WHERE TO DIG? 



By Jeannie Faris 



Archaeology is a science of 

 precision in more than one way. 



Scientists spend days, weeks, even 

 months crouched over a hole in the 

 ground searching for crumbling 

 artifacts and subtleties in the soil. 



But even before they reach this 

 stage of an excavation, archaeologists 

 have to choose where to dig. The 

 expense and time required for these 

 projects usually preclude the excava- 

 tion of an entire site. 



On the whole, experts are good at 

 predicting where the remains of Indian 

 societies are buried, archaeologist 

 Mark Mathis says. But they need to 

 more accurately target where the 

 artifacts lie within the site, particularly 

 a salvage that must be done quickly. 



Prehistoric Native American 

 settlements are large and complex, he 

 says. And some archaeological digs 

 are missing key finds in the living 

 areas by focusing instead on the 

 expansive shell middens, or refuse 

 pits. 



Mathis hopes that the Broad Reach 

 excavation in eastern Carteret County 

 will make his point. He is leading the 

 dig there for the N.C. Office of State 

 Archaeology. 



Archaeologists, of course, realize 

 that Native Americans didn't live on 

 shell middens. But the prevailing idea 

 has been that prehistoric societies 

 threw the most useful artifacts into the 

 middens, and excavations should 

 center there, he says. Digs farther from 

 the midden core are thought to yield 

 fewer cultural remnants. 



Mathis, however, suggests the area 

 immediately surrounding the midden 

 was a processing area where Indians 

 roasted or steamed the shellfish, then 



shucked and dried the meats. 



When they finished their work, 

 much like modem societies do, they 

 went home. And home was well 

 beyond the processing area. 



"One of the main things I've got to 

 get out of here is to demonstrate that 

 these are big sites, these are important 



















.■■ . ■ ~ 



sites and there is information to gain 

 from these," Mathis says. "We're not 

 nearly harvesting that information." 



But how these artifacts would be 

 recovered and who would foot the bill 

 remains to be seen. There first must be 

 agreement that these finds are worth 

 the cost to collect them, Mathis says. 



David Phelps, an archaeologist at 

 East Carolina University, says the 

 problem would be best addressed with 

 funding to launch a proactive, long- 

 term excavation of key coastal sites. 



Broad Reach, a 50-acre site with a 

 30-acre shell midden, is being 

 salvaged to build a marina complex. 



A small portion of the living area 

 was excavated last year, when the top 

 foot of topsoil, called the plow zone, 

 was scraped from 7 1/2 acres. Mathis 



says 426 features — from ossuaries to 

 cooking pits — were uncovered. 



"I was blown away because I knew 

 there would be things out there, but not 

 so much," he says. "They were 

 everywhere." 



These findings have also pointed 

 up the shortcomings in the sampling 

 system for potential archaeological 

 finds. A 1987 soil survey using test 

 holes indicated there would be little to 

 find beyond the shell midden core. 



But Mathis, who had noticed small 

 shell pits, launched the 7 1/2-acre 

 project with rewarding results. 



This project shows that ineffective 

 sampling is skewing the information 

 being gathered about prehistoric 

 societies, Mathis says. He's quick to 

 point out, however, that the surveyors 

 were not to blame — the sampling 

 techniques are simply not working. 



"It means that most of the work has 

 been done on areas I call the process- 

 ing area, where they harvested shell- 

 fish," Mathis says. "... So we haven't 

 looked much at domestic sorts of 

 things, the real people." 



The Broad Reach excavation will 

 continue this year on one-half acre that 

 Mathis believes is the processing area. 

 There, he expects to find cooking pits 

 of a different kind than the hearths that 

 marked the homes. 



Over time, as the shell midden 

 grew, the processing area and the 

 living areas moved back. So Mathis 

 has already uncovered "a lot of 

 archaeological noise," including pits, 

 soil stains and garbage at Broad Reach. 



This year's work will further test 

 his community model and determine 

 whether Broad Reach is a unique site 

 or a good example of what archaeol- 

 ogy has been missing. □ 



COASTWATCH 15 



