Kevin's Watch

Burial site discovered in Riverhead
Last week's heavy rains helped uncovered ancient site and artifacts at Indian Island

BY BILL BLEYER
STAFF WRITER

October 27, 2005


Last week's stormy weather uncovered what experts said may be an important early American Indian burial site at Indian Island County Park in Riverhead.

The site was spotted by a park supervisor after the Peconic River bank was eroded early last week by heavy rains and high wave action, said Suffolk County Parks Commissioner Ronald Foley.

Archaelogists said yesterday that the site contained bones from at least two people believed to be Indians buried during the Early Woodland period, from 800 BC to AD 800. It also contained artifacts including a pipe and fragments of a bowl.

The bones were turned over to the Suffolk County medical examiner, Dr. Charles Wetli, who said the remains were then given to consulting forensic anthropologist Vincent Stefan.

"The bones were in small pieces," said David Thompson, vice president of the Suffolk County Archaeological Association, who visited the site Friday. "They were obviously burnt. There were charred pieces of skull and small pieces of a jawbone. The fact that they were cremated is a holdover from a culture that immediately preceded the Early Woodland which was called the Transitional Culture.

In addition, Thompson said, "there was an exquisite ceramic pipe that was nearly perfect and had very interesting geometric detail on it. It was obviously used; it had burn marks on it. It was about four inches long."

Thompson added "there was also some broken pottery ... a very early type of pottery that would make it an Early Woodland burial."

Stefan, a professor at Lehman College in the Bronx and a forensic archaeologist for the county, said "there wasn't enough of the remains to make a determination if they were Native American. There was too much missing. All I was able to conclude was that I had fragments of remains for two or three individuals who had been intentionally burned or cremated." Stefan said he would need more complete skeletal remains or additional artifacts and possibly further systematic excavation to determine the race or ancestry.

John Strong of Southampton, professor emeritus at Long Island University and an expert on Long Island Indian history, said American Indians often settled near freshwater streams that ran into tidal wetlands. He said the Indians then living in the Riverhead-Southold area were called the Yennacock by early white settlers.

Foley said the county would be consulting with leaders of the Shinnecock Reservation in Southampton, the nearest active American Indian group, on the proper thing to do with the bones and site.

"In many cases the best thing you can do to preserve an archaeological site is to bury it and seal it up. We haven't made a final decision and are researching our options to make sure we do it right."

Parks officials also talked to David Bernstein at the Long Island Institute of Archeology of Stony Brook University. "He advised us that we don't have a legal obligation to talk to the local tribe leaders but it's the right thing to do once we determine what we have," Foley said. "When the medical examiner tells us the age and ethnicity of the bones, we would contact the local tribe leaders and work with them on what's the right thing to do with these artifacts and the site."

Elizabeth Haile, a Shinnecock leader who serves on the Graves Protection Committee of the Intertribal Historic Preservation Task Force, said "I'm looking forward to being further informed, and we would cooperate with them. It should be honored, and then it should be protected because it's somebody's cemetery."

Usually, American Indians like to see these sites reburied and not excavated for study or removal of artifacts. "That would be our preference," she said.

In the meantime, Foley said, "it is illegal for anyone to take artifacts like this from a county park," and warned that park police are watching the area.

This is the first significant American Indian burial ground uncovered since a Shelter Island resident -- digging a barn foundation -- uncovered remains two years go. Shinnecock leaders have been trying to work out a policy for Shelter Island and other towns on what to do with such discoveries.

Staff writer Mitchell Freedman contributed to this story.

New Digs Decoding Mexico's "Pyramids of Fire"

John Roach
for National Geographic News

October 21, 2005
On TV: Watch National Geographic Explorer: Pyramids of Fire, Sunday, October 23 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel.

Using picks, shovels, and high-tech forensic sleuthing, scientists are beginning to cobble together the grisly ancient history and fiery demise of Teotihuacán, the first major metropolis of the Americas.


The size of Shakespeare's London, Teotihuacán was built by an unknown people almost 2,000 years ago. The site sits about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of present-day Mexico City. Temples, palaces, and some of the largest pyramids on Earth line its ancient main street.

Scientists believe Teotihuacán was the hub of trade and commerce in Mesoamerica until the city's civilization collapsed around A.D. 650. When the Aztecs stumbled upon the metropolis centuries later, they dubbed it the "City of the Gods," because they believed it was where the Gods met to create the present universe and sun.

Saburo Sugiyama, an archaeologist at Japan's Aichi Prefectural University, says recent excavations and analysis put a mortal face on Teotihuacán's mythological builders. The research is also providing clues to the city's final days.

"We are renewing the early history of Teotihuacán," he said.

One researcher investigating the site is Michael Spence, an anthropologist at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He says a flurry of research activity at Teotihuacán since the 1980s is allowing scientists to understand the city's history. But "we still have a lot more science to work out," he added.

Tunneling for a Tomb

Sugiyama has concentrated his efforts at Teotihuacán's Pyramid of the Moon. The archaeologist has tunneled deep into the heart of the structure to search for the ruler thought to have ordered the pyramid's construction.

"We've not found the ruler's tomb yet, but we really feel we are very close to these people, the history, of who made this great pyramid," he said.

Sugiyama has made some intriguing finds, including dozens of beheaded people with bound hands. The bodies suggest bloody sacrificial rituals ripe with symbolism of military power, he said.

Excavations also reveal that the pyramid was constructed in seven stages, each stage an enlargement of the last. The work started in A.D. 100 and ended around A.D. 400.

Amid several sections, Sugiyama has uncovered the remains of sacrificed victims.

Analyses by Spence of the University of Western Ontario suggest the sacrificed victims came from outside Teotihuacán, possibly as captives brought back from distant territories or battles.


The clues come from oxygen isotopes in bones, which act as geological markers. "They tell you where a person was at a particular time," he said.

Climate and altitude are among factors that affect the isotopes. The isotopes found in remains of pyramid victims differ from those unearthed in city homes.

Bad Teeth

Spence has also found evidence that the health of Teotihuacán's population declined in the city's final century. Residents' teeth have tell-tale lines that form in childhood during episodes of severe stress, such as malnutrition or infection.

"Basically growth stops as the body concentrates on survival and repair," he said. "Then as the stress passes, the growth continues again. But there's a line left in the tooth that represents the stress episode."

Because teeth only grow during childhood, scientists can put a general age to when the stress happened. These signatures of bodily stress remain in adult teeth.

"We have shown that in the last century of the city there is a growing problem of some sort. We get more and more indications showing up in adult teeth," he said.

Teotihuacán's Demise

The largest unanswered questions about Teotihuacán concern its demise. Why, for example, was the city largely abandoned around A.D. 650?

The recent excavations are revealing new bits of information that help piece together an answer.

"We don't know exactly what happened at the final stage, but we know certainly the city was destroyed by man, not by natural disaster," Sugiyama said.

Researchers are uncertain whether insiders or outsiders caused the destruction, Sugiyama said, but they do know that the instrument was fire, particularly on Teotihuacán's monuments.

The archaeologist says an invading army could have set fires to the monuments as a signature of their conquest.

Spence, however, says the evidence suggests to him the fires were set during an internal revolt.

According to his theory, the deteriorating health of the city's poor was likely exacerbated by a drought or a disruption to the food supply. This spurred a revolution against the ruling elite and their symbols of power—temples, pyramids, and palaces.

"The destruction seems to have skipped the vast majority of the city and focused on the elite and punished the elite. That suggests a revolt to me," he said.

Comets Hit Early Americans, Scientist Says

By MEG KINNARD
Associated Press Writer

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- A supernova could be the "quick and dirty" explanation for what may have happened to an early North American culture, a nuclear scientist here said Thursday.

Richard Firestone said at the "Clovis in the Southeast" conference that he thinks "impact regions" on mammoth tusks found in Gainey, Mich., were caused by magnetic particles rich in elements like titanium and uranium. This composition, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist said, resembles rocks that were discovered on the moon and have also been found in lunar meteorites that fell to Earth about 10,000 years ago.

Firestone said that, based on his discovery of similar material at Clovis sites, he estimates that comets struck the solar system during the Clovis period, which was roughly 13,000 years ago. These comets would have hit the Earth at 1,000 kilometers an hour, he said, obliterating many life forms and causing mutations in others.

"I'm not going to tell you that there's Clovis people on the moon, or that they had a space program," Firestone said. But these particles look "very much like the material that comes from the moon, which is the only place we've found with this same high titanium concentration."


Earlier Thursday, University of South Carolina archaeologist Al Goodyear lectured on his discoveries at Topper, where he says he has found evidence that man existed in North America much earlier than previously thought. Goodyear showed slides of the many tools he has recovered from Topper, as well as a charcoal strip he discovered in soil two meters beneath a 16,000-year-old level of the site.

"Topper's like a box of chocolates," Goodyear said. "Every time we dig a hole, something new comes up."

As the final event of the four-day conference, partially sponsored by USC, Goodyear will lead attendees on a visit to Topper on Saturday.

Archaeologists identify Copernicus’ skull
DNA tests planned to confirm Polish astronomer’s remains


Updated: 5:12 p.m. ET Nov. 3, 2005
WARSAW, Poland - Archaeologists believe they have located the grave of 16th-century astronomer and solar-system proponent Nicolaus Copernicus in a Polish church, one of the scientists announced Thursday.

Copernicus, who died in 1543 at 70 after challenging the ancient belief that the sun revolved around the earth, was buried at the Roman Catholic cathedral in the city of Frombork, 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of the capital, Warsaw.

Jerzy Gassowski, head of an archaeology and anthropology institute in the central Polish city of Pultusk, said his four-member team found what appears to be the skull of the Polish astronomer and clergyman in August, after a one-year search of tombs under the church floor.


“We can be almost 100 percent sure this is Copernicus,” Gassowski told The Associated Press by phone after making the announcement during a meeting of scientists.

Gassowski said police forensic experts used the skull to reconstruct a face that closely resembled the features — including a broken nose and scar above the left eye — on a Copernicus self-portrait. The experts also determined the skull belonged to a man who died at about age 70.

The grave was in bad condition and not all remains were found, Gassowski said, adding that his team will try to find relatives of Copernicus to do more accurate DNA identification.

I'd give a big toe to have worked in Omo...

My fiance is a physical anthropologist. She is currently working on a major Pueblo II-III burial site in the Farmingtion NM area. There are something like a 135 burials that were excavated pre-NAGPRA that will be repatriated after study and determination of ethnic designation. Both the Hopi and the Navajo claim the burials but the Navajo didn't arive until about 1500 A.D. about 300 to 400 years after the last burial was complete. However the Navajo have altered their creation myth to to where they have always lived in the SW. Very political but cool work all in all.

Lucimay wrote:that's a ROCKin homer ya got there, Ez.