\mmmmmmi\immmmm\nmmm\mm, 



house patterns, food remains and 

 weapons. 



A detailed analysis of pottery and 

 artifacts can tell if a population came 

 into contact with others. Surface 

 treatments and tempering of the durable 

 pottery can mark a society's place on 

 the historical timeline, and they hold up 

 better than bones and shell, which decay 

 on the surface and in acidic soil. 



"The things (uncovered 

 by excavations) are simply 

 the leftovers that remain 

 from a culture, and we find 

 the things as people left 

 them in their behavioral 

 context," Phelps says. 



No detail is too small. 



Archaeologists begin 

 with test excavations to 

 learn what may lie in a site 

 and at what depth. Then, 

 they strip away the earth, 

 each layer representing a 

 different time of occupa- 

 tion. 



In each of these layers, 

 people have left things just 

 as they were when they 

 stopped their life there. 



"We strip the layer 

 away and lay bare every- 

 thing that is there. House 

 patterns, village ceremonial centers, 

 cooking sheds, storage pits, burials, 

 different structures for different pur- 

 poses," Phelps says. 



Even the soil is subject to inspec- 

 tion. Archaeologists read the land with 

 their eyes and hands, able to see and feel 

 where the earth had been dug into by 

 ancient civilizations and later filled. 

 Postholes sometimes still exist where a 

 structure was built centuries ago. 



From such finds, experts such as 

 Phelps and Mathis hope to write the 

 missing pages from Indians' cultural 

 history. But the task is immense. 



Archaeologists today must fill vast 

 holes in history and reconcile countless 

 mysteries and inconsistencies. Certain- 

 ties are few and territorial boundaries 

 appear to have been fluid, ebbing and 

 flowing over the centuries. 



Experts know, for instance, that 

 Algonkians lived above the Carteret- 

 Pamlico region bordering the Neuse 

 River. But less certain is who lived 



State archaeologist John Clauser and volunteer Bill Jackson 

 work at the Broad Reach excavation site in Carteret County. 



below that region and when. 



Maps from early European explorers 

 in the 1500s and 1600s show the Neuse 

 River as the boundary between the 

 Algonkian territory and Siouan and 

 Iroquoian territories. 



But some evidence suggests that 

 Algonkian speakers at one time occu- 

 pied the coastline perhaps as far south as 

 New Hanover County, Mathis says. A 

 number of excavated southern coastal 

 burials contain skeletal remains that 

 appear physiologically more similar to 

 Algonkians than Siouans. 



It's also entirely possible that 



another scenario was in play: these were 

 Iroquoian groups with Algonkian 

 characteristics, Mathis says. 



Unfortunately, there has not been 

 enough research to distinguish between 

 the remains of Algonkian and Iroquoian 

 populations since they share a common 

 ancestry. Both were robust and large, an 

 inch taller than the average heights of 

 modem-day Americans, Phelps says. 



The smaller Siouan people are 

 more easily recognized. 



But whoever these people 

 were, they apparently ceded 

 the land to the Siouan groups, 

 Mathis says. When, how or 

 whether it was an assimilation 

 of cultures remains uncertain. 



The recently excavated 

 Broad Reach site in Carteret 

 County may help uproot the 

 traditional theories about 

 where the early Native 

 American groups lived 

 centuries ago. The Bogue 

 Sound site may not have been 

 Algonkian territory, as 

 theorized, but perhaps 

 Iroquoian, Mathis says. 



Again, exhumed burials 

 raised questions — the two 

 Broad Reach ossuaries 

 contained simple artifacts such 

 as turtle shells, clams, deer antlers and a 

 cache of sharks' teeth. And this was not 

 typical of Algonkian burial sites 

 excavated elsewhere, which as a rule did 

 not contain artifacts, Mathis says. 



Both Siouan and Iroquoian societies, 

 however, did bury artifacts. So, Mathis 

 asks, was Broad Reach a unique 

 Algonkian site or a different culture? 



"We hope to tell from the Broad 

 Reach site if they're pre- Algonkian. We 

 do stand somewhere down the line to 

 rewrite a very small page (of history) 

 here, or maybe a paragraph." 

 On the whole, burial patterns of 



10 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1992 



