![]() NPS photo. There are seven main programs in Resource Management and Science: Air Quality, Cultural Resources, Fire, Fisheries, Inventory and Monitoring, Vegetation, and Wildlife. In this issue, meet the managers of Cultural Resources. The area where Great Smoky Mountains National Park is now has a rich prehistoric, historic, and ongoing culture. It is the park’s job to preserve and share the stories of changing human life on this land. For thousands of years prior to European settlement, these smoky mountains were the home of people who fished the swift rivers, hunted on high grassy meadows, and gathered food in forested coves. These people—the Tsalagi or Aniyvwiyai, as they called themselves, or the Cherokee, as they are known now—mark their place of origin as a valley tucked between the river and the shrugging shoulders of hills outside Bryson City. In the 1800s, settlers of European descent began displacing the Cherokee, culminating in the 1838 Trail of Tears, a grueling, forced journey that forced most Cherokee to relocate—on foot—to reservations in Oklahoma and Arkansas. The few remaining Cherokee gathered in what became the town of Cherokee, North Carolina, the community at what is now the south entrance to the park. The settlers of European descent farmed in the valleys and long coves throughout the rest of the Smoky Mountains. ![]() NPS photo. Although the people have moved, many traces of their lives remain in these mountains. Walk through the woods and you may see old millstones, mossy lines of old stone walls, or daffodils bursting yellow at someone’s long-gone doorstep. You may not see what lies under the ground: sherds of pottery, chips from stone tools, and even evidence of posts from centuries-old Cherokee houses. All of these cultural resources—seen and unseen—need our protection, because they represent a lifestyle long past.
Each cultural resource that the park protects has “cultural significance,” which means, in a nutshell, that the resource is sacred or part of ongoing culture, represents an important event, was made by an important person, represents an important time, or was made with important materials. The science of cultural management becomes an art when managers use their discerning and experienced eye to decide what is significant and what is not. ![]() NPS photo. Museum Collections
In the Smokies museum collections are some of the keys to the park's past. This time, we're not talking about artifacts buried underground, but rather park archives and 3-D pieces of history. These resources are being brought together in a new facility in Townsend, TN opening in 2016. The new Collection Preservation Center will be a climate-controlled space built specifically to house the wealth of Smoky Mountain culture. Ranks of carefully arranged shelving and museum cabinetry will hold everything from letters, photographs, newspaper articles, proclamations, and oral histories telling the story of the park's people and places to household goods representing Southern Appalachian lifestyles and fragments of prehistoric pottery. ![]() Photo courtesy of the Great Smoky Mountains Association, publisher. Ethnographic Resources An ethnographic resource is one held in the minds, memories, and customs of people who live in an area. In the Smokies, examples of ethnographic resources include Cherokee ceremonies, the stories that European settlers of these mountains tell, and the customs that many local families still have of visiting their relatives’ gravesites in the park each year. To find more books such as the one pictured here about Smoky Mountain culture and stories, visit the Great Smoky Mountains Association website. ![]() NPS photo. Historic Structures Drive on any road or delve into the woods at any point in the park and you are likely to come across a historic structure. In some cases, you may actually be driving on or walking over the structures in question, because they include not only old houses, churches, and other buildings but also fence rows, bridges, tunnels, drinking fountains, and even some of our sturdy stone restrooms. Cultural Resources manager Dianne Flaugh oversees the protection of these buildings, as well as cultural landscapes (see below). Any structure built over 50 years ago is a candidate for preservation as a historic structure, although many do not qualify because they are not—as described on the main page—“significant” in terms of the style in which they were built, who build them, or why they were built in that place. Some of the best-known historic areas in the park are Cataloochee and Cades Cove. Railroads used to bring wealthy families from Knoxville and Asheville to the mountain towns of Elkmont in Tennessee, and Smokemont in North Carolina. Once there, families could forget the heat of the city by soaking in streams under the lattice of thick rhododendron branches. Many of the summer homes that these families built remain in Elkmont, and were occupied into the 1980s. Some are listed on the National Register as part of the Elkmont Historic District. When family leases ended, the park took over their management, which presented many challenges including long-term maintenance and upkeep. After consulting with the Tennessee State Historic Preservation Officer, cultural resource managers developed a long-term plan that preserves some homes while allowing for the removal of others. A core area of homes at Elkmont near the Appalachian Clubhouse will be restored and preserved, along with a two other homes that help to tell the story of Elkmont and the park. ![]() NPS photo. In both Cataloochee and Cades Cove, dozens of families used to own farms, mills, and orchards. They built cabins, churches, bridges, and schools, several of which still stand today. Visitors to these areas continue to enjoy these cultural sites to relax on cabin steps, step into a cool springhouse, and stroll through shady churchyards. ![]() NPS photo. Historic Landscapes
![]() NPS photo. Archaeology
Heath Bailey is the park archeologist in the Smokies. A park archeologist spends part of their time in the field monitoring the condition of known archeological sites and investigating other areas for evidence of archeological sites. For example, when fire managers plan a prescribed burn in the park, archeologists survey the area for prehistoric or historic archeological resources and then work with the fire managers to ensure those resources remain unharmed. But not all of an archeologist's time is spent in the field. Time is also spent in the laboratory cleaning, studying and recording the artifacts recovered as part of fieldwork. This work helps reveal what those artifacts have to tell archeologists about the past life in the Smokies. In the search for traces of human activity, archeologists often find things that people discarded: a broken pot or a bone with the meat removed. Most people would refer to this as trash. To the archeologist, however, this is scientific data. The archeologist can recognize patterns in the placement of these items or in the frequency of their occurrence and build a picture of what life was like in the past. You can learn more about an archeological excavation in the park by watching the podcast in the NPS Profile: Uncovering the past. ![]() NPS photo by Ben Zank. Click on these links to find more information about the topics in this Dispatch: Great Smoky Mountains Culture and People:
Archeology Information National Historic Buildings & Information
To find more information about volunteering opportunities or internships with vegetation managers, visit these links:
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Last updated: July 5, 2018