Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Dig Progress Report #2

With the threat of rain today, I made an early start hoping to find something significant.  The only discovery today is the large center stone on which one might expect to find an artifacts that would have been left.  I found nothing, not even anything that that I could identify as burn residue.

Some sample photos of the project follows:

 Set up by Day 3.  Overburden rocks stacked in the background.

 Starting view on Cairn#5

 First day's efforts

 Day 2

 Day 3

 Day 3 w/ center stone revealed

The only volunteer to show up and totally useless, except for company!

The plan is to continue excavation around the center stone in the hope of discovering some artifacts in a lower level.  As best as I can tell, the jumble of rocks continue below the center stone, but for how far is unknown.


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5 comments:

  1. SliderApril 9, 2012 at 10:29 AM

    This is horrible!! I urge you to please stop this. Cleaning debris off a stone mound is one thing, but to destroy an intact artifact is very disturbing to me and inexcusable to the ancestors of the person or persons who created this stone mound.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mounds-MillsApril 9, 2012 at 11:49 AM

    Dear Slider,
    I suppose that you haven't read through all the postings. If so, you would find that three professional archaeologists have examined our site. Two believe they are of historic origin, probably by Euro-American settlers. One has encouraged me to do this excavation in an attempt to find some proof that there is some Native American connection.

    One visited with the expressed mission to determine if they were of Osage tradition and declared they are not. The Osage Nation was the last of the Native Americans removed from Missouri and the most likely to have a claim.

    I hope you can see that this effort is in support of establishing the true origins of these rock features.

    ReplyDelete
  3. pwaxApril 10, 2012 at 2:48 PM

    Those Archeologists and Osage Nation representatives should learn more about the USET resolutions, which recognize these features as objects to be protected and not destroyed.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mounds-MillsApril 10, 2012 at 5:26 PM

    I rather doubt that the Western tribes/nations are completely attuned to the issues of USET. I did search that web site for any resolutions pertaining to preservation of Native objects, but failed to find any.
    After seven years of research, we have been unable to associate these cairns with Native Americans with any certainty. The site is unique to any verified Native American features in the range of cairn sizes, construction techniques, and the large number of features in one location. It therefore cannot be considered as Native American in origin.

    Any Native artifacts that might be found will be returned to the ancestor's tribes in accordance with Federal and Missouri regulations.

    I would characterize your position as anything even "suspect" of being Native American must be preserved into perpetuity. This notion is in conflict with our national tradition of property rights. I believe I have made every reasonable attempt to determine the origin of these features, short of excavation. So far, even excavation leaves questions unanswered.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Tim MacSweeneyApril 12, 2012 at 6:21 AM

    http://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2012/04/mills-mound-comparison.html

    ReplyDelete

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