Because bluff shelters do a remarkable job of preserving plant remains, they are an amazing repository of information about Native American foodways in the past. The authors of Gathering, Gardening, and Agriculture use food, a basic human need, as an entry point to teach students about pre-Columbian Arkansas and the people who lived here. This 5th grade social studies curriculum aligns with the Arkansas Department of Education’s social studies framework and includes materials that fit with common Core State Standards for English language learning. Materials and background for this week-long series of lesson plans are available on the Gathering, Gardening, and Agriculture website. If you are a 5th grade teacher, or know one who might be interested, check this out!
The Arkansas Archeological Survey has a Facebook page and you should follow it! Get updates on our research, links to archeology related news stories, and opportunities to get involved as a volunteer. While you’re at it you also should look for the Facebook page of your local survey research station. If you’re in Fayetteville that would be the Arkansas Archeological Survey-UAF Research Station. Follow us today!
Rock art often appears in Ozark bluff shelters, but it also occurs in other locations in the state. Want to learn more about rock art in Arkansas? Check out the Arkansas Archeological Survey’s rock art web site. This site includes a searchable database of rock art in the state as well as in depth interpretations of the most fascinating examples. For those looking to learn more, the site includes full length articles that put rock art in context in. It’s is a great resource for teachers and includes lesson plans designed to be used with the photos and information on the site.
The Arkansas Archeological Society is holding it’s annual statewide meeting September 27th-29th 2019 in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Come learn more about Arkansas archeology and hear professional and avocational archeologists give papers about their research. There will be a Friday evening reception, and a Saturday evening banquet with a key-note address by Arkansas historian Judge Morris “Buzz” Arnold. The conference takes place at the historic Arlington Hotel and Spa. For more information or to register visit: https://arkarch.org/the-annual-meeting/
The Arkansas Archeological Survey conducted excavations at Saltpeter Cave in Newton County in 1969 and 1970—the very early years of the organization. Ken Cole, the first Research Station Archeologist stationed at Arkansas Tech (then Arkansas Polytechnic College) conducted two seasons of excavation into this shelter that had been previously visited by Dellinger’s crews in 1934. Cole excavated nine test units, the deepest of which contained almost 14 feet (4.11 meters) of archeological deposits representing at least 9,000 years of Arkansas history.
This deep, stratified deposit is all the more important to researchers as it is one of the few deep Arkansas bluff shelters investigated using modern excavation techniques. Thus, unlike the materials from the Dellinger excavations of the 1930s, we have detailed stratigraphic records, along with approximately 450 diagnostic hafted bifaces, and 42 un-dated radiocarbon samples. Unfortunately, Cole left the Arkansas Archeological Survey shortly following these excavations, leaving this collection curated, but largely untouched for 47 years.
Jared Pebworth and Lydia Rees photograph diagnostic bifaces from Saltpeter cave.
Jared Pebworth and Lydia Rees have begun to photograph the diagnostic lithic tools just focusing on the deepest unit—Test Unit E. If you just flick through the photographs by level of these hafted bifaces you can literally see some of the type transitions we are going to be able to explore with this collection.
Over the course of the next year, we hope use the Salt Peter collection to address some questions about Ozark chronology—particularly of the Early and Middle Archaic periods. This is much needed as many of these points types are, to this day, dated by a single, or relatively few, radiometric dates. The deep, stratified deposits at Salt peter Cave offer us an opportunity to analyze a cross-section of Ozark prehistory.
We received a start on our efforts to date this remarkable collection in the form of a grant from the Archeological Research Fund of the Arkansas Archeological Society. This will allow us to pay for one radiocarbon date associated with a projectile point from test unit E from the Saltpeter site. We will keep you posted on what we find out. We will also keep looking for additional funding to run more dates from this site.
On April 30, 2016, we had the honor of helping out our National Park Service colleagues with a hike and archeological tour of Indian Rockhouse Cave on Panther Creek in the Buffalo National River. We were asked to help after the park received a flood of interest in the event via advertising on social media. There was some concern that the numbers would overwhelm the staff. It was a great opportunity to talk about the archeology of bluff shelters in a spectacular setting. Dr. Jamie Brandon talked about the chronology of bluff shelter occupation and showed off some replicas of the kind of technology used by the native Americans who used these shelters in prehistory. Despite the damp weather the hike was a success and we look forward to giving more presentations in the Buffalo National River in the future.
Jamie Brandon talks about bluff shelters in a bluff shelter.
