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Friday, October 16, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
Campus/Area
James Larson/KANSAN
Experts study proposed route
Barry Williams, an archaeologist with the Kansas State Historical Society, sifts through dirt taken near Mary's Lake, southeast of Lawrence. Williams is one of two state archaeologists investigating the historic value of the area in the path of the proposed Lawrence trafficway.
Archaeologists performing search at proposed site
By VALOREE ARMSTRONG Staff writer
Staff writer
Building a $3 million trafficway would have a large effect on Lawrence's future, but two archeologists are working to make sure it won't ruin tiny pieces of the past.
The Kansas State Historical Society is in the midst of a test excavation of the route of a proposed south Lawrence trafficway. The trafficway is a 14.3-mile roadway that would allow vehicles from Kansas to interstate from Highway 10 on the city's east side to Interstate 70 on the city's west side.
Two archeologist are in phase three of a four-phase search to make sure no pieces in the puzzle of Kansas history would be lost by building the 300-foot-wide trafficway.
William Lees, an archaeologist for the society, said, "We hope to find information there to tell how old the site is, what the site was used for and how well-preserved it is."
Artifacts such as stone tools, arrowheads and pottery are vital to dating the site. So far, Lees said, archeologists had found flakes of stone from old tools, and scraper stones used on animal hides at a site near Mary's Lake, southeast of Lawrence.
If Lees and the Kansas Department of Transportation are satisfied with the site's importance during the test excavation, the state likely would authorize a full-scale excavation, the fourth phase of the operation.
But Lees said that was unlikely.
Even more unlikely would be finding artifacts old and well-preserved enough to warrant routing the trafficway, he said.
The two archeologists are using meticulous methods to find tiny pieces of stone and ceramics in a 14-mile stretch of mostly pastureland.
We hope to find information there to tell how old the site is, what the site was used for and how well preserved it is.'
- William Lees
archaeologist
First, Lees examined records of sites in the trafficway's path already documented by archeologists. He began doing that research $1\frac{1}{2}$ years ago, at the request of the transportation department.
Lees said Kansas was historically rich, with 8,000 recorded archaeological sites and artifacts from 10,000 to 12,000 years old. But Lees he'd sell it for one,1,000-year-old find.
Ernest Angino, professor of geology, said he would expect Lawrence to be a prime spot for archeological finds because it's along a branch of the Oregon Trail.
One documented site is a territorial town named Franklin that crumbled to dust in the 1850s. Lees said he would be looking for archaic foundations of buildings from that period.
Next, Lees did a field survey, which required a little exercise. He and archeologist Barry Williams walked the path of the trafficway looking for signs of Kansas' past. Lees said that the search was difficult because the terrain was grassy.
They now are roping off areas two meters wide and one meter long and are digging, one level at a time, 40 to 50 centimeters — shovel and mason's trowel in hand.
They sift through dirt in search of a clue to the people who once lived there.
It seems a tedious process, but it is one that is required by the federal government in any similar project seeking federal and state money.
The excavation is one in a series of steps toward completing an environmental impact study that Frank Hempen, county public land manager, should be completed by the end of the year.
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