Archeology E-Gram May 2022

NPS Archeologist Stan Bond Retires

NPS archeologist Stan Bond retired on May 31. Bond began his career as an archeologist in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1983, after receiving a BA in Anthropology and a BS in Geology from the University of Alabama and an MA and PhD from the State University of New York at Albany. Bond then became an archeologist for US Army Environmental Center. He joined the NPS in 1999.

From 1999 to 2005 Bond was the archeologist and Integrated Resources Manager at Kaloko-Honokohau NHP. In 2001, he was awarded the Trish Patterson Student Conservation Association Award for Natural Resource Management in a small park; he provided testimonies at hearings that resulted in a precedent-setting decision by the Hawaii Land Use Commission to prevent water pollution entering the park.

Bond was superintendent of Juan Batista de Anza NHT from 2005 to 2009, and Superintendent of Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park from 2009 to 2011. He was the NPS Lead Archeologist 2011-2020. His last assignment was Superintendent of De Soto National Memorial.

Stan’s friends and colleagues wish him all the best in his retirement.

Superintendent Laura Joss Retires

Laura Joss has announced her retirement. Currently superintendent of Golden Gate NRA, Joss received a BA in anthropology from Indiana University, and MA in history museum studies from the State University of New York’s Cooperstown Graduate Program. She began her NPS career as a volunteer at Mesa Verde NP and worked as staff or consultant at national parks and non-NPS museums, including Glen Canyon NRA, Grant-Kohrs Ranch NHS, Big Hole NB, The Indianapolis Children's Museum, New York State Museum, Onondaga Historical Association, Buffalo Museum of Science, New Jersey State Parks, and the John Wesley Powell Museum. She served as branch chief for cultural resources and tribal liaison at Yellowstone NP, and regional curator for the former NPS Rocky Mountain Region.

Moving into park management, Joss served as superintendent at Arches NP, deputy superintendent at NPS Southeast Utah Group, and superintendent of Fort McHenry NM and Historic Shrine and Hampton NHS. She served as Deputy Regional Director/Chief of Staff for the NPS Intermountain Region and Associate Regional Director for resource stewardship and research in the Intermountain Regional Office.

Joss was appointed Regional Director of the Pacific West Region in 2016, and oversaw 63 units of the National Park System, along with two affiliated areas, three national trails, and many other associated sites. She has been superintendent of Golden Gate NRA, Muir Woods National Monument and Fort Point National Historic Site since 2017.

Laura’s friends and colleagues wish her all the best in her retirement.

Heather Young New Bureau Registrar for NPS Museum Management Program

Heather Young has been selected as the Bureau Registrar within the NPS Museum Management Program. Young has 30 years of experience with the NPS, most recently as the NPS Midwest Region regional curator. She began her career as a Student Conservation Association volunteer at Bandelier NM, surveying for archeological sites and cataloging archeological collections. Young then took a position to catalog archeological collections as a museum aid in the Curation Program, former Southwest Regional Office. She continued serving in museum positions in the Intermountain Region. Young then served as the museum curator for Pecos NHP and Fort Union NM.

Young will be duty-stationed in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, where the NPS National Catalog is located.

Archeologists and Volunteers Monitor Beached Shipwrecks at Cape Cod

A two-day workshop on historic ship construction, understanding maritime landscapes, and identifying beached shipwrecks was held in April at Cape Cod NS in May. The workshop was conducted by archeologists with the NPS Submerged Resources Center (SRC) in collaboration with the Northeast Archeological Resources Program and park staff. Also in attendance were community volunteers and representatives from the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

The first consisted of a day-long seminar led by maritime archeologists Josh Marano from Biscayne, Dry Tortugas, and Everglades national parks, and AJ Van Slyke from SRC. The second day of the workshop included a field practicum at the wreck of the Whittaker, a 19th century shipwreck within the park. Attendees took away from the workshop new skills to enhance the way that the park understands and manages these sensitive resources.

DOI Releases Investigative Report in Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland have released Volume 1 of the investigative report called for by the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, an effort to address the troubled legacy of federal Indian boarding school policies. This report lays the groundwork to address intergenerational trauma created by federal Indian boarding school policies. It includes an extensive and first-ever inventory of federally operated schools, including profiles and maps.

From 1819 to 1969, the federal Indian boarding school system consisted of 408 federal schools across 37 states or territories, including 21 schools in Alaska and 7 schools in Hawaii. The investigation identified marked or unmarked burial sites at approximately 53 different schools across the school system. As the investigation continues, the Department expects the number of identified burial sites to increase.

The report highlights conditions children endured at these schools and raises questions about the short- and long-term consequences on American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities. The federal Indian boarding school system deployed systematic militarized and identity-alteration methodologies to assimilate children. The school system largely focused on manual labor and vocational skills that left graduates with employment options often irrelevant to the industrial U.S. economy, further disrupting Tribal economies.

Next steps include developing a list of marked and unmarked burial sites at federal Indian boarding schools, an approximation of the total amount of federal funding used to support the federal Indian boarding school system, and further investigation of the legacy impacts of the school system on American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities today.

Identifying Ukrainian Collections under Threat

The Department of State, Interagency Working Group on Scientific Collections, USDA, and the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative are working together to help identify and, where possible, assist with efforts to save Ukrainian archival, cultural, and scientific collections under threat. They are requesting your help in quickly identifying relevant collections in Ukraine and their needs.

Use the Google Form link below to provide information about relevant collection(s), including descriptions, locations, special needs, and points of contact. Submit one form entry for each collection. The data submitted will be stored in a secure database with the US State Department.

Online Information Collection Form: Ukrainian Archival, Cultural, and Scientific Collections.

Contact: Katelynn Averyt, Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative via [e-mail].

Webinar: A Dialogue with Ukrainian Museum Leaders on Defending and Preserving Culture and Identity in a Time of War

On May 2, 2022, the National Museum of American Diplomacy hosted a discussion with Ukrainian museum leaders who reported on efforts to protect their collections and preserve Ukraine’s identity and cultural heritage threatened by Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked war.

The recording is now available at A Dialogue with Ukrainian Museum Leaders - YouTube.

Archeology Nomination in National Historic Landmarks Committee Meeting

The National Historic Landmarks Program Committee Meeting was held virtually on May 11-12, 2022. The Committee considered seven new nominations for National Historic Landmark designation, including an archeological property.

Fort Armistead, the archeological property nominated, is a rare example of an archeologically intact Removal Period fort. Recently discovered documents connect the fort to Removal-period deportation events, including documentation of more than 3,000 emigrants/deportees from the North Carolina mountains either passing by or spending a few days at Fort Armistead in June and July of 1838. Imprisoned Cherokees from the Valley Towns of North Carolina were held at the fort as they were escorted under military guard along the Cherokee Trail of Tears to the federal Indian Agency in present-day Charleston, Tennessee.

Although no above-ground remains of the fort survive (other than as subtle ruins), subsurface elements of Fort Armistead’s architecture such as foundations and sub-floor storage areas retain exceptional archeological integrity. Through archeological methods the layout of the fort complex and the character of its buildings and structures can be ascertained. In addition, intact artifact deposits present the potential to provide information about the activities of the fort’s occupants.

Fort Armistead and the Cherokee Trail of Tears is an integral part of American history for it highlights the brutal consequences of settler nationalism, countering the prevalent myth of benign, intrepid westward expansion.

The nomination for Fort Armistead was accepted by the committee and will be recommended to the NPS Advisory Board when they next meet.

The Federal Archeologist’s Bookshelf: Will be back soon.

GRANTS AND TRAINING

Tribal Consultation Webinar Series

Federal agencies are required to engage in regular and meaningful consultation and collaboration with Tribal officials. Government-to-government relationships should include regular and timely communication so that tribes may provide input on issues that may have a substantial direct effect on them. The Tribal Consultation Webinar series is being offered for NPS employees looking for an introduction into the Tribal consultation process, or those who want to refresh their skills or ask experts for advice on best consultation practices for managing park resources.

June 14, 2022 - Consultation - A Legal Overview

July 12, 2022 - Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Tribal Consultation but Were Too Afraid to Ask - Part II

August 16, 2022 - Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Tribal Consultation but Were Too Afraid to Ask - Part III

September 13, 2022 - Historical Trauma and Mistrust of the Federal Government

October 11, 2022 - Players in the Tribal Consultation Process

November 15, 2022 - Cross-cultural Communication - How to Communicate with Tribes

December 13, 2022 - Shared Stewardship

January 10, 2023 - Applied Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)

These webinars are offered on the second Tuesday of the month, using the MS Teams platform, 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm ET.

Register through the Common Leaning Portal. The link registers you for full series but you may attend as few or as many as you wish. Speakers for each session and additional information are available on the Common Learning Portal.

SLIGHTLY OFF TOPIC: Secrets of the Ice

Washington, DC, where the E-Gram staff are located, has already had several 90 degree days, which does not auger well for the rest of the summer. Searching for something cool to read (literally), I came across the Secrets of the Ice website. This website gave me something cooling to hold in my mind in the same way that reading Hunters of the Northern Ice did when I was on a crew working in a southeastern Missouri summer.

The combination of climate change and well-preserved artifacts melting out of the ice has made glacial archaeology an interesting topic, both for the media and the public. The scale of archaeological materials emerging from glaciers and ice patches in Innlandet County, Norway, increased dramatically during warm weather through the fall of 2006. Since then, staff of the Glacier Archeology Project have worked continuously to rescue finds from the ice. The program is a cooperation between Innlandet County Council and the Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo.

Fifty-one glaciers and ice patches in Innlandet have provided artifacts. More than 3,000 finds have been recovered – hunting tools, transport equipment, textiles, leather and clothing. Zoological material has also been recovered from the ice (antler, bone and dung). The oldest finds are 6,000 years old.

There are a lot of on-going research projects on the archeological material from glaciers and ice patches. The formal Glacier Archaeology Program started in 2011. The program provides opportunities to work systematically with recovered finds. The projects aim to save artifacts from melting ice and undertake scientific analysis of the finds. This research is badly needed, as the historical archives of the ice and the finds they contain are being destroyed by global warming. Today, the emphasis is on rescuing the finds, but future research may show that the climate information stored in the ice is just as important. The ice also contains biological material of great scientific significance. This material may, for instance, be used for research into ancient DNA.

There is now a steadily increasing number of scientific publications about ice patch archeology available. The website contains an extensive bibliography on archeology, but does not include publications on glaciology, pure GIS-analysis, or frozen contexts other than glaciers and ice patches. Publications available for free download have been supplied with a link. The publications are organized by country where artifacts were found or the project occurred. The U.S. and Canada are included, and there is an extensive list of publications of research on Ötzi.

Please be aware that there is a section, with photographs, of ice mummies, and that photographs of human remains may be found throughout the website.

To visit, go to Secrets Of The Ice.

Archeology E-Gram, distributed via e-mail on a regular basis, includes announcements about news, new publications, training opportunities, national and regional meetings, and other important goings-on related to public archeology in the NPS and other public agencies. Recipients are encouraged to forward Archeology E-Grams to colleagues and relevant mailing lists.

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