The Kansas Anthropologist Volume 29 2008
A REAPPRAISAL OF N. H. WINCHELL’S PALEOLITHS OF KANSAS
By John D. Reynolds
In 1913 Newton H. Winchell, a well-known geologist from Minnesota,
published a monograph entitled The Weathering of Stone Artifacts, No.
1: A Consideration of the Paleoliths of Kansas. In it Winchell presented
his analysis of a large collection of stone tools collected from sites
in the Kansas River valley. He concluded that the artifacts represented
at least four distinct prehistoric cultures: Early Paleolithic, Paleolithic,
Early Neolithic, and Neolithic and that the earliest of these cultures
was assignable, minimally, to the Pleistocene or an even earlier time.
Winchell, an outspoken proponent of great antiquity for the human settlement
of the Americas, unwittingly utilized a collection of artifacts that
contained a number of deliberate fakes. Winchell’s thesis never
gained acceptance by most American archeologists and its impact on Kansas
archeology fortunately has been minimal. Nonetheless, it is important
to document the fraud.
THE NORTHWESTERN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY IN KANSAS
By Marlin F. Hawley
In May 1893 Theodore H. Lewis of the Northwestern Archaeological Survey
(NAS) visited the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, area in search of French
Fort de Cavagnial. The NAS was funded by Alfred J. Hill of St. Paul,
Minnesota. Over the 15 years of its operation, Lewis recorded many thousands
of Native American mound, earthwork, and habitation sites. The search
for Fort de Cavagnial is part of a secondary interest of the two men.
Established by the French in 1744 and abandoned in 1764, the ruins of
the fort were noted by later explorers, such as Lewis and Clark and
the expedition of Major Stephen Long. Lewis surveyed, studied plat maps,
and interviewed old settlers in the area where the fort was believed
to be, but ultimately he was unable to find any trace of the site.
WITCHING FOR FAILURE: GRAVES AND GROUNDTRUTHING
By Randall M. Thies
“Witching” for graves does not work. During my many years
as an archeologist investigating burials, I helped to excavate 75 “really
good” graves that were found by 15 or more witchers in 10 different
Kansas locales, and I found nothing at any of them. Several other archeologists
did the same thing. Basically, the claims of grave witchers are not
substantiated by groundtruthing.
ANALYSIS OF A SURFACE COLLECTION FROM 14EK301, AN EARLY CERAMIC RESIDENTIAL
SITE NEAR THE ELK RIVER IN SOUTHEAST KANSAS
By Craig Kitchen
This article contains data obtained from an artifact collection housed
at the Kansas State Historical Society. Analysis based on ceramic and
lithic artifacts led to the conclusion that 14EK301 was a residential
site from the Early Ceramic period.
THINKING ABOUT HUMAN REMAINS AT THE ELLIOTT SITE
By Donna C. Roper
O’Brien’s commentary on Roper’s earlier discussion
of human remains from the Elliott site misunderstands how Roper constructed
her argument. This response first discusses the circumstances under
which the article was written and some principles involved in inferring
behavior when only the outcomes of that behavior can be observed. It
then considers the Elliott site case and, using examples, discusses
how various disturbance processes affect archeological sites and may
have affected Elliott. How the interpretation of the human remains and
funerary objects in the Elliott site collections was constructed is
then reiterated, with an emphasis on how and why the techniques used
in constructing that interpretation were chosen.
A RETURN TO GLEN ELDER: CULTURAL AFFILIATIONS OF ARCHEOLOGICAL MATERIAL
FROM THE GLEN ELDER SITE (14ML1)
By James O. Marshall
The 1963 excavation of the Glen Elder site (14ML1) took place as part
of the River Basin Survey project to salvage archeological sites that
were slated for inundation by the Glen Elder Reservoir. The Glen Elder
site was facing obliteration by the construction of the Glen Elder Dam.
The results of the site excavation have never been published, an omission
that this revised study finally corrects. Affiliations of the archeological
material give evidence that Glen Elder is a Protohistoric-early Historic
period occupation that, in part, is antecedent to the historic Kansa
Indians.
Book Reviews
Archaeology for Dummies by Nancy Marie White
Reviewed by Donna C. Roper
Texas Civil War Artifacts: A Photographic Guide to the Physical
Culture of Texas Civil War Soldiers by Richard Mather Ahlstrom
Reviewed by Jim D. Feagins
Skeletal Biology and Bioarchaeology of the Northwestern Plains
edited by George W. Gill and Rick L. Weathermon
Reviewed by Jim D. Feagins
Archaeology of Institutional Confinement by Eleanor Conlin
Casella
Review by Mary E. Conrad
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