Posted on 12/01/2007 6:09:49 PM PST by blam
Finding 2,500-year-old bones
On land for pumping station, investigators get a surprise
Saturday, December 1, 2007 3:08 AM
By Theodore Decker
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Justin Zink works at the site where a prehistoric skeleton was uncovered on the grounds of the Columbus Southerly Wastewater Treatment Plant.
On the site beside the Scioto River, the archaeologists had found fire pits dating to about 550 B.C., shards of pottery, even traces of an ancient building.
This week, Ryan Weller and his team found something more: a human skeleton, buried on the riverbank by his or her loved ones as long as 2,500 years ago.
What's more, the skeleton might have company.
The archaeologists methodically scraping away the centuries at the Columbus Southerly Wastewater Treatment Plant, 6977 S. High St., said yesterday that they have uncovered a prehistoric burial site.
Only one burial has been confirmed so far, with a skeleton that appears to be largely intact, Weller said. Another spot appears to be the remains of a cremated person, and clues in the soil suggest that other people might have been buried nearby.
"Possibly up to nine," Weller said.
Weller, a 40-year-old archaeologist, had been assessing the property's historical value before Columbus builds a pumping station there. His company, Weller & Associates Inc. of Grandview Heights, has been working with the city for about two years, checking out various locations as construction progresses.
"A lot of times, we're out digging empty holes," he said.
Rick Tilton, a spokesman for the city's public-utilities department, said the find shouldn't derail the pumping station because the burial area is on the fringe of the job site.
Weller focused on the latest site while walking along the Scioto. He noticed discolorations in the eroded bank that appeared, to his experienced eye, to be the cross-section of a pit of some kind.
In the two months since then, the team has uncovered five fire pits, which served as heat sources and ovens for those who lived there.
The spot wasn't rich in artifacts, so crew members were stunned when they began digging in another pit and found the skeleton.
"We had no idea this was going to be here," Weller said.
The site appears to have been a seasonal encampment for people who lived during the Early Woodland time period, Weller said. They likely were drawn there for a variety of reasons, ranging from good hunting or fishing grounds to bountiful nut supplies.
The team hasn't dated the human remains, but the nearby fire pits found at the same depth date to about 550 B.C.
"There were people living all over Ohio in that time period," said Bradley T. Lepper, curator of archaeology at the Ohio Historical Society. "What makes this period so interesting is, it is the first farmers in the Ohio Valley. They were still hunting, gathering and fishing, but they had begun the process of settling down into villages and growing crops."
Weller said he found no evidence that the burials on the site involved mounds seen at other sites.
"This may be something that predated the Mound Builders," he said.
The team will spend the next several weeks excavating the site. What will happen to the human remains is unclear. Weller said myriad agencies determine where they end up, whether in museums or with a particular American Indian group. The negotiations are complex and sensitive, he said.
Much older human remains have been found in Ohio, but Lepper said all such finds are incredibly valuable.
"It's always interesting to find any traces of the past, especially from a time so distant," Lepper said. "Opening windows on the past like this are extraordinary events."
No mention of giant or oversized skeletons.
Or Helen Thomas?
And the kicker is that they voted in the last election there.
Woody Hayes' body was dug up???
This is just a few miles from where I live. We, my son and I, find all sorts of flint artifacts on our land just about every time we bother to look. I have a copy of diary written in the early 1700’s by a roaming preacher who mentions the great Scioto tribe and their thriving iron works in what is now downtown Columbus.
Quick, get them voter registration cards!
Woody was from Newcomerstown, Ohio. Its name comes from the lady who lead the indian settlement, a indian sqaw called “Mrs. Newcomer.” An account of her is also in the diary I mention above. Newcomerstown then (early 1700’s)had wooden houses and streets and was well-organized and prosperous. It’s about 15 miles north of me. Now it has wooden houses, asphalt streets and, by today’s standards, not so prosperous.
Ohio’s last conservative.
Yes.
Is she still in this world?
Mere fundamentalist's fables....
Re 8: Amazing!!
Very interesting.
“and clues in the soil suggest that other people might have been buried nearby.”
Like what? Obits?
I predict that some nutbar aboriginal American group will seize this opportunity to protest and
1) Exclaim their indignation to the descecration of the burial site.
2) Demand all activity at the site to cease.
3) Demand the return of the bones.
4) Engage a legal team.
5) Sue someone.
And all of this will happen within the next week.
Same here in SE Tennessee. Farmers have been picking up spear points and arrow heads by the bucketfuls in this area for two centuries. I have one spear point I found in a plowed field about 7 years ago I had dated to 11,500 years BP. I'm always finding pottery shards, flint and the occasional remnants of grinding stones in my garden spot. I even found a tomahawk head in the river that borders my property. There are dozens of mounds all up and down this valley, although some have been leveled by farmers over the years. There was supposed to have been a mound on my property, near where my runway is now, but it was long ago leveled by a previous owner. Strangely, the grass still shows a circle where the mound was supposed to be located.....
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