRA stands for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. This is a federal law, originally passed in 1990 (with only minor amendments since), which:

Provides for the ownership or control of Native American cultural items (human remains and objects) excavated or discovered on Federal or tribal lands. Vests ownership or control of human remains and associated funerary objects: (1) in the lineal descendants of the Native American; or (2) if the lineal descendants cannot be ascertained, or the funerary objects and so forth are unassociated, in the Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization on whose land the remains or objects were located, or which has the closest cultural affiliation with the remains or objects (and makes claim for them), or, if the land was Federal, in the Indian tribe recognized as aborginally occupying the area (unless a different tribe, by preponderance of the evidence, makes a stronger claim). Provides for disposition of unclaimed Native American cultural items according to regulations promulgated by the Secretary of the Interior.

NAGPRA is in the news in March 2010 for three reasons.

First…

First, the National NAGPRA Program launched “the online Culturally Affiliated Native American Inventories Database summarizing data from museums and Federal agencies that have NAGPRA compliance obligations” on March 1st.

Reference databases tend to be quite useful…. Here’s the link to all of the NAGPRA online databases, and here’s one to the new Culturally Affiliated Native American Inventories Database. This database:

is a transmission for public use of data from museums and Federal agencies that have NAGPRA compliance obligations. Many of the Native American human remains described here have been culturally affiliated as a result of consultation with tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations. All individuals on this database should be represented in a Notice of Inventory Completion. The tribe or tribes designated as eligible to receive the human remains in each inventory are noted in the remarks section of the record.

Second…

Second, on March 15th:

The National Park Service…announced a final rule has been published in the Federal Register establishing a process for the disposition of Native American human remains that are in museums or on exhibit in the United States and which have not yet been culturally affiliated to a tribe or Native Hawaiian organization. There are currently more than 124,000 Native American human remains listed under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA) as unidentifiable, 4,000 individuals have been returned to tribes for re-burial in 82 agreements approved by the Secretary of the Interior.

This takes effect in May 2010. It’s specifically meant to address what institutions must do legally with Native American human remains that are considered unidentifiable as to affilation with modern, living Native American peoples (tribes).

Some clarification on the term “culturally unidentifiable” is included in the law (Federal Register, vol. 75, no. 49, Monday, March 15, 2010, page 12403, and here online). It says:

Culturally unidentifiable refers to human remains and associated funerary objects in museum or Federal agency collections for which no lineal descendant or culturally affiliated Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization has been identified through the inventory process.

The law goes on (same page):

Disposition means the transfer of control over Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony by a museum or Federal agency under this part.

This transfer process is also sometimes referred to as repatriation. Strictly speaking, repatriation refers to the return of someone to their own country.

The law (Federal Register, vol. 75, no. 49, Monday, March 15, 2010, page 12379, and here online) clarifies:

In brief, this rule pertains to those human remains, in collections, determined by museums and Federal agencies to be Native American, but for whom no relationship of shared group identity can be reasonably traced, historically or prehistorically, between a present day Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization and an identifiable earlier group. These individuals are listed on inventories as culturally unidentifiable Native American human remains. The rule requires consultation on the culturally unidentifiable human remains by the museum or Federal agency with Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations whose tribal lands or aboriginal occupancy areas are in the area where the remains were removed. If cultural affiliation still cannot be determined and repatriation achieved, then the Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization may request disposition of the remains. The museum or Federal agency would then publish a notice and transfer control to the tribe, without first being required to appear before the Review Committee to seek a recommendation for disposition approval from the Secretary of the Interior. Disposition requests, which do not meet the parameters of the rule, would still require approval from the Secretary, who may request a recommendation from the Review Committee.

In response to this final rule, expect museums and institutions it applies to to once again review their collections.

Third…

Most recently, the professional archaeological community has expressed concern for funding for the NAGPRA Grants Program. This program seeks:

to increase the number of successful repatriations through the support for projects that increase the ability of tribes and museums to facilitate consultation and work together through the NAGPRA process.

Funding for this program, as with all federal programs, has received close scrutiny each year. For Fiscal Year 2011, again as with many programs, there’s a proposed cut in the budget. This is of special concern because grant applications can be expected to increase, especially in response to the final rule for culturally unidentifiable human remains mentioned above.

In response to this situation, on March 19th the Society for American Archaeology (SAA), a national organization with more than 7000 members, provided written testimony to the House Appropriations Committee “in regards to funding for the NAGPRA Grants Program, which is essential to the continued success of repatriation efforts in the United States” for Fiscal Year 2011.

Download a copy of the SAA’s testimony from this webpage.

In the written testimony, the SAA noted:

Of concern today is the issue of funding for the NAGPRA Grants Program in FY2011. The administration’s budget proposal, if enacted, would cut funding for the program by $581,000, instead of providing a much- needed increase to reflect current demand. SAA respectfully requests that Congress reject this proposed cut, and increase funding to a level of $4.2 million, as recommended by the 2008 National NAGPRA Review Committee report, in order to meet demonstrated need.

The SAA testimony documents how demand for NAGPRA funds has been increasing, and can be expected to increase. The SAA, therefore, has joined the National NAGPRA Review Committee in requesting increased funding for the NAGPRA Grant Program for FY2011.

Finally…

Although many high-dollar programs are in the news these days, there are also many very important smaller programs in the news. Some link strongly to our nation’s archaeological heritage, such as these events related to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

Archaeologists frequently make the point that artifacts can convey certain kinds of important information, but artifacts found in context can convey so much more information.

What does this distinction mean and why is it important?

What, after all, is context?

In the glossary on this website, context is defined as:

the location or placement of an artifact, feature, or site, including its relationship to other artifacts, features, and the surrounding environment. Context includes the soil around archaeological materials. Sometimes, the context of artifacts is more informative than the artifacts!

Consider a particular kind of stone tool, which we can date to say about 4000 BC based on the material it’s made from and the shape and style of its form. Say we find it with some pottery and other artifacts that we can date to much later, say about AD 500. And that layer is undisturbed, perhaps a midden layer that formed from trash disposed around houses in a village, with no other materials that are so old as the hypothetical stone tool in that midden.

Now, if archaeologists just have the stone tool, perhaps collected from the surface of a plowed field, they think: there’s a 6000-year-old occupation in this spot. (Occupation here refers to a period of use of a particular place on the landscape.)

If however, archaeologists find the stone tool when carefully excavating the midden, recording how undisturbed that layer is, what do they think?

The Shroud of Turin, from the official website.

Artifacts are often taken out of context. Consider the objects in an art museum, say in Atlanta, like a pottery vase from ancient Egypt or a sculpture from a Medieval French church. They are both artifacts and art objects. And they are objects no longer in context, since they’re displayed in a building far from where they were found (or abandoned).

Consider the Shroud of Turin, which is scheduled to be on display in Turin in spring 2010. Writes Victor L. Simpson of the Associated Press, and published in the Washington Post:

At least 1 million reservations from around the world have already poured in to secure three to five minutes to admire the cloth that has fascinated pilgrims and scientists alike, organizers of the April 10-May 23 showing told a news conference in Rome on Wednesday.

The Shroud is an artifact, art object, and “revered by many Christians as Jesus Christ’s burial cloth but described by some as a medieval forgery,” as Simpson notes. He says the earliest secure record of the shroud date to 1354.

The Shroud is being displayed in Turin (Torino). Is it in context? Login and discuss….

Georgia’s official copy of the Declaration of Independence was made with iron gall ink on parchment. It was made in response to a Congressional order made on January 18th, 1777.

So what does this mean: “iron gall ink on parchment?”

Parchment is a pretty common term. Of course, there is parchment paper, which you may have seen and used, but real parchment is made from animal skin (hide). Unlike leather, the skin is not tanned, but instead is treated with lime. Fine quality parchment is called vellum. The Wikipedia has a detailed entry on parchment.

How about iron gall ink? It’s not common these days! Of course, ink is becoming less common the more we use keyboards and make PDFs that remain forever digital!

Iron gall ink is also called iron gall nut ink or oak gall ink. The name for this ink comes from the two main components, iron and galls.

Inks, of course, are fluids containing pigments and/or dyes.

Iron is easy—it’s a metal, common to nails and other everyday items.

So, what are galls? Galls are round swellings on plants that are abnormal growths that the plant makes in response to damage, often made by insects. Oak marble galls are caused by gall wasps, which in this case lay their eggs in tender buds of particular species of oaks. The oak reacts by growing a lot of tissue to encapsulate this invasion. These galls are usually very round, hence the term “marble.”

Iron gall ink was the standard writing and drawing liquid used for hundreds of years across Europe, and beyond. Iron gall ink was used by Leonardo Da Vinci, and for the Dead Sea Scrolls; Van Gogh used it, and so did Bach. Indeed, it was the standard for public documents in the Colonies at the time of the Revolution.

Iron gall ink was preferred because of its longevity. The ink would bond with the parchment, rather than merely sit on the surface, like some other pigmented liquids. Also, the ink reacts to oxygen and becomes darker over the next few days after it is used.

To make iron gall ink, you start with two different liquids. The chemistry of iron gall ink is rather complicated, and best left to experts (for example, here). Briefly, one liquid is an iron solution, which can even be made by putting carpentry nails in vinegar. The other is an oak extraction, commonly made from oak marble galls, which have the high levels of tannin that are critical to the chemistry of the ink. When mixed, iron ions reacted with the tannic acid to make the ink (mostly). Other chemicals are added to make the liquid less acidic and more stable. Gum arabic has been commonly added to iron gall ink preparations to make the pigments stay in solution. It comes from the sap of acacia trees, native to northern Africa.

Are you surprised that it took two different trees to make the ink used for the documents of Colonial America? What else do you find interesting about “iron gall ink on parchment?”

Online materials

Downloadable PDF of the Federal archives copy of the Declaration of Independence….

Information on the Georgia copy of the Declaration of Independence in the State Archives….

To make iron gall ink….

On 27 December 2009, the online version of Charleston’s Post and Courier published a fascinating story by Tony Bartelme titled “Research on Hunley spurs new discoveries.”

The Hunley is of course the H.L. Hunley Confederate Civil War submarine, which sunk near Charleston in February 1864, and was found by a diver in 1995. The approximately forty-foot submarine was raised in 2000. Since then, its preservation has been a major problem.

As Bartelme notes:

Iron and seawater have a complex relationship, one that sometimes resembles a love story with an unhappy ending.
Put a piece of iron, such as a submarine, in the ocean, and iron and water begin to merge, with iron swapping its ions with chloride ions in the seawater. As long as the iron stays under water, this relationship is stable, and the iron stays well preserved.
But if you remove the iron and expose it the air, the romance turns bad; new and often violent reactions begin as the iron oxidizes. After being pulled from the sea, old cannonballs have been known to spontaneously combust.
On the Hunley, metal shavings collected during the removal of some rivets got so hot they burned plastic bags. Had the sub’s conservators removed the Hunley from the sea and left it alone, the sub would be a pile of dust today, Mardikian said.

Conservators are now using a subcritical reactor, which acts like a pressure cooker to super-pressurize water, and improve preservation by reducing corrosion. Despite the name, there is no radioactivity involved in using the subcritical reactor.

Instead, it creates pressures 50 times higher than what might be found in the open air, and this intense pressure causes materials to react differently. The boiling point for water, for instance, shoots from 212 degrees Fahrenheit to 392 degrees.

Read the full story by Bartelme by clicking here.

Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia has been the focus of an important archaeological discovery over the last three years. In August of 2006 during excavation for a fiber-optic utility line in the heart of the Airfield’s cantonment, construction workers encountered several bones quite unexpectedly. All work on the utility trench ceased immediately and the Installation’s archaeologist, Brian Greer, investigated the disturbed burial and determined that the remains were that of one individual buried in a coffin. It was at that point the Installation realized there was a strong possibility that an unknown cemetery may have been lost to time.

New South team member Andrew Belcourt shovel skims a burial feature taking care not to disturb the remains that lie beneath (photograph courtesy of New South Associates, Inc.).

In order to complete the excavation of the utility trench and avoid disturbing any other graves that may be in the vicinity, a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) unit was brought in to guide the remaining portion of the trench. As a result of the GPR, additional suspected graves were noted nearby and the path of the utility trench was altered slightly to avoid any further disturbances. Additional work was halted and the Installation initiated a larger radar sweep of the surrounding area. The location under examination consisted of two boulevards, a paved parking lot, and several grassy medians. After extensive radar sweeps of the location, the potential for a significant number of burials was suggested by the radar.

Upon the realization that this initial single burial may actually be part of a much larger unknown cemetery, the Installation contracted the services of New South Associates, Inc. in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Savannah District. The initial goal was to determine the size and origin of the cemetery. Although archaeological surveys had been previously conducted nearby, no signs of any cemetery were ever encountered. According to base records, the parking lot and boulevards had been in existence for over 50 years.

Remnant of the only inscribed grave marker recovered (photograph courtesy of New South Associates, Inc.).

Upon the discovery of the initial burial, the Installation contacted the State Historic Preservation Office. Through close coordination and monitoring by staff archaeologists, the Installation was able to successfully complete the installation of the fiber optic cable without disturbing any additional suspected remains.

The discovery of a cemetery in such an environment created a challenge to the contracted mortuary archaeologists. Since the cemetery lies beneath asphalt and concrete, a significant amount of time and effort was required to remove this obstruction. The parking lot and road removal was carefully monitored by the Installation and New South Associates, Inc. over several days to ensure no burials were damaged. After 2 acres of asphalt and concrete were removed, the underlying soil was exposed. Due to the sandy nature of this hill, the grave outlines were not discernable until approximately 10 cm above each burial. Typical burial shafts that would normally be visible closer to the original surface had been obliterated over time. After weeks of careful backhoe excavation and hand shoveling by New South Associates, a total of 37 burials were discovered.

Of these 37 graves, a sample was examined to determine their condition and potential for eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) as a cemetery of significance. With minimal intrusion, it was determined that the cemetery represented an African-American cemetery dating from the 1880s to the 1910s. Furthermore, the condition of the burials indicated good preservation, and therefore the cemetery was considered to be a potential candidate for the NRHP.

This small bisque lamb figurine represents one of the various grave goods found during excavation of the cemeteries (photograph courtesy of New South Associates, Inc.).

Initial examination of Installation documents and historic maps did not provide any clues to the origins of this lost cemetery. Therefore, the Installation looked to the public for help. Since the area was planned for further development, the Installation solicited public input from the surrounding communities through newspaper announcements, television interviews, and public meetings. Unfortunately, no members of the public came forward with information pertaining to this cemetery. Although this cemetery was just over a hundred years old, it appeared the memory of its existence had faded completely.

After efforts to solicit comments from the public, consultation with the SHPO, and through the course of an Environmental Assessment, it was determined that the best course of action was to archaeologically excavate the cemetery and respectfully reinter the burials within an existing cemetery elsewhere on the Installation (known as Belmont Cemetery). With future upgrades to the road and parking lot associated with the construction of a new barracks complex for the Rangers, a research plan was developed through a Memorandum of Agreement with the Georgia SHPO in order to mitigate the adverse effects of relocation of this NRHP eligible cemetery.

Custom engraved cufflink depicting an unknown church (photograph courtesy of New South Associates, Inc.).

Upon completion of the regulatory process, the mortuary archaeologists began the long task of hand excavating each grave, mapping every burial, and carefully recovering all grave materials for future reburial. Over the next several weeks, all burials were fully documented and the remains transferred to secure mortuary caskets for future reburial. The entire contents of the coffin, including the coffin fragments themselves, were stored with each burial. This entire assemblage was measured and photographed in order to document all available clues to the identity of the individuals interred.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Installation, another cemetery was being investigated. During the 1950s and 1970s, several burials were encountered during construction of an exercise course for the Rangers. At that time, all remains were excavated and moved to Belmont Cemetery. In 1994, during upgrades to the exercise course, an additional burial was encountered. Work halted and the burial was moved to the Belmont Cemetery. Due to the number of burials encountered, the Installation initiated a GPR survey of the exercise field in 1995. Several potential graves were identified and a sample of these radar “anomalies” were excavated. No additional graves were encountered, and it was believed that the likelihood for additional burials was very low to non-existent. However, a small portion of the exercise field had not been sampled due to large oak trees and other obstacles that interfered with the radar. With mortuary archaeologists and an available radar unit already on site, the Installation decided that an attempt to examine the areas missed by the previous radar survey was in order.

An unusual collection of 9 sets of eyeglasses from a single burial (photograph courtesy of New South Associates, Inc.).

Initially, the radar results of this second look indicated only a small number of potential graves. All suspected graves were examined archaeologically, and it was not until the very last radar anomalies were examined that a single grave was encountered. As a matter of procedure, a 20-foot area around this grave was excavated to ensure no other graves had been missed by the radar. It was this 20-foot expansion that eventually led to the removal of almost an acre of topsoil to expose the boundaries of this other lost cemetery. After all exploratory work was done, an additional 385 burials were recovered from this missing portion of the 1995 radar survey.

1889 map depicting “Negro Cemetery”.

During the investigation of this second cemetery, an extensive document search in the city of Savannah finally revealed a single map from 1889 labeling the area as a “Negro Cemetery.” Coupled with the examination of the skeletal remains as well as the age of coffin materials recovered, it was determined that this second cemetery was an African-American cemetery dating from the same time period as the first cemetery (i.e. 1880s to 1910s). Similar to the first cemetery, the remains were relatively well preserved and held the potential to provide significant information about a segment of the population of Savannah that has gone virtually unrecorded. Consequently, this cemetery was also deemed significant as a historical cemetery and underwent the same regulatory and decision making processes to respectfully move the graves to a more peaceful resting place in the Belmont Cemetery.

After all regulatory requirements were met and all burials were carefully excavated, the remains were all reinterred to the Belmont Cemetery. This cemetery was established in 1951 when the Army encountered several unmarked graves during the expansion of the airfield, and it proved to be the most suitable resting place for the newly discovered remains.

Final resting ground for the 2 relocated cemeteries- Belmont Cemetery named after the Old Belmont Plantation.

During African-American History Month in February 2009, the Installation coordinated a rededication ceremony presided over by the Installation’s Garrison Commander and Chaplain. Members of the community were invited to this important ceremony, which was held for both cemeteries. Although no descendants have been identified from these two cemeteries, the rededication ceremony provided important closure to one individual in attendance. Mr. Drayton, who learned of the upcoming ceremony through his family, sat quietly in the audience. It was quickly learned that Mr. Drayton’s grandfather was buried in the original portion of the Belmont Cemetery when it was established in 1951. For Mr. Drayton, the ceremony “was a wonderful thing,” and he considered it “one of the greatest days of his life.” Until that ceremony, Mr. Drayton and his family never knew where their grandfather’s grave had been relocated. For now, at least one of the unknown markers in the Belmont Cemetery has a name and is among the honored dead.

Research continues by New South Associates on the information collected during the excavation of these important cemeteries; one goal is to find names for the remaining forgotten individuals. From this work, future researchers will begin to shed new light on the lives of African Americans during the Post-Emancipation era in the Savannah area. New South Associates’ final report of investigation is nearing completion and is expected to be completed in the months ahead. From these two cemeteries, a significant amount of information pertaining to the lifeways of African-American residents of the Georgia Coastal Plain will shed light on a relatively recent, yet forgotten past.

Photo by Herbert Knosowski/Associated Press.

Writes John Tierney in the 16 November 2009 New York Times:

Scientists and curators have generally supported the laws passed in recent decades giving countries ownership of ancient “cultural property” discovered within their borders. But these laws rest on a couple of highly debatable assumptions: that artifacts should remain in whatever country they were found, and that the best way to protect archaeological sites is to restrict the international trade in antiquities.

Tierney’s article is titled “A Case in Antiquities for ‘Finders Keepers’,” and discusses the ownership of artifacts traded on the international art market. Some of these items are very well known, for example, the bust of Nefertiti from what is now Egypt, presently kept in a Berlin Museum.

Obviously each nation involved may have laws that conflict, making the ownership of antiquities a complicated matter, with no obvious, undeniable solutions.

If you own a piece of land in the United States of America, do you own the antiquities on that land? Is the same true if that land is in England?

Deptford Cord Marked sherd photo from the University of Georgia’s website “Georgia Indian Pottery Site.”

Archaeologists deal with taxonomies, and sometimes help develop them.

A taxonomy is a system for classification, and in science is usually rank-based. A ranked hierarchy begins with the most general characteristics—for example, plant versus animal, and keeps becoming more specific.

Perhaps the best known taxonomic system in science is the Linnaean system for classifying living organisms. In fact, the Encyclopedia of Life is an online presentation of known organisms, along with their taxonomic classification. The EOL was recently discussed on this website.

Another classification system for living organisms is cladistics. Cladistics focuses on evolutionary relationships, and thus generates descent trees, rather like a family tree.

An August 10th 2009 article in the New York Times by Carol Kaesuk Yoon called “Reviving the Lost Art of Naming the World” argues that taxonomic classification is rather esoteric these days.

Ms. Yoon notes that anthropologists have studied classification systems used by peoples from around the world. She writes:

Cecil Brown, an anthropologist at Northern Illinois University who has studied folk taxonomies in 188 languages, has found that people recognize the same basic categories repeatedly, including fish, birds, snakes, mammals, “wugs” (meaning worms and insects, or what we might call creepy-crawlies), trees, vines, herbs and bushes.

Dr. Brown’s finding would be considerably less interesting if these categories were clear-cut depictions of reality that must inevitably be recognized. But tree and bush are hardly that, since there is no way to define a tree versus a bush. The two categories grade insensibly into one another. Wugs, likewise, are neither an evolutionarily nor ecologically nor otherwise cohesive group. Still, people repeatedly recognize and name these oddities.

Archaeologists classify pottery and other material culture remains. Simple taxonomies are useful that give a name to, for example, pottery with a particular decoration and other physical characteristics. That way we know what is meant when someone says, for example, Deptford Check Stamped or Deptford Cord Marked.

Artifact classification is perhaps more subjective than the common categories Dr. Brown has identified in many cultures, because not infrequently archaeologists get into heated discussions about the “right” way to classify some artifact types.

For discussion: is this kind of classification system in the Linnaean style or does it more closely resemble a cladistic classification system?

If you’ve been around archaeology in Georgia for a few decades, you may recognize the “upstairs” archaeology lab at the University of Georgia, on the second floor of Baldwin Hall, in Athens, ca. 1988.

This area is now a modern computer lab and the (slightly) dusty artifacts and boxes and storage cabinets are now installed in the curation facility attached to the Georgia Archaeological Site File in the Riverbend Research Lab building in the southern part of the UGA Campus.

Editor’s Note

Back in late March 2009, GAAS and SGA member Dick Brunelle issued a challenge to thesga.org readers. He had read a January Weekly Ponder on a Copeland-Inglis brick found in an Atlanta brick street, and responded by asking who made the brick he had photographed at Hills and Dales, the Callaway family home in LaGrange, which had “LACLEDE KING” stamped on it. As a tease, he noted: The brick is more closely related to the Lewis and Clark Expedition than it is to covered bridges in Georgia. Member Jim D’Angelo was the only one to log in and comment on these brick controversies, among other things noting that he has a biography of John Randolph Copeland (1863-1935), partner in Copeland-Inglis Brick company. Now, Mr. Brunelle reveals the whoe story behind that enigmatic brick….

The answer…

Laclede Fire Brick Company as it appeared in 1854. On the hill behind the plant, can be seen the old Sublette mansion and nearby buildings of the sulphur springs resort. Clay was mined between the plant and the mansion.

The Birthplace of the Laclede King Brick

Bridge builder Horace King practiced his craft up and down the Chattahoochee River before and after his emancipation from slavery. The Townsend Truss structures he specialized in building required solid piers of durable material. Knowing he headed a family enterprise, brick making did not seem beyond possibility for this one time resident of LaGrange, Georgia.

At least, this is what I thought when I spotted the Laclede King brick at the beautiful estate of Hills and Dales in LaGrange. However, a search of Horace King family members did not come up with anyone named Laclede. Casting my net over the Internet, I fished up one Pierre Laclede Liquest.

We find that this enterprising man, a native of France, came to New Orleans in 1755. Soon, he dropped the Pierre from his name and his associates dropped the Liquest. This sort of name dropping was common among the early French in Louisiana. Laclede married an unattached woman in New Orleans, who was also enterprising and had accumulated money trading furs and other goods. She had previously been married to Auguste Rene Chouteau, and her son Auguste was now Laclede’s stepson. To further complicate an already confusing family relationship, stepson Auguste Chouteau had a half brother named Pierre. Some surmise he was a son of Laclede, but he was called Pierre Chouteau.

Laclede supposedly obtained trading rights from the last French governor for all the territory along the Missouri River. He and his stepson Auguste Chouteau established a trading post that Laclede named St Louis in April 1764 in honor of King Louis IX. Between the time he first set foot there, at the end of 1763, and the time of his death in 1788, Laclede had built up his name enough to bequeath it to things both material and political. As we now suspect, this includes bricks.

But, how can the name on our brick be close to Lewis and Clark? This clue was mainly intended to get the ponderer in the correct geographical area. However, both Chouteaus could not get any closer to William Clark than they did in September of 1797. Clark had been across the river trying to gather information to help out his older brother George Rogers Clark, who was in deep doo-doo for spending too much government money embarrassing the British while venturing into their territory.

Feeling the urge to party, William went to St Louis to scope out the town. There, he had a ball (literally) at Pierre Chouteau’s place with “all the fine girls and buckish Gentleman.” Now that they were drinking buddies, Clark would not forget his new friends when he came back across the river years later with Meriwether Lewis. The Spanish governor would not allow the Corps of Discovery to come ashore, but did accept a courtesy visit from Clark, who used the occasion to affirm his friendship in an aside with Auguste Chouteau. Meriwether Lewis used what influence he had to get Pierre Chouteau appointed Agent of Indian Affairs for Upper Louisiana in 1804.

The Chouteau brothers had considerable economic and political clout to go with their immense knowledge of the country and inhabitants of the Missouri and points west. It would take all of this to compete with the companies and political entities trying to control trade with the Indian nations. In turn, the Chouteau brothers made alliances with groups and individuals they deemed most capable to meet the challenges. One of these was William L. Sublette, previously a competitor. He became “their man on the ground” to deal with the most dangerous situations. Bill Sublette used shrewd strategy and good business ability, along with superior frontier skills, to stay alive and come out ahead.

After he gave up mountain man life, it would be Bill who would become owner of the ground that would one day yield the clay for our Laclede brick. Surprisingly, Bill aspired to create his own little utopia close to the city of St Louis, rather than live in Big Sky country. He chose a pleasing valley with a sulphur spring and “a river runs through it.” The “clear crystal stream” was called “River Des Peres”. This piece of property just happened to once belong to the husband of Auguste and Pierre’s sister Victoire Chouteau, Charles Gratiot, who had received it in a Spanish land grant of about 8000 acres.

In 1835, Bill had several log cabins and a large stone manor built on his 779 acre arcadia sanctuary. Sublette immediately put into play a gentleman farmer economy; exploiting natural resources of the property. Along with agricultural, livestock, and lumbering operations, mining of coal and clay was started. As it turned out, the clay was found to be the best in the country for making firebrick.

Gratiot’s son Paul had a fire brick kiln as early as 1837. We do not know, however, if Bill Sublette himself did anything but mine the clay. Soon, Bill’s arcadia had a menagerie of Wild West animals and a sulphur springs health resort for 60 boarders. Sadly, the healing waters did not restore health to Bill during an illness; so, he sought help in the East, but died in a Pittsburg, Pennsylvania hotel during his travels, on July 23, 1845.

William L. Sublette’s earthly remains were brought from Pittsburg and interred on his estate.

Soon, another utopia seeker was on the move in the person of Etienne Cabet. A French experimenter in communal living, he coined the word communisme; which became communism. Called the Icarian Movement, he lead his followers to found a colony in America; first in the Texas Red River Valley, then to the recently vacated haven of Brigham Young in Nauvoo, Illinois. Alas, Arcadia was not found there. The fragmented Icarians that still followed Cabet moved on to St Louis; but Cabet died at the end of 1856.

The remaining Icarians struggled on and in two years bought Sublette’s place, which was then on the block. Ironically, unhealthy conditions at the health resort were one reason that the colony to disbanded. Even more ironic, Bill Sublette’s mortal remains could not stay because of the demand for clay around the cemetery that contained them. Forced out at the point of a shovel, Bill’s remains were moved to Bellefontaine Cemetery in St Louis city in 1868.

Resting on 80 acres of land close by, Laclede Fire Brick Manufacturing Company was inhaling clay from the old Sublette Estate and exhaling an array of brick products. Thus, neither William Sublette nor Etienne Cabet found a final resting place in that place first called Sulphur Springs, then Cheltenham, and finally Dogtown.

However, one brick made from the clay of that place rests in the garden walk of a little arcadia created by the Callaway family in LaGrange, Georgia, where it proclaims to all that take notice: Laclede Brick is King!

Curate is a fancy word that refers to selecting, organizing, and properly storing items, for example in a museum collection, or for an exhibition.

We can’t curate everything. It’s just too expensive and the objects will take up too much space. We also must consider excessive redundancy.

So, what do we save and what do we discard? How do we make that decision?

Do we save this early piece of computer equipment? After all, it was break-through technology in its day. And this specimen still functions (trust me!). On the other hand, tens of thousands of these machines were made, and some of them must still be stored in people’s garages and basements, and perhaps even in a few museums.

BTW, archaeologists also use the word curate with respect to, especially, lithics (stone tools). A curated bifacial tool, for example, has been re-sharpened, and used for quite a while.

Now here’s the trick question: what does this machine do?

Here’s a clue: do you know what a floppy disk is?

The Antonio J. Waring, Jr. Archaeological Laboratory at the University of West Georgia is hosting their annual Open House on Saturday, April 18, 2009 from 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM. Come out and bring the entire family, rain or shine! We will have an archaeological dig in the mock pit, flint knapping demonstrations by James Spake, artifact identification by Dr. Thomas Foster, games, tours of the lab, snacks and more. For map and directions, go to the Waring Lab website. Please contact Susan Fishman-Armstrong at (678) 839-6303 with any questions.

For more events you may be interested in, visit the SGA calendar here….

Coastal Georgia Archaeological Society’s activities this summer were very low key, compared to 2007 when we worked on the Groves Creek site on Skidaway Island. We spent the summer of 2008 in air conditioned comfort at the Savannah-Ogeechee Canal Museum washing, sorting and cataloguing artifacts from excavations, lead by Mark Newell, made along the Canal from 2006-2008. The most interesting items came from the Locktender’s House site, where a variety of high status artifacts were found. These included transfer-printed pearlware, mocha ware, a Chinese ginger jar, and music box parts. Along the Canal itself, Lock 3 yielded what looked like black eyed peas and Lock 5 the remains of a hoist used to lift logs up to a now vanished sawmill.

The latest addition to the club’s fall schedule is the October 25th Fall Festival at the Bamboo Farm, where we plan to have an informational booth on “Plants and Archaeology.” Still in the works are an excursion to the Effingham Living History Museum and the Reiser-Zoller House, and a Fall Picnic and program on the Civil War vessel “Waterwitch.” The picnic will be held at the Canal Museum and feature an exhibit of the artifacts we worked on and a tour of the Locktender’s House site. Dates for these events are to be announced. Anyone in the Savannah area wishing to join us is welcome. Please contact Chica or Carl Arndt at (912) 920-2299 or Carndt2651@aol.com.

The Antonio J. Waring, Jr. Archaeological Laboratory (Waring Laboratory) and the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) have officially begun a collaboration project for data management. The goal of this project is to maximize efficiency of curation by eliminating redundancy and improving communication between GDOT and the Waring Laboratory.

Currently, GDOT curates all of its collections at the Waring Laboratory. All collection information (including the catalog) is handwritten by GDOT and then retyped into the Waring Laboratory’s Collections Database after it is acquired. Several problems have been noted by Waring staff during the reentry of this collection information. These problems include:

• Introduction of transcription errors;

• Inability to read hand-writing;

• The time consuming nature of transcription;

• Time required rewriting the same information for the catalog, inner and outer information tags, box content list, analysis forms, etc.

The Waring Laboratory used data primarily from GDOT-owned collections as its research model when it developed its collections database in June 2002 and completed testing in January 2005. A copy of the Waring Laboratory’s database was revised in July 2006 and given to GDOT. The expected outcome of this collaborative project is for GDOT to enter collection information directly into the database to generate all necessary forms for curation, thus eliminating the need for timeconsuming, redundant handwriting and providing GDOT with a formalized collections processing system. The information in the database will be copied and pasted to the Waring Laboratory’s Collection Database, eliminating all transcription errors caused by retyping of information. The result of this collaboration will be reduced time, money, and energy spent on collection processing, and it will eliminate transcription errors for all parties involved.

While this project/collaboration is currently underway, it is hoped that it will pave the way for a more efficient and integrated system of curation in the state of Georgia. Minimally, this project has encouraged discussion on curation methods in Georgia and the Southeast, inspired new solutions to old problems, worked new technologies into the discipline, and coordinated the organization of one of the largest material collections in the state. It is hoped that this collaboration will extend to other agencies and companies as it is further established and tested.

Transfer of the St. Catherines Island Foundation and Edward John Noble Foundation Collection of archaeological material to Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta was begun early in 2004. This very large, high quality archaeological collection was amassed during 30 years of island investigation led by Dr. David Hurst Thomas of the American Museum of Natural History. Dennis Blanton joined Fernbank in July 2005 as Curator of Native American Archaeology to manage the collection and develop new programs.

At Fernbank, the St. Catherines collection will anchor a regional archaeology program, serve as the basis for ambitious new exhibits, and provide content for new educational programming. In addition, it will ultimately be managed as a working collection that will support the research of visiting scholars.

Present work with the collection focuses on organizing and housing the massive quantity of material according to curatorial standards. An overview of the island research and recent progress with the collection is presented on a new Fernbank web page.

Also, a fabulous team of volunteers, including many from the Greater Atlanta Archaeological Society membership, have been helping inventory several other large artifact collections that have been donated to Fernbank over the years. The results have been rewarding already as a surprising number of Paleoindian tools from around the state have been identified.

For information about the collection and archaeology at Fernbank please contact Dennis B. Blanton, Fernbank Museum of Natural History, 767 Clifton Road NE, Atlanta, GA 30307, 404-929-6304.