New Acquisitions

As the only national non-profit organization that acquires endangered archaeological sites, The Archaeological Conservancy has preserved more than 365 sites across the country. Below are some of the Conservancy's most recent projects.

Contentnea Creek (North Carolina)

The Contentnea Creek site on North Carolina’s Inner Coastal Plain has been periodically occupied by Native Americans for centuries. Archaeologists believe the Native Americans were drawn to the plant and animal resources located around nearby Contentnea Creek.

Artifact dating from approximately 8000 B.C. to the 18th century have been found there, with the most intensive use of the site occurring during the Late Woodland period. Nearly 3,000 features including human and dog burials, postmolds, hearths, and storage pits were recorded. A variety of ceramic types were also found at the site.

The wealth of information recovered from the Contentnea Creek site will provide researchers with a comparative database that will be useful for studying a variety of subjects such as human-dog relationships and radiocarbon dates for pottery types.

Culture & Time Period: 8000 B.C. to the 18th century

Status: Threatened by development

Acquisition: The Conservancy has optioned the property and has until October 10, 2007 to raise $250,000 to complete the purchase.

How you can help: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Contentnea Creek, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108.

Insley Mounds (Louisiana)

The Conservancy’s latest Southeast acquisition is the Insley Mounds site near the town of Delhi, in northeastern Louisiana. Insley was first visited in 1913 by C. B. Moore, the noted archaeologist who traveled the waterways of the Southeast visiting some of the region’s best-known mound sites. Located on the bank of Bayou Macon, Insley has been disturbed by years of cultivation, consequently it’s uncertain how many mounds were built there. But there are three confirmed mounds, and the Conservancy is acquiring all three in three separate puchases.

Culture & Time Period: Middle Archaic Period to Coles Creek Period (5000 B.C. - A.D. 1200)

Status: The mounds have been damaged by erosion and heavy equipment and are threatened by possible waterfront development.

Acquisition: The Conservancy needs to raise $12,000 to match the Lower Mississippi Valley challenge grant and purchase the site.

How you can help: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Insley Site Project, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108.

Power  House (New York)

Located south of Rochester, New York, the Power House Seneca village site sits amidst commercial and residential development. This land, which is currently vacant, was once the location of one of two major villages, each of which were inhabited by an estimated 800 to 1,000 Seneca from approximately1640 to 1660. The Power House site is part of the same western sequence of villages as the Bosley’s Mill site, which was inhabited in the early  to  mid-1600s and was also recently acquired by the Conservancy (see “A Picture of the Seneca, “ American Archaeology, Fall 2006).

Spruce Hill (Ohio)

The Archeological Conservancy, working in conjunction with Wilderness East, a central Ohio land trust, and the Conservation Fund, a national environmental organization, has made an emergency acquisition of the Spruce Hill Earthwork near Chillicothe, Ohio. The acquisition prevented the rare earthwork from being sold at an estate auction, where interest from land developers and other parties was high.

The Spruce Hill Earthwork is a Hopewell period (ca. 100 B.C. to A.D. 500) hilltop enclosure encompassing about 140 acres. Its principal feature is a low stone and earthen wall with a stone gateway that circles the top of the hill. Hilltop enclosures are the characteristic Hopewell expression in southwestern Ohio, but the Spruce Hill earthwork is unique in that it’s located in the Paint Creek-Scioto River region of central Ohio.

Culture and Time Period: Hopewell (100 B.C. to A.D. 500)

Status: Saved from development by emergency acquisition.

Acquisition: The Archaeological Conservancy has an outstanding loan of $300,000 from the Conservation Fund. Money is needed to pay down our debt.

How you can help: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy. Attn: Spruce Hill, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517.

Marksville (Louisiana)

Local expressions of the Hopewell culture are found across much of the central and eastern U.S.  In parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi, the Marksville culture shares many characteristics with Hopewell, including the construction of large earthworks and similarities in pottery designs and artifact manufacturing, consequently Marksville is considered to be the Lower Mississippi Valley expression of the Hopewell.

The name is taken from the city of Marksville in east central Louisiana, which is near the culture’s largest site. The Marksville site, which was first mapped by archaeologist Gerard Fowke in the 1920s, consists of seven mounds, two semi-circular embankments, and perhaps as many as 60 smaller earthen circles.  Six of the mounds, including one burial mound, are enclosed within a C-shaped earthen embankment 3,300 feet long and up to seven feet high.

Spier 142 (New Mexico)

The El Morro Valley saw the rapid establishment of a number of communities during the mid-13th century when thousands of ancestral Puebloan farmers set up permanent residence in this area. It was during this time of transformation that large settlements such as the Conservancy’s latest New Mexico acquisition, known as Spier 142, and another nearby Conservancy preserve, Scribe S, were built in the valley.
           

The new site is considered to be one of the largest Pueblo III period communities in the valley. It was recorded as Site 142 in 1916 by Leslie Spier, an archaeologist with the American Museum of Natural History who worked in the area in the early 20th century. It’s estimated to have 165 masonry rooms in its main roomblock and an additional 195 rooms and a possible great kiva in adjacent areas. This well-preserved site is thought to have at least two and possibly three walled plaza areas.

Culture and Time Period: Proto-Zuni, A.D. 1250 to 1290

Status: Saved from possible development.

Acquisition: The Archaeological Conservancy has an option to purchase 160 acres of the site for $90,000 in a bargain sale to charity.

How you can help: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Spier 142, 5301 Central Avenue, NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517

Florence (Kentucky)

Kentucky’s prehistoric people first started to experiment with gardening during the Late Archaic period.  However, it wasn’t until the Late Prehistoric period that agriculture became the primary subsistence pursuit of Fort Ancient groups. It’s at that point that archaeologists start to find evidence of Kentucky’s first true village farmers. The Florence site, located in Kentucky’s Central Bluegrass Region, is an outstanding example of a farming village that dates to the Middle Fort Ancient (A.D. 1200 - 1400) period.
           

The Florence site holds tremendous potential to tell archaeologists more about life during the Fort Ancient period.  The owners, Virgil and Bruce Florence, have taken great care of the site over the years and are donating it to the Conservancy to ensure that this important piece of the past will be preserved for future generations.

Culture and Time Period: Fort Ancient, A.D. 1200-1400.

Status: The site is threatened by development.

Acquisition: Although the site is being donated, the Conservancy needs $5,000 to cover closing costs and help offset management expenses.

How you can help: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Florence Site Project, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517.

Clinton’s Ditch (New York)

The Conservancy’s newest New York acquisition, the Clinton’s Ditch preserve, is located near the yellow brick roads of The Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum’s birthplace in Chittenango. The site, which contains a prehistoric component, also features a segment of the original Erie Canal.

Dismissed by its detractors as “Clinton’s Ditch” (then-Governor DeWitt Clinton championed the canal), the original Erie Canal was begun in 1817 and completed in 1825. Clinton hailed the achievement with an inaugural ride down the entire 363-mile canal that connected the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. The “ditch” did nothing less than transform New York and the entire United Sates by accelerating the movement of goods and people westward.

Bates Mound 1 (Mississippi)

High in the bluffs above the Mississippi River floodplain, near the town of Natchez in Southwest Mississippi, are several prominent mound sites built at different times by various cultures. The functions of many of these sites remain a mystery due to a lack of research. One such site, Bates Mound 1, was recently donated to the Conservancy by George and Linda Bates, members of the family that has protected it for many years.

Bates Mound 1 is a rectangular flat-topped mound that is approximately 10 feet in height located in a pasture on the bank of a small creek. Other family members own another mound called Bates Mound 2. Little is known about the age or cultural affiliation of the Bates mound and no professional excavations have taken place there. A very small collection of pottery from the surface of the mound suggests the site was occupied during the late Mississippian Period (ca. A.D. 1000-1650).

Pamplin Pipe Factory (Virginia)

Just 10 miles east of Appomattox, where the Civil War ended, is the small, remote town of Pamplin, Virginia. It’s thought that pipe making was underway in Pamplin by the 1740s, shortly after the first settlers arrived, and it developed into a cottage industry. The pipes were made primarily by local women from the nearby deposits of red clay. They were fired in backyard, wood-burning ovens and were then packed in barrels and crates lined with pine needles or sawdust by local storeowners.  Pamplin pipes were shipped all over the United States.

Pamplin’s cottage industry paved the way for the establishment of a factory sometime before 1880 by E. H. Merrill, an Akron, Ohio company that was the leading producer of tobacco pipes in America in the 1850s. The Merrills invented a pipe-making machine, and it’s believed that eight to 10 of these machines were utilized at the Pamplin factory.

Culture and Time Period: 18-20th century.

Status: The site is threatened by possible commercial development.

Acquisition: The Archaeological Conservancy has an option to purchase the site for $77,500.

How you can help: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Pamplin Pipe Factory, 5301 Central Ave. NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517.

Standingbear Preserve (Arizona)

This past fall, Scottsdale resident John Hoopingarner Standingbear donated a 20-acre parcel overlooking Hay Hollow Wash and the Conservancy’s Broken K Pueblo Archaeological Preserve in eastern Arizona for permanent preservation. The property, which contains petroglyphs, an enclosed stone structure, and associated artifacts, is thought to have been used by residents of Broken K Pueblo who lived across the wash between about A.D. 1150 and 1300, with earlier inhabitants of the area likely making use of its rich natural resources as well.

With approximately 100 masonry rooms surrounding a plaza area, Broken K Pueblo is one of the largest, latest sites in the Hay Hollow Valley, which was once a major crossroads for prehistoric travelers. The site is considered ancestral to the Hopi Tribe and Zuni Pueblo, who recently assisted the Conservancy with the creation of a long-term management plan for the preserve. Although little is known about the associated Dr. John Standingbear Archaeological Preserve, based on its petroglyphs, an unusual three-dimensional sandstone carving of a hand, and a semi-circular enclosure formed of basalt rocks and boulders, the site likely served ceremonial purposes for the Broken K inhabitants.

Gault (Texas)

Located along a creek in Central Texas near the eastern edge of the Edwards Plateau, the Gault site has yielded a dense concentration of artifacts indicating intermittent human occupation spanning more than 13,000 years.  Gault is one of the largest and most prolific Clovis sites in America and it has yielded considerable evidence that challenges the notion that Clovis was the first American culture.

Archaeologist Michael Collins has investigated the site since 1991, and he founded the non-profit Gault School of Archaeological Research to ensure future research at, and public interpretation of, the site. Early last year, Collins purchased a major portion of Gault and recently donated it to the Conservancy for permanent preservation.