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Mound Reveals Clues on Prehistoric People
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By TIM WHITMIRE, Associated Press Writer

ASHEVILLE, N.C. - More than a century ago, George Vanderbilt created a monu=
ment to Gilded Age
opulence amid the lush Blue Ridge Mountains. In doing so, he also protected=
 the remnants of a
people whose lives were far removed from the elegance of Biltmore Estate.

For more than two years, archaeologists have excavated part of what once wa=
s a cornfield next to
the Swannanoa River. What they've found is an American Indian mound that of=
fers the most complete
picture yet of the culture of a prehistoric people known as the Connestee.


Archaeologists believe that between A.D. 200 and A.D. 500 =97 what is known=
 as the Middle Woodland
period =97 the site was a major ceremonial center for the Connestee, who ma=
y have been ancestors of
the Cherokee tribe.


Located near the intersection of two major American Indian trails, the moun=
d was saved from the
intrusion of modern culture by its location inside the sprawling, undevelop=
ed Biltmore property.


The estate is a national historic landmark that covers 8,000 acres of agric=
ultural fields,
woodlands and forested mountains, including the nation's first professional=
ly managed forest.
George Vanderbilt created it as a country retreat =97 the Biltmore house, b=
uilt in the style of a
late Gothic French chateaux, has more than 250 rooms and four acres of floo=
r space.


Vanderbilt and the people who created Biltmore for him knew they were worki=
ng on land that had
been previously occupied. When the estate was built, landscape architect Fr=
ederick Law Olmstead
did rough archaeological studies of the property and gave specific instruct=
ions that no Indian
remains were to be disturbed.


However, the mound being excavated now was not discovered until 1984, by an=
 archaeologist working
for the state, David Moore.


The only known similar Connestee mound lies beneath a subdivision near Cant=
on, about 15 miles west
of Asheville.


"This mound has the potential for answering the questions and writing the w=
hole history of the
time period. ... The reason we're focusing on this site is that it's so pur=
e," said Biltmore
landscape curator William Alexander.


Stan Knick, director of the Native American Resource Center at the Universi=
ty of North
Carolina-Pembroke, said: "Any time we gain an understanding of Middle Woodl=
and culture, then we
are filling out the picture of what we know about native people in North Ca=
rolina."


What makes the 1,000-square-foot Biltmore site particularly valuable is tha=
t multiple layers of
dirt are clearly stratified and distinguishable, offering clues to what occ=
urred here at different
points in the Connestee occupation.


To the archaeologists' eyes, each tonal gradation of earth =97 mossy green,=
 medium brown, orange,
tan, dark brown or yellow =97 tells a story.


The deepest layer, a yellow subsoil, represents the earliest period of occu=
pation, when the site
was home to a Connestee village, said Appalachian State University archaeol=
ogist Scott Shumate.


Archaeologists have identified nine stages of construction at the site. The=
y've found evidence of
five different earthen floors and about three dozen postholes suggesting a =
series of large
structures, about 75 to 80 feet in diameter.


"We can say as a tentative hypothesis that this was a council house," Shuma=
te said. "People came
from all surrounding villages for important ceremonies =97 it was the equiv=
alent of a county seat.
Maybe this place represents the social and spiritual center for a number of=
 villages."


Shumate said fragments of tools =97 mostly hunting weapons for the men and =
pottery and small-bladed
knives for the women =97 have been found at the site, as well as pieces of =
clay figurines that may
have belonged to children. Archaeologists also have found numerous fracture=
d animal bones, some
with markings that indicate they were gnawed on by other animals.


Shumate theorized that the mound could have been a venue for large feasts, =
where bones were thrown
on the floor and trampled, and animals sneaked into the empty building late=
r on to gnaw on the
remnants.


Other artifacts found at the site point to significant trade with the Hopew=
ell Indian culture
active in southern Ohio at the same time: glossy, heat-treated flint blades=
; pieces of Hopewell
pottery with a distinctive "rocker-stamped" design; and the cut-and-polishe=
d mandible of a gray
wolf native to the upper Midwest.

Appalachian State archaeologist Larry Kimball speculates that the mandible =
=97 sawed away from the
rest of the jaw, with two teeth still attached =97 was inserted into a huma=
n mouth as part of a
shamanistic ritual in which the wearer would appear to have the teeth of a =
wolf.

Alexander notes the trails that intersected near the mound were the prehist=
oric equivalent of
interstate highways. One ran roughly northwest from the South Carolina Lowc=
ountry, passing through
the Asheville area on its way through Tennessee and Kentucky to southern Oh=
io. The other came
southwest from central Virginia through the North Carolina Piedmont and the=
 mountains of western
North Carolina, also passing through the area of present-day Asheville.

"Asheville is kind of like a prehistoric crossroads," said Brian Burgess, a=
 staff archaeologist
for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, whose reservation is about 50 mil=
es to the city's west.

"The Middle Woodland is a time, all over the eastern United States, of grea=
t commerce, of great
passing around of things," added Knick. "Most Americans have a stereotype o=
f Indians living in
isolation from each other. That isn't accurate, and it was least of all tru=
e in Middle Woodland
times."

Though archaeologists have so far been unable to reconstruct an unbroken ce=
ramic tradition that
links the Connestee and the later Cherokee cultures, Burgess and Kimball be=
lieve the Connestee
were ancestors to the Cherokee.

"They are the people whose culture became known to us as Cherokee," Kimball=
 said.

More than $100,000 =97 including a grant from the National Geographic (news=
 - web sites) Society =97
has been spent so far on the dig. Archaeologists hope to excavate half the =
mound, a process that
could take another decade. They plan to leave the other half undisturbed fo=
r future archaeologists
who may have new technologies and different questions.


=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
David Addleton
vocate atque non vocate deus aderit
http://dfaddleton.home.att.net/

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