Of burial grounds, back yard digs 



Mark Ramsing spent most of the last year poking 

 around New Hanover County, occasionally digging in 

 people's back yards. Thanks to Ramsing, Jean and 

 Ernest Puskas have discovered that they may have 

 an Indian burial ground on their property. 



And the Puskases aren't alone. Under a pilot grant 

 from the Comprehensive Employment and Training 

 Act (CETA), Ramsing headed a survey of the county 

 designed to locate potential sites for archaeological 

 digs. By the time it was all over this summer, two 

 teams of workers combing the county had discovered 

 530 historic and prehistoric sites. Their most signifi- 

 cant find was a burial ground which Ramsing 

 believes belonged to the Cape Fear Indians. 



The data from the New Hanover County survey 

 will be fed into a new computer mapping system 

 which has been set up by the state Archaeological 

 Branch in Raleigh. Along with information from all 

 other known sites in North Carolina, it will help ar- 

 chaeologists determine what types of terrain were 

 most often inhabited by prehistoric and historic 

 groups. 



Coastal archaeology takes hold 



The CETA survey is one sign that archaeology is 

 coming into its own in coastal North Carolina. Until 

 David Phelps began teaching anthropology at ECU, 

 most of the archaeological research in the state was 

 centered in the piedmont and mountains. 



That was seven years and many excavations ago. 

 Since then Phelps and his students have made some 

 important archaeological finds, mostly in the 

 northern coastal area. They've conducted surveys of 

 major estuarine systems and paid special attention to 

 ossuaries or mass burial sites. In fact, they've un- 

 covered four ossuaries, each containing about 35 

 skeletons. 



Phelps and his students have excavated several 

 sites which had been continuously occupied for about 



10,000 years. In general, they've gotten a good picture 

 of the lives of Algonkian Indians who originally in- 

 habited most of the northern coastal region. 



Archaeological work in the southeastern section of 

 the state got underway about three years ago when 

 Tom Loftfield joined the faculty of UNC at Wilming- 

 ton. Like Phelps, Loftfield offers a summer excava- 

 tion school for his students. The school has been 

 located at a site on Core Sound near Swansboro, 

 where Loftfield has found evidence of prehistoric In- 

 dian pole houses. Though little is known about the In- 

 dians of southeastern North Carolina, Phelps believes 

 that they were part of a loose political organization of 

 Souian language groups. 



Uncovering a matriarch 



Though Phelps has worked mostly on Algonkian 

 Indian sites, his prime training site is a Tuscarora 

 Village at Jordan's Landing near Williamston. One 

 find of special interest to Phelps is a 10,000-year-old 

 skeleton he fondly refers to as "the matriarch." She 

 was uncovered several summers ago, lying in a single 

 pit with a strand of beads around her neck. Her 

 relatively advanced age and the fact that she was 

 buried alone indicate to Phelps that she was held in 

 high esteem in that matrilineal community. Two 

 similar skeletons were found there this summer. 



But not all archaeological digs are conceived in uni- 

 versity laboratories. Government regulations now re- 

 quire that archaeological surveys be done prior to 

 construction of new federal highways, parks, waste- 

 water facilities and subdivisions. That has meant a 

 lot of "running before the bulldozer" for coastal 

 archaeologists. Phelps emphasizes that construction 

 has rarely been stopped because of archaeological 

 finds. Except in rare cases, all artifacts are lifted 

 from the spot and taken to a lab. Then the site is 

 usually closed up again. Phelps is now working on a 

 similar excavation on property that will eventually 

 be affected by the Wanchese Harbor development. 



