North Carolina Cherokees claim to be descendants of Clovis Culture
The original Native American inhabitants of the French Broad River Valley lived in simple huts woven from saplings.
The
Eastern Band of Cherokees recently issued a press release, in which a
cultural heritage official of the tribe, Barbara Duncan, described a
program, which will help preserve 10,000 year old Cherokee artifacts
around North America. An initial project is on the Biltmore Estate
near Asheville,
NC. Archaeologists label these artifacts as the Clovis Culture. A
newspaper in Asheville developed the press release into a community news
article about archaeological projects on the Biltmore Estate.
The Asheville-Citizen Times reporter and Duncan described the Cherokee-Clovis artifacts as being associated with the Archaic Period. However, the Clovis Culture belongs to the Paleo-American Period. Clovis artifacts date from about 13,500 to 10,500 years ago, not 8,000 BC as stated by the article.
No archaeological reference could be found that confirmed the Eastern Band’s new claim of Clovis and Archaic Period artifacts being made by the Cherokees. The oldest known Clovis artifacts were found at the Topper Site on the Savannah River in Allendale County, SC, north of Savannah, GA. At the time that French Huguenots explored that region in 1562 through 1565, it was occupied by Uchee and Apalache-Creek Indian villages. Nearby was the famous Apalache-Creek town of Palachikola.
Without specifically mentioning the Clovis Culture, the Eastern Band of Cherokees has long claimed that the Cherokees were the first humans in North America, plus that the Aztecs and Mayas were their descendants. However, most such films and publications get their chronology mixed up and place the Aztecs in an earlier time period than the Mayas, when in fact, the opposite is true.
A humorous mistake was made by the North Carolina archaeologists and Eastern Band tribal officials, who were interviewed for the newspaper article. Both claimed that a Woodland Period (250-500 AD) village on the Biltmore Estate was a Cherokee community, but was for scientific reasons, was labeled as being the Connestee Culture. The meaning of the Cherokee word, Coneste was supposedly forgotten. According to the Dictionary of Muskogee-Creek by University of Oklahoma professors Jack Martin and Margaret Mauldin, Connestee is the Anglicization of the Itsate-Creek word Konos-te, which means, "Spotted Skunk People." Neither the English or Creek word has any meaning in Cherokee, other than being a proper noun.
Duncan is employed by the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. The museum’s logo is a shell gorget, which was found in eastern Missouri across the Mississippi River from Cahokia Mounds. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Cultural Preservation Office uses as its logo, a shell gorget, which was found in Mound C at Etowah Mounds in northwest Georgia, which the Muscogee-Creek Nation of Oklahoma considers to be its Mother Town.
Cherokee Heritage Trails Guide, a book published by the University of North Carolina Press claims that the Cherokees were the people, who developed corn, beans and squash into cultivated crops in addition to being the first humans in the Americas. The book was co-authored by Duncan and Dr. Brett Riggs, an anthropology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, These claims also cannot be verified by other anthropological or archaeological references.
When French explorers first paddled up the French Broad River in the 1690s, the entire region around present day Asheville and Hendersonville, NC was occupied by Shawnee and Creek Indians. The Swannanoa River gets its name from the Creek words, Suwano Owa, which mean Shawnee River. A very large Shawnee village was located near the present location of entrance gate at the Biltmore Estate. The region around Asheville continued to be occupied by Shawnee villages until 1763, when the Shawnee were expelled because they were allies of the French. No American Indians were allowed to live in the region afterward. However, in the late 20th century, the Asheville Chamber of Commerce began advertising Asheville as the "Ancient Heart of the Cherokee Nation" and residents quickly forgot the region's actual Shawnee heritage.
The Asheville-Citizen Times reporter and Duncan described the Cherokee-Clovis artifacts as being associated with the Archaic Period. However, the Clovis Culture belongs to the Paleo-American Period. Clovis artifacts date from about 13,500 to 10,500 years ago, not 8,000 BC as stated by the article.
No archaeological reference could be found that confirmed the Eastern Band’s new claim of Clovis and Archaic Period artifacts being made by the Cherokees. The oldest known Clovis artifacts were found at the Topper Site on the Savannah River in Allendale County, SC, north of Savannah, GA. At the time that French Huguenots explored that region in 1562 through 1565, it was occupied by Uchee and Apalache-Creek Indian villages. Nearby was the famous Apalache-Creek town of Palachikola.
Without specifically mentioning the Clovis Culture, the Eastern Band of Cherokees has long claimed that the Cherokees were the first humans in North America, plus that the Aztecs and Mayas were their descendants. However, most such films and publications get their chronology mixed up and place the Aztecs in an earlier time period than the Mayas, when in fact, the opposite is true.
A humorous mistake was made by the North Carolina archaeologists and Eastern Band tribal officials, who were interviewed for the newspaper article. Both claimed that a Woodland Period (250-500 AD) village on the Biltmore Estate was a Cherokee community, but was for scientific reasons, was labeled as being the Connestee Culture. The meaning of the Cherokee word, Coneste was supposedly forgotten. According to the Dictionary of Muskogee-Creek by University of Oklahoma professors Jack Martin and Margaret Mauldin, Connestee is the Anglicization of the Itsate-Creek word Konos-te, which means, "Spotted Skunk People." Neither the English or Creek word has any meaning in Cherokee, other than being a proper noun.
Duncan is employed by the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. The museum’s logo is a shell gorget, which was found in eastern Missouri across the Mississippi River from Cahokia Mounds. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Cultural Preservation Office uses as its logo, a shell gorget, which was found in Mound C at Etowah Mounds in northwest Georgia, which the Muscogee-Creek Nation of Oklahoma considers to be its Mother Town.
Cherokee Heritage Trails Guide, a book published by the University of North Carolina Press claims that the Cherokees were the people, who developed corn, beans and squash into cultivated crops in addition to being the first humans in the Americas. The book was co-authored by Duncan and Dr. Brett Riggs, an anthropology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, These claims also cannot be verified by other anthropological or archaeological references.
When French explorers first paddled up the French Broad River in the 1690s, the entire region around present day Asheville and Hendersonville, NC was occupied by Shawnee and Creek Indians. The Swannanoa River gets its name from the Creek words, Suwano Owa, which mean Shawnee River. A very large Shawnee village was located near the present location of entrance gate at the Biltmore Estate. The region around Asheville continued to be occupied by Shawnee villages until 1763, when the Shawnee were expelled because they were allies of the French. No American Indians were allowed to live in the region afterward. However, in the late 20th century, the Asheville Chamber of Commerce began advertising Asheville as the "Ancient Heart of the Cherokee Nation" and residents quickly forgot the region's actual Shawnee heritage.
Archaeological dig site reveals treasure trove of artifacts under Huguenot Street (with photo gallery)
PlayPrev|Next1 of 3The Huguenot settlement in New Paltz dates back to 1678. But as long ago as that seems, archeological finds at what is now Historic Huguenot Street date occupation of the area back to circa 7,000 BC, according to Dr. Joseph Diamond, associate professor of anthropology at SUNY New Paltz.
Diamond has conducted archeological investigations on Huguenot Street since 1998. Every summer he directs the college-sponsored Archaeological Field School there for the department of anthropology at SUNY New Paltz, guiding a group of undergraduate and graduate students in unearthing historic and prehistoric artifacts.
The students are currently wrapping up another season of the program, following up their work on site earlier this summer by working in the laboratory at the college to curate and analyze what they have excavated. In addition to the hands-on experience of working in the field, the students received rigorous instruction from Diamond on mapping, recording data, classification and analysis of the artifacts found and environmental, cultural and historical reconstruction.
This is the Field School’s third year spent working on the church property. Diamond said he’s not yet sure whether they’ll return to that site again next year or not. On a visit last week during the final days of the dig, his students were divided amongst several large trenches they’d dug in the lawn outside the Reformed Church. The area was once the site of an earlier Huguenot church built in 1772, whose stone foundation was “robbed,” said Diamond, to supply materials to build the current church.
After the new church was built in 1839, the site became a horse stable — a parking lot for the church, if you will, to borrow an analogy from student Helen Curran — and in the middle of it all, a pigpen. “We found a pig bone here,” said Curran, “and believe it or not, it still smelled!”
Bones and other organic matter are more unusual to find, explained student Nathaniel Ogren, because the soil here is so acidic most bones dissolve after 300-400 years.
The students have uncovered items that date to widely ranging eras. “We’ve been finding a mixture of Native American artifacts like projectile points, pottery and beads,” said Curran, “along with historic things like nails and glass from the church. We found bricks, we found mortar that held the rocks together for the foundation, and just yesterday we found a coat button from the 1700s and a cross pendant from the same time. It’s really cool to see how many things are on this one piece of land.”
And it all gets mixed together, regardless of what era it originally came from, she says. “Obviously you’d expect to find the older things at the bottom and the newest at the top, but when the ground was disturbed for building, it gets all mixed together.” For example, Curran explained, the students are instructed to dig down ten centimeters at a time, and on their first day they found a piece from 1,000 BC that was close to the surface. Later, digging deeper, they found clothing from the early 1900s.
And the oldest thing they found this summer? Curran deferred to Tisa Loewen, who did the Field School last year and was back this year as a teaching assistant before going to NYU this fall.
“It was a spear point from about 3,000 BC,” Loewen said.
Curran explained that the students learned where to dig by differentiating between the soils. Yellow soil is glacial, untouched “never-before-been-dug-in” soil, while the dark brown soil was filler that had been added. When the soil is wet they can really tell the difference, she said.
Huguenot Street has always been a very busy place because it’s just several hundred feet uphill of the Wallkill — and historically people settle near the water — and it was occupied on this side, as Curran pointed out, because it floods on the other side of the river.
The artifacts the students found on church property remain the property of the church, although some will be housed at the college for an indeterminate time after they’re catalogued and curated, kept in a suitably controlled environment.
Most of the students working in the Archaeological Field School were either recently graduated and completing the course as their last class, like Curran (an anthropology major) and student Danielle Sweetser, a history major who was sifting objects and soil through fine mesh screening. A few of the students were undergrads with one or two years left in their studies, like Joe Bacci, an anthropology major going into his last year at SUNY and Nathaniel Ogren, entering his third year and declaring as an anthropology major.
Under professor Diamond’s guidance, archaeological studies at Huguenot Street have yielded evidence of a stockade built between 1678 and 1680 and earlier Huguenot houses predating the stone houses, built using sticks and clay.