Ohio Archaeology Blog

Jurassic Park Revisited?

2012-01-24T10:58:00.006-05:00

Is it possible to resurrect the long extinct Wooly Mammoth? If so what would be next? A Neanderthal? A Megalodon Shark? As for the last two I would think not but some think it’s possible to clone a Wooly Mammoth and bring it back into a world where it hasn’t walked for more than ten millennia. Is this a rehash of a tossed out Jurassic Park script? Not really and there are more than a few scientists that think such a project has possibilities.
Attached is a link to a site that recounts a similar article that was passed on to me a while back. I guess you’ll just have to read it and judge such a venture on its own merits. Enjoy!

Bill Pickard

http://news.discovery.com/animals/mammoth-cloning-technology-reserrect-110117.html

REMOTE SENSING DISCOVERIES AT OHS SITES

2012-01-21T22:53:00.010-05:00

In my January column in the Columbus Dispatch I write about Jarrod Burks’ and Robert Cook’s discoveries of “lost” earthworks using magnetometry, a geophysical remote sensing technology that can detect subtle changes in the magnetic properties of soils, which can reveal some kinds of archaeological sites without having to dig into the ground.

Ancient earthwork foundations and filled ditches are dramatic, but they are not the only kinds of archaeological sites that remote sensing methods can detect; and magnetometry is only one of many remote sensing technologies available for archaeological investigations.

The Ohio Historical Society (OHS) now routinely uses remote sensing surveys at sites prior to any planned construction activities that have the potential for disturbing the traces of past activities hidden beneath the surface that are, after all, part of the reason we preserve and interpret these sites in the first place. Over the past several years, these projects have resulted in important new discoveries many of which have been reported in this blog.

At Fort Laurens, Ohio’s only Revolutionary War era fort, we traced the outlines of the 18th century military occupation using metal detector surveys. We discovered a scattering of metal objects beneath the sod, including a deposit of around 200 musket balls that were intended to have been used by the U.S. soldiers stationed at the fort, but which were lost in an unfortunate accident. This work began as an attempt to discover the location of the 1764 blockhouse built by Henry Bouquet’s forces on or near this site, but it was expanded over the years in response to various proposed construction projects across the property. Jarrod Burks is now engaged in a remote sensing survey of the entire site.

At Serpent Mound, prior to the construction of updated toilet facilities, Burks conducted a remote sensing survey of the areas that were going to be affected by the excavations necessary to install the new septic system. Burks located features that we decided to save by re-routing the proposed water lines around them.

At Fort Ancient, Burks used a variety of methods to examine an area that was going to be used as an access route for heavy equipment employed in repairing damaged segments of the earthworks. Burks discovered traces of a previously unknown circular arrangement of large posts, now referred to as the Moorehead Circle. We decided to alter our plans to avoid disturbing this area, but subsequently it has become the focus of a multi-year investigation led by Robert Riordan of Wright State University.

In each case, remote sensing technologies revealed important clues to our past that might otherwise have been lost. In the Serpent Mound example, the results of the survey were used to preserve the remains of the ancient feature. At Fort Laurens and Fort Ancient, the results were used to focus archaeological investigations on specific anomalies, which have revealed important new insights about these remarkable places.

Stay tuned to this blog for announcements of discoveries that are sure to be made by forthcoming remote sensing investigations at some of the most important historic and prehistoric sites in the State of Ohio.

Here is a link to my column in the Dispatch:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/science/2012/01/22/technology-offers-peek-into-past.html

Here is a link to a previous blog post on the discovery of the large collection of musketballs at Fort Laurens:

"Ft Laurens Musketball Concentration: evidence of a fight or fiasco?"
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2007/03/ft-laurens-musketball-concentration.html

Here is a link to a previous blog post on Serpent Mound project:

"New discoveries at Serpent Mound"
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-discoveries-at-serpent-mound.html

Here is a link to a previous blog post on Fort Ancient's Moorehead Circle:

"Secrets of the Moorehead Circle"
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2011/08/secrets-of-moorehead-circle.html

Brad Lepper

OHIO'S EFFIGY MOUNDS – THE SERPENT AND THE "ALLIGATOR"

2012-01-20T13:29:00.010-05:00

Recently, I had another opportunity to talk to the folks at Ohio's Wilderness Center. On this occasion, science educator Joann Ballbach, general naturalist Gordon T. Maupin, and conservation biologist Gary Popotnik and I chatted about Serpent Mound as well as Ohio's other, less renowned, effigy mound, the so-called "Alligator."

Our conversation was recorded and has been posted as part of the January 19th "Wild Ideas" podcast.

Serpent Mound, at more than 1400 feet long, is the largest effigy mound in the world whereas "Alligator" Mound is a much smaller 200 feet long. Radiocarbon dating and other evidence situate both of these effigies in the Late Prehistoric era (circa AD 1000-1650), which not coincidentally overlaps the time period when all of the hundreds (or even thousands) of effigy mounds were being built in the Upper Midwest.

My sense is that the Serpent and the "Alligator" mounds represent the Great Serpent and Underwater Panther, masters of the Beneath World in the traditions of many Native American cultures. The folklorist George Lankford, in his book Reachable Stars, argues that the Serpent and Underwater Panther actually are manifestations of one supernatural being: "…the Native view, rooted in shape-shifting and symbolic imagery, seems to find much less distinction between the two."

These mounds, then, may have been monumental shrines dedicated to this potent spirit.

If you're interested in learning more, here is a link to the Wilderness Center webpage:
http://www.wildernesscenter.org/podcasts/

My interview is on Podcast #145 and starts at about the 20 minute mark, but you also may enjoy the wide-ranging discussions of various aspects Ohio's natural environment that precede the conversation about Ohio's effigy mounds.

Here are links to a few related blog entries:

The Serpent and the "Alligator": Ohio's ancient effigy mounds
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2010/01/serpent-and-alligator-ohios-ancient.html

The Snake's Tale: How Old Is Serpent Mound?
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2011/05/snakes-tale-how-old-is-serpennt-mound.html

New Discoveries at Serpent Mound
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-discoveries-at-serpent-mound.html

And for even more information about Ohio's effigy mounds, check out my articles in Timeline:

Lepper, Bradley T.
1998 Great Serpent. Timeline Vol. 15, Number 5, pages 30-45.

2001 Ohio's "Alligator." Timeline Vol. 18, Number 2, pages 18-25.

Brad Lepper

"SMALL TALK" ON OHIO'S ANCIENT EARTHWORKS ON FEBRUARY 5TH

2012-01-19T14:25:00.006-05:00

I hope you all will be able to join me for an informal discussion about Ohio’s Ancient Earthworks as part of the Ohio Historical Society’s conversational “Small Talks” series.

On Sunday, February 5th from 2-3 pm, I will talk about the latest theories concerning the origins and purposes of Ohio’s amazing earthworks as well as the status of the effort to nominate eight of Ohio's earthworks to the UNESCO World Heritage List. Those sites include four Ohio Historical Society sites, the Newark Earthworks, Fort Ancient, Seip Mound and Serpent Mound, along with the several sites belonging to Hopewell Culture National Historical Park.

The remarkable mounds and earthen enclosures were built by a number of ancient American Indian cultures over many centuries and for a variety of purposes, but there remain many unanswered questions: Why are many of the earthworks so enormous? Why are many aligned to the rising and setting of the sun and moon? Were the earthworks centers for a vast network of trade and commerce?

For my views on these and whatever other questions you bring with you, join me at the Ohio Historical Society's Discovery Theater on Sunday February 5th at 2 pm.

After the "Small Talk," if there's any interest, I'll lead a guided tour of our new archaeology exhibit in the Museum of the Ohio History Center -- Following in Ancient Footsteps, where you can see some of the most spectacular works of art ever produced by Ohio's mound-building cultures. Those remarkable objects will speak louder than any words you'll hear from me!

I will hope to see you there!

Brad Lepper

Digging the Past Archaeology Day, Saturday January 21st, 2012 in Marietta

2012-01-17T09:03:00.004-05:00

If you have the winter-time blahs and think you might feel a little cooped up this weekend you are invited to the Second Annual Digging the Past Archaeology Day from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm this Saturday January 21st at the Campus Martius Museum in beautiful and historic Marietta Ohio. The museum is built on the site of Campus Martius, the original fortified settlement at Marietta constructed in 1787 by Rufus Putnam, Manasseh Cutler and the other settlers from New England. Marietta would go on to become the first permanent town in the Old Northwest Territory. It is also home to some of the best preserved prehistoric earthworks in Ohio great antique shops and the Rossi Pasta factory. So there is plenty to do at the museum and see in town to make the trip worthwhile. Digging the Past will include displays, lectures and presentations on current archaeological research, artifact identification and flint knapping.Admission is $7 for adults and $4 for students. It’s free for OHS members (a good reason to join) and for children under 5. For further information call the Campus Martius Museum at 1-800-860-0145 or see the attached link.
Bill Pickard

http://campusmartiusmuseum.org/events.html

WILLIAM C. MILLS – SECOND CURATOR OF ARCHAEOLOGY, BUT FIRST DIRECTOR OF THE OHIO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

2012-01-16T12:48:00.009-05:00

In 1928, the year of the death of William Corless Mills, second Curator of Archaeology and first Director of the Ohio Archaeo-logical and Historical Society (OAHS, now OHS), a new publication began called Museum Echoes.

Now the OHS membership newsletter Echoes, the title evoked the sounds within a then fifteen year old building, now known as Sullivant Hall on High Street, but built in 1913 as the Ohio State Museum. The structure, its collections and archaeological archive, and the growth of the OAHS as a strong and vibrant institution is due in no small part to the work of William C. Mills.

Mills' Archeological Atlas of Ohio, published in 1914 and well known to scholars as his masterwork, probably would have come out a few years earlier were it not for the priority of the Museum Building; like much of Mills’ efforts, he built on work begun by others, but those labors were made complete and brought into public view and wider understanding through the managerial skill and political adeptness of this nearly accidental archaeologist.

When Mills met Warren Moorehead, OAHS’ first Curator of archaeology, the new assistant curator was six years older than his superior, having been trained as a pharmacist with a smattering of medical training, working in Kansas and a number of small towns around Ohio. The work of a druggist didn’t look like a real calling for him, but he did serve as secretary of the Newcomerstown archaeological society, where his reports on local discoveries came to the attention of A. A. Graham, secretary of the OAHS.

Shortly afterwards, in 1897, Mills came back to the Ohio State University where he had begun a course of study sixteen years before, interrupted by his decision to try pharmacy college in Cincinnati, and marriage to Olive Buxton in 1885. In 1898, 38 years old, Mills received his Bachelor of Science in horticulture and forestry, began working in Orton Hall with Moorehead as assistant curator, and quickly found himself in charge of the nascent collections and operations as Moorehead went to the desert southwest on an extended leave to treat his pulmonary tuberculosis.

This period of leave ended with Moorehead’s resignation, and the executive committee of the society offered the job to Mills, which he accepted. Three years later, at the excavation of the Adena Mound in Chillicothe, Mills would be responsible for discovering the Adena Effigy Pipe, a rare piece of figurative and functional art which is one of the great treasures of Ohio, and was a symbol to Mills of the importance of his work in archaeology for the rest of his life. In 1902, Mills earned a Master of Science degree from Ohio State, and directed the moving of the collections and archives to Page Hall in the following year.

But through the remaining decades of William Corless Mills’ life, he would not restrict himself to any one subject. He established the Department of Natural History of the OAHS, and was well known for his skill in ornithology and horticulture, active in a number of professional societies including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Anthropological Society, American Ethnological Society and the American Ornithological Union (among many other awards & memberships). All this, while supervising digs at sites as varied as Tremper Mound, with its famous cache of effigy pipes, and Seip Conjoined Mound. His work at those sites, as well as the Harness and Baum Works, were always quickly and fully published in the pages of the OAHS quarterly and annual reports.

For both Moorehead and Mills, the major part of their salary was actually through Ohio State as both teacher of classes and curator for collections on OSU’s behalf, a tangled set of loyalties and obligations that began to be unwound with the 1921 creation of the position Director of the Museum for OAHS, with the executive committee stepping back into a more traditional role as a governing board of trustees. Mills was the first Director of the OAHS, leaving the original position of Curator of Archaeology open for his assistant, as he had succeeded Moorehead, and Henry Shetrone became the third holder of that post.

An intriguing footnote is that apparently, during his early days holding multiple roles both on behalf of the society and with the university, he was president and treasurer of the Ohio State Athletic Association. When he showed that the program was operating in a major deficit situation, the association asked Mills to fix things, which he answered could only be done if “he be given complete management of all athletics - football, basket-ball, baseball and track work.” They did so, and in one year this early athletic director of Ohio State sports turned a $3,000 deficit into a $8,500 surplus!

It had to be that same kind of astute understanding of people and processes that worked for Mills to get both the State legislature and legendary OSU President William Oxley Thompson to work together to build the Museum Building on High Street, starting in 1913, with the next major wing added in 1926. (In 1970, OHS moved to their current home near the fairgrounds, and the building was given to OSU and renamed Sullivant Hall.) I find myself sorry that the Museum was never named Mills Hall before the handover, because in many ways, that’s who built both the building itself and the collections within it – as well as shaping the early outline of the OAHS as an organization. Those departments still serve the same scientific and educational purposes today which so caught the interest and attention of William Corless Mills in the 1890s.

The Columbus Dispatch rightly wrote in their pages the day after Mills’ passing: “Nothing in nature or in the life of man was without its interest for him.”

For more information about Mills, check out a tribute published after his death in the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quaterly Vol. 38, 1928; page 205-219:

http://publications.ohiohistory.org/ohstemplate.cfm?action=toc&vol=37

You also could read the following short essay in Timeline:

Lepper, Bradley T.2010 William C. Mills: “Tracer of Lost Civilizations.” Timeline Vol. 27, Number 1, 2010; page 8.

Contributed by Jeff Gill, Newark Earthworks Center, the Ohio State University

HENRY SHETRONE AND THE MOUND-BUILDERS

2012-01-13T12:52:00.008-05:00

Henry Clyde Shetrone was a Columbus newspaper reporter who became one of Ohio's most productive archae-ologists. Between 1921 and 1928, he was the Curator of Archaeology for the Ohio Historical Society and served as the Society's Director from 1928 until 1947. He died in 1954, but he left a legacy of great achievements in archaeological research, preservation, and public education.

He was born in Millersport in 1876 and served in Cuba during the Spanish American War. He came back to Ohio and eventually became a reporter. He wrote stories on archaeology and became good friends with William C. Mills, then Curator of Archaeology at the Ohio Historical Society. In 1913, Mills offered him a job as a staff archaeologist.

Shetrone conducted archaeological investigations across the state and made many contributions to our understanding of Ohio's ancient cultures. He unearthed many of the most extraordinary artifacts displayed in the Ohio History Center's new exhibit "Following in Ancient Footsteps," but he did more than excavate sites. He also took the lead in preserving sites for future generations. A partial list of the sites acquired by the Ohio Historical Society during Shetrone's tenure as director includes Fort Hill, Leo Petroglyph, Flint Ridge, the Newark Earthworks, Seip Mound, Shrum Mound, and Williams Mound.

Shetrone was the last of the great self-educated professional archaeologists. He never graduated from college, yet he was one of the most prolific archaeologists of his generation. Although flawed by today's standards, many of his contemporaries regarded his field techniques as superlative. Clark Wissler, one of America's foremost early anthropologists, wrote that "Shetrone does not dig a mound, he dissects it as carefully and intelligently as a surgeon approaches a complicated internal structure."

Shetrone published many articles on his research, but his greatest published work was his 1930 book entitled The Mound-Builders. A few years ago, the University of Alabama Press reprinted this book as part of their "Classics in Southeastern Archaeology" series, so it's widely available again. I contributed the introductory essay on Shetrone's life and work.

Although Shetrone's views on mound-builder archaeology certainly are dated, The Mound-Builders remains an historically important synthesis of the state of the art as of 1930. It is extensively illustrated and his descriptions of excavating at some of Ohio's most famous archaeological sites are well worth reading.

Shetrone dedicated the book to "the average man and woman who, … lack the time and opportunity for digesting the rather extensive but often unavailable literature on the subject." The Mound-Builders is a fitting testament to Shetrone's contributions to archaeology and to the ancient people whose achievements he worked so hard to understand, preserve and share with the world.

Brad Lepper

EARTHWORKS DON'T FARE TOO WELL IN OHIO LICENSE PLATE SLOGAN SURVEY

2012-01-11T13:39:00.003-05:00

The results are in for the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles survey of slogans relating to Ohio to feature on new license plates.

Out of about 400,000 votes cast, the "Newark Mounds" came in 27th with 763 votes and "Serpent Mound" came in 30th with 642 votes.

The big winner was the state motto – "With God All Things Are Possible" with 286,159 votes.

"The Heart of It All" came in 3rd with 7,501 votes.

Thanks to all of you that cast votes for Ohio's earthworks!

For more information about the results of the survey, check out this article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2012/01/ohio_license_plate_slogans_god.html

Brad Lepper

A presentation on The War of 1812 Double Horse Burial at Ft Meigs to kick off winter lecture series at SunWatch Village

2012-01-09T12:04:00.008-05:00

As part of the 2012 “Archaeology of Conflict” lecture series, co-sponsored by SunWatch Village and the Archaeological Institute of America, there will be a presentation on the Double Horse Burial discovered in 2001at Fort Meigs. Fort Meigs is located just outside Perrysburg, Ohio and was pivotal in the war in the northwest during the War of 1812. In the spring and summer of 1813 Fort Meigs was twice invested by combined British and Native American forces and twice successfully defended. However, success was not without cost for the American side with both the regular army and the Kentucky Militia in particular sustaining heavy losses. Often overlooked in the history of such conflicts are the parts played by horses and how their losses may have been as heartfelt to their rider as the loss of a human comrade - if not more. Further research into the events at Ft Meigs in 1813 has tentatively identified one of the horses (and its rider) as part of an action at Fort Meigs on May 5, 1813 that prevented further losses to the American side. You should attend to find out exactly what might have happened. It’s an excellent program.
The “Archaeology of Conflict” series is free and open to the public. The SunWatch Village and Museum is located at 2301 W. River Road in Dayton, Ohio off I-75, exit #51, south of downtown Dayton (the exit for Welcome Stadium and Edwin Moses Boulevard). See the attached link.
Bill Pickard

http://www.sunwatch.org/program-a-events/special-events

Help Spread the Word: Ohio has a new funding tool for history projects!

2012-01-06T17:20:00.001-05:00

Ohioans have a new and important way to demonstrate their support for history and historic preservation in Ohio.

For the first time, taxpayers will be able to donate a portion of their state income tax refund to the Ohio Historical Society. The Society will use the funds to create a new grant program to support history-related projects throughout Ohio. From the fund, matching grants will be awarded for projects including exhibits and public programs, repair and rehabilitation of historic properties, care for historic objects and documents, education initiatives and much more, in communities across the state. The new grant program will be open to the hundreds of history-related organizations, academic institutions and local governments looking for support of their local history-related initiatives.

Now an Ohio tax refund can MAKE HISTORY! when a portion is donated to the Ohio Historical Society for the new History Grants Fund. Questions? Give us a call at 614-297-2341

Warren King Moorehead at Wounded Knee

2011-12-29T00:00:00.004-05:00

December 29, 1890 is a date well known among Native American people. It marks an event slowly becoming better known across the more general study of United States history. Dee Brown, the Western historian borrowed a memorable phrase for a book title from Stephen Vincent Benét’s poem “American Names,” which closed with the line “Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.”

That popular history told a story of the American West from the perspective of Native Americans, using the events of the Wounded Knee Massacre as a lens to refocus the narrative on the Indian experience.

On Dec. 29, 1890, at least 150 Lakota Sioux (some argue it was closer to 300) were shot down in a panic by soldiers of the Unites States Army’s 7th Cavalry, of whom over 30 also died, mostly at the hands of their own 500 strong fellow troopers’ gunfire – arrayed, as they were, in a circle around the 350-plus Indians, mostly women & children with a few older men and a hundred or so younger warriors.
The first curator of archaeology for the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society (now the Ohio Historical Society, or OHS) was present at the Pine Ridge Reservation and near Wounded Knee Creek in 1890. Not at the massacre, Warren K. Moorehead, just 24 years old, was present at Pine Ridge for the preceding two months as a correspondent for the New York based The Illustrated American.

“The Illustrated American” hired young Moorehead because he had just published a well-reviewed novel of life on the Pine Ridge Reservation, entitled Wanneta, the Sioux. A story that we might call a “young adult” novel today. The story echoes a popular contemporary best-seller, Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson, better known for her non-fiction polemic A Century of Dishonor about mistreatment of Native American people across the continent (another book Moorehead would adopt as a model 24 years later).

Wanneta did not sell quite as well as Ramona, but respectably enough to gain a lecture tour across the east coast in the fall of 1890, and an offer to go find out more about what was starting to show up in wire service accounts out west as the “Ghost Dance.” Moorehead had the advantage of having just been on the same ground where the Ghost Dance was reported as most active, spending the previous February with a fascinating character named George E. Bartlett, a U.S. Marshal for Pine Ridge and a city west of there already infamous as Deadwood, South Dakota.

Bartlett had worked as a sales representative for the gunpowder company owned by relatives of Warren Moorehead (his King family relations from Xenia, this apparently being the reason he and Bartlett knew each other in the first place), and also ran a small trading post of his own on a creek through part of the Pine Ridge Reservation. From the wild days as a Pony Express rider and then Marshal in Deadwood, Bartlett had picked up the Indian name “Huste,” which was explained to be a dialect word for . . . “Wounded Knee.” Was the creek already called that, or did Bartlett’s nickname literally name the location? We will probably never know for sure.

What we do know from Moorehead’s papers and journals, held at the OHS Archives, is that Bartlett/Huste had invited the young man out in February, had taken him around to the camps and settlements of the Lakota Sioux across the Nebraska/South Dakota border, and after the relative success of Wanneta had continued to suggest Moorehead come out again to write about this Ghost Dance phenomenon.

With the support of an editor named Minton at The Illustrated American, Moorehead got a ticket from New York to Chadron, Nebraska where Bartlett owned a ranch, and quickly found himself welcomed in the camp of Red Cloud, a greatly respected Lakota leader.

Moorehead never claimed to speak any of the Lakota dialects he encountered, but the articles he later wrote included a variety of Indian words, and of course his friend and guide George Bartlett spoke a number of Sioux tongues quite well. After almost eight weeks of travel and camping among the various settlements across the Pine Ridge area, he was called into the headquarters of Gen. John R. Brooke, commanding officer of the Department of the Platte.

According to Moorehead’s journal, Brooke informed him that as he was the only correspondent who spoke the “hostiles” language, and was accepted enough to overnight in their camps, he was considered a liability to the Army as they tried to bring order to the Pine Ridge situation: so two soldiers would escort him directly to his quarters, watch him pack, and take him to the next train east.

As the first shots rang out along Wounded Knee Creek on Dec. 29, 1890, Warren Moorehead was fuming in a train car, writing out his account of the meeting with Gen. Brooke the day before. As Col. Forsyth and the 7th Cavalry were holstering their weapons and dismantling the Hotchkiss guns that had contributed so much to the one-sided slaughter, Moorehead still knew nothing of what had happened behind him.

But not for long. After a hurried New Year visit to his family in Xenia, Moorehead pressed on to Washington, D.C., where he carried the case of Red Cloud and the Pine Ridge Lakota all the way to the White House, arguing that neither the national interest nor simple justice were served by the poor treatment he had seen, let alone by a massacre such as everyone in the east was now hearing about, and seeing from early photographs (some of which may have come from top-of-the-line equipment Moorehead left behind for his colleagues).

After having heard only vaguely sympathetic statements from congressional leaders and President Benjamin Harrison, Moorehead went on to New York, telling his tale to Minton and the Illustrated American staff. They opened up the magazine’s pages and art department for what their correspondent had to tell, and he published half-a-dozen long pieces praising the moral and personal character of Red Cloud and other Indian leaders he had met, explaining their way of life as it had changed since “the coming of the white man,” and doing his best to present the Ghost Dance in a reasonable light.

Of the Wounded Knee Massacre he could say little, but he closed his series by tearing into the system of Indian agents and allocations, and asking for justice from the U.S. government to the much abused, often maligned Lakota and similarly situated tribes in the west. On reading Moorehead’s righteous rant, the wonder isn’t that it took almost twenty years for him to be named to the federal Bureau of Indian Commissioners, but that he was invited at all.

The bulk of Moorehead’s career was ahead of him in the wake of Wounded Knee. His youthful wanderings and relatively random diggings at Fort Ancient and in Licking & Muskingum counties left a visual record of pillage and unmistakable evidence of an emphasis on personal collecting that would dog his reputation down to the present day. What is very clear in his writing about Native Americans, both long ago in the archaeological record, and today in his United States, is that Warren King Moorehead saw things differently after the events of 1890. He took away from Wounded Knee not only an amazing news story, but a strong sense of the connection between the stones and bones he had so casually juggled in his teenage days, and the proud people whose homes he had shared. His approach to the material culture he now excavated in Ohio was rooted in a living relationship to Native American people. There was both more respect for, and a passion for justice to the descendants of the people who had built a place like Fort Ancient.

Over the next 49 years, there would be few more vocal and active advocates for Native American justice than Warren King Moorehead. In print, in speeches, in lobbying up and down the corridors of Washington, and in exposes of corruption and mismanagement, Moorehead was tireless in his efforts to speak for Indian people without an advocate or a voice in the government, express deep concerns about the Dawes Act and its application to Indian landholdings, conducting hearings in 1911 investigating bribery and redirection of funds in the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, writing a book length study on his own in 1914 of the national situation regarding BIC management, and supporting the independent Meriam Report of 1928 to the BIC. Moorehead was only formally silenced in 1933 by the complete closure of the Bureau of Indian Commissioners, and their re-constitution as a Bureau of Indian Affairs without him, but his friend John Collier was named the new Commissioner of Indian Affairs of what is better known today as the BIA. No longer a commissioner, he kept writing until his death in 1939 on respect and fair treatment for Indian nations across the US.

How that passion, beginning at Wounded Knee Creek, shaped his archaeological practice in the years to come, will be a fascinating subject for further study and review.

Contributed by Jeff Gill

RARE DNA VARIANT MAY DISPROVE PALEOLITHIC MIGRATION TO AMERICA ACROSS THE ATLANTIC

2011-12-28T23:28:00.005-05:00

A new analysis of the rare mitochondrial DNA haplogroup C4c in Native American populations shows that it has a parallel genetic history with the X2a haplogroup thought by some to indicate a connection between early Paleoindians in eastern North America and the Upper Paleolithic Solutrean culture in France and Spain.

According to Baharak Hooshiar Kashani, of the Dipartimento di Genetica e Microbiologia at the Universita di Pavia in Italy, and his several co-authors, C4c has clear roots in Asia and is found in Great Lakes and Great Plains Native American populations. These are the same areas in which the X2a haplogroup has been identified suggesting that “these two lineages possibly arrived together from Beringia with the same Paleo-Indian group(s) that entered North America from Beringia through the ice-free corridor between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets” at around 18-15,000 years ago.

The researchers further conclude that this finding “definitively dismisses the controversial hypothesis of an Atlantic glacial entry route into North America.”

The paper was published in the latest volume of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Vol. 147, pages 35-39.

Brad Lepper

Support Ohio Archaeology On Your 2011 Ohio Income Tax Form

2011-12-23T15:22:00.002-05:00

Anyone interested in Ohio archaeology has a new and convenient way to demonstrate their support. For the first time, Ohio taxpayers will be able to donate a portion of their income tax refund, or make a targeted donation if they are not receiving a refund, to support history-related, including archaeology, projects throughout Ohio!

The 2011 Ohio individual income tax forms will provide a “tax check-off” option — a blank box where you can designate an amount of your refund for donation.

The Ohio Historical Society (OHS) will administer the grants program and will be working with a variety of interested groups, including the Ohio Archaeological Council, to develop criteria for the grant proposals. Hopefully, the program will be up and running in the spring.

The OHS income tax check-off was approved as part of the state’s two-year budget that was signed into law by Gov. John R. Kasich on June 30. The Society does not know how much the new tax check-off will generate, but officials estimate it to be at least $200,000 per year.

Remember: tax time is also your time to support Ohio archaeology!

VIDEO: GEOPHYSICAL SURVEY OF OHIO EARTHWORKS

2011-12-21T09:02:00.012-05:00

Watch Dr. Jarrod Burks on the December 2011 episode of Video News on the Archaeology Channel!

"Magnetometer survey by Dr. Jarrod Burks in Ohio relocates part of the 1000 foot wide Shriver Circle, a now invisible Woodland Period (300 B.C. - A.D. 500) earthworks feature, suggesting that remote sensing can revolutionize our understanding of Ohio earthworks."

"Suggesting"?!? Remote sensing IS revolutionizing our understanding of Ohio earthworks!

Here's the link:

http://www.archaeologychannel.org/VideoNews.html

REVIEW OF "LOST CIVILIZATIONS" DVD NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE

2011-12-20T18:54:00.008-05:00

Part One of the review of the Lost Civilizations of North America DVD, co-authored by Kenneth Feder, Terry Barnhart (former OHS Curator of History), Deborah Bolnick and me, is now available online at the Skeptical Inquirer's website.

It is gratifying that this review now will be more widely accessible.

I hope the second and third parts to the series follow soon!

Civilizations Lost and Found: Fabricating History - Part One: An Alternate Reality

"While it is tempting to ignore the documentary as nonsense, the high production values coupled with the selective inclusion of academically credible scholars have resulted in its gaining international attention. Glenn Beck featured it prominently and favorably in the August 18, 2010, broadcast of his television program, and the website promoting the DVD claims it won the Best Multicultural Documentary Award at the 2010 International Cherokee Film Festival.

In a series of three articles, we will provide a scientific commentary on the interpretations expressed in this video concerning the ancient history of North America, using the documentary itself as emblematic of a far broader attempt to write an alternative history of the New World that is wholly unsupported by any archaeological or historical evidence."

Here is the link to the entire article:

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/civilizations_lost_and_found_fabricating_history_-_part_one_an_alternate_re

Brad Lepper

HOPEWELL ASTRONOMY

2011-12-17T22:58:00.005-05:00

It is becoming increasingly clear that many of Ohio's ancient earthworks incorporate alignments to astronomical phenomena, such as the apparent rising and setting of the Sun on the summer and winter solstices and the various moonrises and sets that demarcate the complicated 18.6-year-long cycle of the Moon.

A still unanswered question is why ancient people were so fascinated with these astronomical events. They certainly would provide a precise and convenient means of keeping track of time, but there is evidence that humanity's interest in these celestial rhythms goes back tens of thousands of years. Why were these early cultures so interested in having such an accurate calendar?

Simon Fraser University archaeologists Brian Hayden and Suzanne Villeneuve offer a compelling hypothesis in their article "Astronomy in the Upper Paleolithic?" published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal.

In order to get a handle on why ancient hunters and gatherers would have been so focused on the sky, Hayden and Villeneuve decided to look at historically-documented hunters and gatherers to see whether these relatively recent groups had similar interests and, if so, why. They examined data concerning 79 complex hunter-gatherer societies and discovered that 63 of them (80%) “exhibited some solstice observation or monitoring and/or calendars" and, surprisingly, most often the monitoring related to the Moon.

Complex hunter-gatherers are groups that rely on hunting wild animals and gathering wild plants for a living, but live in highly productive environments that permit them to gather a reliable surplus of food. This surplus allows them to have relatively high population densities, live at least seasonally in sedentary communities, engage in trade of high prestige artifacts, and compete with one another in the holding of extravagantly sumptuous feasts. Hayden and Villeneuve argue that their great interest in astronomy was fueled by the need to schedule these feasts, which could be complicated affairs with enormous social implications.

The Hopewell culture practiced some horticulture, but the people relied principally on hunting and gathering for the bulk of their diet. As a result, they share many of the characteristics of complex hunter-gatherers. Their monumental earthworks with astronomical alignments may have been pilgrimage centers operated by secret societies that competed with each other for prestige as well as religious or political authority. Holding big feasts within an impressive architectural arena on occasions featuring dramatic astronomical conjunctions would have been one way to demonstrate your groups' superiority on many levels.

Hayden and Villeneuve write, "If secret-society knowledge encompassed sophisticated solar, lunar and other celestial observations and knowledge, we might expect the highest-ranking members of secret societies to actively seek out ways to develop even more secret knowledge based on understanding celestial movements such as cycles of lunar or solar eclipses."

The initiation of such a spiritual arms race may have been the spark that ignited the explosive Hopewell florescence.

For further discussion of this topic, check out my column in the Columbus Dispatch:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/science/2011/12/18/earthworks-created-for-more-than-farming.html

Here is the full reference for the paper by Brian Hayden & Suzanne Villeneuve
2011 Astronomy in the Upper Paleolithic? Cambridge Archaeological Journal 21(3):331-355.

For an extended discussion of the astronomical alignments at the Hopewellian Marietta Earthworks, see this previous blog post:

It's That Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2010/12/its-that-most-wonderful-time-of-year.html

Brad Lepper

Ohio World Heritage Conference Held to Discuss Ohio Earthworks

2011-12-12T13:39:00.010-05:00

The Ohio Historical Society, in collab-oration with the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park and the University of Cincinnati’s Center for the Electronic Reconstruction of Historical and Archaeological Sites (CERHAS) held the first Ohio World Heritage Conference from November 5-8, 2011.

The conference was convened to develop a strategy for the nomination of the eight Ohio earthwork sites being considered for the prestigious World Heritage List maintained by United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

In 2008, eight Ohio earthworks were selected by the United States Department of the Interior for inclusion on the United States’ Tentative List of sites to be submitted to UNESCO for inscription on the World Heritage List based on two nominations prepared by the National Park Service and the Ohio Historical Society. One nomination was for Serpent Mound in Adams County, constructed by the Fort Ancient culture.

The other nomination was of Hopewell Ceremonial Sites: the Newark Earthworks in Licking County, Fort Ancient in Warren County, and the five earthworks included in Hopewell Cultural National Historical Park in Ross County: Mound City, Hopeton Earthworks, Hopewell Mound Group, Seip Earthworks, and High Bank Works.

Conference participants included scholars from across the nation: archaeologists, anthropologists, and cultural landscape historians; museum and park administrators with experience in the intensive nomination process; and Native Americans to whom these sites are sacred.

During the four-day conference participants toured most of the earthworks to gain a better under-standing of the sites and their attributes. Four formal discussion sessions were moderated to discuss issues related to the development of the nominations.

At the conclusion of the conference, participants were optimistic about the progress of the nominations, but were well aware of the work remaining to document the merit of the sites. The earliest either of the nominations could be inscribed on the World Heritage list would be 2014, and there is no guarantee of this.

The conference was funded by The Ohio State University Newark Earthworks Center, the Ohio Humanities Council, the Ohio Archaeological Council, Cincinnati Preservation Association, Warren County Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the Ross County Convention and Visitors Bureau and with donations from individuals as well as funds from the Ohio Historical Society and Hopewell Cultural National Historical Park.

Ohio Historical Society

RESPONDING TO "THE LOST CIVILIZATIONS OF NORTH AMERICA" DVD – PART 3: REAL MESSAGES IN DNA

2011-12-08T11:18:00.002-05:00

The January/February issue of the Skeptical Inquirer, "the magazine for science & reason," includes the final installment in a three-part series of articles written by physical anthropologist Deborah Bolnick, archaeologist Ken Feder, historian Terry Barnhart (a former Curator of History for the Ohio Historical Society), and me responding to the claims put forward in the video documentary The Lost Civilizations of North America.

The title of this article is "Civilizations Lost and Found: Fabricating History. Part Three: Real Messages in DNA" and it addresses the claim made in the documentary that the presence of the mitochondrial DNA haplogroup "X" in American Indian populations provides evidence for a pre-Columbian migration of Israelites to the Americas. It does not.

The article concludes:
"There is no credible evidence to suggest that any Old World peoples migrated to the Americas after the initial incursion from Siberia prior to the tentative forays of the Norse beginning at around 1000 CE other than limited contacts between Siberia and the American arctic."

For more information on what we're learning from studying ancient Hopewell DNA, check out these previous blog posts:

Ancient DNA from the Ohio Hopewell
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2006/06/ancient-dna-from-ohio-hopewell.html

Ancient DNA from the Illinois Hopewell
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2006/10/ancient-dna-from-illinois-hopewell.html

New study of ancient DNA reveals population history of northeastern North America
http://ohio-archaeology.blogspot.com/2008/09/new-study-of-ancient-dna-reveals.html

Brad Lepper

VOTE FOR "MY OHIO PLATE"!

2011-12-06T21:51:00.008-05:00

Go to the Ohio Department of Public Safety's website and vote for what you think is most important about Ohio! You can vote 10 times a day until January 8th!

Since you're on the OHS Archaeology Blog we hope you'll vote for the "Newark Mounds" or "Serpent Mound," since these National Historic Landmarks may soon be World Heritage sites!

Here's the link:

https://ext.dps.state.oh.us/BMVOnlineServices.Public/NewPlateSloganVote.aspx

Vote now and vote often!

Thanks!

The Wilderness Center podcast on Cedar Bog

2011-12-05T15:24:00.004-05:00

I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by the staff of The Wilderness Center in Wilmot, Ohio for their series of podcasts about the natural world. You can listen to the entire podcast or download it at: http://www.wildernesscenter.org/podcasts by selecting podcast # 139.

Three staff from the Wilderness Center, Joann Ballbach, Gordon Maupin and Gary Popotnik, start off the podcast by each discussing with the group a selected species. In this case, they chose the Southern Bog Lemming, the American Sycamore tree and the Tamarack tree. It was an interesting discussion, which lasted for the first 19 minutes of the podcast. Lots of good information about these three species. Unfortunately, they linked their discussion of the Tamarack to my interview by saying that Tamarack grow at Cedar Bog Nature Preserve – which they do not. I would have corrected that – but my interview was taped at a separate time, so I never heard the comment until I listened to their entire podcast.

My interview centered on the wonders of the Ohio Historical Society’s Cedar Bog Nature Preserve in Champaign County. (Go to http://www.cedarbognp.org/ ). The entire podcast runs for a total of 52 minutes. I had a great time interacting with the three folks from the Wilderness Center and sharing my love of Cedar Bog and a bit of information about this unique site. Listen to the podcast, and let me know what you think.

Bob Glotzhober
bglotzhober@ohiohistory.org

Free Public Program from the Columbus Natural History Society

2011-12-05T14:45:00.005-05:00

On Monday, December 12 at 7:30 p.m. the Columbus Natural History Society will host a free public program led by Julie Zickefoose. Julie is a “writer, naturalist, NPR commentator, watercolor painter, gardener, emphatic Leo.” She lives with my husband, two kids, ever-changing menagerie of wild foundlings on 80 acres of Appalachian Ohio woodland not far from Marietta, Ohio.

My favorite work of hers is Letters from Eden, a collection of essays about raising her family naturally on their 80-acre Southern Ohio woodland. It is a combination of natural history nuggets, family life with two young kids, and wonderful illustrations drawn by Julie. As I think about it, I can tell that I need to get her newest book – which she’ll be selling after the talk. You can see a full listing of her books and her portfolio at http://www.juliezickefoose.com/index.php. Julie also has a blog at http://juliezickefoose.blogspot.com/2011/12/columbus-area-zick-alert.html where she talks about her upcoming talk at the Columbus Natural History Society. The meeting is in the Ohio State University’s Museum of Biological Diversity, 1315 Kinnear Road, Columbus.

Bob Glotzhober, Senior Curator, Natural History

MORE ON THE CRYSTAL SKULLS AT SERPENT MOUND

2011-11-20T11:45:00.006-05:00

Ms. Sammi Soutar responded to my column in the Columbus Dispatch entitled “13 skulls nonsense detracts from real Mayan achievements” with the claim that it was “equal parts narrow-minded and objectionable” and that I had singled out “one group's hopes and cherished spiritual ideals for ridicule.” She also suggested that my comments were neither “informed” nor “scientific.”

Ms. Soutar is entitled to her opinions about what she finds objectionable and she can believe a commitment to a scientific understanding of the world reflects a kind of narrow-mindedness, but her accusation that my comments were uninformed and unscientific is woefully misguided. These were precisely my criticisms of the folks claiming the crystal skulls in question were either ancient or Mayan. The facts, not my opinion, demonstrate they are neither. Moreover, my deeper concern, not addressed by Ms. Soutar, was the association of Serpent Mound with these recent, non-Mayan artifacts, and the fear-mongering apocalyptic hysteria surrounding 2012. It is my feeling that the implications of this association trivializes Serpent Mound and the real achievements of its ancient American Indian builders and lends the fraudulent crystal skulls an undeserved halo of authenticity.

Hunbatz Men and his followers certainly are entitled to their beliefs. Yet when those beliefs are brought into the public arena of large events at sites such as Serpent Mound with newspaper stories promoting their claims without the “clear thinking …accuracy and fairness” that Ms. Soutar argues are “fundamental to good journalism,” then I believe it is my responsibility to provide an informed response from a scientific perspective.

Since the publication of my original column and blog post, the 11-11-11 event was held at a Los Angeles hotel. According to Hari Jiwan, a yoga teacher in Hollywood, who was quoted in an article in the Los Angeles Times, it was to be a day of “shifting cosmic direction,” which already had “brought the asteroid 2005 YU55 hurtling close to Earth and dumped the most autumn snow on New York City since the Civil War.” Mr. Jiwan claimed that “during the last period of similar intergalactic tumult, Atlantis fell into the sea and Noah had his flood.”

These ridiculous statements illustrate a broader concern with such claims that make them legitimate targets of informed criticism. If enough people are persuaded that real threats to our continued existence, such as asteroid impacts and global climate change, have a supernatural origin and can be addressed simply by gathering together a critical mass of crystal skulls, then it will be more difficult to achieve the political will to pursue real solutions – solutions based on a scientific understanding of the world -- to these looming problems. Such ideas are not simply wrong; they are dangerous.

Here is a link to Ms. Soutar’s entire letter to the editor of the Columbus Dispatch:
"Column insulted believers, journalism"
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2011/11/20/column-insulted-believers-journalism.html

Here is a link to the Los Angeles Times story:
"Heavens! It's 11-11-11"
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/11/local/la-me-eleven-eleven-20111111

Brad Lepper

Note: In my original post here I incorrectly referred to Ms. Soutar as "Mr. Soutar." I apologize to Ms. Soutar for my sexist assumption and have made the appropriate corrections in the above post.

LECTURES IN BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AT OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY'S MELTON CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES

2011-11-17T15:21:00.001-05:00

Oh Deer! Wild in the City Part II

2011-11-16T11:10:00.008-05:00

A few weeks ago I did a blog about snakes, deer mice and hawks that show up around our collections’ facility a little north of the center of Columbus. Those animals are easy to find in many areas: the deer mice and northern brown snakes use so little space, and the hawks are easily mobile and wander far and wide. In early November, we had a much more surprising discovery at the Ohio Historical Center. An eight-point buck White-tailed Deer visited our “Bird Sanctuary.”

While no one is certain when he arrived, nor when he left, he was seen by dozens of staff and visitors for at least an hour around the middle of the day. Sometimes he was bedded down, twenty feet outside our windows. Sometimes he was browsing food in the same area. Our building (800 East 17th Avenue) is surrounded by the State Fair grounds, the Crew Stadium, I-71, a major railroad line and lots of residential and commercial development. The closest “wild” area of any size is along the Olentangy River, 1.8 miles due west as the crow flies. While bucks are known to wander looking for does during November, this buck had to travel quite a ways through “hostile” territory to find our Bird Sanctuary. (Maybe we need to re-name that area!)

Here are a couple of views from Google Earth of just how developed it is around our building.

A design of our Bird Sanctuary shows this area is only about 80 feet x 40 feet – or about 3200 square feet, which equals less than 1/10th of an acre. [The deer in the photo was laying down just to the left of the small pond.]

Obviously our Bird Sanctuary cannot support a White-tailed Deer – other than as a temporary refuge during its travels. Deer typically travel in about one square mile of land. But just the fact that it found and briefly used this habitat is rather amazing. Imagine what would happen if half of the residents of Columbus landscaped their yards for wildlife!

Deer have a very interesting history in Ohio. Before European settlement, when Ohio was 95% forested, deer were not super abundant. They are edge animals, not animals of the deep primeval forest. As the forests were cleared, deer quickly expanded their populations around those clearings. In 1800 an observer in Tuscarawas County reported that “it was a poor hunter who at the end of an hour could not bring down a fine buck or more palatable doe or fawn.” [The emphasis is mine.] A few years later during the Great Hinckley Hunt of 1818, 300 deer were shot in a single day. In early Ohio, there were no game laws, other than bounties on predators. In 1857 the State Legislature passed the first hunting restrictions, allowing deer hunting for only 140 days instead of all year. Notably, there were still no bag limits; you could shoot as many as you were able during those four-plus months. By 1911 deer were officially extirpated from Ohio. Some sources say for practical reasons Ohio had no deer from 1904 to 1923. Can we today imagine not one single deer in Ohio? The official Division of Wildlife estimate is that entering this fall’s hunting season we have 725,000 deer in Ohio. In a recent year, there were 24,600 deer/car accidents. Lots of deer! Some say too many.

How did the changes in deer numbers happen? Deer introductions were begun by the Division of Wildlife in what is today Shawnee State Forest in 1922. Being prolific, they multiplied and spread. Scientific game management controlled the harvest to allow the deer population to expand. In 1988, the White-tailed Deer was named the official State Mammal of Ohio. Today, game laws allow hunters (depending on the region of the state) to harvest up to six deer each – though few hunters take anywhere near that number. Deer are highly adaptable, are known to eat at least 1,000 different types of plants, and have learned to thrive in areas where they are protected and even in areas where they are hunted.

But let us remember that not all wild animals (or plants) are as adaptable as deer. Many require highly localized and strictly specialized habitats. Green Salamanders live only in crevices and caves on certain types of cliffs in southern Ohio. Indiana Bats require loose bark under old trees to roost during the summer, and caves to hibernate in during the winter. The Elfin Skimmer dragonfly lives in sedge meadow wetlands in only three isolated places in the state – and we don’t even know why they do not live in others of the rare wetlands remaining in the state. Fortunately, we have people who research the requirements of rare animals, and a few place such as State Nature Preserves where some of that specialized habitat is preserved. Seeing a wild White-tailed Deer is exciting and a special opportunity – even if they are much more common today than just a few decades ago. But seeing some of the truly rare wildlife that our state still harbors is a much greater thrill – and one which hopefully will continue to remain possible if we value and protect our special wild areas.

Bob Glotzhober

SERPENT MOUND AND THE CRYSTAL SKULLS

2011-11-12T16:46:00.016-05:00

Late last month, Serpent Mound witnessed a ceremony that, I can say with some assurance, it had never witnessed before. Thirteen crystal skulls were brought together here as part of series of such gatherings at sacred sites expected to have culminated on 11/11/11 at the “Crystal Skulls World Mysteries Gateway Conference” to be held at a Los Angeles hotel. (This may not, in fact, be the culmination referred to in an October 29th article in the Columbus Dispatch, for the crystalskullsevent.com website assures us that some “VERY exciting things” are planned for a subsequent event on 12/12/12.)

According to a poster advertising an October gathering of the skulls in New York City, there is a legend of “13 ancient crystal skulls” that, when reunited, will “lay a new grid of consciousness for humanity.” The skulls are suggested to be “more than artifacts.” Many unnamed “intuitives” are said to feel that “they are Presences with the power to raise our collective vibration.” The poster goes on to claim that these ancient skulls “are here at this critical time to bring us the wisdom of the past & the knowledge of the future.”

The Dispatch article affirmed that the organizers of this event believe the skulls have paranormal powers and that they are “associated with Maya or Aztec culture.” Moreover, they are claimed to have some connection to the “2012 Mayan Prophecy” concerning the supposed imminent end of the world.

I discussed these issues in my Dispatch column on November 13th, but offer here a few additional thoughts.

I am not able to speak to whether these skulls possess the paranormal powers attributed to them by the promoters of these events. I can, however, rather conclusively assert that there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that they are either “ancient” or “Mayan.” There is, in addition, nothing in the indigenous Mayan belief system to suggest that the world will end on December 21st 2012, but I will confine this posting to a consideration of the artifacts.

Jane MacLaren Walsh, a Smithsonian Institution anthropologist, noted in her article “Legend of the Crystal Skulls” in the May/June 2008 issue of Archaeology magazine that there is no reliable evidence that any crystal skull was ever found in an archaeological excavation in Mesoamerica (or anywhere else for that matter). She conducted microscopic analyses of two of the most famous skulls, one in the Smithsonian and one in the British Museum, and demonstrated they had been carved with 19th century tools and techniques not available to the ancient Maya.

After conducting a detailed historical review of the circumstances surrounding several crystal skulls, she concluded that not only are they relatively recent fabrications, but “…all of the smaller crystal skulls that constitute the first generation of fakes were made in Mexico around the time they were sold, between 1856 and 1880.” Moreover, they may represent the work of “a single artisan, or perhaps a single workshop.”

According to Frank Thadeusz, writing in the October 7th 2011 issue of Der Spiegel, the source of the crystal from which the crystal skulls were made is, not Mexico, but Brazil and Madagascar. He thinks many of the skulls were carved by jewelers in Idar-Oberstein, Germany, who are both masters of their craft and quite discrete.

Under the circumstances, it’s hard to imagine why powerful ancient “Presences” would find these recent crystal creations to be suitable vehicles for their inhabitation, but perhaps I am simply exhibiting the limitations of my imagination.

I was not able to be at Serpent Mound for the gathering of crystal skulls, but I am told the event attracted a large and well-mannered group. I certainly don’t wish to leave the impression that they, or indeed any visitors, are unwelcome at the site, but I firmly believe that the fabricated histories of crystal skulls detract from the authentic ancient heritage of Serpent Mound. I post this article for the benefit of those who might otherwise be persuaded that these infamous artifacts had something to do with the world’s most spectacular effigy mound.

They don’t. Or at least they didn’t before November.

Here is a link to my column in the Dispatch:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/science/2011/11/13/13-skulls-nonsense-detracts-from-real-mayan-achievements.html

Here is a link to the original Dispatch article on the gathering:
"13 skulls headed to gathering"
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2011/10/29/13-skulls-headed-to-gathering.html

Here are links to the Jane MacLaren Walsh’s articles in Archaeology magazine:
"Legend of the Crystal Skulls"
http://www.archaeology.org/0805/etc/indy.html

"The Skull of Doom"
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/mitchell_hedges/

Finally, here is a link to Frank Thadeusz’s article in Der Spiegel:
"German Artisans Lay Claim to a Mysterious Tradition"
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,790456,00.html

Brad Lepper