Thursday, July 21, 1977
3
University Daily Kansan
30 University of Kansas students, using trowels and shovels, are patiently excavating the cultural remains of several Indian villages near Blue Springs, Mo.
A nearby woods offers pleasant relief from the afternoon sun, (left to right) Mike Barton, Wichita graduate student; Gary Hardman, Valley Center senior; Roger Saft, Benton senator; Nanny Smalley, Tex., graduate student, and Stewart Johnson, Otawa school, take a much-needed break.
Jane Dagenais, Wichita
numbers and catalogues
artifacts for further
research.
A diagram is made of each excavation, indicating the location of all artifacts discovered. Joe Schmidt (left), Hochstein graduate student, and Joe Artz, Council Grove graduate student, methodically pinpoint each stone in a hearth that is about 7,000 to 12,000 years old.
Preserving the past
Photos by KENT VAN HOESEN
Story by JANET WARD
Paintstakingly, by inch in several prehistoric Indian villages and campesains along the Little River Blue in Jackson County Mo., to 100 students. By about 30 University of Kansas student
The students, working on a project sponsored by the Kansas City District of the U.S. Corps of Corpses, have been placed in thoracoplasty, have spent eight weeks trying to save as many of the sites as possible before the Corps finalizes changing the course of the Little River and the sites and the information they hold is lost.
The University has two years to finish the "salvage" archaeology, Albert Johnson, professor of anthropology, and director of the project, said. Whenever a construction project involving federal money is planned, cultural resources in the area must be taken into consideration. If the site is determined by archaeologists or historians to be very important, money is provided to save as much of it as possible before construction begins.
"It could go to the point of stopping construction," Johnson said.
The Corps is modifying the channel of the Little Blue in anticipation of economic expansion in the area and for flood control, he said. Sites along the channel that are threatened by the construction have been turned over to KU for excavation.
Along the river, there are about 70 sites that have been discovered by archaeologists from KU and the University of Missouri and local groups. All of the sites are threatened. Johnson said.
The project this summer called for major excavation of two sites and testing for possible use of the site.
Both of the sites that received major excavation this summer are dated so early, he said, that they can't be connected with any historic tribe. However, they appear to be of the time period between A.D. 500 to A.D. 1,000. No work has been done on sites in
"We will spend the academic year analyzing data," Johnson said, "and we'll go back next week."
The work, which ends July 29, is largely done by hand. Johnson said. The students use trolleys and shovels to work on small blocks of ground. The process is slow because not only are the artifacts important, but also their location in relationship to each other is.
time period in the Kansas City area, Johnson said.
Houses, storage pits, fireplaces and artifacts such as arrow points, spear points, knives and animal bones have been found at the sites, Johnson said. Charred seeds and nuts also have been found, indicating a small-scale agriculture of corn, squash and beans.
This is important, Johnson said, because it provides evidence of a transitional culture, one going from hunting and gathering to agriculture as a means of food supply.
"We're very pleased with the results and have had good returns." Johnson said.
Many of the students working at the sites are graduate and undergraduate students in anthropology, he said, but some are students interested in the work or looking for a summer job. Money for the students also came from the Corus.
The students are living in a large house that the Corps purchased in a future reservoir area. They work eight hours a day, five days a week, he said, and lately have been starting at five or more jobs.
students, especially those interested in professional careers in anthropology, have gained by earning money and by getting field experience in archaeology. Johnson said.
After a long day of tedious, dirty work, Dan Bower (left foreground), Lawrence, Don Bower, Lawrence graduate student, and Nancy Hassett, St. Paul, Ninn., graduate student, trudge weary home