by Jim P.
Last night, the North Smithfield Town Council passed a resolution to halt all development in the areas of the Nipsachuk Swamp and Hill. It was accomplished with the help of Dr. Meli's tireless efforts. His survey of the property was an important element in the fight to save the site from the bulldozer. He lent his name, credentials, and reputation to the preservation of this important stone structure site.
For many years we have wondered loudly why archaeologists and anthropologists have largely ignored and dismissed this area of research. No matter what we ultimately think of each one of their conclusions, when we look back on these days in 10 or 20 years we will remember names like Dr. Curtiss Hoffman, Dr. William S. Simmons, and Dr. Fred Meli as those men who dared to step boldly from the mold and pave a new path for their fields of study. We will remember them as the pioneers they truly are. We will appreciate them for finally listening and taking an active interest in a subject that we've all been working hard to get them to notice for so long.
Burial mounds or not, Dr. Meli deserves our appreciation. We, of all people, should be able to clearly see the forest for the trees.
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This is about rock piles and stone mound sites in New England. A balance is needed between keeping them secret and making them public. Also arrowheads, stone tools and other surface archaeology.
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Jim, you are of course right. I just wish the protection would not have to be at the expense of keeping an open mind about what kind of ceremonial objects the piles represent.
ReplyDeleteI understand your feelings on the matter, Peter. I don't blame you one bit.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, I do believe Dr. Meli's conclusions are his honest assessment based on his experience. I also believe he is not alone with his opinions -- local historians and a Wampanoag historian and q genealogist have all shared a similar opinion with the public.
I'm excited at the prospect of having one of these mounds excavated. I think in either case, whether burial or not, this branch of research is going to gain from it by leaps and bounds.
Woah! We did not hear about a mound being excavated. Please explain.
ReplyDeleteIt was near the end of the Providence Journal article.
ReplyDelete"Greene said the tribe can’t afford to buy the land, but wants to work with the property owners and perhaps state historical officials to hire qualified archaeologists to excavate some of the piles.
'We are going to have to spoon some soil out of there,' Greene said, 'to establish a point in time.'
Simmons said that might be the only way to figure out for sure the cairns’ purpose.
'It’s really hard to know until you excavate,' he said."
I cannot deny being curious about what would be found inside a mound. But good lord! They do not sound like they know what they are doing. "It is really hard to know until you excavate"...know what? I do not think anyone knows how to date these things. Also, it takes real expertise to re-assemble a rock pile after taking it apart.
ReplyDeleteI attended this town council meeting and have seen the piles in person. A few of the piles have been disturbed by perk tests. These are the piles that Dr. Meli wanted to "spoon" from. The untouched piles would simply be photographed recorded. Tim M.
ReplyDeleteJust to be clear, the last comment is by a different Tim M.
ReplyDeleteWhat is this "spooning" of which they speak?
ReplyDeleteWilfred Greene, Chief of the Seaconke Wampanoags, made the comment about spooning some soil to establish a date.
ReplyDeleteThe other quote was from Dr. William S. Simmons, a Brown University anthropology professor. He said it was hard to know the purpose of the cairns until you excavate.
Excavating is sort of looking down, just one direction. Ancient people who made these things looked in every direction, so we might want to use our imaginations to look in every direction, see the pattern perhaps. Then there's all these other places with all these other features that create similar patterns. I'm not sure I'm saying what I want to say.
ReplyDeleteSome quotes from allen lutins website: "The past slips from our grasp. It leaves us only scattered things. The bond that united them eludes us. Our imagination usually fills in the void by making use of preconceived theories...Archaeology, then, does not supply us with certitudes, but rather with vague hypotheses. And in the shade of these hypotheses some artists are content to dream, considering them less as scientific facts than as sources of inspiration." -Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music in the Form - Six Lessons / "Men cling passionately to old traditions and display intense reluctance to modify customary modes of behavior, as innovators at all times have found to their cost. The dead-weight of conservatism, largely a lazy and cowardly distaste for the strenuous and painful activity of real thinking, has undoubtedly retarded human progress..." -V. Gordon Childe, Man Makes Himself, p. 31./ "Nothing changes more constantly than the past; for the past that influences our lives does not consist of what actually happened, but of what men believe happened." -Gerald White Johnson (1890-?), American Heroes and Hero-Worships, Chapter 1. / "Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein." -Solomon (Prophets 26:27)
Tim (MacSweeney) you are too polite. Maybe I am projecting my own feeling which is that this excavation should be the last thing done. However, given that there are several piles already destroyed - destroying them more maybe does not matter.
ReplyDeleteConsidering that a number of archaeologists and historians, including those from the Wampanoag Tribe, believe some of these mounds at Nipsachuk contain burials, there is no place else to start but down to determine whether burial was the purpose. It has already been stated that at least one of these mounds was damaged by a perk test, and it is the damaged pile that they want to excavate.
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ReplyDeleteFor reference: in the end it turned out that the excavation was done so sloppily that the information garnered was considered questionable. There is more to the story.
ReplyDelete