An Archaeological Evolution

An Archaeological Evolution

An Archaeological Evolution

Stanley South South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology University of South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina

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d~ Springer

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data South, Stanley A. An archaeological evolution/Stanley South. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-387-23401-2 (acid-free paper) ISBN 0-387-23404-7 (e-book) 1. South, Stanley A. 2. Archaeologists South Carolina Biography. Carolina--Antiquities. I. Title.

3. South

CCl15.$68A3 2005 975.7'0072'02 dc22 [B] 2004063224

A C.I.R Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 0-387-23401-2

e-ISBN 0-387-23404-7

Printed on acid-free paper.

©2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, Inc., 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed in the United States of America. 9

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Dedication

To my wives, my children, my grandchirdren, and my colleagues who have shared the groundhog hole with me.

PREFACE This book was written in response to a suggestion by my colleague, supervisor, and friend, Chester DePratter, Associate Director for Research, at the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of South Carolina (SCIAA). He convinced me that others might be interested in what I might have to say about my career in archaeology. It was an interesting challenge and a pleasant assignment, and as the reader will discover, over 500 stories, songs and poems flowed into the computer as a train of conscious remembrance.

David, my oldest son is a professor at Auburn University, where he received his doctorate in forestry, and is a widely known specialist in forestry. He is a Fulbright scholar, having been invited to share his expertise with colleagues in Scotland, South Africa, India, New Zealand, France and elsewhere. He and his wife, Mary, gave birth to my first granddaughter, Stephanie, in 1987. More recently, in 1998, my son, Robert, who graduated from USC in Columbia, is a computer expert in Charlotte, North Carolina, and his wife Sheila, welcomed a daughter Ginger-Gabrielle Alexis [Gigi] to our family. Then, in 2000, they were joined by another grandchild, Austin Alexander [Alex], bringing more j o y to our lives. It was Sheila who suggested I write down some of my stories as a legacy for my grandchildren. In April 2003, as I write this, our daughter, Lara, who also graduated from USC, has just announced her engagement to marry James McKenna, a contractor, recently come to America from Ireland. She lives in New York and is working there in a legal firm. They were married on April 28, 2003 in Central Park and Janet and I, and Robert and his family, and my sister Marjorie Idol, flew to New York for the happy event that included a boat cruise around Manhattan. We enjoyed meeting James' parents and his brothers, and his Granny, Mary Catherine Donnelly, who came over from Ireland for the event. Over a year later, Lara called and told us she and James are expecting a child in 2004.

A Personal Family Note Throughout my career I have focused on archaeology, often to the inconvenience of my family. My wife Jewell Barnhardt, and our children, David, Robert and Lara were, during a critical time in their lives, often abandoned so I could focus on my archaeological projects. After Jewell died I married Linda Hunter, who had two children, Christy and Brent. I moved into her house when Robert and Lara were young teenagers, leaving them alone to live in their big home without the presence of a father---or a mother. It is obvious I have not always been the most nurturing father. After my divorce from Linda, I married Janet Reddy, who has helped me in recent years to broaden my perspective and pay some more attention to family ties. She is my wonderful companion in these latter days. She graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1991, with a doctorate in psychological counseling, specializing in career counseling. She carried out a private practice in Columbia until she began to experience the effects of Lyme disease and had to give it up. She was bitten by a tick in 1989 when visiting me on a dig and suffers from weakness, for which she has to take massive doses of antibiotics, which hopefully will some day improve her condition.

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AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

Acknowledgements I thank Chester DePratter for suggesting I write the stories told here. I also thank my fellow groundhog colleagues, Chester, Jim Legg, and Richard Polhemus for the role they played in my career. They, like me, sought to understand the past through archaeology, and in the process, found a home in earth's burrow. By way of acknowledgement, in the Appendix I have tried to list those field-crew members, volunteers and others who have worked with me through the years. I am also grateful for the help and encouragement provided by many other individuals and granting agencies too numerous to list in this book. However, I have acknowledged them in the many reports I have published and reacknowledge now their help in my career. A special thanks to Frank Horton and Bradford L. Rauschenberg who have long supported my research efforts. I also thank those individuals who are the actors in the stories I tell here. Having an aversion to reading computer manuals I can't understand, my use of the computer has been taught me by those who have had the misfortune to walk into my life when I was in need of help. These 22 excellent and patient teachers are listed in the Appendix, but I owe a particular acknowledgement to Tommy Charles, my colleague here at SCIAA, who has come to my rescue on many occasions during the preparation of this book. Thanks to those who have taken the time to offer their editorial comments and criticism on the manuscript of this book: my only friend

from my high school days, Walter Boone, my colleague, Chester DePratter, my brother-inlaw, John L. Idol, Jr., my sister Marjorie Idol, my wife, Janet R. Reddy (who hasn't read it), and my colleagues Jim Spirek, and R. P. Stephen Davis, Jr. Thanks also, to my longtime editor, Eliot Werner, now continuing his own publishing career through Eliot Wemer Publications, and to Teresa Krauss, my editor at Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers for her support in publishing this book. Thanks also, to photographers, David Brill, Hugh Morton and Sebastian Sommer for permission to publish photographs used herein. I am indebted to the supervisors who I have reported to during my archaeological career. They have given me the freedom from administrative distractions, allowing me to focus on archaeological research: Joffre Coe, Sam Tarleton, Bob Stephenson, Bruce Rippeteau, Albert Goodyear, and Chester DePratter, as well as the current Interim Director of the U. S. C.South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, Jonathan Leader. I owe special debt of gratitude to the doctors who have saved my life on several occasions by their expertise and quick action when my heart was crying for help: Stephen Lloyd and Frank Martin, Jr. They, and the surgeons and cardiologists involved in cutting me open and exposing that sucker to their carving and sewing skill, bought me a quarter century more time to enjoy life and archaeology than fate would have had it had they not intervened.

A Career Chronology for Stan South The North Carolina Adventures (Pp. 1-2t0) Chapter 1 Father: Austin Enoch South from NorthwesternNorth Carolina Appalachian Mountains Mother: MaeBelle Casey South from Rome, Georgia 1916 Parents arrive together in Boone in a covered wagon 1928 Born on GroundhogDay in Boone 1934 Toured the West with parents 1937 Sister killed herself 1941 Began voice training 1942 On a bicycle and hitchhiking tour of the Southeast 1944 At Appalachian State Teachers College 1945 Stationed in the Navy in Washington,D. C. 1946 In photographyschool in Dallas, Texas

Chapter 2 1946 t946-1949 1949-1952 1950-1952 1952-1953 1952-t 953 1953-1955 1955 1955

An introduction to evolution from David R. Hodgin Attended Appalachian State Teachers College Teaching school in Greensboro An archaeological survey--an introduction to archaeology Acting in an outdoor drama--blowing a "Horn in the West" Darkroom and studio photographerin Boone Chapter 3 Archaeological training under Joffre Coe in Chapel Hill My first paper, "Evolutionary Theory in Archaeology," is published My fast dig at Roanoke Rapids (Native American archaeology---4,000 B.C.-17th c.)

Chapter 4 1955-1958

Town Creek Indian Mound (Native American, Mississippian---A.D.1350)

1953-1976

The SoutheasternArchaeological Conference(SEAC)

Chapter 5 Chapter 6 1958-1968 1959-1960

Brunswick Town State Historic Site (British colonial town--1725-1775) Established the Conferenceon Historic Site Archaeology(CHSA)

Chapter 7 1960-1968 1960-1968

The art world--Poetry, painting, sculpture and potting Chapter 8 Fort Fisher State Historic Site (Civil War fort--1865)

Chapter 9 1962-1968 1963-1966 1965 & 1968

Many North Carolina sites explored Excavating the town of Bethabara (Moravian settlement--1752-present) Old Salem (Moravian settlement--1766-present)

The South Carolina Adventures (Pp. 211-360) Chapter 10 1968-1969 1969 2000-2001 1969-1973 1971-1973

Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site (British colonial settlement--1670-1680) Charles Towne (Mississippianceremonial center (ca. 1276-A.D. 1387.-eighteenth century) Charles Towne revisited (British colonial house 1670-1680) Chapter 11 Politics and potsherds Developing formula models for historic site data

1970-1971

Ninety Six National Historic Site (1751-nineteenth century)

1971-1974

Many South Carolina sites explored

1977

Method and Theory in HistoricalArchaeology textbook published Research Strategies in Historical Archaeology, edited and published

Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 1978-2003

Spanish Santa Elena ( 1566-1587) and French Charlesfort ( 1562)

Chapter 16 2001-2004

Beyond Santa Elena--John Bartlam at Cain Hey and the ATTIC Project in Georgia In Argentina, Canada, France, Mexico, Spain, Uruguay and more books published. Receiving honors: Doctor of Humanities, Order of the Palmetto, Lifetime Achievement

ix

AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION

Stan South's Projects on a Map of the Carolinas

~e

BethabaraBoone

i Roanoke Rapids~-~

Old Soalem •

Chapel Hill

Greensboro AsheviUe ..... • ..... • Old Fort Charlotte • Murphy ~ - ~ - _ !~-~ ~ • " ~

\ ~. \

USC ~.AA ..... Columbia (~)

• ~., Ninety Six

Town Creek Indian Mound •

• (~) Raleigh Archives & Histor"

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e ~ o r t Moultrie e ~ c h a r l e s Towne

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Brunswick ~Town • •/Wilmington • ~" • / F o r t Fisher Florence ~ 1 - - - - - - ~ ...........

Ca~ H o v e / \

• Bath / - J

• Fayetteville Arsenal

Fort Moore ~,

• Halifax Jail

)Santa Elana/Charlesforl Indian Springs

/

Contents An Archaeological Evolution

Part I: The Formative Years Escaping the Groundhog Hole Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Appalachian Stories and After Chapter 3 UNC Stories

23 55

Part II: The Developmental Years Town Creek Stories Chapter 4 Chapter 5 SEAC Stories Brunswick Town Stories Chapter 6 Digging Art--And Life Stories Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Civil War Stories Tales From "A Loose Cannon" Chapter 9

67 95 107 145 161 187

Part III: The Fluorescent Years Chapter 10 Charles Towne Tales Chapter 11 Politics and Potsherd Stories Chapter 12 Ninety Six Stories "Loose" In South Carolina Chapter 13 Method and Theory Stories Chapter 14

211 227 239 267 279

Part IV: The Climactic Years Chapter 15 Spanish Santa Elena and French Charlesfort Tales Chapter 16 Tales Beyond Santa Elena

293 335

Appendix Stan South's Archaeological Field Crew Members References Cited List of Figures Index

361 367 389 397

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Part I: The Formative Years Without stories there is nothing. Stories are the world's memory. The past is erased without stories. Life connects us...not artifice. ChaimPotok (2001:74) I find myself constantly drawn to biography-for absolutely nothing can match the richness and fascination of a person's life, in its wondrous mixture of pure gossip, miniaturized and personalized social history, psychological dynamics, and the development of central ideas that motivate careers and eventually move mountains. And try as I may to ground biography in various central themes, nothing can really substitute for the sweep and storytelling power of chronology. Stephen Jay Gould (2000:3)

Chapter 1 We need to tell our stories, that's all. What else connects us to each other but the tales we tell? AndrewKlavan(2001:80)

Escaping the Groundhog Hole Introduction I was born a mountain groundhog on February 2, 1928, in the Appalachian Mountains in Boone, North Carolina, and have been digging for a lifetime. Piled at the entrance of m y burrow is a crescent-shaped mound of refuse, consisting of stories of events shaping m y life since I first emerged to face the challenge of the world beyond the safety of the den. As I sit on the mound, I look to the horn of the crescent of science on m y right, and to that of artistic creativity on m y left. These polar points have, from time to time in my life, taken on the form of a dilemma. I have found, however, that if I sit up very still on m y haunches, risk the bullets of critics on either side, and focus on my peripheral vision, I can encompass both art and science, though this occurs rarely at the same time. k is certainly not a matter of one or the other, but an accommodation of different ways of viewing a common reality.

When I write as an objective scientist, I carefully weigh the facts against my subjective interpretation of them. When I write poetry proclaiming, "The crescent moon is me," I must remember that, "The probing mind is a morning glory vine, following the constant sun of inquiry into the mysteries of time." That is the scientific paradigm. My life has been an adventure into, "The joyful magic of science," and that involvement, "Brings dreams to fruit" (South 1978:3-5). In undertaking this book, I have excavated in the midden of m y life, and have revealed many stories buried within that stratified crescent moonshaped back dirt pile around m y groundhog hole. The deepest stratum I have dug revealed stories from my family and m y childhood, but those are only lightly touched on here.

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Hard-Headed Consequences--A Lesson However, some of those stories had lessons for me that served me well in later life, for example, one relating to the danger of being hard headed. There was an old man who used to come into Boone driving a buggy. He had one leg far shorter than the other, causing him to walk with a dramatic limp. His mouth was just a hole located off center because a part of his jaw was missing. One arm was askew from normal. I asked Daddy what had happened to the fellow. He said the old man had told him that when he was a teenager he had gone to the home of a girl he wanted to take out, and was met by the father standing on the porch with a rifle in his hand. The father threatened him and told him to stay away from his daughter. The young man said, "Whether I stay or go should be decided by your daughter." Her father shot him in the arm. When he recovered, he went back to the girl's house to ask her out, and was again met by the irate father, rifle still in hand. Words were exchanged and the youth was shot again--this time in the hip. Months later when he recovered he had a severe limp, but was still angry and returned to the house a third time. This time the father shot before words were exchanged, hitting the young man in the mouth, blowing away part of his jawbone. Then the old man said to Daddy through the little hole that served as his mouth, "At that point I began to realize that being hard-headed was a dangerous attitude and it occurred to me that the man didn't want me messing with his daughter-some lessons are learned the hard way." Stories such as this one influenced my future decisionmaking--pushing the envelope can have dangerous consequences.

An Evolutionary Tale The stories I tell here, however, dig but very little into that deepest stratum, but record the evolutionary changes involving my career as an archaeologist. These were the formative years,

developmental years, fluorescent years and the climactic years: the periods familiar to cultural evolutionists (Coe 1952: 303-308; Strong and

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

Evans 1952; Willey and Phillips 1958: 39-40, 7177, 144-181). Tales of my formative years when my grandmother Bessie Gunlock Casey influenced me are here. Those from late in World War II when I entered the Navy are told. My photography school adventures and stories of my college days at Appalachian State Teachers College are remembered. And those from my days with the influential archaeologist and teacher Joffre Coe at the University of North Carolina are shared. These are stories of the .fluorescent and climactic days of my archaeological career in North and South Carolina. In my developmental layers, I relate stories about the years studying the Native American past at Town Creek Indian Mound, recovering scientific facts from the earth, and creatively interpreting them through reconstruction and historic site development for public education and entertainment. More recent developmental and fluorescent period layers reveal tales of my venture into method and theory in historical archaeology, where I recount incidents that occurred as I dissected British colonial sites in North and South Carolina. These are followed by tales of the climactic years when I excavated the Spanish colonial city of Santa Elena. This is also a book of stories some readers may find amusing or informative. They are written with the idea that "Life connects us...not artifice" (Potok 2001:252). The reality is that life is not thematically arranged, so some of the stories I tell here may not appear to connect with previous ones in an organized manner. I may be a scientist excavating a ruin one moment, and an hour later I may be flinging paint on a canvas or creating a piece of sculpture, and after that, telling stories and drinking in a tavern--that's life! I am fully aware of the point made in a cartoon, in which the question was asked of Dilbert, "Yon know what makes your work stories fascinating?" And Dilbert asks, "What?" and the reply is, "Nothing." (United Feature Syndicates, Inc., 6/22/02). Some readers may find that cartoon-bullet on target for this groundhog. My stories involve dirt and objects, for

Escaping the GroundhogHole which I seem to have a passion to explore. Why? I recently got a clue in a book, The Social Worm of Children: Learning to Talk. The authors observing two- year old infants, were fascinated at "how totally and immediately all of their senses are drawn to objects such as lint and water [and dirt and bugs], that adults no longer find interesting" (Hart and Risley 1999: 10). I am still drawn to details of objects, lint, dirt and water, holes in pipe-stems, temper in potsherds, and flake scars on stones. Perhaps it's a childhood passion I never outgrew enough to find them uninteresting as an adult. I focus with obsessive magnifying-glass eyes on details of objects, mundane things and b u g s - - o r colors in dirt. As a child growing up in the depression, I had a fascination with nature--the world we live in--with playing in the dirt with oatmeal box steam engines and "horse h o o f ' tin cans clamped to the heel of my shoes by stomping on them. Later generations would focus on their "feelings"--mine couldn't afford that luxury. When a people-person who no longer finds the "things" in life interesting, sees my interest-- my laser-beam focus, they sometimes ask, "Why? Who c a r e s ? " ~ like the one who answered "Nothing" to Dilbert. My answer is that perhaps like a child, "I do! - - I ' m interested!" And I've found that the archaeological colleagues I admire r nost are also. My obsessive focus has grown rather than diminished through the years to the point where I am most happy when I can shut out the world--the people and their "feelings," their needs and problems--and focus on a challenging task requiring intense concentration. That escapist--workaholic attitude has often not endeared me to others whose pleasure derives from emotional interaction. I am exhilarated by w o r k ~ r i v e n for fulfillment there--obsessed! In spite of my love for detail, as an archaeologist I have urged the use of a broad brush to explain archaeological remains in terms of the general processes that formed that record. However, often when that is done the result is so far removed from personal experience that reading it is boring. On the other hand, describing archaeological remains in detail from a "look at

what I found" perspective is also boring. To keep the reader's attention, somehow these polar perspectives must be brought together because both must be used in presenting the results of archaeological research. I have been obsessively driven to develop practical innovations to maximize data-recovery in the shortest period of time--motivated not by a hunger for profit, but by an appetite for refining archaeological method, often at the expense of cultural explanation of what the data were trying to tell me. A detail-fact-gathering, science-oriented person, as well as a generalizing, creative peopleoriented person tells the stories presented here. I hope that the reader will enjoy "reading the dirt" with me as I explore the stories about my archaeological evolution in my personal midden. As Rabun Taylor says: "The two cultures of science and humanities can be assimilated in interesting and refreshing ways (Taylor 2003: xvi). I hope that challenge has been somewhat met in this book. The stories and factual details are but steps in articulating the process involved in the archaeological evolution recorded in this volume. Fortunately for me, my personal evolution happened to coincide with the rise of the field of historical archaeology so my personal career has been augmented by that broader development. Storytelling has become popular in historical archaeology in recent years, with the Society for Historical Archaeology devoting an issue of its journal to archaeologists as storytellers (Michael, ed. 1998, 32[1])--an effort that combines objectivity with subjectivity, science and art. However, in my archaeological reports I don't normally combine science with a story of the time I shot the head off a rattlesnake with a pistol a crewman just handed me, or when I beat down a cottonmouth with a shovel, or when I was being chased by an alligator-those stories are real--not imagined. They are part of the archaeological experience usually left out of reports, but they are told here, not as archaeology, but as glimpses of the midden from my life as I have dug it, in and out of, my archaeological groundhog hole.

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AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

Figure 1.1 The covered wagon

in which my parents rode from Hickory to Boone North Carolina in September 1917. Left to right: My grandmaw, Bessie Gunlock Casey, holding my sister Virginia, my uncle Bill, my mother Mae Belle Casey South, and my uncle Morris. (Photo: Austin South, 11/4/1917)

Covered Wagon Days--My Parents Move To Boone from Atlanta My parents arrived in Boone in a covered wagon, in September 1917, from Hickory, 50 miles away. They had taken the train from Atlanta, where Daddy had been working in a railroad office and where he met Momma. Ben Brannock, the man daddy had lived with after his parents died when he was a child, had the wagon waiting for them at the train station. Momma's piano was loaded into it with other baggage and they began the two-day trip to Boone. Half-way up the mountain they stopped to spend the night. Momma (Mae Belle Casey South) insisted on sleeping in the wagon, not beneath it as daddy (Austin Enoch) had suggested. He had to off-load some baggage so she could sleep beside the piano, while daddy slept on the ground beneath. A few weeks later, on November 4 th daddy took a picture of momma and her two little brothers and his mother-in-law, Bessie Gunlock Casey, who was holding baby Virginia, my oldest sister, whom, as a teenager, would later have a strong influence on my developmental years--a story to be told later.

Grandmaw Casey--Old Home Places and Artifacts I Learn Pattern Recognition The earliest archaeological influence, I suppose, was when my mother said, "Go out to the clay bank and dig, make roads for your cars, or something, but don't go into the road!" I spent many hours at that activity, for what seemed like years of my childhood-cutting roads and garages for my little cars. Looking back she was probably just trying to get me out from underfoot, but she gave me my first digging push. I visited her mother oflen--my grandmother Bessie Gunlock Casey (my German and Irish side of the family), "Do you reckon Austin (my mountaineer--Scotch-Irish and horse thievingoutlawing side of the family) would take us to look at old house places on the Parkway this Sunday?" she asked--and Daddy did (South 1977b: xxvi.) As we approached the old standing chimney, she said, "Remember, there are always two paths--one upstream to the spring in the crotch of the hill and another to the privy downstream. We found the spring, "Watch out now! There'll be broke glass tumblers and dishes in there--don't get cut!" Sure enough, there was a broken butter dish with part of a scene in blue in the muck and

Escaping the Groundhog Hole

Figure 1.2. Grandpaw Tom Casey, and GrandmawBessie, at home. (Photo: South, 12/25/1949)

leaves in the bottom of the spring. "I told you so! - - I've seen enough of these springs to know they broke things whenever they got water. "I handed it to her and she said, "You see, when Mary came out of the house [she always used that name in her explanatory stories] she was carrying that very dish with molded butter wrapped in wax p a p e r - but as she took the lid off the crock, she dropped the rock that held the crock down into the water, and it hit the dish and broke it. You might find the rock down there too." Sure enough, I did, "I told you!" she said. "You see, her husband was sick, and she had just churned and molded the butter, and brought it out here when she came to get a cool drink of water for him, and do you know what he said when she told him she had

broke the dish? He looked long and hard at her and said.. 2' And so it went with each mined home place we visited. The scientist in her observed pattern and the humanist-told stories, and that helped to shape the way I view the past.

Pioneer Days-Homesteading in a Log CabinSoddy I was influenced by another background-tohistorical-archaeology experience, when my parents took my sisters, Virginia, Elizabeth and me, to visit our uncle Blaine South in July 1934. Grandmaw Casey kept my baby sister, Marjorie, during the month we were gone.

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AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

Figure 1.3. UncleBlaine's log house in 1934, located near Malta, Mirmesota. My sister, Elizabeth, and our cousin ChristineEggers, with mommastandingin the doorway at the right, and UncleBlaine's cat. (Photo:AustinSouth, 7/1934)

Uncle Blaine lived in a log cabin-soddy combination on a prairie homestead claim near Malta, Montana, where he raised sheep. In her diary, Virginia called Uncle Blaine's young toeheaded sons "The Gold Dust Twins," the name of a popular washing powder at the time (South, Virginia 1937). When he first arrived there he found a springfed marshy place and unloaded his kitchen stove from his wagon. He then built his soddy around the stove from squares of sod he dug from the mosquito-filled marsh. Later he hauled in some logs from a great distance to complete the rest of the log cabin house, in which we slept on quilt pallets. One of the first things I noticed inside the original sod-walled kitchen room was a large square place on the wall where the mud was a different color. I asked Uncle Blaine about it and he said his old stove had given out and he had to knock a hole in the mud wall to get it out, and the new one in, because the doorway was too narrow. He then filled the hole with new sod. This original soddy had become his kitchen.

He made a sod dam and backed up water into a pond, and when it froze in the winter he used an ice saw and cut 125 blocks of ice, which he stored in a log icehouse covering them with sawdust. It was incredibly hot there in July, and we were suffering. Uncle Blaine opened the door to the log icehouse and my cousin, Margaret, and I went in there and played on the blocks of ice in the semi-dark, to cool off. A little light came from spaces between some of the logs where the chinking had fallen out. Soon, however, the humidity would practically smother us, and we would yell to be let out, with our pants soaked from sitting on the wet sawdust covering the blocks of ice. I was constantly reminded of the difference between the interior of our home in the cool mountains and this hot log cabin home. Guns hung from nails in the rafters overhead. There was a bed and the new iron cook stove, with pallets of quilts lying around the wall on which we slept. There was a box turned on the side holding canned goods, with a kerosene lamp sitting on it. There was the heavy smell of smoke and sod and logs. One box

Escapingthe GroundhogHole had a small wooden barrel with a spigot, holding water carried from the dammed-up pond. One comer had horse gear piled on the floor and hanging from the rafters and walls--harnesses, bridles, and an extra saddle for the horses. On July 4 th Uncle Blaine shot more fireworks than I had ever seen before as well as his pistol--I was impressed. At night he told stories, one about the time he shot at a claim jumper who was trying to move one of the comer markers for his claim Virginia and Lib went on horseback riding trips and on one of these they were galloping fast when one of the ranchers they met thought at first they were cattle rustlers. They saw buffalo skulls and took one to a man, who Uncle Blaine told me, took it to an old Indian living alone on the prairie who mounted horns as wall plaques. He mounted them on a shield-shaped plaque using red velvet and brass tacks and mailed it to Virginia. Throughout our trip to the Grand Canyon, the petrified forest, Carlsbad Cavems, Sequoia National Forest, Yosemite National Park, the Dakota badlands, and the Chicago World's Fair, Virginia's scientific focus glows from the pages of her picture-filled diary. She told of finding Indian arrowheads, fossilized fish, petrified wood, agate and observing a variety of birds, animals and plants. She observed the stars in a game she played with our sister, Lib. She also described a long-abandoned mining ghost town called Ruby, complete with ore-filled carts and abandoned equipment. She was good at describing detail (South, Virginia 1937).

A Big Game-Hunt One day in July 1934, Uncle Blaine took Daddy and the rest of us on a hunt. He carried a pistol on his hip, a long-barreled western sixshooter, but he had others, one for each of us in the car. As he drove along he would fire his pistol out the window at the incredible number of jackrabbits, prairie chickens, and pheasant disturbed by the car, as did my older sisters from their windows. Even I was allowed to shoot from my window behind the driver's seat. He claimed I hit one of the jackrabbits with one of my shots (he

7 shot the same time I did), but I knew a July snow job when I heard one. We filled the floor-well of the back and front seat of the car with the bodies of dead game until there was no room for our feet. When Uncle Blaine came to a barbed wire fence two of us would jump out and push down the wire and stand on it as he drove the car over it. This was possible because the ground-set posts were far apart because of the scarcity of wood, with little snags of wood between those posts just sitting on the ground like fake posts to fool the sheep and cows. You couldn't drive over fences that way back East. When we got back, there was a big cooking of game, and Uncle Blaine hung some of the meat on a frame to dry out in the sun to make pemmican, so he could later eat it after we left. Two years later, grasshoppers came and ate all the grass and his sheep began starving, so he had to shoot them--"The hardest thing I ever had to do!" he wrote Daddy. After five years of homesteading, he was short two years from the seven required before he could claim a deed to the land. He moved to Arizona to grieve the loss of his homesteading venture. How fascinating it would now be, to re-visit that short-term site to see what time, and the formation processes of the archaeological record, have done to it.

"When the Work's All Done This Fali"~My First Cowboy Song My uncle and his family accompanied us on our western trip. My cousin had learned a cowboy song, "When the Work's All Done this Fall," from listening to the radio. As we rode along together, he sang it and I soon learned it too. This cowboy tale, the first song I ever sang, became a symbol of our trip as we swallowed clouds of dust from the unpaved roads as we rode along traveling through the West that summer in 1934. That song was originally written in 1925 by Carl T. Sprague and had many verses. The version I learned began:

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AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION A group of jolly cow-punchers Discussing their plans one day, One said, "I'll tell you boys, Before I go away, I have a home in Dixie, A good one boys, you know, And I'm going back to see it When the work's all done this fall.

Many adventure-filled verses followed, and I learned them all. They told of a stampede and a dying cowboy thrown from his horse. Now the boy won't see is mother, When the work's all done this fall. They buried him near daybreak, No tombstone at his head, Only a little board, And this is what it said, "Charlie, he lies buried here, "He died from a fall, "Now the boy won't see his mother, "When the work's all done this fall."

valley" some miles away on the back of Rich Mountain, which loomed above their home on the edge of Boone. It was a place where wild flowers bloomed and grassy beds invited her to lie down. Here she could sit and stare at the distant blueridged mountains and eat her lunch. Here she could dream romantic dreams. Toward the end of the 30 day western trip, in 1934, she wrote a poem expressing her feelings (South, Virginia 1936). One of the verses says: I Want To Go Home I want to go back home When the robins begin nesting. I want to hear the bull frogs Tune up after resting. I want to smell the fresh tumed earth Just before the garden's birth, And see again familiar rocks, And climb to greening mountain tops. I want to go home.

That fall, when I entered the first grade, I sang that song for the class. For several years after that, my classmates would have me sing it to entertain them on special occasions--the ham-bug had bit me and I never recovered. Virginia--Butterflies and M o t h s - I Learn of Science and Poetry My sister Virginia was 10 years older than me, but in the years after our western trip, she took time to show me her collection o f butterflies and moths, which she mounted in large, flat boxes. They had pins stuck through their heads to corks glued in rows in the bottom of the box. She read stories to me, and listened to what I had to say. Others in the family had little time for me. The first child of Austin and Mae Belle, Virginia was a romantic poet. She spent much of her time climbing the mountains surrounding their home, picking flowers, collecting lichens from old logs, catching, labeling, classifying, and mounting butterflies and moths, with scientific rigor, and writing poetry to express the innermost feelings of her heart. She once found what she called "happy

J

Figure 1.4. Virginia, wearing chaps made from Uncle

Blaine's black sheep. (Photo: Mae Belle South, 7/1934)

Escaping the GroundhogHole From Virginia i absorbed the idea that the world of nature could be classified into types and varieties of things, as her boxes of butterflies and moths demonstrated, with shades of colors of one species blending from the top of the box to the bottom, with a description and Latin name of the species written in detail on the lid. Through her meticulous classification, she introduced me to the world of science. I also learned through her mentoring until I was nine years old, that the world of the meadows and woods was a beautiful place to be, a world she shared with me. She took the time to turn my attention to the smells, the colors, and the poetry she saw there. I learned from her that the world was made up, not only of factual variety, such as she organized in her collections, but also of subjectively absorbed feelings inspired by the beauty and wonder she felt within herself. I learned that she saw as an important part of her life the recognition of pattern in the classification and cataloging of nature, while translating romantic feelings into words through the art of poetry (South, Virginia 1936). From the age of nine until she was nineteen she wrote 79 poems, a fragment of one written on December 31, 1934, I quote here (South, Virginia 1936): Bury Me on a Mountain Top

Bury me on a mountain top Where winter snows have lain. Bury me on a mountain top Where falls the summer rain, Where grows the tiger lily tall And violet patches lie. Bury me on a mountain top When I die. The Romantic Art of Love and the Hard Science of Suicide When she was a senior in 1937, at Appalachian State Teachers College in Boone, and I was nine years old, Virginia fell in love with a first cousin who was living with us. He was one of several men, who at various times, Daddy had

9 helped through college. He paid their tuition and allowed them to live with us in return for their helping around the house. Our parents were not happy with her romantic attachment to a first cousin and tried to discourage the affair. In response, he didn't ask her to go to the JuniorSenior Prom, as he had promised, but asked someone else. Then too, she had recently learned she had leukemia. I was in the hall downstairs when I heard the sound of the shot, followed by his scream, "My God! Oh my God! She's killed herselfl" (She had stood beside the door just inside his room, called his name, placed the pistol to her heart, and, as he turned to her, she pulled the trigger.) I ran out of the house and around and around it several times, until the shock wore off somewhat, and I began to realize what I was doing. Then I ran to Grandmaw's house. She sat at her sewing machine, trying to sew to keep her mind off the shocking thing I had told her. I said, "Grandmaw, why do your knees shake so? . . . . Ah, child," she answered, "You ne'mine. I ' m just an old woman, and old knees shake." Suicide Bullet Her finger-twitch tight on blue steel, Triggers my trajectory slightly downward In a flash of fire and sound, Through flesh and heart Tearing forever childhood's innocence Dwelling there.

Trailing crimson essence in my wake, I stop life's throbbing clock And burst into the open air, To pierce a hole In heart pine wall as she stood facing him So he would see it happen, A searing iron forever burnt Into his brain as surely as though I was directly aimed at him.

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AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION The essence of pine and human heart Trails as a comet in my wake Within the inner wall, A blend known to her in melancholy mood, As she wafted in the shadow world Beneath lofty pines in creative haze, Gestating poems, Heart-formed within her fertile mind. And then, into red heart of pine I bite again, And burst into the open air Beyond his bedroom wall, Where she had stood When she sent me on my way. My path was fated to fly between banisters, As was hers, torn between the lodestone Pillars of passion and duty, To again pierce the red pine heart of a door Like the one he closed to her. In my downward flight I emerge Into reality's somber bedroom, Striking with a glancing blow The linoleum rug, Leaving an oval dimple, Deflecting my trajectory upward. Slower now I fly Toward life's fragile window pane, With the screen of future years beyond, To shatter into bits that frail hymen Against which all my energy is spent, And I fall inert among the lifeless sherds. (South 1990b: 32-34)

Later on, alone, I entered my bedroom where she died. AS a forensic detective would do, I examined the clues to the tragedy that had taken place there. I saw the bullet hole in the wall beside the door; smelled the heart pine odor within the room; examined the hole, lower down, in Virginia's bedroom door across the hall; knelt on the floor inside it and put my finger in the dent where the bullet had hit the linoleum rug.

I smelled the sweet perfume of the spring night air coming through the empty window frame: saw bits of broken glass still lying between the window and the screen; felt the little dent in the screen where the deadly missile stopped to fall among the sherds of shattered glass, between the window and the screen. I marveled that it had not had the force to tear through the screen, as it had through her heart, her body, a wall, two doors, and a windowpane. But it had tom a large hole in my heart--scarring me forever. The bullet was gone. Daddy had removed it from among the sherds of glass, and carried it for years among the coins in his pocket as an artifact reminding him of the angel he had lost. "Oh Lost, and by the wind-grieved, ghost, come back again" (Wolfe 1929: 1).

Escaping the Seductive Hills--On a Bicycle Trip to the World Beyond Four years later I was 13, six feet tall, and had been riding my bicycle for many years. I was in good enough shape to walk the pedals up most mountainsides--a point of honor being never to get off and push. I rode from Boone to Mountain City, Tennessee, Hickory, North Carolina, and Hungry Mother Park, Virginia, and Mouth of Wilson--searching for a world beyond the seductive pull of that mountain groundhog hole. When I was 14, I wanted to go further and planned a trip to Gulfport, Mississippi, where my sister, Elizabeth lived. My parents rejected that idea, but agreed to let me go as far as Charleston to visit Magnolia Gardens. I got to Sumter and decided to hitchhike to Charleston, but instead caught a semi-rig going to Jacksonville. I took a bus from there to Gulfport. After visiting Lib and her husband, Jim Storie, I went back to Sumter and then rode the bicycle back to Boone. That trip did something to still the wanderlust for the moment, but that urge to get out of those seductive hills into the outer world still gnawed at my innards. I knew someday I would have to escape to the wider vistas beyond those mountain ridges, hollers, and the protective groundhog hole I knew.

Escaping the GroundhogHole My eagerness to escape was manifested in my high school days when I realized I could get out of that tedious routine a year sooner if I went to summer school--I did it for three years, graduating at the end of the 10 th grade in 1944.

Annapolis, West Point, and Appalachian--A Shaky Beginning By 1944, I was anxious to get into the military service as many of my classmates were, and through Daddy's connection to Congressman Robert L. Doughton, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, i hoped to obtain an appointment to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. However, Doughton's appointment for that officer-training academy was filled, but he appointed me as a candidate for West Point. I failed the physical because of a punctured eardrum I received as a child. After that I enrolled in Appalachian State Teachers College ( A S T C ) - now Appalachian University. I signed up as a math and science major and made Ds all three quarters. I got the hint that math wasn't my strength. Before I graduated I had majored in history, music, and finally in elementary education, the whole time signing up for the professor who gave the highest grades for the least w o r k - - I was in love at the time. I found that a psychology professor was impressed by, and gave high grades to those who ran their mouth in class. I took a lot of psychology! I also experimented with economics, history, education and music. When I ran up against sight singing (too much like math), I dropped the class after the first day because I had no background in piano, and that was a must for the course. Near the end of my freshman year, during which I learned I could not handle algebra and Spanish, I turned 17 and joined the N a v y - - t o escape again---eager to do my part as were all the boys my age in that war, and many women. I hoped that somehow luck would be with me and the eardrum wouldn't keep me from joining the Navy as a seaman.

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"Go West Young Man"--I Take a Pre-Navy Journey to See America In the spring of 1945, at the end of my freshman year, I was scheduled to go to Bainbridge, Maryland, to take my examinations for the Navy. Before I went to boot camp, however, I wanted to visit my sister Lib, and brother-in-law, Jim Storie at the Navy base at Shumaker, California. I discovered that my orders told me to report to Bainbridge Maryland on a particular day. They didn't say what route I should take to get there! So, I checked at the Boone bus station and found that with my orders in hand I could buy a roundtrip ticket to California for $60, taking advantage of the discount for service men. My trip to Maryland was circuitous. I lived on the bus for four days, visited Reno and Las Vegas. Long lines were at every stop waiting to board, but with my orders I was given preference, along with uniformed military personnel. On one long run I sat with another passenger in the stairwell of the bus because there were no seats available and people were standing in the aisle. After four days and nights with my shoes on, I developed a dandy case of athlete's foot. I visited my sister and then reported for Navy duty in Bainbridge, Maryland. In The Navy Stories of my short experience in the Navy are unremarkable compared with those who served in combat, but details of the training I received remain remarkably clear after 58 years. Before I joined the serviceman's pay was $21 dollars a month, as it had been since World War I. Soon, however, Congress increased that modest sum. When I arrived, we recruits were taken to a mess hall and told to sleep on the tables. The next morning we had to fill out forms. When I turned mine in the boot-pusher [drill instructor] asked for those having college training to step forward. Those who did were to assist those recruits who couldn't read to fill out their forms. I was put to work immediately. I asked one recruit the question as to what he did before joining the navy, "Chopped cotton," he said. I then asked the question as to what he

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would like to do in the Navy--"Chop cotton!" he said. "I can't do nothin' else."--I asked him the question as to whether he had a preference as to where he would like to be assigned. "Stuttgart, Arkansas!" he answered. "Send me to Stuttgart and I'll show the Navy how to chop cotton! - - an' I'll be hoein' in the short rows!" he said. I filled out forms all day and became aware of the great gap between what I thought I knew and some of the unfortunate recruits who faced Navy duty in the months and years to come. I had to remind myself that until the time I entered the Navy I had not chopped cotton, but had driven cows twice a day, a quarter-mile up a dirt road to a mountain pasture, and that I was: "In the Navy now, not behind a cow, and I'd never get rich, pulling this hitch, I'm in the Navy now!" The next day after I filled out forms for other recruits, we stripped off all our clothes to be given our physical. I was concerned that I might be turned down because of nay punctured eardrum, as ! had been when I took my physical for West Point. We were standing in a long line almost completely around a gymnasium--a hundred or more recruits, "naked as jaybirds." One doctor had a rubber glove on his hand and had us bend over and grab our ankles. Another came up and looked into our ears, and I thought, "Uh oh, here is where I get thrown out--I hope they allow me to dress first." Just as he examined the man on my left a messenger came up and gave him a note. He read it and said something to the messenger, and turned to me and asked, "Where's the next guy?" and I pointed to the man on my right. He looked in that man's ear and then moved on without looking in mine--what a stroke of luck! Later, when I was stationed in the Navy Department on the mall in Washington, D.C., my ear began to bleed and the medic sent me to the sick bay. The doctor there looked in my ear, saw an infection, and said, "What are you doing in the Navy?" I was sent to Bethesda Naval Hospital where I was given a medical discharge ending my short career in the Navy. But I get ahead of my story.

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

I Begin My Song--A "Deep River" of Solos-Exposing Myself to the Public Before I tell about my singing career in the Navy, a background note is necessary. Momma, Mae Belle Casey South, was a musician who played the organ at the Methodist church in Boone. She had met Daddy when she was playing the piano in a five and ten cent store in Atlanta for those people who were buying sheet music. Daddy always said "I Met My Million Dollar Baby In A Five and Ten Cent Store." When I was in the fifth grade I began playing the tuba and continued doing so in bands and orchestras through college. When I was 13, she decided I should take voice lessons. I did. Soon after, I was asked to sing for various women's clubs in Boone, belting out songs like "I Dream of Jennie with the Light Brown Hair," "Deep River," "Old Man River," and other light opera favorites--I was hooked. It had begun with "When the Work's all Done this Fall" in 1934, when I became addicted to the applause of my first grade class. I also began singing solos in the church choir. I continued taking lessons and singing wherever asked--once having a radio program sharing air time with now internationally famous, Doc Watson, a mountain neighbor from Deep Gap, near Boone. (Doc once told me that I sang "real" music while he only sang the mountain songs he had heard from others.) Look who became a millionaire singing! From that time on until I graduated from Appalachian State Teachers College---and after, I would sing at "the drop of a haft--but more of that (and more clich6s) later-after I sing my Navy song.

Boot Camp Tales--Mess-Hall Duty--Saved by a Song In boot camp in Bainbridge, Maryland our company was scheduled to work in the mess hall. We all dreaded that duty because of the grueling work and 12-hour days. Before we began, however, I went to the Chaplain's office and talked with the choir director about joining the choir. He gave me a tryout, and as soon as it was over, he said, "Okay, this Sunday you will sing a

Escaping the Groundhog Hole solo--The Old Rugged Cross--while the Navy choir will accompany you humming, and will join in with you on alternate verses." I said that was all right with me, but I was scheduled to work in the mess h a l l i b u t if he could get me released from that duty I could sing the solo for him. He said the chaplain was assigned only one assistant each week, and he already had one, but he would see what he could do about getting him two that week. We were gathered in the mess-hall listening to instructions from the boot pusher on what was expected from us on our first mess-hall duty, scheduled to begin that night, when a messenger came in and interrupted with a note. The boot pusher asked in a high-pitched, whiney voice, suggesting disdain "Is there a boot named South here? I stood up and he said, "It seems you have been pulling strings with the chaplain to get you out of mess-hall duty this week and you are to report to his office." I smiled, and left amid jeers and catcalls from the other boots present. As I neared the door, one of the recruits anxiously whispered to me, "Tell me how you did t h a t - - I want to get out of this too !" I hung out in the chaplain's office as a "second banana" that week, doing a little typing and reading from books in his office. In the weeks to follow his primary assistant did most of the work and I sung many solos with the Navy choir on Sundays. When I graduated from boot camp I was given a certificate of merit for my singing in the choir.

Asleep On Watch--Spared the Firing Squad One night I was standing guard duty at the PX (post-exchange building), assigned to walk back and forth in front of the door for what always seemed like forever. I took a moment to sit on a bench in front of the door, and before I knew it, I awoke with someone beating on me with a nightstick--the Chief Petty Officer assigned to police those of us on night duty. I jumped to attention and got royally chewed out, with his face a few inches from mine, with the threatening question: "Don't you know that sleeping while on

13 guard duty in war time is punishable by death by firing squad? I am in dereliction of my duty if I don't report this to my superior officer!" After some time of this, he agreed to spare my life and not to report me unless he caught me sleeping on duty again--and you can hurry up and believe I only slept on duty after that while upright-walking my beat.

New Teeth for "A Fish Out Of Water" Another poignant incident I remember from boot camp involved a very innocent and naTve country boy from Texarkana, Texas. He was a happy-go-lucky guy telling stories of hunting rabbits and squirrels, and of his joyous life on the farm back home. His family had been so poor that he had unsightly cavities in virtually all his teeth. When he returned from the dentist one day the cavities had all been drilled out and his incisors and other teeth in front had only the leading edge remaining on narrow pedestals connecting to a part of the tooth near the gum. He was happy he was going to have porcelain fillings so he could be proud of his looks. He spoke lovingly of his girlfriend back home and how happy she would be when she saw him without his cavities. His innocence was his undoing. Some of the other boys in our company began kidding him about his girlfriend, saying she was probably sleeping with someone else while he was in the Navy, and pretended they had gotten letters from one of the guys she was sleeping with. Suddenly, his happy personality changed to a saddened joyless worrier, obsessed with imaginings of what his girl friend was doing back home. I tried to cheer him up, explaining that those telling him those lies knew nothing about his girlfriend back home, but my efforts did no good to relieve his depression. Some of us chipped in to pay for a phone call for him to call to talk with her and prove all was well--she begged him to come home to be with her. One day we heard that one of the boots in another barracks had been sent home because of bedwetting. Before long my friend began wetting his bed. He gave me one of his now

14 rare smiles as he explained that he had found a way to get sent home. I told him the psychiatrists would be able to see if he was doing it intentionally or not and would put him in the brig if they discovered his trick. He was not disillusioned and soon he was sent to the hospital for examination. I dreaded hearing that he had been caught in his subterfuge, but to my surprise, the last I heard of him was that he had been sent home with a medical discharge (no pun intended). I later heard he had written a letter to a friend, and that he was married to his girl who loved his new teeth. "All's well that ends well!" I Give "Chicken" a Finger Another character in our barracks was a farm boy from Chesnee, South Carolina. He told stories about his life on the farm--hunting in the woods, trapping squirrels to eat, and he would regale anyone who would listen, about the good Southern life. We called him "Chicken" because of his stories of his sexual prowess with pigs, cows, and chickens. One day we were standing in line waiting our turn to practice on the 20mm antiaircraft guns, when "Chicken," who had completed his turn, instead of going down the steps leading up to the gun, put his hand on the platform rail and vaulted up and over it, landing on his feet beside me. As he did he let out a cry and I heard a metallic sound hit the ground. When I looked down I saw a class ring rolling around at my feet--beside it lay a finger! "Chicken" stared at his hand with the finger missing. He calmly took out his handkerchief and held it over the bleeding stub. He explained that when he jumped, his ring had caught on a nut sticking from the top of the rail, and the weight of his body had jerked off his finger. I reached down and picked up the ring and finger and handed them to him. He thanked me, wrapped it in the handkerchief, and looking at the sick bay across the street, said, "I guess I better go over there and get this thing sewn on again. I'll see you guys later--looks like I ' m out of the Navy." He waived and walked toward the sick bay for treatment.

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION Later, I was in the barracks when he came in to get his things. A group of us crowded around him and listened as he complained that his injury had not qualified him to be discharged, but would have to wait until the finger healed before completing boot camp. He said he had tried to get the doctor to sew the finger on upside down so he could be discharged, but the doctor refused. An Introduction to Phosgene, Mustard Gas and Fire Control The next day we were taken to a little bunker building, and, as we put on gas masks and entered, phosgene gas was introduced. We were then ordered to take off the mask for a few moments "to get used to the smell," and the door was unlocked and we were allowed to go outside retching and throwing up our lunch. Later, we had to repeat the performance with mustard gas, to prepare us in anticipation of the possible use in the war. We practiced entering a burning metal shed, kept burning by kerosene sprayed from vents around the wall and overhead. We went in, crouched behind the protection afforded by a fire hose spraying a water-and-foam mixture designed to put out the fire. As my squad waited our turn (I was a squad leader because I was the tallest), the team currently putting out the fire cut off the hose before backing out of the shed after the fire was extinguished. Suddenly, there was an explosion as the heat of the metal re-ignited the kerosene. The men on the hose were blown out the door. The first guy on the hose was hit in the face with the blast of flame, singeing off his eyebrows and the hair from the front of his head--burning his face a bright red color. The boot pusher used their example emphasizing, that to prevent such blowbacks, we needed to keep the hose going, even after the fire is extinguished, until the hose crew is out of the area. This training was practice needed to put out fires in the hold of ships. Fires below-deck sometimes resulted from Japanese kamikaze planes flying down the smokestacks of our ships.

Escaping the GroundhogHole Don't Lose Your Head over Fire Control Safety Part of our fire control training involved a demonstration of how to dispose of the oxygenproducing canisters worn on the chest of fire fighters so they could fight fires in smoke-filled rooms below deck. These canisters, however, when used up, and disposed of in a mixture of oil and water, would violently explode. We were told that in the excitement of a below-deck fire there was a temptation to simply discard the old canister when a fresh one was inserted into the breathing apparatus--No! No! When in the presence of oil and water, both found under foot below deck during a fire, there would be a deadly explosion. In order to emphasize the necessity of this lesson being remembered, in case any one of us were assigned to a fire fighting unit on board a vessel, a field demonstration was given to each group of boots. To do this, we were lined up on the edge of a large drill field to watch. Then a bucket containing a mixture of oil and water was placed in the center of the field. A boot pusher then, after giving an appropriate lecture to us on the need to properly dispose of the empty canisters in a water and oil-free environment, pulled a string attached to a canister, dropping it in the bucket. We waited the seconds and minutes needed for the reaction to take place. As we watched, suddenly there was an explosion like a shotgun blast as the canister exploded and shot 300-feet into the a i r - - a v e r y impressive demonstration. We were then told that on the previous day a boot pusher was killed. He had waited a long time for the explosion to take place, and--becoming impatient--walked over and looked down into the bucket as the canister exploded and blew his head off--good demonstration--bad timing! I Get Tied in a Navy Knot Another interesting training phenomenon we got was the knot-tying procedure. We stood for hours, day after day, learning to tie knots in a rope at a long rail into which pegs were attached, around which we were instructed on tying a multitude of knots. I couldn't imagine why this

15 discipline was considered so important. It was difficult for me to conjure up a situation where such detailed knot-tying would be needed in the modem Navy on board a battleship, destroyer or cruiser. I was not aware of the many times the knowledge of knot tying was used on Navy vessels. I had the temerity to ask the boot pusher what the function of learning that skill might be beyond qualifying for a Boy Scout merit badge. He was outraged and took the occasion to ridicule me for asking such a stupid question. He shouted to the others who were tying away, valiantly attempting to memorize the multitude of "running bowlines, reef knot, slip knot, square knot, sheet bend," etc., etc., "Hear this! This knucklehead is asking why I am making you learn knot tying! For hundreds of years sailors have tied knots--an honorable tradition going back to sailing vessel days--when your life depended on knowing how to tie the very knots I ' m struggling against great odds to teach you dummies how to tie! This skinhead thinks he knows more than the admirals who run the Navy! They think knot tying is one of the most important training functions we perform on this base--and so do I! Now get to it! Forget why--yours is to 'do or die!'" Playing with Toy Guns and Avoiding Sunstroke At this time of the war, in 1945, there was a shortage of guns, so we didn't learn how to assemble and disassemble a Springfield rifle that had previously been used in training. Instead of the real thing, we were issued wooden guns to conduct our maneuvers on the parade ground-knot tying was obviously important--expertise in using real guns was apparently not. One of the parade ground memories I have is of our drilling with our toy guns in the heat of August and three of our company passed out. We began trying to avoid stepping on our fallen comrades as they came in view. The boot pushers, however, shouted that we were to step on them and not break our stride as we marched, so we trampled over the bodies beneath our feet. When we finally arrived at the edge of the drill

16 field and were standing at attention, we cut our eyes to watch those three bodies lying on that asphalt in the hot sun. "Eyes front!" the pusher shouted as some of us tried to see if anyone went to the relief of those lying there. As we marched back to the barracks those guys were still lying there. I suppose they eventually recovered consciousness and came on back to the barracks on their o w n - - o r died of heat stroke! That treatment of heatstroke victims in 1945 was quite different from that I witnessed at the Parris Island Marine Corps Recruit Training Depot a half-century later. Today, Marine Corps recruits in training are accompanied by an ambulance and attendants to care for those who might pass out from heatstroke--a dangerous condition at times. On marches Marines even pick up those lagging behind because of painful blisters--a procedure unheard of in 1945. The Marines also use real guns. Hand To Hand C o m b a t - - t h e Navy versus the Marines On one occasion, after we were back in the barracks after our knot-tying routine, some of our company took it on their own to go over to the 3 rd Marine Division located some distance away from our Navy training area, to verbally and physically attack the Marines. I learned why later from those involved. This verbal assault would, of course, bring out the Marines in numbers, resulting in a general melee of fistfights and cussing matches. Some of our people showed up the next day with black eyes and cuts and bruises of various sorts as trophies of their encounter--one had to be taken to the sick bay. I learned that this type raiding between Navy and Marine trainees was a tradition that must be upheld. During the remaining time in training we expected at any time, to be raided by a similar retaliatory Marine Corps unit from across the w a y - - a l l good training for future personal combat in war, I gathered. Indeed, without personal combat training one would be at a distinct disadvantage against an opponent well versed in street fighting. The resentment on the part of the Navy personnel, as I understood it, came from the fact

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION that the captain of each vessel in the Navy was guarded by a Marine, like a policeman at the d o o r - - a long tradition when sailors sailed ships and Marines were trained to fight on land. If Naval personnel wanted to see the captain they always had to go through a Marine Corpsman--a point of contention. This was my introduction to the friction between Navy personnel and Marines. Later, President Harry Truman, reflecting this traditional enmity, entered the fray when he made a comment that the Marine Corps was simply the police force of the Navy, which caused quite a stir when Marine Corps generals objected to that definition. I don't believe Harry apologized. I Watch the Discipline of Duck-Walking One night, after the call for "lights out" had been given, the barracks across the street kept its lights on for a few minutes longer. I occupied a top bunk, so I could see down onto the street and see what was going on. We could hear the bootpusher from that barracks yelling, "Fall out, you dumb scumbag skinheads! I'll teach you what 'Lights out' means!" The company fell out with their skivvies on and lined up in the street. The yelling continued, "Hurry! Hurry! You no-good bastards !" Finally, when all were assembled, the order was given to duck walk down the street. "I'll teach you what to do when I say, 'Lights out!'" They duck walked back and forth, back and forth, until their muscles began cramping and some of them collapsed in agonizing pain, not being able to continue that squatting, duck walking, muscle binding, ordeal any longer. The boot-pushers-there were three of them now, along with the Chief Petty Officer in charge of the barracks-would begin kicking the men who were lying in pain on the ground. Some, perhaps those whose cramps were less serious, would get back into the duck walking position trying to continue. This routine went on for a very long time until there were only three duck walkers left. They continued among the writhing and groaning bodies around them, until even the boot-pushers were impressed with their ability. Finally, when it seemed those three would be able to continue

Escaping the GroundhogHole duck walking all night, the order was given for them to come to the front of the group--which they did limping. The Chief Petty Officer then instructed the groaning mass to look at those three - - " L e t this be a lesson to you. These three men are obviously in far better shape than the rest of you. Maybe I should let them duck walk you every night until you get in as good condition as they are--would you like that? Huh? Huh? Huh? If I ever hear a peep out of you, or a glimmer of light from that barracks after lights out, I'll have you out here every night for a week! I hope you get that! Just try me!" For the rest of the training period the barracks across the street was the "earliest to bed and earliest to rise" of any in the regiment-lesson learned. I wonder if such lessons are still taught that way in military channels in 2003--they certainly were in 1945.

Graduation Day Review--My Company Is Outclassed The Navy at that time was segregated, with the black sailors serving primarily in mess companies. Boot camp training was also segregated. The only time we saw a black company was on the graduation review day, when the companies showed off their marching ability, and awards were given for the best performance. We thought we did fairly well, but when the black companies marched onto the field we knew we were viewing the best--they won all the awards! Their precision was outstanding--with creative commands shouted by the boot- pusher marching beside the company. One of the most intricate commands usually given, and one most easily ending up in chaos if not executed with great precision, was "double to the rear," which involved executing a 180 degree reversal of direction of the company, with each row of men enfilading the adjacent row. The black companies, however, executed that maneuver with the command "double to the rear with a slight hesitation," making the move more complex, and a j o y to witness. The judges loved it. That "slight hesitation" was a beautiful innovation executed flawlessly, compared to the plodding performance

17 our company had stumbled through. Shortly after that the Navy became an integrated force.

The "A-Bomb" Drops I was standing in one of the long mess hall lines on the drill field on August 6, 1945, when a loudspeaker announced that an atom bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. "What's an atom bomb?" we asked each other. To my surprise, one of us, no doubt a physics maven, explained about the theory of the harnessing of the energy in the atom to create a highly destructive bomb. He spoke of the theory that if an atom could be split it would give off tremendous energy, splitting the adjacent atoms--apparently no longer a theory. A group crowded around him to listen to this new information. We knew the war would likely soon be over before we could really get into it because of the "A-bomb".

OGU--I Assign Myself to Washington After boot camp I was sent, along with others in my company, to OGU (Outgoing Unit) to be assigned to aircraft carriers, destroyers, naval bases, and other naval duty. Because I had been soloist in the Navy Choir in basic training, I went to the person in charge of the OGU assignments and asked if there was an OGU choir. He looked at me and smiled and shook his head in disbelief at my question before answering that no one stayed there long before being assigned to some duty station somewhere. I thanked him and as I turned to go he asked how much schooling I had had and I told him one year of college. He said that he had one opening for someone in OGU, and asked if I had ever run an Addressograph machine. "What's that?" I asked. "Apparently not," he said. "But I ' m willing to learn," I quickly ventured. He showed me how packs of hole-punched cards were fed into the machine that sorted them into smaller coded groups of people assigned to various duty stations to which they were to report. I quickly picked up the process and for some weeks I operated that machine. My instructions were in the form of a notice that 25 people, for instance, were to report to the Navy Yard in

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Newport News, to be assigned to an aircraft carrier, etc. After I had done this for a period of time and most all of my company had been assigned to some duty station, my supervisor told me I would soon need to pick out an assignment for myself and slip my personal card into that stack of cards. I began looking closely at each assignment group and when I saw one stating that Seaman Second Class clerks were needed at the Navy Department in Washington, D. C., I slipped my card onto the pack. Thus it was that it was not by accident that I went to Washington.

stations. There was obviously a lack of communication between the officers as to the process involved in their reimbursement for travel, and the Navy Department. Perhaps they had never been told to simply submit a copy of their travel orders and they would be reimbursed on the basis of a fixed per diem amount. It appeared to me that transferred officers were spending an awful lot of their time collecting all that documentation when it was simply not relevant to the reimbursement check they were to receive.

The Navy Department in Washington--a TooSweet "Piece of Cake" I worked in the Navy Department, located in long drab-colored buildings, flanking the Washington mall. The room I worked in was as large as two gymnasiums, with about 10 rows of desks, with as many desks per row--some had typewriters--others did not. My job was to remove from the basket on my desk the envelopes containing the applications from officers for reimbursement for moving expenses when ordered to transfer from one place in America to another. I was to remove all receipts, carefully collected by the officer, and staple them all together. They were never to be looked at again, but mailed back with the reimbursement check. Then I looked at the orders attached to the application--"from: New York to: Boston" for instance. Then I looked at a large mileage table beneath the glass, giving the distance between New York and Boston. I multiplied that mileage by the standard per diem travel allowance, and wrote the monetary product on a blank place on a card. I stapled that to whatever the officer had sent in the package. Some officers had gone to great lengths to collect receipts, statements from waitresses to whom they had given tips, a list of the nanles (and sometimes photographs) of family members, receipts for movies, plays, and taxicab drivers, and sometimes notarized statements of expenses. However, all the government wanted to know was how many miles there were between the two duty

OopsI - - SIRI - - I Crash Into an Admiral In my coming and going in the war-time Navy Department I ran into many high-ranking officers in the halls. On one occasion I literally r an into an admiral coming up the steps as I was making the turn from the hall into a stairwell. We crashed into each other pretty vigorously, whereupon I said, "0ops!" (being a raw skinhead). He stepped up into the hall, noticed I had failed to salute, stared at me a moment, and it was at that point I said, "Hey." and he said, "Hey! Oops! What?" And, flustered by now, I remembered to salute, and answered, "Oops! SIR!" He stared at me a moment, obviously deciding whether to chew me out further, then smiled, shook his head at my lack of protocol, or stupidity, or both, and moved on as I heard him mutter--"Oops!" followed by a chuckle. Government Waste It was in fulfilling my easy job in the Navy Department that I came to realize the tremendous waste there was in other aspects of the process of which I was a simple part. For example, we were to report to the front gate of the Navy Department at 8:00 a.m. (however, no later than 8:30, to avoid being put on report), so you can imagine the crowd that gathered at the gate shortly before 8:30. We were supposed to be at our desks at 9:00, for an hour of work before the 10:00 break--then a mass exodus to the drink machines where a crowd gathered to socialize until 10:30. Then we worked another hour until 11:30, when there was the exodus for lunch, but we had

Escaping the Groundhog Hole to report back by 1 P.M. for two hours of work until 3 P.M. At that time the afternoon break lasted until 3:30. Theoretically, quitting time was at 5 P.M. It was a long walk up the mall from many offices to the exit gate beside the reflecting pool. We were told that if everyone crowded the gate at 5 P.M. it would slow down the checkingout process. The rule was that we could check out no earlier than 4:30 p . m . - - a tough five-hour work-day for those who made the most of the system. And many did! I was appalled by such a lax system allowing so little production to be called a day's work. At the beginning of the day, at 8:30, and during breaks, ! was often alone in the vast room with only two or three other workaholics who refused to join the crowd. Most days I was able to complete my work by 11:30, and sometimes when I came to work there would be nothing in the basket on my desk. I asked my supervisor why that was, and was told that the person who brought the applications to my desk would be gone on vacation, or was on sick leave for a week. He said there would be nothing coming until he returned. "What am I supposed to do? Can't I go and pick up the applications myself?." I asked. "What! You're complaining?" He asked, "What's the matter with you? Are you trying to cause trouble? Why don't you read a book, or whatever?" Then he quickly added, "But I didn't say that!" So, I did. I read a lot of books in those days. I resolved that when I got out of the Navy I would never accept employment with the United States Government. What a waste of human energy resources! Years later, after I became an archaeologist, when John Griffin offered me a job with the National Park Service, saying that within a year or so I could move to a G12 position, I thought of my experience during the war, and turned down the offer. Then too, there was the other matter we discussed. I asked John if I worked on an excavation project and wrote a report whether my name would appear on the work I had done. He said policy didn't allow personal names to appear on reports published under government

19 sponsorship. I couldn't see how a reputation in archaeology could be built if all the work you did was published anonymously under a government agency's name. I was ego-centered enough, and disenchanted enough with my wartime experience in Washington government, to gladly pass up a far larger salary than I was making, to maintain some autonomy and recognition for the work I did. Some of us are remembered for the stories we tell, but for me, publication of the work I have done is nay immortality. More money was never sufficient reward for me. Now, of course, perhaps government waste of human resources is not so blatant as it was when I observed it almost 60 years ago. Perhaps all that has changed and those spending their careers with that employer are able to put in eight hours work for eight hours pay, and receive personal satisfaction beyond mere cash for having done so. I wonder. In any case, names do now appear on some government publications--such as the summary of the site of Ninety Six, South Carolina by Guy Prentice (2002) - - more on the many forts at Ninety Six later.

I Sing for My Supper--Drink Booze in a Cathedral--a New Experience When I was discharged from my position at the Navy Department, I decided in 1946, to attend the Southwest Photo Arts Institute in Dallas, Texas. To keep my voice in shape, in my spare time, I studied voice under an ex-Metropolitan Opera baritone, Glenn Booher. He helped me get a paid choir position with the Episcopal St. Matthews Cathedral, where I was paid $10 a w e e k - - a big boost to the $105 a month subsistence I received from the G. I. Bill. I was a religious skeptic, but hey--the pay was good so I compromised my personal non-conformist belief and went along for the money! This was a high-church cathedral, with the choir marching from each side near the front, around the outside aisle of the pews while singing, then joining in the vestibule, then down the central aisle toward the alter, still singing. We were led by trumpeters, the priest, acolytes carrying banners, the cross, etc. in a very formal

20 procession, quite unlike the church I knew from childhood. We rehearsed in the basement of the cathedral on Friday nights, and during rehearsal some of the choir members would go to the refrigerator and refresh themselves from the store of beer kept for that purpose. That was also quite a different cultural practice from the churches in Boone. We would meet for another rehearsal on Sunday morning before the service, during which time the refrigerator was again raided by some of the choir members, to "wet their whistle," or rather their voices. One Sunday morning the assistant pastor, who we seldom saw, made an announcement that the minister himself, who had never before met with the choir, wanted to have a word with us. I thought, "Uh oh! I'll bet he's going to complain about the choir drinking beer on Sunday morning." Not so! He said he understood that some members of the choir enjoyed having a beer on Sunday morning, but there had been complaints from some of the parishioners that when the choir came singing down the aisle they were blowing fumes, causing the church to smell like a brewery. "O.k. maybe I was right after all," I thought. Not so! The priest said to avoid that complaint in the future, he had placed some breath fresheners in the refrigerator, and asked that when we got a beer we would also get something to freshen our breath. So that was the solution to the problem of the choir smelling like a brewery as we went singing down the aisle of the church. Quite a liberal church-that.

"Learning A Few Tricks"--From A Metropolitan Opera Baritone After I graduated from photography school in 1946, I left Dallas and returned to Appalachian to begin my sophomore year. I resumed my voice lessons with Virginia Wary Linney, who was impressed with the progress I had made studying with Glen Booher ("Boo"). She wanted to know what he did to so dramatically improve my singing ability.

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION I told her he would meet me at the door to his studio in his home, and begin a fast-pace walk while vocalizing using bursts of air blowing from our lungs as we gasped for air from our exertions. By the time we had practically jogged around the block we were both panting and exhaling with loud vocalizations. That exercise did a lot to build up my lung capacity to sustain notes. Then, too, he trained me to breath from my diaphragm rather than from my lungs alone, and to project my voice so it could be heard clearly from the back of the auditorium. To do this, he required that I stand beside him as he accompanied me on the piano, and if I lapsed into singing without using my diaphragm to force the air from my lungs, he would suddenly hit me in the gut, forcing spontaneous blast of air against my voice box. Upon which event he would shout, "That's it! You've got it! So, to avoid that surprise shot to the solar plexus, I learned to use my diaphragm. That way I could control the sound that would project loud and as long as needed, to belt out an aria, without having to be hit to produce quality sound. That training would serve me well when I began to sing in operettas when I returned to Appalachian--but more on that in the next chapter.

Photography School--I Drive for a Made Man While in Dallas I took lessons with "Boo" on Saturdays, sang with the choir on Sundays, and on weekdays attended photography school in the afternoon. In the mornings [ augmented my income by working for a different photography school on the other side of Dallas, where I worked from 6 p.m. until midnight. I soon learned that the director of the school who I worked for was reputed to be a mafia wise guy--he certainly looked the part from my stereotype gained from movies. He wore a fedora and a pin-striped suit, just like the gangsters I had seen in James Cagney movies. After working for this man in the morning, going to photography school in the afternoon, I reported again to him from six to midnight to act as a courier. In that capacity, I delivered and picked up, envelopes and small packages to and

Escapingthe GroundhogHole

21

from individuals and nightclubs where he had connections. Doing this I drove his 12-cylinder Cadillac and on occasion I chauffeured attractive young women from one club to another, or to his place, or to other addresses, returning later to pick them up. On one of these trips to pick up a young lady, when I got across Dallas the Cadillac steamed over, though there had been no warning that it was laboring under stress. I raised the hood, and found that all six wires on one side of the engine had been pulled from the plugs. I called my boss and he said it had likely been done by one of his enemies, and he thought he knew who might have done it. I simply plugged the wires back onto the plugs, waited until the thing cooled, added new water, and was on my way again. I was totally impressed that the car functioned so well that it could run on only six of its 12 cylinders. I resolved to some day own one of these fine cars-but I never did.

"Air Conditioning" In Dallas The darkroom where I worked, in the houseconverted-to-a-photography-school, was "cooled" by wet excelsior inside a double-layered chickenwire box mounted in a window. Inside the box was a fan blowing into the darkroom. This was an early "air conditioner," in wide use at the time. Ola the lO0-plus temperature days in Dallas, the humidity inside the darkroom was smothering, to say the least. I always used ice in the developing trays, which diluted the chemical, and even then the emulsion would sometimes reticulate and begin sliding off the film, creating some wonderfully extemporaneous art when these negatives were printed, but it didn't make the boss very happy. But that was a hazard of photography in Dallas at the time.

The Switch-Blade's Envelope"

Edge---"Pushing

the

Speaking of hazards, one of the businesses my boss was involved in was taking pictures in various Dallas nightclubs. A female photographer would go from table to table taking pictures of the customers, and would then bring the film holder

to me to develop quickly. I would slop the film through the chemicals, dunk it in a crock of water, slap it in the enlarger, and print two 5 by 7 inch prints. After running them through the same process, I would squeegee them on to a ferrotype tin mounted on a box in which photoelectric bulbs were mounted, causing the tin to become as hot as a stove. When I would squeegee the prints onto this hot surface they would sizzle, and in a few seconds begin popping offwith a glossy surface. I then put them in a couple of cardboard frames and the girl would deliver them to the customer about fifteen minutes after she had taken the picture. Sometimes the girl would wink at me as she left after work accompanied by one of the customers from the bar, but I was not involved in her transactions. My boss required that I collect the photography money from the manager of the bar and bring it to him in an envelope each day. When I asked the bar man for my boss's money from the pictures, he said he would deliver the money to him personally. I suspected that my boss would never see the money, so, hard headed as I was, I insisted he give the money to me. He told me to get lost. I made some comment about a tip-off, when suddenly he sprang over the bar and landed in front of me in a flash (I remember thinking, "Just like Superman in movies"). I heard a snap, and looked down and saw a switchblade knife in his hand. I took that as a hint I needed to moderate my position somewhat, which I did, humbly explaining to the man that I must have misunderstood my instructions. That incident helped me learn the limit to which I might push another using my mouth as a weapon--unlike the crippled old man with his jawbone blown away, I learned quickly. As I began backing across the room he whipped out an envelope and thrust it out at me, saying, "I don't want to see you in here again!" That seemed like a good suggestion to me. When I reported the incident to my boss he laughed and said, "Yeah, Tony has tried that shakedown on me before, but you don't want to cross him. I won't send you to that club again." That was entirely o.k. with me. From that I learned not to "push the

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envelope" too far. Determining what is "too far," is one of those lessons life might depend on at times. I graduated from photography school with honors, with skills that would serve me well later when I became a professional photographer, and later on, an archaeologist. At 18, I returned to Boone to begin nay sophomore year at Appalachian. Inspiration from a Mountain Man Before I returned to Appalachian, however, I was inspired by a mountaineer who had bought a pasture from daddy, paying far more money than anyone who saw him ever guessed he had, judging from his appearance. He had saved it through the years by selling milk from his cow to the local dairy and depriving himself of much. He lived with his wife and teenage son and daughter on the back of the mountain behind our home. When the children graduated from high school, he insisted they go to college. To allow them to do this, so they could walk to classes at Appalachian, he had purchased the land from daddy. He cut trees on the property and built a log cabin home for his family of four. I sometimes talked with him as he made his daily trips to Boone carrying a large milk can on his shoulder. That was how I learned of his determination to deprive himself to save enough to buy clothes for his two children so they could attend Appalachian. They both worked while they were in school and graduated--the boy becoming a teacher and the daughter a librarian. Talking with this mountaineer, and hearing of his ambition for his children and the values he held, in spite of great adversity, was an inspiration for me.

Figure 1.5. A hardworking, inspiringmountain man who put two children through college. (Photo: South, 4/1952)

Chapter 2 Appalachian Stories and After Cultural Anthropology and EvolutionA Theoretical Foundation After nay groundhog days in the Navy and in photography school, my formative years continued when I enrolled as a sophomore in 1946 at Appalachian State Teachers College (ASTC), now Appalachian University. There, David Hodgin, my inspiring English professor introduced me to evolutionary theory. It had never been mentioned at Appalachian High School, or during my freshman year at college. Hodgin was a Socrates to me. He opened the door to life through questioning received dogma. Here is a short gem he imparted to those of us who knew and learned from him (Hodgin 1952:11): Life, to modem man, is dynamic and self-creative, with ever-unknown potentialities-every new vista opening to others as yet unconcealed. Hence truth can never-in the very nature of thingsbe a formula to be accepted as absolute and sacred, for truth itself must evolve. He introduced us to other aspects of cultural evolution through Erich Fromm, Clyde Kluckhohn, Karl Marx, Lewis H. Morgan, E. B. Tylor, Charles Darwin and others. One of the others I latched onto like a hobo to a freight train was Frazer's The Golden Bough (1922), the classic study of comparative folklore, magic and religion, superstitions and taboos, in relation to Christianity. I devoured it because it coincided with questions I had been asking since before the age of 12 when I realized I was a stranger here. Others, expressing what I had come to believe earlier on were, Ingersoll's Greatest Lectures (1944), and later on, The Immense Journey by Loren Eiseley (1957). The books Hodgin had us

read, and our discussion of them in the weekly meetings I had with him, for several years, were valuable in shaping my life's trajectory. He introduced me to stories from Greek mythology through the Iliad and the Odyssey and discussed them as though he were there when they unfolded.

The Ghost of Scopes--Teaching Evolution Suppressed One day he was called to the President's office and told that he must not mention the word "evolution" in his classes. The president told him that most of the students Hodgin taught were from conservative backgrounds, and the administration had received complaints from parents about his teaching about the concept of evolution. Hodgin argued that he was primarily introducing students to cultural evolution and anthropology. He was told that anthropology was not taught at that institution for good reason, and that Hodgin was not to teach any kind of evolution. He was to teach English literature not anthropology. Teachers, he was told, did not need to know about evolution because it offends those who have another view of the creation of the universe. He could either stifle his teaching of evolution or go elsewhere to teach. Shades of the Scopes trial!

Teaching Evolution Underground Although upset at the stricture on his academic freedom, he said he needed to keep on teaching, and made an announcement explaining his encounter with the President, and suggested that those students who were interested in cultural or biological evolution, could meet with him once a week at his apartment, to discuss those taboo subjects he was not allowed to teach. At first, there were a dozen of so of us who gathered there, but after two or three meetings the group was 23

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reduced to my friend, Walter Boone, and myself. Later my brother-in-law, John Idol, joined our weekly sessions with Hodgin. Our meetings at his home went on for a decade, long after I graduated in 1949, and were a major influence in my formative years. Evolution in a Free and Open Inquiry Beyond Appalachian Later on, when I was a graduate student at the University of North Carolina, the importance of evolutionary theory in archaeology would hit me like an epiphany, resulting in my first professional paper on that topic (South 1955a). My general background for evolutionary theory, however, was laid in the formative years with David Hodgin at Appalachian. The topic of evolution as to "believers" and the "non-believers" is still with us a half-century later as beautifully illustrated recently in the "Doonesbury" cartoon, which I quote here (Trudeau, Garry 2003):

You know, it's hard to believe we have a president who doesn't believe in evolution. It means the leader of the free world has closed his mind to vast areas of human experience and knowledge! Rejecting evolution requires him to repudiate the core tenets of entire fields of study...such as biochemistry, genetics, ecology, paleontology, anatomy, physics, astronomy, geology, cosmology, history and archaeology! Whew...leaving what, gym and band? Pretty much explains all those C's doesn't it? Student or Colleague?--Formal Versus Informal Address A friend, Ellis Kerley, a physical anthropologist, began going with me to my Friday night weekly sessions with Hodgin, who I had always referred to in person as "Mr. Hodgin." In the discussions of symbolism and themes in poetry, politics, international relations, psychology, religion and current events (only part

of the repertoire of subjects covered in these sessions), I was surprised to hear Ellis call Hodgin by his given name, David, which seemed awfully forward to me. And, as I observed, I noticed that David appeared to respond to Ellis more as a colleague than it appeared he did to me. I remarked to Ellis that it was difficult for me to call Hodgin, David, because he had been my professor some years before. What Ellis said has served me well through the years. "As long as you call him by the title 'professor,' or 'Doctor,' he will always see you as the student using a respectful title, and that establishes the relationship between you. If you call him David, however, that places you on an equal footing, and he will respond to you as a colleague." I began doing that, and found I was a colleague--a student no longer. More about Ellis, and why he was in Boone--later "I Play Football!" I Hodgin on the Carpet David was called before the College President on another occasion, this time as a result of having failed a football player in my Sophomore English class. Whenever that sports figure was asked any question in class the answer always was, "I play football!" That was the only words any of us in class ever heard him utter. Hodgin gave him a lecture on a couple of occasions, but it did no good. It got so that when he was going down the roll, asking questions about the assigned lesson for the day, and marking grades according to the answer given, when he got to the sports jock, he would call his name, and then Hodgin and the jock would answer in unison, "I play football!" When the failing grade was filed for the sports hero, Hodgin was again summoned to the President's office where he was questioned about the failing grade. Hodgin explained that no assignments were ever received from the jock, and repeated the three words of the athlete's litany when asked a question. The President explained that the man was at ASTC on an athletic scholarship and that it would not look good if be didn't receive an average grade, at least. Hodgin

Appalachian Stories and After answered that the failing grade would stand, and told the President, "If you want a passing grade given you will have to give it yourself," and turned and walked out of the office, worried that he might be fired. Later on, Hodgin was curious as to what grade had become final on the transcript for the campus hero, and saw where his grade of F had been erased, and a C substituted. So, teaching evolution was not the only problem with which Hodgin had to deal. True scholars, who are also athletes, have had a stereotypical-stigma-cross to bear, resulting from such abuse of athletic scholarship programs by athletes and administrators who say, in one way or another, "I play football!" - - and get away with it. A Hermit Scholar in a Mountain Shack

I had first met Hodgin when he came to Boone when I was a child. He was from Buffalo, New York, where he had taught. He had become disenchanted with the fast pace of his lifestyle there, where his wife had a somewhat different worldview, as we learned from her occasional trips to Boone, when she stayed as a visitor in our home. Hodgin remodeled a slab shack, once used by a sawmill crew on the backside of Rich Mountain looming above the town, and lived like a hermit, and as nay parents told me, he was writing a book on Greek mythology and religion. [Years later, after I graduated from Appalachian, I typed the manuscript copy of his book for him, with the original title "The Harm That Good Men Do," but which became "Religion and the Modern Mind" (Hodgin 1952)]. It was never published because it challenged traditional received knowledge - - too controversial - - too straight to the point. My first memory of him was the bitter cold winter of 1935, when I was seven years old. He showed up on our back porch, and I watched as he knocked snow from the burlap bags he had wrapped around his boots to keep his feet warm, as he struggled off the mountain through the deep snow. I saw the tremendous footprints in the

25 snow--the type the later Sasqnatch was famous for making. I soon learned that he didn't abide fools, or children who asked foolish questions, when I asked him why he had wrapped his feet in burlap bags, something I had not seen before. His abrupt, angry-sounding reply, "What kind of stupid question is that?" told me I had to think twice before I asked him another question. Momma gave him a cup of coffee and fixed him breakfast, which he ate with great relish. He then left his burlap bags on the back porch and went to the library at Appalachian. That afternoon he came back by the house carrying two large heavy Santa Claus type bags on his back, one containing groceries, with the other one filled with books. He ate lunch with us, and rewrapped his boots with the burlap bags and trudged off again, leaving his giant footprints in the snow--as he later did in my life. The Environmentalist

The second time I met h i m was when I was 12. I was on the early leg of one of my Childe Harold pilgrimages traversing and camping on the tops of the Appalachian mountains from Howards Knob, across Rich Mountain, Tater Hill, The Bald, and Snake Mountain near the Virginia border. Daddy met me near the ruin of the log cabin where he lived as a child, near where the states of North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee meet--the "neck of the woods" in the holler where Daddy grew up. On the first leg of that trip, I neared the gap between Howard's Knob and Rich Mountain, above the town of Boone, I saw Hodgin on the 45 ° slope of an abandoned eroding field. I climbed up the steep slope to where he was working on planting pine seedlings at paced-off intervals in the broom-sedge-covered field. I had learned to think before I spoke to him (I thought), and asked what he was doing. "Can't you see I'm planting pine trees?" he asked. "Here I stand, with a pine seedling in my hand, a bucket of plants in that bucket, a bag full of pine seedlings lying there, and I ' m digging holes with my walking stick to

26 put the seedling i n - - a n d you ask what I'm doing?" I thought I was used to his abrupt Northern ways, but I always blushed when he spoke that way to me, making me feel so stupid. But, I persevered stubbornly, and asked why he was planting trees on a hillside some miles away from where I knew his shack to be, when the "woods were full" o f trees. Through a series of what he likely considered stupid questions, I learned that although this was not his land, and he didn't know who owned it; he was planting the trees because he saw that the steep field was abandoned, and beginning to erode, and needed trees to help hold down the soil. Because the mountain was primarily hardwood forest, he thought it would be a nice contrast to see, in the distant future, a pine forest against this piece of the mountain--a pleasant prospect as you came down the road through the gap facing this field. He thought it would improve the esthetic view of the mountain from that vantage point! Such a motivation was an entirely new concept for me, and as I tried to understand it, I continued to ask questions to determine if there was another motive for the work he was putting into the strange project--but I found no other than esthetics. I remarked that it seemed awfully strange that he would be planting more trees with the mountains covered with them "as far as the eye could see." At that, he snorted at my question and said, "Who else in the world is going to plant trees here on this eroding mountainside to replace the scar some farmer made during the depression to grow a few cabbage? Sometimes you do things simply because they need doing! If you aren't going to help me, then I've got to get back to work." With that I went on my way. But I thought about that lesson long after that moment on the mountain. Sixty years later I again traveled that same road, improved considerably now from the one-lane version I once traveled on, and my throat tightened as I saw a grand green pine forest where that field had been. Hodgin's dream of a pleasant contrast with the usual mountain foliage had long

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION ago been realized through a magnificent pine grove held against the breast of the mountainside in the gap between Howards Knob and Rich Mountain. Through his trips to replenish his supply of books at the library at Appalachian, he met the librarian--a beautiful woman named Allie. By that time he was divorced from his first wife, who didn't like the isolation of mountain life. When he became a professor at Appalachian, teaching English literature, he married Allie, and my mother kidded him that it was so he could be closer to his beloved books.

Figure 2.1. Mountain man, environmentaIist,poet, scholar,

professor, David Hodgin. My Appalachianmentor, with his wife, Allie. (Photo: South, 1950). The third time I met him was when I signed up for his English class at Appalachian and entered a new and wonderful world searching for knowledge. Forty years after I had seen him planting trees on the side of the mountain ! wrote my University of North Carolina graduate school classmate, Lewis Binford on December 15, 1975, sending him one of my woven pieces called "Four o'clock." In that letter I spoke of Hodgin and his

AppalachianStories and After

impact on my life. I present abstracts from that letter here

A Christmas Letter to Lew Binford-Remembering Hodgin--the Poet Scholar December 15, 1975 Dear Lewis, In a week or so we will be going up to Boone, in the mountains, for Christmas. That is always a melancholy trip for me since I feel such vibrations in returning to the cradle of those hills that it is frustrating to be there and then have to leave. Last Christmas we walked up the side of the mountain as I did when a boy and was pleased to see as little change taken place in the woods, especially since I had watched the new houses being built each year all over the mountain tops and against the sides of the hills by "flatlander touristers" whom we were always glad to see leave when summer was over. Now they are moving in and building houses everywhere. We saw a fox den with a midden of bones spilling down the outer face of the dirt pile it had dug beneath an overhanging rock. This was rewarding since I had assumed all foxes had long since been killed out. In walking up the side of the mountain, far removed from any sign of civilization, we suddenly found a roll of nine one-dollar bills lying among the fall leaves--a weird experience. We were saddened last year by the news that David Hodgin, an old friend from my sophomore days at Appalachian State Teachers College, had a heart attack. They thought it was the end for him, but he rallied and is back on his feet now, and just yesterday we received a poem from him as his contribution to the season. We named our son David for him since he was more like Socrates to me than any teacher I have ever known.. Christmas is depressing to me as a rule, and I usually

27 go into a mood of thinking heavy thoughts, but this year I feel better about it than usual. I guess it is all part of getting older. What bothers me is that the season of Christmas can be filled with gift giving, getting together with family and friends, but still be a very lonely time to make us aware just how alone we usually are. What I miss in the season is some sharing of ideas, something that is not usually done in the loud, boisterous, gettogethers of Christmas. If the reality of the present could be as romantic as my memory of the past, I think I would be found in a far better mood than I usually am in around this time of the year. I usually fantasize a scene where I am having a beer with friends and talking and drinking into the early morning hours, but on holidays ! never see such a mythical person. I think it all has to do with going home again, something we can't do. My body is there but my mind is in a dream world of a past long gone and a future clothed in romantic aura of things yet to be, neither of which are real, yet the dream is more vivid than the immediacy of the present. I suppose you might call this phenomenon the ' Charlie Brown Syndrome,' since Charlie and I seem to share much of the same pessimism about the season. I think Lara (7 years old now) really got at where it is at when she was writing her grandmother this week and wrote a poem to go with a little card she had made: Christmas, Christmas What are you? I love the one I'm writing to. She was asking the same question I ask each year through my poems, but she had the simple, positive answer. Hodgin and I are still asking the question and lacing it with pessimism. Here is his poem:

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AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

SLUM C H I L D - - CHRISTMAS 1975. David R. Hodgin It is no Christ, but I who carry the cross of the world. Conceived in desperation, deprived from the womb, born to hunger, with rats in my manger of straw and fear of the unknown beyond the door. My rights of Man; to hide, thieve, hate, run from authority, granted a show of Law after nights in jail but not to buy justice or a paying job or bread for me and my own young, while millions gorge and purge as their bellies bulge and seduce one another with the motley media, then prepare for wars to clean the stables or expunge their breed.. Dope to forget, or church on Sunday. HIS village was clean. One MAN, HE moved softly to a quick death and glory and praise; I fester and rot. And I am millions knowing no end to crucifixion... Perhaps we are not as pessimistic as realistic. I think that is why I am into a poem each year, to try to bring a note of realism to all the sham. You can tell from our poems that we have a lot in common regarding our worldview, and I suppose that is what drew me to Hodgin as a teacher and thinker. He was trying to lay on us concepts I had already arrived at independently, and so we got along because we shared a worldview. He pushed toward cultural anthropology throughout the time I knew him, though his field of teaching was English his worldview, however, is that of a philosopher and critic, a questioner of the world man has made.

I used to meet with him at his home with a small group of students once each week, then one by one they all dropped away except for me and I continued this pattern for years. We discussed the work of Tom Wolfe, the classics, Swift, the psychologists and anthropologists, and any other topic he might be into at the time. It was quite an education and an experience basic to my becoming, as I know from students of yours, their contact with you has been for them. With your white beard you resemble how I remember Hodgin. The first time I saw him I thought he was old, though he was probably no older than thirty at the time. The winter, of 1935 was a cold one. It was just before

AppalachianStories and After

Christmas. I was sitting in the wood box beside the hot Majestic range dreading the prospect of going out to the woodshed to bring in enough wood to fill the box. I suddenly heard my mother urging someone to come out of the cold and into the kitchen, away from the howling Appalachian mountain blizzard raging outside. Suddenly a large figure entered the kitchen, and his presence seemed to fill it. He had a white beard, and was so bundled up with layers of clothes he appeared much like the blown-up Santa Clause seemingly filled with air, like a large balloon. The most remarkable feature, however, was his feet. They were huge bundles of burlap covered with frozen ice and snow. He sat in a chair before the stove and placed the huge masses of burlap and ice on the open oven door to thaw out. As I watched I was surprised to notice that his beard was actually black, not white, but the frozen ice and snow- had made it white when he first entered. It was thawing now, and I watched the ice turn to drops of water on a black hairy face. There was something abrupt and impatient about this man, and so I remained quietly in the wood box, and neither he nor my mother took any notice of me. They talked of friends they knew, and she asked many questions about whether he was doing all right in the cabin he lived in on the backside of Rich Mountain. He had run out of food and had to walk out to get something to eat, otherwise he would not have come out in such weather. "Then too," he said, "I ran out of books." I thought about this puzzling statement as I watched him peel off layer after layer of burlap sacks wrapped around his feet, finally revealing a handsome pair of brown boots. I had never seen such a fine pair of tightly fitting boots, and thought of the fact that I

29 had heard that he had come from New York City to live on the mountain to think and write, and I knew that the boots must have come from New York. He took off his overalls, then another pair, then a pair or two of pants finally revealing a pair of what I knew as jodhpurs, a type of riding pants worn only by rich flatland "touristers" who came to Boone in the summer and rode horses for fun. I knew these too, must have come from New York City. He then went over near the door and brought over a large tow sack into the kitchen with him, but which I had not seen until this moment. It looked just like the kind of sack old Santa carried, I thought, and I wondered if he had brought so many presents with him. He opened the sack and peered inside. Then suddenly a look of anger came over him and he said, "Dammit to hell, the damn things got wet!!" This was a complete shock to me since my mother would not allow any word stronger than. heck in her house, so I halfway expected to see her grab the man and wash his mouth out with soap. Instead she just blushed and uttered a small cry of protest and spoke the man's name. "Mr. Hodgin!" He muttered an apology after looking up at her in an irritated, impatient manner, all the while pulling book after book from the sack. My mother handed him an old sugar sack to use to dry off the books, which he did among mutterings and more swearing beneath his breath, allowing me only to catch a fragment of a "damn" once in awhile. It was apparent that those books meant an awful lot to this man. He was concerned too, about the reaction the librarian at the college would have to the wet books. My mother fixed him a cup of coffee, and as they talked and he thawed, I tried to understand why this man had come from New York to live away from people on the

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AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION back side of Rich Mountain, five miles or more from the nearest neighbor. I imagined him surrounded by piles of books, reading and writing his book. My mother had asked the same question, and I could see that it irritated him to have to answer. "To get away from people and to find myself," he said. My mother answered in a high whining voice she used when she wanted to say more than she actually was saying, a voice implying criticism by its tone, "Well, my goodness, I would certainly think you could find yourself somewhere a little closer to civilization." His eyes flashed quickly at her and his eyebrows lowered, and I could see that her response had angered him. "You miss the whole point. You can't understand!" he shot back quickly, then "Have you a dry sack around here I could use to put these books in?" It was clear to me he wanted to change the subject and to get out of there. I could feel the friction between them, and thought again about his use of cuss words not allowed by my mother and thought that might be the reason. It was also apparent that this was an angry man. My mother left the kitchen to look for a sack, and I felt uneasy at being left alone with this strange, fascinating man. I hoped he had not seen me sitting in the box beside the stove, but he suddenly looked over at me for the first time and said gruffly with a note of criticism in his voice, "I suppose you are looking for Santa Claus!" I was caught by surprise at the unfriendly tone and question that was thrown, not merely asked. "I guess so," I said meekly. "You guess so!" he boomed. "You guess so! Either you are or you're not! Don't be wishy-washy about it boy! Don't 'guess' anything! Know!" My expression of surprise and concern probably got to him for he suddenly took on a more friendly tone and said, "Well,

you can't be expected to know anything yet. But you can know something--if you will, and it's right there!" he said, as he smacked the stack o f books he had placed on the table. "Read boy, read! For God's sake read! You must if you are going to escape from the damn mountains! There's your key to freedom!" he said as he again pounded the stack of books with his fist. My mother entered again with a tow sack and he immediately began loading it with the books. " I heard you two talking when I was on the back porch. I forgot Stanley was in here," she said as she noticed me in the wood box. "Yes," Mr. Hodgin said, "We were talking about Santa Claus." He left without another word to me, and when he returned that afternoon with a sack packed with books and a few groceries my mother forced on him some of her canned goods as well, commenting that he had more books than food. "Why, if you don't take more food than that you will starve to death. Why don't you leave some of them here so you can carry more food?" Again the fire flew from his eyes, and I knew my mother had said the wrong thing. "Leave my books, madam? There's more food in them than in all your canned goods!" Then suddenly, as he had done with me earlier, he backed down, took a suddenly more gentle tone, and with a half smile said, "If I run out of food I'll just eat the books." By now he had two sacks, one filled with books, and the other with food and groceries. He tied their tops together, stooped down with the tied knot across his chest, and staggered to his feet under the load with the sacks hanging down each side of his back. "You will never make it back to the cabin," my mother said. "I'll make it! I'll make it I ' m too stubborn and ornery not to make it."

AppalachianStories and After I watched as he disappeared again into the blizzard. He had once again donned his many layers of clothes, wrapped his feet again in the burlap, and. pulled his toboggan down over his ears against the cold. I only saw him occasionally in the years to follow. He came down off the mountain and married the librarian He began teaching English courses at the college in the valley where the librarian worked, though his classes were far broader ranging than any English course most of us ever see. The books he had carried to the backside of the mountain had served him well. All those who were fortunate enough to pass his way were enriched by those tow sacks filled with books. He indeed did devour them, and they provided nourishment for many generations of students who knew him and benefited from his enrichment of their lives. Those students were often subjected to his admonition that I first heard in the kitchen on that winter day in 1935 - - "For God's sake read! It's your key to freedom!" I'll be seeing him over the Christmas holiday, forty years after that first meeting. I know that, as always, he will be deeply into his books and anxious to share his discoveries with those o f us who come to spend a few moments with him. He will be expressing concern for the shape of the world, the mess it is in, and how we managed to screw it up so magnificently. He will ask about books I should read in order to find out where the latest thinking is on some particular subject, as he always did - - always encouraging reading, forever proffering the key to the door of freedom. Well, this is what is on my mind as this Christmas season arrives--vivid memories of Christmas past. Stan

31 Post WW II Legacy--the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army When I returned to Appalachian for my sophomore year and was taking Hodgin's class on English literature, many veterans had" returned from the war in recent months. Attendance at chapel each day in the auditorium of the administration building was mandatory, so announcements could be made, along with a short presentation of some kind--often a local minister. At one Chapel meeting an announcement was made that a representative of the American Red Cross would be speaking. As soon as that announcement was made, recently discharged servicemen began standing and walking out. Soon their friends joined them and there was a general exit of males, some probably as curious as ! was as to what had triggered such a dramatic reaction. Meanwhile, the faculty member who was to introduce the speaker was appealing to those walking out to sit down--to no avail--then called for the monitors to check the seats and report those not in their seats. I joined the exodus, not knowing why the walkout had occurred. I walked among those milling around in the lobby, and discovered that some of the veterans had served in Europe and some in the South Pacific. They told me the Red Cross was known to stay behind the lines in battlefield areas--where officers were located. They reported the Red Cross sold the packs of cigarettes, donated by American tobacco companies for service men overseas, at inflated prices--higher than cigarettes were selling for in the United States. On the other hand, I learned, there was the Salvation A r m y - - a b o u t which there was only praise--and free cigarettes. One of the veterans told me, "I was in a foxhole with Jap shells falling all around us, and bullets flying, when a guy with a pack on his back came falling into my hole, practically on top of me. He reached in the pack and pulled out a carton of Camels and handed it to me--'Courtesy of the Salvation Army!'" he said, then crawled out of the hole to pass out more cigarettes under fire--that, my friend, is serving the serviceman! I

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never saw the Red Cross on the front lines. That's why we walked out," he said. The Salvation Army guys were always there, day after d a y - with free cigarettes." I got a similar story from other veterans in explanation for the general walkout that spontaneously happened that day immediately after World War II. I suppose all that has been forgotten by now. Observing a One-Room African American School In order to graduate with a BS Degree in Education at Appalachian, observation of teaching, as well as student teaching was required. The choice of what school in Watauga County you observed was left up to the student. In my senior year my faculty advisor was surprised, to say the least, when I chose the Watauga School, the African American high school in Boone. I was the first Appalachian student ever to choose to observe at that one-room high school that served all of Watauga County. Grades eight through 12 were located in a single room on the first floor, with all elementary grades in a room on the second floor. The school was located in the middle of the African American "Colored Town," as it was known then, on a hillside just three blocks north of the main street in Boone. Another "Colored Town" was located further up the slope of Howard's Knob, where the folks there enjoyed a beautiful view of the mountains and the town at their feet. The school served this community as well. Total segregation was in effect then, and I learned more about teaching there than I learned from all my classes in education method and theory. Both teachers were female African Americans and their methods were outstandingly effective. I had never been in a one-room school, so the process of teaching high school students from five grades in the same room was a unique experience for me. There was no such thing as a discipline problem. The students quietly read or worked at their desks, while the teacher addressed the eighth grade students, discussed their lesson, had each one stand to answer questions from her, or recite

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

the memorization assignment. Then she would assign work to be done, to be reported on later in the day, when she again returned to the eighth grade lesson. Then she would call the attention of the ninth grade students, telling them to turn to their math lesson. Each student stood in turn to be questioned and be graded on the degree to which they were able to memorize the details of the assignment - then on to the tenth grade biology class. The 11 th grade chemistry class had been required to memorize formulas, and if an error was made the teacher gently reminded the student, went on to another formula, and then returned to the one missed earlier to see if her correction had been made in the student's mind. This was serious business-this learning process. And so it went throughout the day, with the students at their desks working on their projects having to listen to all the lessons from the other classes while concentrating on their own. What a challenge to focus that was for them! When it came to the only 12ta grade student, a girl, her assignment had been to memorize the entire table of chemical elements and the letter symbols for each one! I was totally impressed and was glad that I hadn't been given such difficult assignments when I was in high school or college. She needed correcting on only a few of the symbols. Then back to the eighth grade students to begin another cycle in the process. This 12th grade student later won a college scholarship to North Carolina State for her science skills in the state competition in Raleigh-I was not surprised. I reported to my education professor on my month of observation in that school. I made the point that, if all of my classmates could be required to observe that outstanding teacher at work, they would learn more there in one month than from all the education courses they would be exposed to during an entire quarter. I got an A on my report, but no comment on my suggestion. Years after I graduated from Appalachian and was living away from home, Momma wrote and told me that she had discovered that for want of a

Appalachian Stories and After teacher those two rooms of African American students were not being given musical training. She contacted the principal and volunteered to come and conduct a singing class for the students. When she was scheduled to hold her class, the elementary and high school grades were combined to take advantage of her instruction. One of the students had such a wonderful singing voice Momma contacted her parents and made arrangements for her to come across the hill to our home. There Momma gave her individual voice lessons. Her student won in a countywide music competition. That entitled her to compete in the statewide competition in Raleigh, where she won a blue ribbon. The African American community and the Music and Art Club of Boone combined to raise money to send the girl to Raleigh for the event. She later went on to major in music in college---something I suspect she would never have done without the inspiration provided by Momma. The school choir she directed sang at other schools and also won praise for their musical ability.

Gender Segregation by Doorway--A Watchdog President At the administration building at Appalachian, the left wing ground floor door had "BOYS" deeply engraved into the lintel over the door, with "GIRLS" over the entrance to the right wing. We students didn't pay much attention to which door we entered, thinking that was a leftover mechanism for keeping the sexes separated. However, one day as I was hurrying to class, I entered the entrance marked "GIRLS" and was going up the stairwell steps two at a time, when I saw Dr. B. B. Dougherty, founder of Appalachian and President of the College, at the head of the landing. He said, "Young man, are you a student here?" I answered that I was. "Can you read?" he said. I laughed, and said I could. "Then why did you ignore the sign over the door you came in, marked "GIRLS?" I told him I was in a hurry to get to class, and had never paid attention to the gender signs over the doors. "We put them there for a reason," be said. "We can't have girls and

33 boys climbing the steps together. That's why we separated them with those words over the door. In the future I hope you pay attention to those signs." But I didn't. On another occasion I was sitting on the Library landing with my girlfriend, Marilyn Johnson, and she said she needed a pencil in her next class, grabbed mine, and held it out beyond my reach. I reached over behind her neck to try to retrieve it. Later that morning I saw Dr. Dougherty at the landing at the head of the steps near his office. He saw me and said, "Young man, would you step into my office for a minute?" I went in and sat down opposite his desk. He lowered his chin and peered at me for a long time over his glasses, a typical pose of his. Finally, he said, "Young man, I suppose you are very popular with the ladies here on campus." I said that I didn't think so, and he said, "Well I saw you putting your ann around a young lady at the library." Then I understand that he had seen me reaching for the pencil. "We can't have young men touching young women on campus. That's why we do all we can to keep them separate. Do you understand?" I told him that I did, and explained that I was reaching for the pencil, and not being romantic with the girl. He said, "Ummm!" Then he said, "I hope you take this as a warning, and in the future, try to keep your hands off our young women students. I replied, "I'll do my best, but sometimes that's hard to do." "Well, I hope you understand that as President of this college, I have a responsibility to see that our rules are followed," he said. Again, one bright morning I was coming into the building whistling a merry tune, when again, I saw him standing at the head of the steps. "Young man," he said, "Would you step into my office?" Again, I sat before him while he peered at me over his glasses with that intense presidential stare. "Young man, you have been in here before, haven't you?" I said that I had. "Well," he said, "This time you are here because you were whistling when you approached the building." I admitted that I had been, because I

34 was happy, and it was a nice day. He said, "Do you know we have classes in this building as well as administration?" I replied that I knew that. "Do you think that professors, trying to teach, and students trying to learn, want to hear your whistling?" I said I suppose not. "I hope that in the future you will try to refrain from disturbing our classes." I said that I would. I hadn't realized that whistling was outlawed on campus--but obviously it was.

Gender Segregation at Meals The cafeteria on campus was also segregated by gender, with the women on the west side and the men on the east. The students called a strike against the administration in an effort to force gender integration so that males could eat with female students. The students refused to attend class, hoping that would get faculty support, because it was the faculty who were required to report gender-separation violations. The thought was that perhaps they would appeal to the administration to relax the no-mixing-by-gender rule during meals so they wouldn't be required to report infractions. I believe the board of trustees had to meet to make the change in the rules prompted by the student boycott. The strike lasted slightly over a week, as I remember, at which time the administration agreed that students would no longer be punished if males were seen consuming cafeteria food in the presence of females. After word was received, there was no rush to integrate, with the majority of females choosing not to be offended by having to watch the boorish behavior of males while eating, so they continued to eat on the west side. But gender integration gradually came about at Appalachian in the years I was there--I suppose it is rampant by now--enough to have shocked Dr. Dougherty. Antonakos--Lured by the Muse of Photography When I was in the fifth grade (age 9, 1937), I decided I wanted to learn photography. The only person I heard of who taught photography was

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION Professor Antonio Antonakos, the physics and math teacher at Appalachian. I went to him and asked if he would teach me how to take pictures and develop film. I had heard that he was a very difficult man to get along with, so I approached him with some fear and trepidation. The word was that he did not abide fools. He seemed bemused that I wanted to learn photography. He said the first thing I needed to do was: take some Bristol board, cut pieces from it, tape them together into two boxes, one sliding inside the other; punch a dent, not a hole, in a thin sheet of metal with a phonograph needle; sand around and around on the dent until a small round pinhole appeared. Then he showed me how to use a microscope to measure the diameter of the hole, and from that to compute the f-stop, which was fstop .405. From that, using tables he gave me, I determined how many seconds I would have to wait after pulling the slide over the pinhole, to make an exposure, given the film speed of the cut film I loaded into the camera. In that way I not only made the pinhole camera, but took some good pictures with it as well. I must have passed this test, because after that he was always friendly to m e - - I thought I had passed the test. He also taught me to develop roll film using chemicals in enamel trays in the dark, with his hands on mine to demonstrate the moves that had to be made under those conditions. From his instruction I was off and running. His personal interest at the time was three-color-separation negatives, for which the temperature had to be exactly controlled so that the emulsion on all three negatives would shrink at exactly the same rate. He used 11 by 14 inch film for this work, and dyed each of the three black and white negatives the basic colors, cyan, magenta, and violet. He then would use a potassium ferricyanide reducer to remove the silver iodide emulsion, leaving only the dye. Then he would expose each dye negative separately, onto special 11 by 14 experimental paper supplied to him by Eastman Kodak, making sure all three exposures were in exact register, and the result of all this exposing and developing was

Appalachian Stories and After

a color print, some of which were hanging around his laboratory w a l l - - a rare sight at the time. He was thus, a pioneer in experimenting with color photography before it was commercially available years later. He explained all this to me, but because it was cutting edge photographic science, he never allowed me to get involved in that process beyond observing him. I listened to his explanation of what he was doing, and the problems of control he faced in trying bring together so many variables. I learned by watching the exacting nature of his work that science can be an exciting and rewarding adventure.

"The Mad Greek"--Lured by Thespis Antonakos taught physics at Appalachian, and directed plays for the Playcrafters Club. When I was in high school in 1943, he sent word that he was looking for males to try out for a part in a play because there were so few male students interested in drama, most having gone into the service. I was the only one who answered, and g o t the part of "The Skull, in a play by that name." I wore a skull mask, and at the climax of the play, I was to suddenly appear on the stage and fire a shot from a pistol, and utter the line "You'll never tell!" after which I would fire the shot at one of the actors. For many rehearsal nights I had simply said, "Bang!" after I pointed my gun and said my line. On dress-rehearsal night I decided to actually fire the shot, as I would do when the play began. So, without telling anyone, I pulled the lead bullet from Daddy's 38 Smith and Wesson Police Special pistol, borrowed for the play, and put a wad of cotton in its place. Antonakos had had trouble night after night at having the recipient of the bullet to show appropriate response at being shot by falling on the floor and looking dead. This night, however, when I pointed the pistol on the darkened stage and pulled the trigger, there was a loud explosion, and a flame of fire shot out from the barrel, as the wad of cotton struck the chest of the victim. He jumped about a foot off the ground and fell dramatically onto the floor as if dead. Indeed, he later told me that when the cotton ball hit him in

35 the chest, he did think he had been shot, and almost died of a heart attack. Antonakos jumped up from the seat in the auditorium shouting "Beautiful! Beautiful! That was perfect! Do it just like that when the play opens!" He told me later that the surprise almost gave him a heart attack as well. In the next few years I continued to take roles in plays offered by the Playcrafters. Mrs. Linney, my voice teacher, worked with Antonakos in producing Gilbert and Sullivan musicals, in which I had leading roles. In 1947, I was the pirate king in "The Pirates of Penzance," and a bald-headed attorney in "Trial by Jury," so my desire to deliver ham on center stage was fulfilled through these efforts, and the applause was music to my ears. Antonakos' reputation as "The Mad Greek" came from his emotional outbursts when directing a play. He was a true artist, demonstrated by the fact that when a play called for a painting of a Rembrandt over the mantelpiece, he simply painted one that was a remarkable copy of the original. In another play a marble sculptured bust was called for, so he got a block of marble and chiseled a beautiful Greek bust. He had been born in Greece and had aspired to be a sculptor. However, his parents had died, and he was left to raise his siblings while completing his education, so he had to abandon his dream for the responsibilities of the moment. In the "The Pirates of Penzance," A. J., the main male lead, was a student who had difficulty striding in a masculine manner across the stage, sweeping the female lead in his arms, bending her over backward, and planting a kiss on her lips. He did this business so delicately that it infuriated Antonakos. He shouted from about a third of the way back in the auditorium, "God damn it! Walk like a man and grab her!" Finally, when the student went mincing across the stage again, trying to carry out the directions to be more forceful, Antonakos lost it, and was transformed into "The Mad Greek." He came storming down the aisle, bounded up the steps to the stage, shoved the actor out of the way, almost knocking him down, then with a

36

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

Figure 2.2. Ham actor, lawyer in

the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, "Trial by Jury" at Appalachian. (Photo: Antonakos, 1947).

forceful stride crossed the stage toward the waiting maiden, whose eyes were wide, revealing a touch of fear. He grabbed her violently, and racked her back against his arm, and flat-planted a kiss on her cheek, saying, "That's the way I want it done, but don't miss her lips!" We were frozen in place like statues on the stage. No one dared move or speak. When he returned to mid-auditorium he said, "Now do it!" Poor A. J., looked drained of blood, and we could see he was shaking with apprehension. He tried again to stride cross the stage in a forceful manner, but resulted only in repeating his previous efforts. Suddenly a great scream of anguish came from the auditorium, as though a banshee had been loosed amongst us--Aaaaahga! Antonakos was jumping up and down in the aisle, waving his arms about like a windmill, and tearing his hair. In a frenzy, he looked around as though searching for a weapon, and spied his feet. He reached down and snatched off one of his shoes and, winding up like a pitcher in a baseball game, flung it at A. J. with all his strength--then he snatched off his sock and flung that, but it didn't make it to the stage. A. J. saw it coming and was

able to dodge the shoe, but he stomped off the stage, followed by the leading lady. That ended rehearsal that night. The next day, the rumor was that both the leads had quit the play while demanding an apology from Antonakos. They reported the incident to the administration, but I don't know what that reaction was. In any event, the apology was apparently made, for "the play must go on," which it did. It was something of a hit, and A. J. must have practiced a lot, because his business improved immensely. After graduating, A. J. made a profession of performing in nightclubs in New York, I believe, and then ended up in the Bahamas, where he performed professionally for many years. I heard A. J. was such a popular entertainer the Duke and Duchess of Windsor dubbed him an honorary knight. From that time on he was known as "Sir Judson." Antonakos' wife became ill and they returned to Greece. He was one o f the most creative and inspirational artist/scientists I have ever known. He taught advanced calculus and physics. He was a workaholic, and often as I passed the science building late at night, I would see the light

Appalachian Stories and After

on in his laboratory-the only one in the building. He was known for requiring a great deal of his students, and seldom gave high grades. Word was Antonakos never gave an "A" because "No student I've ever met deserved an "A" on anything." A group o f students who usually made "A" on their papers in other courses went to the student council and to the administration in an attempt to force Antonakos to give an "A" grade. However, the administration backed him up for fear of interfering with his academic freedom. The students protested, "What about our academic freedom?" The students felt betrayed by the system. One night, after an Appalachian football game in which our team had been defeated, a group of disgruntled students upset over the lack of high grades, rioted beneath his window. They wrote, "Fire the Mad Greek" on the sidewalk and threw rocks and bottles at his third floor window. The campus police had to break up the demonstration. He may have been a mad Greek, but he was a wonderfully outstanding and inspirational genius of a mad man. I never took a course from him because I didn't think I was smart enough to pass his course, not to mention making an "A." Because of the shortage of men during the war, and my fifth grade interest in photography, he accepted my acting and singing efforts in his plays.

37 for me. I was a stranger there. After that I walked away from music Before I walked out the door, however, I later sang the role of Antonio with the Greensboro Opera Association's performance of "The Gondoliers" (Greensboro Opera Association Program 1950 7, 18) another Gilbert and Sullivan operetta in addition to the starring roles I had had in "The Pirates of Penzance," and "Trial by Jury," sung while I was at Appalachian.

Photography School Pays Off In my junior year, I put in a proposal to take all the photographs for the yearbook, called The 1948 Rhododendron. To my surprise, I got the contract, the first ever awarded to a nonprofessional photographic studio. It was my first professional photography contract. I had underbid the professional companies in Charlotte on the project. That year I was elected "Most Valuable" among campus superlatives (Lantz, ed. 1948:118, 125). In 1949, my senior year, I again was awarded the contract to take the photographs for the annual

I Had a Song to Sing--Opera Was My Dream Just before my senior year I dropped my major in voice, but I performed my senior recital anyway, on April 29, 1949. I sang arias from Handel's "Messiah," "Di Provenza il Mar" from "La Traviata," by Verdi, "Largo al Factotum," from the "Barber of Seville," by Rossini and my favorite, "Glory Road," by Wolf, as well as songs by Schubert, Schumann and others. I was pleased to see a packed house for the performance, with people standing around the walls of the auditorium to hear me sing. I ate it up like the ham I was! But my swan song had been sung because the mathematics of music was too much Figure 2.3. The Appalachian Rhododendron 1948 yearbook

photographer at work. (Photo: Austin South, 1948)

38

Rhododendron of 1949. That year I was elected "Most Versatile" among the campus superlatives (Graham, ed. 1949:116). At Appalachian I took courses in art, weaving, band, voice and theatre. But I believe it was my photography and singing that provided the exposure to receive that superlative designation. If you are an actor, there's no limit into what office you may be elected.

The Rat's Den--Moving into the System Through my association with Antonakos in plays, I learned that one of the classrooms on the ground floor of the Administration Building, filled with old stage sets, had unused space. I asked him if I could move some of the sets aside to make space to photograph students for the Appalachian yearbook, and he said I could. When that was done, with the help of Walter Boone and J. R. Brendell, two o f my friends, we took over most of the space for a study room as well. I put a hasp and padlock on the door and gave Antonakos a key. J. R., the artist, made a drawing of a rat and we posted it with an official looking sign saying, "Rat's Den." We had taken over personal possession of a large space in the Administration Building! One day, J. R. came to me in a great hurry and said, "Gimmie the keys to your car! I can't explain! I'll be back soon," so I tossed him the keys to my 1929 Chevrolet sedan. He retumed an hour later and returned the keys and I asked him what the great panic had been. He said he had found a large ring of keys a professor had left in his door lock while teaching a class. J. R. had rushed to the Watauga Hardware store and had duplicates made. I said, "J. R., isn't that illegal?" He said, "Duh!" and left to replace the keys in the door. I didn't want to know what he was going to do with the set he had. Toward the end of the quarter, at exam time, I was in the Rat's Den around 11 p.m. with Walt Boone studying, when J. R. came in laughing hysterically. We asked him what was so funny. He said he needed a copy of the exam he was to take the next day in the course taught by the

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION professor from whom he had duplicated the keys. He was having difficulty telling the story, because he was laughing so hard tears were coming into his eyes. He decided to use the office door key to get into the office to get an advance copy of the examination so he could be assured of a good grade. He unlocked the door and just as it opened he saw someone in the room, in a panic, suddenly scramble out the window and onto the hedge below. He thought it was the professor who had been lying in wait for just such a happening, but then he realized that the professor wouldn't have dived out the window. He ran to the window and heard cussing as the student who had fallen into the bushes untangled himself and ran across the grass. Some student had had the same idea that J. R. had! J. R. saw that a file cabinet was open, and when he looked with his flashlight, he saw a folder containing a packet of exams to be given the next day, and rescued one. The next day when the professor was passing out the exams for his last class--the one J. R. was in, he didn't have enough. He knew then what must have happened, and said, "Could some of you use your copy of the exam, I seem to have run out." Later J. R. told me that the guy who had jumped out the window had taken a hand-full of exams and did a brisk business selling them in the dorm until they ran out, leaving him with his illgotten gains. Once the professor became aware of what had happened, he announced to his classes that the final exam was invalid. He gave a tough pop-quiz instead of a printed one, saying that on the next exam he would simply announce that his door was unlocked in case anyone wanted to try that trick again, but he was taking the examinations home with him.

College Wrestling--Not Theatre I never participated in sports beyond parallel bars in high school. I became peripherally aware of college wresting, however, when Ben, the cousin Virginia had fallen in love with, shared my room when he lived with us. He would tell me

Appalachian Stories and After about the training, the dieting before a match, and of the great adrenaline rush that came after pinning an opponent to the mat. He sometimes dreamed he was wrestling and I would have to wake him up to remind him he wasn't in a match. The Appalachian wrestling team was famous for its record of success in defeating the teams it faced. I knew of the strict regimen Coach Watkins imposed on his wrestlers. He had a difficult time scheduling meets since no other team coach wanted to face his wrestlers, because it seemed they were invariably defeated. His strategies involved specifically detailed instruction, I learned, when I watched the practice sessions, because I was interested, not because I was a wrestler. Watkins was down on the mat on his knees watching the position of two of his wrestlers locked in combat. Then he said, "Stop!" at which time neither moved while he examined closely who had hold of w h a t - - w h e r e - - a n d how. He then reached under the opponents and touch a hand and said, "When you have your opponent in this hold, move this hand from where you have it, and place it back here," and he moved the hand to the new position. Then he said, "When you move your hand to that position the opponent will assume it's a false move on your part, and will make a move to your left. The minute he does that he will be off-balance and you can then flip him over using leverage from the new position of your hand." Then he said, "Now try it." In that manner he would stop, instruct in great detail the holds each man had, and explain how they could work to advantage or how to defend against it. There is no comparison between college wrestling and professional wrestling, which is simply a theatrical performance. Real wrestling is college wrestling--an elite sport depending on mental concentration as well as muscle. One of the strategies Watkins used took place long before the meet. For several days before the official weigh-in, when the weight of a wrestler was used to match opponents within a weight-range, Watkins wrestlers starved themselves by strict diets to force their weight down.

39 For instance, if a lightweight range was from 100 pounds to 120 pounds, he would have his middleweight wrestlers, usually weighing five or more pounds above the 120 limit, on a strict diet before the weigh-in. That way they would weigh-in at less than 120 and be qualified as a lightweight. The weights were usually recorded the day before a meet. After the weigh-in there was always a rush to eat a steak, potatoes, bananas, and other good stuff to recover strength for the bout the next day. This strategy ended up pitting his middleweights against the opponent's lightweights, giving the Appalachian men an upfront advantage. A point system was used, and Coach Watkins went to great lengths to emphasize how to use that to your advantage when you were outclassed by an opponent.. Judges of matches sat at a table near the mat and awarded points as they saw them. A bout might appear to the observer as a tie, but to the skilled eye of the experienced judges, the point system determined the winner. For example, if your opponent had your back down on the mat, almost putting both your shoulders flat down to win the match, and you broke his hold and jumped to your feet, you received points for that move. If, when you were standing at the beginning of the match, and you suddenly dropped, grabbed a leg, and threw your opponent to the mat, you gained points for that.

Wimpy versus Atlas--Courage The most dramatic and inspirational example of mind over muscle occurred when I watched our overweight, oval-shaped, flabby-looking, heavyweight, Bolo Pardue, matched against an opponent who looked like Charles Atlas (with lots of highly developed muscles), in a match to determine the state championship. The contrast between those opponents was almost comical. Our team and the opposing team were tied on points, with this heavyweight match determining the championship. The "Atlas" wrestler stood up before the match flexing his muscles like Bluto in Popeye cartoons, prancing around, bouncing up and down, and looking confidently menacing

40 toward Bolo, who on the other hand, looked soft and unsure of himself, like Wimpy in Popeye cartoons, appearing to be defeated before the match began. In the first part of the match "Atlas" almost pinned Bolo on several occasions, but Bolo was able to jump up and add to his point score, frustrating the attempt. In the last round of the match, the coin was flipped, and "Atlas" won the advantaged position above Bolo on their knees as the bout began. I should say here, if the wrestlers ever crossed the foul line at the edge of the mat they had to break and move again to the center of the mat. The one having the advantage at the time the foul line was crossed then had the superior position as the bout began again. As the referee slapped the mat to begin the bout, Bolo would begin crawling toward the foul line because he simply did not have the muscle strength to withstand a long period of struggle against "Atlas." This forced "Atlas" to not only try to turn Bolo over, but to try to prevent him from reaching the foul line at the edge of the mat until he could get him turned over. Occasionally Bolo was able to catch his opponent off guard as he struggled with Bolo's blubber attempting to roll him over. Then Bolo would suddenly use all his strength to stand to his feet to gain a point. And so it went, with the entire end of the bout devoted to Bolo courageously crawling toward the foul line Of course, in the stands we were cheering Bolo on, totally impressed with the valiant struggle he was making against a superior foe. Finally it became a matter of clock-watching, with "Atlas" putting on his best effort against the blob of Bolo face down on the canvas. Finally, the buzzer sounded and the match was over. Bolo lay still on his belly on the mat with his eyes closed suddenly able to relax after his ordeal. Meanwhile "Atlas" stood up, raised his arms up with his hands together in a gesture of winning, bounced up and down on his toes, giving the back of his neck a toweling-off by pulling it back and forth-and smiled a victory smile. He waved to his admirers in the audience.

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION Back on the mat, Bolo was still lying on his face. Attendants rolled him over, and put smelling salts beneath his nose to help him regain consciousness. When it was realized that he was out cold, the crowd sat, quietly watching and waiting to see when Bolo was going to come to. Then an announcement came over the loudspeaker asking if there was a doctor in the house. A doctor walked out from the bleachers to the mat and knelt down beside Bolo--out cold on his back. Then, the judges handed their scores for the opponents to the referee. He went to the ring and stood by the inert form of Bolo. "Atlas, stood beside him, still waving to the crowd. In a loud voice, the official announced the scores, but not the names. Then he said, "And the winner is...!" and he bent over, reached down, picked up Bolo's hand from the mat, and held up his arm in the traditional winner's signal. Bolo had won the match on his skillful use of his mind, courage and tenacity over superior muscular opposition! The entire gym exploded in a tremendous standing ovation for the most exciting bout any of us were ever to witness. Then, just as suddenly, as they began to roll Bolo onto a portable stretcher, the crowd again became silent. Four men carried him from the mat toward a wheeled stretcher being rolled in by ambulance attendants. Then, as they placed the stretcher onto the gumey, Bolo moved. As we watched, he sat up on one elbow on the gumey, waved to the crowd, and received another ovation. Tears were streaming down the faces of many in the crowd that night. The next day and in the days to follow, Bolo was the hero of the campus and Appalachian had won the state college wrestling championshil>--thanks to Bolo's heroic effort against great odds. Watkins and his team had done it again. College wrestling is one-onone character building for those who participate--as well as for those who only watch such display of courage.

Appalachian Stories and After

Jewell--Struck by Cupid's Arrow During my senior year I passed a group of three freshmen girls as I approached steps leading to the bookstore. One was so striking that half way up I was struck dumb, stopped, turned around, and watched as they moved away from me. As I stood there watching, the beauty looked back at me, and smiled--she had noticed me! That made my day, and as it turned out, that moment played a major role in my life. When I saw her again, I turned to the nearest person I saw, and asked if they knew the beauty's name. "Jewell something," was the reply. Because I was taking the photographs for the Appalachian yearbook, I had a list of all the students registered that fall quarter. I began looking down the list of 2,000 or so students until I found a "Jewel"-Jewel Key, It was my responsibililty to post throughout campus the appointment schedule for each of the students to have their picture taken by me for the yearbook. The students whose names began with A and B were scheduled for the first day. However, because I was anxious to meet the beauty I had seen, i scheduled Jewel Key at the end of the Bs for the first day of shooting. This last appointment of the day would allow me plenty of time to meet her and ask her for a date. But--the best laid plans . . . . I was photographing student after student, with a line waiting in the hall to have their picture taken. Suddenly, in the busiest part of the afternoon, the beauty walked in. I was surprised, and said to her, "You are early, aren't you?" She replied that she was right on schedule, at 3 p.m. I asked her to take a seat on the posing stool, and went to the desk to see who had been scheduled for 3 p.m. There I found that her name was Jewell Barnhardt, scheduled for 3 p.m. There were two freshmen named Jewell! I had missed this Jewell when I looked over the list. In spite of the long line waiting, I took my time, and took several poses of this woman. My assistant noticed that I took more than the usual two shots, and said, "You went a little overboard on that one didn't you?" And I replied that I had been flat-bowled

41 over. Needless to say, the timing wasn't right for me to try to get more acquainted with her. By the end of the day I had forgotten all about Jewel Key. The line was gone, and the last person in line came into the camera room and said, "I don't understand why I was scheduled with the "B" names, my name is Key - Jewel Key. I had never seen her before. I burst out laughing, and she looked concerned and asked, "What did I say?" I had to explain to her why I kept smiling and giggling at my mistake, and she joined in my laughter. In the months to follow, when I would pass her on campus, we would speak and smile at the secret we shared. I called Jewell Barnhardt at her dorm that night and asked her for a date, and as they say, the rest is history. We were married the next summer, and had three children, David, Robert, and Lara. She joined in my archaeological interest and became a valuable professional assistant, as well as a beloved companion in life.

"I Never Killed A Man Didn't Need Killing!"-A Lesson in History and FolMore When I was a junior at Appalachian in 1948, I had become interested in writing the story I had heard from Daddy about my Potter kinfolks who had quite a reputation for violence in Northwestern North Carolina, particularly his cousins Clarence and Daniel Boone ("Boonie"). When I lost my temper as a child Daddy would say, "Now don't let your Potter blood rise!" What he was referring to was the fact that around the turn of the century Clarence and Boonie were charged with murder (with Clarence sentenced to hang in 1903). They were related to the South family because my great-grandfather Stephen South married "Polly" Potter (South 1996a: 4). As a result of my interest Daddy and my sister, Marjorie and I visited "Booger" Enoch Potter, the oldest of the Potters living at that time, and got him to tell about what he knew about Boonie and Clarence Potter around the turn of the century, In the 1890s until the early twentieth century, some members of the Potter family were known as moonshiners, outlaws and bushwackers,

42

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

probably in part because they favored the side of the North during the Civil War (South 1996a: 2733). I had thoughts of writing a novel based on the Potter story, but what I learned from "Booger" Enoch was not enough to help much in that direction (South 1996a: 27-33). I would wait until a decade passed before I would again pick up my interest in the Potter story and decades more before I would publish the story--not a novel (South 1996a). I was a stranger to the world of the novelist. A fact I discovered after three attempts, "Decision for Love," "Cuz," and "Groundhog B o y " - - a l l miserable efforts. Two o f those efforts attempted to address the Potter story. Because of their reputation, many people feared the Potters (including the Sheriff), and they steered clear o f the Tamarack community where the Potters lived. In 1891 a newspaper reported that, "The sheriff has had out a posse o f 200 men after the Potter crowd, but at last accounts had not succeeded in getting them" (South 1996a: 24). That same article, referring to a shoot-out between the Potters and a man named Jerrals, an incident known to people in Boone as "The Jerrals War," said (South 1996a:24):

War" (South 1996a: 45-50). He had been shot in the spine as he tried leaping a fence during an escape when he and Clarence had been arrested for shooting up the town of Boone (South 1996a: 49). "That slowed him down some," as Clarence once said about one o f the men he killed. My last two years at Appalachian were so filled with activity that I didn't follow up on the Potter story. Then, one day in 1958, Daddy told me that Clarence was still alive but had recently been sick, and was living in Tennessee. Jewell and I visited Clarence at his home where he lived alone, to interview him about his past. He had difficulty getting around and while Jewell and I sat on the porch with him, I asked Clarence how he managed to catch a chicken for his dinner. He reached into the bib of his overalls and pulled out a small pearl-handled pistol, and said, "I just say, 'Here diddle, diddle, diddle!, chickee, chickee, chickee!' and they come and I just blow the head

To begin with, it seems that this Potter crowd is a lot of desperate fellows, numbering 12 or 15. They are said to be related and in communication with the Kentucky Potters, famous in connection with the Potter-Hatfield feud. These fellows have for a long time been trafficking in liquor, occasionally coming over into the mountains of Wilkes [County] for supplies, in defiance of revenue or state laws. I also met and interviewed Sam Trivette, a millwright, who built a boat for me, called "Sally Jewetl," to use on Tater Hill Lake---on the bank of which our family weekend cabin was located. Sam had been the gunsmith for Boonie and Clarence Potter, keeping their guns in good operating condition a decade after the "Jerrals

Figure 2.4. Clarence Potter on his porch with his dog.

(Photo: South 1958) off of one of 'era. I crawl out there after it quits flopping around, and dress it, and pop it in the oven, or sometimes I fry it." That incident scared Jewell so badly she refused to return later for

Appalachian Stories and After

another visit. But, the years passed and still no muse had paid me a visit to allow me to work all the information into a novel. Finally, to my surprise, my sister, Elizabeth Storie (1990), published her Potter story mentioned above, and I decided that the muse of fiction had passed me by, so I put together the notes I had and in 1996, I published a book with a title given me by Clarence, as he talked about the eight men he had killed (South 1996a: 60): "Why is it, I wonder, that back in the days when those people ran around wearing them arn [iron] suits--what were they called?" "Knights?" I offered, "Yeah! Knights! Why was it they could go around protecting some woman's honor and they got rewarded for it, but if you do it now a-days they put you in the pen" There ain't no justice! I'll tell you one thing, though, I never killed a man didn't need killing!" Using documents and interviews with the primary characters in this tale, and photographs I took when I visited Clarence Potter, I used Clarence's words to compile a book called I Never Killed a Man Didn "t Need Killing! The dream I had at Appalachian in 1948 was finally realized--not as a fictional novel, but as a story told from documents and interviews (South 1996).

Graduation-"Five Ds and an E in Algebra Equals a Passing Grade in Biology" When graduation from Appalachian was almost near each Senior had to check with the Registrar to make sure all requirements had been met to graduate. When Mr. Eggers looked at my record he said, "You can't graduate! You've never taken biology and that's a basic requirement before you graduate." I admitted I hadn't because it required a full afternoon of laboratory work in addition to the classroom schedule. I had been busy, busy, b u s y - - t o o busy to "waste" that much time from my other involvements. I always

43 thought I would sign up for it next year. He said, "Well, let's see what I can do about that," as he looked at my grade record. Then he noticed that I had taken two years of algebra and had made Ds the first five quarters and an E on the last quarter. He said, "You didn't catch onto math very well did you?" I said that was an understatement. Then he made my d a y - and my BS degree. He said, "Five Ds and an E in algebra equals a passing grade in biology, don't you think?" With great relief I laughed and agreed wholeheartedly, as he checked the box indicating I had had biology. What a nice man! I thanked him for that and he said he could justify that checkmark, because I was graduating in elementary education, a field dominated by females, and male teachers were highly sought after at the time.

After Appalachian Flat-Earthers--On the Carpet for Teaching the Earth Is Round I taught science and social studies to eighth graders at Proximity Junior High School in Greensboro in 1949-51. I decided then that teaching high school students who didn't want to learn was the hardest work ever devised. My "teaching" involved giving classroom assignments that would keep them busy, while I read Will Durant's book series on philosophy and the humanities, The Story o f Civilization. Later, when I quit teaching, I continued reading until I had read 10 of the 11 volumes to see how it all came out. Good background for later years. One day my principal called me to the office and reported that the Superintendent of Greensboro schools had called and asked that he set up a meeting to answer a serious complaint against my teaching. The superintendent didn't know what the complaint was, but said I should be prepared to defend myself at a meeting with the parents of one of my students. I couldn't imagine what I had said that would call for such a high-level hearing. We met in the principal's office, where I was introduced to the parents and the superintendent.

44 He reported that the parents were very disturbed about something I had been teaching, and had asked for this hearing so that the superintendent could hear the charges, and take any needed action that might result. He then turned the meeting over to the spokesman for the parents. The father of the student said I had been teaching things that went against the Bible and they wanted something done about it. He had brought his Bible along with a passage marked. He said that the Bible said that an angel stood at each comer of the earth holding it up. He said that that was clear evidence that the earth was flat, and I had been teaching that the earth was round, which was clearly against the Bible. "If the earth is round, as Mr. South claims, how can an angel hold up each corner? " he asked. "We want that kind of teaching stopped!" he told the superintendent. I looked at my principal and raised my eyebrows in question, and glanced at the superintendent, and stifled a smile, as I noticed his face begin to turn a darker shade of pink as he wiped the surprise from his face. He then did a masterful piece of explaining--I had not meant to go against religious beliefs. I was only teaching what a number of science books were saying, and shouldn't be blamed for that. He tried manfully to pour oil on the troubled waters on our flat earth, as the parent kept returning to the theme that my teaching was in violation of what the Bible said, and what their church taught. I took great pleasure in watching this exchange. It was all I could do to keep a straight face, as the discussion continued between the superintendent and the parent. Then the mother spoke up for the first time, saying that I also was teaching evolution, and their church was strongly against that teaching, which went against the Bible. She said, "If Adam and Eve were created by God in the Garden of Eden, as the Bible says, then evolution didn't happen." She said I should be instructed not to teach evolution. Again, I watched as the superintendent tiptoed through that Scopes' field of tulips, pointing out that the Textbook

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION Commission chose the science textbooks, and evolution was a theory discussed in those texts. He suggested the parents might want to take that up with t h e m - - a neat cop-out. I was elated that he had to defend my teaching over such issues, and not some problem with my methods. He had brought the situation on himself because he had not inquired more fully into what the charges against me were before he set up the hearing. After the parents had gone the principal quickly apologized to me as the superintendent escorted the parents to their car and then quickly disappeared in his own.

"Teaching" School--Baby Sitting As I mentioned above, teaching those determined not to learn is a thankless and difficult undertaking for which no education course prepared me. Sometimes the noise level was so high from the math class across the hall that I pitied the poor teacher who was trying to deal with the chaos. Through force of voice and bearing I was able to nip in the bud those who caused disturbance. I determined that behavior would not be allowed in my classroom. I soon discovered that I had no success in connecting children to ideas--children who didn't want to learn. If that was an indicator of success, I was not a very good teacher. When I was the same age as my students I had been driven to absorb all the received knowledge available to me to share with others. But to have a room full of learning-resisters was anathema to me. Consequently, I never got to know the students, nor their families. I assigned reading from the textbook during class (I had discovered that almost none ever read at home), and gave exams and discussed the reading the following day. That allowed me to maintain quiet so I could read Will Durant's volumes on the history of civilization. In terms of interacting with students I was simply a baby sitter keeping a room full of hormone-driven kids quiet. I was anxious to escape this hell. So after two years of that I walked away from teaching.

AppalachianStories and After It wasn't until 30 years later, when I would teach graduate students interested in learning about archaeology, that I found the real j o y of teaching that comes from exchanging ideas with young students eager to learn.

Imposing Discipline In the Greensboro school system in 1950, teachers were backed by a strong system of control over discipline problems. If a student disrupted the class three times the principal was notified, and if the student had caused trouble in another class, corporal punishment was administered. One of my students was determined to upset the class with c/owning for the audience, shouting across the room, standing up on his chair and gesturing obscenely, etc. The principal closed the door to his office, and told the boy to drop his pants and lay his chest across a chair. He then took a razor strap from his desk and administered three solid whacks to the boy's behind that was protected only by his underwear. The blows made my hair stand on end. The boy was tough, however, and although tears flowed from his eyes he did not cry. That was a lesson to me as well as to him. I never took another one to the office. When that treatment was not enough of a cure, the principal simply called the police and they came and arrested the boy and put him in jail, where his parents had to bail him out. This stepped-punishment process was effective in allowing the principal to maintain control and provided strong discipline support for the teaching staff. I believe such teacher-support from school administrators is virtually unheard of a half century later.

Learning from Students One of my students, who often disrupted class through his comedic antics, always had a smile on his face as though we had just shared a joke. This was in spite of the fact he often had to stay in detention with me after school for his disruptive laugh-provoking comments during class. He did none of the assignments and seemed to like me in

45 spite of my efforts to quiet his disruptive behavior. I checked the records and found his I.Q. was less than 50 and he could not read the eighth grade textbook. I told him to go to the library and bring back a book he could read. When he returned he brought a story about Dick and Jane and Spot. I asked him if he would like to read that kind of book when others were reading the textbook. He flashed me a wide grin and we had an agreement. He was to copy the title and author of the books he read onto a list. Periodically I would quiz him on the titles with the book in my hand. To my amazement I discovered he virtually had total recall, describing in detail each story. When he occasionally paused he would ask me to show him the picture on that page and that would then prompt his reciting of the story. I was impressed, and by the end of the year he had read and reported to me on 54 books at the third and forth grade level, but his attitude had totally changed and he was like a scholar in class each day, concentrating on reading his stack of books. The discipline problem was solved--with an important lesson to me regarding work assignments in conformity with the learning level of the student--it changes attitude. He had never passed a grade since the third, but for "socialization reasons" he had moved on through the system, but that year, because of his willingness to work hard at the level of his capability, he passed my class. Later, at a PTA meeting his parents sought me out and enthusiastically shook my hand and thanked me, saying they were so proud of their son for the grade I had given--all others being Fs. Another student absolutely refused to read the textbook or take any of the examinations I gave, so I was recording only Fs for him. I checked his records and found he had an I. Q. of 140, and was making all "A"s in his other classes. I tried the same strategy on this boy, telling him if he didn't like the textbook he was free to read other sources dealing with the same subject--to construct his own schedule of study in relation to my course, and to be excused from class to go to

46 the library to obtain the science books he might want, at the level of his capability in lieu of the textbook (the one I was required to use was published 22 years before, in 1928, the year I was born!) Still he defiantly refused to produce anything on which I could assign a grade. I spoke to the principal about the problem and he said if the boy wouldn't complete assigned work then he would have to live with the grade he would receive as a consequence. Clearly his attitude problem was not one I could solve. He received an F for my class--a genius hoist on his own petard of stubborness.

Blowing a "Horn in the West"--Lured By the Footlights After two years of teaching I resigned, and in the summer of 1952, I was working as a photographer, negative-retouch artist, and darkroom man in Palmer's Photo Shop in Boone. I saw an announcement for try-outs for the opening season of Kermit Hunter's outdoor drama of the southern Appalachian highlands, "Horn in the West." With my acting experience at Appalachian as background, I thought I had a chance to get a part. As it turned out, I got three parts in the drama: I played the part of the Cherokee Chief Atakulla (stage name for the historic Attacullaculla, known as "The Little Carpenter"). After playing Atakulla, I would change into a colonist, then after another change, I became a British soldier fighting at the Battle of Alamance, a pre-Revolutionary War event. A portent? - - for later, as an archaeologist, I would excavate Native American sites, colonial household sites, and British military sites--I had played the role o f each. As Chief Atakulla the dialogue called for me to speak in Cherokee. Kermit Hunter had obtained authentic Cherokee translation of the words he had Atakulla speaking. I memorized these and at the first rehearsal the dialog I spoke was so long that as I was going on and on in Cherokee, which no one, including myself, understood, the director shouted out, "Enough! Enough! We'll rewrite t h a t ! " - - I shut up."

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION In the future rehearsals the same thing happened--each shortening of the Cherokee made the scene more comical. Finally, when a question was addressed to Atakulla, I would say only a dozen or so Cherokee words, followed by the translation into English by a character acting the part of a British trader. The few words I spoke would be translated as a long diatribe--at which some in the audience always laughed at the amount of Cherokee I spoke compared to the long translation into English by the trader. It was not supposed to be a funny scene. This suited me fine because it meant that what had started out as a whole page of Cherokee for me to memorize, ended up with only a few words. That was a lesson in the serious compromises demanded when reality is transposed into art and storytelling. I was in "Horn in the West" for three seasons, during which I sometimes carried black and blue bruises throughout the two-month season. This resulted from the scene in which I played a British soldier at the Battle of Alamance. The first bit was that a group of us soldiers rushed on stage firing rifles at a group of colonists on the opposite side. My business was to run up the side of a four-foot high fiberglass rock, hunker down, and fire my rifle. One night as I ran up the side of the rock during a performance, I tripped and fell, doing a complete flip in the air, landing on my back, half stunned. After that scene the director came into the dressing room as I was removing my makeup, and said that Kernlit Hunter happened to be in the audience that night, and when I did the fall he was excited at the realism it brought to the attack, and had asked that I repeat that fall every night of the performance. I reluctantly agreed to do it. The only sport in high school, in which I had participated, was gymnastics, so I knew how to flip my six-foot body around in the air upon occasion. However, as I did my flip, after being shot as ! climbed the fake fiberglass rock, I would often land so hard flat on my back that it would knock the wind out of me. I would lie there

AppalachianStories and After

47 On another occasion I was sitting on the sloping bank in the front yard, and beside me was an eroded pockmark in the mowed grass, and there I saw a black v~axy arrowhead that in later years I would identify as a Palmer projectile point. The black chert, I discovered, was likely from Western Virginia, where outcroppings of such stone are found. These discoveries reminded me that Indians once lived on the place I called home. I didn't get any more excited about these worked stone discoveries than I did about finding the cocoon of a cecropia moth, or one of the luna moths we would see each summer flying around the front porch light as we sat and enjoyed the mountain air on a summer evening--they were all a fascinating part of nature.

In the out door drama "Horn in the West," I was a British soldier in the battle of Alamance. (Photo: Jewell South, 1952) Figure 2.5.

while the battle raged on around me, trying to recover from the blow to my body. As a result I spent that summer nursing bruises, but it also toughened me, I thought--as an afterthought. My "brilliant" professional acting career came to an end, however, when in 1954, I left Boone to enter graduate school at Chapel Hill to become an archaeologist.

The Naturalist Collector--Following the Ghost of Virginia As a child in Boone, North Carolina, my parents expected me to work in the garden behind our house, hoeing weeds out of rows of corn, onions, radishes; mounding up ridges of soil around rows of Irish potato plants, and weeding lettuce and asparagus beds. In doing this I once found an arrowhead that I added to my collection of rocks and minerals, butterflies, and other natural things, such as moth cocoons and butterfly chrysalises hung on the walls of my room. We lived in a large two-story home at the foot of the mountain called Howard's Knob that towered as an Appalachian background to my growing up.

Hooked By a Hardaway Point--on the Native American Past It wasn't until I was teaching science in 1950, at Proximity Junior High in Greensboro, North Carolina, that I became more seriously interested in artifacts left by American Indians on the sites they once occupied. I was using the 1928 science textbook supplied by the school system to teach eighth graders. A social science unit required by law, but not in the textbook, was on Indians in North Carolina. Having no textbook on that subject, I decided to use as visual aids some arrowheads that I might find in the fields around Greensboro. It was for this purpose that Jewell, and I, on a Saturday, went on a field trip in my 1935 Plymouth. We reasoned that Indians might have had to move along the riverbank to look for game that had come to the water to drink. We also theorized that they might have camped at the point of land where fresh water streams entered the river. We got a county map and found such a place, where a bridge crossed a small stream, and there we saw a small cornfield with the rows of brown stalks rustling their leaves in the morning breeze. We walked up and down the rows looking at the rainwashed ground beneath our feet. It was there I found, not by accident this time, a thin arrowhead that I was to later learn, was not an arrowhead but

48

AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION

a spear point, commonly called a projectile point by archaeologists at the time. It had little protruding notched ears on the side, reminding me of ram's horns. This was an exciting discovery to us because we had "proved" our theory as to where such objects could be found. I took it to show to the students in my classes and explained my reasoning and the discovery that followed. In order to learn more about what I was supposed to be teaching, but about which I knew little, I bought a copy of The American Indian in North He lived in Carolina, by Douglas Rights. Winston Salem, which was on the road between Greensboro and Boone, so I called him and told him about our find and described it to him. He said it was sometimes called a "ram's horn spear point," but that he would have to see it to be sure. I made an appointment with him the next time we visited my parents in Boone, to show it to him and to learn more about it.

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Figure 2.6. The Hardaway projectile point that shot me into archaeology. (Photo: Daryl Miller 11/2003)

Dr. Rights received us cordially, and in introducing himself he told us he was a Moravian

minister, having been trained in a Methodist theological school, after which he began ministering as a Moravian. He said that Moravians didn't train their own ministers and jokingly said, "Thank the Lord for the Methodists! Without them there would be few trained Moravian ministers." When I showed him the projectile point we had found he was excited. He said, "Joffre Coe, at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the man you should see. He's calling this type 'ram's horn' point 'Hardaway', named for the construction company owning the site where Coe found such points." He also told us that Coe was the only archaeologist in North Carolina, but he was not the most receptive to amateur relic collectors because they dug on sites and destroyed the archaeological record. But because the point we had found was so early, he thought Coe would be glad to talk with me and look at the point. I asked how early he thought it might be. He said that the general thinking in recent years was that American Indians had been on the North American continent no longer than 2,000 years, but recent evidence suggested that Indians had come into America around 8,000 B.C. At the time he had published his book, a few years before, he had said that: "Investigations thus far in North Carolina give little evidence of great antiquity for Indian residence in this state" (Rights 1947:xi). However, he explained, Professor Coe was among those few who were saying that the Hardaway point probably dated as early as 8,000 B.C. When I called Professor Coe he said he would be glad to look at the Hardaway point I had found. When we met in Chapel Hill he verified what Dr. Rights had told me, and explained what was taking place at the Research Laboratories of Anthropology at UNC. As a result of finding the Hardaway point Jewell and I had begun looking for sites in Watauga County. Professor Coe emphasized the need to record carefully the location of the sites we found--I told him I was already doing that.

AppalachianStories and After After our visit, at every opportunity in 1951 and 1952, Jewell and I, with our young son, David, in a car seat carrier hanging from my shoulders on my back, conducted an archaeological survey of sites in Watauga County (South 1952). I was guided in this by reading archaeological reports by Clarence Webb on sites in Kentucky as well as the Bureau of American Ethnology reports I had read.

Archaeological Site Survey--"Ferreting Phantom Footsteps Fast Fading Forever" By 1952, Jewell and I had completed our survey of sites in Watauga County and I had prepared a report that I took to Chapel Hill for Dr. Coe to place on file there (South 1952). We found that Archaic Period projectile points (which we were later to learn were known as Savannah River, Guilford, Halifax, Kirk, and Morrow Mountain types) were to be found in the gaps between mountains, or on exposed hilltops, but pottery was to be found on the small bottomlands adjacent to the rivers. We recorded and drew sketch maps of 27 sites, including a steatite outcrop at which we found a number of unfinished, oval soapstone bowls with lug handles (WtX25), one of which was still attached to the bedrock from which it was being carved when work on it stopped. I took photographs of it and the quarry site, and made measured drawings of each vessel. We found a wide variety of pitted "nutting" stones in the ridge top fields. Even grassy ridge tops contained many of these stones lying on top of the grass. On one such field our son, David, who was just learning to walk at that time, found a mole running across the grass, which he chased with his toy hoe. We filmed his adventure with the mole on 8mm movie film, as we did the discovery of projectile points, atlatl weights, and other artifacts as they were discovered. I held the camera in one hand and filmed my other hand picking up the objects as I saw them. From this footage I edited an 8mm movie called, "We Three," which documented our survey.

49 The sites in the bottomlands produced what I was to later learn was steatite tempered Burke Complicated Stamped pottery (Moore 1999: 102, 2002). Not having been trained in methodology at the time, but knowing that it was important to put the site number and specimen number on sherds, I assigned a separate number to each individual sherd, rather than simply a group provenience number. I also photographed the artifacts in detail, made tables of sherds using 25 attributes and recorded lithic specimens using nine stone types. I drew rim profiles of pottery, and produced tables showing the percentage relationships--all good self-training for a future career in archaeology. This survey was done at lunchtime when I was working in the photography shop. Jewell would show up with a packed lunch and we would drive out of Boone for a two- hour hunt for archaeological sites. To make up for the extra lunch hour, I worked overtime in the darkroom in the late afternoon. Our dedication was such that one occasion we were walking the rows in an old tobacco field when it began to snow. We continued to pick up sherds until the ground was so white we had to abandon our survey for the day. Word got out in the community of our activities and I was invited to give a talk to the Boone Lions Club on our search for the Native American past in Watauga County. This was my first slide talk on our archaeological survey. I was asked to give the title of my presentation for the program. I had laughed at the title of a nineteenth century article on site surveying I had read in one of the BAE reports, I believe, entitled, "Ferreting Phantom Footsteps Fast Fading Forever." I thought it would be a suitable title for my first talk on our search for information on the first inhabitants of the area. I was going to explain the title in my talk, making the point that such carefully recorded surveys needed to be made before plowing and other activities erased forever the data that was to be found lying around relatively undisturbed in the valleys and ridges around Boone. However,

50 when the talk was over and we were at dinner, I suddenly remembered that I had not explained the title and that the audience had gone away thinking that the title was a serious one - - which it was in the sense that it is an expression of what archaeologists are up to. Now, over a half-century later, thousands of public service archaeologists nationwide are still "ferreting phantom footsteps fast-fading forever," and the need is greater now than ever that the ferreting continue.

Using Politics in Archaeological Research-BAE Reports As I became involved in the site survey of Watauga County I needed to learn all I could about the American Indians so I contacted the Bureau of American Ethnology and asked about ordering copies of their bulletins. The spokesman told me that in order to get older back issues I would have to go through my Congressman. Robert L. Doughton, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, who had, in 1944, at Daddy's request, nominated m e as a candidate for attending West Point. I asked Daddy if he would write Congressman Doughton requesting the Bureau of American Ethnology to send me back issues of their annual reports and bulletins-that I was interested in archaeology and needed these government publications for research. One day, a couple of months later, on a visit to my parents, I found three large heavy boxes sitting on the porch. They contained enough BAE reports to keep me busy reading for months to come. This reading was influential in helping me to understand what was going on in ethnology and archaeology as revealed in those volumes. Reading these books and those published by the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Kentucky were a good introduction to anthropological archaeology that would help prepare me for my later graduate school days at the University of North Carolina. Before I joined the Navy in 1945, after my punctured eardrum kept me out of West Point, my parents took me to Washington where we visited

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION Congressman Doughton's office. He showed us around the capitol building and he and daddy talked politics at some length. Later Daddy told us what Doughton had told him about his strategy in getting through Congress, the National Blue Ridge Parkway down the top of the Appalachian Mountains from Maine to Georgia. He said he knew that it would cost an enormous amount of money to do that and to introduce such a costly bill would have meant instant defeat in Congress. So, he laid out the idea in a bill, but asked for only a small amount of money for a few miles of road. This bill passed. Then in each subsequent session he asked for another short section and in so doing, through the years, the Parkway was eventually completed. A visitor center named for Doughton is located on the parkway.

Geology--An Archaeology Companion-Finding A River on Grandfather Mountain During the time Jewell and I were conducting the archaeological survey of Watauga County I realized I needed to know more about the stone the Native Americans had used to make their tools. I contacted Dr. Julian Yoder, who taught geology at Appalachian, and asked if he would take me as a student. He said no one else had signed up for the course that quarter but he would teach me anyway if I could come to his home for our sessions. Jewell and I had sought out places where garnets were found in Ashe County, where limonite pseudo-morphs-after-pyrite crystals two inches on the side (large ones with excurvate sides) in Rockingham County, and we even found zircons in a farmer's field. We were leaming by collecting specimens directly from the sources. I had always been told that Grandfather Mountain near Boone was the oldest mountain range, far older than the Rockies (only 60 million years). But I wanted to know why that was. What evidence was there that allowed that statement to be made? I read what was available and Dr. Yoder told me that somewhere on the upper slope of the Grandfather there was

AppalachianStories and After

conglomerate [river-worn rocks, pebbles and sand turned to stone] from an old river system through which the Appalachian Mountains had thrust up, leaving the river-worn rocks pushed up near the top of the mountain. The ancient age of the mountain was attributed to the fact it had thrust up, hundreds of millions of years ago, through solidified conglomerate of boulders from a river system so old that it had turned to stone before the Appalachian mountains were formed--now that's some old! I wanted to see this evidence for a river on top of a mountain that had resulted in it being labeled as the oldest mountain in the Appalachian range--a grandfather of mountains. Jewell and I set out from Foscoe, a little settlement near the base of Grandfather Mountain, where a marked trail went up the side. We set out to find the trail and soon came to a hole in the side of the mountain where a mine once operated searching for gold, but all that had been found was iron pyrite crystals, some of which we collected before continuing on up to intercept the trail, marked with the bottoms of tin cans nailed to trees along the way. When we approached the first ridge's crest, to our left, we saw a rock outcrop a hundred yards off the trail and went to check it out. We couldn't believe our luck when what we were looking at was a 20-foot high deposit of conglomerate filled with smoothly worn river pebbles, surrounded by the once molten igneous rock that had pushed the river deposit up when the Appalachian Mountains were formed! I took a photograph and we went back down the mountain. Our search for empirical evidence for the oldest mountain was over. But not quite--I wanted to read about what we had found. I went to the Library at Appalachian and searched through everything I could find on the Appalachian range, but was never able to find a description by a geologist of the deposit we had seen. The nearest I found were vague statements such as, "It is said that Grandfather Mountain is the oldest mountain in the Appalachian range." It was statements such as that that I had set out to

51

verify. Perhaps by now, 50 years later, there are excellent descriptions of what we saw, complete with photographs to demonstrate the evidence. At mid-century, however, why Grandfather Mountain was considered old was like a rumor floating around. Zircons-"The Yellow Corn Borer" My need to understand rocks and minerals increased as an auxiliary to my archaeological interest. An acquaintance told me about a farmer's field in the Piedmont where zircons could be found. He said the bad news was the farmer was so tired of zircon hunters tromping through his fields he was using a shotgun loaded with rock salt. He thought that surely the farmer wouldn't see him at night. He knew zircons glowed yellow in the dark when a black light was shined on them, so he thought he would go zircon hunting at night. He was using a black light and crawling up and down cornrows looking for the yellow zircon glow. Suddenly, when he got to the end of a row he saw the barrel of a shotgun in his face. The farmer asked what he was doing crawling up and down in his cornfield. Thinking fast he answered, "I'm with the U. S. Department of Agriculture and I'm searching for the yellow corn borer," and he began shining his black light up and down the cornstalks beside him. "What's that?" the farmer asked. "It's a worm that glows yellow in black light so we have to look for them at night. So far I haven't seen any in your field." "Well, I hope you don't," the farmer said. "Keep up the good work." Not being a very fast thinker I have high admiration for those who can invent yellow corn borers when suddenly stimulated by a shotgun in the face. "Santa Claus Is A Sham"--Richard C h a s e - - A Different Drummer In the mid-50s I met Richard Chase, a folklorist who had gone to the mountains of Western North Carolina to record folktales. He was so captured by the culture he never escaped.

52 He published Jack Tales (Chase 1943), and Grandfather Tales (Chase 1948), and they brought him national recognition. When I knew him he was living in an old trailer near the home of the Harmon family. Jewell and I took our son, David, into the trailer, where Richard took him on his lap and told him about Jack and the giants. A week or two before Christmas each year the Harmon family would hold a party for the community at their home. Richard invited us to attend. Many families in the community had little to share with their children over the holidays, but Richard, through his contacts in New York, had spread the word and gifts and money flowed in. The Hannons bought clothes and toys, and made boxes labeled for each family, with the gifts and clothing sizes earmarked for each family member. One isolated group of folks living in another community further up the mountain felt strongly that "Santa Claus is a sham," and did not participate in the gift giving or receiving. They believed Christmas day should be spent in prayer. Richard and the Harmon family worked on the parents of the children in that community to convince them to allow their children to attend the Christmas party so they could funnel gifts to those poor families. Finally, they agreed that their children could attend and take home gifts, as long as they weren't tied to Santa Claus. Richard convinced them that his New York friends had sent the gifts simply to enrich the lives of others. The evening began with some of the community boys shooting fireworks from the top of the mountain ridge above the valley where the Harmons lived, and where Richard's little antique trailer was parked. After that we went into the house where there was picking and singing, and where Richard told Jack Tales. There was an entire room filled with gifts from New Yorkers and other friends of Richard and the Harmons. It took several hours to pass out that room full of boxes. The adults then were given bags of flour and rice and other commodities to be loaded in their cars. Richard told me that it was ironic that the isolated families, who believed that Santa Claus

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION was a sham, readily believed in the goblins, ghosts, witches, devils, giants and boogers inhabiting those mountain coves--those tricksters that the mountain boy Jack so cleverly outwitted in the tales. Those people saw a difference between the birthday of Christ and Santa Claus, whom they saw as a secular impostor ursurping a holy d a y - - a "holi-day."

Town Creek Indian Mound--an Inspiring Visit When I visited Dr. Coe in Chapel Hill in 1952, to deliver my report on the archaeological survey of Watauga County (South 1952), he suggested I visit Town Creek Indian Mound and talk with Ernest Lewis, the archaeologist excavating the site at that time. Jewell and I did that and Ernest introduced us to Ed Gaines, who was on his knees troweling a ten-foot excavated area beneath a photographic tower, revealing the dark spots from postholes and burial feature outlines. Something clicked as I watched Ed trowel to reveal the soil discolorations, and I had a strong desire to get into the square with him, to take part in this wonderful process. (Five years later I spent two rewarding years working closely on my knees beside Ed, troweling as he was that first time I saw him, but more of that later.) Ernest then took me inside the CCC building and showed me the triangulated plots of the tenfoot squares they were revealing, and explained the process of gluing together the photographs of each of the squares to produce a mosaic of the disturbances into the red clay subsoil that had taken place when the Indians used the site. I was totally taken with this process of obtaining information about the past in this way. Ernest invited me to visit the Research Laboratories of Anthropology in Chapel Hill where he would show me the mosaic in progress. As Jewell and I drove back to Boone we talked about how wonderful it would be to get paid for being involved in such a fascinating challenge. I was inspired, but I returned to my photographic work in Palmer Blair's shop, and

AppalachianStories and After closeted myself in the darkroom--but I couldn't forget that visit to Town Creek Indian Mound. From time to time Palmer would hire a small single-winged airplane to take aerial photographs of some mountainous tract of land for real estate developers. He told me about the method he used to get shots looking straight down onto the property. The pilot would bank the plane onto the side to fly into a circle so the centrifugal force would hold Palmer against the side of the plane with the open door below him, then the pilot would cut the engine to cut out the vibration. Palmer would shoot out the open door using his Speed Graphic camera, and then the pilot would cut the engine in again. It sounded dangerous to me so I never offered to take those pictures for him. Years after I left the darkroom, I received word that on one of those photographic trips, the plane had hit a pocket of dead air, dropping it into the mountainside, killing Palmer and his pilot.

An Amateur Forester--Planting Pine Seedlings On a later visit to Town Creek Indian Mound in 1953, Howard Sargent had replaced Ernest Lewis, and I arrived after heavy rains had drenched the soil the day before. I found him slogging in the mud with a bucket filled with little pine seedlings. Great gobs of red clay were clinging to his boots as he walked the rows of what had been a plowed field. He would stomp a boot heel into the mud, throw a pine seedling into the hole it made, then cover the lower half of the seedling with another stomp of his boot. I followed his Sasquatch footprints down the field and accumulated similar gobs of clay on my boots. I introduced myself and told him of my interest in archaeology. He handed me a bucket of seedlings and said, "This is all the archaeology you are going to see here today." So, as we talked, we stomped a lot of trees into the mud before I left. Several decades later, I again visited the site and was flabbergasted to see the tall pines on the site that grew from those little seedlings. Joffre Coe was there and we had our picture made together with the pines.

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Figure 2. 7. With my mentor, Joffre Coe, and some of the

pine trees I planted 42 years earlier. Rippeteau, 8/29/1995)

(Photo: Bruce

An Epiphany-A New Direction One day, after my "ferreting phantom footsteps" talk, I was sitting on a stool in the darkroom at the Omega enlarger, slopping prints through the developer. I began thinking about what I would be doing in ten years if I stayed in photography. I didn't like the answer. I knew I would still be doing the same thing! Then I asked myself what I would most like to do if given the chance, and I suddenly realized the answer w a s - "ferreting phantom footsteps!" I couldn't wait to get home that afternoon to tell Jewell of my decision to go to graduate school and study with Dr. Coe. I knew I would have to wait until after she received her degree in home economics at Appalachian State Teachers College, but that would only take a couple of years. I called her to tell her that I had made a major decision for our future, but I didn't tell her what it was. When I got home she had coffee ready, and we sat down on the couch, and I told her of my plan. She was as excited as I was, because she had shared with me the finding of the Hardaway point, the visit to Dr. Rights, and to Town Creek, and she had eagerly taken part in our site survey. She also recognized we were moving toward a future that

54 would begin by my studying under Joffre Coe at the University of North Carolina. So I walked away from my long-planned career in photography.

Ilsa Koch: the "Bitch of Buchenwald" Before I did, however, around 1952, a customer came into the photography shop saying he had just retired from the army. His company was the first to enter Buchenwald in the mid1940s. He took photographs of the shocking things he saw there, but soon his group was ordered to move on. As they were leaving, the guards at the gate searched everyone for cameras, because the Army wanted no photographs taken. He had to show his camera, and opened it, but he had stuck the roll of film in his pack and later mailed it to his wife. In the years to follow he had kept the roll undeveloped for fear it might cause him trouble. But he was now discharged and felt safe to have it developed, which I did for him. What I saw were pictures of the open fuxnace doors with the rib cage bones of partially burned victims inside; starved skeletal-victims, skin-andbones, still standing, wearing striped prison pants; a large pile of many dead victims awaiting the furnace maw; a pile of bodies among partially burned logs, where an attempt to speed up the cremating process had been made by the Germans - - all strong Holocaust evidence. There were flayed chests of men tattooed with the portrait of a woman wearing a large hat i to become macabre lampshades? These photographs are vivid evidence for the Holocaust as it played out at Buchenwald through administrators like Ilsa Koch and others. I made a copy of some of the pictures, and decades later, when my children came home from school saying they had learned the Holocaust never happened, I showed them proof that it had - - testimony to man's inhumanity to man!

Too Many Old Folks--Physical Anthropology in Watauga County Shortly after the big career decision in the darkroom, about 1952, a customer came into the

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION photography shop and told me he was a physical anthropologist. I told him of my newly discovered pathway to the future and my desire to get a degree in anthropology/archaeology Ellis Kerley was a physical anthropologist in Boone for a couple of years on a grant through the Bowman Gray School of Medicine in Winston Salem. A donor had read that Watauga County had the highest percentage of older people in the world outside of Polynesia and had given the money to discover the cause of this. In order not to look a gift horse in the mouth, Ellis had been sent, with a partner who was to gather socio-psychological data from the subjects, while Ellis took a battery of physical measurements of their bodies. A problem Ellis had was getting permission from rural residents in the isolated hollers of the mountains to take measurements of their bodies. Some weeks he would be able to measure only a single cooperative family. Ellis sometimes could not get beyond the front door. As time went on, it became more difficult to find willing subjects. One of his interesting cases regarded inbreeding among a mountain family. A man had a child by his daughter, and when that child was a teenager, he had a granddaughter by her. Then, in recent days, his granddaughter had given birth to a great-daughter by him - - as close a case of inbreeding as one might find. He had then been arrested and charged with incest. This was when the newspapers, the court, and Ellis became interested in the situation. Ellis measured the family, but I never did learn from him the results of the study. Ellis and I left Boone about the same time. He went on to get his doctorate at the University of Michigan and then on to Japan to identify skeletal material dating from World War II. Jewell, David and [ went to Chapel Hill, where she taught home economics in Hillsborough, and I studied at the University of North Carolina, receiving my M. A. Degree in Anthropology under Joffre Coe, to become an archaeologist.

Chapter 3 UNC Stories Jewell and I moved to Hillsborough, a few miles north of Chapel Hill, where she had a job teaching Home Economics in the high school. We had bought a 28 foot house trailer in Boone and lived in it during my graduate school days at the University of North Carolina.. It was one of the trailers built for the construction crews building the "bomb plant" in Aiken, South Carolina, that came cheaply on the market after that facility was completed. I found a job working for Ross Scroggs in the photography laboratory at the University of North Carolina. My photography school and Appalachian yearbook contracts during my undergraduate days paid off for me in obtaining that job and that extra income helped keep us in groceries.

Evolutionary Theory in Archaeology My formative period continued in graduate school where I studied under Joffi'e Coe with the goal of becoming an archaeologist. 1 was guided to the writings of Franz Boas, James Ford, Robert Lowie, Lewis H. Morgan, Julian Steward, E. B. Tylor, Walter Taylor, and particularly, Leslie White. In the liberal environment of UNC, it was good to be able to learn of cultural evolution without the strictures that were imposed on Hodgin during my undergraduate days. Having been introduced to evolutionary theory in Hodgin's private, underground sessions, under Joffre Coe I came to understand that evolutionary theory is the underpinning for all archaeology. While there I read Phillip Phillips and Gordon Willey (1953 and 1955), and discovered that (South 1955a: 15):

The current trend in archaeological theory is to use this evolutionist approach, and then hasten to make reservations and apologies for the resemblance between the developmental sequences "newly arrived at" and those of Morgan. Phillips and Willey (1955:788), outlined "Historical Developmental Stages" but apologized by saying: ...let us make it very clear that we are under no illusion that it is anything remotely resembling a "natural" evolutionary system. I saw a pattern of archaeologists refusing to acknowledge the role of evolutionary theory. This disturbed me as a student, resulting in my publication of an article, "Evolutionary Theory in Archaeology" in 1955, in which I criticized those who were concerned about the use of the concept and terms of evolutionary theory, while obviously basing their archaeological research on it. In that paper I said (South 1955a:21-22): American archaeology is now in a period of transition. It is breaking out of its Boasian shell of fact gathering and is beginning to emerge as a science based upon a theoretical foundation. Gradually more and more archaeologists will come to realize the importance of a theoretical framework for their profession. And, slowly, they will begin to admit, how deeply the roots of archaeological theory lie within the evolutionary theory outlined by Tylor and Morgan.

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AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION There is no desire here to appeal for a return to the evolutionary concept as developed by Tylor and Morgan, nor is there a claim for perfection on their part. It is felt, however, that archaeologists should not apologize when they find their monographs are influenced by evolutionary theory - but to apologize or categorically reject evolutionary theory and its influence on modern cultural theory, and at the same time utilize its basic assumptions, is to bite the hand that has fed them their theoretical food.

Upon publication of my 1955 paper in 1957, I mailed reprints to a number of people. The paper stimulated interest and correspondence from many leading figures in archaeology and ethnology. My paper sometimes struck a harmonic, or a discordant chord on the piano of archaeological theory at that time. I learned a lot from letters from those who took the time to comment on a graduate student's first paper. These were: J.O. Brew, Douglas Byers, Joe Caldwell, John Cotter, James Ford, John Gillin, John Gulick, Carol Irwin [Mason], Jessie Jennings, Guy Johnson, Weston LaBarre, Robert Lowie, Charles McNutt, Carroll Riley, Hale Smith, Albert Spaulding, Matthew Stirling, Julian Steward, Walter Taylor, Raymond Thompson, Ruth Underhill, Robert Wauchope, Steve Williams, and Gordon Willey (South and Green 2000:2-4)--but more about that in a later chapter. With the theoretical foundation provided at Appalachian through David Hodgin, and through the influence of Joffre Coe, I was ready to undertake fieldwork when the opportunity arose to conduct a survey of the Roanoke Rapids River basin in northeastern North Carolina. The fieldwork there would provide the data that was to be reported in my master's thesis currently under preparation for publication (South 1959).

Training With Joffre Coe at Chapel HilI--A "Do It Yourself" Strategy Studying under Joffre Coe was sometimes a frustrating experience in that we students had to

pump information from him, rather than having him pour the fountain of his knowledge forth as archaeological aqua vita. Any student who studied with him knows what I am saying. Because of this we learned that we had to take the initiative to dig the information, not only from Joffre, but from the published work of others. His method o f teaching was to point out the failures of others so that we would know what n o t to do when we were excavating our own sites. From this do-it-yourself teaching strategy, those of us who were his archaeology students at that time learned that it was up to us to make a place for ourselves in the field of archaeology. My classmates in 1954 were: Lewis Binford, Hester Davis, Margaret Van Dorsleer and John Walker, all of whom have made their unique marks. As students we made a field trip to Town Creek Indian Mound where Ed Gaines demonstrated the methods being used to record data at that Mississippian temple mound site. Ed trained a number of archaeologists who were sent his way by Coe. There we learned the methods being used to recover data (Coe 1995:xviii).

My First Archaeological Proposal--VEPCO With my course work behind me, in 1955, Joffre asked me if I would like to write a proposal for conducting an archaeological survey of the Roanoke Rapids basin, soon to be flooded by water to be backed up behind a dam. I did indeed. He submitted it to the Virginia Electric Power Company (VEPCO) for consideration for funding. At a meeting Joffre and I attended with the VEPCO officials, they agreed to provide $1,200 contingent upon a preliminary basin-walking site survey to demonstrate that further funding was necessary. That survey was conducted on weekends in April 1955, while school was still underway. Later, we spent two weeks in May completing the survey. This was done at no cost to VEPCO. In the survey, Lewis Binford, Jewell, and I recorded 74 sites, after which the funds were forthcoming for a continuation of the project. When Joffre told me the check had been received from VEPCO, I asked him how much of

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it I would be able to budget for conducting the survey. He looked at me surprised, and said, "Why, all of it, of course." I had thought he might reserve some of it for his use at the Research Laboratories of Anthropology, but he generously gave it all to the project. I hired Jewell and Lew Binford for 75 cents an hour, and with a tent in the trunk of my 1939 Ford, and a canoe on top, and our infant son, David, turned over to Jewell's mother, the official field project began in June 1955, and continued for a month. When we returned, David turned away from Jewell to her mother, and it took some time for her to again gain his recognition. She said she would never again spend so long away from a child so young. During our six weeks camped in the basin, we bathed in the river, and occasionally drove out to get food. On these occasions we took a muchwelcomed shower at the home of the Glenn L. Fulcher family in Roanoke Rapids, who often invited us to have a real meal with them. Their kindness to a bedraggled group of archaeologists was most appreciated.

Publication of My Report Is Promised--Long Delayed Our 1955 written agreement with VEPCO provided that, when my thesis was completed, the publication of the report on our work at Roanoke Rapids would be financed by VEPCO through additional funding.. When it was completed in 1959, I urged Joffre to again contact VEPCO for funding to publish it, and I provided him a copy for that purpose. He never did do that, however, but five years later, he published a synopsis of the Gaston Site from my thesis in his dissertation (1964:84-126). I am now in the process of preparing my thesis for publication (South 1959a).

An Important Discovery--the Gaston Site (HxV7)

Stratified

I selected the Gaston Site (HxV7) for excavation, as well as the Thelma Site (HxV8), because the surface finds suggested these were major sites likely to contain abundant data. At the Thelma Site we excavated an ossuary burial (South 1959a: 396-418), and Jewell took a

photograph of Lew Binford and me with the mass of bones he had helped us excavate. Joffre, on his visit to the Gaston Site, had me show him where we had found a Savannah River projectile point in a bulldozed cut leading down to the river from the high sand bottomland where the pottery had been found. Before he left he said, "Dig until you hit water." I later discovered in talking with Sally Coe, that he had told her when he came back from the visit that he thought we would find a stratified site because the bulldozed cut was the only place on the site where we had found an Archaic Period projectile point. That told him that it was likely bulldozed from a buried stratum. He said nothing to me about his thoughts on it, however, allowing me to find it on my own without his help. That was typical of his method of teaching. He led by standing behind you and simply pointing the way. I tell this story in a poem I read at Joffre's funeral many years later (South 2001a: 13(1): 7). A stratified site is indeed what we found at the Gaston site when we cut the profile down the side of the flood-laid sand to the river, just as Joffre had told Sally I would. My discovery of the stratified site emerged from the method I used to obtain the most data from the site in the shortest amount of time. We cut 25 five-foot squares randomly over the site to gain a feeling for the concentration of pottery and to obtain a good sample from the 18-inch thick midden deposit on the site we interpreted as a village. During this process we discovered a row of palisade postholes representing a village compound. We then cut slot trenches at various distances in order to follow the palisade. We then used controversial excavation tools at the time - - a motor grader and a bulldozer, to remove the pottery-bearing layer to allow us to see more of the features intruding into the subsoil sand. Doing this we were able to locate many large pit features filled with pottery, burials of humans, as well as dogs. In the process of excavating the large pit features we noticed that often in the bottom of the pit, about four feet down from the surface, that the pit walls we cleaned were darker near the bottom. In order to get the last bit o f d a r k s o i l from the

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AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

Figure 3.1. The ossuaryburial at the ThelmaSite, with Lew Binfordat the lower right. (Photo: Jewell South, 1955)

bottom of these pits we would undercut the wall to find any artifacts that might be in that darker zone. In doing this we noticed that in that dark "belled out" part of the pit there would be an Archaic projectile point. After we had recorded this observation in Our notes for several pits we began to wonder why, in the bell of the "bellshaped pits" containing Woodland Period pottery, an Archaic Period projectile point was sometimes found. After a time we had found more such points in the edge of the belt than we had in the pits themselves. Lew Binford and I pondered this as the data tried to tell us something. Finally, one Sunday morning I awoke early and was thinking about the Savannah River points in the side of the features, in what appeared to be yellow, or slightly stained subsoil sand. Suddenly it hit me! If the site had a stratum some four feet deep, containing Savannah River Archaic Points, any deep pit dug by the later pottery-making people on the site, would cut into that stratum and when we removed the contents of the pit we would see the stained soil from the buried stratum. As we cleaned out the "bell" we would actually be

cutting into an Archaic Period layer buried by later flood sand. When that interpretation hit me about four o'clock in the morning, I elbowed Lew Binford on one side of me in the tent, and Jewell on the other side, and excitedly poured out to them my "revelation," my realization of what the data must be trying to tell us. We sat around discussing what we would do now, and we decided that it was time to cut a shaft on the bank of the river down to the level of the Roanoke River, just as Joffre had said I should do. About five o'clock we couldn't stand it any longer. We had our work cut out for us. We lit the Coleman lanterns and went out into the dark and began excavating the shaft on the edge of the riverbank! When we reached the four-foot level we saw a darker soil color appear in the bottom of the shaft. We sifted that layer hoping to find a Savannah River Point, but none was there. Once we had dug through the one-foot thick darker stratum we could clean the profile and then we saw the dark layer in profile. We were disappointed that no Savannah River point showed up, but we kept on digging.

UNC Stories About mid-morning we were down into the clay-rippled sand below the darker layer. Then we found a white quartz side-notched projectile point we had not seen before and our spirits rose. Not only was the site stratified it apparently had a

59 In it we found a pile of stones with the base of a Savannah River point among them, with charcoal radiocarbon dated to 2,325 B.C. In the layer below that we found three hearths of stones with Halifax points lying beside them. Charcoal from these deeper hearths was radiocarbon dated 3,485 B.C. (South 1959; Coe, from South 1964:84-119).

Pottery Seriation--Measuring Culture Change through Time Before we discovered that the Gaston site was stratified, the focus was on the pottery taxonomy (Krieger 1944:9:271-288). I defined three pottery series found in the clark humus in the top two feet of the site: Vincent, Clement (Coe added an s) and Gaston (South 1959a 6t-129; and in Coe 1964: 84-107). Using the seriation method of pottery analysis (Phillips, Ford and Griffin 1951, 1952, and Ford 1962), and superposition, I was able to place these types in the order in which they evolved (South 1959:107, Figure 8; 333, Figure 38). In the seriation I used 24 sites and over 100 pit features from the Gaston site (South 1959:230, Figure 16; 333, Figure 37; see also Coe 1964:100, Figure 94). The results I was able to achieve using the seriation technique, taught me that this is an effective way to move analysis from simple description, to measuring changing form through time. This understanding served me well in the future when I applied this concept to historic site ceramics, resulting in the creation of a dating technique known as the Mean Ceramic Date Formula (South 1977:217-271). But, more later. Figure 3.2. The stratified profile, showing the dark Savannah River Archaic period layer in the middle, and the dark, Clement/Gastonpottery zone at the top. The Halifax points and hearths were in the lighter soil below the Savannah River stratum. (Photo: South, 1955) Savannah River stratum overlying a non-stained deposit o f sand with a white quartz point I named the Halifax point. The stratified site Coe had thought might be there was found. Later, we used a machine to cut down to a level just above the darker Savannah River layer, and then we shoveled off that layer by hand.

Palisades and Burials--A Native American Infant Protected by a Guard Dog We found the post-mold pattern for five palisades around the area, and chased them through slot trenches and areas from which the topsoil zone had been removed (South 1959:269, Figure 22). In addition, we excavated a number of human burials and dog burials. After we had cleaned and removed some dog burials, another one was being revealed when I saw what it was. To save time, I slipped a shovel beneath the burial from each side and placed the

60 bones in the sifter screen. When we received the report from the faunal analyst we discovered that not only the bones of a dog were present, but those of a human infant, as well. What a surprise! Apparently the dog had been placed over the infant in the grave. We also noticed that on some of the flexed burials a single bone of a deer had been placed, perhaps as an offering (South 1959:264, Plate 44c; 289, Figure 25). That lesson taught me that shortcuts sometimes cut data short.

Archaeologists Eating Lunch--A Fascinating Process? Reporters found their way to our campsite in the Roanoke River basin and wrote articles about what we were finding there. One of these carried photographs of Lew Binford and our wives, Jean and Jewell, excavating burials and screening for artifacts (Biggs 1955:5-9). This brought many visitors to the site to view the work in progress, which resulted in our explaining what we were doing and the importance of our salvaging information before the rising water was to drive us from the site. We waited until the last minute, when we had to drive through six inches of water rising in the only access road to the outside world beyond the dam site. One visitor, among hundreds who visited the site, was a funeral home owner, who volunteered to bring us a canopy. He felt sorry for us having to sit in the sun while we excavated burials. We gladly accepted his offer. With so many people standing around watching our excavating process we were afraid to leave the burials while we ate lunch. Jewell always packed our lunch and when noontime came we would open our paper bags and begin eating our sandwiches sitting on the edge of the burial pit on which we were working. As we watched the watchers, we watched their eyes as we took each bite of our sandwiches. Their eyes would watch us unwrap the sandwich, then follow as we brought it to our mouth. We learned that watching an archaeologist take a bite of a sandwich was fascinating to some. The presence of the funeral awning over our heads caused their questions to be delivered in a respectful whisper.

AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION

A Determined Reporter Gets the Story--For Newsweek Magazine One reporter in particular revealed his determination to get the story. It was about 2:30 A. M. one morning when we heard someone shouting. I immediately thought that anyone shouting at us at that time of morning was up to no good, so I grabbed my pistol and peeped out the crack in the door flap of our tent, ready for whatever. By the shouting back and forth, Lew Binford, Jewell and I were able to determine that the person shouting was a reporter named Sebastian Sommer, who said he wrote articles for Newsweek magazine and wanted to interview us. I asked why he hadn't picked a more opportune time than the middle of the night. He explained that his car broke down and he had been lost in the basin since sundown, trying to find our campsite.

Figure 3.3. "DiggersBinford and South" as they appeared in Newsweek magazine. (Photo:SebastianSommer, 1955).

UNC Stories We invited him into the tent and we sat around in the light of the Coleman lantern and told him what we were up to. He said he had started into the basin near sundown and as he crossed the railroad track his oil pan had hit the rail and broke open and all the oil leaked out. The car quickly steamed over before he discovered what had happened. He then began walking up the two-rut roadway, lost it, wandered around in the dark, and finally, hours later, had stumbled on our tent pitched on the Gaston site. We sat up the remainder of the night talking with him and when daylight arrived we showed him the site and the Halifax hearths we had exposed. When other visitors showed up he caught a ride out of the basin. His article was published in Newsweek on July 4, 1955, with a picture of Lew Binford and me at a Halifax-level hearth (Sommer 1955: 76).

Figure 3.4. Stanand Jewell South and Lewis Binford at the camp on the GastonSite. (Photo: Jean Binford 1955)

Figure 3.5. Joffre Coe and Jewell South sifting soil from one of the test squares at the Gaston Site (Hx v7), on Coe's visit to the site. (South 1955)

61 A Fateful Car Wreck Forces a New Direction In a follow-up article on January 1, 1956 that appeared in the Asheville Citizen-Times, photographs of the funeral tent on the Gaston site were published, and a pre-beard me, pointing out the Savannah River stratum (Bartholomew 1956:7). In that article my plans for the future were mentioned: "South, a veteran of World War II, says he hopes to get a job in the field of anthropology after he completes the work on his graduate degree this spring and eventually return to school for a doctor's degree." That plan was to study with James Griffin and Leslie White at the University of Michigan. I had applied and had been accepted, and Jewell had been hired to teach home economics in the Lansing, Michigan public school system. I was working in the summer, again at Palmer's Photo Shop in Boone, standing in the front of the shop, when he and I heard the crash of a car wreck two blocks up King Street. I grabbed the Speed Graphic and ran out the door to photograph what had sounded like a serious wreck. By the time I had run two blocks an ambulance had arrived and gone from the wreck. I took pictures of a 1939 Ford sedan that had run a red light; had crashed into the side of a coal truck; ricocheted off that, causing the load of coal to spill over the street; then crashed into the side of a deputy sheriffs car waiting for the red light to change. I took one picture and then moved to the opposite side of the Ford to get another picture, when I suddenly realized the car looked an awful lot like mine! I went up to the window and looked in to see if I recognized the interior. Then I knew it was my car. I looked for blood but, thankfully, I didn't see any. I turned around and asked one of the bystanders what had happened to the people in the car, knowing now, that Jewell had been the driver. I was told that two ladies and a little boy had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance, but that they didn't appear to be hurt badly, though the boy had landed on the pile of coal and had skidded around over it, receiving a number of cuts and bruises and was covered with black coal dust when they put him on a stretcher.

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Figure 3.6. The 1939 Ford resting against the side of the deputy sheriff's car after hitting the coal truck. The wreck caused the canceIIationof pIans to attend the Universityof Michigan. (Photo: South 1956)

I walked back to the shop and found someone to drive me to the hospital. Jewell and Erma Green, David's babysitter, were shaken up, and Erma had a sprained wrist, but David was being treated for superficial cuts from bouncing around on the load of coal that spilled from the truck. We felt very lucky that there were no more serious injuries than that. Jewell had looked to her left as she saw the light change from green to yellow, but had not looked to her right, the direction from which the coat truck was bearing down. She had hit it broadside without ever seeing it. Our 39 Ford was totaled, so we had no car. I had to pay for the damage to the coal truck, the load of coal, the damage to the deputy sheriffs car, the doctor and hospital bill, and the citation Jewell got for running the red light. Because of this event, we had to cancel our plans for me to get my doctorate at the University of Michigan.

Field Methods in Ethnography--Studying an African American Community At UNC I took a course entitled "The Negro" (Sociology 125) from Guy B. Johnson, and one in field methods in anthropology from John J. Honigmann (Anthropology 221), that were to serve me well in the years to follow. In Johnson's

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

course I wrote a paper comparing the views of E. Franklin Frazier (1951), with those of Melville J. Herskovits (1942), in an attempt to determine which one offered the more valid and objective approach to the understanding of the nature of problems of race relations in the United States (South 1956c). Honigmann's course required that I do anthropological fieldwork of some kind and most of my classmates chose to employ a sociological approach using a schedule of questions and answers. Although that was allowed to satisfy the requirements of the course, I chose to use a field situation where I could interview a member of a community in the tradition of ethnographic fieldwork~descriptive anthropology. I chose an African American community to learn more about that sub-culture because I had been introduced to many differences between the world I knew, and that seen through the eyes of my Negro friends with whom I sometimes played as a child. I wanted to learn more about those differences from a different perspective. The Frazier/Herskovits debate had stimulated my interest in African American studies. The goals of the study were to observe the material culture, social interaction and organization, and child rearing patterns through interviewing members of a community of my choosing. I located an isolated community down a dirt road a mile north of Chapel Hill. I drove slowly through it and found that it consisted of four houses. I was faced with the problem of finding a way to gain entr6e. I saw an elderly man propped in a chair leaning against the back of a house. I parked my car and approached him and introduced myself and told him what I was up to. He motioned to an empty chair beside him and asked me to join him in catching some of the morning sun. Luck was with me as it turned out. I had found the perfect person to inform me about the life ways in that community. He was Jim Blacknell, who was, I found out later, 105 years old, according to his estimate, although he looked and acted, much younger. He was the highly respected elder patriarch and root

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- - ~ ~ . ~ ~- ~ 1,:,, ~

~

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.

[- ....~..--"F -.~-

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Figure 3. 7. Jim Blacknell, the 105 year old patriarch of the community studied by Stan South. (Photo: South 3/1956) doctor for the community. Through long discussions with him in the days to follow I found that people from the other homes nearby had a habit of dropping by to touch base with him to learn how he was doing. He had a very active mind and knew everyone in the community, and had watched as a single house had grown to become the group of homes located along the road. I drew a map of the community, and he arranged for me to enter some of the houses to take photographs of the people and furnishings there. He told me that some younger ones in the broader African American community were for moving out into the outside world, whereas others feared that would endanger traditional family values. He told me some were suspicious of my presence, and what their fears were as to my motives. He shared with me his wisdom about those living in the four houses in the immediate area as well as in the broader African American rural community generally. He told me about what life was like for him as a teen during the days of slavery, as well as what it was like for him at present.

Traditional African American Remedies--My "Description Tends to Be Dry" He also shared with me some remedies: to cure a cold, use Mullen root and pine buds. For drawing out boils: use collards, cabbage, eggshells, Irish potato and plantain. For "scroffuls" (scrofula), "burdock tea will do the trick! . . . . For curing colds, pneumonia, rheumatism, or anything the system has that don't belong there" you do the following: "Take a joint of may apple root about one inch long, and put it in a cup of water to boil. This makes one big dose." For curing chest inflammations: "Make a plaster out of wheat bran, corn meal, flour, turpentine and lard and rub it on the body. Give it with hog hoof tea." For getting gall off liver and kidneys: "May apple tea, lion's tooth, rat's vein, and silk weed root. They make you sick, but they make you well after that." For bad blood: Sarsaparilla tea, cherry bark tea, poke root and red shank tea, fever weed tea, bunch pine tea, bone-set tea, sassafras tea (red kind, not white kind)" (South 1956a: 15). I turned in my report on that community, "Some Generalized Patterns in a Negro Community: Material Culture" (South 1956a), and Dr. Honigmann commented that with my eye for detail, I might neglect presentation for fact alone, and "the meticulous description often tends to be dry," which is certainly true with my reports on archaeological excavations, a fact those who have ventured to read my work have not failed to tell me. The reader of this book may have a similar comment.

Psychoanalyzing Hit Subjective Explanations

Songs--Facts

and

In another paper for Honigmann I did an analysis of 107 themes of songs published in popular, western and country music magazines of the day, and abstracted the patterns. In generalizing from these patterns I said that, "The American is a person who is hungry for love and affection, but who is often frustrated in the achievement of this love," and "This frustration and feeling of insecurity reveals itself in the themes of the songs they sing." The implications

64 of this, I suggested, may be that in American culture there may be "some value attributed to the ability to make love successfully which is in conflict with some value which places taboos on making love except within narrow limits." (South 1956b). In this study, I quantified the themes as though they were potsherds or projectile points, assigning verbal attribute classes, and tabulated the results on a spreadsheet. I enjoyed milking such conclusions from anthropological field notes, as I did when milking patterns from potsherds. I was far more comfortable, however, with coaxing pattern from fragments of pots, and making pronouncements on what I thought they meant than with using psychological tools to analyze the behavior of living people. I had a strong feeling from both kinds of data that there ought to be a more scientifically controlled method of deriving pattern than was often seen in ethnographic or archaeological monographs. The trick, I came to realize, was to weigh known facts with subjective judgment based on past observation: the hypothetico-deductive-inductive method of science.

Modal Personality--Psychological Explanation In one of Honigmann's lectures he passed around a drawing, revealing a picture story about two inches wide written around all four edges of the paper, leaving a blank white space in the middle of the page. He said that he had given a sheet of paper and a pencil to a group of Eskimos unfamiliar with these drawing tools, and asked them to illustrate one of their traditional stories involving the killing of a seal. He said some of them didn't draw anything, while others made drawings around the edge of the paper, such as the example he had passed around for us to examine. He said the pattern of drawing the sto W around the edge of the paper was characteristic of several of those in the group. His stow for explaining this drawing pattern was that it reflected the modal personality of Eskimo culture. Using the culture and personality story-telling approach he explained to us that in the winter, the Eskimo people lived in

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION family units isolated from one another on the vast frozen sea, where they went to blow-holes in the ice to spear seals who came there for air. They also hunted polar bears for subsistence, which was a way of life much harder than what they knew in the summer. In the summer, when the ice began to melt, they would move to the shore, where they gathered ptarmigan eggs and chicks and stuffed them into seal bladders to solidify into ptarmigan cheese, which they saved for a delicacy to be eaten in the winter months when life was much harder. These good times on the shoreline were also a time for socialization--the time for story telling about the adventures of the winter, and a time for young people to interact and choose mates. It was a happy t i m e - - a respite from the severity and danger of the arctic winter. With this cultural background he then turned to telling the stow of the drawing. He explained that what the drawing represented was a classic example of the Eskimo modal personality impressed on them by the way of life they led. The blank white space in the center of the page was symbolic of the vast white winter landscape, a time of hard times and danger experienced in a constant search for food. The story drawn around the edge of the page symbolized the safety, the thawing of the edge of the sea, the good times when people socialized and told stories--a time of laughter and choosing of mates. The edge of the page symbolized this comfortable time of the Eskimo life cycle at the edge of the arctic sea, away from the severity of the winter search for food in the dangerous interior. He paused then, pleased with this story supposedly reflecting the modal personality of the Eskimo, and asked if there were any questions.

Material Culture Explanation

Pattern--Processual

I had reservations about shooting a hole in his presentation from my student perspective, but on the other hand it seemed to me there was a grand canyon between the modal personality sto W and the factual reality of the drawing. I saw that connecting the sto W with the drawing without

UNC Stories some concrete arguments of relevance between the polar concepts (no pun intended) was an error in logical positivism--a flaw that left me cold. So, since the class seemed to be totally accepting of what I saw as a pie in the sky story, I did speak up to challenge the received knowledge. I questioned what kind of art the Eskimo normally did. He said they were famous for engraving stories on walrus tusks, which I knew before I asked. Then I said, "I have an alternative, cultural, not a psychological explanation for why the drawing of the seal hunt was confined to the edge of the paper." He looked a little surprised and said, "Let's hear it." I said, "If the drawings Eskimos traditionally make are on the narrow confines of a walrus tooth, or some other long and slender ivory or bone shape, then I would suggest that, when faced with a broad sheet of paper, they simply saw the edge of the page as the edge of the walrus tooth, and followed that edge around the page to tell the story. I don't see why it's necessary to reach out for a psychological mindset for an explanation in terms of Eskimo personality. I suggest the explanation lies in the Eskimo material culture with which they were familiar-not in their personality." Honigmann looked like he had been pole axed. He had a shocked look on his face and seemed stunned. There was a pregnant pause while we waited. Then the bell rang for the end of the class. Then he said, "Stanley, would you stay for a minute after class?" I thought, "Uh oh! I guess I stepped in it." When the other students had left the room, he said, "That was a very insightful explanation you just gave. I will certainly consider it as I reexamine the conclusions to my paper on this subject." I thanked him, and told him I had been reluctant to speak up, and he said he was glad that I had. Then he said that my comments were not why he had asked me to stay to talk with him.

I Am Honored By an Offer to Study the Attawapiskat Swampy Cree Earlier in the course I had abstracted patterns from Honigmann's field notes on the Attawapiskat Swampy Cree. I found that the

65 pattern I derived from quantified themes boiled down to: "The general child rearing pattern among the Attawapiskat seems to be one of 'leniency' rather than 'severity'" (South 1956d:5). He said he was impressed with the papers I had submitted to him, and that he was going into the field in Alaska to study the life history and modal personality questions arising from his ongoing research among the Attawapiskat Swampy Cree Indians, and asked if I might be interested in going. He said he could arrange a grant to pay me for the summer of ethnographic fieldwork (Honigmann 1954). I was greatly honored by his offer and explained to him that, although I had had a number of courses in psychology as an undergraduate, my primary interest was not in the psychological workings of personality, but in questions related to interpreting material culture such as spear points and potsherds. However, I was so intrigued by the offer that I told him I would think about it and get back to him.

"Upstairs"-"Downstairs"--Humanism Science

and

I should say something about the climate of the time in the Alumni Building at the University of North Carolina. The Department of Anthropology was upstairs with the Research Laboratories of Archaeology downstairs in the basement. The upstairs emphasis in anthropology was culture and personality, using the methods and techniques of psychology, with Honigmann being one of the leaders in the field. The downstairs focus in archaeology was on the evolution of material culture, with an emphasis on establishing cultural chronology, with Coe being one of the leaders in that field. Thus, there was a dichotomy between the research interests of the people "upstairs" and those in "downstairs" in the basement. (Why are archaeology departments so often underground in basements?) - - subliminal psychological mindset of university planners? I reported the offer to Joffre (whom I always called "Dr. Coe" until after I graduated). I told him I was very honored to have been asked to be a research assistant with Dr. Honigrnann, and I was trying to decide whether or not to accept it. I

66 asked him for his recommendation, knowing full well what it would likely be, given his lack of high regard for the culture and personality school of anthropological thought. He said that if I wanted to end my career as an archaeologist, and join the "bunch upstairs" in seeing if Indians could "draw-a-man," or put a square peg in a round hole, or learn how they were weaned, then I should accept the offer. If I did, however, he warned me "Before you know it you'll be psychoanalyzing potsherds!" I told him I had anticipated that would be his view. I told Dr. Honigmann thanks, but no thanks, for his offer. I chose to pursue my dream of someday being an archaeologist. I took pleasure in studying sherds discarded by past Native Americans toward better understanding how culture changes--how it evolves. I had less

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION interest in the idea of becoming an anthropologist involved in the psyche of modem Indians. I was more interested in trying to interpret the meaning of the material culture clues their ancestors left behind--the processes that produced that archaeological record. I have never regretted the decision I made when I faced that career-fork in the road. After I completed my course work for my MA in Anthropology from the University of North Carolina, on June 1, 1956, took Jewell and David and moved to Mt. Gilead, North Carolina, where I took the job as archaeologist at Town Creek Indian Mound--a dream come true--a move that would further my developmental years (Coe 1995: 32).

Part II: The Developmental Years Chapter 4 Town Creek Stories Introduction My developmental years, during which I learned from work carried out on a number of sites throughout North Carolina, began with Town Creek Indian Mound State Historic Site. There my scientific supervisor was Joffre Coe, but on site I worked with Ed Gaines. From him I learned a lot about archaeological technique, patience, dogged dedication to the task, and the joy that came from digging with an archaeological companion and interpreting what was found for the education and entertainment of the visiting public. From time to time I would venture out to other sites, sometimes with Joffre Coe, to address archaeological questions of interest to us both. From Town Creek also, I continued a pattern begun years before at UNC, of making an annual trip with Joffre to attend the Southeastern Archaeological Conference (SEAC), held every other year in Macon, Georgia. Those years at the SEAC meetings were indeed developmental for me, broadening my range of knowledge of the field through papers presented by the outstanding leaders of the time. After Town Creek the opportunity arose for me to move on to excavate the ruins of colonial Brunswick Town on the Cape Fear River. This move allowed me to face the challenge offered by an entire town through historical archaeology--a field in its infancy in the mid 1950s. While there I was called on to visit other sites throughout the state to conduct one or two day exploratory investigations of historic houses--developing my knowledge even further. This broader state-wide

responsibility caused me to be referred to by one administrator as "a loose cannon." Further development took place, broadening the temporal range of my knowledge, when I was put in charge of Civil War Fort Fisher, across the river from Brunswick Town. While I was there, the Civil War Centennial was underway, and diving on Blockade runner wrecks was of great interest at the time. I was asked to direct the recovery of cannon from the wreck of the USS Peterhoff during which I experienced what it was like to view an historic site while trying to stay alive sucking air from a tank strapped to my back, while keeping an eye out for great white sharks who were also interested in the wrecks. After that I chose to suck air (albeit polluted at times) from above water. The stories emerging from the developmental years of my life are told here.

Ed Gaines-Excavator and Teacher--Site Development and Interpretation As Joffre Coe points out in his book on Town Creek Indian Mound, my move there on June 1, 1956, as site archaeologist, was a dream come true, a dream I had had since the time I had visited the site and watched Ed Gaines and Ernest Lewis record postholes and pit evidence from stains in the earth (Coe 1995:32-33, 48). The story of the methods employed there, the development of the site based on the dictates of archaeology, and the resulting interpretation for public education and entertainment, have been covered in Coe's book. The pioneering methods Coe used there served us well as Ed Gaines routinely carried them out. As Coe points out in his book, not only were we

67

68 involved in a long range process of data recovery, we had a lot of grass to mow, visitors to show around the site, and artifacts to process. A major contribution Joffre made to those archaeologists who worked there with Ed Gaines was the freedom to make decisions on their own. He would occasionally visit the site, perhaps two or three times a year, but he kept in touch with what was going on through weekly reports to him on the choices we had made to contribute to the maintenance, research, site development and interpretation.

Figure 4.1. Ed GainescleaningFeature 2, beneaththe photographic tower in Square 20L80, at TownCreek Indian Mound(MgV3). (Photo:South 10/1956)

An important experience for me there was the association with Ed Gaines, the man who knew how to carry out what needed to be done with determination and skill. He knew well the process

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION of troweling the red clay subsoil from a ten-foot square for plotting the exposed features (Coe 1995: Figure F.6, 48). He was also an expert on carrying out mechanical repairs on a Gravely riding mower we used to cut acres of grass, inside and out, around the reconstructed palisaded area. I learned a lot from Ed, as did any archaeologist who had the pleasure of working with him (Coe 1995:xviii). He knew a lot of things he shared with me.

Daubers, Wasps and Black Widow Spiders Our tool shed was a small building, 10 by 12 feet square, that had been Joffre Coe's winter quarters in 1938 (Coe 1995:18). When I arrived there it was plastered on the interior with many dirt dauber nests, and whenever I needed a tool these insects would be flying around my head, though never showing any resentment to my intrusion of their quarters by doing anything so aggressive as stinging. But they sure were distracting, along with the wasps that joined in the harassment when you were in their territory. One day I asked Ed to tear out all the dauber and wasp nests and spray inside the shed to try to keep them out. A day or two later I asked him how it went and he replied that he was very reluctant to do that. I replied that they were not going to sting him. He answered that that was not the problem. The problem was, he said, that those insects killed so many black widow spiders that he couldn't bring himself to carry out my request by killing them. He said, "Come with me. I want to show you something." We went to the shed and he told me to take a trowel and carefully slice one of the clay nests from the wall while he caught the contents on a shovel. When this was done we counted eight black widow spiders and several other brown spiders in that one clay tube. I was impressed. Ed said the spiders liked to live beneath the canvas we used to cover the ten-foot squares we were excavating and having the daubers help him keep that population down was a great comfort to him. We opened a second nest and found seven black

Town Creek Stories

widow spiders in that one. I looked around at the many such clay spider repositories fastened to the walls and tried to estimate how many black widow spiders were represented. I looked at Ed and thanked him for not tearing out the nests. From that time on I had a better understanding of the symbiotic relationship that Ed had established with those creatures. This experience reminded me that as a boy climbing up the side of a grassy mountainside to round up cows in our pasture, I had discovered that most of the flat rocks lying on the ground had black widow spiders living under the downhill side of the rock. This knowledge was like a "law" of black widow behavior, so firm that on several occasions I would bet a companion who accompanied me, ten cents, that by looking under no more than three rocks, I could find a black widow spider. I never lost the bet and was elated to find that I won the dime on the first two rocks. I don't remember ever having to turn over three to win. I told Ed this story and he said the same was true of the canvas he had to move every day, so he was very protective of his friends the daubers and wasps. Copperhead (Ed called them"beach leaf") snakes also liked to crawl beneath the canvas to nap, and Ed taught me to use a shovel, not a hand, to raise the canvas before reaching down to grab it to lift it from the square.

"Walking On the Curb and In the Gutter" I also learned from Ed a lesson about dealing openly with a person's disability, in contrast to the way I had learned in my mountain home. If a person limped, or had a withered hand, or some other noticeable attribute, I was taught that you were n e v e r to acknowledge that fact. To do so was simply not done. I learned a different perspective one day when Ed, his brother, Dude Gaines, and I were walking on the dirt path from the reconstructed palisade toward the parking lot, where the museum is now. I occasionally hired Dude to help with troweling the squares, to mow the grass, to backfill a square, and other necessary work. Dude

69 had had polio as a child so one leg was shorter than the other and he walked with a noticeable limp because of it. As we were walking along on the path, tired from a long day's work, Ed said, "Dude! Why don't you quit walking with one foot on the curb and one foot in the gutter?" Dude replied, "Why don't you use all your brain instead of half of it?" And with that they kept up the good-natured banter until we reached our cars and said goodbye for the day. The next day I asked Ed about it and told him that I would never have said something like that to a limping man. He laughed and said, "Anyone can see he limps. You know it and he knows it, so why not come out and say it? You can't hide the truth of it by pretending it ain't there. You can even joke about it like you do with anyone else." I was later to have that lesson demonstrated again when I was archaeologist at Brunswick Town State Historic Site, when a fight ensured between a man in a wheelchair and one who was not--but that's another story for later.

Sparrow Pie-A Response to Hunger Ed told me about when he was a boy growing up in the depression that the family was often hungry. He and Dude would help by catching sparrows for his mother to make sparrow pie. They would turn a wooden box upside down and put a peg tied to a string under one edge of the box, with the string through a window into the house. They would put some corn meal on the ground near the box, and more beneath it. As the sparrows gathered to eat the meal they would go under the tilted box to get more corn meal. By that time there were several sparrows competing for the meal. Then Ed and Dude would pull the peg out, trapping the sparrows. They would go into the yard and slip their hand under the edge of the box and "pinch off their little heads." Then, there were two ways their room would prepare the sparrows. One was she would wrap each sparrow in mud that Ed and Dude would bring into the house in a bucket. Then their morn would put the clay-wrapped sparrows into the ashes in the fireplace. After

70 they were baked in the hot coals they would rake them out onto the hearth and let them cool. Then they would hit them on the hearth to break the clay coating and suck the meat out of the clay ball. I asked about the bones and feathers and Ed said when you're hungry you don't notice the feathers and you can just crunch up the little bones. The second way Ed's mom cooked sparrows was to put a bunch of them onto a crust in a pie pan and cover them with another piecrust. Then she would bake them in the oven. When they were done and the pie was opened, "That was the best pie in the world!" - - those "four and twenty" sparrows baked in a pie.

"Rusty Nails Richen Your Blood" One day I was not feeling as energetic as usual. Ed noticed it, and said I probably had "weak blood" because it was winter, and added, "But you probably know how to cure that." I admitted I didn't, and asked him what he did about "weak blood." He said, "Come outside with me and I'll show you." He took me to the back comer of the shed where a barrel was positioned to catch the run-off from the roof. "Look in there," he said. 1 looked into the water and saw a handful of cut nails with bright iron rust around them. "What's that about?" I asked. He said, "Those nails rust and put iron in the water. If you drink the water the iron'll richen your blood. I always drink nail water in the winter like a tonic. It keeps me healthy. Drink some every day and see you don't feel better." He took a dipper hanging there and offered me a drink. "What about the mosquito larvae in there," I said, skeptically eyeing the water. "You don't need to drink' um," he laughed, "They won't hurt you, just strain 'um through your teeth and spit 'em out!"

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

Public Education and Interpretation of the Archaeological Record The Palisade-An Interpretive Compromise When I arrived at Town Creek the temple mound and ramp, excavated by Joffre Coe in the 1930s, had been rebuilt. The logs placed on the ramp had rotted, leaving only a path for visitors to reach the mound summit (Coe 1995: 3 0 . I replaced the rotten logs with new cedar logs, forming broad steps (South 1995a: 282). Four main cedar support posts and lintels for supporting the roof for the temple on top of the mound were in place---a tempting reminder to me that the temple should be completed some day. The palisade, one of at least four that had been around the area, before and after the mound was built, had been reconstructed using juniper poles brought to the site from the coastal area by the Parks Department (Coe 1995: Cover, Frontispiece, 185, 188). This use of non-local posts bothered me and Coe's answer to my question about authenticity versus compromise was a lesson to me. He said that it would have been nice if local cedar or pine had been used, but the Parks Department had notified him that they had a large number o f juniper posts available from the coastal area and they could truck them to the site to be used to rebuild the palisade. He said that necessity sometimes dictated compromise and it was the responsibility of the archaeologist to be sensitively aware of those compromises that violated too heavily the evidence revealed in the archaeological record. Perfect "authenticity" was not a realistic goal, he said. He explained that juniper is also cedar, (genera Juniperus) and he didn't think the coastal juniper posts were inappropriate. I then asked if the posts had been placed in the original postholes. He said that they had not, but were within a foot or so of the original ones. He said this compromise was made because if it was ever necessary to re-examine the exact location of the original postholes it could be done, because they were not destroyed by the placement of the

Town Creek Stories new posts. They were basically a relatively authentic symbol of the original. The size of the posts was also a compromise. The juniper posts were much larger than the original palisade posts used by the Indians, but again, this compromise was necessary because small posts the size of the original would have rotted much sooner than the larger ones. These lessons in sensitive interpretive compromise as opposed to literal authenticity were to serve me well in the years to come as I faced similar challenges in translating the archaeological record into interpretive statements for public education. I will be saying more about this razor's edge of decision-making as this story continues. A portion of the north D-shaped palisade had been plastered with concrete, a compromise, instead of the clay daub plastered on the original palisade by the Indians so that the rains would not dissolve the daub over time. This compromise caused the concrete wall to need to be mopped with red Clay to simulate clay daub in color. Ed would fill a wheelbarrow with subsoil clay, pour water on it, mix it with a hoe then smear it onto the wall with a broom. This time-consuming process, in place before I arrived, took time I had rather Ed spend on revealing what the next tenfoot square had to show. One day, when Ed was shoveling the clay and I was mixing the mud, it occurred to me that if we shoveled in some concrete mix that the redstained lime might hold the color to the palisade much better than clay alone. We tried it and it worked, freeing a block of Ed's time to do archaeology. One of the things that bothered me about the mud-plastered stockade wall was the holes left in the wall at periodic intervals when the wall was constructed. They looked like holes suitable for use by defenders using guns. I asked Joffre about this and discovered he was uneasy with that interpretive detail as well. While I was there I sealed the holes with mud to remove this bothersome feature, but after I left the site the mud was removed. Joffre used a photograph showing the holes on the cover o f his book (Coe

71 1995: Cover, Frontispiece, and Figure F.1) - another of those compromises. Excavating Human Remains in a Mortuary House One area inside the palisaded compound excavated by Ed Gaines and I, was near the bank of Little River where we found part of a burial house, half of which had been eroded away as past floodwaters had cut into the bank. We removed several burials to recover information before further erosion took place. However, as excavation proceeded, the visiting punic showed great interest in the archaeological process of excavating, revealing, and removing these skeletal remains for further study by physical anthropologists. To prolong the educational opportunity provided by these exposed burials we placed over them a wooden shed, about 4 by 6 feet in size, with a hinged sheet metal roof for protection from rain. This roof could be propped up to allow viewing of the graves. Later, after I had left Town Creek for Brunswick Town, other archaeologists reconstructed a mortuary house over one of these burial houses to allow viewing of burials in place within it (Coe 1995:59, 267). This was a major achievement toward interpreting Native American religious burial practices to the public to help increase appreciation and respect for that culture - - a practice no longer considered acceptable. However, I soon realized that the water table problem on the site during wet weather would have to be faced if such a mortuary structure was ever built. I discovered this through leaving the individual burials open beneath the protective shed. Although we set the shed into the subsoil several inches to keep out surface water, during a rainy spell we could see water flowing out of root holes deep within the walls of the red clay side of the burial h o l e - - a problem if a mortuary house were ever reconstructed on the site. To address this problem I drew a plan to prevent water from entering the excavated burials. In the drawing I indicated that a ditch about six feet deep should be dug around the outside of the

72 burial area and backfilled with gravel. This ditch would be connected to a ditch to the riverbank containing drain tiles set in gravel. Such a drain system would keep water from reaching the burials. However, this was not done when the mortuary house was built so water periodically rose in the burial pits. Because of this problem, as well as the change in interpretive concepts involving Native American burials, the exposed burials were removed and replaced by an alternative exhibit concept.

Discovering a "Square-Ground Shed" from Posthole Depths In 1957, periodically I would visit Chapel Hill to touch base with Joffre Coe, and to develop the 5 by 7 inch exposed film of the ten-foot squares. We had to be sure the exposed film was o.k. prior to backfilling the squares. I would produce the mosaic prints in the darkroom and periodically glue them into place on the master mosaic of the excavated areas. We theorized that rectangular "squareground sheds" might be located in the area between the temple mound and the priest house. I wanted to see if the photographic mosaic revealed any sign of sheds or other structures. Joffre and I stared for a long time at the photographic mosaic, but we could see no visual posthole patterns of square, round, or rectangular buildings that stood out beyond the mass o f postholes that had been dug there in the distant past. I asked Joffre if I could see the square sheet drawings for that area. They revealed no buildings either. Because we always measured the depth of all postholes as we excavated them, I suggested that I use the depth of the holes from various squares in that area to see if a pattern could be revealed. On a copy o f the drawings I used different colors to designate postholes from different half-foot levels. As I remember, the colors were green, blue and red. When I did this and colored the plan of the postholes, I discovered a red set of postholes (from 1.0 ft. to 1.5 ft. in depth) that formed a rectangular shed 8 by 14 feet in size, in association with a number of charred

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION corn pits (Coe 1995:96-97). I had discovered the first square ground shed in the plaza area at Town Creek by using posthole depth. I was pleased with the results of this discovery method and this experience was to prove effective almost fifty years later at Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site in locating one of the first structures built there after the English arrived in 1670 (South 2002:287; Stoner and South 2001:3839).

From Ten-Foot Squares to Transit Mapping-A Breakthrough in Method When I was at Roanoke Rapids with Binford, we needed a map of the site covering a large area. Lcw knew how to use a transit far better than I did, so he made the map of the site (South 1959:248). I knew how to use a transit to map elevations along a straight axis, and to shoot elevations, but not to map large areas. At Town Creek I mapped the features in the ten-foot squares by using two tapes and recording the points at which they intersected over the posthole center, or around a feature (Coe 1995:48). It was a piece of cake to measure a ten-foot square area using the 3-4-5 method pulling tapes. However, I found, when I was laying down a row of ten-foot squares connected to a row laid down by some other archaeologist in previous years, the nails set for a ten foot square sometimes were off by two-tenths of a foot in ten feet! This was certainly unacceptable to me, so I had to make adjustments. However, I had little experience on a transit to map features over large areas of a site, but I wanted to learn how to do that in case I ever worked on a site where the logistics of mapping by grid were so great that a transit was an absolute necessity. Given this problem, I requested from my Raleigh supervisor in the Historic Sites Division a transit (a farm level, actually) that is simply a protractor, mounted on a tripod with a telescope attached. The instrument cost $125. I took it out on the site and drove four nails into the ground within a 300-foot area. I took the little book that came with the thing, and using a tape

Town Creek Stories pulled by Ed, I practiced shooting from one nail to the other. Then I moved the transit, shooting back, etc., until I could make a map of points anywhere in the 360 degrees of the transit and within the reach of a 300 foot tape, with a reasonable degree of accuracy. From then on I was able to make maps of a site without being enslaved to the grid. This breakthrough in method would serve me well in the years to come as I was challenged to map entire towns I was excavating. Excavating the Great Game Pole Hole in the Plaza Area at Town Creek When excavating the plaza area at Town Creek, Ed and Dude Gaines, and another helper and I discovered two trench features that had not been found in other areas o f the site, These proved to be where ramps had been excavated down to a large posthole at the deep end. One of these ramps was filled with large stones that I interpreted as chocking stones for a pole that had been slid down the ramp to the bottom of the hole. Then the pole had been lifted while another stone was thrown into the hole to hold it upright. This process had apparently been carried out until the pole stood upright in the hole, at which time a pile of stones was thrown against the side of the pole facing the ramp to hold it in place to keep it from falIing back into the hole. I made a detailed drawing of the plan and profile o f this ramp, illustrated in Coe's book on Town Creek (1995:94, Figure 5.7). I then excavated another unusual feature shaped like a cross. Hill's ink drawing of my field drawing is seen in Coe (1995: 95, Figure 5.8). When we began excavating this feature we expected to find stones in the ramp, but to my surprise, the ramp contained none, but a few chocking stones were found at the very bottom. Then I excavated the cross-trench feature and found that it was not a ramp, but rather a shallow trench, with the bottom at a uniform depth along its length. In the absence of rocks in the ramp, and the presence of this trench at a right angle to, and just behind, the deepest part of the hole, I interpreted this cross-trench feature as being a slot

73 into which a key log was dropped to lock in place the great game pole or chucky pole, probably about 40 feet long, that once occupied the hole.

Figure 4.2. Excavated game pole holes and trenches with

water revealing the water table level. (Photo: South, 1957) I felt that this exciting feature should be interpreted to more fully tell the story of what went on in prehistoric times at this ceremonial compound, and that a new great game pole should be slid into the hole and locked in place using the hypothesized key log dropped into the crosstrench. To experimentally demonstrate whether this hypothesis was in any way valid, I needed a 45-foot long pine pole. I thought that if Ed, Dude Gaines and a helper, assisted by me to roll the key log in place as they lifted the great game pole, we would successfully raise the pole into position. I thought it would need some kind of trophy head or other adornment to place at the top of the pole.

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Figure 4.3. Dude and Ed

Gaines and helper raising the game pole in the original hole. (Photo: South, 1957)

I contacted the U. S. Forest Service at Uhwarrie National Forest, and asked if they could furnish me with a 45 foot long pine pole. They agreed to do that. I also asked for a deer skull to place at the top of the pole. They said they had no deer skull at the moment but they put me in touch with a man who had recently killed a bear, and asked if a bear skull would do. I said that was fine with me and I made arrangements with that man to pick up a bear skull to grace the top of our pole. Ed cooked it on the site and scraped the meat from it. I then did one of those compromises I spoke of earlier and drove a 40-penny nail into the top of the pole and fastened the bear skull to it through the neck hole. Ed and I then festooned the skull with hemp rope tassels (another compromise). We fastened another piece of hemp rope around the pole about halfway up. I had read (Culin 1907) that in one version of a ballgame played in the Southeast, a higher score was often

counted if the ball hit the object on top of the pole, than if it hit above a mark about halfway up. With these preparations made, the four of us pushed the pole down the original ramp to the bottom of the hole. Then, as the three others lifted, I rolled a cedar key log along the ground to hold the pole in place from time to time while we rested. Gradually, by lifting the pole and rolling the key log, we had the great game pole in an upright position as I shoved the key log into the original key log trench. Our experiment had worked. We had at least demonstrated that a few people could raise a heavy 40-foot pole into position using the original trenches dug by the Indians. I took time away from the process to photograph our effort (Coe 1995:96).

Excavating a Copper Lizard in the Laboratory As a graduate student in Chapel Hill, Joffre showed me a lump of green copper oxide-stained

Town Creek Stories material with fragments of cane matting exposed. It had been taken from burial 57 at Town Creek some years before. It had been preserved by being soaked in Alvar, a standard preservative solution used for stabilizing delicate objects for removal from the field. It was covered with lumps of something that looked like bark. We could see the oval shape of a copper object inside the lump. I asked Joffre if he would allow me to use a solvent to "excavate" the lump, to see if I could reveal more of the cane matting, and he allowed me to do that. The slow process of carefully picking at the mass revealed what appeared to me to be fragments of bark. Beneath those fragments I found preserved woven cane matting with two different weaves. I turned the object over to clean the opposite side. Here the process revealed hair in parallel alignment, like animal fur, along with small fragments of fabric in contact with a copper ornament in the shape of a lizard (Coe 1995:236, Figure 11.12E). Using the solvent to soften the Alvar, I revealed the preserved "strata" associated with this ornament. This allowed me to interpret that, when the deceased individual was placed in the grave, the body had been wrapped in cloth, over which an animal fur, perhaps a cloak, was placed. A copper lizard ornament was then laid on the fur. Then, on the upper side of the ornament, a cane mat had been placed over the body. Finally, the cane mat-covered body had been covered with a layer of bark. This sequence, preserved by copper salts from the lizard, revealed the series of body coverings in the burial pit was something like a custom-made coffin around the body of the deceased. Reproducing Town Creek Indian Artifacts for Exhibits While I was a graduate student in 1954, Joffre asked me to photograph beads and other artifacts for use in slide presentations and for the files at the Research Laboratories of Anthropology. It was then I became familiar with many of the artifacts from Town Creek. Later; when I was the

75 archaeologist there, I undertook to replicate some of those copper and shell artifacts to be used in exhibits. A few exhibits were in the CCC barracks building where our laboratory and office was located (Coe 1995:26), but there was hope that the legislature would appropriate funds for a museum at some time in the future. I asked Sam Tarleton at the Historic Sites Division about plans for a museum on the site. He said an upcoming request was to be made to the legislature, not only for a museum, but a house for the site archaeologist as well. I suggested that if I gave a slide presentation to that group on the work being done at Town Creek, perhaps that would help convince the legisl'ators of the need. He made the political connections and I made the presentation. As a result, funding for the house was forthcoming, but the museum would have to wait until later, long after I had left Town Creek to undertake historical archaeology at Brunswick Town. The exhibits in the CCC building did not contain artifacts because of the risk of break-ins at the isolated site. Replication of artifacts, therefore, was a way to interpret to the visiting public what was being found at Town Creek. So, I went to the hardware store and purchased copper sheeting and began hammering it with a stone to flatten it further in order to reproduce a breastplate such as that illustrated in Coe (1995:236D). I was fascinated by the fact that to fasten such flat copper objects together the Indians had punched holes in two overlapping pieces and inserted little copper rivets, hammering the pieces and the rivets together. I made a reproduction breastplate by this same method. Joffre Coe had showed me the copper ax from burial 50, at Town Creek (1955:237), and pointed out that it had been made by hammering together several thin native copper sheets (probably trade copper from Michigan). So, I made a reproduction copper ax with the same method used by the Indians, hammering to anneal the copper and bond the sheets into a thick copper ax. I then cut out a little copper lizard such as the one I had revealed in the laboratory (Coe

76 1995:236, Figure 11.12D), and made some tubular beads. However, these objects were the color of untarnished copper, not having the green oxide patina characteristic of archaeologically excavated copper. They needed to be artificially "aged" in some manner. To do this I placed wet paper toweling over the objects and sprinkled, as I remember, ammonium chloride crystals I obtained from the drugstore onto the wet toweling. The following day a green patina covered the objects, giving them the appearance of archaeologicallyrecovered artifacts. Years later, on a visit to the Town Creek museum, I saw some of these reproduction pieces still on display. The most difficult item I reproduced was a shell gorget such as that cross-in-a-circle from burial 43, illustrated in Coe (1995:235B). I used a band saw to roughly cut the outside shape, but the saw blade got so hot the teeth were dulled and the blade had to be replaced. To cut out the four triangular holes I began using a drill, but I found that the drills became hot, and dull so quickly, that I was making little progress. I then bought some high carbon steel drills and, by drilling holes tangent to one another, I was able to remove the four triangular areas, leaving the cross shaped area within a circle. However, I then had to use rasps and files in order to smooth the edges of the triangles, and this took an inordinate amount of time and effort. Finally, I was able to produce a shell gorget for exhibit purposes, but the result was not nearly so fine looking as the archaeological examples produced by Native Americans without the use of steel tools. I gained a great respect for their shellworking technology as a result of my efforts. Reconstructing the Town House Temple on the Mound at Town Creek When I was a graduate student in 1955 I wrote a paper for Dr. Coe's Anthropology 74 course entitled, "Some Suggestions for the Construction of an Indian Temple." The research and arguments of relevance for the methods I used in 1957 and 1958 to reconstruct the temple building

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION are presented in the paper that was later published (South 1955, 1973a, 1995). When I arrived at Town Creek only the four large central cedar posts with lintels were in place on the mound (Coe 1995:31). On the outside of the south palisade there was a pile of cedar logs, cut and placed there by a previous archaeologist for use in rebuilding the temple. Each time I passed that pile of logs I had the urge to rebuild the temple. I asked Joffre whether I could launch into that project. He replied that I had "written the book" on how it should be built, but that I would need more poles than were already on the site. I had the plans from my 1955 paper, in which I had drawn details of how the poles were to be set in the ground, how the roof was to be attached, how the aluminum roof was to be sandwiched between reeds cut from the banks of Town Creek, and how bundles of thatch were to be tied to chicken wire nailed over the aluminum roof, so I knew from my own research how the temple should be built. I made arrangements with a local owner of a pine forest that needed the forest thinned and I went into the forest and chain-sawed down a number of his pine trees to use for the roof poles of the temple. We then began cutting and dragging the poles to the road to be loaded on a truck and carried to the site. First, however, we stripped the limbs from the trees and then we used our flat blade, archaeological schnitting (sharp earth-cutting) shovels to cut offthe bark. I bought a large dug-up service station gasoline storage tank, filled it with water to force out all fumes, drained it, and had a welder cut the tank in half along the long axis. Then he cut two ends out and welded it together again to make a long half-round vat to be used to soak the logs in the preservative Pentacholorophenyl, a wood preservative. We loaded the vat with pine poles and let them soak overnight or for a day or two and then remove them and place them on a corrugated metal drain board so that the excess chemical would drain back into the tank. We did this until I

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Figure 4.4. Ed Gaineshandingme anotherroof pole for the town house temple. (Photo:Jewell South, 9/1956)

thought we had enough poles to use for the roof of the temple. Each week I reported our progress to Joffre. This continued until the spring of 1958, when the temple was completed. I used the archaeologically excavated floor plan and laid out the reconstruction. We used nails to fasten the roof poles in place (another compromise) but we took care that none of these would show. We used commercial rope, a compromise that worried me, because it was machine wound, not twisted by hand and Indian rope would have been. Ed cut broom sage and we tied them into bundles with twine and fastened them to the chicken wire on the roof, overlapping like shingles, so that nothing but natural materials showed from the inside or out (South 1995a:294300). We soaked the thatch bundles in Penta, as we had the roof poles. Today 45 years later, some of

this same thatch is still on the roof. The twine I had used eventually rotted, releasing some of the bundles, but I was told they were reused and retied using fine wire. The aluminum roof had protected all but the lower three feet or so of the roof poles and they began to rot off. These were replaced using short pieces of poles. The archaeology had revealed that the sides of the entranceway were covered with cane mats, so Ed went to work weaving mats to represent the original (South 1995a: 297). He also wove mats to cover the wooden seats we built inside the temple (South 1995a: 299). Because archaeology revealed there were no postholes along the wall inside the temple I used benches made of horizontally laid logs, on which we placed Ed's mats. There were postholes at the opposite side from the entranceway that were interpreted as the location of an altar.

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Figure 4.5. The completed town house temple and ramp with new logs in place. Inset: Dancing figures on the vestibule

wall of the temple. (Photo: South, 1957) I rebuilt this altar and placed upon it some animal hides, a conch shell and some leaves of yaupon (Ilex vomitorium) from which the Indians made the black drink. Such altars are known to have contained a religious figure carved of wood (Lawson 1714 [1952]: 228). The painted vestibule wall of one such Mississippi Valley temple was said by Gravier (In Swanton 1946:617), to have been the finest part of the temple, being decorated with dancing colorful figures, or satyrs. I used dancing figures in relief, with the headdress of a deer and a bear, holding

artifacts archaeologically recovered at Town Creek - - a set of sharpened turkey bones fastened together to form a skin-scratcher (Coe 1995:239, Figure ll.14E, 271, Figure 13.6); a bear-tooth rattle, a copper ax (Coe 1995: 237, Figure 11.13); and a conch shell cup for the black drink (South 1995a: 297). I chose the deer and the bear for the vestibule wall because my research in my BAE reports had found that these two animals were the most frequently used Creek clan effigies. On the four walls inside the temple I used the beaver, bear, wolf and deer. The cross-hatching on the

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beaver tail, and the incised lines of the animals themselves, were based on incising I found when I did a detailed study of the daub from the temple walls.

Figure 4.6. The spotlighton the conch shell on the altar in the town house temple that convincedEd Gaineswe "got it right." (Photo: South 1957)

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"We Got It Right!"--A Spotlight Shines On Our Work One day after the temple was completed, I was in my office in the CCC building, when Ed came in very excited. He was usually very controlled and calmly self-assured, but this excitement was unusual. He told me I should come with him immediately, that he wanted to show me something in the temple. I asked him what it was. "I can't tell you. I can't describe it. You'll have to see it for yourself!" On the way through the bastion gate, across the plaza, and up the ramp, Ed kept saying, "We got it right! We got it so right, it's scary!" I had no idea what he was talking about, but he was more excited than I had ever seen him. When I came around the vestibule wall a shaft of light was coming through the smoke hole. It was made more dramatic by the smoke from the fire we kept burning each day in the central fire pit. Then I saw that the shaft formed a circular spotlight directly on the objects on the altar. This spotlight from the sun had convinced Ed that we had indeed "Got it right" - - at least for that hour of the day on that day of year. As a final touch of authenticity, we had left a section of the temple wall without the clay-stained concrete on metal lathing (another compromise). As one came up the mound you could see in this section some of the vines we used as wattling. We plastered red clay daub matching the remainder of the wall over the vines. After that had dried, I took a hammer and struck enough blows to the daub so that some of the wattling was revealed, as might have been the case on any claydaubed wall after being exposed to the weather over a period of time. Visitors sometimes remarked that we needed to repair that place where the clay was coming off--a complement to our effort at authenticity. Almost a half-century has passed since Ed and I built the temple. In that time it has mellowed considerably, and the last time I visited it I was struck by the wonderful odor of the structure, the wood, ashes in the hearth, the thatch, and the general ambiance of the place. It now has a

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mystical, romantic aura that it did not have when Ed and I first completed it. Or is that simply personal nostalgia in my heart and mind? I don't think so. I would like to believe that others may be equally touched by the impact of that silent place, built to recapture the Native American "story from the past," through archaeological science and interpretation. Decades after leaving Town Creek I met a man from Mt. Gilead, who also remembered fondly the romantic aura of the temple building. He said it had been a favorite place for local high school students to go to make love on the benches Ed and I had built--what better use than as a temple of love?

Reconstructing the Entryway Tunnel beneath the Palisade Wall Erosion along the east edge of the D-shaped stockade had removed the posthole evidence. However, the Indians had dug a tunnel beneath the palisade that apparently served as an entryway from Little River (Coe 1995:89). I wanted to reconstruct the palisade along this straight side of the "D" and asked Joffre about doing that. His response was to show me the photographs and drawings for the tunnel gates and pointed out the absence of postholes. I suggested that although posthole data was missing, the tunnel entranceways appeared to me to be sufficient evidence to reveal where the stockade had been. Because I had successfully completed building the temple, I suspect he thought I could do justice to that reconstruction as well, so I began to cut more pine trees to build that palisade wall with tunnel entryway. It was just beyond these tunnel entryways where the eight-foot deep deposit of broken pottery was excavated. Because of the budget restrictions I was not able to buy much Penta for preserving these poles, and because I was anxious to get on with the project, I didn't allow the poles to dry before we soaked them in Penta. Then, after the Penta was used up, I discontinued soaking the poles, with the excuse that this would allow us to gauge the time

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the non-Penta-soaked Indian-placed poles would last in the ground. Ed and Dude, and I, along with a robust 15year old Don Mayhew, a high school football player from Mooresville, North Carolina, installed the palisade poles. Then, we placed shorter poles on each side of the entrance tunnel with a gate overhead that had to be lifted from inside the palisade to allow access to the tunnel beneath the palisade. This was one of the most popular interpretations for school children. They loved to duck their heads to go in and out beneath the palisaded compound wall. The compromise I had made on the poles, or the "experiment," as I liked to think of it, demonstrated that such palisades, made of untreated pine poles, would last about seven years, for it was about that time, I believe, that this palisade was removed because the poles had rotted, and as far as I know this neat entranceway beneath the palisade wall has not been interpreted at the site.

Figure 4. 7. Don Mayhew in the reconstructedentryway

tunnel through the stockade at the Town Creek side of the compound. (Photo: South, 1958)

Square-Ground Refuse beyond the Tunnel Gate--Broken Pots When I arrived at Town Creek a previous archaeologist had begun digging a five-foot-wide trench on the bank below the tunnel gate to a depth of about five feet, and this excavation was still open, but in need of further excavation. I cleaned the weeds from the square and dressed the profile to learn what it revealed. Then I widened

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the trench to 10 feet and excavated the trench to a depth of eight feet before the subsoil was reached. The entire depth of this trench revealed that periodically, refuse, consisting primarily of broken pottery, was thrown down the bank, producing strata at about 45 degrees. Therefore, these strata had to be followed at that angle in order to keep associated refuse together, making excavation at that angle a difficult process. As I dug here I began to observe that some sherds found in the bottom layer were different from those in the layers above. I did a quantitative analysis of pottery from this trench with this difference in temper and surface finish in mind. A question of interest at the time was demonstrating the temporal relationship of Uwharrie pottery to Pee Dee pottery. I was excited by the difference I observed in the strata and asked Joffre if I could present a paper at the Southeastern Archaeological Conference on the pottery found in this trench. His reply was that he would publish such analyses at a later time. Almost 40 years later he published the pottery count of Pee Dee, Yadkin, Caraway, Badin, Bruton and Uwharrie pottery found in the test pit trench cut into the riverbank midden (Coe 1995:153).

Reconstructing the Priest's House Before my going to Town Creek, by 1950, enough excavation had been carried out so that an interpretive drawing could be made of the layout inside the palisaded compound. This 1951 drawing, by Barton Wright, was a valuable interpretive tool to guide those o f us who came to the site in later years (Coe 1995:98, Figure 5.11). Having completed the temple in 1958, and inspired by Barton Wright's drawing, as I had been when I went searching for the posthole for the great game pole, I was anxious to move on to the construction of the palisaded compound archaeology had revealed was located opposite the ramp of the temple mound (Coe 1995:88). The two palisaded compounds found there were interpreted as the enclosures around a priest's house and a burial house.

81 In a conference with Joffre we decided that an interpretive compromise would be made and I would reconstruct only one of the palisade compounds and one priest house inside it. Using the archaeological record as a guide to the building plan, I rented a tractor with a hole-digger on the back, and dug holes in the droughtproduced concrete-hard subsoil clay for the rectangular compound. The priest's house had been a square building, according to the posthole pattern, with an entranceway on the southwest side facing the temple mound. I used cedar again for the posts to go into the ground, with roof poles of pine, cut locally, and because of budget constrictions, I didn't believe we could afford Penta to preserve them. The

Figure 4.8. Dude Gaines, Don Mayhew, Ed Gaines and

David Wilson reconstructing the priest's house. (Photo: South, 9/1958)

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framing of the priest's house was finished before I left Town Creek. The building was completed by David Phelps in 1958 (Coe 1995:34). The concept for the priest's house, after I left, was that the use of native materials would be a non-compromised way of reconstructing such a structure. Natural wattling materials were used in the walls and clay daub was used instead of the red clay-stained concrete I had used on the temple. No aluminum roof was used, so during a rain, I was told, rain would leak into the building onto tourists who had sought shelter there. Six years later, in 1964, the roof poles had rotted, having been kept wet by the thatch after each rain, and the entire roof had to be replaced by Roy Dickens (Coe 1995:38). With that trade-off for the sake of authenticity o f materials, a much higher maintenance consideration was put in effect than that required of the temple Ed and I had built. The pine palisade posts I had used in the enclosure around the priest's house also rotted, but a standard procedure there was to simply remove the rotten part in the ground and stick the same post back into the hole. This resulted in the palisades being of different length, some long, some a few feet shorter, which was noticeable to me when I returned for a visit many years later. This was because I had left the palisade with very little difference in the height of the poles. This greater variability in the length of the poles gave an increased authenticity, it seemed to me, for this may well have been the solution the Indians had to the rotting of palisade posts. This is supported by archaeological evidence that reveals that such palisades are not always in a neat straight line, but have "extra" posts outside that line, which I have interpreted as perhaps replacement posts for those that may have rotted off at ground level. The maintenance of the priest's house on a continuing basis will always be a reality that must be dealt with at Town Creek, I suspect, compared to the almninum-roofed, concrete-walled temple on top of the mound, where only the unprotected overhanging ends of the roof poles have rotted after 45 years.

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"In The Future Man Will Live on the Stars"-Yes-Or-No-Bureaucracy While the temple was being built to interpret what science had revealed about the past, our seven-year old son, David, faced a question regarding what science had discovered about the stars. We lived in Mt. Gilead, a few miles from Town Creek, where David attended school. One day he came home upset because he had made a score of 98 instead of 100 on a science test. He said the question he missed was: "Scientists have found that in the future man will live on the stars." I had taught David that stars were suns, so he had answered "no," but the answer was supposed to have been "yes" to receive credit. I agreed that David's negative answer was the correct one. However, he was concerned that I had fed him incorrect information about the nature of the stars when we had studied the constellations--he was confused as to whom to believe. So, I went to see his teacher--which began a pass-the-buck game. She told me that she had to go by the answers printed in the answer sheet and could not give him credit for his answer. She said the test was approved by the State Board of Education and that if I disagreed with some answer I should contact them, which I did. Their answer was that they did not make the test and only approved its use, and that the teacher was correct in subtracting for David's answer. If I had a problem with the answer to a question I should contact the company in Chicago that manufactured the test. I wrote them explaining the situation. They answered that they would check with their scientific advisors, but that the test in question had been used for years, approved by many school boards in many states, and mine was the first challenge to a question they had received. Weeks went by, so I again wrote asking what their scientific advisor had said about the question. Some time later I received a letter saying that David's answer to that question was indeed a correct one. Finally! However, they said that because they had just had a large printing of the same test, it would be some time before any correction could be made. They said that

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sometime in the future, when that test was redesigned, they would change the answer to that question. Being a determined pest, I called and asked, "What about all those children in the meantime who would, like David, have points subtracted for giving the correct answer? I got the impression from the spokesman for the company that I should have points subtracted for asking such a question and causing the problem. I showed the letter to David, but told him not to hold his breath until the change was made, because he would probably be graduated from college before that happened. The change may never have been made and students are still being given the impression that man will someday indeed live on stars (suns)!

Excavating at the Hardaway Site--Searching for the Paleoindian Presence Not all excavation took place when I was at Town Creek Indian Mound. From time to time Joffre would notify me to meet him at a cafe in Badin, North Carolina, where we would have an early morning coffee and then go to the Hardaway site (StV4) nearby (Coe 1964:56-83). This site promised to reveal evidence for the earliest Indians in North Carolina, and I fantasized about finding a Clovis point at the bottom of the squares we dug. We dug a trench of five-foot squares, one at a time, removing an incredible amount of lithic debitage by half-foot levels. I remember counting 52 projectile points and scrapers from one of these half-foot levels, not counting the unworked debitage that was thrown into a pile that ended up being larger than the pile of dirt screened from the square. Sometimes when Joffre couldn't join us, Ed and I would go to the site and excavate a square without him. The recovery of so much worked stone at that site was an exciting adventure. As we neared the bottom of the two to three foot deep square, however, where the soil color changed from a wine to a brighter red subsoil clay for a half-foot or so, we always hoped we would find a Hardaway projectile point. We found that when this redder subsoil zone was reached, it contained

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fewer lithic specimens. Beneath that layer the red subsoil was found and we discovered, as we troweled the upper surface of this red subsoil, that we would occasionally find a flake of debitage embedded in the clay, but these were not lying flat. Rather, they were standing up on edge. These would extend down into the subsoil a few inches, but there would be no sign at all of any disturbance from darker soil lying above the brighter red subsoil. We had to come up with an explanation for this mystery. Why were the earliest flakes of stone, on what had apparently been a bright red clay surface, with little or no organic material present, always lying on edge, sandwiched between bright subsoil clay? This was a predictable phenomenon in the subsoil in the squares we dug. My theory was, and I was never sure Joffre ever agreed with me, that at the time the first Hardaway point-making people arrived it was a red clay eroded site. The first debitage flaked from cores there fell on a red clay surface with no humus. Then, in very dry weather, that clay would crack open, as I have seen such exposed subsoil do when the sun has sucked the moisture out of it. This would cause stone flakes lying on the clay surface to fall on edge into the cracks. When moisture again wet the clay it would swell, sealing the debitage in a vertical position in undisturbed subsoil. Coe only smiled at this explanation. Because of this phenomenon we had to excavate the red clay subsoil very carefully to prevent scraping the sharp edges of the worked, or un-worked flakes, encased vertically on edge within the subsoil. In this position, with only a sharp edge showing, one careless swipe of the trowel across the sharp edge, would produce a number of tiny flake scars, that later in the laboratory might be interpreted as having been produced there by the people working lithics on the site. To prevent this we developed an excavation technique that involved sticking the point of the trowel into the subsoil to pry out lumps. We found that if the lump was close to one of the vertical flakes, it would sheer away from the flake, thus revealing it, and allowing it to

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Figure 4.9. StanSouth in Square 0LI5 at the Hardaway Site (StV4),with a Hardaway blade (inset and arrow) on edge in the red subsoilclay at the bottom of the square. (Photo:Edward Gaines,6/1956) be removed without our having accidentally created our own flakes from scraping the sharp edges. This was a difficult process to use because the red clay was very hard to excavate in this manner, and many blisters resulted on our trowel hands from this technique. In one of the squares Ed and I were digging, at a time when Joffre could not be there, we discovered the edge of what appeared to be a biface blade. 1 took close-up photographs of the blade in situ and Ed took one of me in the bottom of the square pointing to the blade. We then excavated the subsoil from each side of the object and took more photographs. When it was finally removed from the subsoil matrix in which it lay, we found that it was a Hardaway blade, illustrated by Coe (1995:65). This was, I believe, the first Hardaway blade found in the red subsoil clay at the bottom of the squares at the Hardaway site (StV4, Sq. 0L20, Zone IV Coe 1964: 65). In the same subsoil zone

I also found a classic Hardaway projectile point (Coe 1964: 68). Later long-term Research Laboratories of Anthropology sponsored excavations may well have revealed others, but I was not involved in those digs. This discovery reminded me of the time, seven years before, when I found that Hardaway point in the tobacco field north of Greensboro, that had stimulated my desire to learn more about such early clues to past activities of people who made tools from stone. Joffre's published work on The Formative Cultures o f the Carolina Piedmont (1964) has become a classic archaeological bible, based on the work done at the Doerschuk site (MgV22), the Hardaway site (StV4), and the Gaston site (HxV7). Some time after I worked at the Hardaway site I asked Joffre whether there was a site like that across the river and he said perhaps I should go there to see. Ed and I went there, and to no

Town Creek Stories

surprise to me, found a similar site with quantities of lithic debris. Discovery near the Doerschuk Site--an Unsolved Mystery Downstream from the Hardaway site is the Doerschuk site. Because the site allowed Joffre to locate a number of projectile points stratigraphically, I asked if he would show it to me. We walked across the dam near the site, and down a trail along the river bank, where an outcropping of sandstone had been cut into by the river. He showed me a place where the trail crossed the sandstone, where stone flakes were embedded in it. I recognized this as an incredible phenomenon. He smiled at my excitement and said that he had once had a geologist come to see if he could determine the age of the sandstone so that the obviously man-made debitage might be dated. The geologist had said that the late Holocene Period might be a good guess. Then he asked Joffre when he would date the flakes and from that they might more closely determine the age of the sandstone. So, nothing was done beyond that impasse. The geologist did say that it is surprising how quickly waterborne silica can act as the glue to bond sandbars into sandstone. He theorized that before the dam above the site was built, river-water flowed over the sandstone outcropping when it was a sandbar, at which time stone flakes from Indians making tools in the area settled into the loose sand. Then, through time, silica solidified the sand, turning it into the quartzbonded sandstone containing the flakes we found embedded in it. A nice theory, but unsatisfying to me, but it is all I have to address the mystery, given what we think we know about the time man has been in eastern North America. A few years later, when I was archaeologist in charge of Brunswick Town State Historic Site at Wilmington, I was to be reminded of what that geologist had said about the characteristics of silica in solution. A dredge had pulled a large log from the Cape Fear River. One end was petrified stone, with the opposite end being soft wood that

85 began flaking away as the sun pulled the moisture from the log. The wood end was joined to the stone end at a diagonal line, where the log had apparently been embedded in a layer on the bottom of the river. One end had taken in silica and had turned to quartz, whereas the other end had not, but the wood had been preserved in such a way that silica was not soaking into that end. This observation reminded me of the geologist's comment that silica, under the right conditions, can sometimes bond sand to sandstone in a remarkably short period of time. But...but...how short a time? The mystery of those flakes imbedded in sandstone still haunts me. Salvaging Burials at the Forbush Creek Site When a highway improvement to US 421 was being built in Yadkin County, North Carolina, Joffre asked that I meet him at a bottomland site in the path of the highway. The site was beside the river where a borrow pit had been dug by a company selling sand. The operators loading sand into trucks had reported that human bones and Indian pottery had been found at the site. Now that the site was endangered by highway construction, Joffre thought he, Ed and I should examine the area to see if other burials might be found and salvaged before destruction of the site took place. The site was designated as ydVl, and we knew it as the Yadkin site, but since that time it is known as "The Forbush Creek site." It was in December 1957, and because destruction was soon to take place, a motor grader was used to remove the surface of the sandy bottomland adjacent to the borrow pit. This process produced the dark soil fill of many features; some were refuse pits, but many were flexed Indian burials. Ed and I excavated many burials, and because time was short before destruction of the site, we recorded and removed the bones as quickly as possible, placing the wellpreserved, sand-filled skulls in boxes for removal of the sand at a later time, when careful excavation of the sand inside the skulls would reveal clues such as the eardrum bones, the hyloid bone, and other associated data of scientific use.

86 These skulls were stored in the laboratory in Chapel Hill until one of Joffre's students was given the job of repairing them and taking measurements for use in his M.A. thesis. What he found was that the skulls, in excellent condition when we had removed them from the ground, had broken into many postage-stamp-size fragments while in storage, causing him a challenging task of restoration. When I heard this I was surprised, because they had been so perfectly preserved when we placed them in the boxes. What had happened was that when the damp skulls had dried there was some shrinkage. However, the sand inside did not shrink, causing the skulls to self-destruct by breaking into many pieces. That lesson taught me to excavate the sand from inside archaeologically recovered skulls as soon as possible after removal from the field. Another Stratified Site Is Discovered As Ed continued excavation of the burials, I cut a profile down the ten-foot deep profile of sand which was the wall of the borrow pit adjacent to the burial site to see i f I could see a

Figure 4.10. Ed Gaines at the eight-foot deep Morrow MountainprojectiIe-point-associatedcharcoal deposit at the stratified Forbush Creek site (Ydv 1). (Photo: South, 12/1957)

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION stratum representing a buried surface, such as I had found at the Gaston site at Roanoke Rapids. When the profile was cleaned I saw a dark, charcoal stained area about eight feet deep, not in a layer, but in an irregular shape about 18 inches across. I troweled further into the profile at this point, and my trowel struck something causing the characteristic high-pitched sound heard when a trowel scrapes a stone. When I examined the spot from which the sound had come, I found a Morrow Mountain projectile point in the yellow sand. This was apparently another stratified site! Wow! What an opportunity this was to again reveal the exciting data buried in such a site. I photographed Ed standing beside the dark stain and removed it in a box so that radiocarbon dating might be done on the charcoal, which would suggest a date for the Morrow Mountain type projectile point associated with the charcoal. However, the evidence was eight feet deep and time was so short! In frustration at knowing that a stratified site was going to be buried beneath Highway 421, I returned to helping Ed with the removal of the burials, which showed more likelihood of success than removing eight feet of fill to get at the Morrow Mountain level on the site! "Stanley, I Believe Your Box Is On Fire" It was December, and each day we worked was colder than the last. The highway engineer in charge of the construction notified me that only a few days were left before we would have to leave the site. Each day we had seen the large bellyloading earthmoving machines working closer and closer to the site where we were working. The engineer had held his machines from the site as long as he could, for which we were grateful, but time was running out. It was a few days before Christmas and Ed had left to be with his family for the holidays. Joffre came down from Chapel Hill to help me excavate burials as long as the machines were not yet on the site. He registered in a motel for the night and, to prevent my driving back home to Mt. Gilead that night, he rented a room for me. That

Town Creek Stories

day we continued our work, with the sun shining and the temperature not too bad, so we made good progress. The next morning, however, the temperature was five degrees above zero! We had breakfast and discussed whether we should continue trying to excavate burials with the ground frozen. Joffre said, "Well, we're here. We might as well put in the day." We went to a furniture store and they gave us some large boxes to use as windbreaks, into which we could scrooch down while exposing the bones of a burial. We then went to a service station and got two empty five-quart oil cans and punched holes in the side near the bottom for ventilation. Then we bought a bag of charcoal briquettes and a can of lighter. We would use these as heaters to keep us from freezing in such cold weather. When we arrived at the site we took an ax and began chopping at the sand surface of one of the burials we had previously numbered and flagged with the burial number. The sand was frozen to a depth of about three inches, which broke up into chunks like frozen ice on a lake. We removed the broken chunks of sand and found soft sand of the burial pit beneath. Then Joffre put his box on its side on one side of the burial and I did the same with my box. We then put the charcoal in the cans, poured on the lighter, and lit it. Soon the cans were giving off a little heat against the almost zero temperature. We huddled in our boxes and placed our hot warming-can on the sand near us to capture as much heat from it as possible. Because we could not sensitively remove sand to reveal the bones using our gloves, we would excavate awhile using a bare hand, then when it became too cold to bear, we would hold that hand near the warming can of charcoal while we excavated with the other. We continued this process, periodically getting out of our box and stamping our feet to restore circulation in our cold legs and butts from sitting with only a single layer of cardboard between us and the frozen ground. As the morning dragged on under these conditions, and I was busily brushing sand from bones, I heard Joffre call my name. I looked up. He had a

87 curious expression on his face and was just staring at me. I said, "What?" Still he stared and said nothing. Then he calmly said, with a nod to my right, "Stanley, I believe your box is on fire." I

Figure 4.11. Southin the box excavatinga burialbefore the box caught fire. (Photo:Coe, 12/1957)

turned to my right, and all I saw was a wall of flame--it felt good, actually. But, I moved quickly, crawled out of the box, and by the time I stood up the entire box was flaming, giving off a nice warm glow, as Joffre and I watched it reduced to ashes. I had been so engrossed in excavating that I hadn't noticed the fire. What struck me was that Joffre had showed no excitement, as others might have done-only that calm announcement that my box was on fire. Shortly after that the highway engineer showed up and told us that our time had run out and he could no longer hold the giant bellyloaders back from our area. The causeway they had been building over the site had gotten closer and closer each day and they could no longer work the machines effectively. Joffre asked how much more time we had to remove the burials we had exposed, and he answered, "About five minutes." Whoa! We began grabbing our tools, notebooks, drawings, cameras, and had just carried our sifter frame from the area to just beyond the causeway area, when we looked around and one of the giant machines had run

88 over the spot where we had stood moments before. What a shock that was. Our mouths dropped open, and we looked at each other in disbelief, then we simply stood there and stared at what had been, moments before, an archaeological site where we were attempting to salvage information from the earth that would allow us to better understand the Native American past. It was a strange feeling we both had--to have a site so suddenly destroyed before our eyes. We were silent for a long time afterward, as if in mourning. We sat in a coffee shop and drank a farewell toast of coffee to the Yadkin site and said farewell for the holiday. It was December 23rd. "Pottery A r r o w h e a d s " - - A Lesson in Form and Function On one of my visits to Joffre in Chapel Hill he laid about a dozen small potsherds on a table and asked me what I thought of them. I thought this must be some kind of taxonomy test, so I looked for the surface decoration, and told him that some were Pee Dee Complicated Stamped, and others were burnished plain sherds. He had a mischievous grin on his face when he asked, "What else?" I knew there had to be something I was missing, so I stared at the collection again. Finally it hit me. "All of the sherds are in the shape of triangles," I said, puzzled. He smiled as he turned over a paper bag lying there and read what was written on it--"Pottery arrowheads from Town Creek." "Pottery arrowheads?" I asked. We laughed at the idea, and he explained that one of the archaeologists at Town Creek had noticed, when he was writing catalog numbers on groups of potsherds, that there were always some that were triangular in shape, just like the triangular shape of stone arrowheads. He concluded that these must be "pottery arrowheads." This had seemed like an important discovery to him, and had reported to Joffre that he had begun separating the "pottery arrowheads" from others sherds in the collection. He had made counts of these triangular sherds, and had figured the percentage of the "pottery arrowheads" in

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION relation to others in several proveniences, and had sent the results to Joffre. Joffre was puzzled as to what "pottery arrowheads" were and had asked him to send some to him to examine. The pottery sherds Joffre had shown me were the ones sent him as examples of this discovery. Joffre had later explained to the man that just because something was in the shape of something else it didn't mean their function was the same. Duh! Indians in North Carolina--Public Education Interpreting archaeological information about the Native American past to the public was a major goal in addition to the scientific research Joffre had carried out at Town Creek for twenty years before I arrived. Placing the Town Creek story in perspective in relation to what went on before and after that ceremonial area was in use, was also an important part of the evolution of Native American culture. The centennial of Stanly County was underway in 1957, and I was asked to write an article summarizing what was known about Indians in the Stanly County area, which I did, illustrating it with pictures of the reconstructed temple and a view o f the altar inside it (South 1957a:18-19). This article was my first on interpreting what was known at the time about Native Americans. In 1959 I wrote a summary of Indians in North Carolina, published by the State Department of Archives and History. In this booklet, written specifically for distribution to school children, I presented a time line illustrating changes in Indian artifacts over a 10,000 year period, from Clovis to the historic tribes to A.D. 1838 (South 1959b:61). That little book sold 69,050 copies. It cost 25 cents in 1959, increasing to one dollar by 1985, when it went out of print. The sequences of axes, projectile points and vessels I illustrated there is basically still valid today. Of course, it didn't include the "Pre-Clovis" period based on A1 Goodyear's work in recent years at the Topper site, near Allendale, South Carolina (Begley and Murr 1999:57)

Town Creek Stories

The Kron House---Salvage Archaeology--My First Historic Site In 1957, while I was at Town Creek, I was asked by administrators at Morrow Mountain State Park, not far away, to "demonstrate the technique necessary for locating cellar holes." An historian was contracted to study the life of a Dr. Kron, "a remarkable man far ahead of his time," whose early home was thought to be represented by a cellar depression in the earth (Foglia 1957:37; South 1957a:18-19, 1957b:1). The Park Service was interested in interpreting the life of Dr. Kron. I visited the site with the historian and saw a depression in the ground that appeared to me to be an undisturbed cellar hole. "How would you go about digging for relics or gold in the hole?" he asked. I explained that no gold would likely be found there and that other information besides relics would be recovered if the site were to be excavated by an archaeologist. He asked how I would go about it. I explained about using a grid system to control recovery of data, and mentioned that perhaps the Park Service could make funds available to have such work done through the Research Laboratories of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina. "How long would that take?" he asked. I told him that a month might be adequate to investigate such a site. He said something about digging the site himself, and that disturbed me. I told him that untrained people should not be digging in historic sites, because much information about the site would be destroyed. He said his contract ran out soon and that he wanted the site dug in the next week or so. I could tell he wanted to dig the site himself, because he said he knew that Dr. Kron was wealthy, and there was a story that he buried gold there. I told him laymen invariably thought gold was buried on any archaeological site and I had heard that said from my Watauga County survey, to Roanoke Rapids, to Town Creek, and would likely hear it about every site I would ever dig on. I explained that people's value system was so tied in with money that they couldn't understand a

89 value system anchored in trying to find knowledge about the past. I told him that people thought that because they couldn't understand why archaeologists dug on sites if it wasn't to find gold. I hoped that little lecture would disabuse him of that notion, and recommended he report what I had said to the Park Service officials, but I left that visit with trepidation that he had gold fever and didn't appreciate the potential of archaeology for recovering the document sealed in the pages of the earth. Some time later, I received a call from the administrators at Morrow Mountain State Park saying that one of the administrators had visited the site after the historian had completed his report, and found a large crater where the cellar hole had been. He was shocked at what he saw. The entire cellar contents, including the stones that had been the walls, had been thrown out in a large pile around the crater. A wide variety of artifacts from the cellar were lying around on the piles of dirt. He asked me if I would return to the site and salvage anything of value. I told him about my meeting with the historian and that I had tried to impress on him that the site should not be disturbed before professional archaeology could be done on it. I told him I was not interested in trying to salvage the situation. He asked if Joffre Coe would tell me to examine the material would I do so. I told him that in that case I would have no alternative. So, I received a call from Joffre, who already knew about the situation from my reports to him, and as a result I was dragged into an examination of the material from the historic site at the Kron cellar (South 1957b). Joffre told me that Park Service personnel would be supplied. Ed Gaines stayed at Town Creek while I loaded the sifter screen and went to sift what could be salvaged from the cellar hole. I dug boxes of artifacts from the cellar, and recovered many more artifacts from the back-dirt piles thrown from the hole by the historian hired by the park. I classified and cataloged a total of 521 artifact entries, for a total count of 1,210. Not

90 having dealt with historic site materials before, I grouped the artifacts into classes beginning with bottles, with 13 types represented. Mason jars were another class of particular interest to me because they contained patent dates ranging from 1858 to 1869. Other classes were kitchen objects, consisting of ceramics, cutlery of various types, Dutch ovens, iron pots, etc. Other classes were tools (28 entries), house articles such as window glass (architecture), household objects, barnyard, buggy and wagon objects (52 types), a mineral and rock collection, and an archaeological specimen collection. Clothing items such as thimbles, buckles, and buttons were represented. Arms items were present, such as 32 caliber shell casings, fragments from an air rifle stock, and from a powder flask In the Misc. Objects artifact class, a Deitz lamp from a Hupmobile, dated 1910, was one of the twentieth century artifacts salvaged. Medical objects were of particular interest because Dr. Kron was a medical doctor, so the presence of test tubes, a stethoscope earpiece, and medicine bottles containing medicine were verification, it seemed to me, that this was likely the cellar of his office and home. As I cataloged the 1,210 objects of cultural material, representing the occupation of a particular site by one of the early occupants in the area, I was impressed by the variety of clues to the lifeways of the people who once lived here. I became aware of questions of fimction, status, gender, time, technology, and occupation and activities of those once calling this place home. I realized that the challenge of historical archaeology was not a simple one for those few archaeologists involved in doing it at the time--John Cotter, Charles Fairbanks, Hale Smith, Pinky (J.C.) Harrington and a few others (South and Deagan 2002: 41). In the cataloging process I often turned to Ed Gaines to ask help in the identification of some object, and he would say, "Oh, that's called a 'bull tongue scooter plow point.' I can tell you ain't no real farm boy if you don't know that!" Or he might say, "That's a clevis from a whiffletree!

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION I can tell you don't know how to hitch up a horse to a plow," and I had to admit that I didn't. As a result of this ignorance, I began to collect references that might help me in the future, when I might not have Ed to turn to if I ever had to conduct another taxonomy of historic site materials. I was very grateful for Ed's knowledge and was intrigued by the research potential of historical archaeology.

Morrow Mountain--the Magnificent Quarry for the Archaic Period Before I visited Morrow Mountain State Park to work on the Kron House site, I knew of the magnificent mountain itself, and of its mantle of stone chips (debitage) several feet thick covering the mountain, and cascading down its steep sides like a stone waterfall. This incredible deposit of rhyolite by-products from the manufacture of Hardaway-Da)ton, Palmer, and Kirk projectile points, found over a wide area in North and South Carolina, strikes awe in those interested in learning about the stone-chipping technology being carried out thousands of years ago in this "most intensively quarried source yet located" (Daniel and Butler 1991:65, 1993:Figure 7). I had visited the site with Joffre on our way to a Southeastern Archaeological Conference (SEAC) meeting, and had had nay mind blown by the tremendous challenge to learning about the Native American past presented by this lithic quarry. It inspired me to want to return and put in a 20 foot square in an attempt to learn something of what had gone on there-what tools were used to quarry the stone, and what the product was that was being carried away. We speculated, based on rumors of caches o f blades having been found on the slopes of the mountain, that such cache-blades or "blanks," as they were sometimes called then, were carried far from the mountain to be used to shape whatever projectile point form that was being used in that particular millennium. Over three decades would pass before Randy Daniel and Robert Butler would report on their study of the distribution of the tools made from the flowbanded, silicious slate rhyolite quarried for

Town Creek Stories thousands of years on the sides of the mountain. To my knowledge, however, no systematic, largescale effort has yet been undertaken to examine in scientific detail a collection of the debitage from one of the deeper deposits of stone covering the mountain's stone technology secrets like a deep winter blanket. This incredible phenomenon remains as a monumental testimony to the Native American past. When Joffre and I visited the site, he explained to me that the Morrow Mountain point was not related to this quarry, but rather to a discovery made, when Park Officials were bulldozing for a parking lot near the base of the mountain. They found white quartz flakes and points and called him to investigate. The machine had already scraped off whatever artifacts may have been in the levels above, but the zone in which the projectile points and debitage were found was relatively undisturbed. He excavated there and from that effort the points he found were named "Morrow Mountain." Unfortunately, he did not know what tools had been scraped away, but he knew from the evidence, that it had been a stratified site with the Morrow Mountain points lying buried deeply within the earth below whatever had been removed. It was from side trips such as the one to Morrow Mountain and the Kron House, and the Yadkin site, that I learned first hand a great deal about what was going on in Joffre's archaeological world and mind. The lessons I learned in that way were as valuable as his classroom had been. His teaching method was not to lecture, but to assign topics for each of us graduate students to research and report on, so we learned from each other, while these field projects were hands-on experience with sites and the data emerging from them. Searching for the Cheraw I n d i a n s - - W e Venture South of the Border One of those projects was stimulated by Joffre's theory that the Cheraw Indians were actually the descendants of the Xuala Indians met by DeSoto when they were located at the foot of

91 the Appalachian Mountains in western North Carolina. When they were pressured by "a new virile culture in central Georgia called Lamar," they had moved northeast to the Dan River by 1650, identified archaeologically as the "Dan River Focus" (Coe 1952:308-311). The question then was where did they go from there? Were the eighteenth century Cheraw Indians, for which the town of Cheraw, South Carolina was named, the same Siouan-speaking group? (See Moore 1999; DePratter, Hudson and Smith 1983:125-158). The idea that the 1540 Xuala (Juan Pardo's Joara) in Western North Carolina moved to the Dan River, then South through the Piedmont to become the Cheraw was planted by Mooney in his "Historical Sketch of the Cherokee" (1900:14-29). Joffre suggested that if I ever found the time I might venture down to Cheraw and look in the bottomlands there to see if evidence of an eighteenth century Cheraw village could be located. Later Jewell and I drove into South Carolina to spend a day walking the bottomlands east of the Pee Dee River at Cheraw. I found nothing in the fields there, with the exception of one site, where a few Woodland Period sherds were found. Jewell and I took rums digging a deep shovel test on that site, and found an old buried humus zone located from a foot to eighteen inches below the surface. No wonder I couldn't find evidence for Indian occupation in those bottomlands-the evidence was covered by flood-laid sand from the river! I reported this to Joffre, who came down on a Saturday with one of his students, and we dug a ten-foot square down to the deeper stratum. What we found was Indian pottery of the Woodland Period, but no European artifacts from the eighteenth century. This was a disappointment, but it gave me the opportunity to actually dig with Joffre looking for evidence to support the theory that the Sara, represented archaeologically by the Dan River Focus, moved southward to become the Hillsboro Focus, then later on moved south again, to become the Cheraw. Such were the theoretical questions Joffre was interested in testing archaeologically, and that desire to test

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theory through what we revealed at the end of a shovel, fed the flames of zealous research within me.

For many years David Moore of Warren Wilson College, and Rob Beck, have been interested in the Berry Site near Morganton, North Carolina (located on a tributary of the upper Catawba River) which they think may well be Joara, and on-going research is being carried out there (Moore 1999:332-395, 2002).

Touring Temple Teaching Strategy

Mounds--A

Powerful

Before a SEAC meeting to be held in Tallahassee, Florida, I believe it was, Joffre said he would arrange with Archives and History for me to drive a pickup truck from Town Creek Indian Mound to attend. He said his idea was that I should visit various temple mound sites along the way to become more familiar with them as background for the work I was doing at Town Creek. This was an exciting opportunity for me to learn, and it proved to be a powerful teaching strategy, a gift from Joffre to me. I went alone, and stopped by Ocmulgee National Monument (Fairbanks 1956), although I had been there on several previous trips to the SEAC meetings. Then I went to see the Kolomoki mounds in Georgia, and the large mound group south of Moundville, Alabama, where I visited by phone with David DeJarnette. I was impressed that site had so many temple mounds. I was used to Town Creek, where there was only the one. I visited the Archaic site at Poverty Point, Louisiana (Ford and Webb 1956:Plate 1), where I walked into a gully eight feet deep, and saw erosion-cut profiles of black charcoal-stained pits containing baked clay objects still in place for which the site is known. I picked up some of those lying on the surface, frozen and broken open, but with the fragments still in place. Other broken ones formed a pavement of clay in the bottom of the gully I walked in. To save those cracked-open frozen ones from disintegrating, I took masking tape from my truck,

and wrapped them to hold them in place, to be carefully glued together later. I picked up some of the small drill-shaped microliths that had washed into the eroded gully on their way to the Arkansas River. It is one thing to read about this famous site, with its concentric elevated rings of household debris stretching for a quarter of a mile, and quite another, more intense educational experience, to stand on the site and stoop down to sight over the slight ridges as the sun strikes across them late in a winter day, and witness the concentric rings first hand, as I did, and to recover those simple clues to those who lived here thousands of years ago.

I Visit "The Great Sun"--Stu Neitzel I visited Stu Neitzel at the Marksville site museum and he gave me the tour. In the lobby I saw a box of potsherds excavated at the site, with a sign that announced that they could be bought at the information desk for five cents each. Stu said these were miscellaneous small sherds that had been tabulated but were no longer of scientific value. He said he thought it would be a good idea to give them to school children as a contribution to their education, so he had put a sign on the box saying, "Genuine Indian pottery fragments. Free." That had caused a problem, he said, because school children seeing the sign would pick up a handful of the sherds and begin throwing them at each other, so by the end of the day the floor was littered with potsherds. Then he had an idea that was to put an end to the problem. He said, "I was saddened that the children didn't respect this educational opportunity to learn about Indians in Louisiana. Then I had to admit regretfully that our society puts a monetary value on everything. This being the case, I decided to put a monetary value on the potsherds, with a 'five cents each' sign. Since that time," he explained, "We haven't found a single potsherd on the floor. The kids come in with a quarter their parents have given them to spend on themselves, and they'll say, 'Gee, here's an opportunity to learn about Indians, and they buy five potsherds they'll treasure because they paid a quarter for

Town Creek Stories them. Then, I can just see them going home and researching those sherds to learn more about the 'treasure' they've bought. It's sad that's the way our value system works, but it sure did take care of the potsherd problem on the museum floor, and our janitor loved it!" Stu directed me to one of the big Mississippi Valley sites described in Ford, Phillips and Griffin's Archaeological Survey of the Lower Mississippi Valley (Phillips, Ford and Griffin 1951), where I walked the floodplain site and found nothing but plain sherds, as Stu had predicted, because all the decorated ones had been picked up by archaeologists before me. He went with me to the Greenhouse site (Neuman 1984:178-187), where we ran into the man for whom the site was named. He and Stu reminisced about the time the bottomland site was flooded and they had to excavate on the higher ground. He told me how some of the mounds there had been plowed over by him before the 1938 excavations by Jim Ford. I visited the Cypress Grove mound and the Elkhorn Plantation mound near Frogmore, Louisiana, and the Emerald Mound in Mississippi, now a National Historic Landmark Site. I wanted to see the famous Natchez site at Natchez, Mississippi, where Stu had excavated and found the eighteenth century site buried deep beneath the floodplain (Neitzel 1983). He gave me directions to the site, and there I was able to connect the setting with what I had learned from the eighteenth century document of the DuPratz account of the burial of the Tattooed Serpent. Having this eye witness documented account helped me in interpreting what may have gone on at the temple on the mound at Town Creek (South 1955b). I remembered the story about how one visitor among the Natchez had removed the bars from the temple door one night, and had crept into the temple to examine the contents of boxes stored there, and had found worthless pearls and bones (Swanton 1911, 1946). Those first-hand stories, like ghosts, arose from the Natchez oxbow creek to haunt me that day.

93 Then, further up the valley, I visited the Winterville Mound, near Greenwood, Mississippi, owned at that time by the boy scouts, I believe. Cows had made a series of concentric trails a few feet apart around this 55-foot high grand temple mound, but they had come into the barn, located at the base of the mound, when I arrived late in the day. I walked one of these trails to the top, and what a grand prospect that was! The Winterville M o u n d - - B o y Scouts

Stu Neitzel told me, when I visited with him at the Marksville Museum, and mentioned that I was going to visit the Winterville Mound, that once he was walking along one of those cow trails and saw what he thought was a potsherd in the eroded profile beside the path. He brushed it off with his hand, to reveal a white-painted cross in a circle! He carefully cleaned around this, and found that it was an entire water bottle. He said it was likely the only one ever recovered from the Winterville Mound. I heard that the national boy-scout organization had bought the mound to have a place for scouts to dig to earn their archaeology merit badge. I was disturbed about that prospect and wrote that administration urging them to abandon that plan. Years later I received a memo from an archaeologist who was trying to get the scout organization to rewrite their merit badge requirements to help prevent unsupervised excavation on archaeological sites. The Winterville Mound is now a National Historic Landmark Site. It was the most impressively steep temple mound, with preserved ramp, that I saw on the trip. Joffre's idea to help me learn first-hand about the Mississippi Period mounds was a highlight of my years at Town Creek Indian Mound. A n Inventive M i n d - A Perpetual Motion M a c h i n e with Only O n e Problem - Gravity

Living in Mt. Gilead while I worked at Town Creek, I met a very interesting elderly town character-Percy Covington. Percy had an eclectic mind and was able to put together pieces from a

94 wide range of disciplines. He could speak entertainingly at length on many topics, one of which was the brick-making industry. He once discovered a clay deposit suitable for making bricks. He wrote to the president of a well-known brick-making company and told him about the deposit, suggesting he send someone to look at it, which he did. Percy showed them the site, which was not on land Percy owned, and the brick maker bought the land and set up a big operation on it, but no finder's fee was paid Percy. He tried to legally obtain some payment from the company, but unfortunately, he had not made a copy of the letter he had sent, so nothing came of it. Percy lived in a large two-story house inherited from his parents. At the time I knew him he had gotten a job with a contractor who was widening a bridge near Percy's house. At the end of the day, Percy would light the black cast iron flambeau pots used to light construction areas at night to prevent accidents. Percy took great pleasure in his job and spoke proudly of the responsibility he had in keeping the flambeaus filled with kerosene and in the correct position on the construction site. I would sometimes stop by and we would sit on the porch and talk because he could talk of many things-"Of cabbages and kings...." One day he said he was willing to share a very important discovery with me. He was working on a perpetual motion machine and had it almost perfected. He swore me to secrecy because he didn't want anyone to steal his idea. He escorted me into his house, almost devoid of furniture, (having sold it to support himself) and took me to a room in the center of which was half of a 55gallon barrel cut lengthwise, supported at each end, with the open end up, containing water. A framework over the half-barrel supported a large wooden paddle suspended down into the water, with rubber inner-tube bushings at the edges to insure a tight fit between the paddle and the curve of the barrel. He demonstrated how, when the top of the paddle was moved in one direction by pulling on it, thus supporting much of the water above the

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION paddle, then turning the paddle loose, the top of the paddle rocked back and forth as the weight of the water surged again toward the bottom of the barrel. "Grab hold of the top of that paddle!" he shouted. "Feel that power?" Indeed I did, as the paddle kept rocking back and forth from the force of the wave action shifting from one side to the other. "I believe I can harness that wave action to run machinery," he said. "But, it's slowing down now," I said as we watched and talked. "I thought you said it was a perpetual motion machine, which means it should keep on going indefinitely." "You're correct," he said, "There's that minor detail I haven't been able to work out y e t - gravity! But I'll whip it one of these days," he declared with enthusiasm. I didn't wait around for that big day, but I wished him well overcoming the second law of thermodynamics by harnessing the perpetual slosh-power of his machine.

The Coe and Gaines Training School for Archaeologists Town Creek was certainly a developmental training experience for those of us who studied there under Joffre Coe and Edward Gaines. Among these were: Barton Wright, Ernest Lewis, Howard Sargent, Jeff Reid, Bill Wood, Bennie Keel, Roy Dickens and others. A valuable part of that adventure was the short forays launched from that research base that provided a broader perspective beyond the temple mound site itself. Also of value was the annual trip to the Southeastern Archaeological Conference (SEAC), but those stories are told in the following chapter.

Chapter 5 SEAC Stories The SEAC Conference--Exposure to the W o r k of Others--an Education An important part of my developmental years as an archaeologist came from those I met and the papers I heard, and the interaction I observed at the annual Southeastern Archaeological Conference, held every other year in Macon, Georgia. I attended my first conference in 1953, shortly after I turned in my report to Joffre Coe on my site survey of Watauga County. He said I might want to attend the SEAC that was to meet that Fall in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I went to that meeting and there I met a number of leading figures in the field. From that time on I attended SEAC meetings for many years. Later, when I was a graduate student in the mid-50s, and when I was the archaeologist in charge at Town Creek, Joffre and I would sometimes ride together to attend the meetings. At that time, largely because of Joffre's knowledge of the cultural sequence revealed in his 1949 dig at the Doerschuk site, and my subsequent discovery, in 1955, of the stratified Gaston site, there was great interest in stratified sites. The promise offered by the possible discovery of other such data-revealing sites for understanding the cultural sequence in the Southeast, was exciting to senior archaeologists as well as to those recently entering the field. This influenced the climate of the times. Between 1947 and 1949, James B. Griffin edited, and published what was to become the bible for southeastern archaeologists for decades: Archeology of Eastern United States (Griffin 1952a). For that volume, Joffre had submitted and illustrated the Badin Focus, which included Morrow Mountain projectile points and Hardaway points, as well as engraved stone, atlatl weights, and pottery (Coe 1952: Figure 163).

95

Before that volume went to press, however, Joffre had excavated the stratified Doerschuk site in 1949 (Ward and Davis 1999:59-61), and from what he learned there he knew he would need to revise what he had submitted to Griffin, particularly in regard to the Badin Focus. He was very anxious to revise his chapter. He told me he called Griffin and asked that his paper be returned so he could include his new understanding of the cultural sequence, but Griffin refused. As he understood more, he called again asking for the return of his paper so he could up-date the information in it, but Griffin replied: "I had too hard a time dragging that paper out of you and I'm not about to send it back!" The deadline had long passed before Joffre had submitted his chapter. So, by the time the book appeared, Joffre's knowledge of the cultural sequence of the Carolina Piedmont had expanded dramatically. That new knowledge from the Doerschuk site, along with that from the Hardaway site, combined with what I had found at the Gaston site, was to become the new bible for southeastern archaeologists when Joffre published his "Formative Cultures of the Carolina Piedmont" (1964). Meanwhile, the best source for stratigraphic placement of projectile points in sequence was Joffre himself. A. R. Kelly--"There Are No Stratified Sites in Georgia"--the Old Quartz Culture A note on the background of those times is appropriate here. Prior to the mid-century there been a tendency to include most cultural periods within a two thousand year time frame. Then, as data began to accumulate, it became increasingly more difficult to cram all the cultural periods into that temporal paper bag. Because of that the time frame was later extended back to 2,000 B. C.

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With the advent of radiocarbon dating, however, by the time Griffin's book was published, he was able to present a time line pushed back to 8,000 B. C. (Griffin 1952b: 365370, Figure 205). However, the information in a number of the articles reflected the preradiocarbon time frame. Now, in regard to other stratified sites in the Southeast, in 1951, Joe Caldwell had reported on what he called "The Old Quartz Culture," found "nearly four feet below the base of the pre-pottery Stalling's culture zone, separated from the latter by a deposit of what appeared to be pure river sand (Caldwell 195 l:4)--clearly a stratified site. In his report he included a photograph of the "range in variation of artifacts from the Old Quartz level at the Lake Springs site in Columbia County, Georgia" (Photo from the Smithsonian Institute). The photograph illustrated Morrow Mountain I projectile points and white quartz scrapers. Caldwell described how he had made this discovery when he was standing in a hole dug in order to excavate a burial beneath the Savannah River Archaic period shell mound at Lake Springs. He described the moment of discovery of this stratified site. "For some inexplicable reason it occurred to me to trowel out a small hole in the bottom. Thinking how fine it would be to find something deep below the supposedly virgin sand, I scarcely noticed when the point of the trowel struck a rock. The hole was barely large enough for my arm, but reaching down, I pulled out a broken river pebble, then another, and another. Realization was gradually dawning that these pebbles must have been broken by the hand of man, but had hardly alleviated my consternation when the fourth stretch into the hole produced a nicely chipped white quartz ovate scraper. We may conclude from these events that the wish is father to the thought and grandfather to the discovery (Caldwell 1951:4).

At one Southeastern Archaeological Conference meeting Joffre and I attended, Joe Caldwell reported on "The Old Quartz Industry of Piedmont Georgia and South Carolina" (1954:3739). However, publication on stratified sites was non-existent, so discussions on pre-Savannah River Archaic period evidence invariably focused on "The Old Quartz Industry" (Caldwell 1954:3739, 1958:8). Joe Caldwell and Arthur Kelly usually led these exchanges. In those days there were around 30 or so attendees at the SEAC conference. Joffre leaned over to me and whispered, "Substitute Morrow Mountain I for the Old Quartz Industry" (Caldwell 1954:38; Coe 1964:38). Later in that meeting Joffre stood up and, in a low-key manner, laid out the formative culture sequence he had determined from stratagraphic evidence. He said that stratified sites could predictably be found on the down-stream side of stone arms extending into a river basin where rapids were located, causing flood waters to swirl around there depositing sand onto artifacts lying on occupation surfaces. Because people traveling along the rivers would be narrowly funneled at those rapids sites, through the years many sites would become buried as flood-laid strata. After he sat down, Arthur Kelly, the grand old man of Georgia archaeology, stood up and said, in his deep-voiced impressive manner, that it was nice that Joffre had found stratified sites in North Carolina, but that "There are no stratified sites in Georgia," and he predicted that none would be found, even using Joffre's theory. This seemed like a rash statement to me, given what I considered Joffre's "law-like" statement, and the fact that a number of sites in Georgia had indeed produced lithic debris (old white quartz and otherwise), as well as the stratified Lake Springs site reported by Caldwell (1951:1-5 and 1954:37-39). In 1938, Kelly himself, had reported a Clovis fluted point from the Macon Plateau, associated with lithic debris and scrapers, in a weathered clay zone (Fairbanks 1956:8). It seemed to me, and to Joffre as well, based on our discussion that followed Kelly's assertion, that if archaeologists

SEAC Stories would become more aware of the possibility of stratified sites lying below later shell midden deposits, more such sites could indeed be found. However, since that time few have yet been found in Georgia, as Kelly had predicted. Are they not looking in the places predicted by Joffre?

SEAC--Meeting the Gurus Exchanges such as these between the leaders in the field were exciting to me because it was evident that archaeology was not a cut and dried endeavor. I learned that a lot of trial and error was involved in the search for understanding what archaeological data was trying to tell us. Later on, I would recognize these lengthy discussions at the SEAC meetings (where presentation of data and the frequent questioning by colleagues of interpreted results took place), was a loosely structured version of the hypothetico-deductive process--the road to understanding in the search for truth. Such exchanges were basic to my archaeological development. This phenomenon is not present in the more formal cut-and-dried presentations of today's large meetings, with no e x c h a n g e - n o questions--no oral challenges from the floor between colleagues. At the meetings we attended together, because of his expertise in the pre-Savannah River Archaic cultural sequence, Joffre was sought out by leaders in the field, archaeologists such as Griffin, Ford, Waring and others, asking his opinion on the temporal position of projectile points, etc. These leaders would closet themselves in a motel room at Drill's Motor Court, near the entrance to the park, where some of us stayed. Because I was in a different generation, and not a colleague of these gurus, I was not invited to sit in on their deliberations, so I missed a lot. Partying At Drill's Motor Court--an Ocmulgee SEAC Tradition Drill's Motor Court was located opposite the entrance to 0cmulgee National Monument, where those of us stayed who were not spending the night in the park museum building. The park hosts allowed the male conference attendees to sleep in the basement of the museum in the

97 conference room and in the halls. The females were housed on the second floor. Naturally, with archaeologists present, beer would be consumed in the basement and at one meeting the cans were stacked in a pyramidal arrangement that reached the ceiling of the conference room. After a tradition of many years as the popularity of the conference grew, and as the partying grew more raucous year by year, it is no wonder the park administrators stopped the affairs. Speaking of which, a number of male/female student liaisons could be seen taking place around the reconstructed earthlodge at night, if one chose to stroll away from the carousing in the conference room to get a breath of fresh air. That site was indeed a sacred ceremonial area for archaeologists on those occasions.

The Binford and McNutt Concert The last Southeastern Archaeological Conferences I attended at Macon (speaking of Drill's Motor Court), I had a room there, and after dinner my Chapel Hill classmate and friend, Lew Binford, showed up. He was accompanied by Charlie McNutt. They had a mandolin and a banjo, which they began playing, accompanied by singing furnished by the crowd that began gathering when they heard the commotion. The crowd grew as the night wore on, and the room filled with people sitting on the bed, and on the floor around the walls. Around midnight I took off my boots and, because it was my room, I displaced some of the people temporarily, and slipped beneath the covers, where I could listen more comfortably to the picking and singing involving a wide, and sometimes raunchy, repertoire. This went on as I finally went to sleep. I woke up a couple of times as the management of the motel knocked on the door, and said other guests were being disturbed, and we should knock off the noise. I wasn't in charge of the chaos, so I went back to sleep. Finally, about 4 a.m., I awoke again as the pickers and singers wound down and laid their instruments aside, as the crowd began to disperse.

98

The next morning there was a note on my door as I came out to go to breakfast and to attend the Saturday morning conference. It said I was to report to the motel office. The manager told me that I would have to leave the motel because of the noise that came from my room the night before. The racket from my room had disturbed other guests and they didn't want a repeat "performance." I explained that I had been invaded by a bunch of drunken archaeologists, who thought they were wandering minstrels with a gift to share with the world. I claimed I was as much a victim as the other guests had been. He laughed and said I could stay only if I would assure him I would lock my door and not let anyone else in that night--so I was allowed to stay. We Find a Stratified Site in Georgia At the SEAC meeting where Kelly had said there were no stratified sites in Georgia, causing Coe and others to shake their heads in disbelief, Caldwell reported on a shell mound excavated by students across the Savannah River in Georgia from the Stalling's Island site made famous by Claflin (1931). After Caldwell's talk, Joffre asked him if he had dug below the shell deposit into the deeper sand layer, and he said that he had not. Joffre suggested that it might also be a stratified site beneath the shell deposit, and asked Caldwell to give him directions on how to drive to the site, which he did. When we left the conference, following Caldwell's directions, we drove to that site. The midden was located on the edge of the bank of the Savannah River, with about a six- foot sandy bank profile exposed by erosion adjacent to the mound. Most of the shell was buried beneath sand. Joffre handed me a trowel and asked me to cut a clean profile of that bank, saying, "Let's test Kelly's hypothesis that there are no stratified sites in Georgia." When ! cut the profile and saw, about two feet below the surface, a buried stratum of humus about eight inches thick.. I was excited and couldn't resist troweling that darker area further back into the eroding sand bank hoping to

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION find some artifacts associated with the stratum. Joffre took a walk along the beach while I did this and as he returned I heard a scraping noise on my trowel, and as we examined the area, I saw a potsherd and pulled it from the profile. It was a Stallings Fiber Tempered Sherd. The site was stratified. On the way home I urged Joffre to contact Caldwell to tell him that we had found another stratified site in Georgia. I thought he should suggest that he take another look at the site and concentrate on locating what was in that layer as well as others that might be revealed in such a project. Whether Joffre contacted Caldwell on what we had found I do not know. Stu Neitzel and His Piano--"The Great Sun" at the Southeastern Archaeological Conference A legendary character was Smart Neitzel, who was a great story teller who entertained all of us on many occasions at the annual meetings of SEAC. He was such a legend that the Archaeological Survey of the Lower Mississippi Valley at the Peabody Museum published a posthumous tribute to him: Robert S. Neitzel: The Great Sun, edited by Jeffrey P. Brain and Ian W. Brown (1982). At the SEAC meetings, I often made the rounds of the parties in various rooms during the early part of the evening, and then went to bed. When SEAC met in Columbia in 1970, I was in a comer room filled with drinking archaeologists, including Stu Neitzel, when a group, including Chester DePratter, showed up pushing an upright piano they had found in the conference room. They pushed it into the elevator and brought it to the room where we were. Stu was telling stories and had made the comment that if there had been a piano there he would play and sing for us. They took him up on the offer and found the piano. The door of the room was too small for the piano to enter, although they were able to get it half way in before it jammed. But, undeterred, Stu was able to play on half of the keys, which were enough for him, so he entertained those of us trapped in the room until the hotel Security Officer came and

SEAC Stories

forced the removal of the piano back to the conference room. During those years Stu, and such moments, were among the main reasons some attended the SEAC. Stu was a good writer as demonstrated in his account of his early days in archaeology (Neitzel 1994:125-161). I'll never forget one quote from Stu that epitomizes his attitude toward archaeology and life: "What profiteth it a man if he reckons only his sherds and renders them unto chi square, and has not the spirit of whimsy therein?" (South, ed:1994: 125, 161). A memorable moment at a SEAC meeting was when, as a graduate student, I had just given my first SEAC paper on the stratified Gaston site. With confidence, but with some trepidation, I faced the barrage of questions that, given the experience of other graduate students I had witnessed, had faced a baptism of fire from questions by Griffin, or Ford, or Tono Waring. I asked if there were any questions-only silence. Then, as I gathered my notes together, Stu Neitzel spoke up and said, "Well, I guess that was just your day!" I felt like I had been given an endorsement as I relished the laughter that followed me back to nay seat.

"Hit It With Your Aerial, Joffre!"-The Temple Mound at Little Shoulderbone One of the SEAC trips Joffre and I stopped by to visit the temple mound at Little Shoulderbone Creek, north of Sparta, Georgia. We drove down a long dirt farm road beside cornfields for miles, it seemed, until we came to a place where it made a right angle turn to the right, where Joffre asked me to pull over into the edge of the woods and park. As we got out of the car, he brought out a car radio aerial about three feet long, which he said he might use as a probe. We had walked in fairly open woods about 20 feet when he suddenly stopped and pointed to a rattlesnake, about three feet long, stretched out on the leaf cover on the ground. I had reached for a dead branch lying nearby and he said, "If you try to hit it with that you have to have exact aim to impact the snake at the point where the ground, the snake and your stick meet. Then he told me his

99 aerial was much better, "Watch this," he said, as he approached the snake. When he got near it he bent down low and gave a whack across the snake's back with his aerial. The snake gave a lurch and then lay still. It was an impressive performance and I told Joffre so. He then explained that the aerial would conform to the ground and impact the snake much better than a stick that required much greater accuracy. Apparently he had done that before. We stood a moment and stared at the snake and I asked if I could have the rattle to show my son, David. He cut it off and handed it to me. We then stared at the snake for a while and then moved on into the hay field a short distance from the woods we were in. The grass in the field was shoulder high and so thick that we left a trail of mashed down grass all the way to the mound we could see about 100 yards away. The mound had been described by C.C. Jones (1873), and somewhere I had seen an engraving of a stone idol once seen on top of the mound, and that had fired my imagir~ation regarding what had happened to that stone figure, so I was anxious to see the mound. Mark Williams mentions "stone idols" in his report on Shoulderbone Creek (1990:12). We saw no more snakes, but we did dig a small hole about a foot deep with a trowel to see if there was a plowed zone present. We found abundant fragments of broken pottery and refuse bone fragments. On our way back to the car we looked for the snake Joffre had killed, but found no sign of it. We were driving down the farm road at dusk. The sun was low and the temperature was beginning to drop. Then we saw a log lying across both ruts of the farm road. It appeared to be about 10 feet long and perhaps eight inches in diameter. Joffre speculated that the farmer may have put it there as a warning after seeing us drive into the area. I stopped the car, and Joffre said for me not to run over it because we might damage the undercarriage of the car. He opened the door and, leaving his aerial on the dashboard, he got out saying, "I'll drag it out of the road."

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As he approached, it began to move. It was a giant rattlesnake! We both were shocked at the size of it. I reached for the camera as the snake began to move toward Joffre, and he began moving toward the open door of the car. I said, "Hit it with your aerial, Joffre!" But, he didn't think that was funny. I jumped out of the car and chased the slow-moving "log" as it slid into the woods. I took a picture, but the sun was so low, and the 32-speed film I was using prevented us from having a picture of the "log" (Williams 1990:17).

A Tugaloo River Archaeological Lesson

Temple

Mound--an

Jewell and I visited a temple mound thought to have been the Cherokee Indian site of Tugaloo, near Toccoa, Georgia, when it was being excavated. The buried layers of the mound were being revealed and a ramp to the top of an earlier mound had been revealed. As Jewell and I were being shown the stain of the logs forming the steps of the ramp, I noticed several small piles of potsherds lying on the edge of the profile of the excavated area. The crew had gone for the weekend and I was curious that piles of sherds had been left and not bagged. I asked my tour guide about them and was told that as the various levels of the site were being pealed off, the sherds found were placed in piles by taxonomic type. When the pile of sherds representing types from one previously known period grew larger than a pile of types of another period, the layers involved could then be identified in the field notes as representing the time period indicated by the largest pile of sherds lying on the b a n k - - a rough type of "gut-reaction field analysis" I was not acquainted with! I commented that I usually kept all artifacts in marked bags by visual layers or arbitrary levels so that analysis could be carried out in the laboratory by counting all sherds of any time period recovered from each layer and allowing that quantitative analysis to determine the identification of the time period of each layer. I did not assign the cultural layers first by simply looking at the size of a pile of sherds! This seemed to me a strange way of establishing the

relationship between stratigraphic layers being exposed and the pottery types recovered from them--putting the cultural period horse into the field notes before the analytical cart was even loaded! As I stood in the excavation, which was several feet deep, I could see a pile of dirt near the profile beneath a sifter screen, and beside that, a pile of potsherds. I asked our guide about that and was told that those operating the screen would pick out the largest most diagnostic sherds and throw the remaining ones into a discard pile. I asked incredulously whether that pile of sherds, stones and other things was indeed a discard pile, and commented that I had never seen such a large quantity of what I considered data-~iscarded! I was told I was welcomed to take whatever I wanted from that pile and I made a motion to Jewell, who had heard our conversation. She was already on her way to our car to get a paper bag to salvage some of the high-graded, discarded sherds as a type collection. As I talked with our guide she picked through the pile and found excellent examples of pottery, and some beautiful fragments of knobbed, boat-shaped tobacco p i p e s - examples of what I would consider prime artifact data. I was told, however, in response to my incredulity at such a method, that there were so many sherds being recovered that it was impossible to take them all back to the laboratory--"But what about reconstructing tobacco pipes and pots--what about quantitative analysis?" I asked, and received a shrug in answer. Later, in the field laboratory, I was shown the shed where a few partially reconstructed vessels were sitting in trays of sand. I was offered a type collection of sherds from those spread out on the table, from which the pots were being reconstructed--I refused. It went too strongly against my idea of tight control of data coming from an archaeological site to accept the offer, commenting that some of those sherds might well glue to those vessels. I was told that the holes from missing sherds could later be filled in with plaster--"The form is the important thing, so not all sherds have to be present." I learned that there

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101

are certainly different methodological strategies regarding data used by various archaeologists. I would be satisfied with the sample of sherds Jewell had collected from the pile discarded in the field--a collection I gave to Joffre Coe when we returned from our trip. It was a type collection to be cataloged and curated in the Research Laboratories of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. I'll never forget that half of a knobbed, boat-keeled tobacco pipe Jewell recovered from that discard pile! Neatness C o u n t s - - But "There's Archaeology than Meets the Eye"

more

to

A major point Joffre Coe made in his classes was that to properly read the archaeological record it was important that profiles be kept neat so that the soil differences could be observed. Those of us who studied under him learned this lesson well, as our work will testify. This story involves a case where Joffre himself learned a lesson regarding neatness. He seldom gave papers at SEAC, but in one he gave, he made a point of illustrating the work of one of his graduate students who had excavated a deep site in a floodplain to see if the site was stratified. He had suggested this be done because, as he had done with me at Roanoke Rapids, he suspected the site might have been stratified. As it turned out, the student reported no stratified site was found in the six-foot deep, 20-foot long excavation he had cut into the riverbank. However, Joffre showed slides of the profile of the excavated area and pointed out that the corners of the square were so straight because a plumb bob had been used to insure their vertical integrity. He proudly pointed to the profile, smooth as a plastered wall, and commented that the dig represented a classic example of good archaeological technique, in spite of the fact that the goal of locating buried strata had not been achieved. He told how long it had taken to trowel the area so that no footprints or trowel marks were showing. He said that student's work, as demonstrated in the slides he had shown, was the neatest he had seen from a student, and he was

going to visit the site on his way back from the meeting. A Confession and a Correction

A year passed and the SEAC meeting was held in Morgantown, West Virginia. On the morning of the first day, as I sat in the breakfast room of the hotel, Joffre joined me. Soon other colleagues joined us. As the time for the first papers came we were getting up to attend the session when Joffre spoke to me and asked if I could stay, saying he had something he wanted to discuss. That had never happened before at a meeting, partly due to the fact that I had entered the field of historical archaeology by that time-a field he was not particularly interested in. So, I was very curious to hear what was on his mind. We "spoke of many things-"Of cabbages-and kings-And why the sea is boiling hot- And whether pigs have wings" (Dodgson 1948:831). This was very unusual because Joffre had never sat with me and discussed the state of the world even on the long trips we had taken together to SEAC when I was a student. Finally, he brought up the subject of his presentation at the previous SEAC meeting, asking if I remembered it. I assured him I had and remarked that it was too bad that all that neat work had not revealed that the site was stratified. He said that was what was on his mind and he wanted to clarify his remarks so that I wouldn't continue to be misinformed about the situation. He reminded me of his strong statements endorsing the technique that had been used and said that on his visit to the site after the meeting he had learned, "There's more to archaeology than meets the eye." I couldn't imagine where this conversation was leading. It had now been over two hours into the papers and still we sat, Joffre as relaxed as I had ever seen him, while I was glad to listen to his unusual monologue, not a method of communication he was accustomed to using. He said on his visit to the site the previous year, to look at the immaculate technique the student had used, he was walking around checking the back dirt pile (as he usually did, looking for missed sherds or other artifacts in order to judge

102 the quality of the artifact retrieval method being used). Because of the fact the site was a flood plain the back dirt pile consisted entirely of waterlaid yellow sand thrown from the excavated area. He began finding river-worn stones at various places in the back dirt pile. Most were the size of a fist and some were broken. He was disturbed by this and asked his student, who was leading him on the tour, where these stones had come from. The answer was, "Oh, we found piles of those at various places when we were shoveling out the dirt to reveal the profile. They were in little clusters about a foot to 18 inches wide." He asked if they had all been at the same level and was told that they were at different elevations within the block as the sand was thrown out. Joffre said he couldn't believe what he was hearing and asked, "You did screen the block, didn't you?" The answers was that they did at first, but the goal was to reveal the profile of the site so they quit screening. There was so much sand, he was told, and they weren't finding anything except those piles of stones every now and then. "I guess you cleaned, photographed, measured and recorded the piles of stones?" "No, they were just stones." Then Joffre asked, "Did it ever occur to you that those stones might represent Archaic Period hearths? "We wondered about that, but the profile revealed no visual strata, so we threw them out." Joffre said by that time he was beginning to be sick. An inordinate amount of time had been spent on revealing the neat, picture-perfect profile, while the evidence that the site had been stratified had been thrown out and no record made of it. There was no time left to repeat the excavation because funding and the rising water back of the dam was soon to put the site underwater. As Joffre saw me shaking my head in disbelief, he said, "Obviously, in making the point that neat profiles helped to interpret a site, I failed to get across the point that the profile is a record to show the relationship of hearths and strata--not the primary goal! I feel guilty that I didn't get that

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION point across. But, I learned the hard way that there's more to archaeology than meets the eye, and I wanted to explain to you what happened after I gave my paper last year." He said he wanted to clarify the situation, "In case you've heard about what happened at that site." I hadn't, and he said he was glad he was able to meet with me, and explain. By that time it was 11:30, and the morning session was about over. We shook hands and I thanked him for sharing the information with me. As he told me the story I got the feeling he felt sad, and perhaps guilty, over that student having missed what may have been a significant piece of archaeological information. I was pleased that he cared enough to tell me the story and I was impressed with the integrity that had prompted him to share the "confession" with me.

"He's Crazy as HelI!"--A "Wool-Pulling Over the Eyes" Attempt At SEAC Another memorable SEAC meeting occurred when Tono Waring was chairing the sessions. A senior presenter was giving a paper in which he reported on weighing an oystershell sample from a shell mound; estimating the number of shells in the mound from the sample; multiplying the calories in each oyster by the estimate for the mound; dividing that number by the minimum number of calories thought to be required to sustain life on a daily basis; then using that number to derive the demographic statistics for the population responsible for the shell mound. As this line of reasoning went on, I began to hear someone commenting aloud. Another heckler joined in with more mutterings. Then, as the comments grew louder, the speaker asked if there was a question. And indeed there was. "What was the time period during which the shell accumulated?" one asked. "Why do you assume all the oysters were discarded by one group at one moment in time?" asked another. "Are you assuming that all members of the group ate the same number of oysters? . . . . What if 100 groups of individuals over a period of 10 years produced the shell mound? . . . . Are you assuming that the individuals ate nothing but oysters? . . . . Were deer

SEAC Stories

bones present? . . . . What about fish bones?" Did you figure the caloric value of the fish and deer represented?" And so the feeding frenzy began, even some students joining in the fray, tearing at bits and pieces of the flimsy carcass as the paper was ripped to shreds, fed by the weak dissimilating answers provided by the presenter. Jimmy Griffin said, "Where are the data for all this?" And others-"Where are the data?" The harassed man said, "Oh, I left the figures back at my motel room," and tried to continue. He was interrupted by Tono Waring, who said stepping close to the lectern," In that case, you can go get the data and bring it here. I'll call on you right after lunch and you can finish your paper." The man said, "Oh, I remember now. I believe I left those data back in my office. By that time Jim Ford was on his feet, advancing halfway to the lectern. He had his billfold in his hand and pulled a bill from it and was waving it around, saying, "I'll donate this for an airplane ticket so you can fly back home and get the data!" Others began standing up with their billfolds in hand pulling out donations. Tono Waring said, "Good! I'll reschedule you for tomorrow afternoon, when you can have the data in hand, and you can finish your paper then." He pushed to the lectern and said, "The next paper is by . . ." but he was interrupted by the speaker, who began to get the point by then, and said, "I believe I'll finish my paper now that you've had your fun." He smiled, and stepped back to the lectern, amid boos from several in the audience. Tono turned away with a look of disgust on his face, saying loudly as he went to his seat, "He's crazy as hell!" One might think that such a reaction at having tried to pull the wool over colleague's eyes---or blowing snow if you prefer--might have affected the speaker in some visible way, but apparently it didn't. He continued reading, smiling-apparently in denial, as though nothing had happened. Today interaction between speakers and the audience is never seen. This may be because the audience has grown so large at today's SEAC meetings that exchange has been lost. In the

103 decades of mid-century that interaction was one of the greatest learning experiences for students and young developing archaeologists. Some of us miss those learning opportunities we had from the challenges thrown at those wool-pullers who attempted to blind us with pseudo-science. SEAC Stories--Lawsuits and Sex In my years of attending the SEAC meetings, the papers presented took on a secondary role to that of getting together with colleagues to share stories about what had gone on since we last met. On one occasion, I remember, I walked out of a particularly dull paper being read in a robotic singsong, hypnotic tone inclined to induce sleep. When I got outside the conference room I found a crowd of archaeologists there sharing tales. I counted them, and then stuck my head back in the conference room door and counted those hypnotized souls there. I found that there were more people outside the conference room than inside! I found an abandoned registration table nearby and sat down, and was soon joined by a colleague I hadn't seen since the conference the year before. He began catching me up on what happened at his university since we had last met. He said the head of his department had been on sabbatical leave for a year, during which time my friend had been put in charge. He found that the books on expenditures were virtually non-existent, with little correlation between the money budgeted and the record of expenditures. Some expenditures were questionable, such as the $20,000. for travel to exotic parts of the world to attend conferences of questionable relevance to the department. My friend had asked for an audit of the books to protect himself, because he wanted to be out of the way in case an accountability crisis hit the fan. The audit revealed problems with bookkeeping, and the lack of documentation of data from projects that had been carried out resulted in the university officials writing a letter asking the department head to resign when he returned from his sabbatical. When he did return he was outraged and threatened to sue my friend as well as the university.

104 A meeting was held, with the lawyer for the university, and that for the professor present. The university's lawyer spoke and asked for the resignation of the professor based on the information revealed in the audit. The professor replied angrily, and in an irate speech, threatened again to sue everyone in sight, and some who weren't. He and his attorney arose to leave, saying they would see the university lawyer in court. Then the university attorney spoke up calmly, and asked that before they filed suit, to hear one more thing. They sat on the edge of their chairs as the university attorney pulled out three pieces of paper and passed them across the table. He explained that those papers were affidavits from three female students who were willing to testify in court that the professor had promised them a grade of "A" on his course in exchange for sex with him. A shocked look appeared on the face of the professor and his attorney, as if they had been pole-axed. The attorney quickly read the affidavits while total silence, like that in the darkness deep within a cavern, enveloped the room. He suddenly stood up and addressed himself to the professor, saying, "Sir! I resign as your attomey[ I knew nothing about this! I resign!" and he walked out of the room. The university attorney then spoke and said, "Professor, when you obtain the services of another attorney, I will be glad to receive your lawsuit papers from him, but you must realize that these affidavits will appear as public record if this matter goes to court." The professor, still in shock, arose and said, "You will have my resignation on your desk next week." To which, the university attorney said, "This afternoon would be far better." "So," my friend said, "That is how I became chair of my department until a search committee is formed." Collegial exchanges of information such as this, and others less dramatic, were one of the attractions at SEAC meetings fifty years ago, and are likely so in the twenty-first century. Such stories don't appear in the published minutes in newsletters from such conferences, but they form

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION an ever-present underground stream communication between colleagues.

of

Historical Archaeology at SEAC--A Disappointing Introduction to the Field My first SEAC meeting (the 10th),was the one hosted by Joffre Coe in Chapel Hill in 1953, where I saw papers presented by McCary, Lewis, Kelly, Sears, Caldwell, Kneberg and Bullen (Southern Indian Studies 1954 6:1-8). At one of the SEAC meetings in years to follow, I saw a paper presented by one of the dozen people in the country who had published on, or dug on, historic sites. The nine I knew of in the field at the time from SEAC meetings were: Ripley Bullen, John Cotter, Charles Fairbanks, John Goggin, John Griffin, J. C. Harrington (Pinky), Ed Jelks, Robert (Stu) Neitzel, and Hale Smith. The feeling of the period by others appeared to me to be that archaeology on historic sites was not "real" archaeology. It was viewed as history, not anthropology, so there was some pre-conceived skepticism about the paper on a historic site that appeared on the program. This was reflected by the fact that when the previous paper on a prehistoric site ended, there was a general move by many to leave the room, with only a fraction of the audience remaining to hear it. I was interested to learn about historical archaeology because of my experience with the Kron House assemblage, so I stayed to hear how an historic site had been handled. The presenter reviewed the history, and then showed slides of the site, where neat excavation had been carried out on a brick-filled rubble deposit found in a cellar hole. He said that historic sites such as that presented a serious problem regarding preserving straight profiles because building materials such as bricks protruded. He said he had solved the problem, however, by renting a diamond saw and a portable generator to run it. He then proudly showed slides showing how the diamond saw had been used to cut the bricks protruding from the profile, allowing a straight profile to be seen! Needless to say this demonstration caused a flurry of protests

SEAC Stories and questions from members of the audience, some of them bordering on the irate. I should mention here that in the early decades of SEAC, at least after I began going in 1953, there were only from 30 to 40 archaeologists from the East in attendance. A characteristic of these conferences, and a valuable asset to those attending, were the comments, questions, challenges, and arguments from the floor the presenter had to face. On one occasion, after a speaker had used a descriptive approach to refer to pottery types (all of which were well known from the published literature), Jimmy Griffin stood up and asked, "Young man, will you explain to us what you have against the use of the taxonomic system?" Such pointed questions from Griffin, Ford and others kept the speakers on their toes in delivering their papers. Now, back to the story of the diamond saw-cut bricks in the cellar profile. This was one of those cases where a battery of questions was thrown. "Why did you feel justified in destroying the integrity of the historic artifacts you cut? . . . . Who is so lacking in visual perception, or good common sense, that they can't understand that brick rubble left protruding from the profile without being cut, represents a brick rubble deposit? . . . . What if an olive jar was found to be protruding from the profile, would you then cut it in half to produce a straight profile? . . . . You have obviously missed the entire point of maintaining a straight profile in an excavation! .... Why do you place less value on a 300-year old brick than you do on an olive jar? . . . . What nonsense is this?" "You're insulting our intelligence!" And so it went. Many got up and walked out in disgust during that exchange and comments were heard on that paper at various parties that night. I don't remember hearing any arguments in support of cutting such straight profiles. I did hear one of the leading archaeologists say, "That's why historical archaeology will never be real archaeology! They're merely frustrated historians with no common sense dabbling in archaeology. " These comments were from archaeologists who had likely not excavated a brick rubble deposit, but knew the difference between pseudo-

105 techniques designed to produce an effect, and techniques designed to recover data from archaeological sites. That paper certainly didn't improve the stereotype of those excavating historic sites, often called "tin can archaeology" at that time. It seemed to me that historical archaeology needed more scientific methodological rigor to improve its image - the kind of rigor I had been taught that archaeology demanded. (For other reminiscences of midcentury and before (see Pioneers in Historical Archaeology by South, ed., 1994). Historical Archaeology--"If You Want To End Your Career in Archaeology" At SEAC meetings I was always impressed by the presentations given by Charles "Chuck" Fairbanks. He had dug at the Macon Earth Lodge (1946: 94-108) at Ocmulgee National Monument, where the meetings were held on alternate years. It was one of the highlights of SEAC to visit the earth lodge with him and listen to him tell about the excavation carried out there. He had reported on the archaeology he did at the HawkinsDavidson Houses (1956: 213-229), demonstrating what historical archaeology could do to address questions about such sites. Such reports were rare at mid-century, but I also remember Adelaide and Ripley Bullen's "Black Lucy's Garden" (1945: 17-28), as an example of historical archaeology carried out by competent archaeologists. As my interest in historical archaeology grew from my experience with the Kron House, I came to look on Bullen, Fairbanks, John Cotter, Pinky Harrington and Hale Smith, John Griffin, Stu Neitzel and Ed Jelks as leaders in that field (South 1994), and I listened when they spoke. When I was at Town Creek in 1957, I heard from my supervisor, Sam Tarlton, in Raleigh, that a new historic site had been established on the banks of the Cape Fear River south of Wilmington, North Carolina, and they were looking for an archaeologist to fill the newly created position. He swore me to secrecy when he confided in me that Chuck Fairbanks had applied for the job. Tarleton asked me if I would write a

106 letter of support for their files, which I gladly did. I was excited that Chuck might well end up moving from Florida to North Carolina. Some months passed and early in 1958 Tarlton contacted me and said that Chuck had come up for an interview, hut when salary was mentioned, he didn't exactly laugh, but told them that they would have to do far better than their offer in order to get him to move from the University of Florida. I was sorry to hear that, and we talked awhile, and he finally got around to asking if I would be interested in the job. "After all," he said, "it is somewhat more than you are now making at Town Creek." I told him I would have to think about it. After talking that possibility over with Jewell we decided that it would be a good career move, although I was no Charles Fairbanks when it came to experience in excavating historic sites, having excavated none thus far, except the effort at the Kron House site. So, I accepted the offer and left Town Creek and the archaeology of Native Americans behind me and we moved to Wilmington to begin a new adventure excavating the ruins of an entire town! That challenge excited me and I thought the field could use a Coe-trained archaeologist. Before I made the decision to take the job I asked Joffre what he thought about my leaving Town Creek to take on excavating at Brunswick Town, he said, "I don't think you'll find much there. If you want to end your career in archaeology I suppose you should take it." That didn't exactly push me into historical archaeology, to say the least, but it reflected the view many anthropologically trained archaeologists had at the time. I weighed that advice against another thing he had said when I asked him if I should continue for some years at Town Creek. His answer to that was, "I don't think any archaeologist should stay at Town Creek over two years, but move on to bigger things." Between those two pieces of advice from my mentor, I put Town Creek and Native American archaeology behind me, and slid sideways into historical archaeology to excavate the ruins of the colonial town of Brunswick.

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

Chapter 6 Brunswick Town Stories 1830, the town was totally in ruins. The site of Brunswick was sold in 1842, to Frederick J. Hill, owner of Orton Plantation, for $4.25 (South 1967f).

Brunswick Town Background Brunswick Town was located on the west bank of the Cape Fear River south of Wilmington, North Carolina. The town began when Col. Maurice Moore, son of Governor James Moore of South Carolina, as a real estate venture, began selling lots there in 1725. The town prospered and grew into the chief port for the exportation of naval stores and lumber from North Carolina to Europe and the West Indies. In the 1730s Brunswick was the seat of New Hanover County, and, in 1764, became the seat of the newly created Brunswick County. The North Carolina Assembly met often in the courthouse at Brunswick, especially during the 12 years the Royal Governors William Tryon and Arthur Dobbs lived at nearby Russellborough (South 1967a). In 1748, Brunswick was captured and held for three days by marauding Spanish privateers, who were later ousted by citizens of the town and others under the leadership of Col. William Dry. It was at Russellborough, at the north edge of Brunswick, in 1765, that a group of citizens led by Cornelius Harnett surrounded the home of Governor Tryon and protested the Stamp Act and placed the Governor under house arrest. The use of arms by this group was one of the first incidents of armed resistance to British authority in America. At the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, the few citizens still residing in the almost deserted town feared that the British warships would attack the town and moved away due to this threat. Their fears were realized in 1776, when Brunswick was burned by British troops under the command of Captain Collet. Only two or three families returned after the war, and by

Lawrence L e e - - t h e Town Site Is Saved The historical, archaeological and interpretive value of a site depends on its being preserved in the private or public domain in perpetuity. Historian, Dr. E. Lawrence Lee, Jr., a professor of history at the Citadel in Charleston, heard the site of Brunswick Town was to become off limits to visitation by the public because of the presence of the Federal Government's construction of the Sunny Point Army Depot, located to the south of the site. The town site was owned by the heirs of Cape Fear historian James Sprunt. A chain-link fence was scheduled to cut the town ruin site in two. Lee arranged for the Sprunt family to donate the land to the State of North Carolina provided the State agreed to develop the ruined town into a state historic site. He then arranged for the Federal officials to agree to divert the fence and the off-limits requirement if the State took possession of the site. Then he worked with the Legislature to create Brunswick Town State Historic Site. When all these conditions were met, the site was saved, and an archaeologist was needed to carry out research and development of the historic town ruins. The thousands of visitors who visit the site each year and those archaeologists who have benefited from the scientific data that emerged from my excavation there, owe that contribution to Lawrence Lee and the James Sprunt heirs, who saved the site from encroachment by the Army Corps of Engineers (Lee 1965).

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108

Discovering Town Ruins In A Jungle--A Chigger-Welcome to the Site Jewell and I arrived at the ruins of Brunswick Town in the spring of 1958. The road through Orton Plantation ended at St. Philips Church. The ruins of the 1725-1776 town, burned by the British, lay in an impenetrable jungle beyond the church. Although Joffre Coe had predicted no evidence for the town beyond the church would be visible, shortly before we arrived, E. Lawrence Lee, a history professor at the Citadel, with a crew of prisoners, had found some stone foundation ruins standing three feet high by clearing a wide path through the undergrowth jungle.

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION We tromped down the cleared path and viewed several stonewall ruins sticking up out of the ground. Other sub-surface foundation comers had been revealed by Dr. Lee by digging a single hole at each comer after locating the ruin using a probe. He was using the map of Brunswick Town drawn by C. J. Sauthier in 1769 that showed the town in relation to St. Philips Church. We spent a happy afternoon looking at the clues to the several ruins, sometimes going through the undergrowth to see if we could find other ruins in alignment with the ones Dr. Lee had found. This was a great introduction to the adventure that lay ahead (South 1977a: 46).

Figure 6.2. Stan South beside one of the ballast stone wails

in Brunswick Town. (Photo: Charles Smith 1959) Figure 6.1 JewellSouth at the doorway of the ruin of St.

Philips Church in Brunswick Town. (Photo: South 5/1958)

That night, back in the motel in Wilmington, we took our showers and found that we were

Brunswick Town Stories

109

covered with chigger bites, so many that my belt line was clearly visible; where the chiggers had been held tightly in place while they munched away on my body. Jewell had so many bites that the imprint of her panties could be seen on her body. During the decade to follow when we visited the site we thought in advance to use Off spray, and that repellent prevented a recurrence of that experience as I worked in revealing archaeologically the ruins discovered by Dr. Lee.

The Challenge of the Newton's Law of Gravity

Grid--I

Discover

The Sauthier map of 1769 shows St. Philips Church aligned with the other structures in Brunswick Town. I knew the first thing I had to do was to establish a grid by setting nails in concrete benchmarks at 300-foot intervals. I chose the northwest brick corner of the church as the zero point, and set an iron rod, 100-feet to the east to set my east-west base line. Because I couldn't set up over the zero point I drove an iron rod reference point three feet from that corner. Then I made a discovery about magnetism I hadn't known before. I noticed when the transit was set up at the E100-foot reference point and magnetic north was recorded, there was a 1/2 ° difference from when the transit was set up at the reference point located three feet from the brick church ruin. I checked the reading three times, moving the transit back and forth, but the result was always the s a m e - - l / 2 ° variation. What was going on? I wanted to know just how much my grid deviated from magnetic north as I poured each concrete reference point, and thought a check against my grid line would be magnetic north as I set up over each of the reference points. Not having had formal training in use of a transit I called a surveyor in Wilmington, who said the mass of bricks in the church was pulling the needle off from when it was 100-feet away. I didn't realize a mass such as that could influence a magnetic needle. Sir Isaac Newton had observed long ago, as Bill Bryson has recently pointed out, that "every object in the universe exerts a tug on every

other," but I was just beginning to catch on (Bryson 2003: 48). Later, as I set the nails in concrete benchmarks hundreds of yards from the church, I noticed that another such deviation would occur between the time I set a bench mark at the end of the day and when I set up again the next morning on the same benchmark. The compass would not be the same. I had assumed it should be. So, I called the friendly surveyor again. He said, "Have you noticed a big yellow thing in the sky over there to the east in the morning?" I said, "Oh, do you mean the sun?" And he said, "You've got it!" Then he asked, "Where is that yellow ball in the late afternoon?"I said, "It's in the west." "Wow!" he said, how observant you are. Do you think that thing might have some magnetic pull on the compass? . . . . Oh," I s a i d - - S i r Isaac, again. He then said I would have to adjust any reading taken with a compass as the sun passes overhead during the day. "There are four major variables you have to deal with when using a c o m p a s s - - l ) the annual declination of magnetic north; 2) the traverse o f the sun throughout the day from east to west; 3) the pull of the new moon versus the full moon; and 4) the presence of a mass, such as a brick church ruin nearby. And I could add the training of the person on the transit. Why are you using a compass to lay out a grid anyway?" Why indeed! That was when I quit using the compass for anything on an archaeological site, depending instead, on the concrete reference points I set. After that, when I first set up my grid reference points I released the compass simply to record where magnetic north was that hour, of that day, of that year--because tomorrow it would be different--I was learning, with a little help from the surveyor, and Sir Isaac Newton!

A Grid within a Grid--Avoiding Triangular "Squares" Because I had assumed St. Philips Church and the other ruins in the town were on the same grid I had laid out my archaeological grid based on the alignment of the church. However, as I extended

1 10 my master grid through the jungle to the Cape Fear River waterfront, where I could see the stone cellar ruin of what I interpreted as Nath Moore's Front (S10) sticking above the surface of the ground, it became apparent that St. Philips Church, and therefore my archaeological grid, was not aligned with the domestic household ruins in the town! By the time I discovered this I had locked in my grid reference points, so it was too late to change them. This presented an unexpected problem, one I had tried to avoid by aligning my grid to the still-standing church ruin walls. To solve this problem so that the excavated squares around and inside the ruins would be parallel with each ruin (as I had originally planned), I simply laid out a ruin-grid within the site-grid to conform to the ruin itself. I had seen a paper presented where the archaeologist used the site grid to excavate a cellar ruin that deviated considerably from the archaeological grid. This resulted in many of the "squares" inside the cellar being triangles! A further absurdity was that some of the excavation units (assigned the same grid number) were excavated with half of the unit being a triangle inside the cellar wall with the other half being outside! The archaeologist then complained that a comparison of artifacts within the ruin with those from the yard was compromised because the grid units fell on both sides of the cellar wall. Talk about being a slave to the grid! It was to avoid this methodological problem that I had carefully laid out my grid by using the largest ruin in the town. I did this so that my excavated squares would parallel the rains. By simply laying out a ruin grid in parallel alignment with the site grid, I could still avoid the type of situation where method is allowed to interfere with sensible data recovery designed to facilitate the analytical process and recover information of value. Nath Moore's F r o n t - - A Colonial Beachcomber and the Lure of Storytelling It was during this period of grid-setting using iron rebar stakes between wider spaced concrete

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION benchmarks that an unexpected problem arose. One day when I came to the Butler shed office, I found a half dozen of my rebar stakes lying on the ground beside the door. A note was attached that said: "We enjoyed visiting the site after you had gone and are sorry we missed seeing you. We found these iron rods sticking up in the ground at various places and thought you might like to have them." Thanks, but no thanks! I could hardly wait for excavation to get underway and I chose a ruin I called "Nath Moore's Front" for the site of the first dig. After that one I dug many more. When I excavated Nath Moore's Front, in the comer formed by the chimney and the ballast stone wall of the cellar, I found a collection of things picked up on the beach by someone living there 200 years before-sea shells, a Savannah River spear point, and fossils. After their return from a trip to the beach they had thrown their collected objects beside the chimney in the yard. This find gave me a feeling of connectedness to that long-ago beach-combing collector of material things--a feeling of immediacy not felt by the exposure of architectural remains. Such feelings are sometimes translated into storytelling. This kind of story, prompted by the data, holds an attraction, and it is tempting to embellish the factual explanation with a tale. Storytelling is popular in historical archaeology as I write this. Should I tell a tale of how the family (father, wife and children--how many?), visited Long Beach south of Brunswick (or did they go across Eagle's Island to Wilmington in a buggy to visit relatives, then to Wrightsville Beach?); (or was it friends they visited to collect these objects?}--ad infinitum-depending on how much of an imaginary scenario the historical archaeologist might conjure up to "explain" the presence of those objects. What if documentation eventually revealed that a bachelor recluse lived there and didn't own a horse? Those are questions novelists ask--and answer far more effectively than do archaeologists. Why not simply write a novel and work the story of the placement of those objects in

Brunswick Town Stories

that chimney corner? Good idea--however, I wouldn't try to pass it off as archaeology!

The British Ceramics Guru--Ivor Noel Hume As I began excavating the ruins I faced a problem most anthropologically trained archaeologists faced with their first historic site: ceramic type identification. I absorbed as much as I could from references in the New Hanover County Library in Wilmington, matching excavated examples of sherds I had taken with me. However, some types still remained a mystery. After I had collected a number of unidentified types I made an appointment with Ivor Noel Hume at Colonial Williamsburg to identify those for me. As more questions arose I made other trips to Williamsburg to learn about the ceramic types I had recovered from the Brunswick Town ruins. Without Noel Hume's help I would not have been able to compile an 86 page Description of the Ceramic Types from Brunswick Town (South 1959c). Later on, Noel Hume published the "bible" for historical archaeologists, A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America (1970).

Quantitative Analysis--"Anthropological Idiocy" As I counted the fragments of various ceramic types from the Brunswick Town ruins and determined the percentage relationship between them I discovered there was a redundancy from ruin to ruin (South 1959:85, 1962a-b 9(1):5, 1977a:252-253). When I mentioned the redundancy based on sherd count to Noel Hume, as we were walking to lunch through the streets of Williamsburg that day, his comment was, "Anthropological idiocy!" I remember the shock of this viewpoint caused me to stop walking. This was a direct paradigm challenge to what I had been taught about quantitative analysis--he thought counting sherds was nonsense. As we discussed his antiquantification attitude it became clear that he believed there were two kinds of people who

lll

should not be digging on historic sites in America: pothunters and anthropologists. This anti-science attitude has had a pervasive impact on historical archaeologists to the extent that now, almost a half century later, among some archaeologists, their assemblages are not quantified with the view of making systematic comparisons of material culture remains on an inter- or intra-site basis (Noel Hume 1969:13-15). I mention this attitude here because it was the point at which I became aware of the different paradigms under which historical archaeology was conducted then, as well as now. I felt as though a gauntlet had been thrown at my feet. I accepted the challenge. My publication of "Percentage Relationship of Certain Ceramic Types from Several Structures at Brunswick Town, N. C" (South 1959: 85), was my first effort at demonstrating the value of quantitative analysis in historical archaeology.

The 1958 SEAC Meeting--"Primarily Indian Archaeology"

For

By December 1958 I was hot to trot to report the results of my excavation in historical archaeology at Brunswick Town. I contacted Joffre Coe, the local arrangements chairman for the Southeastern Archaeological Conference and told him I wanted to present a paper on my work there. He said that SEAC was, "Primarily for Indian archaeology and not many of the SEAC members are interested in historic sites." He said he had invited my supervisor, William S. Tarleton, to give an administrative paper on North Carolina's historic sites program, and John Griffin was reporting on national historic sites and buildings, and he thought that would be enough. I urged him to also put my paper on the program, but he would not be persuaded. As a compromise, however, he said I might show a few slides at the end of Tarleton's talk, which I did (Tarleton 1959:4-8). However, the rejection I felt at not being able to give a paper on Brunswick Town stuck in my craw.

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The Conference on Historic Site Archaeology--Reaching Out to Colleagues I became aware of the strong bias against historical archaeology when the time for the SEAC meeting in Macon, Georgia rolled around in the fall of 1959. I sent in a request to Tarleton for permission for travel expenses to attend that conference. His reply was that because the SEAC was a conference devoted primarily to papers on Native Americans, it was inappropriate for Historic Sites to send me to that conference. They would pay my way and allow me to drive a state pickup that year, but after that if I wanted to go to SEAC it would have to be at my own expense. This was a reflection of the orphan status historical archaeology had among anthropologists at the time--it was not considered to be "real archaeology." I received that notice about two weeks before the Macon SEAC meeting that was to meet on November 13 th and 14th. It was then I decided it was time a "Conference on Historic Site Archaeology" (CHSA) should be established to allow those of us in historical archaeology to share what we were discovering and to be able to address the problems we were facing. I wrote a letter and mailed it to all those colleagues whose address I had. The tone of the letter reflected the pique I felt at colleagues who looked down on those of us doing historical archaeology, known as "tin can archaeology," as though such endeavor could not be archaeological science (South and Deagan 2002:41). As you know, we historic site archaeologists are often looked upon by our fellow anthropologists as a kind of bastard researcher--half archaeologist and half historian . . . . Regardless of how competent our work may prove to be, we will always remain a breed apart from our colleagues working with the American Indian. As a result of our separate problems we are not represented in the programs of existing archaeological conferences as often as might be desired.

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

I would like to suggest the formation of

The Historic Sites Archaeological Conference that would meet each year to present a program based on problems encountered by historic site archaeologists in the excavation and analysis of their data.

A Logo for Historical Archaeology As a result of that letter the Conference on Historic Site Archaeology (CHSA) was begun, with the first meeting being held in 1960, and for many years we met the day before the SEAC conference. With the help of an artist I designed a logo to be used on the CHSA stationary. It symbolized historical archaeology on British colonial sites, incorporating a trowel on which the three most often found artifacts were illustrated: a plate, a tobacco pipe and a wine bottle. Many years after its founding in 1959, the CHSA meetings were discontinued, but I continue to wear the pin I had made as a symbol of my personal involvement in the field of historical archaeology.

!

Figure 6.3. The historicalarchaeologylogo. (Photo: South 1960)

Colleagues "Go Their Independent Ways" By the time of the Tuscaloosa, Alabama, CHSA/SEAC meetings in 1976, both conferences

Brunswick Town Stories

had grown until it was difficult to find a hotel large enough to hold those who wanted to attend both conferences. When prominent University of Michigan archaeologist James Griffin showed up without a reservation that year and found the hotel full, he complained loudly that the problem was that those "historic site people have taken all the rooms," and he had to go to another hotel. The next day as I presided over the CHSA meeting for the 17th year, a friend came into the meeting and up to me at the lectern and reported that the SEAC members had voted to inform CHSA that the two conferences "should go their independent ways," bringing to an end the long tandem association of the two conferences (South 1977c:ii). Historical archaeology had again been turned away, and for me it was, as they say, d6j/t vu all over again (See also South and Deagan 2002:35-50). The CHSA continued until 1982, when it was discontinued because no papers were submitted for publication, removing the primary reason for its existence. The CHSA membership funds were transferred to a publication fund at the University of South Carolina, where they were used to publish 16 volumes of Historical Archaeology in Latin America (South ed.: 1994-1996) and continue to be used to publish the series Volumes in Historical Archaeology-- 41 volumes having been published to date.

Pattern Recognition--Ceramics, Pipe Stems and Documents--A Bumblebee Flies By November 1961, I had dug nine ruins at Brunswick Town, and presented a paper at the second CHSA in which I demonstrated the relationship between the ceramic, the documentary, and the kaolin pipe stem dates from several ruins at Brunswick Town (South 1962b: 9(1):24a-b). The chronological redundancy and variability demonstrated by this comparison was remarkable, I thought, and I saw it as an important statement relating the documented chronology of a site to the chronology derived through analysis of artifacts from the archaeological record.

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I continued to use this quantitative "anthropological idiocy," and a decade later it evolved into the Mean Ceramic Date Formula, used to help archaeologists determine the likely occupation range represented by an assemblage of fragments of eighteenth century British ceramics (South 1972a:71-116; see also South 1977a:201274, and 2001b:201-274). When the formula concept was published in 1972, a number of colleagues were invited to comment on the paper in an historical archaeology forum (South, ed. 1972:117-263), revealing a range of attitudes prevalent at the period. One of those commenting was my son David, a student at that time, whose statistics determined a plus or minus four years within which the date derived using the Mean Ceramic Date Formula would vary. His paper, "Mean Ceramic Dates, Median Occupation Dates, Red Ant Hills and Bumble Bees: Statistical Confidence and Correlation" (South, D. 1972:164-174), made the point that just because red ant hills and potsherds might occur together on a site a causal nexus could not be assumed to exist between those facts. In regard to his study designed to determine the confidence one might put in the Mean Ceramic Date Formula, David said (South, D. 1972:174): We have, however, demonstrated the correlation between the mean ceramic formula dates and the median occupation dates of the historic sites of the eighteenth century. The theoretical assumptions upon which S. South's formula was based might lead one to believe that he has constructed an aerodynamically unsound bumblebee; however, the confidence intervals I have derived relating to the use of his formula reveal that his bumblebee does indeed fly. The results of David's statistical evaluation of the Mean Ceramic Date formula were rewarding and in the decades since that time many archaeologists have used it to help them interpret the chronological range likely involved in the

114 accumulation of their ceramic assemblage. In the decades to follow I continued to count things and try to make sense of the cultural patterns they represented in terms of past behavior and the processes of culture--the Brunswick Pattern of Refuse Disposal and the Carolina Artifact Pattern (South 1977a, 2001b), while others elsewhere focused on particular historical questions focused on how many whole dishes a particular family broke while living in the house represented by a ruin. The Mean Ceramic Date concept grew from J. C. Harrington's study of the holes in tobacco pipe stems, and Binford's follow-up study converting Harrington's data to a regression line formula (Harrington 1954; Maxwell and Binford 1961: 108-I09). The immediate stimulus for my ceramic formula was my often demonstrated use of pocket change when giving talks, when I would record the dates on the coins on the blackboard and from that series derive a mean coin date, and from that a terminus post quem date from the latest coin, and compare that with the date I was giving the lecture, to determine the probable time frame represented by the assemblage. I usually remarked that wouldn't it be great if each ceramic type had the date of its manufacture printed on it. Finally it hit m e - - i f I assigned a median date for the production period of a ceramic type, I could then use that assigned date for a number of types in an assemblage, and derive a mean ceramic date. With that mental break-through, the Mean Ceramic Date Formula was determined--the rest is history (South 1972a: 71-116). I later adapted this formula for use on Spanish majolica in the new world (South 1974h: 96-122).

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION attempt by the Spaniards to capture the town on September 3, 1748, which failed when the powder magazine aboard one of their ships exploded, sending it to the bottom of the Cape Fear River. William Dry, the Port Collector was in charge of resisting the Spanish attack. During the resistance by the townspeople, a cannon, borrowed from Roger Moore of nearby Orton Plantation, exploded, killing a Negro slave operating it. The slave was borrowed from George Reonalds, a Brunswick merchant, who asked for 45 pounds to reimburse him for the loss of his slave (South 1960a:28). Ecce

Homo

--

From the Spanish Shipwreck

Slaves and goods and a painting of Christ, Ecce Homo, were recovered from the captain's cabin in the Spanish wreck, but because the painting was a religious object it was not sold.

The Documentary Record--A Spanish Attack and A Shipwreck As I was involved in performing an autopsy on the material remains of the town of Brunswick, I became familiar with the documentary record involving the founding of the town by Maurice Moore from Goose Creek, South Carolina. I discovered from the documents that a "public house" was located there. Also, I learned of the

Figure 6.4. The painting Ecce Homo, taken from the Spanish vessel that attacked Brunswick Town in 1748.

(Photo: South 1960)

Brunswick Town Stories

Instead it was given to the Parrish of St. James Church by the North Carolina General Assembly (South 1960a:31). When I visited the church, the historic painting was hanging on the wall in a hallway. I was concerned that such an historic relic should be hanging there so accessible to anyone who walked into the church, which was open most of the time. It was amazing to me that someone had not stolen the painting. I made an appointment with the minister and told him of my concern. He said I would have to see the Bishop, so I made an appointment with him, and after having to wait an hour in his outer office, I expressed to him my concern for the security of the painting, and, recommended that it be kept in the church vault. He listened, with a condescending smile, and said he would look into it and sent me on my way. I was allowed to take a photograph of the painting. I became interested in the Spanish wreck and mentioned it in my talks on Brunswick. A diver, hearing my talk, explored the shoreline, and found an eighteenth century anchor. Although many ships anchored in front of Bnmswick in the eighteenth century, I like to think the anchor found there might have been from the Spanish wreck. I went into the river at low tide and waded up to my neck, hoping to find further evidence of it, but all that was found was a 16 inch cannonball from the Civil W a r - - b u t that is a later story of the Brunswick site, to be told later.

A Teenage Twice-First-Lady, Justina Davis Dobbs Nash and the Royal Governors In my research I learned that Royal Governor Arthur Dobbs lived at Russellborough, the ruins of which were located at the north edge of Brunswick Town and shown on the 1769 Sauthier map. In 1762 the 73 year old governor of North Carolina fell in love with Justina Davis, the 15 year old girl who, after Governor Dobbs died, married Governor Abner Nash, to become twice first lady. She was buried in Swansboro at the age of 19. After Dobbs died Governor William Tryon moved into Russellborough and later moved into his new mansion in New Bern. Port Collector

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William Dry III then moved into the former governor's home (South 1967a-c). It was there a Stamp Act demonstration took place in 1766 and a ship's cargo was seized, a decade before the American Revolution. I read of a duel fought in the town on March 18, 1765, between Captain Alex Simpson and Lieutenant Thomas Whitehurst of the ship "Viper." After bullets were exchanged with both hitting their mark but not putting either of the men out of action, Simpson attacked Whitehurst and killed him by beating him in the head with the butt of his pistol. The Sauthier map shows 35 dwellings in Brunswick and twice as many other buildings-kitchens, stores, warehouses, and the like. In the same year Sauthier drew his map, 1769, a hurricane hit, causing much damage, blowing down houses and the courthouse, and blowing the roof from St. Philips Church. In 1776, the town was burned by British Captain Collett, as was William Dry's home at Russellborough (South 1967a-c). Brunswick was then virtually abandoned, with only two or three houses there after the Revolution.

"Colonial Brunswick" Artifacts The above historical details came to my attention as I carried out my research in 1958 and 1959. By 1960 I had compiled them into a book, "Colonial Brunswick" designed to inform school children about the historical and archaeological story I had found. In that book I illustrated a piece of brass with "B[runswi]ck" engraved on it--perhaps once on a painting of the town?

Drawing of the brass plate engraved B'runswi"ck. (Drawing: Margaret Bunn 1960)

Figure 6 . 5 .

When I first discovered it, with my limited imagination, I was trying to determine what word

116 "runswi" could possibly be from. I showed the brass fragment to R. V. Asbury, the Brunwick Town guide, who immediately said, "It's the middle of the word "Brunswick!" Duh! We were both excited that I had dug up the name o f the town. We also recovered a spoon once owned by Margaret Hill, with "M. Hill" on the handle; a brass tobacco tin fragment embossed with the British Royal Seal; and an embossed medallion with the bust of Frederick the Great of Prussia, marked "Fred Born Rex." Another medallion from the refuse of one of the few early nineteenth century occupants of Brunswick was embossed with the profile portraits of "MARECHAL GERARD-GENERAL LAFAYETTE," dating sometime after 1830, when Gerard was made a Marshal of France. Unfortunately, that book was not published by the Department of Archives and History, and it remains in manuscript form today. However, I still plan to get it into computer format and to a publisher if I live long enough (South 1960a).

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION number of organizations such as the DAR, UDC, Daughters of the Colonies, etc. Her home was filled with reference card drawers on genealogy and historical research she had done. Whenever I had a question involving a Brunswick Town citizen in the eighteenth century, she would say something like, "Nathaniel Moore? He was the son o f , and his mother was , and she came from , and they had three c h i l d r e n . . , and so it went, as she led me to the card file documenting what she was saying. I valued her friendship, and admired greatly her great knowledge of the history of the individuals, places, and events in the Lower Cape Fear. My primary interest at Brunswick Town was collecting archaeological data from excavation of the ruins, seeing what patterns were there to be recognized, and exploring how those patterns could be predictive o f past cultural behavior and process, to be of methodological and interpretive use to other archaeologists. It wasn't until I had been gone from North Carolina for eight years before much of what I had learned there was published in Method and Theory in Historical Archaeology (South 1977a). During the ten years I was at Brunswick Town, other challenges were undertaken that did not directly involve the database of archaeology.

Archaeological Crew Stories

Figure 6.6. The "MARECHAL GERARD-GINIRAL LAFAYETTE" medallion. (Photo: South 1960) My historical research guru in Wilmington was Ida B. Kellam, who was the archivist for a

Figure 6. 7. Drawing of Brunswick Town crewmen washing artifacts. (DonMayhew 1960)

Brunswick Town Stories

Charlie S m i t h - - " S w e e t Rosie Anne" When I arrived at Brunswick Town, Lawrence Lee recommended Charlie Smith, a hard worker with a willing and happy spirit, as my right hand assistant. Charlie was one of the crew he had used to locate the corners of the ruins. I took his advice and through the years learned as much from Charlie as he did from me. He was a good storyteller who would keep the crew and me laughing. He was also a fisherman, as were the other crewmen. They dug the ruins and helped Jewell wash and process the artifacts. One day as we were digging in Nath Moore's Front, Charlie cut loose singing a chantey called "Sweet Rosie Anne." Some of the other crewmen joined in. It was so beautiful I asked Charlie to sing over until I learned to sing it. He said he it was a Mississippi River chantey he had learned when he fished with a crew out of Empire, Louisiana (South [editor]: 1994: 175, and 1995b): Sweet Rosie Anne, sweet Rosie Anne, Bye-bye sweet Rosie Anna. I thought I heard my baby say, I won't be home tomorrow. Duh steamboat comin' round duh bend, Bye-bye sweet Rosie Anna, Is loaded wi-dat high-bred gin, I won't be home tomorrow. I was invited by Charlie and others on the crew to go with them early one rainy morning. That day they only caught around 500,000 fish in their nets. That seemed like a lot of fish to me, but they were disappointed (South 1994: 174175). Fishing was only a part-time job for them because it was seasonal, so they spent their days clearing the jungle from Brunswick Town ruins and helping me excavate them--but more about the fishermen later. The first year at Brunswick Town I killed 23 copperhead snakes in the pathways cleared by Lawrence Lee. We had visitors each weekend so I killed the snakes to protect the visitors from being bitten as they followed the trails to view the

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ruins. Later on, I killed a rattlesnake, a cottonmouth, and Charlie killed a coral snake. We were converting a jungle to an historic site, so we had encounters with various varmints in the process. "The Las' Otter" A series of events Charlie had fun with, at my expense upon occasion, began with the time he showed me an otter lying in the bed of the pickup truck. I was upset that he had killed it because I had never see one before and knew they were certainly rare on the Cape Fear and its tributaries. He said it had come bouncing up the road in front of him like a puppy. He stopped the truck and got out, took an ax handle out of the bed of the truck, and when it came up to him he had "Napped it in the head." I asked him what he was going to do with it and he looked surprised, "You can have him to eat, unless you have a squeamish belly of course. If you do I'll eat it. They're good eatin'!" I told him it was probably the last otter on the Cape Fear. "The Las' Bald Eagle" A bald eagle nested in one of the ancient pines at Brunswick Town. One day the parents of the chick were flying around and around above the tree trying to get the chick to fly. They screeched all day and finally, as we watched, the chick left the nest and flew up to meet the parent birds and they all three flew offto the south. That was the last we saw o f them. I made the remark that they may have been the last Eagles on the Cape Fear. Charlie listened but didn't comment. "The Las' Lion" Charlie was excited one day when I arrived at our Butler shed that served as my office, tool shed and analysis laboratory. He had been sitting quietly looking out the open door early that morning when he heard something walking through the woods about 30 feet from the door. As he watched he saw a lion. I asked him if it wasn't perhaps a bobcat. He said that the tail was long and went out and down into a loop, then back

118 up. It was a lion, he insisted. I told him that in the mountains those cats were called "painters" [panthers]. I remarked, "That's likely one of t h e " ~ a n d he joined me, saying, "las' lions on the Cape F e a r " - - h e had recognized the pattern. "The Las' Gatuh and Possum" Another time we saw a big alligator lying on the bank of one of the "Carolina Bay" ponds. I went closer to try to get a photograph, and it turned suddenly toward me as I made for a little tree nearby. In telling this story to the crew Charlie said, "I expect de boss man to say, "That de las' gatuh!" Then he followed that by saying, "You show the boss man a 'possum, he say, 'That de las' 'possum!" (South 1995b). After that the crew would point to any animal we saw and ask me if I thought it was the last one on the Cape Fear. Charlie reveled in that kind o f jawing. "Boss Man, You Down There?" We were excavating one of the Brunswick Town wells and had revealed two tipping posts preserved by the water standing in the bottom. The colonists had put the posts in the well to tip the wooden buckets upside down so they would pick up water. I had rigged up a tripod of 2 by 4s and had fastened a chain around the top to hold the block and tackle used to lower me down into the 12 foot deep well. I had put a padlock on the chain and locked it to what I thought was the other end of the chain. As it turned out later, I had locked the padlock to the same end of the chain, leaving the chain simply wrapped around the tripod. Charlie, Freddy Moore and Johnny Roberts had lowered me into the well as I excavated and put the dirt in a bucket to be pulled up. I was almost finished removing dirt and was standing on oyster shells knee deep in water working around the tipping posts. When I finished and gave the signal to Charlie to pull me up, they all three took hold of the rope and began pulling to lift me to the top of the well. I had just reached the surface and could see them pulling on the rope when I heard the noise of the chain

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION coming loose from the tripod above me. Then I began falling down the well shaft. As I fell I imagined how painful it was going to be when one of the sharp tipping posts rammed into my behind. I began dreading that as I fell, and I thought about the fact that the nearest hospital was twenty-five miles away, and wondered if Charlie and crew would be able to get me out of the well in such a wounded condition. All that ran through my mind while I was falling. Then I hit bottom, splashing into the water, with a leg on each side of one of the tipping posts--the only position I could possibly have landed in without hurting myself seriously. I was so relieved that I began laughing as I sat in the cool water up to m y armpits. I waited for Charlie to stick his head over the edge of the well hole to look down at me, but no Charlie appeared. I sat there waiting, but I heard nothing. They say that from the bottom of a well you can see stars in the daytime, and I thought about that looking up, but no stars, and still no Charlie. Finally, after 10 minutes or more, after hollering ever now and then to try to get someone's attention, I saw Charlie's head tentatively peep over the edge of the well and look down at me. "Boss man, you down there?" I laughed and said, "Where'd you think I'd be Charlie?" Then he said, "Lord have mercy! Praise de Lord! I thought you might be daidl Is you hurt?" I assured him I was o.k. and asked where they had been so long. He said they had run the three blocks to the parking lot and had started their cars, dreading the thought of being blamed for a white man lying in the bottom of the well dead. But then Charlie had asked the others, "What if the man ain't daid--maybe he only hurt?" so he had come back to check on me. He went back then and got Freddy and Johnny and they refastened the chain. Then they sent the bucket down for the key to the padlock that was in my pocket, relocked the chain securely this time, and pulled me out of the well. I was lucky.

Brunswick Town Stories

"Fightn'-Eddy" In the Wheelchair--"Snake" On the Floor in "The Spot" The community in which Charlie, Freddy and Johnny lived was located along the highway between Brunswick Town and Wilmington. There was a gathering place there known as "The Spot." It was a one-room slat and board building with benches around the wall inside. Beer was served there, as well as soft drinks and snacks, and judging from the stories I heard from my crew a good time was had by all. Music was played by those who brought guitars, and other instruments, and songs were sung.

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"The Spot" drew a pretty good crowd playing whist and checkers, singing and dancing, especially on weekend nights. When something exciting happened there, I would get a full report from Charlie on Monday morning. It was a world I could never know--the blues, the laughter, the chanteys, and the booze. ! was happy for them, but sad for m e - - a n outsider, who could only attempt to capture some of the richness of their soul-rich brotherhood through the stories and songs they generously shared with me (South 1978a, 1995b). I was a stranger there. Just as Ed Gaines had taught me to acknowledge the reality of Dude's polio-induced limp, Charlie told me a story about a wheelchairbound man, once known as "Wheelchair Eddy,"

Figure 6.9. Whist players in "The Spot." (Photo: South 1960)

Figure 6.8.Freddy on the porch of "The Spot." The gathering place for the Brunswick Town crew and their friends. (Photo: South 1960)

but more recently called "Fightn' Eddy," because of his skill at manipulating his chair during fights. Charlie said Eddy and Snake got in an argument Saturday night and Snake took a swing at Eddy, who saw it coming and quickly wheeled his chair around to avoid the hit. Everyone watched as Snake kept trying to hit Eddy by grabbing the arm of Eddy's chair with his left hand while striking out with his right at Eddy's face. When he did this Eddy would punch Snake

120 in the face two or three times before he could turn loose of the chair. Charlie said it was great fun to see how skillfully Eddy was at moving that chair around and getting in more blows than Snake could. It was a sight to see, with everybody hollering and egging them on, while Eddy used fancy wheelwork to dodge Snake's blows. Then, when the wheelchair rolled back in front of Freddy, he reached out his foot and pushed down on the brake lever. When Snake took another swing, Eddy pulled back on the wheels to feint away, but because the brake was locked, the chair flipped onto its back throwing Eddy to the floor. Snake was on him in a flash and they rolled around on the floor, with the crowd cheering them on. Finally, the fight came to an end because Eddy was beating up on Snake so badly they had to pull him off Snake. Snake was upset because it made him look bad getting beat up by crippled Eddy. Charlie said, "That Fighting Eddy, crippled or not, don't take nothing off nobody!" I told Charlie I ' d never heard of anyone fighting with someone in a wheelchair. He said, "Just because someone's in a wheelchair don't mean they shouldn't be treated just like anybody else---but then, that Eddy, he is something special--wheelchair or not." "The Sound of a Watermelon" Charlie told me about the time he was working cutting pulpwood and a friend of his killed the boss man. It was a cold morning in the pulpwood yard and the crew had built a little fire to keep warm. The boss man came from the little office where he was having coffee and, with his boot, kicked out their fire, saying it was against the rules of the pulpwood yard. They pleaded with him to get in the truck and head for the woods so they could begin work and keep warm, but he smart-mouthed them and went back to his coffee. Jubal lit the fire again, and it was kicked out by the boss man, who used the N- word that time. Jubal said "Boss, if you outn' that fire again, you're a dead man," and gathered the smoldering

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION faggots and built another fire. The boss man, apparently seeing the situation as a conflict of wills, came out a third time and kicked out the fire, scattering the sticks and raising a cloud of dust fi-om the ashes. As he did Charlie saw Jubal reach down and pick up a bush axe and swing it up over the boss man's head and watched it as it came down, "in slow motion," Charlie said, and split the man's head from the top to his chin. "Boss man," Charlie said, pausing in his story, "You know the sound a watermelon makes when you slice it and it splits open? That's the same sound that man's head made when it got split in two wid that ax." "What did you do, Charlie? . . . . Do?" He said, "We ran--and r a n - - and ran! Until, finally when me and Freddy and Johnny got out of breath and had to stop, we was running down an old road in the woods. I said, ' W h y we running? We didn't do nothing?" Freddy was bent over puking. Johnny said, "A white man was killed--we was there--and you want to know why we running? They'd blame it on u s - - t h a t ' s why!" Charlie said when he walked several miles home, he went to Jubal's house and Jubal was there sitting on the porch waiting for the Sheriff. He had walked to his car and had driven home. His wife was crying and his children were hanging onto Jubal as he sat in the swing. When the Sheriff came he walked up to the porch and said, "Mornin' Jubal, I heard you killed a man today. That so?" Jubal said, "You hear right, Sheriff. I killed a no-good white man--pure trash." The Sheriff said, " I ' m sorry to hear that Jubal." "Don't need to be sorry Sheriff. It ain't yo' fault. He needed killin'. Sometime shit happen'." As Charlie told me this story, Freddy had nodded his head from time to time, and muttered supporting sounds. Then he said, "Boss m a n - you can hurry up and believe that!" I did--and I thought of the times when we were digging Nath Moore's Front ruin and Charlie, Freddy and Johnny had built a little fire in the yard of the ruin to keep warm by. I had asked Charlie why they hadn't huddled closer to the fire as they stood

Brunswick Town Stories

around. He answered that the fire was mostly to smell the smoke so your mind would think you were getting warmer. To help lighten the solemn mood generated by Charlie's story, I said, "Charlie, I want you to know, any time you want to build a fire, you go right ahead and build it!" "Blow His Head Off, B o s s ! " ~ K n o w i n g W h e n to Stop

One day as we were on the road leaving Brunswick Town, with me driving the pickup with Charlie beside me and the crew in the bed, the truck passed over a copperhead snake in the road. I stopped the truck and saw that I hadn't hit it. It was coiled ready to strike. I called to Freddy and told him to get the bush axe out of the bed of the truck and kill it. Instead, he handed me a 32caliber pistol and said, "Blow his head off, boss!." I told him I couldn't hit the side of a barn with a pistol, but he insisted, egged on by the crew. So, I took the pistol in hand, commenting that I would probably empty the chamber and still wouldn't have hit the thing. But, like I had seen in the movies, I took aim below the head from about 15 feet away, and slowly brought it up until I squeezed the trigger as the head came in alignment with the sights. To my surprise the head disappeared from the snake--amid cries of astonishment and disbelief from the crew. Later on, when we would see a snake, or when one of the crew was telling the story about the boss man being a crack shot with a pistol, they would urge me to demonstrate my "skill." I told them it had been a lucky shot, but they never believed me. I never tried to use Freddy's pistol again--sometimes success comes from knowing when to stop. " W h o ' s R o b b i n g T h i s T r a i n - - Y o u or M i s t e r James?"

I was sitting in the tin shed analyzing pottery from one of the Brunswick ruins. In the distance I could hear the rhythmic growling sound of the skate-wheeled sifter box as it was shaken back and forth on its frame as the soil from one of the layers in ruin was screened to recover the

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artifacts. It was late on a hot day, and the crew had been digging long hours on the Front Street ruin. Then I heard above the low rumble of the sifter, a high-pitched voice carrying through the woods, "Who's robbing this train?" Then the musical note of laughter as the crew remembered the joke prompted by the punch line rendered by Charlie. When I later mentioned to him that it sounded as though the crew had enjoyed his reminder, he said, "I try to keep some trash goin' late in the day to help get their minds goin' on something besides bein' tired, and hot, and thirsty, and thinking about quitting and going home to get a beer. I try to keep some foolishness goin' to help keep their spirits up. If I don't they start complaining about how bad things are for 'em." The punch line was all that was needed to lighten the day and help that last hour not seem so long. As Charlie told it, Mr. Jesse James was robbing a train and he pointed his gun at the passengers and said for them to give him their money or e l s e - - ' T m gonna rob all the women and rape all the men!" Then one of the passengers spoke up and said, "Scuse me, Mr. James, but don't you mean to say you is gonna rob all the men and rape all the women?" Then a high-pitched voice from another man spoke up and said, "You shut your mouth! Who's robbin' this train--you or Mr. James?"--Charlie the entertainer. A W h i s k e y Still R u i n - - "I H e r e b y Place Y o u Under Arrest"

As we cleared the brush from the edge of the cypress swamp at the north edge of Brunswick Town, we found some cinderblocks, a rusty and dented 55-gallon barrel and some other debris scattered beneath the jungle growth. Charlie said, "Yo, Freddy, ain't this where you had your still?" Freddy laughed and said it might be the place, but wasn't sure, because the undergrowth looked different. From that I knew that Freddy must really have had a still there. I transit-shot a location and drew a little still on my Brunswick

122 Town master map to mark the spot. Then I got the story from Freddy. Many years before, Freddy had hidden the still beneath thick myrtles to prevent it being seen by the Federal spotter plane that frequently flew over the area looking for stills. It was located on the low shoulder of the cypress swamp, with cypress knees sticking up along the shore. The knees extended about twenty feet into the swamp before the deep water prevented them from growing up from the roots below. Freddy was making good money from the sale of his "shine," until somehow the Feds learned that he was operating a still. After that time the planes flew low over the area trying to locate it.

A mountain whiskey still before being destroyed by the Sheriff. It was photographed when I worked as a photographer in Boone. Freddy's still may not have been as elaborate as this one. The archaeological record of such entrepreneurial enterprises is often found during archaeologicalsurveys. (Photo:Plamer Blair 1952) Figure 6.10.

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION Freddy was loading gallon jugs filled with the clear liquid into a cardboard box when one of his helpers yelled, "Run! Run" It's the law! He's got a gun!" and he took off running. Freddy looked up and there, not forty feet away, stood the federal agent who had talked with Freddy once about the rumor he had a still. He was smiling and pointing a gun, saying, "I found it Freddy. You might as well give up." Freddy said, "You ain't goin' to shoot me. It's agin' the l a w - - y o u can hurry up and believe that!" and he took off running along the shoreline of the swamp with the lawman behind him. Before long Freddy was puffing and waded into the water, trying to keep his balance among the cypress knees. The lawman stopped on the bank, laid his billfold and other personal things from his pocket on the bank, and shouted to Freddy, "Now Fred@, why couldn't you just surrender here on dry land?" Freddy yelled back at him, "If yuh goin'a arrest me you got to do it by the damn rules-place your hand on my shoulder and say, 'I hereby place you under arrest'--ain't dat de way it go? . . . . That's right, Freddy, but did you have to get us so wet?" Into the water the lawman came, as Freddy went further and further into the swamp where the water became deeper and deeper, with the lawman still sloshing through the water behind him. Freddy kept struggling to keep his footing because he couldn't swim. Finally, when the water was up to his shoulders he stopped. The lawman said, "Damn, Freddy! Why don't you just let me arrest you?" All Freddy could do was stand there and watch the man get closer to him. "If I was a foot taller," Freddy said, "I'd drown your white ass before you could get to me." By that time the man put his hand on Freddy's shoulder and said, "I hereby place you under arrest." Freddy shook his head and said, "You some hard-ass lawman over a little whiskey." Freddy told me that serving time in the federal penitentiary was the best time he had ever served. He said he lay up there in Richmond watching TV, eating, and making good time. He said when

Brunswick Town Stories

they let him go they gave him a new suit and ten dollars in his pocket to get home on. If he ever got arrested again, he said, he wanted it to be on a federal charge--"They work your ass off on the county r o a d - - y o u can hurry up and believe that!" Many years later I told this and other Charlie and crewmen stories in a little poem booklet (South 1995b).

"This Heah Cootuh Soup!"--A Lesson in Discrimination From time to time at Brunswick Town I would be asked to investigate other projects of interest to the Historic Sites Division of the Department of Archives and History, and I will be saying more about this broader-scope involvement later in Chapter 9. One of these assignments was for Charlie and me to go to New Bem and explore the cellar and yard of the Chapman-Taylor (AttmoreOliver) House (South 1962c). An interesting discovery in the cellar of that house was several sewing machines sitting in the basement. These were scheduled to be thrown out along with other trash. A brass plate on the machines indicated they dated from 1867, shortly after the Civil War, and this fact seemed to fit with the tradition that uniforms were made there, but after the occupation of the town by Federal forces - probably on those very machines still in the basement. Those machines were still there when I left; I hope they were saved by the historical society for their connection to the history of the house (South 1962c: 17), but more on the rest of that story in Chapter 9. Late in the day Charlie and I ended our work and he said he had a hankering for seafood chowder. We stopped at a popular seafood caf6 in town and I went in to ask if they had seafood chowder. They said they did, but Charlie couldn't come in because they wouldn't serve blacks, only they didn't use that word. That made me so upset that when I got back to the truck I was angry. Charlie asked what was wrong, and I told him amid various irate epithets, and he began laughing--which seemed curious to me. He said, "What's the matter, Boss? - - y o u not used to

123

discrimination, are you? Lord! I've seen it all nay life---here you just now facing i t - - n o w ain't that something!" By that time I had cranked the truck and was backing out of the parking lot, when he stopped me. "Wait. Don't leave. Look at it this way. We hungry, right? We a long way from home, right? We a long way driving to another card, right? We be a long way driving to get out of the South, right?" I laughed, agreed, and cut off the engine. He said, "In that case, you get yo' white ass back in that caf6 and bring us out some seafood chowder to eat out here in the truck"--which I did. We were enjoying the delicious, rich chowder thick with bits of fish, shrimp and other goodies, when Charlie said, "Look at this! This here a cootuh bone! This heah's cootuh soup!" he said, holding up a bone about two inches long. You couldn't prove it by me, but Charlie insisted he knew cooter bones, because he had eaten many a bowl of cooter soup. Suddenly, Charlie was irate--"What kind of place serves cootuh meat in seafood chowduh!" I said it was good chowder anyhow, but Charlie said, "Cootuh a marsh turtle. He don't live in no sea!" As we drove on down the highway toward Wilmington I would occasionally hear, "Uh, uh, uh!---cooter meat don't belong in no seafood chowduh." He was far more incensed over this violation of culinary protocol than with the blatant discrimination we had encountered--that he was used t o - - n o t cooter meat from the marsh passed offas seafood chowder!

The Fishermen--"No Shad Today!" I mentioned that my archaeological crewmen at Brunswick Town were mostly fishermen for menhaden, called shad. At 4 o'clock one Saturday morning I met them at the dock where the converted World War II surplus destroyer escort fishing vessels were anchored. It was an overcast morning threatening rain. I was in the wheelhouse drinking coffee with the captain, looking down onto the deck of the vessel anchored next to the one I was on. I saw one of

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AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

the fishermen come onto the deck, look skyward, and shake his fist at the low-lying clouds. He paced the deck, raised his arms skyward, rolled his eyes and shouted at the captain and the rain (South, ed. 1994:175): GREAT GAWDA'MIGHTYWHATA GLORYDAY! GLO-REE DAY! NO SHADTODAY!NO SHAD TODAY! GREATGAWDA'MIGHTYWHATA GLORYDAY! THE CAP'N SAY GO, BUT I SAY NO' GREATGAWDA'MIGHTYWHATA GLORY DAY! THE CAP'N SAY CATCHALL THE SHAD YOU CAN! GREATGAWDA'MIGHTYI'M A FISHERMAN! GREATGAWDA'MIGHTYI'M A M A N ! The captain explained that the man was exhorting him to give word that the weather was too bad to go into the Atlantic that day to fish. But the captain had heard on his walkie-talkie from Hall Watters, the pilot flying overhead spotting the white foam on the sea that told him where the school of shad was located, that it was getting light enough to see and the weather was not too bad to prevent the vessel from leaving the dock. So we went in spite of the emotional exhortation not to do so. The fishermen thought it wasn't much of a catch, with only a half-million fish caught in the net between the two purse boats, but it looked like a lot of fish to me (South ed. 1994:174). Charlie said the fish looked like silver dollars shining in the sun to him because each fisherman got a share of the profit from selling the fish for fertilizer. The captain got 3 shares, the chantey man two shares. The chantey man's job was to lead the singing, which the crew usually did as they joyfully pulled in the net, their hands bleeding from being ripped by the mesh of the fish-loaded net. They sang: "Duh steamboat comin' round duh bend, bye-bye sweet Rosie Anna, is loaded wi-dat high-bred gin, I won't be home tomorrow. Oh, the Cap'm got a luger, luger, luger. De Cap'm got a luger, an the mate got a owl head!" [pistols].

..........

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Fishboat crew pullingin the net. (Photo:

South 1962) The school of fish, trapped in the net, pushed their noses against the mesh until they turned red. Then a shock wave was felt within the sea, rocking the boats, as the men, filled with joy and intense exertion, broke into tears with emotion. The shock wave came as all the shad "thundered," and died, bursting their swim bladders in unison, in one of the great mysteries of the sea. Charlie asked me what caused the "thunder" but I had no idea except to compare it with flights of flocks of migrating birds, who move as one organism as they sweep and dive in the air, or like a squadron of Blue Thunder jet pilots once did as the formation dived their planes in unison into the beach--following the lead of their commander. Those fishermen were my archaeological crew at Brunswick Town. Sometimes when the day was mild, a breeze would blow across the five-mile wide Cape Fear River. At such magic moments the crew would become filled with the joy of the work as we shoveled and sifting soil from a Front Street ruin. Then Charlie would break out with Sweet Rosie Anne, and the crew would join him in song, as I did. The shad are gone now from the Cape Fear, along with the fishermen, the chanteys, and my crew. Knowing them was one of life's great

Brunswick Town Stories

moments for me. I loved those wonderful guys, but I was a stranger there. One day a folklorist showed up at my door with a guitar and suitcase in hand. He said he had heard from someone that I sang some of the old chanteys. He was Philip Kennedy who was on a song collecting tour of the South. I invited him in and he recorded me singing some of the songs I knew. I told him that I was only an imitator of the songs had I heard Charlie sing. I urged him to meet Charlie and record the songs directly from the source. He spent the night with us and I introduced him to Charlie whom he also recorded. A couple of years later he sent me a copy of a book with his chapter resulting from his study, on the "Present Status of Ballad Collecting and Geographical Ballad Distributions in North Carolina" (Kennedy 1965: 67-82).

A Lesson in Cultural Diversity During the 1960s, when I was recording Charlie's sea chanteys on my tape recorder and learning from him the songs of the coastal black fishermen, I thought I would expand my repertoire by recording songs sung by some of the black neighbors I grew up with in the mountains. The next time Jewell and went to Boone, I took my tape recorder and made arrangements to meet with an African American acquaintance that agreed to allow me to record some of his songs. I was excited as I set up the recorder, thinking about adding traditional African American songs from this part of North Carolina. He played a guitar, and as he picked and sang, I heard him say, "Garfield ain't dead, but he's hanging mighty low"---a song about the assassination of President James A. Garfield in 1881. The song spoke of the assassin, Charles Guiteau, and of Garfield's hanging on to life long after he was shot. That song was a new discovery for me, sung in the way Appalachian mountain ballads were traditionally rendered, with a drawn-out moaning of words. I asked for other old songs, and I heard him sing about "London Town where I was born," and about Sweet William lying on his deathbed

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for the love of Barbara Allen. Then he sang about Lord Lovel standing at his castle-gate, combing his milk white steed. I asked if he knew any traditional songs sung by the black folks he knew, and he looked surprised, and answered that I had just heard them! Clearly these were not the type of songs I had expected to hear. But what a lesson that was for me! As an anthropologist I should have known, that the songs I heard from my coastal black fishermen crew, songs they learned from those steeped in a Mississippi River steamboat tradition, would have no reason to sound like black mountaineers immersed in an Appalachian English-ballad tradition--I should have known!

Interpretation, Archaeology and Aesthetics Stories Historic Site Development--Politics, Policy, Leadership, Initiative and Sensitivity In the age of cultural resource management archaeology, not many archaeologists face the assignment of excavating a site and developing it as a state historic site for visitation by the public, while at the same time carrying out scientific archaeology. At Brunswick Town, however, in 1958 and the decade to follow, that was my challenge. Some of the scientific results I later published in my Method and Theory in Historical Archaeology (1977). The story I tell here, and others I tell in later chapters, involve decisions I made in the process of carrying out historic site development in conjunction with scientific archaeology--sites such as Fort Fisher, Bethabara, Charles Towne Landing, Ninety Six and Spanish Santa Elena. The Brunswick Town story I tell here is related to administrative politics and policy, leadership, initiative, and sensitivity to the issue of site integrity and functional practicality--issues constantly faced by those involved in researching and developing historic sites and properties. One way of looking at that issue is to say it is a matter of balancing the "purists" on the one hand, with the "practical compromisers" on the other.

126 Purists might say it is inappropriate to have modem toilets in an eighteenth century exhibit building, but most people understand that if you have thousands of people trekking through such a structure there must be toilet facilities for them. I once criticized Williamsburg reconstructions because they were so neat looking, so unauthentic in their pristine neatness, because I knew from archaeology that what I called "The Brunswick Pattern of Refuse Disposal" (a trash dump) was once located beside the entranceways of dwellings, forts and other colonial structures in such towns. To be absolutely and authentically "pure" it would be necessary to not only place such refuse deposits in the yard beside the doors of restored structures, one would have to import into the mix some typhoid bacillus so that flies could spread that plague and thus make Williamsburg more "authentic." Well, that's going a little far, you might say. So, where do we draw the line between authenticity and the new creation called "historic restoration" or "preservation" or "site development" for the education and entertainment of the public? In replacing palisade posts in original fort ditches, for instance, treated posts are not "authentic." Using twentieth century concrete to stabilize colonial ruins as I did at Brunswick Town, or adding stones above the belowground part of stone-lined cellar walls as I did at Bethabara is not "authentic," but such compromises must be made in the process of historic site development. At Jamestown, Virginia, and at Fort Frederica, Georgia, compromises were necessarily made to display the archaeologically revealed ruins to the public. These efforts were a model I used at Brunswick Town. Another case in point arose at Brunswick Town when I introduced a non-authentic bright red and black Japanese bridge to the site!

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION A Japanese Bridge among Colonial Brunswick Ruins? - - A Controversy The Sauthier map of 1769 shows a stream and marsh in the middle of Brunswick (South 1977:46). To get across the stream and provide access from one part of town to the other, the colonists had built a causeway across the A stream, causing the marsh to become deeper, resulting in a shallow marsh-lined pond. When I arrived, to get from the parking lot at St. Philips Church to the ruins I had excavated along Front Street, and stay on high ground, it was necessary to walk a block along Second Street then down a cross street to view the ruins. As we continued to clear the jungle, we found that the marsh, heavily clogged with marsh grass, had been formed into a pond three to four feet deep by the colonial causeway. Charlie and I used a small boat and hip-high waders and went into the pond and began pulling up marsh grass with potato diggers and rakes, loading it into the boat. We did this day after day for weeks until the entire marsh had been converted into a pond again. We were restoring the pond so that water lilies could breathe and frogs would have somewhere to sit. We found the spring that fed the pond and the ballast stones placed around it by colonists two hundred years before. It was a beauty spot in the middle of the ruins of Brunswick. Some tourists would wander off the trail to enjoy the pond they could see by peeping through the woods. It occurred to me that if we had a bridge across the pond, visitors could go straight to Front Street by way of the bridge, enjoy the aesthetic beauty of the pond, listen to the croaking frogs, and come out at the ballast stone ruins along Front Street - - a combination of history, archaeology and the natural beauty of a cypress swamp. The question arose as to what kind of bridge we should build. Charlie said we could hydraulically "jook" down the treated 4 by 4s into the bottom of the pond by fastening a water hose to the side of the timber and "jooking" [an African term] the posts down as far as we could. To do that, I rented a gasoline driven water pump, and sucked water from the pond to jet down the

Brunswick Town Stories

pilings into the muck. But what should the bridge look like? It would have been easy to jook all the posts down to the same level, nail timbers to them and make a simple bridge designed to get visitors from one side of the pond to another. However, that was not what I did. I got approval from Raleigh to build the bridge, but was also told that I couldn't use taxpayers' money to build a nature trail bridge. It was then I turned to outside help to fund the building of the bridge. I approached the Garden Clubs of North Carolina to see if they would be interested in sponsoring a "Brunswick Town Nature Trail" in the middle of the town. They accepted the invitation and donations for the project began coming in from the various garden clubs throughout the state. I had seen a photograph of a Japanese bridge--one of those beautifully arched ones, painted red and black, and I thought that, although there was no evidence that a bridge was ever across that pond in the eighteenth century, such a bridge would make a dramatic contrast to the natural beauty o f the marsh. And that was the type of bridge Charlie, Freddy, Johnny and I built. We spent considerable time building it, and when it was done it was a beauty. It appeared in a number of articles on Brunswick Town and the nature trail, and was a popular attraction as well as a pleasant relief to the stabilized ruins--in such a town exhibit it might have been said, "If you've seen one ruin you've seen them all." The annual meeting of the garden clubs was held in Brunswick Town and club members were pleased with that beautiful addition to the historic site. I prepared a nature trail brochure that was passed out to visitors to the site (South 1964a). However, when Christopher Crittenden, Director of Archives and History visited the site, the first thing he wanted to see was the "bridge I've heard so much about," he said in a serious voice. He said some people didn't like the idea of a Japanese bridge in the middle of an historic site because it wasn't in keeping with the colonial past and he had visited the site to see how offensive it was.

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We discussed the issue of tourist access to the ruins via a Japanese bridge, versus no bridge, versus a plain functional bridge. He said that he could see that removing the bridge was not a good move at present due to the involvement of the Garden Club of North Carolina as a sponsor, but that when the bridge had served its usefulness and needed repair, it would be replaced by a less "controversial" one in the future. He left after seeing only one ruin. Apparently the bridge had stirred up more interest among those in Raleigh than had the excavated ruins. I recently learned the bridge was torn down in 2003, fulfilling Crittenden's promise after 40 years. Aesthetics and Ruin Stabilization

I was surprised when I recently visited the Brunswick Town site because of the aesthetic damage done to the ballast stone ruins. When found, the ruins had narrow oyster shell mortar joints (Figure 6.12a and 12c). I needed to fasten some of the loose stones. To do so, I gathered oyster shells from an oyster-packing finn and bumed them in a bonfire. I then put them in a hemp tow sack, and beat them with a sledgehammer to pulverize them. I then added white plasterer's cement and used that to fasten some of the loose ballast stones around the top of the ruin walls, taking care to match the colonial mortar joints as closely as possible. When I returned to the site many years later I found the original appearance of the ruins had been altered by the addition of shockingly wide mortar joints in strong contrast to the original appearance of the stone ruins (Figure 6.12b). I understand that the ballast stones allow rain water to flow into the spaces between them, so the original joints are exposed to erosion by rain and frost, possibly requiring stabilization. In making such repairs those carrying out the work on historic sites have an obligation to copy the original fabric of the work as closely as possible. Unfortunately that was not done with the Brunswick Town ruins.

12 8

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

Crossing the Interpretive Line--Compromise and Sensitivity The question Dr. Crittenden had raised about the bridge--was the wisdom of using materials inconsistent with the period o f the site being interpreted. Sometimes compromises have to be made, but I believe they should be made using sensitivity both to the past and to the present visitors to an historic site. Some thought I had crossed the line between authentic interpretation of the ruins of an excavated town and the practical need for a nature trail bridge over a scenic pond. Should I have had a bridge committee? I have more faith in a committee of o n e - me; because a committee is sometimes a mechanism preventing progress and discouraging creativity and innovation, insuring mediocre decisions and compromises. I built the Japanese bridge and thought the aesthetic and functional addition to the site was worth the trade-off against the stricter yardstick of authenticity to the period. Such choices must always be made in historic site development--authenticity to the past versus practicality to present an educational experience to the public. However, it is wise to balance

functional necessity with authenticity without violating the aesthetic in the process. But, as Jon Leader says regarding conservation and preservation: primum non nocere--a motto borrowed from medicine--"First do no harm!"

From Artifacts to People---the Brunswick Town Guides--Living Exhibits As excavation began at Brunswick Town, in 1958, I was concerned that relic hunters would visit the site on weekends and look for souvenir artifacts by doing their own digging. To avoid this possibility I spent each Saturday and Sunday at the site acting as guide to visitors, most of who came on those days. One Saturday a young man appeared who asked such informed questions I knew he had extensively researched the history of the town. He was R. V. Asbury, Jr., who worked in the Wilmington office o f architect Leslie Boney. The following day he was back, as he was on each Saturday and Sunday for some time to follow. I soon realized he loved the site as much as I did when he volunteered to take over my weekends as guide, giving me some time off to be with my family.

B

Figure 6.12. A: The comer of the James Espy house ruin as discovered. (Photo: South 1958) B: The Espy ruin comer after

"preservation"(South 2/2004) C: R. V. Asbury explainingone of the ruins (note the original stonework). (South 3/1961)

Brunswick Town Stories Under a "touchy-feely" theory current in museology at the time, I gave R. V. a couple of cataloged buckles, some buttons of various types, and a musket ball to show visitors the type of artifacts I was recovering from the ruins. This allowed the visitors, under close supervision, to touch and feel 200-year old artifacts recovered from the ruins, helping them gain a feeling o f having an intimate connection with the past. This psychological appeal to the emotions of the visiting public relative to artifacts was part of a reaction against the cases filled with meaningless piles of artifacts often seen in museum exhibit halls at the time. I visited the Smithsonian in the 1950s and there were exhibit cases there where Native American spear points were literally piled inches deep, with no more interpretation than "Indian Arrowheads." R . V . found the "touchy-feely" connection really seemed to work, judging from the enthusiastic response he got from the public. One day he suggested that I have a colonial costume made for him to wear so that the visitors would know he was not just another visitor with a name tag. Jewell and I thought it was an excellent idea, and she agreed to make a waistcoat, shirt and jabot [a lace cloth shirt bib] for him to wear. I ordered a greatcoat from a theatrical costume company, he bought a plain black pair of shoes, and I fastened shoe buckles I had excavated onto them. Jewell sewed a couple of excavated buttons still having their eyes onto his waistcoat, and he became a walking museum. On special holidays, when we knew a crowd would be on hand to view the ruins, Jewell, David and I would join R.V. to talk with visitors and show them around the site. David, who was 10 years old at the time, asked Jewell to make him a colonial outfit such as that worn by R.V., so he could also be a guide. Jewell gladly made him an outfit and R.V. and David were a weekend feature at Brunswick Town for the many visitors who came to view the ruins.

129

Archaeology--"I Already Know Most All There Is To Know About That" One Sunday, when I was showing a group around, while R.V. had another group, David took a group by himself, having heard the spiel we gave the visitors as we viewed each ruin as we walked through the streets of the town. Later, as David and his group were back at the parking lot at St. Philips Church ruin, one lady came over to me and said she wanted to tell me what a wonderful tour David had given them and what a great idea it was that he was getting that experience interpreting the history of the ruins to the public. Then she lowered her voice so David wouldn't overhear, and told me that she had asked him if he was going to be an archaeologist like his Daddy when he grew up, and he said, "No, I don't think s o - - I already know most all there is to know about that." When he did grow up, he became a worldfamous research forester--being invited to many countries to share his knowledge--India, Scotland, France, New Zealand, South Africa and China. When he was in college at N. C. State, he changed from computer science to forestry because, he said, he didn't want to be chained to a computer indoors all his life--preferring to conduct research outdoors part of the year, as I did in archaeology, and spend the remainder of the time writing and publishing his research results.

Field Exhibits--"Touchy-Feely" Action

Theory in

With so many people visiting Brunswick Town during the tourist season and on weekends it was not possible for the three of us, R. V., David and me to give a walking tour to everyone who came to walk down the streets of Brunswick to view the ruins. A museum was badly needed, but meanwhile, I built some field exhibit cases 4 by 8 feet, in which I put copies of my large maps of Brunswick Town and photographs of some of the artifacts. I bought cardboard letters and glued them in place to tell the story of Brunswick Town and what we were doing there. Along the streets

130 of the town I put smaller plywood cases with photostatic copies of illustrations from books, etc., explaining what the visitor was seeing. I was determined to get across to the public the history and the archaeological findings of this historic Cape Fear town, once the home of the governors of North Carolina. That was my venture into field museum exhibits. In 1965, I wrote a story outline and suggestions for how to use the Brunswick Town artifacts in the' new visitor center museum, but I received no feedback from the exhibits people who had received my plan (South 1965c). There was virtually no contact between the exhibits people and me. All they wanted were artifacts and I was a source of those, having dug them from the ruins. When I asked how they were to be used they said they had a plan, but I never learned what it was. So, when the exhibits were installed, I discovered a current concept in the museum field was to provide a "tactile sensation" for the visitors. Therefore, artifacts I considered somewhat sacred as unique and significant data were simply placed on hooks on exhibit panels for the visitor to take into their hands and fondle at their leisure (or as I pointed out in an irate letter to Raleigh), to put in their pockets and take with them if they so desired. This was quite a different approach to the "touchy-feely" theory R. V. and I had used on his colonial outfit, where the highest security for the artifacts was insured.

Artifact Security--A Porcelain Treasure Lost An example of the disregard for security of the artifacts in the new museum is illustrated by the single longshoreman's hook I had recovered from one of the ruins. To me that was, a unique artifact symbolic of the role of Brunswick as a port town--an important document of what went on there. It was tied to a rope and lying on a bale of cotton, among some pilings symbolizing the waterfront. All it would take was a pocket knife to allow that artifact to become part of someone's private collection--which it may well have, because when I returned years later it was gone.

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION Another example of the difference between archaeologists and exhibitors is illustrated by the story of two Italian porcelain saucers I recovered from the ruins of Russellborough and placed on exhibit when the museum opened. Russellborough was the home built by Capt. Russell, later sold to William Dry, and then used by Governors Dobbs and Tryon. These unique, over-glazed enameled polychrome-painted porcelain saucers, in the Italian manner, depicted a scene reminiscent o f Moses in the bulrushes. No other sherds of such porcelain were found in any other ruin in the town. They symbolized the affluent social level represented by artifacts from Russellborough compared with the middle class artifacts recovered from other ruins in the town (South 1967a-c). These two porcelain saucers were lovingly restored by George Demmy and me. We replaced the missing sherds with Durham's Rock-hard Water Putty, with the missing over-glaze painting being restored to give the impression of a whole saucer (South 1966c 6(4):1). When I showed these to Noel Hume, his comment was that one shouldn't restore such artifacts so successfully that they might be mistaken for the unaltered object--which I took as a compliment on our reconstruction. I pointed out to him, however, that we had left the back side of our restored piece unpainted, so that if you wanted to see what we had done all you had to do was to turn the object over and observe the putty replacing the missing sherds. I turned these saucers over to the exhibits people in Raleigh. What they did was to construct a little shelf on which they sat the saucer (I suppose to allow visitors to get the touchy-feely thrill of handling a rare 200 year old artifact). My irate comments to Raleigh included an insistence that such artifacts be protected from the public behind plastic or glass. They returned and placed plastic sheets over some of the exposed artifacts that were hanging loose on hooks, and placed the saucer in a little box with a plastic cover that could be removed by simply sliding the piece of plastic upward to remove the saucer.

Brunswick Town Stories

The plastic cover sheet I had insisted on was mounted so far from the artifacts hanging on the panel that all one had to do was to reach behind the plastic to unhook the artifacts hanging there. Another letter followed but by now no one was listening to me. Some time after I was moved from Brunswick Town to Raleigh to become one of the professionals on staff there under the new policy, I returned to Brunswick for a visit and discovered that someone had stolen the porcelain saucer, as I had feared. I was told that it was not such a disaster because we had another one that was then put into the case! Whether that one has survived the exhibit I do not know. In another instance the glass was broken and artifacts were taken. That experience with exhibit people taught me there is a different curatorial perspective regarding the importance of archaeological objects than that held by archaeologists. I realize that the fragments archaeologists recover so carefully and lovingly from ruins are not the crown jewels of Europe, but to me they are as important as documents in the rare book room of our libraries. Would exhibit designers place an original Brunswick Town diary describing the town in an exhibit case with no security but a string attached? Would an original Sauthier map of Brunswick Town be placed on a pedestal for people to handle? I think not. Why then treat archaeological artifacts so carelessly? Are they not as valuable as the written word in helping us to interpret past lifeways? Archaeologists believe they are. Saving Nineteenth Century Wilmington - "There Are No Colonial Houses" In order to understand this story, you should know that Wilmington, North Carolina, when I worked in Brunswick Town in 1958, was literally full of antebellum houses, because it was not burned during the Civil War. After the fall of Fort Fisher it was occupied by Federal troops, who stabled their horses in one of the churches, an insult that townspeople never forgot. Many Of the old houses were in need of repair and painting. This gave the town a "quaintly old" appearance,

131

but also left it vulnerable to the attitude in some quarters that they needed to be tom down to make room for progress. After all, they were simply old houses, not colonial houses such as those being restored in other cities. At one of the meetings of the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society I heard the president say, in answer to R. V. Asbury's plea that the Society should take an active part in saving Wilmington's houses, "There are no colonial houses in Wilmington--only nineteenth century ones." In 1960, Leslie N. Boney, Jr., R. V. Asbury's employer, was president of the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society. As an architect, Leslie could appreciate the fact that classic nineteenth century houses were being tom down almost daily to be replaced by modem structures. Somehow this trend should be stopped, so he and R. V. were pushing in that direction. A member of the Wilmington Architectural Review Committee was a past-president of the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society, and was seen as knowledgeable when a request was before the Committee to allow destruction of a house so it could be replaced by a modem one. Through R. V., I had become concerned over the attitude that that there were no historic buildings in Wilmington worth saving--only nineteenth century ones. R . V . stood up at meetings to challenge this "eighteenth centurypurist" attitude. He and I disagreed with the view that only the "Cornwallis House" was around in the eighteenth century, and - - " I f people want to see colonial houses they should go to Williamsburg." R . V . had campaigned hard among the membership to get Leslie Boney elected as president of the society, hoping that a change in attitude regarding Wilmington's houses would result. When he was elected R. V. requested that a "Historic Sites Committee" should be appointed, consisting of him and me. We submitted our report on September 1, 1960, on the question of "the role that could or should be played by the Lower Cape Fear Society in the case of certain historic houses in Wilmington that appeared to be

132 in danger of damage or destruction" (South and Asbury 1960:1). We urged community forces to organize to save historic structures (albeit nineteenth century ones) through "introduction of a zoning ordinance to protect certain historic areas from damage and destruction" (South and Asbury 1960:15). We also reported that we had undertaken a survey of the many historic nineteenth century houses in Wilmington--which we carried o u t - taking pictures, crawling beneath them to note details of construction and architecture. We were excited by the architectural details seen on humble nineteenth century houses in the African American section of town and were disappointed when the majority of these houses were left out of the historic district when it was later designated. We urged that they be included. Well--you lose some and you win some. It is my hope that some of these have since been included among those considered worthy of being preserved along with those of the more affluent residents of the city. We turned our completed volume over to the Society in the hope it would be an early step toward recognizing and preserving the rich architectural heritage of the city. R. V. later went on to become the director of the Historic Wilmington Foundation--where his efforts on behalf of preservation were continued. A visit to the historic district of Wilmington today is a testimony to those like R. V. and Leslie Boney, who in the 1960s and later, stood up against the prevailing attitude that it was primarily eighteenth century structures that were worthy of preservation. The idea that Williamsburg type reconstruction was the model that should be followed by other preservation efforts elsewhere was dramatically demonstrated when a group of Wilmington lawyers tore down a nineteenth century structure to build a brick reproduction of a Georgian building a la Williamsburg. Talk about "sticking out like a sore thumb!" Eighteenth century Georgian architecture was not a tradition in Wilmington! Coastal Carolina tradition lay elsewhere and resulted in a totally different

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION architectural style than that seen in Virginia. Yet, ironically, the law-firm was praised for introducing this jarring foreign element into Wilmington and was given an award by none other than the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society--in the name of "preservation!" Spare me such well-meaning "preservationists!"

An African American Cemetery--R. Asbury and George Washington's Tour

V.

Reading historical accounts of events and people often leaves the reader cold. But, if you show that same person George Washington's false teeth (as was once done at Mt. Vernon), there is immediate interest. The connection of an historical fact to an artifact enriches the experience---one of the great attractions archaeology has for many. Doing this effectively is the challenge all museums face. "A case in point" is the time, in 1962, R. V. Asbury came to me and said that in reading Washington's Southern Tour 1791 by Archibald Henderson, he noticed that after George Washington's party left Wilmington, they "...breakfasted at Willm. Gause's a little out of the direct Road 14 miles--" (Henderson 1923: 125). R. V. was inspired by this statement to look for "Gause's." He checked maps, old and new, and measured the 14 mile distance south from Wilmington down the Charleston Road, and began searching in the woods for the old road bed. He found it--a deep depression running through the woods. Following that depression he did not find the plantation ruin he was hoping to discover. Instead, he found an old cemetery that was surrounded by a nineteenth century cast iron fence. In that cemetery he found some grave markers cut from wooden boards--markers that had stood so long in place the soft parts of the wood had eroded away, leaving the wood-grain in relief. He assumed he had found an African American slave cemetery. He had never seen such a group of unique "tomb-boards."

BrunswickTown Stories

133

widespread in the nineteenth century in the Lower Cape Fear area, but because of their fragile nature, haven't survived.

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Preservation of Old C a r s - - T h e Classic MGs When David was 13 in 1963, he wanted to buy an MGTD. I told him I didn't have the thousand dollars or so needed for that and told him he might save his allowance toward that goal, thinking it would be years before that happened. I thought that was the end of the matter. Near Christmas he said he had saved the money. He had mowed lawns and delivered papers. Jewel1 matched what he earned, enough he thought, to buy a used MG. His research had found that the Philadelphia paper had advertisements for several used MGs, whereas the North Carolina papers had none.

Figure 6.14. DavidSouth at 16, with his classic 1949 MG and his Chihuahuadog, Claude. (Photo: South 1966)

Figure 6.13. Two of the "tomb-boards" from an African Americancemetery. (Photo: South 1962) Whether this was the cemetery for the African American slaves of the Gause plantation, R. V. did not know, but he knew a rare sight when he saw one. He took me there to witness these unusual antique artifacts and I photographed some of the grave markers. I can't imagine these unusual markers could have survived many more years after I was there, but my photographs are reminders of a burial practice that was likely

So, we went to Philadelphia where we knew there were more MGs than in the South. We answered an advertisement in the paper for sale of a 1949 MGTC, known as "The coffin on wheels." This was because of the death rate when they flipped over, and because MGs (for Morris' Garage) looked like coffins on wheels, particularly the early models (more about that later). David didn't have enough saved for the $1,200 needed for the cost of the car, so I agreed to pay the difference. Because he wasn't old enough to drive, I drove the TC to Wilmington while David proudly

134 rode with me. We had not left Philadelphia, however, when I began accelerating at a stoplight and the axle broke. We luckily were able to buy another one from an MG parts place in that city, and we were on the road again. When we got to Wilmington David learned to drive in our yard, where he made a well-marked trail among the pine trees there. Shortly after that a man knocked on our door and explained that he was a mechanic who had repaired a 1952 MGTD for a customer and had it towed to Fayetteville. The person who towed it didn't take it out of gear so by the time he arrived the engine had thrown a rod, breaking the head, with another rod breaking a hole in the oil pan. The man had sued the mechanic for $1,200 dollars replacement cost, and the mechanic was allowed to keep the car. He said he had seen David's MGTC in the yard and wondered if we wanted to buy the rod-blown MGTD for $600, in which case he would sign the title over to me. That was a deal I couldn't refuse. I borrowed the money from Jewell's savings from her grocery money, and we then owned two MGs. I had a mechanic weld the head and the aluminum oil pan and David and I, led by my friend and Brunswick Town assistant archaeologist, George Demmy, took the engine apart and rebuilt it. But first we built a plywood garage in my yard to house our restoration activity. Later David drove his 1949 TC and I drove my 1952 TD to Ridgeway, New Jersey to an MG rally, where we received trophies for having driven the longest distance to attend. By this time David had become an MG lover par excellence. He collected two 1954 MGTFs to go with the TC and my TD, so between us we had a complete set of the MGT-C through F series. The TF was the ultimate evolution of the MG before it degenerated from a magnificent driving machine, composed of many varied and wonderful parts, to the shapeless envelope that followed--the MGB. David bought the two TFs so he could use one for parts for the other. However, other priorities intervened and he sold both of t h e m - - a decision he regrets to this day.

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION "The Coffin On Wheels" - - A Family Tragedy Before we made the New Jersey trip, we visited Jewell's family, and her brother, Don, loved the MGTD I drove and the MGTC David had driven. Don asked me about how much they cost and where he might buy one. I said they were wonderful cars that were so sensitive on the road you could feel a bump when you ran over a pecan--like a soapbox racer. I told him that was one of the great attractions to those who love the thrill and sensitive feel of the road that comes from driving an M G - - t h e windshield laid down flat on the bonnet, and the wind, grasshoppers, and gnats hitting you directly in the face. I also told him about the reputation MGs had for killing the drivers when you rolled one over because there was no top to protect you. I said, "There is one basic rule---don't roll one over!" He said he was thinking about getting one for his son, Mike. Later, I heard he had bought a beautifully restored 1952 MGTD for $4,200, about twice the going rate for un-restored used MGs at the time. I saw it only once on a visit to Jewell's parents' home and it was indeed a collector's item looking like it just came from the factory. Months later Mike was driving on a road near his home. A roofer reported that he looked down from his job to watch the classic MGTD buzzing up the road. Then he saw the right wheel hit the shoulder and the driver compensate too much, causing the thing to flip over, and roll, and roll, and roll up the highway--killing M i k e . . . Car Preservation--A 1930 Whippet It was during the "car preservation" days I saw a 1930 Whippet parked outside a garage in Winston Salem, North Carolina, for sale for $200. It reminded me so much of the 1929 Chevrolet I had had at Appalachian that I bought it, again using Jewell's grocery fund, and hauled it on a trailer to Wilmington. Then David, George Demmy and I tore down the engine and rebuilt it. It was when we got it back together that we did something that could have cremated David, but we didn't think that far at the time because we

Brunswick Town Stories

were anxious to listen to the sound of the Whippet running again. The Whippet wasn't built with a fuel pump. Instead it had a vacuum chamber on the firewall hooked up to the exhaust manifold that produced a vacuum in the chamber. The vacuum sucked the gas from the tank into a container mounted on the firewall and gravity then pulled it down into the engine.

Figure 6.15. The 1930 Whippet before our attempt to

restore it. (Photo: South 1962) We didn't have all that rig hooked up, nor gas in the tank, so David sat on top of the engine and held a funnel in place, while George poured gas from a can into the funnel, while I hit the starter inside the car. As jury-rigged as this was, the thing started. We let out yells of success when it turned over and ran with a satisfying r u m b l e - s o long as George kept pouring gas from above the engine into the funnel. In hindsight, it is a wonder the fumes didn't pour down over the spark plugs and set the whole thing on fire, George included. That was just our lucky day, I suppose. Shortly after that David moved away to college at N. C. State, so we didn't work together on the cars anymore. As years passed I finally realized that the j o y of preserving cars had come from the camaraderie I had with George and David in that joint enterprise. David still has his TC, and I sold my TD to him for $4,000. a few years ago. The Whippet sat in my yard for many years, increasing ten times in value sitting in my

135

yard in Columbia. I recently sold it to a man who planned to finish restoring it. Brunswick Town Ruins--From Rubble to Report From 1958 to 1960, Charlie and I, and the archaeological crew, were busy excavating the ruins of Brunswick Town. I wrote reports on each ruin we exposed for public viewing and sent them, with photographs and drawings, to Raleigh. In them I told how I located the excavation units (South 1958a); recorded the process we carried out in our excavations, such as that at the ruin of Nath Moore's Front (South 1958b). It was a great learning process, with challenges I had never faced before, such as excavating charcoal board floors from the burned structures. In 1959 we dug, and I reported on, the excavation of: The Hepburn-Reonalds House, Judge Maurice Moore's Kitchen, the McCorkallFerguson House, the Newman Kitchen, the Roger Moore House, the Brick Oven at "Prospect Hall," the Wooten-Marnan Lot, and the Area of the "Gaol" (South 1959d-k). In the 60s I continued the archaeology and historic site development at Brunswick Town, publishing articles on: cleaning iron artifacts, ceramic types, kaolin pipes, signet ring seals, buttons, a smokehouse, coins, Brunswick houses, the colonial child as represented in the artifacts, clothing, and the Royal Governor's mansion at Russellborough (South 1962a-f; 1964c-d 17(2)50, 113; 1967a-c). We also excavated in the ruin of St. Philips Anglican Church; the kitchen, wine cellar, and well in the ruins at Russellborough; as well as the James Espy, and Leach-Jobson house ruins, and the home of Captain Stephen Parker Newman (South 1962-68 1-811-4], 1968a 8[3]: 1, 1968b 8[4]: 1). What fun that was and what a major contribution to my archaeological development!

136

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION Eventually I met a reporter for the Wilmington Morning Star newspaper who was anxious to hear .

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Figure6.16. The burned wooden floor in the excavated ruin of Nath Moore's Front. (Photo: South 1958)

Public Relations--Radio, Newspapers and Journals My major research goal at Brunswick Town was to expose the town ruins, to define artifact pattern, and to attempt to explain past culture process--science (South 1977a). The goal of the Department of Archives and History, however, was to develop the site for the visiting p u b l i c - humanism. Spreading the word on the historic site by popular media such as radio, newspapers and journals was also a goal. In 1963 and 1964, I arranged to have a weekly radio program in Wilmington called, "A Page o f History," in which I reported on various archaeological and historical discoveries at Brunswick Town--until I became so involved in various projects I could no longer continue it.

about what I had going at Brunswick Town. Our agreement was that I would call him whenever I discovered something I thought his readers would be interested in. In order to get the facts straight, I would write a piece on the discovery for him to use in his article. After I had done two or three of these I noticed that he published them word for word under his byline, a practice which suited us both very well. So I continued to write articles for him to publish under his name, and in that way I was able to keep my research at Brunswick before the eyes of the public. On a broader scope, I made arrangement through the editor o f the American Association for State and Local History for a continuing column in their publication History News, called "History and Archaeology," in which I wrote on various activities in the world beyond my focus on Brunswick Town (Anderson 1967). These articles helped to spread the word on historical archaeology, not only in Brunswick Town, but elsewhere as well.

"Russellborough"--Interpreting Through Model Building

the

Ruin

The written word is a major part of the partnership between archaeology and history. A major element of this partnership is the "reconstruction" of the structure represented by the archaeological evidence. This can be done literally, as was the case later with some of the half-timbered structures at Old Salem, North Carolina, or through paintings or models, as my assistants, Don Mayhew, George Demmy and I did at Brunswick Town (South 1962g 2(2): 1, 1967b-c). As in most cases of excavated ruins, the appearance of the structure represented by the foundation the archaeologist sees must be reconstructed using documentation in the form of drawings, paintings, photographs, descriptions, or

Brunswick Town Stories

Porch tbundation wall p7

137

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Russellborough excavated tbundation plan N

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George Demmy with the study model of Russellborough

Russellborough, home of royal governors on the Cape Fear

Figure 6.17. Interpreting Russellborough from excavated floor plan to the model on the site. (Photo: South 1967)

"of the period" evidence. In the case of Russellborough, when Royal Governor William Tryon lived there, the governor wrote a letter to Sewallis Shirley on July 26, 1765, describing the house as measuring 45 by 35 feet, two stories high, with cellars. He said there were four rooms on each floor, with a parlor and drawing room measuring 20 by 15 feet each. There was a piazza 10 feet wide, with a balustrade four feet high "which is a great security for my little girl" (South 1967b: 1). I combined this description with what is known of houses of the period in the area and built, a model that was a close approximation of what the building looked like from 1753 to its destruction by fire in 1776. My assistant archaeologist, George Demmy, built a model using this information. When it was finished we took it to the site early one morning before sunrise where the original Russellborough had stood 200 years before, and as the sun appeared over the Cape Fear River, I took photographs of the model. Those photographs reveal a scene probably familiar to Governor Dobbs with his bride, Justina, and Tryon with his little daughter, as they viewed the house beside the river at sunrise (South 1967a). Although many visitors to Brunswick Town had a mental vision of the houses in the town being reconstructed over the ruins, I had to disabuse them of this notion they had gained through examples such as Williamsburg and Old Salem. When the ruins themselves are the exhibit, reconstruction through models such as George and I did at Russellborough are an economical and effective way to interpret the ruins to the visiting public. Photographs of such models and drawings placed in ruin-side exhibit cases, such as those I built at Brunswick Town, tell the reconstructive story.

"Russellborough"--Interpreting the Burned Ruin Through Artifacts The artifacts from Russellborough, which was burned with furnishings inside, a casualty of the

138 Revolution, were more abundant and uniquely expensive compared to those from other Brunswick Town house ruins. Other abandoned houses were also burned at that time, but their household furnishings had already been removed. One of the most impressive artifacts recovered from Russellborough was a large Iberian storage jar, about three-feet tall, with "I. F." in a seal on the side. It was standing on the yellow brick floor made of Dutch bricks set on edge when the burning building collapsed on it, breaking it into hundreds of thick sherds. This vessel was restored by Jewell South and Ellen Demmy (wife of George), and was among those artifacts allowed to be fondled in the museum under the "touchy-feely" concept of unique artifact display (South 1977a: 200; also see Noel Hume 1970: 143). I do not know the significance of the "I. F." initials.

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION Augu~ 1966

The excavated ruin of Russellborough

Objects lying on the floor at the Russellborough ruin

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Flintlock pistol on the floor at the Russeltborough ruin

Figure 6.18. Bottle seal " W D r y C a p e F e a r 1766" f r o m the R u s s e l l b o r o u g h ruin. ( P h o t o : South 8/1961)

Figure 6.19.

On the floor of the cellar, ceramic cups, wine bottles with the seal, "W. Dry, Cape Fear 1766," appeared, along with straight razors, a pistol and other artifacts that had been in a cupboard when the burning house fell on it (South 1966a 6[3]: 1).

From this ruin too, came the two unique Italianate porcelain saucers mentioned above. William Dry had owned Russellborough, having bought it from Capt. Russell, before Governor

One of several bottles recovered fi'om the ruins T h e e x c a v a t e d ruin o f R u s s e l l b o r o u g h and s o m e o f the artifacts l y i n g o n t h e floor. (Photo: South 1966)

Brunswick Town Stories

139

Dobbs moved into the house. The relationship of these objects led me to interpret them has having been in a cupboard that had fallen on its face as the house burned. A unique artifact "trap" o f things recovered from that ruin was a brick tunnel leading from beneath the porch to the edge of the Cape Fear River. In that tunnel reconstructable artifacts such as plates, whole wine bottles, and a whole Spanish olive jar were recovered (South 1966a 6[2]: 1).

Figure 6.21. One of the fossil-filled limestone millstones from the cellar floor of the Russellborough ruin. (Photo: South 1966).

Figure 6.20. View during excavation inside the groundhog hole-like brick tunnel leading from Russellborough to the edge of the Cape Fear River. (Photo: South 1966)

Millstones and a Wine Cellar in the "House of Universal Hospitality"

Also on the floor were four millstones, three virtually intact. Because the fire had caused the stones to crack in many places, I knew they would simply fall to pieces if I tried to move them. I got rubber inner tubes from tires to form a supporting collar around the outside. Thus held securely, I then turned it over and applied fiberglass to the opposite side to permanently hold the millstones in place. They were made of fossiliferous limestone unlike any local stone. These stones may have come from Yucatan. I say this because an eighteenth century shipwreck, discovered by divers in Florida, contained hundreds o f identical stones (according to one of the divers), and documents revealed that a cargo o f 500 millstones

from Yucatan was sunk off that coast (South 1967d: 1). Because of this we know that such stones were being exported from Yucatan to the American colonies at that time. A windmill brought to Brunswick Town in 1767 by the Moravians at Bethabara, North Carolina, may have been the power used to drive such millstones at Russellborough. Russellborugh was known as "the house of universal hospitality," and the discovery of a mass of wine bottles in the cellar, one marked "Claret" and others marked "Pyrmont Water," in the ruin support this observation. The sparkling mineral water was from the spa at Piermont, the capital of Waldeck, Germany. These objects, not found in other ruins at Brunswick Town, attest to the wealth represented at Russellborough compared with other citizens of the town (South 1967e 7[4]: 1). Another artifact, found in the well in the cellar at Russellborough, relating to the wine bottles, was an iron hoop with hooks around the base. This may have been used to cool wine bottles suspended in the well water. I stabilized the weak parts of the hoop with fiberglass, and hung it in the mouth of the well for a photograph to demonstrate how the hoop was likely used (South 1967e (4): 1.

140

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

"I. W a [ l k e r ] - - B r u [ n s w i c k ] " - - The Brunswick

Port Collector's Brand Is Found A fragment of Port Collector James Walker's brass brand used to mark goods inspected by him between 1764 and 1776 was found at Brunswick. It had raised letters "I. Wa..., over Bru..." in reverse. From my documentary research I found that such a brand was required to carry the name of the port collector and his residence. George Demmy reconstructed the missing part of the brand using lead (South 1967e(4): 1.

The Restored Brand

nails from the fragments. Finally, we decided to not save the fragments after they had been counted for analytical purposes. We put those in a peck bucket, where I soaked them in a 5% solution of muriatic acid until the rust fell off. Then I boiled them in distilled water and dried them in an oven. Soon we had a bushel basket full of these fragments. So, I approached the Brunswick County Historical Society and they agreed to sponsor the distribution of these to interested visitors who made a donation to the Society for the benefit of Brunswick Town. I had a small photograph of one of the ruins printed on a card that said something like, "Genuine 200 year old nail fragment from a Brunswick Town ruin--free for a $1.00 donation to the Brunswick County Historical Society." I stapled this card to a glassine envelope containing one of the nail fragments. These packets were a popular item. They brought to mind the potsherds Stu Neitzel had put a five-cent price on at Marksville, Louisana--a story told in Chapter 4. Apparently I thought a historic site nail fragment was worth much more than a Marksville sherd!

Artifact Collecting--By Others The Reversed View Figure 6.22. Port Collector, James Walker's restored

"I.WA[LKER] Bru[nswick]" brand, used for marking goods shipped through Port Brunswick• (Photo: South 1966)

Public Relations through Artifacts--Donations Accepted Not all artifacts from Brunswick Town were as interesting as those mentioned here. Some artifacts, such as nails, were ubiquitous. From the ruins we recovered thousands of blacksmithwrought nails and fragments• Jewell, who was my laboratory assistant at that time, cataloged the artifacts as we got them to her. We cataloged all nails and fragments, but the quantity was overwhelming, so we began to separate the whole

Archaeologists and

As I approached the parking lot at St. Philips Church at the end o f the day, I saw a car drive up and park, not in the lot, but at the end of the walkway to the church ruin. A lady got out and went inside the ruin while her husband kept the car running while he waited on her. Then, a few moments later, as I neared the church, she came out of the church and was hurrying back toward her car. I thought that was about the fastest visit to the church ruin I had ever seen. I went to the doorway and peeped in and saw a brick was missing from the aisle floor. I quickly turned and ran after the woman, calling to her and asking if I could help. Finally, she stopped. Then her husband got out of the car and the three of us stood there facing each other. I mentioned that I thought it was a very quick visit to the church ruin and asked what their interest was. She answered

Brunswick Town Stories

that he had heard about the church and wanted to visit it. Then I told them that a brick that was there only moments before, was missing from the aisle walk, and I asked the lady if she knew anything about it. We stared at each other as a pregnant moment passed between us. Finally, when her guilt became overwhelming, she sheepishly opened her purse and removed the brick and handed it to me. I told them they seemed like nice people and that I was curious why they would steal a brick from an historic site. She said it was just an old brick. I asked what they thought the church floor would look like if each one of the thousands of visitors helped themselves to a brick. She replied that she was interested in history and was making a souvenir collection of bricks from each historic site she visited and always wrote on the brick what place it had come from. She said she had quite a collection of bricks in her basement. Some day she planned to donate her collection to an historical society. She insisted she was a true history buff. I gave my lecture on the importance of provenience, the value o f context, and questioned the value to an historical society of a collection of bricks stolen from various historic sites throughout the country. She said she didn't like the sound of the word "stolen" and preferred "collected." She said when she gave talks to her woman's club on the various historic sites she had visited she would hold up a brick from each site to illustrate her talk--spare me! Artifact collecting from Native American sites has always been a two-edged sword. Collectors who record on a map the location of a site and assign a site number, then put that number on the fragments, are making a contribution to understanding the past. Those who do not are not. Removing those clues from the context where they were left by past occupants of a site distorts the story that site has to tell. This is true of collecting by archaeologists as well. I ran into this myself when I visited a wellknown, documented archaeological site in the Mississippi Valley. The published report on the

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site illustrated sherds with beautiful incised decoration. I walked all over the site for hundreds of yards and saw many plain sherds, but not a single incised sherd did I find. When I commented on this to Stu Neitzel he laughed and said, "Every archaeologist who has come this way has collected incised sherds from that site. They have long ago all gone into collections." This had resulted in a site with only plain sherds visible on the surface--distorting forever any quantitative analysis of a surface collection from that site. Whether it is incised sherds or bricks "collected" from a site, distortion of the story that site has to tell takes place.

Signet Seals from Brunswick Ruins---Salvaging Seals from the Archives During the excavation of the ruins we found a number of glass signet seals once used to impress symbols into sealing wax on letters and documents (South 19620. I became interested in these and went to Raleigh to see if, in the archives there, I could find the same seals I had found in the Brunswick ruins impressed in wax on a document so I could identify the specific owner of the seals I had found, and thus a clue to the possible owner o f the property. What I found shocked me. The archivist told me they had recently hired a person to "deal with" the wax seals on documents. He said if I wanted to make a comparison between the excavated intaglio seals owned by Brunswick individuals and those on archival documents, I would have to hurry. I asked why, and he explained that when the 200 year old (and older) parchment documents are laminated, the heat melts the seals. To prevent this from occurring, the assistant was cutting the seals off of the archival documents and throwing them away! I couldn't believe it! "Do you have to laminate the documents?" I asked. He said, "Oh yes! All archives are doing this now." He was proud that the North Carolina Archives Department of Archives and History was keeping up with the modem world and laminating their historical documents. He said this was going on all over America. I said, "Do

142 you mean that archivists are destroying those personal seals on letters and official documents simply to allow lamination to take place?" He assured me that it was no great loss because the wax seals weren't the sacred written word and therefore were expendable in the cause of preservation o f the documents! He took me down into the stacks, where rare documents were stored, and he introduced me to the assistant with a scalpel in his hand. He had just cut the seal from an eighteenth century document, dropping it into a trashcan half full of other wax seals removed from other documents. I looked in the trash can and saw that some of the red seals had initials, some had portraits of individuals, a sailing vessel, and other symbols relating to the names on the documents from which they had been cut. They were bemused by m y concern as I asked if I could come back and photograph the seals on as m a n y documents as I could before they were all cut off. Smiling at m y curious request, the director agreed I could do that. The situation was so urgent that I made arrangements for Charlie to take care of things at Brunswick Town for a day or two. I returned the next day to Raleigh to salvage what seals I could from the archives, where it had never occurred to me I would ever be "digging" on a salvage project. I took black and white and color photographs of the seals still on documents and recorded what document they were from. I could have used an entire crew of photographers to do a proper job, but I was determined to save what I could before they were destroyed. I set up in the stacks not far from where the archivist was busy scraping seals from documents, and began the thankless j o b of photographing as many as I could before they were all destroyed. I photographed over 150 seals before the expense of staying in Raleigh on m y Brunswick Town budget became too great. I asked if some funds from Archives and History could be used for expenses for me for awhile, but no such funds were available. All I got was a condescending smile and a disbelieving shake of the head.

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4.a

Figure 6.23. Top: Wax impression of a glass seal recovered from the Brunswick Town courthouse ruin, showing the Lamb of God (with halo) and the Christian banner. Below: The red smear resulting when valuable eighteenth century documents such as this are laminated by archivists, thus destroying forever the association of such seals with the document. (Photo: South 3/1964)

Brunswick Town Stories

In the Brunswick Town ruins I had found seals "of a rampant lion, a full length figure of a clown with the word "Harlequin," the head of a woman, the head of a man, and a stylized pair of crossed anchors and rope. An almost exact duplicate of the rampant lion seal found at the public house in Brunswick was discovered on the will of James Ward of Chowan County dated in 1744" (South 1962f:26, 28). In the courthouse excavation I found a glass signet seal with the impression of a lamb carrying the Christian banner--the traditional symbol of Christ (South 1964e 4[4]: 1). It still breaks my heart when I think of all those seals being destroyed in the name of "preservation" in the North Carolina Department of Archives and History, and elsewhere in the nation. To some, the written word is king - - to an historical archaeologist, material things associated with the documentary remain s establish a valuable connection beyond the words themselves. Because of this situation I visited a number o f archival repositories in North Carolina to photograph seals on documents before they too were destroyed, and found several personal seals on documents of property owners once living in Brunswick Town. Shortly after my salvage excavation in the Archives, I learned from a visitor that a group of early eighteenth-century documents with seals were discovered in an attic near Brunswick Town. I contacted the owner but found that I was too late. They had been taken to a curator to see what should be done to preserve them, and they had been laminated! All I saw was a red wax smear where the heat had melted the seals (South 1962f: 27). Too late--too late! "And by the wind-grieved ghost come back again!" (Wolfe 1929: 1) Many years later, when I had relocated to the University of South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, the director, Bob Stephenson, got a letter from the North Carolina Archivist. The letter asked him to ask me if I would send copies o f my slides and photographs of the seals so they could add them to their collection. They had finally caught on and were,

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belatedly, interested in saving some record of the destroyed seals! Another Wreck--More Chance At Life

Luck--another

While at Brunswick Town, Jewell and I, with David, would travel to Boone and Churchland on holidays to visit our parents. On one of these trips we were in another wreck, and again, as was the case many years before when she hit the coal truck, we were miraculously lucky. Jewell was driving and fell asleep. She hit the edge of the road and compensated by steering to the left toward oncoming traffic. I had been asleep beside her and woke up as we were skidding into the left lane with oncoming traffic looming up ahead. She was steering hard to the right, but I knew to break the skid we should steer toward the oncoming traffic. I grabbed the wheel trying to wrest it from her control, but she had a firm grip pulling the wheel to the right. Finally, I managed to turn the wheel toward oncoming traffic, and to my great relief, the skid was broken and the wheels began to respond to the steering. I rejoiced as the 1950 Buick, we had bought after the coal truck wreck, began to move off the left lane of traffic. We now were skidding toward the right toward the shoulder of the road, and in spite of my efforts to break the skid in this new direction (while reaching over Jewell wrestling with the wheel), the car left the road and struck the side ditch embankment. The impact raised the rear of the car into the air and it stood on its nose as I looked out the windshield directly down at the ground. Then the car was airborne, with centrifugal force as I was thrown against the right door. I was in this suspended position when I saw the driver's side door fly open, as Jewell was flung out onto the ground below the car. I immediately began imagining the terrible sight I would likely see when the car eventually stopped rolling over and over, several times. I thought about my training in first aid, how to tie a tourniquet to stop the flow of blood. The thought went through my mind: So

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this is what it feels like to be in a very bad wreck. I also had the strange thought that this must be what clothes feel like tumbling in a dryer. As the car continued its roll and I tumbled around inside it, I thought that at any moment I was going to feel some violent pain and dreaded that. Then the rolling stopped with the car upside down in the side ditch. I began crawling out the window, steeling myself for the violence the wreck certainly must have done Jewell. Then I heard her calling my name! I couldn't believe it. She was helping me crawl out the window! I was so elated I could do nothing but laugh and shed tears of joy. Then, for the first time, I thought of David, who had been in the back seat. My fear then focused on what had happened to him. I asked Jewell and she said, "He's all right! He's all right!" Then he came walking up out of the crowd of people standing there. We hugged each other at the miracle of life. We began to think about Ralph, our little Chihuahua dog, who had been in the back seat with David. Then we became aware of the sound of Ralph barking at the people standing around, and when he saw the three of us standing there, he rushed over and jumped, and jumped, and ran circles around us. When I picked him up I noticed a single grease spot on his little knitted sweater-one of only two clues to personal injury to come from the wreck. The other was that the frame of my glasses had been broken as it battered the bridge of my nose when it hit the rearview mirror, breaking it. We were elated and on an adrenaline high as we excitedly talked with the people standing around. Cars continued to stop and several people who came up and saw the total wreck of the car, asked, "How many were killed? . . . . Do you mean to tell me you people were in that pile of junk and are standing there talking about it?" I was suddenly aware of the tremendous good fortune we had had and how little material things like the loss of a mere automobile meant in life. I resolved then to always own a big car with strong

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

roof supports for protection, as I had been protected in this wreck. With the first impact, the trunk had flown open and boxes of canned goods my parents had given us were scattered down the side ditch as the car had rolled over and over. The spare tire was lying in a pasture some distance away. The next day Jewell showed me the clear blue bruise showing the imprinted pattem of a car tire tread on her upper leg. Apparently, either the spare tire had hit her after she was thrown out of the car, or the tire on the car had struck her a blow, leaving the bruise of the car-tread imprinted there for a week or more. She got great pleasure out of pulling up her dress and showing the clear pattem to those listening to the story of our brush with death. A patrolman showed up and talked with us, took notes, filled out a form, and pronounced us lucky. He called a wrecker and gave me the phone number of the wrecker company that would tow the wreck of the Buick away. As we gathered up our suitcases and some of the clothes that had come out when they had come open from the impact, one of the on-lookers offered us a ride to Wilmington, which we gladly accepted. By late afternoon we were home, absorbing our new gift of life in a way we had not experienced before. After David had gone to bed we sat on the livingroom floor at the open door absorbing the night breeze and made love in affirmation and celebration of life. The next day I called the wrecker operator and he said I owed 25 dollars for towing the car. I asked how much he would give me for the wrecked Buick. He said he would pay fifteen dollars for it. I told them to keep the wreck in payment for the towing and he agreed, saying, "You folks certainly were lucky. I've never seen that bad a wreck where no one was killed." I told him about the grease spot on Ralph's sweater and that the arm to the mirror and my glasses frame were broken. He laughed, and said, "Enjoy the rest of your life. You'll never be that lucky again!"

Chapter 7 Digging Art and Life Stories The Muse of P o e t r y - - H o l i d a y " C h e e r ? " In 1965, just before Christmas, Jewell, David [age 15] and I were discussing what we were going to do about sending cards to our friends and family. David suggested we write a poem, which we immediately did, with each of us adding a line or so. When it was edited we mailed it out--the first of a series o f heretical strands against the winds of conformity---one poem a year for several years, written by the three of us. That first one in 1965 was called "Calvary" (South 1978:61).

In my letter to him on September 27,1968, I expressed the anti-conformity theme taken by me in most of my replies to his discussion of my annual poem. He had spoken of the supernatural mystery lying behind the observed reality in the natural world and I responded by my usual multipage diatribe, a few lines from which, looking back on that letter, I have formatted as a poem:

The The The The The The The

Beneath the tree, Rats gnaw on hard candy, Hungry for fulfillment, And die empty Beneath the tinseled star." After a few years of that type poem my mother said, "Your Christmas poems aren't overloaded with holiday cheer, are they?" I said I would leave that evaluation to others. That beginning encouraged me to write poems upon occasion and through the years I have continued to write poems, some heretical--some not, to tap a part of myself that is not totally satisfied by the archaeological writing in which I am usually immersed. According to some critics, perhaps poetry is one of those endeavors I should have walked away from--but didn't.

Walt Boone--A Companion in the Search Each year, when I mailed my heretical Christmas poem to my one friend from high school days, Walter Boone, he was prompted to offer a rebuttal. For some years after that he would challenge the idea in my poem and I would reply--then no more exchange until Christmas.

Mystery mystery is not in the flower, mystery is the flower. mystery is not behind pounding surf and the pebble, mystery is the surf and the pebble, mystery lies not beyond man, mystery is man!

Search not for a great unknown, These things just are--they exist. Man is mystificatious-An ascriber of mystery To every u n k n o w n - Addicted to supernaturalism, Giving birth to religions-And gods in his own image. There came a time, however, when I realized I was not going to change my view of man's place on earth as a result o f Walt's letters, nor was he going to be "converted" by my heretical poems and epistles against the mind-stultifying strictures of conformity to received dogma. I wrote him expressing this and thus ended our annual debate on the subject and our correspondence for many years. I was involved in searching for insight into explaining the elusive culture processes of the ways of man that lay behind the broken pot and the chipped stone. I had little patience to argue

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146 how many angels can jitterbug on a marble while it's rolling downhill---or theorizing whether they would be flung off in the process. I was a stranger there and preferred to remain so--viewing religious beliefs objectively as an anthropologist rather than as a participant. Then, on November 28, 1980, Walt wrote me expressing his appreciation of the input I had made to his becoming a free thinker--a tribute from one skeptical inquirer to another. I have thought many times about your statements and our long and perhaps unusual intellectual relationship over and about ideas we have sporadically bounced back and forth. I would not be able to prize this too highly for our contact has been one of the most enduring means of growing and "becoming" in my life. The best I can do I will finally die so ignorant that it is depressing, yet to have at least tried to find something of value past the few trinkets we gather as we go along keeps me centered and gives direction to this short life. I owe a debt to many via their writings, to others via other communications, and to a lesser number on a personal contact basis. Perhaps most of all to you who have been willing to search the comer with me and ever prod me on to clearer thought waves you found before I did. Then Walt addressed the magnetic pull a small town such as Boone has on its iron-filing children toward molding them toward conformity. There is a stony loneliness about an open, serious search in a small town, and one becomes a sort of freak. It seems to cut two ways at least. New ideas seem to disturb the status quo and detract from the ambience (so carefully built) of consensus that we red-blooded Americans all hold the same values and the "Commies," Jews and minorities are a sort of a common

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

enemy whose ideas are of no value--it is the sacredness of "The American Way." Then the second cut is, of course, the pain of overcoming inertia that other ideas produce. Contrary ideas are futile when expressed to a mind that knows the excitement of breaking out. In a provincial setting it is rare to find such a mind. Mostly it is thought along the path of least resistance. Well, why am I saying all that to you? I suppose because you will understand. Through the years my poems involved other topics than heresy. For instance my 1971 poem "The Ninth Hour" deals with the endangered species threat and what will happen if the trend continues (South 1978a: 62-63). I quote a few lines from it here: The ninth hour is at hand. In the valley Is the shadow of death. The eagle, osprey, and condor fall. Mountain lion, tiger, And ferret, are no more. Brother seal, pelican, and whale Vanish and are gone. Death is the mutual cup Shared on the hill of the skull. All nature sleeps in heavenly peace, And the silent world goes by. The brothers and the son of man are gone, And the flowing cup is dry.

The Seductive World of Art--Painting, Sculpture, and the Wit's End Bar Poetry was not the only world that touched me upon occasion as an outlet from my effort at revealing some of the mysteries of Brunswick Town. The 1960s world of painting and sculpture seduced me as well. Don Mayhew, the teenage football player who had worked with me at Town Creek, was a man now and working for me at Brunswick Town. We hung out often at a Wrightsville Beach bar, having a bust of

Digging Art and Life Stories Shakespeare in the window--The Wit's End. A woman named Iris owned the bar and hung paintings by local artists all over the place---it looked like an art gallery. We took paintings to her and told her what we had to get for them, and if a wealthy tourist came along and was interested in it, she might sell it for a hundred percent profit. That was a symbiotic relationship she established with the artists in Wilmington (besides selling us beer). Heyward N e w k i r k - - A Creative Solution to A Problem of Size

I met many local artists at the Wit's End, including Claude Howell, Heyward Newkirk, Jack Berkman, and others. Heyward painted in the style of DeKooning--brush strokes eight inches wide on gigantic canvases, evocative expressionistic symbols reminiscent of the landscapes of the Hudson Valley School of painters in their sweep and grandeur, but far less representational. Once Heyward painted one of his sweeping masterpieces stretched on a gigantic frame built in his studio. He took a client representing a bank to his studio to consider buying a painting to grace a huge stairwell wall. Heyward was the only artist in town who worked with canvasses large enough to fill such a space. The buyer liked what he saw and wrote a check for several thousand dollars--a big sale in those days for a local artist--with the condition Heyward would hang the painting in the bank. When Heyward and a friend tried to get the thing out the door they realized too late that the painting was far larger than the door. That was a problem. With such a sale at stake, Heyward paused only a moment until he could mount two additional parallel stretcher boards vertically behind about a third of the painting, measuring to make sure each part would go out the door. Then he took an Exact-o knife and cut the canvas in two, sawing through the original stretcher frames at the top and bottom. When they got the two halves to the bank he hung the larger one and then offset the smaller one below it and a short distance from it. When

147 the banker saw the result he loved it, commented he thought he had bought only painting. Heyward told him, "You got paintings for the price of one." The banker happy and so was Heyward.

and one two was

Jack B e r k m a n - - R e a l i s m vs. Abstract Expressionism--Riding the Fence

Jack Berkman's theoretical challenge as a painter was to depict human figures halfway between realism and abstract expressionism so dominant in the art world in the 1960s. Jack was an excellent painter of people in the tradition of representational realism. However, realism was not in vogue at that time so Jack began trying to loosen up his detail to bridge the gap between the two ways of seeing--inserting abstract slashes as background splashing over onto the figure, giving the impression of the human form emerging from chaos. One morning in August 1961, Jack asked if he could paint eleven-year old David, whom he felt was a classic boy on the threshold of adulthood, having both feminine and masculine traits as many males do before the hormones kick in. Jewell and I watched fascinated, as Jack rendered David to canvas in a two-hour painting session then threw down his brush with a dramatic gesture---"That's it!" As he painted Eleanor played the classical guitar in a bone-chilling manner. She had studied with Segovia and was a master performing artist who had toured extensively, but had given it up to raise her daughter. What an outstanding artists she and Jack were! When several artists would gather at the same table in the Wit's End, all that was discussed was art--who was in what show, what theory was driving whom, and what work had been accepted to be hung in a juried show. Jack would talk about how he was trying to reconcile realism with abstract expressionism and someone would say, "Jack, why don't you stop trying to ride the fence! You're a damn good portrait painter with your own style--why bastardize it by combining it with the finger-painters? You are simply going to

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Figure 7.1. David South at age 11, with Jack Berkman's

painting of him. (Photo: South 1961) come up with gray if you keep trying to combine those black and white concepts!" Jack had little use for the sharp cubist style used by Claude Howell, often speaking disparagingly of Claude's work, which he considered too tight, too anal and regimented. He often urged Claude to "loosen up!" Claude, on the other hand, accused Jack of painting, not with his mind, but with his groin. Claude Howell--an "Intellectual" Painter Claude Howell considered Jack's loose semiabstractions as little more than finger-painting. Claude spoke of his own work as "intellectual" and was impatient with Jack and "loose paintringers" like him. Claude taught art at Wilmington College for many years and after he retired The City o f Wilmington named a park in tribute to him. Claude's art always sold well, from the watercolor sketches he made on his trips to the outer banks of North Carolina; to the paintings he

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION created using the sketches as models. On one of my visits to his studio he proudly told me he had sold all of his watercolors made that year plus all of his paintings that were commanding higher prices as his fame spread. Claude would usually remain quiet at the Wits End Bar discussions because he had no need to defend his style. But, on occasion, when his "tightness" was needled by Jack or others, he would say, "Everyone has their own style--some paint intellectually using their mind, as I do, while others paint with their viscera, like Jack does." Then Jack would take up the gauntlet and say, trying to shock Claude, "You're damn right I paint with my balls! You should use yours a little m o r e ! " ~ l a u d e would roll his eyes and say, "Well, Jack, you don't have to get vulgar"--and so it went, on into the many nights we shared in the Wit's End Bar. When the funds became available for a visitor center museum at Brunswick Town, I arranged a commission for Claude to create a huge mosaic for the lobby, depicting a colonial scene on the waterfront at Brunswick Town. He ordered the glass fragments from Italy disdaining American made mosaic glass as inferior. He produced a symbolic site mosaic for the lobby of the museum that is a rare interpretive treat for visitors. After Hours--Skirting the Lawman Iris would announce the closing o f the bar and remind those going next door they should stock up. Attached to the bar, and joined to it by a door usually kept locked, was a large room that was a private club, thus outside the law requiring the closing of bars at one a.m. So, those of us who had paid our membership fee would take a bottle or two next door so Iris could close the bar and be legal. It was here the chorographers took over--a place where there was a transitional state between fantasy and the real world we faced the following day. Individual dancers would take the floor surrounded by onlookers---each performing their version of an exotic dance urged on by the crowd.

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Figure 7.2. ArtistClaudeHowell, workingon the BrunswickTownmosaic. (Photo: South 10/1964)

One woman in particular had the ability to mesmerize the crowd with her ad hoc dance, transporting the group with her frenzied performance. Such solo performances came after the crowd had taken part in the limbo---squatting low beneath the pole, lowered each round until only a single winner remained. Most often it was the sleek sinuous dancer who would then hypnotize us with the spell she wove. On such nights Jewell and I knew we had witnessed true magic. After those late night revels, Jewell and I would go to the vacant lot next door, where a set of steps remained from a bumed house once there. We would sit, sometimes with other refugees from the bar, until we saw the one Wrightsville Beach police spider, parked across the street waiting to snare an unwary barfly weaving away in a car. When he saw one and gave chase up the street, we would go to our car and cross the bridge toward home, six miles up the road in

Wilmington. The next morning--seven a.m.--I was off to dig at Brunswick Town. Another prolific reclusive artist who didn't visit the Wit's End, was Neal Thomas, was so creative he had a one-man show where the canvas was not stretched over the stretchers but wadded up, and wrinkled up, and fastened in place like a rag, Then he coated it with a lacquer to make it hold its three-dimensional shape. Then oil painting was done on this highly irregular surface. This was a very creative and unusual approach I admired greatly--a break with conformity. His show elicited comments ranging from "He's the most creative artist we have on the Cape Fear," to, "What kind of craziness is this?" What else is new?

I Enter the Art World--With Tongue in Cheek Given that world of art and artists, Don Mayhew and I were inspired to put aside oar digging hats on weekends and don the beret of the artist. I even took up playing the recorder and

150 enjoyed playing as my Chihuahua dog, Claude, howled his protest with each miserable note. Apparently he was a perceptive critic. The Cottage Lane art show was held periodically, and paintings from local artists were hung on the sides of the buildings along the lane filled with tourists and artists and gawkers--an outdoor voc pop gallery.

Figure Z3. The archaeologist artiste, playing the recorder

with Chihuahua "Claude" howling in protest. (Photo: Jewell South 9/1962) I pulled out the painting I had done when inspired by physical anthropologist, Ellis Kerley in Boone many years before--the one I had mounted on a turntable so the viewer could see it in any direction pleasing to their eye. With tongue in cheek I submitted it for judging. To my surprise it was selected for hanging--apparently "anything goes" was the rule. That seemed to reflect the general philosophy in the art world at that time. But, kids loved the extra choice for viewing the turntable provided--I had an audience! Don, who was an excellent representational artist with a keen eye for detail, also entered and was hung in that show. We stood by and watched

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION the viewers and listened to their comments. After that I was hooked. Jewell was also.

Jewell South--Bit By the Bug--and "Screen Door in Summer" Is Hung I decided to do my own "finger painting" and began smearing acrylics and oil on the canvas rag and entering the effort in shows. To my surprise, I had a number o f paintings accepted in judged shows and was doubly surprised when I sold one. Jewell began painting also, and when the oil on one o f her paintings began to peel and blister, she began to scrape the paint away with a palate knife. When she was about half through doing that, revealing glimpses of a previous painting beneath, I saw what she was doing and yelled, "Stop! That's great as it now stands. It looks like a "screen door in summer," with holes in the screen!" She looked at me and said, "Are you crazy? I ' m just scraping the paint off so I can paint another one." I said I knew that, "Some nut judge is going to look at that and think it's great. Enter it as it is and you won't have to paint another one for the show." So she did and it was accepted and hung in the show in the Wilmington Art Gallery. I Was proud of her and she was too, and she was glad that I had stopped her scraping when I did.

Abstract Art--Knowing When to Pounding Stretchers and Flinging Paint

Quit

Abstract expressionists were dribbling paint on canvases and since anything seemed to go in 1960--there seemed to be no rules--which I went for and began to paint. Wilmington at that time had a lot of street people who could be seen sleeping on the waterfront streets day or night because that was a run-down section o f town. I took a slide of one of these folks and projected it onto a canvas and "finger-painted. . . . The Winebibber," which was hung in a juried show. Another technique I used was to pour acrylic paint onto one edge o f a stretched canvas and pound the stretcher on the floor to make the paint

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" T h e Winebibber," leaning against the "stretcher-pounded" painting, "Badiands." (Photo: South 7/1962)

Figure 7.4.

flOW across the canvas. The result was a painting I called "Badlands." I began to literally fling paint onto other "stretcher-pounded" canvases to see what would happen'. Dribbling paint from a brush from a stepladder seemed to me to be a little mild. I wanted more action, so I filled Dixie cups with paints of various colors and went into the yard to begin flinging paint. To prepare the canvas to receive the paint I spray-painted it black and added blobs of paint poured from cups and pounded the canvas against the ground. Then, accompanied by music from a portable radio, I'd lay the canvas on its back and begin flinging the cups of paint onto it from different directions. As I undertook the "paint-flinging art" process I found that it was not a random one. The concept had to be conceived (unless the creative act is assumed to be totally arbitrary). Then the choice of paint colors had to be made. From then on the painting itself was a partner in its own creation with the flinger [artist?]. With each fling, as the flung-paint hits the canvas, choices must be made as to color, angleheight, force o f throw--all based on the appearance of the work at that moment in time. A critical decision is--knowing when to quit the creative flinging process.

Figure 7.5. Top: Flinging yellow paint onto canvas. Bottom: Paint-flinger South with abstract expressionist "stretcher-pounding-paint-flinging"painting "The Edge of Night." (Photo: Jewell South 3/1961)

152 I wanted to create, through totally abstract symbolism, a representation of reality, inspired by DeKooning. This was a step beyond (I thought) Berkman's literal combination of classical realism with mosaic-like abstract slashes of color. Using this theory the idea I had for the first abstract painting I did, was to symbolize that moment at dusk when the sun, hidden by clouds, suddenly flings a shaft of light over the world. I called this first abstract based on realism, "The Edge of Night" after the radio show by that name---I was on the edge of art in those days. Although I had some success with my "fingerpainting" and "stretcher-pounding" art, I knew when to quit when I was ahead. When recently I showed some of my paintings to a colleague he said it was a good idea I stuck to archaeology!

Subjectivity and Objectivity--Art--Realism and Abstract Expressionism "The Edge of Night" was accepted in a show and it was an interesting experience to stand behind viewers and listen to the comments of some person "explaining" what the artist had in mind--what theory lay behind this "fantastic" representation of a sunset. "This is exactly what Berkman is trying to do by combining abstract expressionism and realism," one viewer commented. By chance it appeared I had, according to that "expert," achieved "a reconciliation of the two concepts in art." Really? Is that what I was up to? On second thought, perhaps it was. The "anything goes" came from the idea in abstract expressionism, as I understood it, the viewer was the critical agent, not the artist. Realism depicted the real world using certain proscribed rules--like science. Interpretation of abstract expressionist paintings was based on what the viewer brought to the painting, not on what the artist had in mind when the painting was created. I might create a painting" by flinging paint on a canvas in a drunken stupor, or just for my personal satisfaction. But, if the viewer of that abomination [from the realist's perspective]

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION thought it represented a sunset or a theory, so be it--that's their thing. That "explanation" of the painting is what's important to the viewer--a doit-yourself interpretation. That's what the painting was " a b o u t " ~ not something the artist had in mind and executed according to rules (although I violated this rule with my "Edge of Night" painting). However, I have been known to violate rules upon occasion. As I read somewhere Thomas A. Edison once said when asked about rules, "Hell, there ain't no rules. We're trying to accomplish something!" I totally agree when it comes to art. Because abstract expressionist art depends on what the viewer brings to it, interpretation varies in direct relation to the number of viewers "explaining" the work--it has served its "function." The more skillful the viewer is in articulating subjective evaluations, the more others may listen--with such a person eventually being elevated from an art aficionado to an imaginative art critic spinning yams, attempting through skillful choice of words, to convince others to share a personal perspective. Realism focused on depicting the real world of nature out there--expressionism on the inner world of the viewer. At least that was the simplistic understanding I gleaned from the artists around me at the time I dug ruins and flung paint after hours, while conducting archaeology at Brunswick Town in the 1960s. Somewhere else I read that "One must take care, or the act of analysis, will tarnish the act of wonder." My involvement in art was an attempt to prevent that from happening within me.

An Archaeological Parallel--Science "Expressionist Archaeology"

and

It seems to me there is a parallel in archaeology. I gather data, abstract pattern [the painting] that becomes a springboard for hypotheses and postulates directed at further inductive collection of data [the degree of fit between the painting and the real world]. This hypothetico-deductive-inductive process is the rule of science--like the rules guiding the

Digging Art and Life Stories realists--an effort to depict the real world was from the artist/archaeologist's perspective. The results either confirm or negate the hypotheses generated from analysis of previous data [or observation of the world]. What might be called "expressionist archaeology," on the other hand, is driven by a search for "meaning" relevant to the personal subjective view of the modern world--as in abstract expressionist painting the emphasis is on a personal subjective "world view." Over three decades after I dug archaeology at Brunswick Town and the art world in Wilmington, this "expressionist archaeology" had evolved into an anti-science wave as articulated by Mark Leone (Thomas 1998: 83). Scientific methods of study tend to demean the culture of others, as well as the others themselves, by measuring, comparing, objectifying, and denaturing them. This sounds like Claude Howell's planned rational, "intellectual" approach to painting vs. Jack Berkman's emotional abstract expressionism I heard debated at the "Wit's End" bar--the old science and humanism argument. Archaeology accommodates both, in that science brings from the earth some of the material culture patterns representing past human activity, and humanism is brought to play to transmit this knowledge to public understanding (See South 1966:10-12). Creative imagination is also involved in archaeology as well as art, at the point where a data-pattern is recognized, and a model is created to "explain" the patterned data. Then it doesn't matter if the insight for the model came as a result of a set of patterned data, a drunken stupor, or in an epiphany--if new data conform to the predicted pattern, the model is verified--if not the model is negated. That's the way science works, isn't it? - - the hypothetico-deductive-inductive method! Art, on the other hand, is overtly subjective. I believe it does not behoove the archaeologist to confuse the two by placing them

153 in polarity by rejecting science, as archaeological expressionists have tended to do. These concepts are on opposite sides of the same archaeological trowel.

A Paint-Out--Sculpt-Out At High Noon with Don Mayhew One Saturday in the Fall of 1962, with paintings and sculpture due to be submitted to the State Art Museum in Raleigh for judging, Don Mayhew said he was coming by our house to challenge me to a "paint out," where we would both set up easels in the yard and do a painting and see which of us would finish first and then make it into that big show. We both knew the answer to that one, because Don was a fine painter and had been hung in many shows. I accepted the challenge, but suggested, "Why don't I do something different? Why don't I make a piece of sculpture instead of a painting?" He laughed and accepted the challenge, saying, "How in hell are you going to make a sculpture by the time I finish my painting?" I said maybe I couldn't, but we would see. I went to the garage where son David and ! worked on our MGs and got a discarded generator. I unscrewed the copper armature while Don was getting his easel set up to paint. I bent the relatively soft thick copper wire and screwed the end onto the top of an apple crate. Then I began bending the wire into something that looked like the shape of a mother holding a child on her hip. Then I drove down to the hardware store down the street and came back with a can of liquid steel--a mass of iron filings held together with epoxy, along with a can of the catalyst. I mixed them together and began troweling the steel onto the momma-and kid-shaped armature. Soon I announced that I had finished my sculpture. Don laughed at it and made appropriate remarks, and continued working on his fine still life painting, while I had a beer on the steps and watched the skillful hand of a real artist use a brush to create beauty on a rag.

154 Don finished around noon and we had a beer together and adjourned to the "Wit's End Bar with Jewell to spend the aftemoon. The next week, we entered our pieces in the 25 th Annual North Carolina Artists' Exhibition in Raleigh (December 6-30, 1962). I had a cabinet-maker make a box base for my "sketch in steel," which I called 'Solace.' About a month later, to my surprise, I received a notice that my sculpture had been accepted in the statewide art show at the North Carolina Museum o f Art in Raleigh. Was I proud or what! I went to Don's apartment to get him to go with me so we could share a beer in celebration-knowing that his painting would also have been accepted. But he hadn't heard. A week passed, while we both waited expectantly for his acceptance notice, but when it finally came it was to say his painting had not made it into the show. We were both disappointed. How could that happed? Don would later share his ability and knowledge through a career teaching art in Northfield, Massachusetts. I went to Raleigh to see my sculpture on display and looked forward to bringing it back to Wilmington and showing it to friends, bragging that it had been in the North Carolina Museum of Art. I had put a price of $150 on the thing, more as a joke than anything, but when I saw the piece on its pedestal, located prominently in the center of the gallery, I was grinning from ear to ear. Then I saw a tag lying on the base of the piece marked SOLD! I couldn't believe it! Someone had bought my first sculpture--incredible! Someone had seen it and bought it before the show opened! For the rest of the evening I simply floated around the gallery. I called Jewell and gave her the good news. She was happy for me, but said she had looked forward to having it in the house, and now she would never see it again. Inspired, I told her I ' d make other ones for her. That one was of a pregnant momma with her child seeking comfort with his head against her belly. It was called "The Promise."

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

Liquid steel over copper armature wire sculpture, "The Promise," one of South's "sketches in steel in his one-man show. (Photo: South 3/1963)

Figure 7.6.

Across A Crowded Room I was standing there holding a glass of wine in my hand talking with a stranger who had asked me, "Are you the sculptor of that piece?" and I had said, "Yes, I ' m Stanley South--the sculptor"--cool! - - not archaeologist - - sculptor. We talked about the aesthetic character of the piece--the understated sketch effect--the subtle "nuances" I had captured--the human warmth I had built into it through the posture of the mother, the love it exuded, etc., etc., and other B . S . - while I gobbled it all up like a dog on a bone. Then, as I stood there my eyes noticed a woman across the room staring at me. For a long

Digging Art and Life Stories time neither broke our hypnotic b e a m - - n o r glanced away. The man I was talking with melted away and she and I stood with our eyes still locked. Finally, she came near me and said, "Well--what about that." And I said, "What happened?" She answered, "I don't know." Then with the shock over, I discovered she was an artist with a sculpture as well as a painting in the show. W e looked at them together and she asked i f I had something in the show. Then we looked at my mother and child for a moment instead of at each other. I told her I was an archaeologist in the real world. We exchanged addresses and phone numbers and I told her that Jewell and I would stop by on our next trip to Boone so they could meet. She taught art at the Woman's College at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. In the years to follow Lou Anne Smith became a close friend to Jewell and me, and she visited us in Wilfnington and went with us to Boone to visit with my parents on one occasion. But I never forgot that moment in the gallery. It was similar to that time I first passed Jewell on the campus at Appalachian---one of those unforgettable lifetime moments. A One Man Show! -- I Walk Away from Art

After the North Carolina Artists exhibit in Raleigh I began cranking out other "sketches in steel," selling some, and entering more shows. Through Claude Howell I was invited to have a one-man show by the Art Department at Wilmington College. One of those who saw the exhibit there was Howard Woody, artist in residence at Pembroke College for Indians (now The University of North Carolina at Pembroke). Howard sponsored a one-man show of my sculpture at Pembroke. All this encouragement from the art world begal~ taking my focus away from archaeology at Brunswick Town [I had sculpted away all my sick and annual leave]. The time came when I had to choose which fork in the road I would take--art or science, and, wisely, I walked away from art, where I was a stranger in a foreign land.

155 I Become a P o t t e r - - T r y i n g for B l a c k on B l a c k In 1960, I read an article about a potter named Maria Martinez from the San Ildefonso Pueblo in New Mexico. She and her husband had seen an archaeological excavation where black on black pottery sherds were being excavated. They experimented until they were able to replicate it. She became famous when she fired her pottery, which she signed "Maria," at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933. My parents had taken me there that year. I don't remember seeing Maria there, but that article inspired me to attempt to replicate black on black pottery, as she had done. I knew that she and her husband had used buffalo chips to make a kiln and thus kept the ware smothered as it cooled, preventing firing clouds from oxygen reaching the ware as it cooled. With that much knowledge, I bought some potting clay from a supply house and began modeling various pottery forms (no wheel), from bottles, to bowls, to plates. I burnished the ware in the leather stage with a glass marble to produce the glossy appearance seen on burnished Indian pottery and decorated a few pieces with paint. When the ware was dry, I dug a hole in the yard and filled it with lightwood gathered in the woods at Brunswick Town, and poured several bags of charcoal briquettes on top of that. Then I lit the lightwood using lighter fluid, and placed the pieces o f pottery a foot or so away from the fire. While it burned, I periodically began turning the pieces and moving them closer to the fire. Finally, when they were good and hot, I used asbestos gloves and placed the pieces on top of the red-hot glowing coals in the pit. Then I covered the ware with more briquettes until they, too, were glowing hot. At that point I placed a sheet of asbestos over the hole and began shoveling the dirt from the hole over it until it was buried under a thick layer of sand, and all sign of smoke was smothered. Then we went inside the house for the night. We invited Claude Howell, Jack Berkman, Don Mayhew, George Demmy and other friends to attend a champagne "opening" of the hole the

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AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

Figure 7. 7. Uncoveringpit-fired black pottery in the yard in Wilmington. (Photo: Jewell South 1960)

next afternoon. The pieces we dug from the ashes were mostly black, with a white firing cloud or two, but very few were solid black--the goal I sought. I had heard that Maria's husband had tried many types of paint to get the dull black- painted decorations on Maria's ware before he found that cactus juice would produce the desired black on black effect. I had no cactus juice, so I tried other types of paint, but I was never able to reproduce the black on black effect. I was happy, though, that I was able to produce a black ware by smothering it during, and after, firing. Later on we had other firings o f my pottery, strangely enough, timed to coincide with a beer and wine-

consuming party in my yard when the pit-kiln was opened.

A Flatland Tour A Hillbilly in YankeeLand--A Lake Otesaga Resort Odyssey In 1961 I was invited by the New York Historical Society to give a series of lectures on the work I was doing at Brunswick Town. The week-long series was to take place at the famous exclusive Otasaga Resort Hotel in Cooperstown, New York. This seemed to Jewell and me to be a wonderful opportunity to see the North country. We packed up our pop-up tent camp trailer and hit the road for New York.

Digging Art and Life Stories

After camping for several days, we went through the tunnel into New York City amid steam coming from the radiator o f the car. We could find no place in Manhattan to pull over, so we kept on going, and surprisingly the steaming calmed down. Later, at a camp ground that night, we heard a noise, and looking out we saw the largest raccoon I had ever seen. It was standing, peering into a garbage can, and holding the lid in its right hand. We thought it was a bear at first, until we saw the stripes around its tail. Finally we arrived in Cooperstown, pretty bedraggled, looking much like Ma and Pa Kettle, but fortunately the car wasn't steaming over when we drove up to the elegant front of the historic resort hotel, playground of the rich and famous. After a week of camping on the road, we were indeed a motley group. People stared at us as we carried our camping gear, bags of old laundry, and boxes tied with c6rd into the lobby and piled it in a mound at the registration desk. We were clearly out of our element in this elegant place. But, we adapted quickly to the elegant lifestyle provided for us that week as guests of the New York Historical Society. We hoped the wealthy guests adapted to our presence--but that was their problem. There were two large tents set up on the grass between the hotel and beautiful Lake Otasaga--an idyllic setting. I was to speak in one tent and famous historian John Hope Franklin, also a speaker, there with his wife and son David's age, was to speak in the other one. We were drawn together because our sons were the same age and there were no other children there. We ate together at meals each day o f the week and enjoyed the companionship. When the lectures began, there were about a dozen or so people in my tent to see the slides on my work at Brunswick Town, whereas John Hope Franklin's tent was full and overflowing--so much so, they had to roll up the sides to allow the crowd standing outside to see the speaker. I wanted to be in John's tent listening to him.

157 A "Maria" Plate--a Black On Black Treasure After the morning lectures Jewell, David and I visited the antique shops. In one of those I saw a catsup bottle someone had painted by pouring black paint in it to simulate a bud vase. It was sitting on a black-on-black pottery plate I recognized as the style made by Maria at San Ildefonso Pueblo. I picked up the catsup bottle with my left hand and then the plate with my right hand and turned it over. There, written in script letters on the base when the piece was in the leather state, I saw, "Maria." Wow! I couldn't believe my e y e s - - a signed Maria piece! Still holding the catsup bottle and the plate, I asked the shop owner, "How much is this?" He was standing across the table from me and said, "Oh, I guess, 25 cents." The shocked look on my face must have registered with him, because he then said, "And I'll throw in that plate for nothing." Then I realized he thought I was asking about the catsup bottle, and had thrown in the plate as a bonus! I remember watching my hand tremble with excitement as I handed him two dimes and a nickel. That was a highlight of my trip!

"Doing Archaeology on the M o o n " - - A F a r Out Suggestion from a Famous Actor In 1962, a well-known movie actor and host of "The G. E. Theatre" television program, was a guest of the Azalea Festival in Wilmington. I was asked to provide a tour of Brunswick Town for him and his party and to attend a reception afterward at Orton Plantation. I was talking with him about archaeology when he said, "You may be doing archaeology on the moon some day if the moon shot President Kennedy has called for is successful." I said, "No way!" but he replied that aliens from outer space may have visited and left ruins there to be found when we get to the moon. I argued with him, explaining that telescopes have given us a good picture of the moon and there are no ruins visible. He insisted, but I explained that science had long ago replaced the "alien" theory as new facts were revealed. He said, "I thought scientists were open to theory." I replied, "Yes, but when new facts negate the old theory, new theories are built to explain the facts!

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Figure 7.8. The actor and the archaeologist discussing the possibility of ruins on the moon. (Photo: Hugh Morton 1962)

In the midst of our discussion of aliens on the moon, where neither o f us yielded a point, Hugh Morton took a picture o f the two of us. As we parted,, the actor said, "Mark my word, one o f these days some archaeologist will be excavating ruins on the moon." I replied, "When pigs fly!" Twenty years later the actor was President, presiding over the National Science Board advising the National Science Foundation. Maybe pigs can fly! Today his name is immortalized in The Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport - - what a nice guy! The Lowly Flax Hackle---A

Dated

Betrothal

Gift

In 1965, on a return vacation trip from Boone to Brunswick Town, Jewell, David and I stopped by an antique shop about 50 miles south of the Moravian settlement of Old Salem. I later wrote an account of the artifact I found there (South 1966d, 1968h): "While looking through the tools heaped beneath a table in an antique shop in the North Carolina Piedmont, I removed the wooden top from what appeared to be a small box. To my surprise I saw a set of iron teeth mounted in a board and recognized the implement as a flax hackle." John Cotter had once asked me if I had ever found evidence o f a flax hackle in one o f the Brunswick Town ruins. I told him I had not. He

then told me a story about an archaeologist excavating an historic period ruin who had found a pile of headless nails lying together amid a pile of iron rust, and upon later seeing a hackle, it suddenly occurred to him what the nails represented. When I asked the shop owner the price of the hackle, he had no idea what the object was. After I paid him the $10 I told him the literal function (combing flax fibers so the strands lie straight), but it was many months later before I came to understand the symbolic role the hackle played in the division of labor between the male and female in the process of clothing the family. The hackle I bought had the initials ABE and CVL and the date 1775 punched into the metal wrapped around the wooden board through which the many iron nail-like teeth had been driven. The dealer said he thought the number punched into the metal must be the factory part number! With this find, I began collecting other hackles in antique shops in Piedmont, as well as the mountains o f North Carolina, usually paying five dollars each. The dates range between 1775 and 1831. With this information I knew I had a pattern, and began searching for the answer as to why initials and dates were put on hackles at that time. I wrote the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museums asking if they had dated hackles. The answer I got from them was that they had none. One comment was, "We certainly have no hackles in our collection, and it is beyond me to imagine why anyone would want to date such a mundane item." The Science Museum in London had no information on flax hackles. So, I wrote the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Ireland, and found it had two hackles, but neither was dated. The director referred me to the Ulster Folk Museum in Belfast. The director of that museum said in 15 years of experience he had never seen a dated flax hackle. I concluded that this was not a British or an Irish artifact pattem. If not there where? The Smithsonian Museum sent me a photograph of its hackle dated 1739, but could tell me nothing about it. They referred me to an

Digging Art and Life Stories

Figure 7.9.

159

The "CATARNA HEISTN 1766" flax hackle in the Mercer Museum.

employee who had a hackle dated 1765, from a Hamburg, Pennsylvania, "Dutch" origin. With that clue I wrote the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The director of that museum said its collection had "approximately 125 flax hackles, with approximately 40 of those having, dates ranging from 1739 to 1814, predominately from eastern Pennsylvania." Obviously, I had found the mother lode for dated hackles--the German tradition in Pennsylvania." My search was about over. Jewell, David and I went to the Mercer Museum where I was allowed to photograph a number of their hackles. The display area was not heated and the temperature outside was in the 20s, so the job of photographing the hackles was a chilly one. The hackles were displayed so that the visitor looked through a window into a room with a loom, a flax wheel, and other weaving items. The director simply unlocked the door to the exhibit and allowed me to set up my lights and take the pictures. As we were packing to leave I was still concerned that I had not answered the question of "why" hackles were dated and initialed. I asked the director if she knew why they were dated. She said she only knew what the old people said the tradition was, but apologetically said she knew o f no documentation of use to me. I urged her to tell me about the tradition she had heard. She said that when a couple became engaged the boy would make a hackle, and on it he would place the initials of the girl he planned to marry, and the

(Photo: South 1965)

date of their engagement. This gift symbolized their joining together of their lives, since flax working required both sexes to produce results. It took a strong man to prepare the flax to the point where the hackling process was necessary, and ... "the lightest hand and gentlest touch ... should be applied to flax with the utmost care and tenderness." With this local traditional explanation, I knew I had found the answer to the function the hackle played in the culture of that area at that period in time--the hackle was symbolic of the pivot point of the cooperation necessary between the man and woman to produce clothing for the family, and this symbol had become important in the betrothal ritual within Pennsylvania German colonial culture. Pictures of the hackles from this satisfying detective story were later published in Antiques Magazine (South 1968h: 224-227), and in my

Method and Theory in Historical Archaeology (South 1977a: 183-190). From the time that John Cotter had mentioned the possibility of finding the archaeological remains of a flax hackle in an archaeological site, I was aware of that seed he planted, and looked for such evidence in the many ruins I excavated there, but it was not there----the colonists at Brunswick Town were not participants in the Pennsylvania German tradition. A critic has said why concern yourself with questions easily answered by documents. If that were true, there would be no need for any archaeology, but my challenge has always been to try to explain the

160 patterned archaeological culture process. In the hackle, as in the case excavated from historic always so easily found in

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION record in terms o f past case of the lowly flax o f many other objects sites, the answer is not the documents.

Art N e w t o n - - a Friend Walks Away from Life Through my connection with Brunswick Town and the art community in Wilmington I met a commercial artist, Art Newton. Art lived with his family in the sleepy little village o f Southport, at the mouth o f the Cape Fear River. He was an excellent commercial artist, making a precarious living in a town that had little call for his talent, so his clients were mostly from elsewhere. Jewell, David and I were often invited to their eighteenth century home on the waterfront in Southport, a home much like those that once stood over the Brunswick Town ruins. His failure to obtain enough clients to support his family was on his mind, when I visited him for the last time, and be confided in me as we walked along the riverside. He seemed to be reaching out to me for some kind of support, not financially, but for possible answers to help him solve his current crisis. What can you say to a friend in need? - - platitudes? "'Hang in there buddy!" "Cheer up---the worst is yet to come/?" I didn't have a prayer and he said he had run out as well. We shook hands as we said goodbye, not realizing this would be our last goodbye. I read of his death in the newspaper. A witness saw him as he repeatedly threw himself from his little boat into the water then climbed aboard again. Into the muddy water again he went--and his troubles were over. "Oh lost, and by the wind-grieved ghost come back again!" (Wolfe 1929: 1). Road Kill Art The "anything can be art" philosophy is still with me a half century later. I was influenced by those years I spent in the art community in

Wilmington. An art gallery in Columbia recently displayed mounted desiccated road kill as "found art." I began photographing road kill such as dolls, teddy bears, and other childhood treasures killed and flattened by highway traffic. My son, David, knowing of my interest, recently sent me a photograph of a real road-killed armadillo, just as he found it. That certainly qualifies as symbolic art if any road kill does.

Figure Z 10. Road kill art on Highway 29 north of Auburn, Alabama. (Photo: David South 2000) A Civil War Bonus at Brunswick T o w n - Confederate Fort Anderson When Jewell and I arrived in 1958 at Brunswick Town, we parked our car beside the standing brick-walled ruin of St. Philips Church, and could not help but notice the Confederate earthwork mound beside that colonial ruin. That earthwork was only a low section of the large, impressive two-battery earthworks of Fort Anderson I would discover in the years to come, as my exploration of the Brunswick Town site continued. The story o f that Civil War fort and of the companion Fort Fisher, across the Cape Fear River, was an unexpected surprise, and a bonus to my anticipated excavation of the colonial town. The story of that Civil War bonus is told in the next chapter.

Chapter 8 Civil War Stories Introduction--an Administrative Change When I was at Brunswick Town I was also placed in charge of Fort Fisher State Historic Site, across the Cape Fear River. However, this caused an administrative problem in Raleigh, because all other historic sites in the state were under a single Raleigh-based manager. He believed that the sites I was overseeing should also be under the Raleigh based manager. As a result, the funds for excavation of ruins were cut off in an effort to reduce my resistance to the idea of being transferred to a desk job away from the archaeological database at Brunswick Town. Prior to that time all historic sites were under the management of professional p e o p l e - historians, archaeologists, architects, etc:, as appropriate to the individual site. A new policy was implemented bringing historic site professionals into the Raleigh office, with the onsite managers positions to be filled by individuals who had at least a high school education--the idea given was that it was a waste of talent to have professionals in the field they should supervise from the Raleigh office. You win some and you lose some, and my resistance to the implementation of this policy was settled when I was removed from hands-on control at Brunswick Town and Fort Fisher and transferred to Raleigh. Since that time I have seen historic sites lose their vitality through being placed in what amounts to a holding pattern devoted to simply maintaining the property, where decision-making is theoretically done at higher administrative levels, but the reality is that the on-site administrators at times make ill-informed, (and in my opinion insensitive and unwise) decisions that affect the archaeological and historical integrity of the site. Trained, professional historians and archaeologists, in my view should be in direct onsite control of historic sites because, in my

opinion, people at that level can insure that at least some research and development capacity can continue through the years beyond simply a maintenance status that results when untrained people are put in charge. But, now to the Civil War stories that came from my involvement with that period of history at Confederate Fort Anderson. That fort was built over the ruins of colonial Brunswick Town, and Fort Fisher, the companion fort, was located on the other side of the Cape Fear River, These forts were built to protect the new inlet to the river from entry by Federal ships during the early days of the Civil War. Fort Anderson Earthworks on Top of the Brunswick Town Ruins As mentioned previously, when I arrived at Brunswick Town, low earthworks could be seen along two sides o f the colonial ruin of St. Philips Church. These were thrown up during the Civil War, in 1861, as part of the Confederate works of Fort Anderson--with the ruins of the brick church shown on the map of the fort as part of that defensive work (South 1960a: 102, 1964i: 2). For this reason, some thought at the time that the fort should be called "Fort St. Philip" (South 1960a: 103). Another set of much larger embankments could not be seen because they were hidden in the thick jungle of trees and bushes that covered Brunswick Town and Fort Anderson. Although the excavation of the ruins of colonial Brunswick was my major interest when I arrived, I soon found that I had inherited impressive Fort Anderson as part of the Brunswick Town package. The fort, built by Major Thomas Rowland to help protect the mouth of New Inlet, consisted of

161

162

Figure 8.1.

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

The Brunswick Town crew on Battery A at Confederate Fort Anderson. (Photo: South 1961)

two main batteries for artillery, with a long line of embankments (South 1960a: 103). I was able to get an understanding o f the size of the fort by using Charlie and our crew to cut a path through the undergrowth with bush axes. I followed closely behind with my transit, shooting angles and pulling tape to make a map o f the earthworks. When the map was drawn, I could see the impressive outline of the fort for the first time. Later on, I had the crew begin cutting the yaupon and myrtle undergrowth from the mounds and piling the brush all along the base of the mound to be burned on some wet day. That day came and we set fire to one o f the piles. The wind arose and the fire jumped to the next pile o f brush, and so on, until there was a wall of fire raging up one side of the mound and jumping to the other side. As the holocaust spread, I jumped in the truck and drove up to Orton Plantation and called the fire department. The firefighters eventually came and with a fire-lane plow cut trenches to stop the flames before they got to Russellborough to the north of the fort. When it was all over we could see the gun emplacement embankments clearly for the first time. I put up signs along the trail on top of the embankment to explain what the visitors were seeing. At two places bridges were needed to keep people from having to climb up and down the mounds to get the entire tour o f the works. To

solve this problem, I approached the United Daughters of the Confederacy for funds to build the two bridges. They agreed that it was a worthwhile project, and in October 1964, a formal opening of the Fort Anderson earthworks, complete with the new bridges, was held. During that ceremony, I put the 40-foot ladder against a surviving pine tree and took a good picture of Battery A and the group gathered for that occasion (South 1964i: 3).

Captain Newman's Home Ruin beneath the Fort--Lunch Time for Carpenters I correlated the Brunswick Town map with the ruins I discovered. As I mapped the embankments of Fort Anderson, I found that the builders of that fort had placed some of the mounds directly over rows of Brunswick Town house ruins. I probed into the side of those mounds and found the colonial ruins intact, protected beneath the Civil War fort. I was not the first one to observe the ruins of the colonial town. Documents from the Civil War period indicated that in digging around the ruins to construct Fort Anderson, "the laborers found some old coin and other relics" from the ruins of Brunswick Town (Waddell 1890:214). One of the ruins I probed beneath the earthworks of Fort Anderson was found to be that o f the home o f Captain Stephen Parker Newman.

Civil War Stories

To expose the ruin I cut away half of the embankment in order to allow me to expose and excavate the ballast stone foundation of this colonial home (South 1962n: 1-2.). It was in excavating this ruin beneath Fort Anderson that I made an error in judgment that I regret to this day. After having removed the sand from above the ruin, we were excavating a pit we found dug into the floor of an addition to the house during the colonial period. We found few artifacts in the sand layer above the ballast-stone walls, and as we excavated the sand from the pit using trowels, we found no artifacts there. We ate our lunches sitting on the exposed stone wall. It was then I told Charlie that, after lunch, because we had found no artifacts in that pit so far, he should take a shovel and chomp out the remainder of the pit. I was operating the sifter, and as Charlie dipped into the pit with his shovel we heard a loud clunk as it hit something. We immediately went back to using our trowels. What we found was the freshly broken fragments of a whole creamware plate that had remained unbroken until moments before when Charlie's shovel hit it--the only whole creamware plate we found in the town! I was chagrined, to say the least. We also found other things that allowed me to interpret (tell a story) about who had dug the hole inside the addition and why. I explained the other things we found as follows (South 1962n: 2): When the workmen were building these additions they obtained sand for mortar by digging a hole inside the area o f the new addition. As they ate their lunch of boiled eggs, they threw the shells into this hole, along with some of the bones [of chicken] from their lunch. They also accidentally dropped a hatchet and a claw hammer in the hole that became covered with sand. They threw scrap pieces of wood from the construction into the hole, and later filled it in with sand. It may have been one of those workers who lost a half

163 penny of George III, dated 1775, in the basement about this time. The particular association of all these objects in that pit allowed such a story to be told. The creamware plate we broke, probably held the boiled eggs and chicken for the worker who sat on the edge of the sandy pit as he ate his lunch. He didn't notice that his hatchet and hammer had become covered with sand in the hole.

50 Confederate Chimneys in Rows--A Pristine Survival In the woods back of the earthworks, we cut paths through the jungle and found another treasure from the Civil War period. There were chimney mounds there, composed of brick salvaged from the colonial ruins and mortared together with clay dug from the marsh. We discovered rows o f these chimney bases from the barracks buildings housing the Confederate soldiers manning Fort Anderson. I used my transit to map each of these important surviving remains of the fort. From that map, I found that several rows o f these barracks chimneys had survived the hundred years since the fort was bombarded by artillery from the Federal forces. I mapped over 50 of these historic ruins and on the top of one, as he was pulling the tape from the transit to the pile o f chimney bricks, Charlie found a 32 pound artillery shell (South 1960:104).

Figure 8.2. One of the many Confederate barracks chimney bases found at Ft. Anderson made of bricks and stones salvaged from the ruins of Brunswick Town and held together by clay. (Photo: South 1962)

I excavated one o f these chimney mounds located between the museum and the parking lot.

164

These chimney bases, some still standing two feet high, were a rich archaeological treasure I was not able to excavate more fully before I left Brunswick Town and Fort Anderson. As far as I know, these chimney ruins are still in the woods waiting to be examined archaeologically. "A Nice Little Fight" At Fort Anderson After the fall o f Fort Fisher, across the Cape Fear from Brunswick Town, many of the Federal vessels, including the ironclad turreted monitor Montauk were anchored in the Cape Fear River. On the 10 th o f February 1865, part o f this fleet began the bombardment of Fort Anderson, which was under the command o f Admiral Porter. On that day the Mackinaw fired 63 11-inch shells at the fort. That type o f action, and the firing of 350- pound, 15-inch shells from the ironclad monitor Montauk (which did no damage to the sand fort), and three days o f bombardment, was to be referred to as "a nice little fight at Fort Anderson" (South 1960:109-110; The New York Herald, February 23, 1865). Cushing Floats a Bogus Monitor To Test The Defenses Of Fort Anderson A few days later, Lieutenant W. B. Cushing, famous for various exploits, left the Malvern with 15 men to float a bogus monitor in front of Fort Anderson. One northern observer described the result as follows (Official Records 12: 34):

Porter built a bogus monitor out of an old scow and some canvas and barrel staves, and sent it majestically past Fort Anderson at midnight on the flood tide. Johnny Reb let off his torpedoes without effect on it, and the old thing sailed across the river and grounded in flank and rear of the enemy's lines on the eastern bank. A drawing of this bogus monitor was published in The New York Herald on February 23, 1865 (South 1960a: 110, Plate 25). Following the "nice little fight," Fort Anderson was abandoned, with the Confederates moving toward

AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION

•:"

.~!~ ~ t ~ 2 ~ '

A ~

~

~O~T~'~ BOGUSMONITOr,SUt~KA~UT TWOMll,b~ ~;hO

Figure &3. A sketch o f C u s h i n g ' s bogus monitor floated on the rising tide in front of'Ft. A n d e r s o n was pubfished in The New York flemld on F e b r u a r y 23, 1865. (Photo: South 1960)

the north, because the big guns were pointed toward the river, and useless against an attack from the rear. The retreat was triggered by the fact that General Cox's army was advancing behind the fort from the south. The words spoken by William Temple, Commander of the U. S. S. Pontoosuc, about the defenders o f Fort Anderson, sum up the situation very well: "The rebs stand up to their work manfully; but we are too much for them . . ." (Official Records... 12: 36, 38, in South 1960a: 118). The Monitor Montauk--Recovering a Shell That Fell Short Johnny Miller, a Carolina Beach man who had dug with me at Bethabara, augmented his income operating a small shrimp boat. He said he would bring his boat across the Cape Fear River to Brunswick Town, so he and I could dive and try to see what was on the bottom of the river in front of the town ruins and Fort Anderson. Someone had dived once before and found a colonial period anchor. This dive was in front of Battery A at Fort Anderson. Johnny hadn't been down long when he said he had found a large cannonball sitting on the bottom. We got a large zinc-coated tub and tied a rope to each handle and he went down again and rolled the cannonball into the tub.

Civil War Stories

Our idea was to use the little crane on the back of the boat to raise the ball in the tub, then float the boat ashore with the ball suspended on the little crane. I began cranking the crane, which was very difficult to do because, as we found out later, the shell weighed 350 pounds. Suddenly, Johnny let out a yell to stop cranking. Instead of the cannonball moving off the bottom of the river, the boat was going down and was beginning to take water at the stem. I tried to release the crank to relieve the downward pressure on the boat, but the cannonball was so heavy the cable had jammed. Meanwhile the water continued to slosh over the stern into the boat. We became excited. Johnny yelled for me to stand aside---which I did, as he came toward me with an ax in his hand. Using that he cut the cable, fleeing the boat from its locked-in downward pull, and it suddenly began floating higher--solving the problem. We saved the boat from sinking, but now we knew we had to get the ball out o f the water using something besides the little crane on the shrimp boat. There was an access road I had cut near Battery A, so I got the truck and backed it down to the edge of the water, and we hooked a long rope to the flame, and Johnny dived again and tied the rope to the handles of the tub. With that power available we dragged the tub with the ball in it onto dry land. By that time the tub was no longer shaped like a tub. It was stretched into the shape of a cloth bag with an extremely heavy weight inside. It was then we discovered how heavy the thing was. I went to the site where Charlie and Freddy were digging and recruited them to help us get the ball into the bed of the truck. The four of us then bent down, placed our fingers beneath the ball and tried to lift. It was then we leamed what appeared to us to be a basic law of physics. It is very difficult for four men to get around a 15-inch cannonball weighing 350 pounds and get enough hold on the ball with enough lift to get the thing off the ground. It felt as though it was set in concrete--so much for that approach. We then found two 2 by 12-inch boards 12 feet long, stacked them one above the other, and

165 began pushing the ball up that ramp into the bed of the truck. We found we could push it but not lift it. Once it was finally in the truck bed, I propped it securely in place, because we didn't want it rolling around in there and smashing through the tailgate. From then on, whenever we moved that shell, we rolled it. I never did see it "lifted." Disarming a Civil War Shell--Live Powder When I got it to the laboratory shed, I faced the problem of getting the powder out of it. There was a brass fuse with the date 1862 on it, with notches on each side for a spanner wrench. I called the Ordnance Disposal section at Fort Bragg and explained the discovery of the shell to see if it could be disarmed. The sergeant said he would be glad to come get the shell and take it to Fort Bragg. He said a charge would be put on it to blow it up. I quickly ended the conversation, because there were many shell fragments around already--whole 15-inch shells were not so plentiful on Civil War sites. I wanted this one for exhibit to help tell the story of what went on at Fort Anderson--a little known fort at the time. That shell would be a nice way to help visitors to appreciate the story o f Fort Anderson during the Civil War. I was faced with disarming the thing myself. I left the shell sitting with the fuse facing up and filled with penetrating oil around it to help loosen the bond between the brass fuse and the cast iron shell. When I went into Wilmington that night, I bought a spanner wrench matching the sockets on the fuse, and the next day I put it in place and began tapping counter-clockwise on the wrench with a hammer. I knew enough from working on cars, that to loosen a tight nut you don't hit hard. A series of relatively light taps works far better than hard ones, because the recoil working against your blows isn't strong enough to counteract the force you are exerting. To my surprise, and to that of Charlie and Freddy, the fuse gradually began to turn as I tapped. Then it was unscrewed and out of the

166 shell--success! I expected when I rolled the ball over, that black mucky powder would pour o u t - not so. What came out was dry black powder mixed with pieces of charcoal. We rolled the ball aside and when Charlie touched a match to the little pile o f powder, it flared up with a snort and a puff of smoke. After almost 100 years under water the powder was still dry! (South 1963j: 13). I was then faced with getting the remainder of the powder from the shell. The least spark, we now knew, would set the thing off, and using a coat hanger wire would likely create a spark. We began pouring water into the hole and then tilting the ball until the black muck ran out. We did this time and again until we were convinced that the inside of the shell was as free o f powder as we could make it. Later on the administrators in Raleigh decided the shell should go on exhibit across the river at Fort Fisher. I argued that it should remain at home at Fort Anderson, but that was another argument I lost. The last time I saw that shell, it was in an "out-of-context" - - "of the period" display in the Fort Fisher Museum.

Fort Fisher--Mapping the Earthworks Like Brunswick Town, the site of Fort Fisher in 1960 was overgrown with myrtles and yaupon bushes. Historic Site Specialist/historian, A1 Honeycutt, had cleared much of the dense growth from the land face o f the remaining high sand embankments. I was asked to map the mounds and correlate them with the map drawn in 1865 by Otto Julian Schultze. An airstrip and U.S. Highway 421 had been cut through the middle of the land face gun emplacements, but a number of those still remained. I established benchmarks and transit mapped the site, including sand dunes south of the commemorative monument on the site. I discovered by superimposing my map over the Schultze map that the sand dunes were indeed remnants o f the Civil War fortification. The map showing the correlation and a report was turned over to historian Honeycutt and I returned to Brunswick Town and Fort Anderson (South 1960g).

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

Fort Fisher--the Palisade Fence Excavation and Reconstruction A year passed and I was again asked to visit Fort Fisher to conduct exploratory excavation to locate the palisade fence north of the land face (South 1961a, 1963f: 20-21). A photograph taken after the fall of Fort Fisher showed a palisade running along the base o f the earthworks. One of the four recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor presented for valor during the battle of Fort Fisher received his medal for cutting down some of the poles with an ax while under fire from the

Figure 8.4. Top: The exposed snags remaining from the Ft. Fisher palisade. Bottom: The rebuilt section of the palisade wall. (Photo: South 2/1962)

The clue to where to look for the archaeological remains of the palisade was obtained by lining up the still-to-be-seen snags of the palisade in the marsh at the western end. Using the alignment of the surviving posts, I cut exploratory trenches on higher ground and found

Civil War Stories the palisade about a foot below the surface of the ground (South 1961a:Figures 1-4, Plates 1-6). Later, historian A1 Honeycutt, assisted by Johnny Miller, undertook to open a larger area, exposing more of the palisade posts. Before I left the site to return to Brunswick Town, an historian, observing the exposed pine posts, made the remark to a group of visitors that these were palmetto posts, erected by Confederate Colonel Lamb. I corrected him, saying that the palisade posts they were looking at were pine posts. "That can't possibly be!" he exclaimed. I asked "Why not? You can see the pine knots sticking out the sides of the central heart pine posts." His reply illustrated to me the contrast sometimes seen in the view of those who depend solely on the written word, versus archaeologists who depend on the empirical data their eyes are witnessing. He said, "Those can't be pine posts because Colonel Lamb, who built the palisade, said in a letter to a relative in Virginia, that he used palmetto trees!" I replied that perhaps he used "some" palmetto trees, but what the historian was looking at, were the remains of pine posts. He left shaking his head in disbelief at the betrayal of the empirical evidence to support what his hero, Lamb, had said in the written word. Later he admitted that perhaps there were times when the archaeological document might make a contribution beyond that supplied by documents in the form of words on paper. As the Civil War Centennial approached, greater interest was focused on Fort Fisher. I was put in charge of Fort Fisher as well as Brunswick Town State Historic Site. Because the evidence for the palisade was so dramatic, and correlated with the 1865 drawings by Julian Schultze, I decided that a section of the palisade along the remaining land face of the fort should be reconstructed a foot or more from the original posts so as to not damage that evidence still in the ground. I then drew plans for the restoration of the palisade (South 1964j). With this decision made and fimds available to purchase posts to reconstruct the palisade, I had to

167 decide whether to use creosote posts or salttreated posts. I decided on salt-treated posts because, although they had a greenish appearance, they would soon weather to a natural look. Creosoted ones, however, would be more unsightly because of the surface tar coating. Because the contract was being handled in Raleigh I had no control over who got the contract. That was another one I lost because the creosoted palisade was erected. It has been many years since I saw the palisade---I hope it has weathered nicely in spite of the creosote. Additional plans for the restoration of a part of Fort Fisher included rebuilding an underground bunker on the airstrip cut through the land face of the mound, and rebuilding that section of the sand embankment. However, that plan was abandoned when the museum was located in the area of the missing earthworks. I was able to arrange for a bridge to be built connecting earthworks, to allow visitors to walk along the traverses under cedar and oak, study the exhibits in the museum, and come away with a deeper insight into the past, and a greater awareness of the relationship between today and yesterday (South 1963h: 14).

Fort Fisher Lamb's Headquarters: Excavating the Lighthouse Keeper's House The accidental discovery of a brick foundation in Battle Acre at Fort Fisher, where the Civil War monument is located, prompted an archaeological excavation there (South 1963g, 1963h:15-17). What I found was an L-shaped brick foundation for a 20 by 34 foot lighthouse keeper's house used by Colonel William Lamb at Fort Fisher. Exploded shell fragments, lead bullets, U. S. Army buttons, Confederate buttons from a North Carolina regiment, and brass fuses were recovered from the rubble, definitely connecting it to the Civil War. However, the lighthouse keeper's house dated much earlier, during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, as revealed by ceramics, buttons, gunflints, doll parts, a child's finger ring, a clock key a slate pencil, a tobacco pipe fragment with a grotesque face, as well as an 1819 penny (South 1963h: 15-17).

168

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION

With the buttons from the lighthouse keeper's house in hand, I conducted an analysis combined with those I had recovered from Brunswick Town, and published the description of the 35 button types (South 1964k:113-133). When Ivor Noel Hume published his bible of colonial artifacts, my button chart without the type descriptions, was published in that important book (Noel Hume 1970:91).

News in A Fuse---A Remarkable Document Of special interest from the lighthouse keeper's house was a brass Schenkel fuse.

tb

Figure 8.5. Left:The brass fuse, percussion cap and fuse cap, inside of which was wadded the newspaper fragment, probablyreporting the first attack on Ft. Fisher by Benjamin Butler. (Photo: South 3/1963)

When I unscrewed the central plug, I found a wad of newspaper preserved by the copper salts. I carefully unfolded the paper and mounted it between two pieces of glass to hold it flat. One

fragment had the large word "Butler," which may have been in reference to General Benjamin Butler (later known as "Beast Butler"), who landed troops to attack Fort Fisher in December 1864, but withdrew when he discovered the strength of the fort. The second fragment appears to be part of an article dealing with "News From Europe." The fuse had never been fired because the paper wadding had apparently been used to prevent the detonating plunger from sliding forward and exploding prematurely" (South 1963h: 15). This "historical document" inside an archaeological document (the fuse) was a unique discovery relating to the history of Fort Fisher.

Deactivating Artillery Shells--Echoes of the Explosive Conflict During the Civil War Centennial years of the 1960s there was great interest in relics of that war. Shell fragments would be exposed on the beach at Fort Fisher after each Northeaster storm. I first became involved in deactivating Civil War shells when Johnny Miller and I recovered the 15-inch shell from the Cape Fear River at Brunswick Town. Later, at Fort Caswell, at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, I dug a 5-foot square and recovered several conical artillery shells lying together. I thought they were Mullane artillery shells (South 1963j). Recently, Jim Legg has informed me that they are Confederate ReedParrott shells (Kerksis and Dickey 1972: 185). To allow their use in historical exhibits I had disarmed them. Because the military ordinance disposal authorities at military bases sensibly exploded shells, thus reducing them to fragments, I undertook to disarm many shells during my involvement with Fort Anderson and Fort Fisher. Once they were disarmed they could be cleaned by electrolysis in the conservation laboratory at Fort Fisher, where Johnny Miller worked (South 1963j: 13). To do this I drilled a hole with a quarter-inch bit through the cast iron wall of the shell. Then I poured water through the hole and flushed out the powder. For safety in doing this process, I directed a stream of water from a water hose onto

Civil War Stories the spot where I was drilling, and with each stroke of the drill, I pulled the bit from the hole to allow water into it to prevent a spark from the bit exploding the powder when it broke into the inner chamber. This was the theory--and in practice it had worked on several shells. It was a very nervewracking experience. ! knew of a bulldozer operator who had hit a Civil War shell south of Wilmington. It had exploded, knocking the blade loose. Fortunately, the operator was not injured. An article in the Wilmington Star newspaper had recently reported on the death of a boy who had found a Civil War shell and was beating on it with a hammer to remove the rust when it exploded. Some shells of that period were loaded with gun cotton, which, through time, becomes like nitroglycerin--very sensitive to shock. Curiosity not only kills cats but also people, as The Wilmington Journal reported on April 16, 186d one hundred years b e f o r e ' m y venture into the shell-deactivation process: Persons residing on the Sound or visiting there, or elsewhere where shells are to be found cannot be too often reminded of the danger of trying experiments with them even when all the powder is supposed to have been removed. This warning was for those finding recently fired but unexploded shells. The article went on to say that some workers plowed up a shell and unscrewed the fuse. The story went on to say that Mr. William Batson (South 1963j: 12): ...determined on trying the shell to see if it would explode, applying a lighted twig or dry branch of some kind. On the second trial he succeeded; the shell did explode, [answering that question]. [The doctor] ...had to amputate his right foot near the instep and his left leg just below the knee ... His recovery must be regarded as very doubtful.

169 Such folly! However, my deactivation of shells using a drill bit was almost as foolish. At least I wasn't out to see if the thing would explode! The danger was emphasized to me when I was drilling one of the Reed-Parrott shells recovered from Fort Caswell. As the drill broke through into the inner chamber it released air pressure built up inside. When I pulled the drill out of the hole, the pressure blew the water I had spraying onto the drill hole into my face, along with a quantity o f wet black powder. My throat seized up, and my heart must have stopped, because I felt dizzy from the shock. Fortunately, for me, the thing didn't explode. It did, however, discourage me from ever drilling another shell to save it intact for an exhibit for people to "ooh and ahh" over in a museum.

I Explode a Confederate Artillery Shell A shell found and donated to our project had a lead bushing around the screwdriver-slotted brass fuse hole-plug (South 1963h: 12-13). With a screwdriver I carefully unscrewed the plug. I knew when I did that the powder inside would likely be very dry. When I looked into the fuse hole with a flashlight, I saw the percussion cap sitting on the little hollow nipple leading into the powder chamber. I also saw that the little metal clips, on each side of the cylinder holding it in place were bright and shiny. They were not rusty as they would have been if water had gotten inside. This appeared to me to be a shell likely to have extremely dry powder. I resolved not to attempt to disarm this one. I picked a deserted dune on the little-traveled river road west of the town of Carolina Beach to conduct an experiment with exploding that shell. I bought a dynamite cap from the hardware, hooked 150 feet of wire to it, dug a hole three feet deep with a posthole digger and put the shell upright in the hole. Carefully I placed the dynamite cap into the fuse hole of the shell, and then went to the end of the wires leading from it, where I had a car battery. Jewell manned the 8mm camera to record the explosion if the powder proved to be dry,

170

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION policeman asked what we were doing and I explained to him that we had just fired the last shot of the Civil War! He didn't seem so excited as we were about that, and asked if we had gotten a permit. "To do what?" I asked, "Explode a Civil War shell?" He laughed then, and said the station had received many calls from residents of Carolina Beach asking what the explosion was about. That was why he was there. He cautioned me that if I did that again to let the police know so they could notify the residents as to what was going on. I told him I was not likely to repeat that experiment with a shell.

Figure 8.6. Johnny Miller standing in the crater made by the exploded Civil War shell. (Photo: South 1963) while Johnny backfilled the hole with sand. When we were ready I touched the two wires to the battery terminals and the Civil War shell exploded with a loud blast, throwing sand and shrapnel into the air and forming a crater three feet deep! Suddenly, Jewell, who was filming the explosion with an 8mm movie camera, screamed, "Look out!" Johnny and I looked up and a large fragment of shrapnel came zooming down at us from high in the air, landing about five feet from where I was standing. The movie film shows the camera suddenly pointing up to the sky as Jewell became aware o f the airborne fragment heading toward us. Johnny and I rushed to the crater and began picking up the shell fragments lying around the hole (South 1963j: 13). We never did find the brass fuse liner. About that time a Carolina Beach police car drove up and parked beside our car nearby. The

The Modern Greece--Salvaging the Cargo of a Blockade Runner From the time I first saw the surviving parts of the Civil War blockade runner Beauregard at Carolina Beach at low tide, I was fascinated by the thought o f what might be found in the sand around that wreck (Saunders 1963: 9). There was great interest in the Civil War wrecks in the early 1960s, stimulated by the centennial events being planned. As a result Jewell, David and I rented SCUBA gear and practiced diving in a pond near Wilmington. After I thought we had enough experience handling ourselves below water (this was before many training regulations were put in place), I got with Johnny Miller and we went out to examine the wreck of the Beauregard. It was not far offshore and scuba divers were often seen around the parts o f the wreck sticking above the surface of the ocean. Johnny Miller and I went out in his small boat on one occasion with a plan to dive, but by the time we got there a storm had blown up and the sea was too high and dangerous. We abandoned that attempt. Later in 1962, the wreck of the Modern Greece was discovered, and the North Carolina Confederate Centennial Commission sponsored the recovery o f artifacts from the cargo using Navy divers. Among the objects recovered and conserved in the conservation laboratory located at Fort Fisher were bars of tin and lead, cases of Whitworth shells, Enfield rifles and bullets, bone and silver-handled knives, forks and spoons, tools

Civil War Stories

171 falling into the hands o f the United States Naval officers (South 1963m: 5). The vessel was taken to New York and sold as a prize of war to the U. S. Navy Department, where she was activated as a gunboat carrying seven guns. She was recycled as the U. S. S. Peterhoff Shortly after February 28, 1864, she joined the blockading fleet off Wilmington. A few days later she drew fire from the guns o f Fort Fisher, and on March 6 th she was accidentally rammed by the blockader U. S. S. Monticello, and sank in 30 minutes (South 1963m: 6).

Figure 8. 7. Jewell and David South helping Stan learn how to dive on the wreck of the bIockade runner Beauregard. (Photo: South 1962) such as picks, files, chisels, medical kits, wooden carpenter tools, bullet molds, pocket knives, leather knife sheaths and shoes (South 1963k: 1819). ! was able to dive on that wreck on one occasion, but again the visibility was so poor I didn't learn a thing except that I preferred breathing the air on land sites to sucking life from a hose.

The U. S. S. Peterhoff--Salvaging Cannon from the Wreck

Early in 1863 the blockade runner Peterhoff was stopped and found to have a suspicious cargo. Certain papers from Mr. Slidell in England to J. P. Benjamin, Secretary of State for the Confederate States were thrown overboard to prevent them

Figure 8.8. Hall Watters and Charlie Foard checking the map they used to locate wrecks of blockade runners from the air. Hall discovered the wreck of the U. S. S. Peterhoff. (Photo: South 8/1963) During the salvage operations on the Modern Greece, Charlie Foard of Wilmington contacted Hall Watters, a professional fish-spotting pilot, and they flew over the area trying to see blockade runner wrecks from the air. By June of 1963, Hall Watters had located the wreck of the U. S. S. Peterhoff much further south than where the documents indicated it had gone down. He took a

172 photograph of the wreck, which shows large white sharks over it. Hall and his brother made a dive on the Peterhoff but were soon chased away by white sharks. After that they always carried a short rod, on the end of which was mounted a little tube holding a shotgun shell. The theory was, if a shark approached too close for comfort, the diver was supposed to thrust the shell against the head of the shark in just the right place, at which time it would explode, and theoretically dispatch the shark. I carried such a weapon on my dive on the wreck, but hoped I would never be called on test the theory by using it against a white shark. The Navy Lands--Commander Bull in Charge Once the wreck was located arrangements were made between the Centennial Commission and Lt. Commander, J. L. Bull, III, of the U. S. S. Petrel ASR 14, to dive on the Peterhoff and recovei the cannon. I was in charge of coordinating the efforts o f the Navy divers and the Department of Archives and History. The night before the scheduled dive Commander Bull dived on the wreck and scheduled a conference with his divers for early the following morning. I'll never forget how impressed I was by the way he briefed his divers. When the appointed time arrived we had gathered in the yard of the beach house where the Navy crew was staying. Commander Bull squatted down and smoothed out a place in the damp sand with his hand. Then he picked up a small stick and drew in the sand the shape of the wreck as it lay 32 feet deep in the ocean, complete with the position of the cannon. Then, he spoke to each man and spelled out what strap went around which cannon at the muzzle, and which at the trunnion--which at the cascabel, and how they were to be attached to the lines going to the balloon. He had each man acknowledge whether he understood his assignment. He pointed out safety concerns and other details. The experienced divers focused intensely on what he was saying. Then he said, "Let's get those cannon," and the strategy meeting was

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION over--not a word having been wasted unnecessarily--an impressive performance! I Dive On the Wreck of the U.S.S. Peterhoff I had rented the cabin cruiser, Coquina out of Wrightsville Beach, as the operations vessel for the project. When I got down on the deck of the Peterhoff on a sightseeing tour of the wreck, the cannon were the primary feature I could see, with various kinds of beautiful colorful plants growing on and around the cannon barrels. There were fish all around me, as though I were inside a glass bowl surrounded by fish looking in at me. Wherever I moved, the circle of fish was always there. It was a paradise of beauty. Meanwhile, off to my right, I got glimpses of the Navy divers as they followed the orders Commander Bull had given them. One was holding an air tank beneath a large black pontoon balloon, inflating it--another was keeping the lines clear as the balloon tugged upward on the cannon. As the cannon was lifted from the ocean floor, and approached the surface, its speed increased due to the reduced water pressure. After I had enjoyed the scene for a short while, the little fish disappeared and when I was looking for them I saw the huge side of a shark glide by. I remembered that Hall Watters had taken a color photograph of white sharks on this wreck. They were so large they extended from one side of the vessel to the other. When Hall dived on this wreck the first time with his brother, a large white shark began circling them, and they quickly surfaced. As they got to their Boston Whaler, Hall quickly pulled his brother in just as the shark struck the boarding ladder, knocking it into the air, where it sailed all the way across the vessel to land in the water beyond. As this incident came to mind, I quickly began to think of surfacing. The little rod with the shotgun shell on the end was little comfort to me. A tap on my shoulder by a Navy diver called my attention to the cannon that was beginning to lift from the bottom. He motioned for me to surface. I was told when I went down that I had only about 30 minutes of air left in the tank I had

Civil War Stories

on, but I thought I had only been down less than that--then my air ran out. I knew what to do, so as I began my slow upward ascent, the air pressure was lessened, and I had plenty of air to breath until I surfaced. The crew had become concerned about me, saying I had been down for 45 minutes--to me it had seemed much less. The Cannon Barrel Is Recovered Back in the cabin cruiser I had rented for the divers to work from, I saw bubbles surfacing almost beneath the vessel, which to me meant that the divers were directly beneath us. I called to Captain Trask and pointed that out to him. Immediately he shouted orders and put the ship in gear to try to move it away from the bubbles. It had drifted directly over the balloon. Then, before it had been moved far enough, the balloon suddenly came up and struck the keel, knocking us off our feet and throwing us around. Then, clear of the vessel, the balloon leaped into the air, but with the weight of the cannon beneath it settled back into the ocean with an enormous splash. Later Captain Alex Trask had the vessel inspected, and found that the keel was cracked, and it had to be repaired--the Centennial Commission paid the bill. When it was floated securely beneath the pontoon balloon, the cannon was slowly towed northward behind the Coquina to Fort Fisher. I had made arrangements with the 701 st Radar Squadron at Kure Beach to have a bulldozer on hand to pull the cannon ashore. The divers tied a rope from the balloon and cannon barrel and dragged it toward shore until the cannon barrel hit the bottom. They then tied the rope to the bulldozer which pulled the barrel onto the sandy beach. It was then lifted and hauled to the Conservation Laboratory, where it was turned over to a conservator (South 1963m: 7). On the second day, too much air was fed into the pontoon balloon and it exploded as it leaped into the air, dropping the second cannon back to the bottom. After that disaster improvised equipment was used, enabling the divers to bring the second gun barrel ashore. Brass davit pots

173 [sockets], the bilge pump, and the commode were brought up as samples o f the smaller objects on the vessel. As the cannon were brought to the beach a large crowd of interested persons gathered to witness the event. Newspaper, radio, and television representatives gathered information for carrying the news to a nation-wide audience.

Figure 8.9. Navy and other personnel, pulling closer to shore, the cannon barrel hanging beneath the balloon. (Photo: South 8/1963) The large cannon weighed over 7,200 pounds and was over 10 feet long, while the smaller one was nine feet long--weighing over 6,400 pounds. The larger cannon was made at the Tredegar Foundary in Virginia, and was marked "1847 T F," and "32," on the trunions. I was immediately concerned that the marks on the ends of the trunions would be destroyed if careful conservation were not conducted soon. Because, as a result of emersion in salty sea water, electrolysis had converted the cast iron to a surface coating o f graphite. The surface of the cannon and the marks on the trunions, could easily be scratched with the fingernail. I turned the gun barrel over to the Conservation Laboratory. The barrel was soaked in water for a year or so, lifted out of the rust-stained water periodically to show to visiting dignitaries, then put back. When the Conservation Laboratory personnel conducted this display I couldn't help noticing

174

Figure 8.10. The cannon barrel, from the blockade vessel U. S. S~ Peterhoff lying on the beach. (Photo: South 8/1963)

that the graphite details on the trunions was flaking off. I was glad I had photographed that evidence before that "conservation" took place (South 1963m: 6). I believe it was subjected to electrolysis later on, but by that time none of the original graphite surface detail remained. I have been told that gun barrel is now exhibited in one of the gun emplacements at Fort Fisher. Hall W a t t e r s - - M o v i n g a D u n e to Foil Looters

Hall Watters was a pilot who would spot wrecks from the air, drop a buoy to mark the location, then use his Boston Whaler to examine the wreck. He worked with North Carolina representatives at a time when some divers were damaging Civil War blockade runner wrecks off shore using dynamite to get the wreck out of the way so they could get to the artifacts. Once Hall was diving on a wreck when another boat came up and the captain asked if he was anchored over a wreck. Hall knew the operator of the vessel, and that he used explosives to blow the side out of wrecks to get at artifacts inside the hull, so he knew these people

AN ARCHAEOLOGICALEVOLUTION were bad news. Using his bull horn Hall told them he was just fishing, but he suspected the occupants were zeroing in on the coordinates he had used to place his vessel over the wreck. Sure enough, the next day he flew over the wreck and the same boat was anchored there. The coordinates he had used were a line of power line posts on a point of land toward the north, with a peaked sand dune with a small clump of yaupon bushes on top, aligned with a single very tall pine tree beyond. When the boat was positioned with both these markers on the land, the wreck was beneath the vessel. Hall could see hey were diving on the wreck. Hall flew low, only a few feet above the water, and with his bull horn, he had challenged the divers to get away from the wreck. He kept doing this until the vessel weighed anchor and began moving away. That weekend, Hall and his brother, knowing the importance of the peaked dune with the tall pine tree as an alignment marker, went to the site of the dune with shovels and bush axes. They cut down all the yaupon bushes from top of the dune, then proceeded to work Saturday and Sunday leveling the peak o f the dune with their shovels. The following weekend he flew over the area and saw the same boat dragging-anchor trying to locate the wreck. Unknowingly using a remaining dune south of the one Hall had moved to align with the pine tree, thus placing their dive vessel a half-mile south of the location of the wreck of the blockade-runner. Few divers at that time would have done that to protect the cultural resource represented by those coastal wrecks. The Civil War Centennial had increased the market in artifacts from that period, so wrecks were more vulnerable than they had been before the mid-60s. An example of this is illustrated by the fact that around 1962, I noticed that a nationally known merchandiser of relics advertised Civil War Gatlin gun multi-barreled machineguns for sale. After the Civil War, the company had bought inventories of Government surplus military equipment and supplies stockpiled in warehouses.

Civil War Stories

The company was not allowed by law to sell the complete assembled gun, but you could buy the barrel in one part of the catalog, the stand in another, and other parts elsewhere, so that by specifying various part numbers, an original Gatlin gun could be reassembled. As the mid1960s approached, the cost of the parts was $5,000, a reasonable price for museums needing such an original relic for display. A Confederate Electric Torpedo Is Discovered On a Sunday in May 1964, I received a phone call at home from a newspaper reporter who wanted to know about the electric torpedo found on the beach at Fort Fisher over the weekend. He said he had seen the torpedo uncovered once before, but an historian had identified it as a modern cement mixer, and it had been rebuffed. He said it looked to him like a Civil War electric torpedo, and wanted to know what interpretation I had on' it. Not having seen it, I couldn't answer his question. He said three boys had noticed an iron object in the bottom of a hole where a jeep had gotten stuck in the sand. In digging they had found the torpedo and notified the conservator at the Conservation Laboratory. I had not been previously notified of the discovery. I was by that time in charge of the site as well as Brunswick Town. I immediately went to the beach at Fort Fisher, where the conservator identified the large iron object in the hole as one of the Confederate torpedoes that had guarded the New Inlet channel against possible entry by Federal blockading vessels. The double-pointed torpedo, about three feet in diameter, was made of thick iron boilerplate held together by large iron rivets. A weapon of this type had been floated in the channel of the inlet, with wires connected to a detonator leading to the beach and then to a shed housing a series of wet batteries. The little battery house was shown on a map of Fort Fisher, which was made at the time the torpedoes were in the channel. If a Federal vessel entered the channel the electric current was sent from the battery to detonate the primer inside and explode the torpedo.

175 An Armed Services Carnival When I arrived at the scene, I found a small crowd gathered, and discovered that the night before, the United States Coast Guard had placed a guard on the torpedo in the hole. I was assured it was under the jurisdiction of the Coast Guard for security reasons because the thing might explode. I told the guard representative that it was on a State Historic Site and was state property, and that it was full of wet sand and was totally harmless. I knew this historic artifact would make a fine addition to the Fort Fisher Museum. About this time a United States Air Force lieutenant from the Fort Fisher Air Base arrived and said the torpedo belonged to the United States Government as contraband of the Civil War. He said the Air Force and Coast Guard would keep the area clear until a United States Army demolition team, which had been notified, arrived from Fort Bragg. With the torpedo in such good hands with three govemment agencies involved in protecting and laying claim to it, I felt like it was safe for me to separate myself from the excited crowd standing around the hole, and go home and go to bed. Everyone standing around the hole was a boss - - they certainly didn't need me to add to the confusion. The next day Lieutenant John Christopher of the 864 th Ordinance Detachment at Fort Bragg arrived by helicopter and concurred with me that the torpedo was completely safe and was not going to explode in the next little while. The plan underway before I arrived on the scene was to lift the torpedo by helicopter and deposit it in the yard of the Conservation Laboratory nearby. The Army personnel hooked ropes and cables to the torpedo and the helicopter hovered overhead, blowing a blinding cloud of sand over the area as a cable was fastened to the torpedo. Then the helicopter began to attempt to lift the water and sand-filled historic relic. As more power was exerted the helicopter began to swing back and forth under the strain of the dead weight. The pilot wisely decided to unhook the cable and

! 76 land on the beach a few yards away before ultimately saying goodbye. After this attempt by the Army, I called the 701 st Air Force Radar Squadron and asked if they would furnish a bulldozer to lift the torpedo out of the hole and carry it to the conservation laboratory. The squadron was glad to do that, and once the paperwork was done, the bulldozer arrived at the hole in the beach. Johnny Miller jumped into the hole and assisted in strapping the torpedo to the bulldozer blade lowered into the hole. The bulldozer operator lifted the torpedo out of its sandy bed. The ropes were shortened, snugging the torpedo to the blade, and we began following the bulldozer down a sandy path between dunes, toward the Conservation Laboratory, followed by a retinue of people watching the show. Suddenly, as the procession made its way between two dunes, a United States Navy vehicle appeared in the sandy road in front of the bulldozer. A Navy lieutenant jumped out and announced that the object fastened to the front of the bulldozer was obviously a World War II naval mine, and he was going to take it to the Charleston Museum for exhibit. From the newspaper accounts the admiral had learned that it had been found on the beach, and he thus claimed it as in the Navy's jurisdiction. The lieutenant said he represented the admiral of the 5 th Naval District who had given him orders to seize the "mine" for the museum. Well, as my daddy often said--"another precinct heard from," except in this case it was another Federal government armed service. I explained the "torpedo" was the property of the State of North Carolina, and was destined for exhibit in the Fort Fisher Museum, not in a museum in another state. Meanwhile, the Air Force bulldozer driver was yelling for the Navy guys to get their ~