*November 2018 Archeology E-Gram*



*NPS NEWS*


*Archeologist Branch Chief at Grand Teton National Park*
Kate Birmingham is the new branch chief of cultural resources at Grand
Teton NP. Birmingham has worked for the NPS since 2010 and was most
recently the cultural resources program manager at National Capital
Parks-East (NACE).  Prior to NACE she served as an archeologist at Monocacy
NB. She has held detail positions at Grand Teton NP, Rock Creek Park, and
the Cultural Resource Office of Outreach and Education and the Archeology
Program, Washington Office.

Birmingham is a 2015 graduate of the NPS GOAL Academy. She holds a MA in
museum studies from George Washington University and a BA in anthropology
from the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to working for the NPS, she was an
archeological laboratory director for several cultural resource management
firms. During graduate school, Birmingham interned at the Smithsonian
Institution National Museum of Natural History and the NPS National Capital
Region Museum Resource Center.

Her professional and academic research has focused on the archeology of
minority populations, including Native Americans, women, and African
Americans.

*Climate Change Archeologist Resigns from National Park Service*
The archeologist in charge of studying climate change’s effects on cultural
resources for the National Park Service (NPS) has resigned, citing the
administration’s unequal attention to natural resources. Marcy Rockman, the
first person to hold the position of Climate Change Adaptation Coordinator
for Cultural Resources at NPS, resigned in early November after seven years
in the position.

Her job was part of NPS’s Climate Change Response Program, which was
created to study how to better understand the effects of climate change on
NPS-owned sites and resources. In her role, Rockman studied the effects of
climate change on archeological sites, cultural landscapes and historic
buildings and looked to past cultures for guidance on how to address future
climate change.

 Rockman claimed she routinely saw the agency struggle to offer resources
to her area commensurate with its emphasis on natural resources. “Despite
the needs and potentials of cultural resources with respect to climate
change across the national park system, and the leadership role the NPS
holds in providing cultural resources guidance to federal, state, tribal,
and local partners, over the course of my position I’ve seen the NPS
repeatedly struggle to support cultural resources at levels commensurate
with natural resources.”

She is leaving to join the UN’S International Council on Monuments and
Sites (ICOMOS) to improve representation of cultural and natural heritage
in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The panel in October
released a report that warned that the effects of climate change could soon
be irreversible if not addressed.

*From story in The Hill*

*Find at Arlington House Connects to George Washington*
Excavations at Arlington House in Arlington National Cemetery have turned
up rare fragments of the “States china,” a set of dishware commissioned in
China for Martha Washington over 200 years ago by a Dutch admirer of the
United States. NPS archeologist Michael Roller said it was the first time
that remnants of the dishware had been unearthed at Arlington House since
the 1950s. Only 21 pieces of the custom-decorated 45-piece set are known to
exist and some of them are damaged. Mount Vernon has eight. The White House
has three. The rest are scattered among other institutions.

The survey also turned up part of the foundation of the vanished “Temple of
Fame,” which stood in the garden outside Arlington House from 1884 to 1967,
when it was demolished. The temple, with stone columns and a tin dome, bore
the names of George Washington and Civil War heroes including Abraham
Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.

Native Americans had occupied the site long before George Washington Parke
Custis, biological grandson of Martha Washington and adoptive son of George
Washington, leveled a hill on the site to build Arlington House. The
mansion, with its eight columns and grand portico, was built mostly by
enslaved African Americans between 1802 and 1818.

Custis idolized George Washington and had Arlington built in part as a
memorial to the nation’s first president. At Arlington House, he gathered
Washington memorabilia and artifacts. They included his grandmother’s
bequest of her “set of tea china that was given me by Mr. Van Braam every
piece having MW on it,” as Martha Washington put it in her will.

The excavation, and an archeological survey at the site, are part of a
$12.35 million renovation project at the property funded by philanthropist
David M. Rubenstein.

*From story by Michael E. Ruane, Washington Post*

*Former National Park Service Chief Archeologist on National NAGPRA Review
Committee*
The National NAGPRA Review Committee met in Washington, D.C. on October
17-19, 2018, at Department of Interior headquarters. At the meeting, it was
announced that Dr. Frank McManamon had been appointed to serve a four year
term on the panel. Dr. McManamon was nominated by SAA and other national
museum and scientific organizations.

*By David Lindsay, Manager, Government Affairs, Society for American
Archaeology*

*Teaching with Archeology*
The Archeology Program has created ten new lesson plans about archeology on
the NPS Education Portal. Six of the lesson plans focus on historical
studies: “Crashing the Gates” about three early female archeologists in
national parks; “Frederick Douglass, the Educator of Anacostia;”  “Nickels
to Dollars: Maggie L. Walker’s Quest for African American Empowerment;” and
“Neither Cold Nor A Harbor: A Civil War Soldier’s Experience at the Battle
of Cold Harbor.” All but the Crashing the Gates series feature 3D-scanned
artifacts. Four additional lesson plans focus on technological tools that
archeologists utilize, including faunal studies, magnetometry, pollen
analysis, and x-ray fluorescence.

Interns Caroline Gardiner and Megan Winnick created the lesson plans to
teach students what archeology is and how it relates to concepts that they
are already learning in the classroom, such as chemistry, geology, and
history. The majority of the lessons use case studies from parks, which
allow students to see how the concepts they are learning are applied in the
real world.

Find the lesson plans on the NPS Education Portal at
https://www.nps.gov/teachers/index.htm

*Contact: *Teresa Moyer, [log in to unmask]

*Whiskeytown National Recreation Area and USGS Works on Imagery Analysis
Using Drones*
The NPS and the USGS are jointly investigating the post-fire impacts of
bulldozed fire breaks and other changes at Whiskeytown NRA. Of the park’s
42,000 acres, 38,000 burned during the recent Carr Fire, the sixth most
destructive fire in California history. NPS has partnered with the USGS
Western Ecological Research Center to conduct high resolution ortho-imagery
before and after the winter rainy season to identify changes in topography,
cultural sites, and vegetation following the Carr Fire.

The terrain of Whiskeytown is extremely steep with exceptionally erosive
soils. Erosion associated with the loss of vegetation, fire intensity, and
fire suppression activities may lead to adverse impacts to the park’s
natural and cultural resources this winter.  USGS will use topographical
characteristics and ortho and infrared multispectral imagery to 1) survey
areas for potential erosion and debris flows, 2) survey specific cultural
resource features at risk from erosion,  3) survey for abandoned mines that
are now exposed on the landscape, and 4) assess vegetation health and
regrowth.

To do this, the USGS will fly Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS; aka drones)
with specialized sensors to make high resolution ortho imagery and digital
elevation models. Edge sensor surveys, which provides 5 band multispectral
data, will assess vegetation health and regrowth over time. This
high-resolution data collection technique using drones has rarely been
applied to post-fire assessments and monitoring. Consequently, NPS
management can direct resources to areas where cultural and natural
resources are experiencing erosion or debris flows to mitigate future
impacts on the landscape.

*From story by Matthew Switzer*

*Tooth from Bering Land Bridge National Preserve Linked to Alaska’s Early
Inhabitants*
Research on a 9,000-year-old child’s tooth has reshaped our understanding
of Alaska’s ancient people, their genetic background and their diets. The
tooth represents the second known discovery of a population of migrants
known as Ancient Beringians. The find indicates that Ancient Beringians
remained in Alaska for thousands of years after first migrating across the
Bering Land Bridge that connected eastern Asia and Alaska. The research
included genetic analysis of 15 diverse bone samples from sites across
North and South America, revealing a broad picture of how the Americas were
populated by its earliest peoples.

The Alaska tooth had been largely forgotten since it was excavated in 1949
by Danish archeologists from the Trail Creek Caves Site on Alaska’s Seward
Peninsula. For almost 70 years it remained in storage in Copenhagen,
Denmark, until it was found in 2016 by NPS archeologist Jeff Rasic, who was
conducting new analyses of this old collection.

“This one small tooth is a treasure trove of information about Alaska’s
early populations, not only their genetic affinities but also their
movements, interactions with other people and diet,” said Rasic.

Radiocarbon dating determined the tooth, which belonged to a 1½-year-old
child, is the oldest human specimen in the North American Arctic — more
than twice as old as the next oldest remains. Genomic testing connected the
tooth to the Ancient Beringian lineage. The first traces of that population
were discovered in 2013 by a team led by University of Alaska Fairbanks
(UAF) professor Ben Potter at a site in Alaska’s Interior. When looked at
together, those two sites — separated by about 400 miles and 2,500 years —
show that Ancient Beringians were present across the vast expanse of Alaska
for millennia.

Researchers worked with tribal officials from the Seward Peninsula village
of Deering to coordinate efforts to study the tooth. Analysis at UAF’s
Alaska Stable Isotope Facility also revealed surprising details about the
lives of the child and, by proxy, the mother who fed the child.

“The child’s food sources were entirely terrestrial, a sharp contrast with
other sites that indicate inclusion of anadromous fish and marine
resources,” said analyst Matthew Wooller, who works at UAF’s College of
Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. That land-based diet is a surprise — during
the time the child lived on the Seward Peninsula, sea levels had risen to
nearly modern levels. Those rising waters had cut off the Bering Land
Bridge and surrounded most of the peninsula, making marine resources
accessible.

Further isotope results and modeling, which were conducted by Rasic,
Wooller and Clement Bataille from the University of Ottawa, determined the
family resided in the region surrounding the caves, and were not migrants
from elsewhere in Alaska or Siberia.

Investigation of the tooth, conducted by researchers at UAF and the NPS in
Alaska, was part of a larger paper published November 8, 2018, in the
journal Science.

*From story by Jeff Richardson, University of Alaska News and Information*

*National Park Service Tribal Historic Preservation Program Announces 25th
Anniversary Report*
In celebration of Native American Heritage Month, the NPS Tribal Historic
Preservation Program has released a new website and a special edition 25th
Anniversary report. The website provides enhanced support for prospective
Tribal Historic Preservation Officers including links to the THPO
application and online training.

The 25th Anniversary issue features articles submitted by tribes. They
highlight the development of innovative heritage preservation
documentation, including a Cultural Atlas developed by the Hualapai Tribe,
and 726 archeological surveys conducted on the tribal lands of the Lac du
Flambeau Tribe. The 25th Anniversary report checks in with some of the
first 12 THPOs, established in 1996.

The NPS, per NHPA, reviews and approves applications from federally
recognized tribes to establish Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO)
partnerships. When tribes establish these partnerships, they choose to
accept historic preservation responsibilities on tribal land that would
otherwise rest with State Historic Preservation Offices.

To learn more about the Tribal Historic Preservation Program, and read the
25th Anniversary report, go to nps.gov/THPOProgram.

*Contacts: *Jamie Lee Marks, NPS THPO Program Manager, 202-354-6463;
Jennifer Talken-Spaulding, Bureau Cultural Anthropologist, 202-354-2090

*The Federal Archeologist’s Bookshelf:*
*Protective Shelters for Archeological Sites*
International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of
Cultural Property (ICCROM) has made available a volume available for free
download for those working on the protection, conservation, and management
of archeological heritage. Protective Shelters for Archeological Sites
addresses the issue of protective shelters, recording the results of a
week-long symposium in 2013 that used the archeological site of Herculaneum
as an “open classroom.”

ICCROM’s partners in the MOSAIKON initiative, the Getty Foundation, the
Getty Conservation Institute and ICCM, worked with the British School at
Rome and the Herculaneum Conservation Project to bring together heritage
professionals from ten Mediterranean countries with a group of
international colleagues with relevant expertise regarding shelters. The
participants represented a cross-section of disciplines and a range of
experiences in the conservation and management of sites with mosaics, and
each one presented a relevant case studies from their country, which tied
the discussion to real sites and challenges.

The publication is divided into four sections:

The process of sheltering
Approaches to shelters around the Mediterranean
Insights into Mediterranean practice
Considerations


This publication furthers the discourse regarding protective shelters for
archaeological sites and offers heritage practitioners guiding principles
when faced with sheltering decisions.

 To download a copy of the publication, go to
https://www.iccrom.org/news/protective-shelters-archaeological-sites

* Message From the Archeology E-Gram Staff*
For the past 14 years the Archeology E-Gram has provided timely and useful
information about training, educational resources, research, and
archeological events to archeologists in the NPS, other Federal agencies,
and the wider archeological community.

 In 2018, we celebrated with Joe Watkins and Jim Bradford their
retirements.  We mourned the loss of our colleagues Ruthann Knudson and
Steve Daron. We said goodbye to Marcy Rockman. We noted archeologists who
are accepting new responsibilities in regional offices, park integrated
resource programs, and other areas of the NPS. And awards! A number of
archeologists received awards this year, including Thadra Stanton, the
Urban Archeology Corps, Rolando Garza, Jim Bradford, and Angelyn Bass
(University of New Mexico; for work on NPS sites).

 The “Federal Archeologist’s Bookshelf” reviewed a number of books and
articles this year, including
·        From Landscapes of Meaning to Landscapes of Significance in the
American Southwest by Matthew J. Liebmann. American Antiquity, Vol. 82 (4)
642-661.
·        Late Modernity and Community Change in Lattimer No.2: The American
Twentieth Century as Seen through the Archaeology of a Pennsylvania
Anthracite Town by Michael P. Roller Historical Archeology, published
online 08 February 2018.
·        Climate change and the deteriorating archaeological and
environmental archives of the Arctic
Jorgen Hollesen, Martin Callanan, Tom Dawson, Rasmus Fenger-Nielsen, T. Max
Friersen, Anne M. Jensen, Adam Markham, Vibeke V. Martens, Vladimir V.
Pitulko & Marcy Rockman Antiquity Vol. 92: 573-586.
·        Yellowstone Science Volume 26-1 (all about archeology!)

We also saw the court decision stand in Wilderness Watch vs. Creachbaum
appeal, supporting Olympic Wilderness’s decision to protect cultural
resources.

 We encourage you to submit news items, training announcements, report
titles and summaries for “The Federal Archeologist’s Bookshelf,” and
suggestions for other features. We have thoroughly enjoyed working with
everyone who contributed to the Archeology E-Gram. The production and
editorial staff of the Archeology E-Gram wish you and your families all the
best for the coming year.

*FEDERAL NEWS*

*Federal Judge Blocks Keystone XL Pipeline*
A federal judge temporarily blocked construction of the controversial
Keystone XL pipeline, ruling that the current administration had failed to
justify its decision granting a permit for the 1,200-mile long project
designed to connect Canada’s oil sands fields with Texas' Gulf Coast
refineries. The State Department has primary jurisdiction over the Keystone
XL pipeline permit decision, by virtue of its authority to issue
“presidential permits” for cross-border infrastructure projects.

 The judge, Brian Morris of the U.S. District Court in Montana, said the
State Department ignored crucial issues in order to allow the pipeline be
built. In doing so, the administration ran afoul of the Administrative
Procedure Act, which requires “reasoned” explanations for government
decisions, particularly when they represent reversals of well-studied
actions.

 Among the judge’s findings:
·        The department “acted on incomplete information regarding” the
potential damage to cultural resources in Indian territory along the route.
·        The department failed to make a fact-based explanation for its
course reversal, “let alone a reasoned explanation....'An agency cannot
simply disregard contrary or inconvenient factual determinations that it
made in the past, any more than it can ignore inconvenient facts'” in the
present,” Morris wrote, quoting judicial precedents.
·        The department’s analysis that “climate-related impacts” from
Keystone “would prove inconsequential” needed a “reasoned explanation.” It
did not provide one.

*From story by Fred Barbash, Allyson Chiu and Juliet Eilperin, Washington
Post*

* GRANTS AND TRAINING*

*Archaeological Violation Investigation Class*
Northland Research, Inc.’s Heritage Protection and Emergency Management
team will offer a three-day Archaeological Violation Investigation Class in
Jamestown, Virginia, Tuesday, March 26 through Thursday, March 28, 2019.
The class is being sponsored by Colonial NHP and the NPS Archeology
Program. The class will be held at the Historic Jamestowne Visitor Center.

 The classes are open to all federal, tribal, state and other government
agency law enforcement officers, archeologists, prosecuting attorneys,
agency managers and other cultural resource staff members. (Note: the
investigation class has been determined to meet USDA Forest Service Law
Enforcement & Investigations ARPA training requirements.)

 Contact: Brent Kober at 480-894-0020, or [log in to unmask] The
registration deadline for the classes is close of business on Friday,
February 22, 2019.

* SLIGHTLY OFF TOPIC:  The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie Goes on Public View*
*From story by Dennis Zotigh, Smithsonian Magazine*
Between April 29 and November 6, 1868, tribal leaders from the northern
plains signed a treaty with the U.S. government setting aside lands west of
the Missouri River for the Sioux and Arapaho tribes. In this written
agreement, negotiated at Fort Laramie in what is now Wyoming, the U.S.
guaranteed exclusive tribal occupation of reservation lands, including the
Black Hills, sacred to many Native peoples. Within nine years of the
treaty’s ratification, Congress seized the Black Hills. By breaking the
treaty, the United States initiated a legal battle for ownership of the
Black Hills that continues to this day.

 On October 26, 2018, five tribal delegations—representatives from the Fort
Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes, the Oglala Sioux Tribe, the Rosebud
Sioux Tribe, the Yankton Sioux Tribe, and the Northern Arapaho
Tribe—traveled to the National Museum of the American Indian to see the
treaty their ancestors signed and take part in its installation in the
exhibition Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and
American Indian Nations.

The Treaty of Fort Laramie was born of war on the northern plains. Led by
Chief Red Cloud, the Sioux and their Cheyenne and Arapaho allies defeated
U.S. Army detachments and halted wagon trains moving across the Dakotas
into the Wyoming and Montana territories. The U.S. dispatched peace
commissioners to reach a settlement. The U.S. agreed to guarantee exclusive
tribal occupation of reservation lands encompassing the western half of
present-day South Dakota and sections of what are now North Dakota and
Nebraska; recognize tribal hunting rights on adjoining un-ceded territories
and bar settlers from them; and forbid future cessions of tribal land
unless they were approved by Native men affected by them.

Red Cloud and five other Native representatives declined to sign the treaty
until the United States made good on a provision requiring the army to
abandon military posts on Sioux lands within 90 days of peace. In the end,
156 Sioux and 25 Arapaho men signed, alongside seven U.S. commissioners and
more than 30 witnesses and interpreters.

In 1874, gold was discovered in the Black Hills. Thousands of gold seekers
invaded the Sioux lands. Less than nine years after the Treaty of Fort
Laramie was negotiated, Congress seized the Black Hills without the tribes'
consent. The Congressional Act of February 28, 1877, offered compensation
but the Sioux lands guaranteed to them by the United States were never for
sale.

 In 1980, in the United States v. the Sioux Nation of Indians, the Supreme
Court ruled that Congress had acted in bad faith. The courts set fair
compensation for the Black Hills at $102 million. It is estimated that the
settlement’s value has appreciated to $1.3 billion today. The Sioux,
however, will not accept this payment. They contend that they do not want
the money. What they want is their sacred Black Hills back. In addition,
Sioux leaders argue, $1.3 billion, based on a valuation of the land when it
was seized, represents only a fraction of the gold, timber, and other
natural resources that have been extracted from it.

 The National Archives holds 377 ratified American Indian treaties and is
in the process of digitizing all of them so that they can be available
online for Native and non-Native Americans to see. The entire treaty can be
seen online at the National Archives at
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/299803

 *From story by Dennis Zotigh, Smithsonian Magazine*



*Archeology E-Gram*, distributed via e-mail on a regular basis, includes
announcements about news, new publications, training opportunities,
national and regional meetings, and other important goings-on related to
public archeology in the NPS and other public agencies. Recipients are
encouraged to forward *Archeology E-Grams* to colleagues and relevant
mailing lists. The *Archeology E-Gram* is available on the *News and
Links *page
at www.nps.gov/archeology/public/news.htm
<http://www.nps.gov/archeology/public/news.htm_> on the NPS Archeology
Program website.



*Contact*: Karen Mudar at [log in to unmask] to contribute news items and
to subscribe.

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