1940: Archaeology

Effect of the War.

The European catastrophe has inevitably curtailed, where it has not completely stopped, archaeological work in the Old World. Even where, during the past year, work has continued, complete information as to what has been accomplished is not available. However, the present status of certain long continued projects is known and some new discoveries can be reported.

At Athens, Professor T. Leslie Shear's ten years' excavations at the Agora, conducted under the American School of Classical Research, have been suspended. The collections have been stored, the expedition records placed in bomb proof shelters, and a small staff left to guard the site.

Excavations in the Near East.

In an effort to throw some light on the history of the practically unknown kingdom of Mitanni, a group from the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago is excavating a mound in the Khabir River Valley, in Syria, near the Turkish border. The mound is said to cover an important city of this era, during which the powerful militaristic Mitanni kingdom was allied with the Egyptian and Hittite empires. An interesting discovery there, attributed to a Mittanian workshop, is a steel battle ax, the oldest known steel weapon, dated as of 1500 bc.

From the palaces, temples, statues, and pottery thus far excavated at the ancient site of Alalakh, near Atchana, Syria, it has been possible to demonstrate seven stages of ancient history, as well as to give some insight into the Hittite era. Digging recently at a royal palace, 25 feet below the surface of Alalakh, Sir Leonard Woolley uncovered a flight of stairs descending to a basement level, closed off by a cracked stone hinged door. Behind this was found a collapsed wooden box containing four skeletons. In the corner of the room were wood fire ashes, and near by, animal bones, stone and clay vessels. All the surrounding rooms were presumably for secular use.

Conducting excavations for Strasbourg University at San El-Hagar, the site of ancient Tanis in Egypt, Pierre Montet opened the sarcophagus of King Psousennes, which contained many inscriptions. Of solid silver, the sarcophagus contained the bones of a mummy, covered with silver gilt, wearing a quantity of elaborate gold jewelry.

Professor Nelson Glueck, of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, has just completed his excavation at Ezion-Gober, the industrial center and seaport of King Solomon's time.

In Palestine, the Hebrew University has continued digging at a site called Napoleon's Hill, so named because Napoleon made his headquarters there in 1799 when at war with the Turks. The town near the Yarkon River was a river port readily reached from the sea and had been fortified during the different eras of occupation. At this site, now called Tell Jerisheh, Professor Eliezar L. Sukenik, assisted by students, has worked during four seasons tracing back its history to the days of Abraham, between 2000 and 3000 bc. The last inhabitants appear to be Israelites.

Eastern Macedonia was in ancient days a melting pot of civilization. Here many early tribes wandered back and forth, mingling with one another, so that, in time, and with the archaeologist's patient dissecting of the evidence produced by his tools, many facts leading to the solution of problems dealing with the beginnings of Greek civilization should become known. It is interesting to note in this connection that Doctor George E. Mylonas, working for Washington University at St. Louis has reported the excavation of a New Stone Age settlement at Akropotamus in Eastern Macedonia. The site has been dated as approximately 3000 bc. Many New Stone Age implements were found, bone pins and needles, pottery, clay figurines, and stone celts, and most unique of all, a clay amulet in the shape of a foot.

The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago has reported the discovery, on burial walls near royal Persian tombs in Iran, of inscribed stones which it is expected will prove a valuable 'Rosetta Stone' for solving difficulties in Pahlavi or Middle Persian language. These inscriptions provide versions of similar date in Greek, Persian, and Middle Persian to enable scholars to translate Middle Persian, just as the famous Rosetta Stone with its duplicated inscriptions in Greek, hieroglyphic and demotic Egyptian helped to solve the one-time mystery of Egyptian writing.

A translation of the inscriptions from Iran, recently published by Doctor Martin Sprengling of the University of Chicago, throws new light on the old Zoroastrian religion showing that even as late as 3 ad this religion had no sacred book like the Bible or Koran, but that ritual forms and songs were used.

Excavations in the United States.

In the United States many archaeological projects have been carried on, in some cases with the assistance of WPA funds and personnel. Among these are the following: the excavation of a mound on the west side of the Illinois River near Peoria by the Illinois State Museum in cooperation with the owners of the mound and the Illinois Department of Highways. Since 1934, the University of Tennessee under T. M. N. Lewis has been trying to retrieve all archaeological knowledge of the areas affected by TVA dam construction. Although only a small proportion of the sites in these basins has been studied, the more significant sites have been selected for excavation. In the Chickamauga Basin near Chattanooga, work was carried on for three years. Two years' work has been done in the Tennessee part of the Kentucky dam basin. It is estimated that several more years' work is necessary for the completion of the record of the prehistoric cultures once flourishing in that area. A year's work has been finished in the Watts Bar basin near Rockwood, Tennessee. A similar archaeological survey has been directed from the University of Kentucky led by William G. Haag. Excavations were conducted at four sites: a shell-heap on Green River in Butler County, a shell-heap called 'Indian Knoll' in Ohio County; a village of the Mississippi phase in Hopkins County; and a large earth mound of the Adena Aspect in Boone County.

In Oklahoma also Indian village sites lying in the path of the Grand River Dam are being studied by WPA personnel under the direction of Doctor Forrest E. Clements of the University of Oklahoma before inundation. An interesting result of these excavations is evidence of prehistoric trade with tribes as far away as those once living on the Gulf of Mexico.

In various other states archaeological projects of greater or lesser significance have been carried on during the year. In Arizona, a ball court, one of twelve known within a radius of fifty miles of Flagstaff, was uncovered by Milton Wetherill of the Museum of Northern Arizona near Doney Park. It is very similar to seven others in the region, its dimensions being about 90 by 45 feet. Ball courts, until the recent discoveries in the Southwestern area, were known only in the Maya area.

Data on life in prehistoric America, in the form of superb murals, are revealed in a series of such wall paintings recently uncovered in the ruins at Awotovi, Arizona, by a group of archaeologists from the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. Twenty to thirty layers of paintings were noted on some of the buried walls. They are rich in detail depicting costume, pottery, and decorative art, many of them obviously related to the modern secular and ceremonial life of the Hopi.

In northwestern Colorado, in the Yampa River Canyon, the University of Colorado Museum has made a preliminary survey and is excavating a large cave which apparently has been occupied during several culture stages.

Several archaeological field trips from the San Diego Museum were made to the Chocolate Mountains in eastern Imperial County, California, to complete the mapping and collecting on an ancient Indian trail between the Colorado River and the extinct lake of Imperial Valley.

During an archaeological survey of the High Plains in Wyoming, Doctor E. B. Renaud of the University of Denver found on the surface of three sites in a terraced river valley, some 7,000 crude stone tools, made with the same technique and said to be strikingly similar to early implements of the European Old Stone Age (some 500,000 years old). No evidence of the age of these tools is as yet available, nor is there any evidence that they are as old as those of the European Old Stone Age.

A detailed examination of the old village site within the famous Fort Ancient in Warren County, Ohio, as well as the wall and moat enclosing it, was made by Richard G. Morgan and H. Holmes Ellis, under the joint auspices of the Ohio State Museum and the Ohio State University.

An archaeological survey of the Hudson Valley under the auspices of Vassar College and under the direction of Mary Butler of the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania reports a successful second season's work. Four Indian camp sites were tested in Dutchess County, fifteen in Westchester County, and four in Orange County. The excavations and the resulting collections make it possible to compare the cultures of the Lower Hudson with those of Connecticut and Long Island. The plan is to continue the survey northward along the Hudson River in order to throw some light on the connections between these people and their neighbors in prehistoric western New York and New England.

Excavating in collaboration in 1939, at a village site named Ipiutak at Point Hope, Alaska, Froelich Rainey and Louis Giddings of the University of Alaska and Helge Larsen of the Danish National Museum, found an Eskimo culture which apparently did not fit any of the five successive known Eskimo cultures. Neither in form nor structure did the house ruins resemble the well known Eskimo house type. Of the fifty types of implements found, only about half are typically Eskimo, the remainder are unidentifiable. Flint and not the typical slate was used for stone tools. Though not yet actually placed chronologically, the site is undoubtedly an early one.

Doctor Rainey returned to Point Hope in 1940 on behalf of the University of Alaska and the American Museum of Natural History to continue excavating this site. He found this ancient village to have contained 625 square houses arranged in five east to west avenues. Of these, twenty-three were completely excavated. The objects found showed that the people lived by hunting sea birds, walrus, seals, and caribou. Many implements, as in the first excavations, were not identifiable. In the adjacent burial ground, where 65 graves were located, were found many implements like those in the house remains, carved and engraved objects, twisted or spiral objects with chain links, elaborately carved and engraved ivory, bearing no resemblance to Eskimo or any hitherto known cultures of the area. Many skeletons were obtained, including three skulls with ivory eyes set deep in the eye sockets. It is hoped that a study of the collection will make it possible to place this culture chronologically.

Mexico, Central and South America.

Outside of the United States, in the field of Mexican and Central American archaeology, some important new discoveries have been made. Under the leadership of M. W. Stirling, the second season's joint expedition of the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian reports the discovery of artifacts at different cultural levels at Tres Zapotes in Vera Cruz. These consist of elaborate figurines and painted pottery vessels. At Cerra de Mesa, twenty carved stones, twelve stelae, and eight other carved monuments were found. One of the stelae contains an early Initial Series date in the Maya calendar. At La Venta in Tabasco, they found two large altars, elaborately carved, five great stone heads, each weighing more than twenty tons, and two stelae. An interesting problem is to find the source of these great basalt boulders since the nearest supply of basalt is said to be 100 miles distant. No determination of the age of these stone heads has been made.

A two-year archaeological survey of Ecuador has been begun by Edward N. Ferdon, Jr., for the School of American Research and the Academic Nacional de Historia of Ecuador. The Mosquito District of Honduras has been explored by an expedition of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, and the American Geographical Society under the direction of Theodore A. Morde. He located the so-called Lost City of the Monkey God, which it is planned to excavate next season.