APRIL 2020 COPPER NEWSLETTER
Etowah and the 3 phases of its construction, plus connections to Mesoamerica (bi-lob) and Southwest (d-shape) and their input on palisades came after invention of the bow/arrow.
From an Etowah article by … Cobb and King, "Reinventing Mississippian Tradition at Etowah," Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 12, No. 3, September 2005 (C 2005) DOI: 10.1007/s10816-005-6927-y
Keyes and Archaeology (A Bill Green article)
There was a key figure in Iowa archaeology – Charles R. Keyes. He was not a trained archaeologist. Here's how he was described: "Keyes commanded national respect for his rapid acquisition of an encyclopedic knowledge of Iowa archaeology, despite having no formal training in American archaeology -- he knew literally everything anyone at the time could know on the subject. His stature arose also from his organizational abilities, reflected by his creation of the Iowa Archaeological Survey." (William Green, CR Keyes & Iowa Archaeology, 81).
Similarly, I'm learning all I can on the fly and, too, am creating also an archaeological survey. I face a lot of criticism in my work, in part, I'm sure, because I have to work with both collectors and museums at a time when there is friction between the two. Collectors once created archaeology. Now they're looked down on. I would enjoy having a role in bringing the two into a kind of symbiotic relationship once again, where trust is the key element.
Keyes devised a detailed research plan and survey of artifacts in Iowa to date in 1922, so I'm sure much of what's been turned up in the CAMD is due to his efforts. If possible I will need to find the Keyes' Collection, which houses 108,000 artifacts, and helped implement preservation of various sites around the state (82).
Green's full article can be found here:
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/jias/vol99/iss4/7/?utm_source=scholarworks.uni.edu%2Fjias%2Fvol99%2Fiss4%2F7&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages
Is there no end to the mysteries of the ancient world? Michael Ruggeri, Chicago Archaeological Society, shared a new discovery at Poverty Point.
https://www.bnd.com/news/nation-world/national/article241821501.html
A response received on his list is interesting:
The fired clay "balls" found at Poverty Point have been a matter of considerable speculation as to their function. One time Jeffry Coe showed me a drawer full of them in the Archaeology Lab at Chapel Hill. What is known about them so far: approximately 20,000 of them have been found; most have been recovered in cooking areas or in deposits of domestic trash; they date to about 1,200 B.C.; not all are balls; some are square; some seem to be wads of clay squeezed between the fingers before firing; some look like Mesoamerican spindle whorls but often the hole does not completely traverse the ball; many are decorated with incised lines. One theory is that they were heated and used for "stone boiling". I know of no counterpart to them in the Formative of Mexico. Surprisingly Mesoamerican-like, however, is the great number of prismatic blades struck from prepared cores that have been recovered at Poverty Point. Also of interest, not too long ago Berle Clay discovered remnants of one or more "woodhenges" at the site.
By Joe Mountjoy, who also wrote the following:
There is nothing better than consulting with an archaeologist who has done a lot of investigations at Poverty Point, so I contacted my friend Berle Clay and this is what he wrote to me about the subject of the small fired clay pieces.
Good to hear from you...yes they are definitely fired...having done much magnetometry at Poverty Point I can attest that ppo fragments are a major source of background magnetics! They are not temporally restricted to Poverty Point culture but occur at later dates. They seem to be restricted to the major alluvial plains (like the Mississippi/Yazoo) where other stone that might be used for cooking is simply not available. However, at major Poverty Point sites they occur in abundance, not so elsewhere. Obviously they are making a statement about food preparation. I know in New Ireland where Brenda and I worked hot rocks were used both for "earth oven" cooking and boiling in surface containers. I have seen someone bring water to boil in about a minute by dropping hot rocks in...removing them...and adding more. At Poverty Point they did get somewhat creative in the forms of ppo they produced...including a range of simple "sculptures" of human and animal forms.
I've often suspected there was some Mesoamerican influence and this dialogue tends to agree with that.
This find in an off-archaeology newsletter struck a chord with me:
"First of all, knowledge is never free. It is the product of years of labor in writing and research. Nobody in this society works for free, nor should authors alone be expected to, particularly since we are one of the few professions Congress is empowered to protect in the Constitution." Scott Turow, "Knowledge is not Free," Authors Guild newsletter, April 2020
I've met people who think I should just give all my research away, make it free to anyone who wants it.
Shame on them. This is research that took a lot of time and energy, and what makes anyone think
should do it for free? If someone can explain this to me, or why there are collectors and/or museums who don't see the value in adding their materials to the database, I'd love to have it explained.
Refer to photo of Michigan Copper found in this source:
In 1862 Charles Whittlesey called this a bodkin. Anyone know what a bodkin is? If you look it up online it's referred to as a needle. I'm not at all sure why this looks like a needle. Any ideas?