Neara Spring Meeting 2008
Neara Fall Meeting 2007
Neara Special Event in Nova Scotia 2007
Neara Spring Meeting 2007
Neara Fall Meeting 2006
Neara Spring Meeting 2006
Neara Fall Meeting 2005
Neara Spring Meeting 2005
Neara Fall Meeting 2004 -
40th Anniversary Part 2
Neara Spring Meeting 2004 -
40th Anniversary Part 1
Neara Fall Meeting 2003
Neara Spring Meeting 2003
Neara Fall Meeting 2002 -
ABC+10 Conference
NEARA's Spring Meeting April 25-27, 2008
Clarion Hotel & Conference Center
Northampton, Massachusetts
Featuring:
●
Mystery Walls of Nova Scotia
●
C-14 Dating
●
Land of the Sky Inscriptions
●
Glastenbury Mt. Cairns
●
Brazilian Rock Art
●
Indain Trails
●
Yankee Root Cellars
●
Stone Chambers
●
the many battles over Nipsachuck Hill
●
and a new coherent methodology for identifying
stone sites in New England.
|

.
Clarion
Hotel & Conference
Center
1 Atwood Drive
Northampton, Massachusetts
Toll-Free: 800-582-2929
Phone: 413-586-1211
Fax: 413-586-063
Email
Address
website
|
Schedule of Conference Events
Featured Speakers & Abstracts
Conference Field Trips
Clarion Hotel Rates &
Directions
Conference Registration
.
Schedule of Events
Friday April 25th
|
12:00 - 5:30 pm |
Field Trip See
details here |
|
5:00 - 7:00 pm |
Registration & Book Sales |
|
7:00
- 7:05 pm |
Dan Lorraine, NEARA
President: Welcome |
|
7:05 - 8:00 pm |
Terry Deveau: The Ruins of the Chain Lakes Watershed
Area near Halifax, NS |
|
8:00 - 8:30 pm |
Doug Schwartz:
Operation of a Swamp Yankee Root Cellar
|
|
8:30 - 8:50 pm |
Break, Book Sales, Exhibits |
|
8:50 - 9:25 pm |
Polly Midgley:
Enigmatic Stone Chambers |
|
9:25
- 10:00 pm |
Cathy Taylor:
Indian Trails and Stone Work |
Saturday April 26th
|
8:30 - 9:30 am |
Registration and
Book Sales |
|
9:30 - 11:00 am |
Business Meeting & State Coordinator Reports |
|
11:00 -
11:30 am |
Break, Book Sales, Exhibits |
|
11:30 -
12:15 pm |
Ron Carter: C-14 Dating: A Simplified Explanation |
|
12:15 -
1:30 pm |
Lunch on
your own, Book Sales & Exhibits |
|
1:30
- 2:15 pm |
Zena
Halpern: Tanit in Onteora? |
|
2:15
- 3:00 pm |
Norman Muller: Glastenbury Mountain Cairns |
|
3:00 -
3:30 pm |
Break, Book Sales, Exhibits |
|
3:30 -
4:15 pm |
Peter Anick: Serra de Capivara, Brazil Petroglyph
Sites |
|
4:15
- 5:00 pm |
Joe Bonni: Tear Down Their Altars, Smash Their
Sacred Stones: A Call for Methodological Innovation in Understanding and
Identifying Native Sacred Spaces in New England |
|
5:00 -
5:15 pm |
Meeting Wrap up and announcements |
|
5:30 -
6:30 pm |
Cocktail & Networking Hour |
|
6:30
- 8:00 pm |
Banquet |
|
8:00
- 9:30 pm |
Dr. Fred Meli: Nipsachuck Hill and Swamp Area North
Smithfield, Rhode Island: A Battle Field Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow |
Sunday April 27th
|
9:00 - 1:00 pm |
Field Trip
See details
here |
Featured Speakers & Abstracts
Terry J. Deveau:
The Ruins of the Chain Lakes
Watershed Area near Halifax, NS
An
extensive set of heavily built stone walls are located in what was for many
years a remote wooded area outside of Halifax, NS. Previously known only to a
few local woodsmen, these inexplicable ruins were brought to public attention
in 1990 when they were threatened by the development of the Bayer’s Lake
Business Park, one of the largest commercial developments in all of Atlantic
Canada. Now fairly well known as the Bayer’s Lake “Mystery” Walls, and after
a few small-scale investigations by government and university researchers, the
walls have received some protection from encroaching development, but no
really satisfactory explanation for their existence has yet been found.
Beginning in 2002, Terry Deveau has undertaken a personal research project to
investigate not only the walls themselves, but the entire surrounding
undeveloped area (called the Chain Lakes Watershed) to uncover any additional
ruins or other clues that can lead to a fuller explanation. This work has
involved not only a methodical crisscrossing ground search of rugged terrain
covering 2.5 sq. km, but also many hours pouring over old records in the
Provincial and Municipal archives, the registry of deeds, rare books, maps,
and documents held in various library special collections. Terry’s talk will
present an overview of his results to date, including several additional ruin
sites, and how they are linked to each other, as well as, where they fit (or
not) in the spectrum of the documented 400 years of European settlement in
Nova Scotia.

Terry J. Deveau lives in Herring Cove, Nova Scotia,
and works as a software developer and defence contractor, specializing in
computer models of underwater sound and sonar performance. He holds a BSc in
Math and a Diploma in Engineering from Saint Mary's University, as well as a
Master of Science in Acoustics from Penn State University. Over the past
eight years, Terry has been devoting much of his spare time to investigating
reports of unusual stone ruins in NS. Terry has been a member of NEARA since
2003 and the Maritime Canada Region Coordinator since 2005. Terry is also a
member of the Nova Scotia Archaeology Society (NSAS), the Nova Scotia
Historical Society (NSHS), and La société historique acadienne (SHA).
Doug Schwartz:
Operation of a Swamp Yankee Root Cellar
This is a video interview with Whit Davis, an 83-year-old Swamp Yankee, who
gave us a tour of his family's c. 1670 farmhouse at the mouth of the Pawcatuck
River in Stonington, CT. He explained how he and his family stored 350
bushels of turnips, 200 jars of preserves, butter, potatoes, crocks of salt
pork, barrels of cider and apples, etc., with room to spare. Even during
World War II, when President Roosevelt exhorted American farmers to produce
enough food to feed the world, they never came close to exceeding the capacity
of the cellar. This puts the lie to the typical explanation of stone chambers
as having been built as root cellars. There would have been no need to do so
until the arrival of coal furnaces in the 19th Century. The Davis family
never installed a furnace, instead opting to use stoves and the original
fireplaces for heating, until Whit moved out about 15 years ago. The Davis
farmstead is a remarkable window into the past, where salt hay is still
harvested to this day, one of the last such operations in New England. This
National Register listed farm is being preserved as a museum to
document a remarkable example of a bygone era. For further details:
www.stantondavishomestead.org
Doug Schwartz
is a long time NEARA member and the Connecticut State Coordinator. He is a
supervisor with the U.S. Postal Service.
Polly Midgley: Enigmatic
Stone Chambers
This presentation focuses primarily on the location
of chambers, the patterns that emerge and the possible stories these patterns
suggest.
Polly Midgley is a long time NEARA member
and the New York State Coordinator of the Hudson Valley region. She lives
near many stone chambers in NY's Westchester and Putnam Counties where she
knows the geography well. Polly has family members who have lived in this
area for a very long time. This intimate knowledge of the land and the sites
has benefited her research and allowed for many valuable observations. This
type of information deserves to be preserved and NEARA tries to do so but it
has become more difficult to come by as sites disappear, streams get piped
underground, earth turns into parking lots and long time residents often
move elsewhere. Polly believes these insights have helped provide good
judgment about the sites.
Cathy Taylor: Indian Trails and Stone Works
Native American trails were the original networks connecting people and
places. The Great Trail went from Jamaica Pond in Boston, to Framingham, to
Grafton, then down to Webster Lake, and then over to Windsor Falls in
Connecticut. Waterfalls, a great lake, and the source of all rivers were key
places along the way. A stone chamber in Upton and a stone chamber in
Webster are two famous stone works along this path. The trails eventually
became cart paths and then roads for the English colonists. Underlying our
busy highways and roads is an older system of connections that can shed light
on a different way of living long ago. This power point presentation will be
filled with maps and photos of stone works of interest along the way.
Cathy Taylor
is a NEARA member and also a member of the National Council for Geocosmic
Research. Interest in the astronomy of the Ohio Earth Mounds led to a NEARA
presentation last spring and an article that was recently published in the
winter NCGR journal. Cathy also has a strong interest in New England stone
chambers and is on the Upton Historical Commission.
Rob Carter:
C-14 Dating: A Simplified Explanation
In this talk Rob
will explain the scientific in very easy to understand terms the process for
Carbon 14 dating, a valuable tool in archaeological dating.
Rob Carter
is a long time NEARA member, a NEARA board member and our resident
‘audio/visual’ specialist at the NEARA conferences.
Zena Halpern: Tanit
in Onteora?
Onteora
is the Native American name for “Land in the Sky” and describes the Catskill
Mountains of New York State. Within the Neversink River Valley three
inscribed stones with ancient scripts and symbols have been found in the last
several years. Zena’s presentation will discuss a stone found in 2006, which
may shed important light on the pre-history of the valley and the area to the
northeast. From the spiral petroglyph in the valley where the stones were
found and continuing northeast eighteen miles, the
Hammonasset
Line aligns with Devil’s Tombstone at Stony Clove where two mountains face
each other, Hunter and Plateau. The significance of the area and the meaning
of the inscribed stone found in 2006 will be discussed in light of the
extraordinary implication that ancient voyagers traveled to this area and
carved their ancient scripts and symbols on stones.
Zena
Halpern is a long time NEARA member of almost 20 years. She was taking
graduate courses at NYU from Cyrus Gordon. Cyrus Gordon came to NYU after a
lengthy stay at Brandeiss University where he headed the department of
Mediterranean Studies. In 1971, his groundbreaking book was published;
"Before Columbus: Links Between the Old World and Ancient America." Gordon's
theories of trans-oceanic contact and his dynamic teaching sent Zena on a
quest that has continued for 35 years. Upon retirement in 1998, she
began intensive investigation for evidence of ancient seafaring, ancient ships
and harbor construction along the east Mediterranean coast. She has traveled
to Crete, Mexico, Israel, Greece and states in the US, where reports have come
in of inscribed stones in ancient alphabets. She is presently writing a book
about connections between the eastern Mediterranean, Iberia, Mexico
and American sites. She has her B.A. from Long Island University, and her
M.A., New York University.
Norman Muller:
Glastenbury Mountain Cairns
About ten years
ago, Dave Lacy, chief archaeologist with the Green Mountain National Forest in
Vermont, discovered three cairns just below the summit and off the trail to
Glastenbury Mountain in southern Vermont. In late summer 2007, a group of
five, consisting of Lisa Gannon, Ted Timreck , the speaker and his son Peter,
plus Tom Wessels, ecologist and author, climbed the six plus miles to the
cairn site to investigate and photograph the cairns. Based on lichen and
plant cover, the cairns appear to predate by a considerable amount the first
documented activity on the mountain. The cairns are compared with other,
similar cairns found at much lower altitudes.
Norman Muller
is an art conservator affiliated with the Princeton University Art Museum,
where he has worked and lectured for the past twenty-five years. For the past
ten years he has been researching the stone ruins at various sites in the
Northeast, and has lectured to various organizations, such as the Eastern
States Archaeological Federation and NEARA, on his work. Nine web articles
Norman has written on various aspects of stone constructions have been posted
on the Internet in the past ten years (see
http://rock-piles.com/muller.html). An article on the Oley
Hills site in eastern Pennsylvania, titled “Accenting the Landscape:
Interpreting the Oley Hills Site,” will appear in a book titled Semiotics
in Landscape II, edited by George Nash of the University of Bristol,
England.
Peter Anick:
Rock Art of Brazil’s Serra da Capivara National Park
Pedra
Furada became one of the most controversial archaeological sites in the
Americas when a hearth there was dated to over 50,000 years ago. Less
controversial is the visual record of 12,000 years of human activity exposed
in hundreds of pictograph panels in the surrounding Serra da Capivara
escarpment. Peter will present an account of his five-day visit to the site
in 2005, describing the chronology of rock art styles and showing examples
which range in subject matter from extinct megafauna through depictions of
ritual and hunting scenes to shamanic symbols.

Peter Anick
develops information retrieval technology at Yahoo! and writes articles
on folk and jazz fiddling for Fiddler Magazine but his interest in archaeology
predates his involvement with both computers and music. Over the years, he
has made a point of seeking out rock art sites off the beaten path, including
cave paintings in France, Paleolithic engravings in
Portugal, Norwegian helleristninger and songline figures in central
Australia. Since joining NEARA, he’s been happy to discover that there are
sites near enough to drive to!
Joe Bonni:
Tear Down Their Altars, Smash Their Sacred Stones: A Call
for Methodological Innovation in Understanding and Identifying Native Sacred
Spaces in New England
You must completely destroy
all the places where the nations you dispossess have served their gods, on
high mountains, on hills, under any spreading tree; you must tear down their
altars, smash their sacred stones, burn their sacred poles, hack to bits the
statues of their gods and obliterate their name from that place.
- Deuteronomy 12: 2-3
In the summer
of 2007 I spent my second season in the woods of Grafton, MA with Steven
Mrozowski in search of one of Reverend Eliot’s “Praying Villages.” At this
time, I was particularly interested in the specific question of whether or not
the Reverend John Eliot intentionally exploited sacred Native American spaces
when choosing locations for his 17th century church communities.
Unfortunately, we did not find the Rev Eliot’s Church and as a result I was
unable to answer my question regarding the possible Colonial and Christian
exploitation of native sacred space. But after my time spent in the field
with Mrozowski, conversations with both a number of academic archaeologists
and avocational archaeologists, and an initial smattering of readings I was
convinced to broaden my topic. It became apparent to me that even if the
church had been found on Mrozowski’s dig, any attempt to investigate whether
the Christian church had been built on native sacred space would have been
inhibited by a lack of archaeological recognition of built native sacred
spaces in New England. While built spaces, particularly those involving
stonework, are widely accepted throughout most of North America as ubiquitous
and a common manner in which Native Americans demarcated sacred space, the
opposite is true in much of the northeastern US. As a result, I have become
interested in a more general question - and criticism - regarding why
historical archaeologists in New England have ignored the importance of stone
features as potentially indicative of native spaces, and how this lack of
recognition, and the lack of a useful typology of such sites, inhibits the
ability to answer questions such as the one I initially posed for Eliot.
Additionally, there are concerns that such an omission has resulted and
continues to result in the misidentification of culturally significant
landscapes resulting in no protection of such spaces.
In a short paper I
am now proposing to offer a new coherent methodology for identifying stone
sites in New England. However, I will analyze this longstanding but
potentially aberrant position against the very idea of identifying stonework
in New England as extant indigenous constructions; and then suggest a number
of (I hope) potent and useful criticisms of the biases involved in
establishing typologies/classification systems – that is the institutional
power of academia in deciding what is “useful” or “real” in regards to
classification - and the potential negative impact resulting from a lack of
input from indigenous peoples and other non-academics. Avocational
archaeologists’ work in this field is extensive and deserves the interest and
timely review by academic and state archaeologists who may be lagging behind
their amateur counterparts in regards to innovation, imagination, and boundary
pushing. We have invented endless ceramic and projectile point classification
systems but nothing for stone and lithic sites. Sites which some say are
densely and ubiquitously scattered across New England geography possessing
much to tell about the lives of the people who built and utilized them but yet
potentially silenced by a lack of recognition.
Joe Bonni
is a Graduate student at the University of Chicago and this is his Masters
Thesis.
Dr. Fred Meli: Nipsachuck Hill and Swamp Area North
Smithfield Rhode Island: A Battle Field Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Nipsachuck Hill and Swamp Area, a 21st century battlefield: A
place riddled in mystery, misinformation and historic accounts that are often
contradicting. The location is real enough; it lies west of route 7 (Douglas
Pike) and north of the junctions of Rt. 7 and Rt. 104, in North Smithfield,
RI. However, Smithfield a neighboring town also lays claim to the site of the
battles in the King Phillip’s War. The present day conflict is over
jurisdiction and interpretations. Some see the site as a possible historical
park, native museum; others see it as gravel pit ripe for harvesting. The
battle lines are thus drawn (pun intended): historical commission, developers,
land owners and concerned neighbors.

Dr. Frederick Meli Archaeologist: He is a full-time consultant,
director and lead archaeologist with Archaeological Services and Consulting.
He has been involved in extensive fieldwork in Eastern Europe, Central Europe,
North East America, (New England) and Central America. His earliest work was
centered on the Mound Builders and the Tombigbee peoples. His current work
involves the study of Pre-Columbian indigenous cultures and their construction
of public ceremonial and burial landscapes throughout New England and Canada.
He is also presently working on a book: Stone Ceremonial Landscapes of New
England, with Lexington Press.
Field Trips
Sponsored by Brenda Toomey, Massachusetts State
Coordinator
●
Friday Field Trip: 25 April
2008
There will be a
field trip leaving the Clarion Hotel, in Northampton, MA, between 12:00 and
12:30. We will see some of the many chambers and lithic features that exist
in Franklin County, Massachusetts. Due to the limited parking on the country
roads where we are going, and the high cost of gas, participants are
encouraged to car pool. We will return before 6:00 in the evening.
●
Sunday Field Trip:
27 April 2008
There will be one
field trip, which will leave the hotel by 9:30 in the morning. We will see
more of the chambers and lithic features in Franklin County. Of special
interest will be the complex of corbelled chambered in Shutesbury, on and
around Mt. Mineral, including the Monks Chamber. There is a spiritual retreat
on the top of this mountain and we will hike up the hill to see the carved
stone, which has the figure on it that NEARA has adopted for its logo. If it
is possible, one driver will be asked to drive those who have difficulty
walking. Again people are encouraged to car pool and share the cost of gas.
Important Notice for Sunday’s Field Trip:
In Leverett, MA, we
will stop at The Village Co-op and General Store, which sells ready-made
sandwiches. It has the only bathroom we will see on this field trip. I have
spoken to the owners and learned they will need at least 6 days notice to have
enough sandwiches on Sunday for our group. Please let me know if you think
you would like to buy a sandwich. I will call our order in to the store in
advance. Please call me (Brenda Toomey) at 508-885-0993, and leave a message,
or email me at
brendatoomey@verizon.net.
More details on
these field trips, including maps and directions, will be given out at the
conference. People may need to know that because of the hilly terrain where
we are going, most cell phones will not work.
.
Lodgings:
Clarion Hotel & Conference Center
Northampton, Massachusetts
Clarion
Hotel & Conference Center, 1 Atwood Drive,
Northampton, MA 01060. Toll-Free: 800-582-2929, Phone: 413-586-1211,
Fax: 413-586-0630,
Email
Address,
Website.
Ideally located off Interstate 91, the Clarion
Hotel®
& Conference Center welcomes you to the culturally rich city of
Northampton, the beautiful Connecticut River Valley and the famous Five
Colleges area, home to the University of
Massachusetts Amherst, Hampshire
College, Smith College,
Amherst College and
Mount Holyoke College.
NEARA has secured a rate of $99.00 per night, plus applicable sales taxes
for single or double occupancy, and $109.00 per night, plus applicable
sales taxes for triple or quad occupancy. When you call to make your
reservations, mention that you are a NEARA member and verify that
you are receiving the special rate.
Additional points of interest in the area include:
●
Six Flags New England
Amusement Park
●
Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory & Gardens
●
Deerfield
Academy college preparatory school
●
CLARKE - School for the Deaf / Center
for Oral Education
●
Bradley International Airport
●
Brimfield Antique and Collectibles
Show
●
William D. Mullins Memorial
Center entertainment venue
Montana's Steakhouse, located on the
premises, serves a delicious breakfast and a full menu nightly. The on-site
Montana's Piano Bar also
offers great fare in a relaxing environment.
Room service is also available.
|

Click map to enlarge |
●
Directions to the Clarion Hotel:
From the Massachusetts
Turnpike:
Take exit 4 to I-91
North.
Take exit 18; take a
right at end of ramp.
Hotel is 3 tenths of a
mile on the right.
|
Email:
hotelhelp@choicehotels.com
Website:
http://www.clarionhotel.com/ires/en-US/html/HotelInfo?hotel=MA117&promo=gglocal
Important Notice: The cut-off date for NEARA special rates is April 1st
so call to reserve your room now!! After the cut-off date, all rooms being held
for NEARA will be released back into general inventory and any requests made
after April 1st will be subject to room availability.
Please make your reservations by April 1st.
Registration
(click here)
Please follow the link for Spring Meeting
registrations form. Please print the form, fill it out, and mail it
in to the address on the form. (We do not have on-line registration capabilities as yet.) Thank
you!
Notice:
NEARA Members receive a discount on the registration fee. If you would
like to become a NEARA member there is a Membership Application attached to the
Registration Form.
.
NEARA 2008 Fall Meeting:
7-9 November 2008, Mainstay Inn, Newport, Rhode Island
NEARA's Fall Meeting November 2-4, 2007
Holiday Inn - New London Connecticut
Featuring: Archaeoastronomy, Newport Tower
Up-Date, Spirit Pond, Charcoal Making Sites, Minoan Calendar, Hammonasset Line.
|

.
Holiday
Inn New
London / Mystic
269 North Frontage Road
New London, CT 06320
Phone: 860-442-0631
Fax: 860-442-0130
Email
Address
website
|
Schedule of Conference Events
Conference Highlights & Field Trips
Featured Speakers & Abstracts
Holiday Inn Rates &
Directions
Conference Registration
.
Schedule of Events
Friday November 2nd
|
1:00 - 4:00 pm |
Field Trip See
details here |
|
5:00 - 7:00 pm |
Registration & Book Sales |
|
7:00 -
7:10 pm |
Dan Lorraine, NEARA
President: Welcome |
|
7:10 - 8:10 pm |
Steve Voluchkas: Oakes, Ponds, and Standing Stones |
|
8:10 -
8:30 pm |
Dr. Fred Meli:
The Queens Fort Revisited
See Dr. Meli's NEARA
article,
A
New Interpretation of the
Queen's Fort |
|
8:30 -
8:50 pm |
Peter Anick:
Lithic Sites in California’s Volcanic Tablelands |
|
8:50 - 9:05 pm |
Break |
|
9:05 -
9:20 pm |
Ted Ballard:
A Platform Cairn site in East Foxboro, Massachusetts |
|
9:20 -
9:40 pm |
Doug Schwartz:
Native American Advocacy to Protect Ceremonial
Stonework |
|
9:40 -
10:20 pm |
A film by Mary and James
Gage: America's Stonehenge: The History of a Sacred
Place |
Saturday November 3rd
|
8:30 - 9:30 am |
Registration and
Book Sales |
|
9:30 -
10:45 am |
State Coordinator Reports |
|
10:45 -
11:45 am |
Dr. John B.
Carlson: Archaeoastronomy and the Study of Astronomy
in Culture in New England and beyond: Some Perspectives for Further
Discussion |
|
11:45 -
1:00 pm |
Lunch on your
own,
Book Sales & Exhibits |
|
1:00 -
2:00 pm |
Richard
Lynch: Charcoal-Burners, Carbonari, and Freemasons |
|
2:00 -
3:00 pm |
Dr. Jack
Dempsey: The Minoam Great Year Calendar: Secrets of
Time, Life and Power in Ancient Crete |
|
3:00 -
3:15 pm |
Break, Book
Sales, Exhibits |
|
3:15 -
4:15 pm |
Evan
Pritchard and Thomas Paul: Hammonasset Line: A
Solstice and Spiritual Marker |
|
4:15 -
5:15 pm |
Jan
Barstad:
An Update on the Dig at the Newport Tower |
|
5:15
- 5:30 pm |
Meeting wrap
up and announcements |
|
5:30 -
6:30 pm |
Cocktail Hour |
|
6:30 -
8:00 pm |
Banquet |
|
8:00 -
9:30 pm |
Dr John B.
Carlson: "Serpent of Light and Shadow" at the
Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent: Chichen Itza as a Maya Pilgrimage Center
(with Tribute to Jean-Jacques Rivard, a Pioneer in Maya Archaeoastronomy)
|
Sunday November 4th
|
9:00 - 1:00 pm |
Field Trips 1 & 2
See details
here |
Conference Highlights & Field Trips
●
Mashantucket Pequot Museum:
Visit on your own
The
world’s largest and most comprehensive Native American museum and research
center offers an array of engaging experiences for young and old, from
life-size walk-through dioramas that transport visitors into the past, to
changing exhibits and live performances of contemporary arts and cultures.
Four full acres of permanents exhibits depict 18,000 years of Native and
natural history in thoroughly researched detail, while two libraries,
including one for children, offer a diverse selection of materials on the
histories and cultures of all Native peoples of the United States and
Canada. Open 10:00am to 4:00pm.
NEARA
members who would like to visit the museum should do so on their own. There
is an admission fee: Adults $15, Seniors $13 – see their website for more
details and directions
www.pequotmuseum.org
●
Historic Mystic Seaport:
Visit on your own
Mystic
Seaport - “The Museum of America and the Sea” - is the nation's leading
maritime museum. Explore American maritime history firsthand as you climb
aboard historic tall ships, stroll through a re-created 19th-century coastal
village or watch a working preservation shipyard in action. Founded in
1929, Mystic Seaport is open every day except December 24th and 25th. Check
out their website:
www.mysticseaport.org.
●
Friday Field Trip: 2
November 2007
Leaving
from the hotel on Friday at 1:00 PM. Due to parking constraints at some of
the sites we will visit, this will be for a limited group of people. We are
going to start in the center of New London with a visit to three unique
Colonial homes. The cellar of one contains what are purportedly the
earliest known drill marks (1678) on stones in New England, along with an
adjacent 1759 stone house. While it is unlikely these drill marks date from
the home’s original construction, they are worth viewing nonetheless. We
will also visit a 1756 Colonial stone mansion to see a unique external root
cellar, c. 1843. Actual external root cellars are virtually unknown in New
London County, which possesses the most
chambers of any of the New England
counties. From there, we have a number of sites in
the region we can choose from, depending on the
wishes of the participants and how much hiking
people are willing to do. One site we are likely
to visit is the largest Native stonework
complex in the Northeast, with extensive
walls, cairns, a chamber, springs, well, etc. The core of this site is well
over a square kilometer of intensive
stoneworks. Participation will be limited to about 20 people, on a
first-come basis. Preference will be given to
out-of-staters in the event this is over-subscribed. Limited space
available. To reserve, contact
Doug Schwartz at:
thedougschwartz@gmail.com, or 860-437-7923.
●
Sunday Field Trips 1 & 2: 4
November 2007
Leaving from the hotel on Sunday at 9:00 AM. [This
is the first day off of Daylight Savings time, so be sure to set
your clocks back.]
Many of the sites we will visit are oriented to Lantern Hill, the region’s
highest point, and a white, serpentine mountain of solid quartz. In
the Native American cosmological hierarchy in southern New England, Lantern
Hill was at the very top, obviously representing a metaphor for the Milky
Way. We will begin with a visit to New London’s oldest Burial Place,
the oldest Colonial cemetery in southeastern Connecticut, dating from 1652.
It is located on a lunar standstill alignment from the peak of Lantern Hill,
and overlooks the Thames River. The graveyard is superimposed upon a
Native sacred complex, with a stone chamber, earthen mounds, extraordinary
recumbent stones, etc. The site is a classic example of intrusive
burials into an earlier complex. From there we will travel up the
river to a hilltop earthen mound site, with several small earthen
enclosures. This site is located on a solstice alignment from the peak
of Lantern Hill. Earthworks are not common in New England, but do
exist. Also at that site are some extraordinarily large sassafras
trees, including one of the largest in New England, with a 4.5-foot
diameter.
We will then split into two
groups and travel east across the Thames River to visit additional sites.
● Group
1 - Cairn Site CT: We will visit one of the largest cairn complexes in the Northeast,
located on another lunar alignment from Lantern Hill. This site contains
some impressive stone heaps created by donation offerings from pilgrims, as
well as shaped corner cairns and formalized cairns. This site also features
walls, standing stones and wells. Another site on the agenda consists of an
alignment of 5 low stone rings, each about 5 feet in diameter, along a lunar
orientation. This site is a small component of a much larger complex, and
provides an opportunity to view an uncommon configuration. (Some
hiking required.) Be sure to sign up on the Fall Meeting
Registration Form.
● Group
2 - Southwestern RI Sites: W will travel into southwestern Rhode Island, to visit a complex in the midst
of a cluster of springs. This includes formal cairns and several miniature,
above-ground stone chambers, about two feet high. These are structures
intermediate between horseshoes and chambers. The site also features some
nice petroglyphs, and a great many stone placements on boulders
(Moderate walking.) Be sure to sign up on the Fall Meeting
Registration Form.

Click to enlarge
.
Field Trip
Note: The
trips are designed to accommodate those not up for extensive hiking. Those
who are can participate in the first trip listed above, and those who are not
should choose the second option. We are also attempting to get permission to
visit a unique additional site, in addition to those mentioned above.
Featured Speakers & Abstracts
Steve Voluckas: Oakes, Ponds, and Standing Stones
New insights from previously noted and
recently noticed features at Spirit Pond that may contribute to the search
for, evaluation of, and understanding of sites from Nova Scotia to Rhode
Island. A relationship has been noticed between tidal ponds or estuaries, the
presence of very large red oak trees, and medieval type structures or
features. This relationship could be useful in the search for evidence of
settlements, contact with native populations, and activities such as boat
building. NEARA members may be interested in checking if this
relationship exists at locations they are researching.
Steve
Voluckas is a professional pilot for a small regional airline, Island
Airlines, flying between Hyannis and Nantucket, Massachusetts. He served in
the US Coast Guard 1968-72. Other interests include: Producer/director of
public access television programs on Cape Cod Community Media Center – Comcast
Channel 17 mid-Cape area. Member of the planning committee for the annual
Multicultural Festival of Cape Cod, held in March at the Cape Cod Community
College. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Cape Cod
Immigrant Center and is a member of the Lithuanian-American Community of Cape
Cod. In September 2005, I began research into Norse settlement sites on/near
Cape Breton, Nova Scotia that I believed corresponded to the Vinland Sagas.
Following the NEARA meeting held in Concord New Hampshire, he visited Spirit
Pond in Maine for the first time, believing it held a key to connecting many
of the “puzzle pieces” we have all been studying and found more than he
expected!
Dr. John B. Carlson:
Archaeoastronomy and the Study of Astronomy in Culture in
New England and beyond: Some Perspectives for Further Discussion
Beginning with
the publication of J. Norman Lockyer’s “The Dawn of Astronomy” in 1894,
Archaeoastronomy has developed into the interdisciplinary study of the
astronomical practices, celestial lore, mythologies, religions and world-views
of all ancient cultures… and the surviving indigenous peoples of today.
(Investigations of contemporary native astronomies have come to be called “Ethnoastronomy.”)
With many important amateur contributions, the discipline has transcended its
early beginnings as “Astro-archaeology” – largely devoted to the measurement
and interpretation of alignments of structures and sites – to become the
broad-based study of astronomy in culture. Essentially the anthropology of
astronomy and world-view, Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy has blossomed
into active interdisciplinary fields that are providing new perspectives for
the history of our species’ interaction with the cosmos. This would include
many interrelated interests in ancient and native calendar systems,
astrologies, concepts of time and space, mathematics, counting systems and
geometry, surveying and navigational techniques, as well as “geomancy” and the
origins of urban planning. One hallmark of the new research paradigm is
productive cooperation between professionals and amateurs from many
backgrounds and cultures. In this informal presentation, some perspectives are
presented for discussion on amateur Archaeoastronomy and Archaeology in New
England and beyond.
John B. Carlson, a radio and
extragalactic astronomer by training, is the Director of the Center for
Archaeoastronomy, a non-profit institute for research and education related
to interdisciplinary studies of the astronomical practices, celestial lore,
religions and world-views of ancient civilizations and the contemporary
indigenous cultures of the world. In this capacity, Dr. Carlson is an expert
on Native American astronomy specializing is studies of Pre-Columbian
Mesoamerica and is the Editor of the ARCHAEOASTRONOMY Journal, published by
the University of Texas Press. The art, iconography, calendar systems and
hieroglyphic writing of the Maya and Highland Mexican civilizations are
particular interests, and he has published and lectured extensively in these
fields. A photographic essay on “America’s Ancient Skywatchers” was
published in the March 1990 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE. A review of his
research into ancient Mesoamerican practices of Venus-regulated sacred
warfare and ritual sacrifice in the context of Teotihuacan, entitled “The
Rise and Fall of the City of the Gods,” appeared as the cover article of the
Nov./Dec. 1993 ARCHAEOLOGY Magazine. The “archaeology of pilgrimage” is a
current special research interest. In this context, he was the organizer of
the October 2000 Dumbarton Oaks Symposium on “Pilgrimage and the Ritual
Landscape in Pre-Colombian America” and is currently completing a book on
the “Equinox Serpent of Light and Shadow Phenomenon” which takes place at
the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent at Chichén Itzá, Yucatan. Carlson is
Senior Lecturer in the University Honors Program, University of Maryland –
College Park, where he teaches courses in Astronomy, Anthropology and
the History of Science.
Mary and James Gage: America's
Stonehenge: The History of a Sacred Place
This
film reconstructs the 2500 year cultural history of the America's Stonehenge
archaeological site located in North Salem, NH. The complex of stone chambers,
standing stones, niches, and other stone structures at the site served as an
important spiritual and ritual center for a group of ancient Native American
people. For the Native Americans this place was sacred. Construction of this
ritual complex began over 3,000 years ago and evolved through five major periods
of construction and change until its final closure with the arrival of European
colonists. The Native Americans left an extraordinary archaeological record of
their ritual activities and spiritual beliefs.
Mary Gage, author an independent
researcher, has meticulously researched this site for many years and has
successfully reconstructed its cultural history. This film is based upon her
book,
America's Stonehenge Deciphered (2006).
Richard Lynch: Charcoal-Burners,
Carbonari, and Freemasons
Scattered throughout the New England
landscape and many other areas of the country, are the remains of
what was once a flourishing industry of “charcoal making.” The impressive
stone remains and mounds are only a hint of what was once a thriving economy.
Who built these structures? Most were built by members and decedents of a
secret political society; the “Carbonari.” The similarity between the secret
society of the Carbonari and the Freemasons is evident and unmistakable. My
presentation will tell of the history of the “charcoal burners” from their
roots in Italy, Portugal, and France and their impact on the development of
early America
Rick Lynch is the past
president of NEARA. He has had a very long interest in history and
archaeology, especially in the areas of New England and the American
Southwest. He has many other areas of diverse interest including,
astronomy, UFOs and railroading.
Dr. Jack Dempsey:
The Minoan Great Year Calendar: Secrets of Time, Life and Power in Ancient Crete
The calendar of
ancient Greece is still with us in the 4-year timing of The Olympic Games. But
that calendar’s origins were not understood until Charles F. Herberger’s 1972
discovery of the 8½-year lunar/solar cycle called The Great Year in Bronze Age
Minoan Crete. In fact, the Minoan calendar has been hiding in plain sight, in
the decorative border of the famous Toreador or Bull-Leaping Fresco from
Cnossos Labyrinth. How does this calendar work? What are its anchors in
natural observation, astronomical tradition, and religious symbolism? How does
The Great Year bring new understandings of ancient Crete’s social organization
and spirituality? And what secrets of time, life and power woven into this
artifact can help us understand why Minoan civilization was the longest and
most prosperous period of Western development on record?
Dr. Jack
Dempsey (Ph.D. Brown University) is a writer, editor and producer of works
on ancient Greece and early America. This lecture draws upon his latest work,
“Calendar House,” whose 9 chapters and 280 illustrations work to demonstrate
the validity of Charles F. Herberger’s discovery of the Minoan Great Year in
The Toreador Fresco from Gnossos.
Evan Pritchard & Tom Paul:
Hammonasset Line: A Solstice and Spiritual Marker
 |
|
Summer Solstice sunset at Fort Pond
Hill
6/21/06 Gardner’s Point and Plumb Island by the sun.
(Photo by Tom
Paul)
. |
This talk will explore a solstice line from the
perspectives of two people who have begun separate research work on this
subject, coming up with similar conclusions. Tom Paul first studied stone
markers in north Madison, CT in the summer of 1995. Early on it became
evident that there was a solstice line located by his home, and by spring of
1996 he had named it the Hammonasset Line because the Native American tribe
living in that area was the Hammonassets. Since that time many stone
structures have been found on or associated with this line, Montauk to Hunter
Mountain and beyond. Evan Pritchard, in his book “Native New Yorkers,” used
sources from archaeology, cartography, linguistics and also the oral
traditions of Long Island’s Native Americans to help establish the existence
of solstice lines from Montauk westward. He will start the discussion by
examining line associated with “mortuary cities” on Long Island. He will
present his case for the existence of the line along with its possible
development and usage. Evan will use maps and examples of important markers
from Montauk to Upper New York State. Tom will then follow by reviewing what
he has found along the solstice line from Montauk to Hunter, NY, noting
different types of stone structures, their age and meaning. Some structures
are in the form of cairn fields. It is felt that these cairn fields are a
burial marker or a memorial marker for native people who have died and placed
on or near by a sacred line marker, the Hammonasset Line. Other structures
such as prayer seats, standing stones, stone effigies, shaped stones and
viewing platforms appear to have spiritual meaning. Evan will continue by
exploring the possibility of a continuation of the solstice line from the
Catskills to northern Canada. He will indicate important areas for the
Algonquin and Iroquois along this way.
Tom Paul has a Masters Degree in engineering, attended Duke
University and New Jersey Institute of Technology. He retired in 2006 from
the 3M Co. Tom is a member of many organizations and currently is the
Treasurer for NEARA.
Evan Pritchard is director of the center
for Algonquin Culture. Evan is of Micmac, Wampanoag and Celtic descent.
Through his lectures and books, such as, ‘No Word for Time’ and ‘Native New
Yorker,’ he has worked to highlight the importance of Algonquin culture in
North American history. Evan is a professor of Native American History at
Marist College, and lectures throughout the US and Canada. He is author of
the new book, ‘Native American Stories of the Sacred, Annotated and Explained
by Evan T. Pritchard (Skylight Paths)’
Jan Barstad: An Update on the Dig
at the Newport Tower
With the
gracious permission of the Newport City Council, Chronognostics
has conducted an archaeological excavation of sites they found in the park
during their geophysical studies of the past three years: possible building
foundations and a rocky area near the Tower. The Tower itself, though
completely visible and beautiful, is mute; we can only hope that its neighbors
underground will be more talkative and tell us their tales from the past, and
the tale of the Tower. Jan will discuss her research and the findings
from the digs so far.
Jan
Barstad is a historian,
writer, and botanist. Born in the historic town of York, Pennsylvania, she
attended Middlebury College in Vermont, where she received a Bachelor of Arts
in History; later she earned a Masters of Science in Botany, specializing in
plant ecology, from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. Jan began her
writing career as a staff writer for Paddock Publications (a suburban
newspaper chain) in Arlington Heights, Illinois. In Arizona, she served as a
public relations specialist for two Phoenix hospitals, and later as
publications director for the Desert Botanical Garden. As a botanist, she
worked as a riparian research technician for the research unit of USDA Forest
Service at Arizona State University in Tempe. She served as a field
representative for USDI Bureau of the Census from 2000 to 2004. Currently she
is an Adjunct Faculty member of the Arizona Center for Medieval and
Renaissance Studies at Arizona State University. As a writer and editor, Jan
has written many articles for Arizona Highways Magazine, other magazines, and
science journals. She is the author of several books, including The Verde
River Sheep Bridge and the Sheep Industry of Arizona and Hohokam Pottery.
Most recently, she edited and wrote chapters for The International Handbook of
Underwater Archaeology, published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2002. In
2004 she founded and is president of the nonprofit Chronognostic Research
Foundation, Inc., whose aim is to pursue research into historical and
archaeological questions. She lives in Tempe with her husband, Ron, and their
seven cats.
.
|
Newport Tower Seminar:
27
October 2007
In the wake of the current investigations of the
Newport Tower, NEARA’s Suzie Schochet has planned a one day Tower seminar on
Saturday, October 27, 2007 at the
Newport Art
Museum & Art Association. Sue Carlson, Bill Penhallow and Jim
Egan will be speaking under the baton of moderator Jan Barstad of the
Chronognostic Foundation, organizer of the studies. Watch for complete
information here at www.neara.org
and www.chronognostic.org.
● At the NEARA 2002 Fall Meeting "ABC
+10", Sue Carlson, Bill Penhallow, and Jim Eagan presented:
The Newport Tower: Sunlight and Moonshine.
.
● NEARA Monograph:
The Newport Tower:
.
.
NEARA’s editors feel
the time is right to compile the
efforts of our many contributors in a single volume.
We hope that readers who have
followed the twists and turns of Tower research will revisit the
information contained herein, and that those who
are new to the subject will find the
subject matter intriguing and a catalyst for more reading and study. We
have, in some cases, edited the authors' original articles in
order to avoid redundancy. (Includes ordering info)
|
.
Keynote Lecture Saturday Evening:
.
Dr. John B.
Carlson: "Serpent of Light and Shadow" at the Pyramid of
the Feathered Serpent: Chichen Itza as a Maya Pilgrimage Center (with Tribute to
Jean-Jacques Rivard, a Pioneer in Maya Archaeoastronomy)
Every year, around the time of the equinoxes (21
March and 21 September), thousands of people from every part of the globe come
to the Maya archaeological site of Chichén Itzá in northern Yucatan, to
witness a striking visual effect projected before sunset onto the north
balustrade of the “Castillo” or “Pyramid of Kukulcan,” the Feathered Serpent.
But, is there compelling evidence that the ancient Maya architects of the
Castillo designed and oriented it intentionally to create this moving visual
manifestation, now viewed by the masses as the descending “Serpent of Light
and Shadow”? First proposed by Jean-Jacques Rivard in 1970 in his pioneering
Maya archaeoastronomy study entitled “A Hierophany at Chichen Itza,” his ideas
have well withstood the test of time based on subsequent research and new
data. His interdisciplinary hypotheses of an astronomically-timed
architectonic “manifestation of the sacred” were prescient, and his night-time
photographs of “star trails,” analyzed in collaboration with astronomer
Charles Smiley, were among the first to
establish the orientation of a Maya temple with astronomical questions in
mind. In its day, ancient Chichén Itzá was a great Mesoamerican pilgrimage
center, and it has once again become a sacred as well as secular shrine of
veneration for religious devotees, tourists and the local people on holiday.
Whatever our ultimate judgment of the evidence, the equinoctial sunset
“Descent of the Feathered Serpent” at Chichén Itzá is, without a doubt, a
fascinating example of the role of astronomy in both an ancient civilization
as well as now in contemporary world popular culture.

John B. Carlson, a radio and extragalactic astronomer by training,
is the Director of the Center for Archaeoastronomy, a non-profit institute for
research and education related to interdisciplinary studies of the
astronomical practices, celestial lore, religions and world-views of ancient
civilizations and the contemporary indigenous cultures of the world. In this
capacity, Dr. Carlson is an expert on Native American astronomy specializing
is studies of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and is the Editor of the
ARCHAEOASTRONOMY Journal, published by the University of Texas Press. The art,
iconography, calendar systems and hieroglyphic writing of the Maya and
Highland Mexican civilizations are particular interests, and he has published
and lectured extensively in these fields. A photographic essay on “America’s
Ancient Skywatchers” was published in the March 1990 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
MAGAZINE. A review of his research into ancient Mesoamerican practices of
Venus-regulated sacred warfare and ritual sacrifice in the context of
Teotihuacan, entitled “The Rise and Fall of the City of the Gods,” appeared as
the cover article of the Nov./Dec. 1993 ARCHAEOLOGY Magazine. The “archaeology
of pilgrimage” is a current special research interest. In this context, he was
the organizer of the October 2000 Dumbarton Oaks Symposium on “Pilgrimage and
the Ritual Landscape in Pre-Colombian America” and is currently completing a
book on the “Equinox Serpent of Light and Shadow Phenomenon” which takes place
at the Pyramid of the Feathered Serpent at Chichén Itzá, Yucatan. Carlson is
Senior Lecturer in the University Honors Program, University of Maryland –
College Park, where he teaches courses in Astronomy, Anthropology and
the History of Science.
Lodgings: Holiday Inn New London

Holiday Inn New London / Mystic, 269 North Frontage Road,
New London, CT 06320.
Phone: 860-442-0631, Fax: 860-442-0130,
Email Address,
Website.
The Holiday Inn New London is nestled in the heart of Mystic Country,
conveniently right off I-95. Take a stroll back in time and enjoy the charms of
the historic Mystic Seaport and Olde Mistick Village. Explore one of the most
diverse aquariums in the nation at the Mystic Aquarium. And then of course
there’s the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center – a must see for
NEARA members!
NEARA has secured a rate of $89.00 per night, plus applicable sales taxes. When
you call to make your reservations, mention that you are a NEARA member and
verify that you are receiving the special rate.
● Directions to
the Holiday Inn:
I-95N to
exit 82A. Take Colman Street exit, right at the light. At second light take a
left onto Bayonet Street. The back entrance to the hotel is on the left.
I-95S: Take
exit 83, hotel is ½ mile on the right.
Email:
holidayinnnewlondon@waterfordhotelgroup.com
Website:
www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/hi/1/en/hotel/gonms?_requestid=209380
Important Notice: The
cut-off date for NEARA special rates is October 19th so call to reserve your
room now!! After the cut-off date, all rooms being held for NEARA will be
released back into general inventory and any requests made after October 19th
will be subject to room availability.
Please make your reservations by October 19th.
Registration
(click here)
Please follow the link for Fall Meeting
registrations form. Please print the form, fill it out, and mail it
in to the address on the form. (We do not have on-line registration capabilities as yet.) Thank
you!
Notice:
NEARA Members receive a discount on the registration fee. If you would
like to become a NEARA member there is a Membership Application attached to the
Registration Form.
.
NEARA 2008 Spring Meeting:
25-27 April 2008, Clarion Hotel, Northampton, Massachusetts
NEARA Special Event in Nova Scotia
August 8 - 13, 2007
.
Hosted by NEARA's Nova Scotia Chapter
Six
days of Field Trips and Adventures in Nova Scotia!
Featuring:
Oak Island, the Yarmouth "Runic" Stone, the Bayers Lake Walls, the Chain Lake
Ruins, and the Bedford Petroglyphs

"We are eagerly looking
forward to having you visit with us this summer, and to have you see for
yourself the exciting and enigmatic relics of our mysterious past."
- Terry Deveau, Event Coordinator
Schedule
Registration
Lodgings
Links
Program & Schedule of Events
|
|
Wednesday 8 August 2007
breakfast on your own
. |
|
8:00 am EDT |
Ferry departs Bar Harbour, ME, for Yarmouth, NS. |
|
12:00 pm ADT |
Ferry arrives in Yarmouth, NS |
|
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm |
Time to locate your motel, and perhaps check-in.
You are on your own for accommodations. |
|
1:30 pm - 3:00 pm |
Visit the
Yarmouth County Museum
Including the Fletcher Stone, aka. Yarmouth “Runic”
Stone. |
|
3:00 pm - 6:00 pm |
Feild
Trip, Two Options:
.
•
Field Trip Option A:
Cape Forchu and the site of the former
Markland Hotel. Near
the little-known and long-lost Bayview Stone.
.
•
Field Trip Option B:
Tour historic town of
Yarmouth on your
own. Founded
by New Englanders in 1761. |
|
6:00 pm - 7:30 pm |
Supper together at a Yarmouth restaurant (TBD). |
|
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm |
Lecture presentation and discussion:
.
• Terry
J. Deveau: The
Enigmatic Inscribed Stones of SW Nova Scotia |
|
|
.
Thursday 9 August 2007
breakfast on your own
. |
|
8:00 am EDT |
Ferry departs Portland, ME, for Yarmouth, NS.
(Arrives in Yarmouth at 2:30pm
ADT). |
|
9:30 am - 12:30 pm |
Field
Trip, Two Options:
(or possibly do both—depending on
weather, tides, interest, and land-owner permission.)
•
Field Trip Option A:
The
little-known Lent’s Island Stone by small boat. Are
the strange markings an inscribed text or a geoglyph? You decide.
•
Field Trip Option B:
The
Tusket Falls site of the purported “Viking
Cellars" - so claimed by
authors Leander d’Entremont & Robert Blauveldt. |
|
12:30 pm - 2:00 pm |
Lunch together at a rural Acadian restaurant (TBD) |
|
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm |
Tour historic Acadian village of
West Pubnico on your own (founded
1653) including the
Acadian Museum and Archives. |
|
3:00 pm - 3:30 pm |
For those arriving on the Portland boat,
arrangements can be made to meet you at the ferry and escort you to join
the group. |
|
3:30 pm - 6:00 pm |
Travel on your own, or with the group, to the
Western Shore, Mahone Bay, or Chester Area and check-in to your motel.
(You are on your own for accommodations.) |
|
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm |
Supper together at Oak Island Inn
La Vista dining room.
(Rest of the evening on your own.) |
|
|
.
Friday 10
August 2007
breakfast on your own
. |
|
9:00 am - 10:30 am |
Drive to Halifax together. |
|
10:30 am - 12:00 pm |
Field trip to the
Bayer’s Lake “Mystery” Walls. |
|
1:30 pm - 5:30 pm |
Field
Trip, Three Options:
(guided
group will split in two)
.
•
Field trip Option A:
The
little-known Chain Lakes Area Ruins.
(Weather permitting, difficult hiking
required.)
•
Field Trip Option B:
Visit
Maritime Museum of the Atlantic
(Downtown
Halifax.)
•
Field Trip Option C:
Tour
the
city of
Halifax on your
own.
(Citadel fort, waterfront, etc.) |
|
5:30 pm - 6:30 pm |
Field trip to the
Bedford Petroglyphs. (Not
difficult) |
|
6:30 pm - 7:30 pm |
Scenic drive together to
Peggy’s Cove.
Said to be one of the most photographed spots in
Canada. |
|
7:30 pm - 9:00 pm |
Supper together at
Peggy’s Cove Restaurant. (Sunset
view?) |
|
9:00 pm - 10:00 pm |
Return together to motels in Western Shore, Mahone
Bay, or Chester Area. You are on your own for accommodations. |
|
|
.
Saturday 11
August 2007
breakfast on your own
. |
|
9:30 am - 11:30 am |
Lecture presentation and discussion:
.
• Terry
J. Deveau: The Chain
Lakes Area Ruins |
|
10:00 am - 4:00 pm |
Explore Oak Island Days exhibits, lectures, videos,
etc. Organized by the Oak Island Tourism
Society—details on OITS
web site. OITS hall
all-day admission charge: $5.00
Lunch on your own, or enjoy OITS snack bar
service. |
|
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm |
Lecture presentation and discussion:
Oak Island topic (TBA) by OITS speaker (TBA)
Lecture presentation and discussion.
Cost included in OITS hall admission charge. |
|
2:15 pm - 3:15 pm |
Lecture presentation and discussion:
.
•
Les Macphie:
Oak
Island’s Borehole 10x
.
Les Macphie, OITS speaker. Cost
included in OITS hall admission charge. |
|
4:00 pm - 7:00 pm |
Guided tour of Oak Island by OITS. (Another
tour on Sunday.) Cost of tour: $5.00 |
|
7:00 pm |
Special dinner and social evening hosted by OITS.
(Details on OITS
web site) Cost: $35.00 |
|
7:00 pm |
NEARA alternative:
Pub night at Western Shore or drinks at the Oak Island Inn? |
|
|
.
Sunday 12
August 2007
breakfast on your own
. |
|
9:45 am - 11:45 am |
Lecture
presentation and discussion:
.
•
To be determined. |
|
10:00 am - 4:00 pm |
Explore Oak Island Days exhibits, lectures, videos,
etc. Organized by the Oak Island Tourism
Society—details on OITS
web site. OITS hall
all-day admission charge: $5.00 |
|
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm |
Lecture presentation and discussion:
.
•
Graham Harris:
Oak Island topic, to be
determined
.
Graham Harris,
OITS speaker. Cost included in OITS hall
admission charge.
.
Lunch on your own, or enjoy OITS snack bar
service. |
|
1:00 pm |
You need to leave for
Yarmouth no later than this if you want to make the boat to Portland on
Sunday evening at 4:00 pm. |
|
1:00 pm - 6:00 pm |
Optional field trip to one or more of several nearby
stone ruin sites of interest:
Oakland Walls, Birchtown Mounds; details TBA. |
|
2:15 pm - 3:15 pm |
Lecture presentation and discussion:
.
•
D'Arcy O'Connor:
Debunking the Debunkers
.
D’Arcy O’Connor,
OITS speaker. Cost included in OITS hall
admission charge. |
|
4:00 pm |
Ferry departs Yarmouth, NS for Portland, ME. You
are requested to check in at the terminal at 3:00 pm. |
|
4:00 pm - 7:00 pm |
Guided tour of Oak Island by OITS. (If you
missed it Saturday.) Cost of
tour: $5.00 |
|
7:00 pm |
Supper event: TBD. |
|
|
.
Monday 13
August 2007
breakfast on your own
. |
|
9:00 pm - 2:00 pm |
Field
Trip, Two Options (guided
group will split in two)
.
Field Trip Option A:
Two-hour
scenic drive, and one hour difficult hike (each way)
to an amazing and little-known ancient cairn and walls
site. Eexact location will not be
broadcast in advance.
Field Trip Option B:
One-hour
scenic drive (via New Ross) to the
Grand-Pré
National Historic Site and exhibit centre memorializing
the expulsion of the Acadians in 1755. Followed
by a one-hour
highway drive to the
Port-Royal
National Historic Site
commemorating the French settlement in 1605. |
|
1:30 pm |
From Port-Royal, you need to leave for Yarmouth no
later than this if you want to make the boat to
Bar Harbour on Monday evening at 4:00 pm. |
|
4:00 pm |
Ferry departs Yarmouth, NS for Bar Harbour, ME.
You are requested to check in at the terminal at
3:00 pm. |
A note regarding passports—If
travelling by air, passports are required now for US citizens
visiting Canada. However, for land and sea travellers, passports will not be
required until 2008.
Registration
Registration form
here.
Event fees (if any) will be minimal, but we won’t know exactly until we have
better numbers. You are on your own for all accommodations. You must pay for all
your own meals yourself. There are some very minor charges for the OITS
events, as noted in the program.
Please submit your registration form as soon as you know your firm plans. We
need to get some idea as to numbers so we can make sure space is reserved for
us. The month of August is a very busy time for the hospitality industry in Nova
Scotia and space becomes unavailable if not booked well in advance.
Those who submit a registration form will be kept fully informed of further
developments as the schedule of events is firmed-up. Space is limited to the
first 40 registrations received, so don’t be disappointed; send us your
registration today!
You may submit your completed registration form by Emailing it to:
Terry J. Deveau
deveau@chebucto.ns.ca
Or via letter mail to:
Terry J.
Deveau
3 Shore
Road
Herring Cove, NS, B3V
1G6
Canada
Lodgings
For the utmost in comfort and convenience, we recommend the following
accommodations providers (contact them directly, without delay, for rates
and availability). We regret that we cannot offer any special rates or group
deals this time.
In Yarmouth:
(1 night, August 8)
Rodd Colony Harbour Inn
http://www.rodd-hotels.ca/ourhotels/ns/colonyinn/index.asp
1-800-565-7633
In Western Shore:
(4 nights, August 9-12)
Oak Island Resort & Spa Convention Centre
www.oakislandresortandspa.com
1-800-565-5075
There are also many other quality providers available, in all
price ranges. You can have all your hospitality and accommodations choices
explained by calling 1-800-565-0000, or on the web at
www.novascotia.com. Be sure to order your free copy of the 2007 Doers’
and Dreamers’ Guide; over 400 pages of fully-detailed information on
everything that the Nova Scotia hospitality industry has to offer (shipped
hot-off-the-press mid-February, if you request it now).
Additional Links of Interest in the Area
Ferries:
http://www.catferry.com/
Oak Island Tourism Society:
http://www.oakislandsociety.ca/Calendar.htm
Yarmouth County Museum:
http://yarmouthcountymuseum.ednet.ns.ca/
Fletcher Stone:
http://www.nsexplore.ca/yarmouth/stones.htm
http://users.eastlink.ca/~oginword/main.htm
Cape Forchu:
http://www.yarmouth.org/villages/capeforc/history/geology/index.htm
http://www.yarmouth.org/villages/capeforc/history/index.htm
Markland Hotel:
http://i16.ebayimg.com/05/i/08/6e/1c/dc_1_b.JPG
http://i16.ebayimg.com/03/i/06/e4/23/bd_1_b.JPG
Bay View Stone:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_1_24/ai_58545665/pg_6
http://www.nsexplore.ca/yarmouth/yarmouth.jpg
Lent’s Island Stone:
http://www.nsexplore.ca/yarmouth/lents/BedrockInscription72-11-18_72dpi.jpg
Tusket Falls “Viking” Cellars:
http://www.nsexplore.ca/yarmouth/tusket/
Yarmouth Area:
http://www.yarmouth.org/
http://www.yarmouth-town.com/
http://www.yarmouth.org/vacation/tours/fishermen/
http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/pm.php?id=story_line&lg=English&fl=&ex=00000269&sl=5450&pos=1
http://www.destinationsouthwestnova.com/explore-the-area/regions-and-communities/yarmouth-acadia-shores.php
West Pubnico:
http://museum.gov.ns.ca/av/intro-e.html
http://www.museeacadien.ca/english/museum/index.htm
Mahone Bay:
http://www.mahonebay.com/
Chester:
http://www.chesterns.com/
Southwest Nova Scotia:
http://www.destinationsouthwestnova.com/
Bayer’s Lake “Mystery” Walls:
http://www.neara.org/MiscReports/03-21-05.htm
http://www.nsexplore.ca/halifax/mysterywalls/mysterywalls5.htm
Maritime Museum of the
Atlantic:
http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mma/index.html
Halifax:
http://www.halifaxinfo.com/
http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/halifax/index_e.asp
Bedford Petroglyphs:
http://www.multiculturaltrails.ca/level_3/halifax-bedford.html
http://www.booth.k12.nf.ca/projects/Mi'kmaq/bedford.htm
http://www.nsexplore.ca/halifax/bedford/
http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mnh/nature/nhns2/400/413.htm
Peggy’s Cove:
http://www.tourcanada.com/pegcove.htm
http://www.peggys-cove.com/
http://www.vacation-nova-scotia-tourism.com/nova-scotia-peggys-cove-lighthouse-post-office.shtml
Oak Island:
http://www.oakislandsociety.ca/
http://www.oakislandtreasure.co.uk/
Grand-Pré:
http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/grandpre/index_e.asp
Port-Royal:
http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/portroyal/index_e.asp
NEARA's Spring Meeting April 20-22, 2007
New Hampshire Technical Institute
Featuring the New Home of the NEARA Collection

NHTI Library - Home of the NEARA Collection
Notice: All of the lectures will take
place at the New Hampshire Technical Institution, the new home of the NEARA
Library. NHTI offers a first class state-of-the-art auditorium and venue and is
approximately .3 miles from the Courtyard.
Highlights & Field Trips
Speakers & Abstracts
Spring Meeting
Schedule
Sweeney Hall Auditorium
Marriott Rates & Directions
Meeting Registration
Conference Highlights & Field Trips
● Museum of NH History:
Tour: Friday at 2:00 pm
NEARA members will meet in the museum lobby, by the gift shop, on the main
floor, shortly before 2:00PM. Our tour will begins promptly at 2:00 PM and
will be mostly self-guided.
The NH Historical Society has been collecting, preserving, and interpreting
New Hampshire’s past since 1823. The current museum opened in May of 1995 and
is a charming mix of artifact displays and hands on interpretive exhibits. It
features a permanent exhibit (NH Through Many Eyes) of NH’s history from its
prehistoric earliest days up until today, as well as, changing exhibits like
Consuming Views: Art and Tourism in the White Mountains.

NEARA members will be especially interested in "The Mystery Stone", one of the Museum’s most
requested artifact. An exquisitely carved black stone found on the shores of
Lake Winnipesaukee, it is reminiscent of artifacts turned up in archaic sites
far to our south.
Also of interest
will be the Abenaki section with it’s wigwam, dugout, and excellent display of
stone tools, all found and most likely crafted in New Hampshire. Don’t miss a
chance to climb the fire tower and check out the surrounding area from aloft.
Visit their web
page for directions, parking information, and other background tidbits.
● NEARA Library at NHTI:
Open House: Friday at 4:00 pm
NEARA members come visit your library and learn all about the services available
to you through NHTI. Explore the NEARA Collection of nearly 3000 books; 15 journals
and newsletters, that are regular subscriptions; countless online resources;
topographical maps; site files; and, of course, the NEARA vertical (clippings
and articles). Refreshments will be served at 4:00 PM.
NHTI Library website.
NHTI Campus map here:
http://www.nhti.edu/welcome/nhtimap.pdf
● NEARA Library at NHTI:
Special Program: Friday, 4:30 -
5:00 pm
NHTI Library Computer Lab: A hands-on demonstration of searching for information
in the NEARA Library collection a chance to search the various data bases and
collections via computer, as you are able to do from your home, to enhance your
knowledge of what is available and how to use it. There is room for 20
independent researchers or more if you work together. Email your sign up to
Anne Wirkkala:
awirkkala@nhctc.edu
●
Christa McAuliffe
Planetarium:
Star Shows beginning at 11:00 am daily
NEARA members may attend in any of the four different star
shows at the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium, beginning at 11:00AM, featured
daily, including Sundays. The Planetarium is located adjacent (even attached
to NHTI) and is New Hampshire's only planetarium. Join their enthusiastic
staff for a journey to the stars and beyond. The facility is named in honor
of New Hampshire’s fallen teacher astronaut killed in the Challenger disaster
and is the most technologically advanced planetarium in New England. Visit
their website, at
www.starhop.com, for show descriptions, times, and ticket information.
Just a short walk from the Library and a site not to be missed during your
visit to Concord. (Christa McAuliffe Planetarium, 2 Institute Drive,
Concord, NH 03301.) NHTI Campus map here:
http://www.nhti.edu/welcome/nhtimap.pdf
● Field Trips:
Sunday April 22
Sunday's field trips have an underlying theme of "site care
and protection," which is one of the main foci of NEARA. We begin the trip
with a brief stop at a site that has not been cared for. We will view the
removal of even the topsoil from a former site in Hopkinton, NH. Next stop to
Claremont, NH, to visit a site owned and cared for by a noted garden center
owner, Mr. Kathan, who is very proud of his elegant rocking stone. Then
returning to Henniker, NH, for "The Devil's Footprints" behind NEC, and then
past two interesting stone features in Weare, NH. A sign-up sheet and
directions will be posted during the meeting. It is about an hour and 15
minutes to Claremont and the only hiking will be a modest climb to view
footprints. Photo: Don Gilmore is
exploring its mechanics of the rocking stone during a NH chapter visit in
2001.
Featured Speakers & Abstracts
Ted Timreck:
Hidden Landscapes: A Northeastern Ceremonial Landscape
The first
episode of the Hidden Landscapes series is a search for the ceremonial
traditions that eastern Native Americans created in their natural environment.
Pre-contact, Native, ritual architecture has been discovered all over the
North American continent yet the Northeast has never been recognized by
archeologists as a region where early, indigenous people left ceremonial
designs in their landscape. The often unspoken implication among
historians has been that Eastern Native Peoples were somehow less culturally
developed then other ancient societies in the Western Hemisphere. This
prevailing model of a diminished Indian history has, in turn, created a void
in out vision of the past that has been too easily filled with invented
civilizations. By ignoring or dismissing the landscape archeology that
is admittedly difficult to explain, a controversial situation developed where
the researchers who stumbled on to the "mysterious" ruins found throughout the
Northeast could suggest fantastical origins like "Lost Races" or pre-Columbian
migrations from Europe. This program takes a new look at the historical
arguments and modern discoveries that have shaped the popular vision of Native
cultural history in Eastern North America.
Since the mid 70's, Ted Timreck has
specialized in portraits of artists and anthropological programming. Beginning
in 1980, he has worked extensively with Smithsonian scientists documenting
field research, producing video and electronic media for The National Museum
of Natural History and programming for public and cable television. He is the
producer of the Smithsonian's Arctic Studies and Paleo-Indian Web Sites.
Television works include "Franz Boas" for the PBS Odyssey series along with
"The Lost Red Paint People" and "Vikings in America" for PBS (Nova). His
television portraits of artists (PBS national specials and series) include,
Charles Ives, Thomas Eakins, Augustus Saint Gaudens and Frederick Law
Olmsted. Mr. Timreck is a research associate with the Arctic Studies Center
at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
Richard Boisvert:
New Hampshire Archaeology
A review of the latest developments and discoveries in New Hampshire
Archaeology will be presented.
Richard Boisvert: BA Anthropology from Beloit College, MA & PhD in
Anthropology from the U of KY, research in Ohio Valley, Texas, France, Quebec
and New Hampshire; employed with NH Division of Historical Resources since
1987, State Archaeologist since 2003; major research interests include lithic
technology, Paleoindian and Public Archaeology. He is the State Archaeologist
for New Hampshire.
Evan Hadingham:
The End of the Minoans
Since the 1930s, archaeologists have speculated that a Bronze Age cataclysmic
eruption of the Thera volcano on Santorini destroyed Crete's Minoan culture,
Europe's first great civilization. However, a surprising lack of evidence of
volcanic devastation on Crete, coupled with archaeological clues indicating
that the Minoans flourished for at least a generation or two after the
eruption, led to the theory largely falling into disfavor. Now, however, some
startling new discoveries in Crete are leading archaeologists to think again
about the impact of the eruption. E.H. recently returned from Crete and will
report on the new discoveries relating to the greatest single natural disaster
of the ancient world.
Evan Hadingham is Science Editor for the PBS series NOVA from WGBH ,
Boston.
Zena Halpern & Don Ruh:
The Catskill Mountain Stone Petrographic/SEM Report
An inscribed stone with six ancient characters was found November 2004 in
Frost Valley, Catskill Mountains of New York. To answer potential questions
about the inscribed stone it was submitted for testing to the laboratory of
American Petrographic Services (APS), St. Paul, Minnesota on June 20, 2006.
Geologist Scott Wolter, PG performed the laboratory analysis. The stone was
also sent to the Materials Analysis and Research Laboratory at Iowa State
University for electron scanning microscopy (SEM) on Oct. 31, 2006.
We will report on the results of the observations into the physical features
of the inscribed stone done by American Petrographic Services which subjected
the stone to both non-destructive and destructive testing in the form of
petrographic observations. A small sample was cut off one end of the stone
and a thin section was made from this sample and the remaining piece was
polished for microscopic review. The second part of the testing process was
done at Materials Analysis and Research Laboratory (MARL), Iowa State
University where the stone was subjected to Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM)
and we will also report on these results. The petrographic observations made
by APS and MARL including the geologic classification and documentation of the
physical aspects of the stone will be the focus of our report.
Zena Halpern is a long time NEARA member of almost 20 years. She
was taking graduate courses at NYU from Cyrus Gordon. Cyrus Gordon came to
NYU after a lengthy stay at Brandeiss University where he headed the
department of Mediterranean Studies. In 1971, his groundbreaking book was
published; "Before Columbus: Links Between the Old World and Ancient
America." Gordon's theories of trans-oceanic contact and his dynamic
teaching sent Zena on a quest that that has continued for 35 years. Upon
retirement in 1998, she began intensive investigation for evidence of ancient
seafaring, ancient ships and harbor construction along the east Mediterranean
coast. She has traveled to Crete, Mexico, Israel, Greece and states in the US,
where reports have come in of inscribed stones in ancient alphabets. She is
presently writing a book about connections between the eastern Mediterranean,
Iberia, Mexico and American sites.
Don Ruh, is currently employed at Hologic Corporation, Lorad
Division of Danbury, Conn, the leading manufacturer of mammography and breast
biopsy equipment for the early detection of breast cancer. Don was born in Mt.
Vernon, NY. He grew up there and attended the Y.M.C.A. day camp where he took
several wilderness trips. These trips helped instill a love of nature and an
appreciation of the outdoors. When he graduated from high school he promptly
set out hiking the Appalachian Trail, north to south in its entirety. He spent
two weeks the following year lost in the Canadian woods after a light plane
crash.
He became interested in archaeology through as association with the late
Dr. William Jackson who was a member of an amateur archaeology association on
Long Island, NY. He traveled extensively with Dr. Jackson throughout the
Catskill and Adirondack mountains. Don then became a member of Teatown Lake, a
privately funded nature preserve in Westchester County where he headed the
volunteer trail maintenance crew. Ms. Ruth Rubenatien, an archaeologist
friend who was serving as the Director of Education at Teatown suggested that
Don attend a lecture dealing with the possibility of ancient structures in
Westchester and Putnam counties. These structures were referred to as stone
chambers and the lecture was given by a member of NEARA. Don had played in
similar chambers at his uncle’s farm near Peekskill and was surprised at the
possibility that these chambers were of ancient origin. He became a member of
NEARA in 1999.
Richard Neilsen:
New Evidence on the Scandinavian Language, Numbers, and
Runes found on the Spirit Pond Rune Stones
The new runic and linguistic evidence found solely by the author on the Spirit
Pond Rune Stones during an investigation for the Maine State Museum in
Augusta, Maine will be presented. This presentation includes the pentadic 44
on the Map Stone, the correspondence of the runes with macrons on the
Inscription Stone to the dotted runes of Ukna Church in Sweden dating from
1300, the dating of the amulet to 1405, and the identification of its pentadic
5.
The correspondence of the language to circa 1400 confirms the corresponding
date of 1401 discovered and reported by the author in the past by use of the
Easter Table. The backup for the proposed translation is extensive There are
12 runic points, 9 linguistic points and 8 numerical points that have been
uncovered that fully support the Spirit Pond Runestones as medieval
artifacts. The similarities and differences between the Kensington Rune Stone
and the Spirit Pond Rune Stones are also discussed.
Richard Nielsen has his Doctorate of Technology from the University
of Denmark granted in 1965. He worked as a consultant to the Oil and Gas
Industry in Scandinavia from 1978- 1984. He is still a consultant and lives in
Houston, Texas. Nielsen also holds a MA in Mathematics and a MS in
Engineering from the University of Michigan granted in 1961 and 1964 and a BS
from the Coast Guard Academy in 1955. Service in the U. S Coast Guard has
brought him to all the old Viking haunts in Europe and North America,
including Arctic Canada and Greenland.
Dr. Richard Nielsen has studied American rune stones for 30 years. He
speaks Danish, read Norwegian and Swedish and it at home with the Medieval
Scandinavian language Nielsen is well known for his work since 1986 on the
Kensington Rune Stone and the Heavener Rune Stones of Oklahoma. It is his
discovery of the dotted R in 2002 on the Kensington Rune Stone that attracted
Prof. Henrik Williams of Uppsala University to work with him on the Kensington
Rune Stone. At present this rune is clear evidence that the Kensington
Runestone is medieval as there is no evidence available at this time that can
explain this rune form as known in the 19th century.
Cathy Taylor:
Ancient Astronomical Sites of Ohio
Cathy will present details and research about the ancient astronomical sites
of Ohio. The ancient earth mounds are the largest in the world, with the
Newark Octagon Mound itself being over 70 acres in size. It is accompanied by
the Circle Mound less than a quarter of a mile away. No one knew the reason
for the mounds until the lunar aspects were looked at, and it was found that
the lunar cycles fit the mounds exactly. In this year of the maximum lunar
standstill points it is important to note that we have structures in the
Americas that carefully record these points. Also of note is the more famous
Serpent Mound that is oriented to solar and lunar standstills. The talk will
be illustrated by maps and photos.
Cathy Taylor has been working with the geometry and astronomy of ancient
sites for some time. An interest in declinations led to a close look at the
important lunar standstills we have been witnessing this year, and an eventual
trip to see the Ohio mounds close up in person. Cathy has worked hard as a
member of the Upton Historical Commission to preserve an ancient stone chamber
in her hometown of Upton, MA. The chamber is astronomically aligned with the
setting of the Pleiades and the summer solstice sun.
Chuck Flood:
The NEARA Sites Registry Database: A Prototype
Over its 40 year life, NEARA has accumulated a mass
of valuable information about the lithic sites and other features which are
its focus. There has, however, been a growing sense of uneasiness over the
fact that this valuable information resides in too many places. Discussions
among members led to the idea of developing a database for recording
information about sites and the features and artifacts they contain. This
presentation will introduce a prototype database being implemented to store
data about sites and features and the documents and images (photos, slides,
negatives) which pertain to them. The prototype database is currently being
used to organize material for sites in Maine and has been found very useful
for its purpose. It is intended that the site registry will be extended to
include all of the states and provinces in which NEARA has an interest.
In a 30-plus year career in information
technology, Chuck Flood has been a computer programmer, database
designer and project manager. He has consulted with businesses both large and
small to address how technology can enhance their business practices and has
extensive experience in imaging and document management. A native New
Englander but long since relocated to the West Coast, Chuck enjoys exploring
the forgotten places in search of whatever interesting and mysterious things
lurk there.
William Hubbell:
Good Fences
In this presentation Bill will share with NEARA
members the "why and how" he came to write Good Fences and his insights into
their meaning. About this book, he writes: "When an editor at Down East
Books suggested I do a book on New England stone walls, I leapt at the chance.
However, he proposed only a short, 32-page effort with just pretty pictures. I
countered with a proposal that covered the subject much more deeply. There are
excellent books available on the history and economics, on how to build, and
on the science behind stonewalls, but they are illustrated by line drawings or
black and white photographs. "I felt more was needed. I was challenged to
capture them in all their glory - proud, stalwart and strong, or in their
tumbled, abandoned misery. I had two main goals:
(1) I wanted to give readers enough information about various kinds of walls,
why and how they were made, so that their travels through the New England
countryside would be more enjoyable and meaningful.
(2) I wanted to heighten people's awareness as to the surprisingly fragile
aspects of stone walls and the need to treasure and preserve them as
definitive and vital aspect of our landscape."
William Hubbell After college, where he majored in geology, and the
USAF, Bill began his working life as a photo-journalist by driving round-trip
from London to Calcutta, doing stories for publications which included the NY
Times and National Geographic Magazine. In the mid-1960's, he spent three
years covering the perimeter of the "Bamboo Curtain" from Korea through the
Philippines and S.E. Asia to Viet Nam, Thailand and Laos for the US
Information Agency. After seven years as director of Photography for the
audio-visual division of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, publishers, Bill went out
on his own. He was based in Greenwich, CT and worked as a free-lance
photographer, specializing in corporate/annual report photography for
companies such as IBM, General Foods, Dictaphone, UPS and Cunard Lines. In
1989 his first picture book, CONNECTICUT, which went through nine editions
during its 17- year life, was published. This was followed by NEW ENGLAND
COAST. After moving to Maine, he produced three more books, SEASONS OF MAINE,
SAFE HARBOR, and his latest project, GOOD FENCES: A Pictorial History of New
England's Stone Walls.
Schedule of Events
Friday April 20
|
11:00 am |
Christa McAuliffe
Planetarium:
Star shows starting at 11:00 am daily |
|
2:00 pm |
Museum of NH History: Tour of Museum |
|
4:00 pm |
NEARA Library Collection at NHTI: Open House &
Refreshments |
|
4:30 - 5:00 pm |
NEARA Library Collection at NHTI: Library-computer lab
with Anne Wirkkala |
|
5:00 - 7:00 pm |
Registration & Book Sales |
|
7:00 -
7:05 pm |
Dan Lorraine, NEARA
President: Welcome |
|
7:05 -
8:30 pm |
Ted Timreck: Hidden
Landscapes: A Northeastern Ceremonial Landscape |
|
8:30 -
9:30 pm |
Dick Boisvert:
New Hampshire Archaeology |
|
9:30 -
10:30 pm |
Member’s Short
Presentations: **Schedule to be announced
.
**For planning purposes,
please contact Rick Lynch (401-954-3829) (hstrclrsch@aol.com)
if you wish to present. |
Saturday April 21
|
8:30 - 9:30 am |
Registration and
Book Sales |
|
9:30 -
11:15 am |
Business
Meeting & State Coordinator Reports |
|
11:15 -
12:00 pm |
Evan Hadingham: The End of
the Minoans |
|
12:00 -
1:30 pm |
Lunch Buffet,
Book Sales & Exhibits |
|
1:30 -
2:00 pm |
Zena
Halpern & Don Ruh: The Catskill Mountain Stone
Petrographic/SEM Report |
|
2:00 -
3:15 pm |
Dick
Neilsen: New Evidence on the Scandinavian Language,
Numbers, and Runes found on the Spirit Pond Rune Stones |
|
3:15 -
3:30 pm |
Break, Book
Sales, Exhibits |
|
3:30 -
4:15 pm |
Cathy Taylor:
Ancient Astronomical Sites of Ohio |
|
4:15 -
5:00 pm |
Chuck Flood:
The NEARA Sites Registry Database: A
Prototype |
|
5:00
- 5:15 pm |
Meeting wrap
up and announcements |
|
5:30 -
6:30 pm |
Cocktail Hour |
|
6:30 -
8:00 pm |
Banquet |
|
8:00 -
9:30 pm |
William
Hubbell: Good Fences |
Sunday April 22
|
To be determined |
Field Trips
See sign-up sheets at
meeting for locations and times |
|
11:00 am |
Christa McAuliffe
Planetarium:
Star shows starting at 11:00 am daily |
New Hampshire Technical Institute: Sweeney Hall
Auditorium
Notice:
All of the lectures will take
place at the New Hampshire Technical Institution, the new home of the NEARA
Library. NHTI offers a first class state-of-the-art auditorium and venue and is
approximately .3 miles from the Courtyard.
Sweeney Hall Auditorium in located next to the Goldie Crocker Wellness Center
and directly behind the Student Center. It can be reached from either side
(the Library side via same the sidewalk as used to approach the Library from the
right hand side) or from the other parking lot that is adjacent to the Christa
McAuliffe Planetarium. The main entrance is is on the first floor.
NHTI Website
● New Hampshire Technical Institute Campus Map:
A detailed map of
the NHTI campus including the locations of Sweeney Hall and the Library may be
found as a .pdf file at this at this link:
http://www.nhti.edu/welcome/nhtimap.pdf
● Directions to
New Hampshire Technical Institute:
From Points North or South:
Route 93, Exit 15
east to Route 393 to exit 1 and follow signs.
From Points West:
Route 89 to Route
93 North to exit 15 east to Route 393 to exit 1 and follow signs.
From Points East:
Route 4 to Route
393 to exit 1 and follow signs.
Lodgings: Courtyard by Marriott
Courtyard by Marriott, 70 Constitution Avenue, Concord New Hampshire, Hotel
Phone: 603-225-0303, Fax: 603-225-0606,
Website.
NEARA has secured a rate of $84.00 per night, plus applicable sales taxes.
When you call to make your reservations, mention that you are a NEARA member and
verify that you are receiving the special rate. The cut-off date for NEARA
special rates is April 1st.

Notice: All of the lectures will take
place at the New Hampshire Technical Institution, the new home of the NEARA
Library. NHTI offers a first class state-of-the-art auditorium and venue and is
approximately .3 miles from the Courtyard.
Please see the Yahoo map to the left for principal locations. The
Courtyard is marked with a red ●, the
Sweeney Hall Auditorium is marked with a blue
●, and the NHTI Library is marked with
a green ●. Please
click the map for a full size version.
● Directions to
the Courtyard:
From Route 93, take
exit 15 West (N. Main St.) Take first right at flashing lights onto Commercial
Street. Follow 1/4 mile to Constitution Ave.
Registration
(click here)
Please follow the link for Spring Meeting
registrations forms. Please print the form, fill it out, and mail it
in. (We do not have on-line registration capabilities as yet.) Thank
you!
Notice:
NEARA Members receive a discount on the registration fee. If you would
like to become a NEARA member there is a Membership Application attached to the
Registration Form.
NEARA's Fall Meeting November 8 - 12, 2006
Eastern States Archaeology Federation Conference
Jointly Sponsored by:
NEARA - New England Antiquities Research Association
&
MAS - Massachusetts Archaeological Society

Highlights ~ Field Trips
Autumn Conference Schedule
Best Western ~ Rates &
Directions
Registration
Note for book sellers and literature table requests
|
Best
Western Royal
Plaza Hotel
and Trade
Center
150 Royal Plaza Drive
Fitchburg, MA 01420
Phone: 978-342-7100
Fax: 978-343-7376
sales@rplaza.com
www.rplaza.com
|
This fall NEARA will be co-hosting with the Massachusetts Archaeological Society
(MAS) the annual meeting of the Eastern States Archaeology Federation (ESAF).
This meeting will take the place of the NEARA fall meeting. The dates for this
very exciting event are November 8-12 and will be held at the Best Western in
Fitchburg, Massachusetts. The majority of the programming will take place
on Friday and Saturday so you don’t need to be there for the entire five days if
you can't be. The programming will be very diverse, appealing to everyone with
an interest in the rich history of our eastern states.
"The
Eastern States Archaeological Federation (ESAF) is an organization of state
archeological societies that are found in the eastern U.S. The ESAF was
organized in 1933/34 to provide an exchange of archeological information among
archeologists and state archeological societies. With a membership of 15 state
societies and over 500 individual memberships, ESAF continues to be a national
organization that fosters cooperation and information exchange among all people
working in archeology as well as supporting public participation in all
archaeological activities.” Please visit them on their website at
http://www.esaf-archeology.org/.
Conference Highlights & Field Trips
Middleborough Little League Site:
This
Late/Transitional Archaic site has been under excavation by Dr. Curtiss
Hoffman (who will conduct the tour) and students from Bridgewater State
College since 1996. It was occupied by local groups practicing normal
subsistence activities, but also by a more mobile group who used the site to
assemble, prepare, and store artifacts for ceremonies (paintstones, quartz
crystals, pendants, polished pebbles, arkose slabs) at other locations,
notably at the well-known Wapanucket 6 and 8 sites just 3 km upriver.
To Middleborough:
Take Route I-495 to Exit 4 (Route 105). At the end of the exit ramp, turn
onto Route 105 north (left if coming from the north, right if coming from the
south) and proceed ¼ mile to first traffic light (Route 28, West Grove St.).
Turn right onto Route 28 and proceed down the hill until you see a shopping
plaza on your right (Hannaford Market). Turn left at the “Fields of Dreams”
sign and follow the dirt road a short distance, and park by the second ball
field. The Little League site is in the trees to your left. To the
Robbins Museum, return to Route 28 and turn right onto Route 105, and
proceed through the next traffic light (Main St./Wareham St.). Go one block
further (Jackson St., police station on corner). Turn right onto Jackson St.
and park in the lot on the left; the Robbins Museum is across the street.
Robbins Museum of Archaeology:
The successor to
the Bronson Museum in Attleboro, the Robbins Museum is the premier institution
for archaeological displays in Massachusetts, and features Native cultures of
New England from Paleo-Indian times through the present. Displays include “A
Walk Through Time”, “Wapanucket: The Glory of Ancient Middleborough”, “The
Doyle Native Doll Collection”, and a display of artifacts from the
Middleborough Little League Site. Admission is free, but donations are
welcome!
Robbins Museum:
http://www.tauntonriver.org/museums.htm
See
Middleborough Little League Site (above) for directions.
Sturbridge Graphite Mine:
This is one of the
oldest historic mining sites in North America. Originally used by Native
Americans to obtain pure graphite, the mine was operated by the English
briefly in the 1660s. Its most prosperous era of operation was from 1829
until 1860, when it was owned by Frederick Tudor, “The Ice King”. Most of the
remains visible at the mine date to this period, including extensive evidence
for the hand-drilled blasting holes used to break up overburden rock in the
mining process. This tour will be led by Ed Hood, Director of Research,
Collections, and Library at Old Sturbridge Village.
Graphite Mine:
http://www.osv.org/learning/DocumentViewer.php?Action=View&DocID=572
To Sturbridge,
from Fitchburg: Take Route 2 east to Exit 23 (Route I-190). Take I-190
south to the merge with I-290 (Exit 1). Continue south on I-290 to Exit 7
(I-90, Mass. Turnpike). Take I-90 west one exit to Exit 9 (Route I-84). From
I-84 west, take Exit 1 (the third exit from the Mass Pike). Turn right at the
stop sign onto Mashapaug Road heading south and follow for 1.5 mi. Turn right
onto Leadmine Road and follow for 0.9 mi (total distance = 50.3 miles). An
optional car-pool will leave for the site at 9:30 from Old Sturbridge Village
(located on Route 20, off Exit 4 west on I-84). Meet at the passenger
drop-off area in front of the Museum Visitor Center.
Crowd Site:
This is a 19th
century farm site occupied by a family of one of the miners, Robert Crowd.
The Crowds were an African-American/Native American family, and the study of
their household is being used by Old Sturbridge Village to support a new
exhibit under development at the museum. This tour will also be led by Ed
Hood, and both tours will proceed in rain or poor weather (but not if
there is snow cover). Please dress accordingly – this is a wooded site with
rough terrain.
Crowd Site:
http://www.osv.org/learning/DocumentViewer.php?DocID=2187
http://www.osv.org/learning/DocumentViewer.php?DocID=770
To Sturbridge,
from Fitchburg: Take Route 2 east to Exit 23 (Route I-190). Take I-190
south to the merge with I-290 (Exit 1). Continue south on I-290 to Exit 7
(I-90, Mass. Turnpike). Take I-90 west one exit to Exit 9 (Route I-84). From
I-84 west, take Exit 1 (the third exit from the Mass Pike). Turn right at the
stop sign onto Mashapaug Road heading south and follow for 1.5 mi. Turn right
onto Leadmine Road and follow for 0.9 mi (total distance = 50.3 miles). An
optional car-pool will leave for the site at 9:30 from Old Sturbridge Village
(located on Route 20, off Exit 4 west on I-84). Meet at the passenger
drop-off area in front of the Museum Visitor Center.
Old Sturbridge Village:
In the years 1790
to 1840 a new nation took shape. In rural towns across New England, ordinary
people worked to better their lives, build strong communities, apply new
technologies, and define the meaning of democracy. Learn their story at Old
Sturbridge Village as you journey into the past. Attendees at the ESAF
conference who pre-register are offered a reduced rate admission. A
one-hour tour will be led by Ed Hood, highlighting some of the museum’s
exhibits based on archaeological research. This tour will meet and leave from
the entrance to the ticketing area at the museum.
Old Sturbridge
Village:
http://www.osv.org
To Sturbridge,
from Fitchburg: Take Route 2 east to Exit 23 (Route I-190). Take I-190
south to the merge with I-290 (Exit 1). Continue south on I-290 to Exit 7
(I-90, Mass. Turnpike). Take I-90 west one exit to Exit 9 (Route I-84). From
I-84 west, take Exit 1 (the third exit from the Mass Pike). Turn right at the
stop sign onto Mashapaug Road heading south and follow for 1.5 mi. Turn right
onto Leadmine Road and follow for 0.9 mi (total distance = 50.3 miles). An
optional car-pool will leave for the site at 9:30 from Old Sturbridge Village
(located on Route 20, off Exit 4 west on I-84). Meet at the passenger
drop-off area in front of the Museum Visitor Center.
Hidden Landscapes:
T.W.Timreck
is producing a series of video programs exploring the development of early
Eastern Native culture. The "Hidden Landscape" series will build on the
research of his original "Red Paint" film to look at recent discoveries and
the rapidly changing climate of opinion that is adding new depth and
sophistication to the archeological story of Native civilization in the
Northeast. The program segment being offered at the conference features the
late Jim Petersen and investigates the controversial history of the Eastern
stone ruins and offers new perspective on the emerging topic of Native
ceremonial landscape in the region.
Worcester Art Museum:
ESAF spouses are
offered a free guided tour of this facility. Experience magnificent artwork
from five millennia of world cultures. View paintings by Cassatt, Gauguin,
Goya, Monet, Sargent and Whistler; admire floor mosaics from the ancient city
of Antioch; see cutting-edge contemporary art; and discover the Museum's many
other treasures. Enjoy a delectable lunch in the
Museum Café, browse the
Museum Shop for unique gifts and mementos and check out our latest
Art Classes Brochure for a current list of youth and adult class
offerings.
Worchester Art
Museum: http://www.worcesterart.org
To the Worcester
Art Museum from Fitchburg: Take Route 2 east to Exit 23 (Route I-190).
Take I-190 south to the merge with I-290 (Exit 1). Continue south on I-290 to
Exit 18; take a right at light at the bottom of the exit ramp (Lincoln St.);
take the first right (before lights) onto Concord St., go straight (Concord
becomes Salisbury St.), at third light, turn left onto Lancaster St. Museum is
on the left at 55 Salisbury Street (total distance = 25.2 miles).
Researching the Bull Brook Paleo-Indian Site:
Brian Robinson
will bring us up to date on his research into the notes, maps, and photographs
from this famous excavation.
Bull Brook:
http://www.climatechange.umaine.edu/Research/Contrib/html/11.html
Brian Robinson:
http://www.climatechange.umaine.edu/Directory/people/robinson.html
Rockhouse Rockshelter:
Glaciers created
the rock shelter that gives the Reservation its name. Its large size and
height and its southern exposure made the Rock House an excellent winter camp
for Native Americans. The site was also located near two long Native American
footpaths, suggesting that it may also have been a trail camp and meeting
place. Following the arrival of colonists in the mid-seventeenth century,
area forests were gradually cleared for farming. In 1866, pastures around the
Rock House were added to a 281-acre farm on Ragged Hill Road owned by William
Adams, whose family would tend the land for many generations. Today, a forest
of pine and mixed hardwoods has reclaimed the landscape.
Rockhouse
Rockshelter:
http://www.westbrookfield.org/rockhouse.htm
To West
Brookfield, from Fitchburg: Take Route 2 east to Exit 23 (Route I-190).
Take I-190 south to the merge with I-290 (Exit 1). Continue south on I-290 to
Exit 7 (I-90, Mass. Turnpike). Take I-90 west to exit 8 and pick up Route 32
north towards Ware. Route 32 joins Route 9 in Ware. Stay on combined Route
32/9 and, when routes separate, follow Route 9 east for 1.1 mi. to the parking
area (12 cars) and entrance on the left (total distance = 68.5 miles).
Alternatively (if you like country roads), take Route 31 south from the hotel
entrance (turn right) and continue through Princeton, Holden, Paxton, and
Spencer to Route 9. Turn right (west) onto Route 9 and continue through East
Brookfield, Brookfield, and West Brookfield past Brookhaven Lake on your
right. The entrance will be about half a mile further on the right (total
distance = 41.8 miles).
Schedule of Events
Wednesday November 8
no meeting papers are scheduled
| 2:00 - 3:00 pm |
Special Field Trip: Tour of Middleboro Little
League Site, Middleboro MA |
| 3:00 - 5:00 pm |
Special Field Trip: Open House at the Robbins Museum
of Archaeology, Middleboro MA |
Thursday November 9
no meeting papers are scheduled
|
10:00 am |
Special Field Trip: Tour of the Sturbridge Graphite
Mine and Crowd House Site, Tantiusques Reservation, Sturbridge, MA |
|
11:30 am |
Lunch at (or near) Old
Sturbridge Village |
|
12:30 - 4:00 pm
|
Special Field Trip: Visit Old Sturbridge Village
(Thursday tours by pre-registration only; 1 hour guided tour of the
village starts at 2:00) |
|
1:00 - 4:00 pm
|
Book Room set-up |
|
5:00 - 9:00 pm |
Registration |
|
4:00 - 7:00 pm |
Dinner (on your own) |
|
7:00 - 9:30 pm |
President’s Reception
(Hospitality Suite) |
Friday November 10
Morning Sessions
|
7:30 - 5:00 pm
|
Registration |
|
8:00 - 8:30 am |
Opening Remarks |
|
8:00 am - 5:00 pm |
Poster Sessions |
|
8:30 am - 5:00 pm |
Book Room open |
|
8:30am - 12:00 pm
|
Session 1: New England State Archaeologists
(Chair, Brona Simon)
.
The State Archeologists of each of the
New England states will give reports on recent archaeological discoveries
and archeological programs in the their states. even though the New
England states are small in size. the are large in the depth and
complexity of their archeology. The presentations will be
geographical in order, from down East to the Southwest.
.
Arthur E Spiess,
Maine Historic Preservation
Commission
Richard Boisvert,
New England Division of
Historic Resources
Giovanna Peebles,
Vermont Division for Historic
Preservation
Brona Simon,
Massachusetts Historical
Commission
Paul Robinson,
Rhode Island Historic
Preservation & Heritage Commission
Nicholas F. Bellantoni,
Connecticut Archaeology
Center, UCONN |
|
8:30am - 12:00 pm
|
Session 2: Contributed Papers (Chair, Jack Hranicky)
.
• W.
Jack Hranicky: Who Was
First
.
•
Carolyn Dillian, Charles Bello, Steven Shackley:
Mid-Atlantic Super-long
Distance Obsidian Exchange
.
•
Brian L. Fritz:
GIS Based Distance-decay Modeling of the Cultural Distribution of Shriver
and Loyalhanna Chert
.
• Gary
D. Shaffer: A Study of
Decorated Soapstone Vessels from the Lower Susquehanna Valley
.
•
Suzanne Wall and Bruce McAleer:
Steatite Quarrying and
Utilization of Altered Metamorphic Rocks in Easter New England
.
•
Ilene Grossman-Baily, Laura Cook:
A pipeline to the past or Six
Archaic Sites Narrowly Considered
.
• Jim
Kences: TBD
. |
|
10:00 - 10:20 am |
BREAK |
|
12:00 - 1:00 pm |
Lunch (on your own) |
|
12:00 - 1:00 pm |
ESAF Board Meeting and Lunch |
Friday November 10
Afternoon Sessions
|
1:00 - 5:00 pm |
Session 3: James Petersen Memorial Session
(Chair, Mark McConaughy)
.
• Mark
McConaughy:
Paleo-Indian Occupations in the Northeast
.
•
James W. Bradley and Jeff Boudreau:
Re-assessing Wapanucket: Paleo-Indians
in Southeast Massachusetts
.
• John
G. Crock and Francis W. Robinson, IV:
Returning to the Leicester
Flats, Salisbury Vermont: Preliminary Results of 2006 Excavations at the
Site Where a Young James Peterson Found Archaeology
.
•
Ellen R. Cowie:
Indigenous Substance and Settlement Practices in Northern New England
During the Woodland Period: The Enduring Contributions of James B.
Peterson
.
•
Frances L. Stewart and Ellen R. Cowie:
Dietary Indications for a
Possible St. Lawrence Iroquoian Site in Northern New England
.
•
Roland Tremblay: The
Origin of St. Lawrence Iroquoian Pottery in Northern New England: New Data
on an Old Question
.
•
Michael Heckenberger & Joshua Toney:
Culture History, Practice, and
Neo-Boasian Anthropology in the Work of Jim Peterson
.
• Jim
Tuck: The Archaeology
of Ferryland, Newfoundland, until 1696
.
• Jill
Bouck and James B. Richardson III:
The Mayhew Wampanoag
Thunderbird: Discovery and Significance
. |
|
1:00 - 5:00 pm |
Session 4: New England Antiquities Research Association Session
(Chair, Dan Lorraine)
.
•
Colgate Gilbert:
Standing Stones, Observatories, Hill farms and Indian Agroforesty: A Look
at the Sweetser and Thayer Sites of Franklin County, MA
.
•
Peter Waksman: The
Distribution of
Rock Piles
in Middlesex County, MA
.
.
•
James Egan: What's a
Rhode Island Stone-Ender doing in Connecticut?
.
• T.
Fohl and K. Leonard:
Similarities of Ceremonial Structures in New England and Mesoamerica
.
•
David Goudsward:
Hjalmar Holand's Lost Rune Stone
.
•
Vance Tiede: Interpreting the Gungywamp:
Re-examining the Evidence &
Reconstructing it's Implications
.
•
Scott Wolter: Another
Look at the Spirit Pond Runestones
. |
|
2:30 - 3:50 pm |
BREAK |
|
5:00 - 7:00 pm |
Dinner (on your own) |
|
7:00 - 8:30 pm |
Ted
Timreck film: "Hidden Landscapes: A Northeastern
Ceremonial Landscape" |
|
8:00 - 11:00 pm |
Canadian Hospitality Event |
Saturday November 11
Morning Sessions
|
7:30 am - 5:00 pm |
Registration |
|
8:00 am - 5:00 pm |
Poster Sessions |
|
8:30 am - 4:00 pm |
Book Room open |
|
8:30 am - 12:00 pm |
Session 5: Cooperation between Native Americans,
Archaeologists, and Local Officials (Chair, Doug Harris)
.
The schedule of speakers
and papers for this session are still being finalized.
. |
|
8:30 am - 10:10 am |
Session 6: Women in Archaeology (Chair, Joyce Clements)
.
•
Joyce M. Clements:
Missing the Power in a Praying Place
.
•
Ellen Ingmanson:
Missing Women in Archaeology: Perspective and Implications
.
•
Suzanne M. Spencer-Wood:
TBD
.
•
Maryanne MacLeod: Women
in Prehistoric Westborough
. |
|
10:00am
- 12:00pm |
Special Field Trip: Spousal tour of the Worcester Art
Museum Worcester MA (free) |
|
10:10am - 10:30am |
BREAK |
|
10:30am
- 12:00pm |
Session 7: U.Mass. Boston Student Papers
(Chair, Susan Jacobucci)
.
•
Susan A. Jacobucci:
Constant Changes: A Study of Anthropogenic Vegetation Using Pollen and
Charcoal in the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation Reservation
.
•
Diana S. Gallager: The
Privy and the Worm: Parasites, Health, and Sanitation
.
•
Frank Carvino: From
Coast to Coast: Artifact as Commodity
. |
|
12:00 - 1:00 pm |
Lunch (on your own) |
Saturday November 11
Afternoon Sessions
|
1:00 - 4:00 pm |
Session 8: The Provenance of Copper Artifacts: Implications for
Trade in the Middle Atlantic Region (Chair, Gregory Lattanzi)
.
•
Gregory D. Lattanzi:
The Provenience of Pre-Contact Copper Artifacts: Implications for a
Northeastern Regional Exchange Network
.
• R.
Dustin Cushman: The
Context of Death: Burial Ritualism in the Delaware Valley
.
• Ruth
Dickau and Jeff Harbison, Tim Messner (presenter):
Starch Grain Analysis:
Methodology and Applications in the Northern and Middle Atlantic Regions
.
•
George Pevarnik: A
Polarizing View of Middle Woodland Ceramics from the Delaware Valley
.
• Joe
Schuldenrein:
Geoarchaeological Systematics of the Delaware Valley Landscape: regional
and Extra-regional Correlations
.
William Schindler:
Experimental Perspectives an
Prehistoric Fishing
.
• Joe
Gingerich, R. Michael Stewart (presenter):
Picking up the Pieces: New
Paleo-Indian Research in the Upper Delaware Valley
. |
|
1:00 - 4:00 pm |
Session 9: Archaeoastronomy in New England
(Chair, Fred Martin)
.
• Ted
Timreck: James Mavor
Tribute Video
.
•
Judith Young: The Major
Lunar Standstill of 2006 in New England and Around the World
.
•
Frederick W. Martin:
GPS Mapping of King Philip's Rocks in Southeastern Massachusetts: Lunar
Signal above Noise and Astronomical Date
.
•
Edwin Ballard: For Want
of a Nail: Observed Classes of Sightlines in New England
.
•
Frederick F. Meli: A
Winter Solstice Alignment at the Queen's Fort in Rhode Island
.
• C.
Thomas Paul: The
Hammonasset Line:
A Major Winter Solstice Marker in CT
. |
|
2:20 - 2:40 pm |
BREAK |
|
4:00 - 5:00 pm |
Book room take-down |
|
4:00 - 5:30 pm |
ESAF Membership meeting |
|
5:30 - 6:30 pm |
Cocktail Hour |
|
6:30 - 8:00 pm |
Banquet |
|
8:00 - 9:00 pm |
Keynote Address: Brian Robinson – "Researching the Bull Brook
Paleo-Indian Site" |
Sunday November 12
no meeting papers are scheduled
|
9:00am -12:00pm |
Special Field Trip: Rockhouse Rockshelter Tour,
West Brookfield MA (NEARA) |
Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel Information
Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel and Trade Center, 150 Royal Plaza Drive,
Fitchburg, MA 01420, Phone: 978-342-7100, Fax: 978-343-7376, Email:
sales@rplaza.com, Website:
www.rplaza.com
"In
the heart of North Central Massachusetts, on the historic Johnny Appleseed Trail, you will find The Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel & Trade Center. Conveniently located off Route 2 in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, our lovely facility provides the ideal home base for exploring the region's unique beauty and charm year round.
As one of the largest facilities outside of Boston, we are also the perfect place to hold your next meeting, convention or social function. Our dedicated staff of professionals, focused on customer service and hospitality, will assure your event's success.
Whether visiting us for business or pleasure, we welcome you and hope you will consider us your home away from home."
Reservations:
Room
Reservations at the Royal Plaza Best Western:
$79/room/night (single, double, triple, or quadruple occupancy). Contact the
hotel at 888-976-9254 or www.rplaza.com
and mention ESAF
for this rate. This rate will be good up to the time of the conference.
Directions:
To Fitchburg/Royal Plaza Best Western:
Coming from the south or east, take Route I-495 north to Exit 29 (Route 2).
Take Route 2 west to Exit 28 (Route 31, Princeton Rd.). Turn left at the end
of the exit ramp and cross Route 2. The hotel entrance is just beyond on your
right (total distance from Middleborough = 84.5 miles). Coming from the south
and west, take the Mass. Pike (I-90) to Exit 10 (Route I-290). Take I-290
north through Worcester to the merge with Route I-190 (Exit 19). Continue on
I-190 north to Exit 8 (Route 2). Take Route 2 west and follow as above.
Coming from the north and west, take Route I-91 south to Massachusetts Exit 27
(Route 2). Take Route 2 east to Exit 28 (Route 31, Princeton Rd.). Turn right
at the end of the exit ramp and again right into the hotel entrance.
Note for Book Sellers &
Literature Handout Tables
Book Room
Groups/persons wishing to sell books or
other items should specify the number of tables needed. Sales will begin at
8:30 AM on Friday, November 10th. The book room will be locked
overnight on Friday night. All book room materials must be taken down by 5:00
PM on November 11th. ESAF will retain 10% of book sales to help
defray costs of the annual meeting. Vendors are asked to clearly label their
books with both a price and a code that identifies the vendor, and to provide
a list of titles and prices for the people taking care of the sales table.
Literature Tables
Poster sessions will be in a separate room from book
sales. Groups/persons wishing to put up posters or to provide free literature
should specify the number of tables needed.
Registration
(click here)
Please follow the link for Autumn Meeting and Best Western Royal Plaza lodgings
registrations forms. Please print the forms, fill them out, and mail them
in. (We do not have on-line registration capabilities as yet.) Thank
you!
NEARA's Spring Meeting May 5- 7, 2006
With a focus on Northern New England and Canada
Mystery Lithic Sites, Knights Templar, Nova Dania, Aisthesis in
Artifact Studies, Queen's Fort, and Calendar II Site reconstructions.

Speakers & Topics
Spring Conference Schedule
Special Field Trips
Ascutney Resort ~ Rates &
Directions
Registration
|
Ascutney
Mountain
Resort & Conference
Center
Route 44
Brownsville, Vermont 05037
Toll Free: 800-243-0011
Hotel Phone: 802-484-7711
Fax: 802-484-3117
www.ascutney.com
|
Featured Speakers & Abstracts
Zena Halpern, Harry Weymer, Don Ruh:
The Neversink River Site: Solving an Ancient Mystery
An unusual site has been discovered deep in the
Catskill Forest of New York state by NEARA member Don Ruh. An avid hiker, he
has walked many trails and frequently goes off trail to investigate
stone walls, stone cairns, etc. On one of these hikes several years ago he
found a stone half buried in the dirt. It caught his eye as there seemed to be
unusual kind of marking on it. And thus, began a series of discoveries that
have linked Don, myself and Harry Weymer in a very unusual adventure.
The site, within one quarter of a mile from the
West Branch of the Neversink River in Frost Valley has yielded two inscribed
stones, another stone with a enigmatic carving and objects found in a cairn
that are most unusual. We present these findings and the two years of
research that have gone into the site and the enigmatic artifacts. Our
research has taken us across the ocean for decipherment of two stones and to
New York archaeologists for identification of the artifacts found within the
cairn. The site remains hidden deep within the woods of the Catskill
Mountains, basically intact. The ongoing mystery and investigation of the
site will be presented.
Zena Halpern is a long time NEARA member of almost 20 years. She
was taking graduate courses at NYU from Cyrus Gordon. Cyrus Gordon came to
NYU after a lengthy stay at Brandeiss University where he headed the
department of Mediterranean Studies. In 1971, his groundbreaking book was
published; "Before Columbus: Links between the Old World and Ancient
America." Gordon's theories of trans-oceanic contact and his dynamic
teaching sent Zena on a quest that that has continued for 35 years. Upon
retirement in 1998, she began intensive investigation for evidence of ancient
seafaring, ancient ships and harbor construction along the east Mediterranean
coast. She has traveled to Crete, Mexico, Israel, Greece and states in the US,
where reports have come in of inscribed stones in ancient alphabets. She is
presently writing a book about connections between the eastern Mediterranean,
Iberia, Mexico and American sites.
Harry Weymer also a long time NEARA member was a tenured faculty
member from 1972 – 2005 at Ithaca, High School where he taught French, German,
Russian, & Spanish Language & Civilization. Education: 1972 - SUNY Cortland -
BA French & German Intensive Latin program - Cornell University. Ford
Foundation Fellowship in Russian at Bryn Mawr College, Studies abroad:
University. of Trois-Rivières, Québec; University Xiamen, China; Memphis State
University in Guanajuanto, Mexico; University of Valencia, Spain; Unversity
Aix-en-Provence, France; University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland; Schiller
College in Heidelberg, Germany.
Don Ruh,
is currently employed at Hologic Corporation, Lorad Division of Danbury, Conn,
the leading manufacturer of mammography and breast biopsy equipment for the
early detection of breast cancer. Don was born in Mt. Vernon, NY. He grew up
there and attended the Y.M.C.A. day camp where he took several wilderness
trips. These trips helped instill a love of nature and an appreciation of the
outdoors. When he graduated from high school he promptly set out hiking the
Appalachian Trail, north to south in its entirety. He spent two weeks the
following year lost in the Canadian woods after a light plane crash. He
became interested in archaeology through as association with the late Dr.
William Jackson who was a member of an amateur archaeology association on Long
Island, NY. He traveled extensively with Dr. Jackson throughout the Catskill
and Adirondack mountains. Don then became a member of Teatown Lake, a
privately funded nature preserve in Westchester County where he headed the
volunteer trail maintenance crew. Ms. Ruth Rubenatien, an archaeologist
friend who was serving as the Director of Education at Teatown suggested that
Don attend a lecture dealing with the possibility of ancient structures in
Westchester and Putnam counties. These structures were referred to as stone
chambers and the lecture was given by a member of NEARA. Don had played in
similar chambers at his uncle’s farm near Peekskill and was surprised at the
possibility that these chambers were of ancient origin. He became a member of
NEARA in 1999.
Gérard Leduc:
The Knights Templar in Nouvelle-France: Destination
Montreal
Many years of research have revealed the possibility of an
ancient presence of the Knights Templar in North America, but Montreal seems
to have been an important Templars’ centre which was later taken over by the
present day Sulpicians, a priestly order closely associated with the founding
of Montreal in 1642.
On the hillside of Mount Royal overlooking Montreal, there
are two well preserved stone towers that were part of the Sulpicians’
Mountain Fort Mission. The architecture is typically Medieval (as in the
Newport Tower) and there are port holes believed to have been gun slits.
These were, however, too small for guns and were oriented to observe the sun
on specific days as was the case in the Montsegur Medieval fortress in the
Languedoc, France. The Mountain Fort was supposedly built in 1685 but the
archives and the architecture suggest a much earlier date.
The most convincing argument for an ancient Templars’
presence in Montreal appears on historical maps of Montreal with the red
Templars’ crosses on locations still occupied by the Sulpicians including the
Séminaire Saint Sulpice. This building, built in 1685, was equipped with
several tunnels and with three underground stone chambers, going down about 10
meters (30 feet) below street level. They were supposedly intended for meat,
vegetable and wine storage. I don’t believe so!
In the vicinity, the Notre-Dame de Bonsecours chapel is
pointed at on a map with a Templars’ cross which is also engraved on the
corner stone.
Finally, I recently discovered an old and extraordinarily accurate regional
map that covers a wide area south of Montreal. Its symbolic and allegoric
place names, as well as its geomorphological configuration suggest a much more
ancient origin. It could be a map drawn by the Knights Templar.
Gérard Leduc was born and raised in the Montreal area where he first
studied biochemistry at the Université de Montreal. He later obtained a PhD
in Fisheries from Oregon State University. He worked for the Quebec Wildlife
Service and later took a faculty position in the Department of Biology at
Concordia University. Before his early retirement in 1990, he developed a
special interest for history and archaeology and took courses in archaeology
at home and at the University of Maine at Orono. Later he also studied at the
Université du Québec at Montreal, did supervised digs in Montreal and
registered in an archaeology field course at the Plymouth State College, NH.
Since living in Potton, close to the Vermont Border, Leduc founded the Potton
Heritage Association in Mansonville QC. He remained the founding President
for 13 years. During these years he carried out research on ancient cairns,
astronomical alignments and on petroglyphs. He also pursued research on the
ancient presence of the Knights Templar in the Northeast, but particularly in
the Montreal area. He has published in the NEARA Journal and gave numerous
public lectures at home and outside Potton.
Brennan
Gauthier: New England Antiquity Studies: A Student's
Perspective
I will be giving a presentation about my work as an aspiring archaeologist at
the University of Vermont. My presentation will include work done in the
field, as well as a researcher. I will discuss the research I did with the
late Joseph Sinnott, on a stone chamber site in Southbridge, Massachusetts. I
will also present the work I did with Connecticut State archaeologist Nick
Bellantoni and my most recent work with the late Dr. Jim Petersen of the
University of Vermont.
Brennan Gauthier is a sophomore at the University of Vermont. He
has had a passion for archaeology since the age of 8 and has pursued the field
ever since. Brennan graduated from The Pomfret School in 2004 with a
distinguished scholar award in science. He is currently doing archaeological
fieldwork as part of his study and part time employment. Brennan has
participated in archaeological field schools hosted by the office of the CT.
Archaeologist which has given him a firm grasp for the fundamentals of field
excavations. In 2005, he obtained a research grant in conjunction with the
University of Vermont for the study of a group of strange artifacts found in
his hometown of Southbridge, MA.
Suzanne
Carlson: Nova Diania: Lost Colony or Royal Fantasy?
With considerable envy, the seventeenth century King of Denmark, Christian IV
watched the scramble to discover the elusive passage over Polar Regions to lay
claim to the riches of Cathay. This presentation will follow the fate of
Christian’s early 17th century New World foothold, Nova Dania
through the cartographic record, speculating on "what the Danes might have
known and when" about the then frozen northwest passage and the amazing tale
of Jens Munk, "merchant adventurer" in Christian’s service.
Suzanne Carlson, NEARA Publications
Chairperson and practicing architect, is also known to NEARA members as an
avocational student of Norse history and language.
Duncan Laurie:
A Non-Linear Approach to the Study of Stone Artifacts and
Sites
"Aisthesis" is a Greek word to describe the process by which one is able
to acquire full knowledge, in the holistic sense. Writers on shamanic process
such as Stephen Buhner believe this process is due to the existence of little
used a heart-based sensory system. The hearts "independent" nervous system
functions outside the brain and intellect, employing instinct, deep feeling
and spontaneous visual imagery to explore the meaning of the world. Shamans
use this system to obtain knowledge of the medicinal nature of plants and to
acquire a broader knowledge of nature's hidden intelligence. Ancient stone
sites, with multiple levels of mystery and meaning, provide an excellent
opportunity for the application of heart-based and other non-linear
investigative approaches to the open-minded researcher.
Tidal forces bang stones together in a naturally formed rock Jacuzzi beneath a
large boulder sitting upon along the Rhode Island shoreline. The
stones produce provocative and mesmerizing sounds in an atmosphere of great
natural beauty. Was the boulder placed there in antiquity to mark this site?
So began an inquiry into the sonic attributes of rock that became an art form
itself. Recordings of these melodic rock sounds were later played to specially
constructed bio-sensors in our studio. The biosensors reacted to the stones by
creating their own sonic output. These sounds were processed and
mixed together with the rock sounds, giving the impression of nature spirits
frolicking in the surf! The question then became whether the small
voltages that can be detected from plants and certain rocks could themselves
become a unique window into the natural world. The lecture will selectively
highlight aspects of this research.
Artist Duncan Laurie (BA, MFA U. of Pennsylvania) and instrument
designer Gordon Salisbury have been perusing this inquiry and others for about
ten years. Laurie's career in fine art, design and architectural glass span 37
years. His work has been featured in numerous publications and his
commissioned glasswork can be found in selected locations throughout the
country and the world. Sonic audio collections include Induction Furnace
(Fake Science.com, 2005), Sounds of Unseen Worlds (with Steve Nalepa, M
Audio & Apple Garage Band Loop Libraries, 2004) and Shortwave Sounds (Musika
Radionika, 2001).
Ernie
Clifford: Four Adjacent but Uniquely Different Lithic
Sites in Rochester, Vermont
I will present
four lithic sites that I have researched in recent years, one site has its
east and west boundaries defined by two parallel streams, each with an
unusual stone wall covering much of its length. A second site has similar
streams as boundaries but with no walls over them. A third site features, in
addition to several cairns, a couple of short stone walls, a yoni/phallus
pair, a propped boulder with an adjacent "shrine", and an impressive twelve
foot standing stone, now recumbent. The fourth site, roughly four acres in
extent, consists of many cairns, large and small. Most of the larger ones are
platform cairns and some appear to be effigies.
Ernie
Clifford has worked, in the capacity of environmental test engineer, for
30+ years at Simmonds Precision Machining in Vergennes, VT. A long time
NEARA member, he has spent countless hours and days exploring the backwoods of
Vermont. He has discovered many interesting lithic sites of unknown origin.
Fredrick Meli:
A New Interpretation of the Queen's Fort State Reserve;
Exeter, RI
It is the opinion of this investigator that this site was most likely a
ceremonial center rather than a defensive position. The historical accounts
and available documentation does not provide sufficient evidence that the
“Queen’s Fort” was a part of the stony forts that are associated with
Ninegrets, and or the Narragansett’s; the stone piles and circles are placed
deep within a glacial boulder field, and the seeming small size and shape of
stone piles and “fort” contradicts the excepted theories of this being a
defensive place. The apparent lack of strong physical evidence and the
actuality that the Queen’s Fort site is really not a tenable defensive
position leads the investigator to this conclusion. Also there are several
names associated with this site, and the local library (North Kingston) has
varying reports as to the location of the site, and the proper name for the
site, subsequently this is cause for concern.
The spiritual aspects of this site have all but been looked over in preference
of an interpretation of a military defensive position. There was no visible
evidence of any military actions, no signs of destruction of larger boulders
showing signs of musket fire or any of the smaller walls closer to the “fort”
having any signs of a military disruption. The area was and is a peaceful
local, and is so secluded and deep into the woods that it would be impossible
to supply a defensive like this one. Lines of supply, especially water are at
least 1600 feet from the center of the site, (Ruben Brown Brook) and there was
no evidence that there were any chambers that would have served as storage
bins for grain, and the overall terrain would make a defensive action for
defenders all but impossible.
The “Queen’s Chamber” in my estimation could have served as a ceremonial place
where one could conduct a Vision Quest, as part of a particular ritual
celebration at this time of the year. (Solstice) The long stonewall that is to
the west of the “fort” circle main stone aligns with the chamber and is also
aligned with a large stone pile and wall to the southeast of the circle or
fort. The stone at that end of that wall and stone pile itself is also aligned
with another large boulder some 45 ft. to the northwest beyond the “fort”,
there is a small pile of stones that are a circle and at the end of the pile
circle is a large stone animal head, (a snake or turtle) the two alignments
are set so that all activities both corporal as well as terrestrial are
aligned along the axis of the center stone and the solstice alignment.
In my paper and talk I will detail the exploration and investigation of the
fort, along with a detailed map and survey of all the stone piles and marker
stones. I will also provide a documentation preferably film for viewing.
Dr. Fredrick Meli, anthropologist, archaeologist, is a part-time
professor and research consultant. He has been involved in extensive field
work; in Eastern Europe, Central Europe, and Central America. His earliest
work was centered on the Mound Builders and the Tombigbee peoples. His
current work involves the study of Pre-Columbian indigenous cultures and their
construction of monumental public ceremonial works. He has recently begun a
long-term investigation of the Megalithic site known as the Queen’s Fort, in
Rhode Island. His premise concerns a possible new interpretation of this site;
he is working with anthropology students from the University of Rhode Island,
with support form the Rhode Island Historical Society, and NEARA.
Daniel J. Leary:
A Historical Video of the Calendar II Reconstruction &
Restoration
A short video
presented by Dan Leary about the restoration of the Calendar II Site.
Daniel
J. Leary joined NEARA in 1974. He started working at Mystery Hill and
continued there until 1980. After that time he conducted several
archaeological projects in both NH and VT. The projects in NH were under the
guidance of the State Dept .of Historical Resources and then State
Archaeologist, Dr. Gary Hume. Dan is a mechanical engineer and the director
of Sales and Marketing for Materials Research Furnaces, Inc., developing high
temperature and high vacuum furnaces for private research and government
funded projects. In addition he is a financial consultant for Numismatic
research and investments.
Schedule of Events
Friday May 5
|
2:00pm |
Special Field Trip: Blanchard Stone with Ernie
Clifford |
|
5:00 |
Registration and Book
Sales |
|
7:00 |
Zena Halpern, Harry Weymer, Don Ruh:
The Neversink River Site: Solving an Ancient
Mystery |
|
|
Members Short Presentations: |
|
7:45 |
Daniel J. Leary:
A Historical Video of the Calendar II Reconstruction
& Restoration |
|
8:15 |
Break, Book
Sales, Exhibits |
|
8:45 |
Miscellaneous presentations
by NEARA members ** |
|
|
**For planning purposes, please contact Rick
Lynch (401-954-3829,
hstrclrsch@aol.com) if you wish to
present. |
Saturday May 6
|
8:30am |
Registration and Book Sales |
|
9:30 |
Business Meeting & State Coordinator
Reports |
|
11:15 |
Gérard Leduc:
The Knights Templar in Nouvelle-France: Destination Montreal |
|
12:00 |
Lunch Buffet, Book Sales,
Exhibits |
|
1:45 |
Brennan Gauthier:
New England Antiquity Studies: A Student's Perspective |
|
2:30 |
Suzanne Carlson: Nova Dania:
Lost Colony or Royal Fantasy? |
|
3:15 |
Break, Book Sales, Exhibits |
|
3:30 |
Duncan Laurie:
A Non-Linear Approach to the Study of Stone
Artifacts and Sites |
|
4:15 |
Ernie Clifford:
Four Adjacent but Uniquely Different Lithic Sites
in Rochester, Vermont |
|
5:00 |
Meeting Wrap-Up and
Announcements |
|
5:30 |
Cocktail Hour |
|
6:30 |
Banquet |
|
8:00 |
Fredrick Meli: A New
Interpretation of the Queen's Fort State Reserve; Exeter, RI |
Sunday May 7
Special
Field Trips
RSVP is required in your meeting
registration for the 3 main fieldtrips.
Please check the appropriate field trips you are interested in attending.
● Friday May 5:
2:00 p.m., Ernie Clifford, Field Trip Guide
Blanchard Stone: Ernie Clifford will lead
this field trip to nearby Cavendish, VT, to see the “Blanchard” Stone. This
large rock is covered with petroglyphs of unknown origin. Level of
difficulty: Easy. Meet at the parking lot of Ascutney Resort at 2 PM.
Approximate length of trip: plan on at least 2 hours including travel time.
Dress appropriately for wet and/or muddy conditions.
● Sunday May 7, Trip 1:
9:00 a.m., Donna Martin, Field Trip Guide
Calendar II Site/Phallus Hill: Donna
Martin will lead this field trip to the Calendar II site in South Woodstock;
this will include visits to the chamber, platform, upright stones, and
several other points of interests. Level of difficulty: Easy. Approximate
length of trip: plan on at least 3 hours including travel time.
The Phallus Hill: Is optional for those
who wish to continue. This will involve hill climbing up the close-by Phallus
Hill to see the animated stones and features up there. This site is just down
the road from Calendar II Site. Level of difficulty: Moderate to Difficult.
Approximate length of trip: plan on at least 2 hours including travel time.
● Sunday May 7, Trip 2: 9:00 a.m., Lisa
Gannon, Field Trip Guide
Blood Hill: Lisa Gannon will lead this
field trip to Blood Hill, in nearby Windsor, which sits southeast of Calendar
II, and was apparently visible from the chamber at one time. Numerous
features are located here, including a partially collapsed chamber of unique
construction, remains of a quartz quarry, and a possible turtle effigy cairn
with donation pile on quartz bedrock. Stone rows, standing stones, and also
some obviously historic stonework may be seen in these woods, time
permitting. Level of Difficulty: Moderate to Difficult with some short steep
sections and lots of walking.
Further details
available at the meeting. Sunday's field trips will depart from resort at
9:00am. Again, dress appropriately for wet and/or muddy conditions.
Ascutney Mountain Resort & Conference Center
Information
Ascutney Mountain Resort & Conference Center, P.O. Box 699, Route 44,
Brownsville, VT 05037, Reservations: 800-243-0011, Hotel Phone: 802-484-7711,
Fax: 802-484-3117,
www.ascutney.com.
NEARA’s
Spring 2006 Meeting should be especially memorable at the spectacular and
full-service Ascutney Mountain Resort & Conference Center. This expansive and
picture perfect four season facility is located in Brownsville, VT at the foot
of Ascutney Mountain and ski area. Its charming building complex includes a
variety of lodging and dining arrangements, all with beautiful views and warm,
cozy interior spaces. AMR is easily accessed from VT I-91, several miles west
on Rt. 44 to Brownsville. NEARA’s meeting will be in the Windham Building,
AMR’s main conference facility.
Make your room reservations directly with the AMR reservations desk at
802-484-771 or toll free 800-243-0011 to select the lodging arrangement-location
you desire, including elevator access or other special needs accommodations. If
you want to share a suite with friends, 2- and 3-bedroom suites are very
affordable, and provide a delightful space to gather as well. All bedrooms in
suites have private baths. Ask about specific bed sizes and numbers and ask for
the “NEARA block” room rate. The cut-off date for NEARA special rates is
April 28th.
● Regular hotel rooms (king or twin beds) $79.00
● 2-Bedroom suite with king and 2 twins (plus living room/
kitchen ) $149.00
● 3-Bedroom suite with king, 2 twins, and 2 queens (plus living
room/kitchen) $189.00
Brown’s Tavern is the hub for gatherings—a warm and sociable meeting place, with
a beautiful view of the mountains. AMR also has an indoor pool, sports &
fitness center, billiard room and plenty of hiking and biking. Check out AMR’s
website at
www.ascutney.com for additional information.
Ascutney Mountain Resort is located within a short distance of numerous
significant lithic complexes which will be choices for Sunday’s field trips.
Note: The Ascutney Mountain Resort (AMR) is the only facility in this general
area. We are offering meals for the entire weekend. (See
registration form.) There are a variety of lodging options at AMR,
all of which are reasonably priced.
Directions:
From the
South: (Brattleboro, MA/CT/NYC)
I-91 north to ‘Ascutney’ exit #8, bear right at end of
ramp.
Take Rt. 131 a short distance, go left onto US Rt 5 north.
Left onto Bear Mtn. Rd. – Rt. 44A
Left onto Rt. 44 west, 2 miles to AMR on left.
Left onto AMR road, take right fork to Windham Bldg.
Park and register at Windham Bldg on left.
From the north: (White River Jut/Northern VT/Eastern NH)
I-91 south to ‘Windsor’ exit #9, left onto US Rt. 5 south.
Go about 5 miles into Windsor village
Turn right at 2nd light onto Rt. 44 west, 5.4 miles to AMR on left.
From the east: (through Claremont, NH)
Take exit Exit #12 off I-89, Rt 11 east.
Take Rt. 11 east thru Sunapee, Newport, Claremont
Take NH Rt. 12/103 west toward Ascutney, VT
Go over bridge at CT River – VT Rt. 131 west,
Right onto US Rt. 5 north. Follow as above.
Registration
(click here)
Please follow the link for Spring Meeting and Ascutney Mountain Resort
& Conference Center lodgings
registrations forms. Please print the forms, fill them out, and mail them
in. (We do not have on-line registration capabilities as yet.) Thank
you!
NEARA's Fall Meeting November 4 - 6,
2005
With a focus on Rhode Island and Vicinity
Lost Cities, Pre-contact Forts & Ritual Sites, Colonial "Stone
Enders", and Algonquin & Narragansett land use views.

Speakers & Topics
Members Presentations
Fall Conference Schedule
Special Field Trips: Stone Enders and Forts
Sheraton Providence Airport Hotel ~ Rates &
Directions
Additional Accommodations
Registration
|
The
Sheraton
Providence Airport Hotel
1850 Post
Road
Warwick, RI
02886
Reservations:
800-325-3535
Hotel Phone:
401-824-0670
Fax:
401-732-6872
www.sheraton.com/providenceairport
|
Featured Speakers & Abstracts
James
Ignasher: Smithfield's Lost City: The Story of Hanton City
and it's People
Located deep in the woods in the northern portion of
Smithfield, Rhode Island, lays the remains of a Colonial Era ghost town known
locally as Hanton City. For generations, local residents have wondered and
speculated about it. The questions, “who lived there, and when?” would lead
to the more important questions of “ what happened to them and where did they
go?”
Virtually no
historical documentation existed about the area. The stone lined cellar holes
and farm sites were proof that a large settlement once existed, but no
indication of it could be found on old maps of the town dating to the early
1800’s. Nor was there any mention of it in a book about the history of
Smithfield published in 1881. Why would this be? It seemed nobody knew the
answers, which led to the area being steeped in mystery and folklore. In
fact, as far back as 1889, there are some who have referred to it as “Haunted
City”. For the last two years, I have investigated the area trying to unravel
the mystery and separate fact from folklore this presentation will present the
results of my efforts.
Jim
Ignasher was born and raised in New York and has been resident of Rhode
Island since 1978. He currently resides in the town of Smithfield with his
wife Ann-Marie. He has always had an interest in history and enjoys the
challenge of doing historical research. As a member of the Smithfield
Historical Society, he has researched and written about local history. In the
course of his research, he has trekked through wooded areas in search of lost
Colonial Era farm sites. It was during these explorations that he began to
discover things such as dolmen, standing stones, cairns, and other oddities
that were not Colonial in origin but were obviously man-made. His research
into these Neolithic structures led him to learn about NEARA, of which he has
been a member for a little over a year.
Paul Robinson: Rhode Island and the
Narragansett Country: Still "Stony and Full of Indians" 375 Years After Captain
Pierce's Report to Winthrop
Only a few years after King Philip’s War ended
in Rhode Island, land reserved for Philip prior to the war, became Bristol - a
planned seaport community conceived by four Boston investors. The town came
complete with a street grid, two-acre house lots and a building code: a land
transformation made this quickly revealed the opportunity for profit that some
sees in war.
The taking of Indian land prior to the war was
less organized, but effective and relentless nonetheless, played out with ink
and paper in what Francis Jennings called the “deed game.”
Seventeenth-century Rhode Island Land Evidence Records provide an episodic
narrative of the taking: the first group of colonists acquired specific “use
rights;” the next generation claimed full ownership by asserting the
relatively autonomous Kentish form of English land tenure. Out of the heated
arguments between Indians and colonists that followed this colonial assertion
came the war that to English thinking ended the argument by conquest. The
quarrel, however, did not end - it continues still, as Indian complaints and
acts of defiance and resistance began with quickness equal to that of the
platting of Bristol by Boston investors.
Today, NEARA’s members, through conferences, publications
and conversations with Indian people, are among those who attempt to
understand the New England landscape, its origins and meanings, in a way that
most of the first colonists either ignored or failed to see as they waged war
against its residents and took their land. NEARA’s dedication to working with
Indian people to preserve ancient landscapes holds out the hope that we may
end the quarrel, and perhaps, discover a new world.
Paul Robinson is the Principal State
Archaeologist at the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage
Commission and an adjunct faculty member in the Anthropology Department at
Rhode Island College.
Evan Pritchard: Algonquins and
Estuaries
This presentation will explain how our current large
political centers and cities are situated upon ancient Algonquin political
centers that are chosen based on the use of estuaries. These sites are either
at confluences, at the salt point of estuaries or at the terminus--the place
past which sea creatures have difficulty passing, such as at a waterfall.
Secondary estuaries are equally important, as they are more sheltered and
easier to defend from attack from the sea. Special attention will be given to
the word Pawtucket, a word which is filled with meaning in Algonquin culture.
Evan Pritchard is director of the Center for
Algonquin Culture. Evan is of Micmac, Wampanoag and Celtic descent. Through
his lectures and books, such as, ‘No Word for Time’ and ‘Native New Yorker,’
he has worked to highlight the importance of Algonquin culture in North
American history. Evan is a professor of Native American History at Marist
College, and lectures throughout the US and Canada. He is author of the new
book, ‘Native American Stories of the Sacred, Annotated and Explained by Evan
T. Pritchard (Skylight Paths)’
Curtiss
Hoffman: A Quantitative Methodology for Studying Rock Pile
Sites
Archaeological study for the past 45 years has required the
formulation of explicit research designs and sampling strategies, and the
employment of quantitative methodologies to test hypotheses. The apparatus of
scientific archaeology, however, has only rarely been applied to lithic
structures in the region, and, prior to 2004, never to rock pile sites. This
paper presents the results of applying such a methodology to the Ridges at
Deer Lake project in Killingworth, CT. Essentially, it provides strong
evidence to disconfirm the field clearance, wall construction, and farm
beautification hypotheses, and favors the acceptance of the hypothesis that
these are indeed Native American ceremonial sites. This methodology can be
applied to other sites throughout the region with expected productive results.
Curtiss Hoffman is Chair of the Anthropology
Department at Bridgewater State College, and Past President and current
Corresponding Secretary of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society. He holds
a doctoral degree in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from Yale
University (1974), and has been active in research in pre-colonial archaeology
in Massachusetts since 1973. He is the author of numerous articles and books
on the archaeology of Massachusetts, and on mythology and the anthropology of
consciousness.
Scott
Horecky: Fort Kitchawanc Archaeological Preserve
Intact Lower Hudson Valley Contact Period sites
with associated earthworks are rarely discovered due to a variety of
destructive forces and environmental fluctuations. The Croton Point Peninsula
located in the Village of Croton-on-Hudson, in the Township of Cortlandt,
County of Westchester, approximately 35 miles north of New York City, contains
a Contact Period site called “Fort Kitchawanc” with remains of earthwork
features and possible burial remains. The peninsula, a glacial moraine of the
Wisconsin glacier, covers 508 acres and extends westward nearly two miles out
into the Hudson Estuary. Presently, the peninsula is owned and operated by the
Westchester County Government as a recreational and passive park facility. The
Haverstraw Bay borders the peninsula on the north and the Croton River drains
into the Croton Bay on the south. The unique geographic features and estuarine
habitat of the Croton Point area has proved an attractive location for
occupation by prehistoric cultures beginning at least from the early Archaic
Period through European contact. Systematic archaeological excavations and
various forms of field work have been conducted at the “Fort Kitchawanc” site
over the last century beginning in 1899 with the work of M. Raymond Harrington
for the American Museum of Natural History. I have re-examined Harrington’s
work at the site and summarized the data in this presentation. This data has
resulted in a renewed interest in the protection and preservation of the site.
The Materials, Archives and Laboratory for Archaeology (MALFA), the lower
Hudson Valley chapter of NYSSA, has been working for several years with Parks
Department officials in establishing the “Fort Kitchawanc” site as the first
archaeological preserve in Westchester County, and we are proud to report the
dedication will take place in the spring of 2005.
Scott Horecky received his M.S. in
Education from Long Island University and also has a B.S. in Music from Mercy
College. He serves as an instructor of Prehistoric Cultures of the Lower
Hudson Valley at Westchester Community College. He is event coordinator for
Archaeology Day each year for Westchester County. Scott also serves as
Co-Director of the Croton Bay Site underwater archaeology project. He is a
contributor of prehistoric site identification for N.Y.S. Park Recreation and
Historic Preservation. He is the Native American Site Steward for the
Palisades Interstate Park Commission. Scott has published and lectured
extensively on the archaeology of Westchester County. He is a member of many
professional archaeological and conservation organizations.
James Egan: The Mystery of the Stone
Ender
In 1997,the remains of a colonial house were
found high atop a cliff in southeastern Connecticut. The 6-foot-wide hearth,
massive chimney base, foundation, and entrance step are all still visible.
Architecturally, the building is a “stone-ender” (as opposed to
“center–chimney”) which is a style predominantly found in RI. Jim
Whittall purported that this was the Trading Post of one of RI’s first
settlers, Benedict Arnold. Benedict helped settle Providence with his father,
William Arnold, in1636, and became the richest man in RI with his trading
deals. In 1663, King Charles appointed him to be the first Governor of RI. (It
was his great-grandson who was the infamous traitor in the Revolutionary
War.) But what would a RI settler’s house be doing in Connecticut? Clues can
be found by studying the history of the RI-Connecticut border and
Indian-Colonial relations.
Jim Egan
is a professional photographer in Providence RI. He’s been a member of NEARA
since 1977. In 1985, he purchased the rafters, beams, floorboards and chimney
stones of the dismantled 1709 Burlingame House, a one and a half story stone
ender. He reconstructed it as an art studio for his wife in Foster RI. Jim
serves as NEARA state coordinator for Rhode Island.
Associated Field Trips:
● Friday November 4 at 12 noon:
Special Field Trip: Stone Enders of RI with Jim Egan
● Sunday November 6 at 10:00
am:
Special Field Trip:
Mystery of the Stone Ender with Jim Egan
RSVP is
required in your meeting registration for the 3 main fieldtrips. Please check
the appropriate field trips you are interested in attending.
Dr. Uzi Avner: Anceint
Cults in the Negev and the Sinai
As early as the 6th
millennium B.C. the desert became extremely rich with cult sites. During the
last 30 years I have been recording hundreds of cult sites of various types in
the Negev and Eastern Sinai, and have excavated dozens. These include
standing stone shrines (masseboth), open-air sanctuaries, “crenelations” (rows
of stone cairns), and several other types. Remains of intensive cultic
activity are observed in each burial site in the desert. These sites, which
are constantly being discovered with every field excursion, indicate
unexpected, intensive religious activity and creativity of the desert
populations, and a highly rich spiritual domain. We even find that the desert
people had a distinctive influence on the religions of the ancient Near east.
My lecture will present the results of these cult sites’ studies and discuss
their interpretations and implications.
From the deserts of the Negev and the Sinai to Woodstock,
Vermont, Dr. Avner is no stranger to megalithic sites in our area! He met
Betty Sincerbeaux in Vermont in 1993 and was shown the Calendar II chamber and
standing stones in South Woodstock. This site greatly impressed him and he
saw some similarities to the hundreds of standing stone sites in had
discovered, surveyed and documented of a period of 30 years.
Dr. Uzi Avner
(1944, Israel) began his academic studies in archaeology, history and
geography at Hebrew University, Jerusalem in 1973. Achieving his BA degree in
1977, he began working for the Israel Antiquities Authority as the district
archaeologist of the southern Negev. Since then he has conducted many surveys
and excavations in the southern Negev desert, as well as the eastern Sinai.
He has extensively published a variety of his research results, such as
ancient cult and burial sites of various periods; early and advanced
agriculture in the desert (from Neolithic to Early Islamic); copper and gold
production of different periods; ancient desert roads during the ages, and
others. In 2003 his Ph.D. dissertation was awarded summa cum laude by Hebrew
University. Dr. Avner is lecturing on archaeology in the Eilat campus of
Ben-Gurion University and in the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies,
while proceeding with field research and publications.
Friday Night Members Presentations
Terry Deveau: William B. Goodwin's
Nova Scotia Axe
In 1938, William B. Goodwin of Hartford, Connecticut, wrote
that he had in his possession an ancient decorated steel axe head that was a
“patent and indubitable reminder” of Norse exploration of Nova Scotia in the
period before 1250 A.D. The results of a detailed study of what is known about
this relic will be presented.
Tom Paul: The Large Standing Stones
and Perched Boulders of the Hammonasset Line
Every few miles on the Hammonasset Line, are stone
complexes, including formed and stacked stone cairns and stone walls. Between
and at the edges of these complexes, are standing stones and perched or formed
boulders.
See Tom Paul's NEARA report on the
Hammonassett Line!
Jim Egan:
Jim's Excellent Adventure
A fast moving
photographic essay on historic sites that I visited this summer in Prague,
Athens, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Patmos, Rhodes and Barcelona.
Ted Ballard, Fred
Martin, & James Mavor: Probable Pre-Contact Native
American Ritual Site in Eastern Massachusetts
Rock shelters,
modified glacial boulders that have been modified to capture solstice period
sun-daggers will be discussed. Laid up stone U-shaped structures oriented to
the solstices and northern constellations are also present at the site along
with Late Archaic and Early Woodland Artifacts.
Schedule of Events
Friday November 4
12:00 noon Special Field Trip:
Stone Enders of RI with Jim Egan
5:00 -7:00 pm Registration and Book Sales
7:00 Jim Ignasher:
Smithfield's Lost City
Members Short Presentations:
7:45 Terry Deveau:
William B. Goodwin's Nova Scotia Axe
8:15 Jim Egan:
Jim's Excellent Adventure
8:45 Break, Book Sales, Exhibits
9:00
Tom Paul: Large Standing Stones, Boulders, Hammonasset
Line
9:30
Ballard, Martin, Mavor: Probable Pre-Contact Ritual Site
in Mass
Saturday November 5
8:30 -9:30 am Registration and Book Sales
9:30 Business Meeting & State Coordinator
Reports
11:15 Paul Robinson: Rhode
Island and the Narragansett Country
12:00 Lunch on your own, Book Sales,
Exhibits
1:45 Evan Pritchard:
Algonquins and Estuaries
2:30 Curtiss Hoffman:
Quantitative Methodology for Rock Pile Sites
3:15 Break, Book Sales, Exhibits
3:30 Scott Horecky:
Fort Kitchawanc Archaeological Preserve
4:15 Jim Egan: The
Mystery of the Stone Ender
5:00 Meeting Wrap-Up and Announcements
5:30 Cocktail Hour
6:30 Banquet
8:00 Uzi Avner:
Ancient Cult Sites in the Negev and the Sinai
Sunday November 6
9:30
Special Field Trip: Revolutionary War Forts with
Rick Lynch
10:00 Special Field Trip:
Mystery of the Stone Ender with Jim Egan
Special
Field Trips
RSVP is required in your meeting registration for the 3 main fieldtrips.
Please check the appropriate field trips you are interested in attending.
● Friday November 4: 12
noon, Jim Egan, Field Trip Guide
The Stone Enders of Rhode
Island: The early colonial RI settlers built their houses in
a different style than the Massachusetts or Connecticut settlers did. In RI,
the primary architectural style was based on a massive stone chimney, which
made up one whole wall of the house. In the main room the fireplace was big
enough to walk into. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, the chimney stack was
in the middle of the house allowing for hearths in a number of rooms.
Most of RI’s stone enders were burned by the Indians in King Phiilip’s War of
1676. On the Friday Field Trip, we will visit 4 Stone Enders that have
survived; Eleazer Arnold House and the Valentine Whitman House in Lincoln,
the Clemence-Irons House in Johnston, and the Thomas Fenner House in Cranston.
Those interested should meet in the hotel lobby at 12:00 Noon.
● Sunday November 6:
9:30 am, Rick Lynch, Field Trip Guide
Rhode Island’s
Revolutionary War: Forts, Redoubts, & Batteries: The fieldtrip
will be a tour of little known forts built during the Revolutionary War all
located in Rhode Island.The tour will take us to the remains of 5 earthen
forts, built by the British, French, and the Patriots of Rhode Island.
All of the forts figured prominently in
the siege of Newport, and the battle of Rhode Island. Fort Barton in
Tiverton, and the Conanicut Battery on the island of Jamestown are well
restored and developed historical parks. Butt’s Hill Fort in Portsmouth is
well preserved but undeveloped and almost never visited. The Hogpen Point
Fort (Fort Hill) in East Providence is all but forgotten, but remains of the
earthworks and earlier Native American presence are still clearly visible.
Fort Wetherill is located on the site of an early earthwork battery, later
replaced in 1800 and known as Fort Dumpling. The fort was abandoned but
reactivated and modernized with new large guns as part of the coastal defense
network for World War II. The fort is located on cliffs 100’ above the
ocean. WE will also visit Beavertail Light at the tip of Jamestown. The site
figured prominently from the Revolutionary War through all of the wars to the
present!
Those interested should meet in the hotel lobby at 9:30
AM.
● Sunday November 6:
10:00 am, Jim Egan, Field Trip Guide
The Mystery of the Stone Ender: In
1997,the remains of a colonial house were found high atop a cliff in
southeastern Connecticut. The 6-foot-wide hearth, massive chimney base,
foundation, and entrance step are all still visible. Architecturally, the
building is a “stone-ender” (as opposed to “center–chimney”) which is a style
predominantly found in RI. The site also has remains of a stone chamber,
outbuildings, stone “loading/trading” platforms, and colonial “lace” walls.
The fieldtrip will travel 1 mile into pristine woods past a Woodland Indian
campsite, waterfall and high ledges all located in a remote part of the
Pachaug State Forest in N. Stonington, CT.
Those
interested should meet in the hotel lobby at 10:00 AM.
Additional
side field trips will be organized with details available during the meeting.
Sites to be visited if there is enough interest will be to:
Pearson Stone Chamber & Pratt
Hill: Upton, Massachusetts
Parker Woodland, Stone Piles,
& Ruins: Foster/Coventry, Rhode Island
Newport Tower: Newport,
Rhode Island
Sheraton Providence Airport Hotel Information
NEARA Room Rate Extended to October 25th!
Sheraton
Providence Airport Hotel, 1850 Post Road, Warwick, RI 02886, Reservations:
800-325-3535, Hotel Phone: 401-824-0670, Fax: 401-732-6872,
www.sheraton.com/providenceairport.
The Sheraton
Providence Airport Hotel, conveniently located off I-95 on Route 1 in
Warwick, RI (at T. F. Green Airport just 6 miles south of Providence) offers
excellent accommodations and conference facilities: ample parking, spacious
meeting spaces and reception area, charming guest rooms , work out and fitness
center, heated indoor pool, internet, restaurant and cocktail lounge. With our
Fall Meeting focus on Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut, this location
provides easy access to a number of distinct and significant sites for Friday
afternoon and Sunday field trips.
The hotel's guest
rooms are beautifully decorated, relaxing and comfortable. Feel free to contact
the hotel directly to assure easy access and comfort. All special needs will be
graciously accommodated. The hotel restaurant and lounge are open through out
the weekend. A variety of nearby restaurants, some within easy walking
distance, offer additional choices for meals.
NEARA's hotel room
block rate is $99 single/double - hotel guests will receive a discount
coupon for breakfast. The group rate also applies to Thursday, November 3rd and
Sunday, November 6th for those who wish to extend their weekend--please contact
the hotel’s sales manager directly at 401-824-0670 if you need additional
nights. Check-in time is 3 pm and check-out time is 12 noon. A one-night
deposit is required with your reservation. Cancellations must be made by 4pm on
Wednesday Nov 2nd. The NEARA rate will be held until October 14th.
Reservations made after October 14th will honor the group rate
based upon availability. NEARA
Room Rate Extended to October 25th!
To make
reservations by phone: Call Sheraton's reservation department
1-800-325-3535 and ask for the "New England Antiquities Research Association or
NEARA block " room rate at the Sheraton Providence Airport Hotel. Have your
credit card ready to guarantee your reservation. Your card will be required upon
check-in.
To make
reservations on-line: the Sheraton’s website is
www.sheraton.com/providenceairport.
Directions:
From all
Directions:
Pick up I-95
to just south of Providence
Follow signs to
Warwick - T F Green Airport.
Take exit 13
"Airport Connector" to US1/Post Road.
Turn left on US1,
go north 1/4 mile. Hotel is on your right.
Other Lodging in the vicinity:
Please mention the NEARA conference for best rate.
Hampton
Inn:
2100 Post
Road
1/2 Mile from
the Sheraton
401-739-8888
Comfort
Inn:
1940 Post
road
Next door to
the Sheraton
401-732-0470
Motel 6:
20 Jefferson
Blvd.
1.5 miles
from the Sheraton
401-467-9800
Registration
(click here)
Please follow the link for Fall Meeting and Sheraton Providence
Airport Hotel lodgings
registrations forms. Please print the forms, fill them out, and mail them
in. (We do not have on-line registration capabilities as yet.) Thank
you!
NEARA's Spring Meeting April 8 - 10,
2005
Focusing on the Hudson Valley, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania
At the Sheraton Danbury Connecticut!
I-84 &
Old Ridgebury Road
203-794-0600
www.sheraton.com/danbury
Speakers & Topics
Fall Conference Schedule
Special Field Trips: Chambers & Dolmens
Sheraton Danbury Hotel ~ Rates & Directions
Additional Accommodations
Registration
|
The
Sheraton
Danbury Hotel
18 Old
Ridgebury Road,
Danbury, CT
06810.
Reservations:
203-794-0600,
Fax:
203-798-7735,
www.sheraton.com/danbury
|
Featured Speakers & Abstracts
Polly Midgley:
Dolmens Along the Croton
Three dolmens (or dolmen type structures) are located in Westchester County
along the Croton River. None is more than 15 miles from the other. What they
have in common tells an interesting story and applies to other dolmens in the
New York metropolitan area and elsewhere.
Polly Midgley is the NEARA coordinator for the Hudson Valley region
of New York State. Polly has been an active member in NEARA for the past 12
years and has become familiar with stone structures through NEARA field
research. She has lived most of her life in Westchester County, NY the focus
of this report.
Rob Fisher:
Horseshoe Mounds on the west Bank of the Susquehanna River
On the West Branch of the Susquehanna, above Lock Haven, on property that was
once a thriving logging community named Glen Union, then a farm and now an
artist’s studio and residence, are a series of stone horseshoe shaped mounds,
remarkable for their concentric configuration. Currently six, perhaps seven
horseshoe mounds can be seen, several quite clear and well defined. Artist
and property owner Rob Fisher invited NEARA member Larry Mulligan to help
document several of these formations. The horseshoe mounds are formed by two
concentric rings of stone each about 5’ wide and separated from one another by
about 5’. The clearest formation has an outer ring 66' across, with the inner
mound 43' in diameter. The stones are piled up to a height of about 2’ to
2.5’’ and are comprised of both rounded river rock and mountain stone. These
mounds are at the base of the mountain that borders the property at the rear.
They face the mountain and consequently face away from the river. This would
apparently preclude them from being any type of defensive fortification. As
can be imagined, this site poses many mysteries, and any and all comments and
opinions would be appreciated.
Rob Fisher is an internationally recognized artist. He pioneered
the application of the computer to large scale sculpture. He is the co-author
of a seminal book on visual form and his work has been widely exhibited and
commissioned worldwide. Fisher received a B.Sc. degree in Humanities, Visual
Design and Engineering from MIT in 1961 and a M.Sc. degree in Industrial
Design from Syracuse University in 1965. He has taught at the University of
Illinois and Penn State and was appointed a Distinguished Fellow of the STUDIO
for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University. In 2003 Rob Fisher
completed a major public art commission for the Philadelphia International
Airport Arrivals Hall entitled “American Dream” based on the calligraphy and
text of the Declaration of Independence. He and his wife spend about six
months of the year at Glen Union where he discovered the mounds many years ago
while hiking the 150 acre property.
Chuck Bailey:
New Interpretations of the Jeffers Petroglyph Site
The Jeffers Petroglyph Site in Southwestern Minnesota is on a large flat
quartzite granite ledge on which an ancient people have inscribed over 2000
glyphs. The site has been estimated to be over 5000 years old. Our research
group resurveyed and mapped the site in 1993. Patterns of glyphs, revealed by
our maps, indicted possible alignments with solar positions throughout the
year. In 2003, our experiments, using gnomons to cast shadows between groups
of glyphs and symbols confirmed the method in which the site was used by the
ancient people who made it. I will present the results of out research.
Chuck Bailey has been recording and studying ancient sites in the
Midwest and Southwest for over 40 years. He has concentrated mainly on
petroglyphs and pictographs left behind by many ancient peoples, because of
the clues they provide to their beliefs and identities. He recently taught a
course in ancient world migrations and contacts with America for UFS at the
University of Minnesota in Duluth.
Ralph J. Coffman: Reconstructing the Origins of the
European Pleistocene in Africa
An intensive study of over 500 archaeological sites throughout Sub-Saharan
Africa - Namibia, South Africa (The Cape, Transvaal, Drakensburg), Botswana,
Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique, eastern Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya -
makes it possible for the first time to begin the reconstruction of the extent
of the Khoisan, click-speaking, hunter-gatherer peoples and their rich
civilization.
This extensive archaeological survey, together with original ethnographic
fieldwork, reveals a common body of shamanic, medicinal and ritual practices
that are similar to and coeval with the Paleolithic peoples of North Africa
and Western Europe. Furthermore, the similarity between the two suggests that
these two cultural traditions were parallel in development with perhaps a
common Late Pleistocene African substratum that we shall suggest in this
presentation. This completely reverses the earlier viewpoint (now no longer
seriously held) that the late Pleistocene traditions in Sub Saharan Africa
were actually a product of European peoples. However, the reverse may be just
as provocative, that the origin of Western European traditions are actually to
be traced to Africa among the Khoisan peoples.
Ralph J. Coffman, B.A. Trinity College, Ed.M. Boston University, B.D.
Andover Newton Theological School, M.S. Simmons College, Ph.D. Harvard
University. Ralph is a member of various professional organizations (including
the American Institute of Archaeology, The American Academy of Religion, The
British Institute in Eastern Africa, The South African Archaeological Society,
The Manitoba Archaeological Society, The Champlain Society and the Maine
Archaeological Society). He has taught archaeology, prehistory and the history
of religions at Harvard University, University of Lowell and Fitchburg State
College. He is currently working on a project tentatively entitled “Planetary
History” that regards the human species as only one of a plethora on our
planet within the context of a rich and involved environmental history that
has developed since the Pleistocene but has been obscured by an
anthropocentric focus on the human species and its supposed dominance over all
others. The Khoisan peoples of Sub Saharan Africa are a good antidote to this
perspective as they regarded themselves as an integral part of the animal and
plant kingdoms and not as superior to them.
Deb Twigg:
Carantouannis, Spanish Hill, South Waverly, NY
Spanish Hill raises steeply above the surrounding river flats some 230 feet to
a flat plateau of around ten acres in South Waverly, PA. While it is most
widely recognized as the site of Samuel Champlain's "Carantouan," this ancient
sugarloaf shaped hill has been shrouded in mystery and interesting tales for
the past 150 years.
In 2002, Deb Twigg began investigating the site, and in 2004, began compiling
all of her research online. This presentation will provide some of the
interesting artifacts, historical references from as early as the start of the
17th century, as well as more recent research and new theories relative to
this ancient place.
Deb Twigg is a local historian and is the Web Administrator at
Guthrie Health in Sayre, PA. She is also a technical training consultant. In
February 2004, she launched a website called SpanishHill.com - dedicated to
the research she has done on this historical location. Today the website
currently receives an average of 1500 visits per month from interested parties
all over the world. Recently, Twigg wrote a paper to be published in
"Pennsylvania Archeologist" in 2005, as well as a paper to be published in the
NEARA journal in 2005. She has also created a 50-page booklet explaining the
story of "Carantouan," written in a "simpler" version for all age groups to
enjoy. Her dedication to the topic of Spanish Hill and Carantouan are well
noted in the region, as her efforts have even urged the creation of new
legislation to rename the adjacent highway to the site, "The Spanish Hill
Extension."
Roger Jewell:
Finding a Cultural Tradition for New England Stonework
Roger will present the theory that the Red Paint Culture was a separate
culture from the native archaic culture of New England 4000 years ago.
However, by 3000 years ago they had become one culture. This culture then
slowly changed, creating the stone chambers, American Stonehenge, and standing
stones of today’s New England. The presentation will show these connections
can still be seen in current Algonquin Cosmology of 1500 AD and the present.
Roger will do this using several local artifacts and symbols: The N. Salem, NY
Dolmen, two stone chambers in nearby Putnam County, NY and the five pointed
star symbol carved on a local hill top. He will then show how these local
items fit into a much larger context.
Roger Jewell is the author of, Ancient Mines of Kitchi-Gummi, (2000)
a book about the ancient copper mines found around Lake Superior. He lives in
the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania area and has been a member of NEARA for several
years. He graduated from the University of Minnesota (1962) with a degree in
Forestry Management and spent 32 years in the management of National Forest of
the Lake States. It was in his capacity as the District Manager of the
243,000-acre Sault Sainte Marie Ranger District, of the Hiawatha NF, that he
was exposed to the mystery of the Ancient Native Copper Mines. In 1994 he
retired and has since been studying and writing on this and other subjects.
In the second edition of Ancient Mines of Kitchi-Gummi, (2004) a 27-page
epilog, updates new information on the New England area. He has also written
‘Riding the Wild Orb’, a story about extreme weather and a search for the
historic fire cycles he observed.
Thomas
Brannan: Woods 'n Indians
William Woodhull, an English “fell-monger”, or dealer in hides, skins, and
furs, came to America in 1638 to seek his fortune. It appears that he struck
a deal with the Native Americans of the Province of New York for exclusive
trading rights in some 14 small parcels of land, all cornering on towns named
“Wood”. A map of them will be presented. Many Woodhulls (and derivative
Odells) still inhabit the fair state of New York. The trading centers founded
by their ancestors should provide clues to 17th century trading
patterns.
Thomas F. Brannan is a civil engineer and land surveyor. He has
practiced for many years in the farm country and small towns of upstate New
York and Pennsylvania. He retired in 1992 as director of the Public Works
Department for the city of Part Jervis, New York. Thomas is a graduate of
Rensselair Polytechnic Institute and of Purdue University. He is a longtime
member of the New York State Archaeological Association, and a past president
of its Incorporated Orange County Chapter.
Numerous old landmarks such as standing stones, huge stone piles, and
perched boulders, found in the woodland fields all over the Northeast have
lead Mr. Brannan into a 30 year study of ancient American land Surveys.
Ted Timreck: Ceremonial Landscapes - The Stone Ruins of
the Northeast
A Video Documentary: Unusual stones ruins
dot the landscape of the Northeast. This area has not been fully recognized
as a region where indigenous peoples left ceremonial constructions on the land
– despite almost all other regions of North America having an accepted legacy
of Native American ritual landscape design. This one-hour program explores
new discoveries and developments that are leading scientists to change their
approach to investigating these mysterious stone ruins.
The film includes a history of how the scientific, Native, and antiquarian
interpretations developed over time. It follows a team of national and local
archeologists working with Native tribal representatives and antiquarian
researchers to investigate the origins of newly discovered stone ruins in the
Northeast. This marks an experiment with representatives of various
perspectives working together as they search for answers. This collaboration
originated in Vermont, marking a breakthrough in researching one of America’s
most controversial archeological questions: Who built these structures and
when did they do so?
Ted Timreck has been a producer and director for television and
other media for 30 years, specializing in portraits of artists and
scientists. Beginning in 1980, he has worked extensively with Smithsonian
scientists documenting field research for the The National Museum of Natural
History, creating programming for public and cable television. He is the
producer of the Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies Web site and is also the producer
for the National Museum’s Paleo Program Web Site. His previous works include
“The Lost Red Paint People” and “Vikings in America” for the PBS Nova series
as well as “Franz Boas” for the PBS Odyssey series. His television portraits
of artists include Charles Ives, Thomas Eakins, Augustus Saint Gaudens,
Frederick Law Olmsted, Aaron Copland, George L.K. Morris and Suzy
Frelinghuysen.
His latest piece, a multi-part series, tells the story of early, Eastern
North American sea cultures and the story of Circumpolar human migration at
the end of the last Ice Age. This documentary examines evidence that
Northeastern Native people developed sophisticated maritime technology. At a
November public screening at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of some of the
initial footage for this project, Ted was joined afterward by Dr. William
Fitzhugh, Anthropology Department chair, for a discussion with the audience.
William B. F. Ryan: Illuminating the Floor of the Hudson
River from the New York Harbor to the Troy Dam
The New York State Department
of Environmental Conservation has funded the complete mapping of the Hudson
River Estuary from the New York Harbor to the dam at Troy. This study
includes, extremely detailed charting of the bottom depth with swath sonar,
imaging the bottom roughness with side-looking sonar, probing the sediment
interior with both acoustic and radar reflection profiling and ground-truth
calibration with hundreds of cores and grab samples. The talk will present a
visual tour of the new maps and mosaics along with some the major findings.
These include features of geological, commercial, historic and archaeological
interest such the catastrophic draining of the post-glacial Lake Albany with
enormous floods sent out to the Atlantic shelf, the impacts created by three
centuries of reconfiguration of the river bed shape due to landfill, dredging
and the building of piers and bridges, the remains
of "cheveux de frise" that were set on the riverbed by General
Washington near West Point to sink British ships during the Revolutionary War,
craters still preserved from artillery fired by long-range canon toward Storm
King Mountain at the time of the Civil War, the ghost of pilings of docks used
to load ice from Rockland Lake for shipping to Manhattan prior to
refrigeration with electricity, the footprint of the US Navy "Mothball Fleet"
and individual shipwrecks of an illustrious vintage.
William B. F.
Ryan has explored the ocean floor since 1961, when after graduation from
Williams College he apprenticed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic institution as
an electronics technician. He sailed on their research vessel, “Chain” for a
five-month voyage across the Atlantic and through the Mediterranean using
sound waves to image the seabed and its interior. He then went on to pursue
graduate studies in geology and geophysics at Columbia University and received
his Ph. D. in 1971. He began teaching in the university’s department of Earth
and Environmental Sciences in 1978. His research interests are broad and
encompass studies of continental margins, mid-ocean ridges, plate tectonics
and climates of the past.
Ryan has been a
co-chief scientist on four expeditions of the Deep Sea Drilling Project. Its
mission was the recovery sediment cores to depths of more than one kilometer
beneath the seafloor in order to uncover the past history of the oceans back
to more that 150 million years ago. He was onboard the drillship “Glomar
Challenger” in 1970 during the discovery that the Mediterranean Sea had dried
out and transformed to a deep desert landscape five and a half million years
ago.
Ryan has also
been a developer and exploiter of new technology to image and map the seafloor
with instruments towed on several-mile long cables behind survey ships and
more recently with self-powered autonomous vehicles that roam just a few
meters above the bottom. He has had more than a dozen dives in submersibles
and submarines, including the “Alvin” and “NR1”.
In 1993 he
responded to an invitation from Russia to join scientists from the Southern
Branch of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology and investigate the seabed of
the Black Sea. During this project, advanced sonar revealed a vast and
now-drowned terrestrial landscape surrounding an ancient freshwater lake fed
by streams from melting glaciers and ice sheets. Sediment cores showed an
abrupt transformation of this lake into a saltwater sea that he has described
for the general reader in "Noah's Flood, The New Scientific Discoveries About
The Event That Changed History", published by Simon and Schuster in 1999 and
co-authored with Walter Pitman.
Most recently
Ryan led a study of the National Research Council summarized in a report,
"Illuminating the Hidden Planet: the Future of Seafloor observatory Science",
published by the National Academy Press. Ryan has received the Shepard Medal
for excellence in marine geology and is a Fellow of the American Geophysical
Union. Over the years the Office of Naval Research and the National Science
Foundation has supported his research and that of his students.
Schedule of Events
Friday April 8
2:15 Special Field Trip
to Croton Park
5:00 -7:00 pm Registration and Book Sales
7:00 Poly Midgley: Dolmens
Along the Croton
7:45 Rob Fisher: Horseshoe
Mounds on the West Bank of the Susquehanna
8:30 Break, Book Sales, Exhibits
8:45 Chuck Bailey: New
Interpretations of the Jeffers Petroglyph Site
Saturday April 9
9:00 am Registration and Book Sales
10:00 State
Coordinator Reports
11:15 Ralph Coffman:
Reconstructing the Origins of European Pleistocene in Africa
12:00 Lunch on your own, Book Sales,
Exhibits
1:30 Deb Twigg:
Carantouannais, Spanish Hill, South Waverly, NY
2:00 Roger Jewell:
Finding a Cultural Tradition for New England Stonework
2:30 Tom Brannan:
Woods n' Indians
3:00 Break, Book Sales, Exhibits
3:30 Ted Timereck: Video Presentation:
The Stone Ruins of the Northeast
5:00 Meeting wrap-up and announcements
5:30 Cocktail Hour
6:30 Banquet
8:00 William Ryan:
Illuminating the Floor of the Hudson River
Saturday April 10
9:00 Special Field Trip
of Chambers with Walter Wheeler
9:30 Special Field Trip
of Chambers with Betty and Rudy Cypser
10:00
Special Field Trip of Hammonassett Line
Special
Field Trips
Friday April 8:
Croton Point Park: Scott Horecky will
guide NEARA members on a tour of local sites at Croton Point Park, at 2:15pm.
The tour will include a fortified village, earthworks of the Kitchawanc
Indians, shell middens, an arrowhead collection and information about Louis
Brennan and William Ritchie. Croton Point Park is a scenic location where the
Hudson River and the Croton River join. The Croton Dam, originally
responsible for all of NYC’s water supply, is en route and maybe seen via a
very short detour.
Scott Horecky is an active and knowledgeable member of the Louis A.
Brennan Lower Hudson Chapter of the NYS Archaeological Association.
Sunday April 10:
California Hill, Peekskill Hollow Rd. and Whangtown Road
Chambers: Walter Wheeler will guide NEARA members. This guided
tour will be in Putnam County and it involves about 2 miles of walking for
entire trip. Trip leaves at 9:00am.
Chambers located in Danbury and in nearby Westchester
and Putnam Counties: Betty and Rudy Cypser will guide NEARA
members on a tour of theses chamber sites. The trip will drive past the No.
Salem dolmen and participants may stop there. Not very much walking and trip
leaves at 9:30am.
See Edward Bochnak's Photo Tour of
Putnam County Chambers!
See Carol A. Hanny's theory on the
Putnam Valley Chambers!
Hammonassett Line: Tom Paul will guide
NEARA members on a tour of the lithic site (on the NEARA webpage), stone
walls, cairns, and standing stones in Madison, CT. This guided tour will
start at 10:30am at the site.
See Tom Paul's NEARA report on the
Hammonassett Line!
Sheraton Danbury Hotel Information
Sheraton Danbury Hotel, 18 Old
Ridgebury Road, Danbury, CT 06810. Phone: 203-794-0600, Fax: 203-798-7735,
Web: www.sheeraton.com/danbury
The Sheraton Danbury Hotel, conveniently located just off I-84 in
Danbury, CT. offers the best in hotel accommodations and conference facilities:
ample parking, spacious meeting rooms and reception areas, charming guest rooms,
work out and fitness center, heated indoor pool, restaurant and cocktail
lounge. With our Spring Meeting focus on the Hudson Valley and its
surroundings, this location provides easy access to a number of distinct and
significant sites for the Sunday field trips.
The hotel’s 242 guest rooms are beautifully decorated, relaxing and
comfortable. The Sheraton Danbury will graciously accommodate all special
needs. Feel free to contact the hotel directly to assure easy access and
comfort. The hotel restaurant and lounge are open through out the weekend. A
variety of nearby restaurants offer additional choices for meals. The vast
Danbury Mall is four miles from the hotel.
NEARA has a block of rooms reserved at a special rate of $79
single/double. This rate also applies to Thursday, April 7 and Sunday,
April 10 for those who wish to extend their weekend. Check-in time is 3:00 p.m.
and check out time is 12:00 noon. A one night deposit is required with your
reservation. Cancellations must be made by 4:00 p.m. on the night of arrival.
The NEARA rate will be held until March 18th. Reservations
made after March 18th will honor the group rate based upon
availability.
Lodgings Announcement,
3-21-2005: The cut-off date for
the NEARA hotel room rate of $79 has been extended to Friday, March 25th.
Reservations made after the cut-off date will honor the group rate based upon
availability.
To make reservations by phone: Call Sheraton Danbury Hotel reservation
department at 1-800-325-3535 and ask for the “NEARA block” room rate.
To make reservations on-line:
• Go to
www.sheraton.com/danbury
• Click on meeting site at top of page. Click on
attend a meeting at bottom of the page.
• Enter city (Danbury) and state (CT) and NEARA
meeting code (2027). “Continue”. Click on “Select” next to hotel name.
• Proceed with Reservation.
• Have your credit card ready to guarantee your
reservation. Your card will be required upon check-in.
Directions:
From the
south and west: Exit 2 off I-84E, Mill Plain Rd.
To Old
Ridgebury Rd. Turn left at bottom of ramp, proceed to second light, turn
right.
At next light
turn right, go over highway; hotel is on your left.
From the
north and east: Exit 2A off I-84W, to Old Ridgebury Rd.
Turn left at
end of ramp, go over highway, hotel is on your left.
Other Lodging in the vicinity:
Super 8
Motel:
Exit 4 at
I-84
203-743-0064
2 miles from
the Sheraton.
Hilton
Garden Inn:
Exit 1,
I-84E, or Exit 2B,I-84W
203-205-2000
1 mile from
the Sheraton.
Registration
(click here)
Please follow the link for Spring Meeting and Sheraton Danbury Hotel lodgings
registrations forms. Please print the forms, fill them out, and mail them
in. (We do not have on-line registration capabilities as yet.) Thank
you!
NEARA's Fall Meeting October 29
- 31, 2004
NEARA's 40th Anniversary - A Year of Celebration
Part One Spring 2004 / Part Two Fall 2004
Speakers & Topics
Fall Conference Schedule
Senator Inn & Spa ~ Rates & Directions
Additional Accommodations
Registration
|
The Senator
Inn & Spa
Western Avenue at I-95
Augusta, Maine 04330
Reservations: 877-772-2224
Fax: 207-622-5804
www.SenatorInn.com
|
Featured Speakers & Abstracts
Sue Carlson:
Discovery, Delight and Disillusion, the Early Years
In 1971 Walter
Elliott's discovery of the Spirit Pond Stones sent the Maine Archaeology
community into a tailspin. Were they authentic, proving the Vikings were here?
Or were they a hoax, a fraud or just plain fakes? The supporters and debunkers
quickly drew a line in the Phippsburg sand which still hasn't been crossed.
Sue Carlson will retell the "truth can be stranger than fiction" story as it
unfolded in the early years with updates on subsequent developments.
Suzanne
Carlson, NEARA publications chair and preservation architect, blends her
architectural expertise with her ongoing studies of early voyages around the
North Atlantic Rim.
Sue Carlson:
The Spirit Pond Runestones, Rhyme and Reason
First presented in
1993, Sue will take us once more in her journey from idle speculation to a
careful analysis of the meaning of the runes and the poetic foundation of
their composition. Both Old Norse and English examples introduce the complex
structure of Norse rhyme in easy stages, finally revealing a possible
mini-saga told by the stones and linguistic verification of the 14th century
carbon 14 date from the 1972 excavations.
Suzanne
Carlson, NEARA publications chair and preservation architect,
blends her architectural expertise with her ongoing studies of early voyages
around the North Atlantic Rim.
Edward J. Lenik:
NEARA's Search for Norse Occupation at Spirit Pond, Maine
NEARA, in
cooperation with the Maine Bureau of Parks and recreation, conducted
archaeological excavations at Spirit Pond, Phippsburg, Maine. The work was
prompted by the discovery, in 1971, of three small stones bearing runic or
Norse inscriptions. The purpose of the excavations was to uncover evidence of
Norse settlement and exploration in the Spirit Pond area, and thus support the
authenticity of the three rune stones.
Four sites
bordering Spirit Pond were surveyed and excavated in the period between 1972
to 1974. The first site was a long stone wall located along the west shore
below the outlet of the pond which had a surface appearance of being a
possible structure or foundation. Site number two was a shell heap and
rectangular depression along the west shore adjacent to the area where the
rune stones were found. The excavations at this site uncovered Indian pottery
of the middle Woodland period, late archaic projectile points, as well as some
early 19th century colonial pottery. The third site excavated was
in the immediate area of where the three rune stones were found. The area
proved to be completely devoid of material culture. The major excavation
effort was devoted to site number 4 which consisted of two horseshoe-shaped
earth mounds with depressions in their centers. These man-made structures
measured 32 feet long by 21 feet wide and 20 feet long by 19 feet wide
respectively and were located side by side at the edge of the bank with their
open ends facing the pond. The excavation of these two structures indicated
them to be semi-subterranean shelters or sod house of European origin.
Evidence was found of Indian occupation as well as 17th and 18th
century colonial occupation. However, the intensity of occupation in these
primitive shelters appears to be in the third quarter of the 18th
century.
No evidence of
Norse occupation or exploration was uncovered in the 1972-1974 excavations at
Spirit Pond. However, the archaeological work has established a 6,500 year
cultural history for the Spirit Pond Area.
Edward Lenik
is past archaeological director for NEARA. He is a member of the American
Rock Art Research Association and the Eastern States Rock Art Research
Association and past president of the Archaeological Society of New jersey and
the Eastern States Archaeological Federation. His published work includes
“Picture Rocks, American Indian Rock Art in the Northeast Woodlands” (2002),
“Indians in the Ramapos” (2000), and “Iron Mines Trails” (1996).
Mark Hedden, Ray Gerber, & Wayne
Newell: Song of the Drums, the Petroglyphs of Maine
(Video Presentation)
This 47 minute
video in DVD format was written and conceived by Mark Hedden, filmed by
Cinephotographer, Ray Gerber with narration by Wayne Newell, Passamaquoddy
Nation historian and tribal member. The video documents the extensive rock
art of Maine and its context from a native perspective. The excellent
presentation will be available for purchase during the meeting.
Terry J. Deveau:
Ancient Inscription Sites in Nova Scotia
The rocky shores
and sheltered inlets of Nova Scotia have been visited by many people over the
centuries. Some of these travelers have carved messages in symbols and
pictures on stone surfaces that we can still find today, while other
inscriptions have already vanished from many years of weathering. The Mi'kmaq
people who lived here for thousands of years have left behind a large number
of fascinating petroglyphs, other curious inscriptions can be attributed to
European colonists of historical times; there are a few sites, however, that
remain enigmatic.
The talk will begin with an overview of the known inscription sites around the
Province. More detailed information will then be presented on some of the most
enigmatic inscriptions. Many people have heard of the controversial Fletcher
Stone (also known as the Yarmouth "Runic" Stone). A few have heard of
mysterious inscriptions found on McNutt's Island and Oak Island. But there are
a number of other interesting inscriptions in Nova Scotia that are almost
unknown. In most cases it is not clear if they are truly ancient or of a more
recent origin. These include the Bay View Stone, the Plymouth Stone, the Lily
Lake Petroglyph, and the inscriptions on Lent's Island, Seal Island, Goose
Island, and Green Island.
Terry J. Deveau lives in Herring Cove, Nova Scotia, and works as a software
developer and defense contractor, specializing in computer models of
underwater sound and sonar performance. He holds a BSc in Mathematics and a
Diploma in Engineering from Saint Mary's University as well as a Master of
Science in Acoustics from Pennsylvania State University. In his spare time,
Terry has spent the past 40 years exploring many of the remote nooks and
crannies of Nova Scotia. He is a member of the Nova Scotia Archaeological
Society, the Nova Scotia Historical Society, and the Yarmouth Historical
Society. He currently holds a Category-A Heritage Research Permit from the
Nova Scotia Museum for archaeological reconnaissance in the Chain Lakes
watershed area.
Dick Doyle:
Lithic Sources of Maine Stone Tools
Dick Doyle, expert
Maine flint-knapper, will bring examples of Maine stone points and tools, and
will briefly describe the types of stone and their sources the Native people
of Maine used. He will continue his flint knapping demonstration during the
lunch break
Richard
(Dick) Doyle has been interested in archaeology since 1971, attended the
University of Southern Maine majoring in Anthropology with a minor in Geology.
He has been involved in the Maine Archaeological Society since 1974: on the
Board of Directors since 1982 and a six-term past president. He has been
interested in stone tools with a desire to understand them as completely as
possible. This has lead Dick to learn the ancient art of flint knapping which
has been a 15 year effort, indeed he's still learning with each new pile of
flakes that he creates.
Ted Timreck: The NEARA Legacy:
Forty Years of Exploration & Mystery
The presentation
will introduce documentary video research that is beginning to tell the story
of the discovery and recognition of the Northeastern stone ruins. For forty
years, the NEARA organization has been researching and preserving one of the
archeological mysteries that sit on the edge of anthropological theory in
North America. NEARA is an organization made up of many varied perspectives
but all of them are based fundamentally on the interpretation of cultural
landscape. The history of NEARA is the history of many different visions for
an architectural phenomenon that does not fit easily into the widely accepted
story of human cultural development in the Northeast. It is the range of
these visions - situated as they are at the edge of "acceptable" science -
that will be chronicled in the video and may end up being the true value of
NEARA's legacy for the future.
Ted Timreck
has been a producer and director for television and other electronic media
since the mid-1970’s. He has specialized in portraits of artists and
scientists. Beginning in 1980, he has worked extensively with Smithsonian
scientists documenting field research for The National Museum of Natural
History cratin programming for public and cable television. He is the
producer of the Smithsonian’s Arctic Studies Web site and is also the producer
for the National Museum’s Paleo Program Web Site. His previous works include
“Franz Boas” for the PBS Odyssey series, “The Lost Red Paint People” and
“Vikings on America” for PBS (Nova). His television portraits of artists
include, Charles Ives, Thomas Eakins, Augustus Saint Gaudens, Frederick Law
Olmsted, Aron Copland, George L. K. Morris and Suzy Frelinghysen. His latest
piece, a muti-part series, tells the story of early, Eastern Native American
sea cultures and the story of Circumpolar human migration at the end of the
last Ice Age.
Mark Hedden and
Deborah Wilson: Cairns on Obed Wilson's Farm in Bingham,
Maine
Eight intriguing stone cairns were discovered in the early 1970s on a high
landform overlooking the Kennebec River in Bingham, Maine. The cairns were
surveyed and their arrangement appeared to be astronomical. No cultural
material was identified in the vicinity of the cairns, however, so their age,
cultural affiliation, and purpose remained speculative.
To shed light on the nature of the cairns, NEARA sponsored a preliminary
archaeological survey in early July, 2004. Following a period of documentary
research, Maine archaeologists Mark Hedden and Deborah Wilson and a group of
NEARA members excavated a trench through one cairn and dug ten exploratory
pits, some between the cairns and others beyond the perimeter of the array.
The talk presents the survey results and discusses options for further work.
Mark Hedden has worked in prehistoric and historic archaeology since
1953. During the last 27 years, he has worked with the Maine State Museum and
as an archaeologist on the Maine Historic Preservation Commission staff. He
has published extensively on prehistoric rock art in Maine and North America.
Hedden recently wrote the narration for the 2004 film, "Song of the Drum: the
Petroglyphs of Maine."
Deb Wilson
has worked in Maine archaeology for twenty years and currently runs an
archaeological consulting firm. In addition to cultural resource management
projects, Wilson’s firm conducts public education projects, often in
association with land trusts and other organizations. Prior to opening a
consulting firm, Wilson worked for the Maine State Museum and the Maine
Historic Preservation Commission. She holds a B.A. from Bowdoin College and
an M.A. from Goddard College. Her research interests focus on prehistoric
archaeology and include the peopling of the Northeast, shell midden
archaeology, and the use of oral traditions in interpreting prehistoric
remains.
Dr. Robert R. Stieglitz:
Naval Enterprise in Biblical Israel
Robert Stieglitz
examined the extent and impact of maritime activity on the ancient Hebrews,
and the role of the Phoenicians in developing Israelite interests in naval
enterprise. The unique position of the land of Canaan as a bridge between
continents, and as a link between the Mediterranean and Red Seas is discussed
in light of Biblical references and archaeological discoveries.
The discussion
begins with a survey of the harbor types that existed along the coast of
biblical Israel. We then proceed to ship types of the Phoenician-Israelite
fleets, beginning with the 10th century B.C.E. and concluding with
the achievements of Herod the Great, who founded Caesarea Maritima and its
artificial harbor Sebastos in the 1st century B.C.E. The
persistent hints of transoceanic voyages by ancient Phoenicians and Jews will
be assessed in light of what we know of these ancient mariners and their
seafaring abilities.
Robert R.
Stieglitz, Pd.D. (Brandeis University, 1971), has excavated in the U.S.,
Greece and Israel, and has surveyed throughout the Mediterranean world. He is
the recipient of numerous academic honors and awards, and author of over one
hundred and twenty articles on the ancient Near East and various Mediterranean
studies. He has taught at universities and institutes in Greece, Israel and
the United States.
Formerly curator
of the National Maritime Museum, Haifa, he has been excavating at various
harbor sites on the Mediterranean coast of Israel since 1982 (Tel Mikhmoret,
Caesarea, Tel Tanninim). Currently, he is Associate Professor of Hebraic
Studies and director of the program in Ancient & Medieval Civilizations at
Rutgers University-Newark, NJ.
Brian Robinson:
Continuing Research on the Morrill Point Mound Site
The Morrill Point
Mound in Salisbury, Massachusetts has an Early Archaic period cemetery
component, in addition to later Woodland period occupation material. The site
was excavated between 1979 to 1981 by James P. Whittall and the Early Sites
Research Society. The Early Archaic period component represented a previously
unrecognized cultural expression in the Northeast, including a mixture of
artifacts that did not seem to fit together. However, similar assemblages
had been excavated by avocational archaeologist in the early 1900s and the
Morrill Point Mound site contributed greatly to making sense out of what the
speaker defined as the "The Morrill Point burial complex" in 1992. This
presentation provides a history and progress report on this recently
recognized cultural expression.
Brian Robinson received his BA in Anthropology at the University of New
Hampshire and his PhD at Brown University. His dissertation, entitled "Burial
Ritual, Groups, and Boundaries on the Gulf of Maine: 8600-3800 B.P.," involved
analysis of sites and artifact assemblages that were excavated over the last
century, including extensive interviews with avocational archaeologists who
worked from the 1920s to the present. The Morrill Point Mound site was among
the most recent excavations in the project. Brian was recently appointed
Assistant Professor at the University of Maine, in the Anthropology Department
and the Climate Change Institute.
Schedule of Events
Friday October 29
2:00 -5:00 pm The Spirit Pond Stones will be on view
at the Maine State Museum (see
map)
Dinner on your own at the Senator Inn or restaurants in the Augusta
vicinity.
5:00 Registration and Book Sales
7:00 Sue Carlson: Spirit
Pond Revisited
7:45 Ed Lenik: NEARA’s
Search for Norse Occupation at Spirit Pond, Maine
8:45 Mark Hedden: Video,
Song of the Drums, The Petroglyphs of Maine
9:15 Discussion, Chat and Share, Book Sales,
Exhibits
Saturday October 30
9:00 am Registration and Book Sales, Exhibits
10:00 State
Coordinator Reports
11:00 Terry Deveau:
Ancient Inscription Sites in Nova Scotia
11:45 Richard Doyle:
Lithic Sources of Maine Stone Tools
12:00 Richard Doyle: Ongoing
flint knapping demonstration
12:00 Lunch
on your own, Book Sales, Exhibits
1:30 pm Ted Timreck: The
NEARA Legacy: Forty Years of Exploration and Mystery
2:15 Mark Hedden & Deborah
Wilson: Cairns on Obed Wilson’s Farm, Bingham Maine
3:15 Break, Book Sales, Exhibits
3:45 Dr. Robert Stieglitz:
Naval Enterprise in Biblical Israel
4:45 Meeting wrap up and announcements
5:00 Cocktail Hour
6:00 NEARA 40th Anniversary Reception
6:30 Banquet
8:00 Brian Robinson: Continuing
Research on the Morrill Point Mound Site
Sunday October 31
Northern
Trips: The petroglyphs at Embden/Solon, on the Kennebec, are about an
hour north on Route 201. There is a 10-15 minute easy walk. The Bingham
Cairn Site is only a few miles away and another easy walk. Wear shoes with a
good grip and, as usual, wear appropriate clothing, and bring rain gear.
Southern
Trips: Damariscotta Shell Mounds, Northport Tunnel, possibly Spirit
Pond area.
Lodging & Senator Inn & Spa Information
Senator Inn & Spa, Western
Avenue at I-95, Augusta, Maine 04330. Phone: 1-877-772-2224, Fax:
207-922-8803, Web: www.senatorinn.com.



The Senator Inn & Spa,
conveniently located just off I-95 at exit 109 in Augusta, offers traditional
hospitality in a contemporary setting: delicious food, luxurious spa services, a
beautiful indoor pool, workout gym, and comfortable and tasteful guest rooms.
First floor rooms provide direct access to the outside with parking at your
door. The Inn will graciously accommodate your special needs.
We look forward to
holding our 40th Anniversary Meeting–Part Two in this
excellent facility and in Maine’s capitol. Augusta is centrally located among a
number of significant lithic sites which will be choices for Sunday’s field
trips, and is home to the Maine State Museum where the Spirit Pond Stones will
be on view (by special arrangement) Friday afternoon from 2-5pm.
(see map)
NEARA has a block of
rooms reserved at a special rate of $89 single/double with full breakfast.
This rate applies to Thursday, October 28 and Sunday, October 31 for those who
wish to extend their weekend. Hotel guests will receive coupons for a full
breakfast. Check-in time is 3 pm and check-out time is 12 noon. A one-night
deposit is required with your reservation. Cancellations must be made by 4pm on
the night of arrival. The NEARA rate will be held until October 15 and
reservations made after this date will be on a space available basis at the
NEARA rate. Because the hotel is the main conference facility in
Augusta, we strongly suggest you make your reservations early.
Call toll free to
the Senator Inn at 1-877-772-2224 and ask for the "NEARA group" room rate.
You may also use the Senator Inn room reservation form on the registration page
to mail in or fax to the hotel.
The Hotel
Restaurant serves all meals all weekend. A special lunch buffet for NEARA at
$14 inclusive will be served in the lower dining room on Saturday and will be paid
for at the hotel. We ask that you indicate your interest in the buffet lunch on
our registration form so we may give the hotel a general idea of numbers. A
variety of nearby restaurants offer additional choices for meals.
Directions to the Senator Inn (also, see MapQuest for maps and
directions.)

Other Lodgings in the Augusta Vicinity:
(For
map, click here)
Motel 6
16 Edison Drive
off Exit 109
$53 plus tax
207-622-0000
Econo Lodge & Suites
390 Western Ave
off Exit 109
$60 plus tax
207-622-6371
Registration
(click here)
Please follow the link for Fall Meeting and Senator Inn lodgings
registrations forms. Please print the forms, fill them out, and mail them
in. (We do not have on-line registration capabilities as yet.) Thank
you!
NEARA's Spring Meeting April 23
- 25, 2004
NEARA's 40th Anniversary - A Year of Celebration
Part One Spring 2004 / Part Two Fall 2004
Speakers & Topics
Spring Conference Schedule
Sheraton Nashua Hotel ~ Rates & Directions
Additional Accommodations
Special Field Trips
Registration
Part Two
|
Sheraton Nashua
Hotel
Located right at the Exit 1 interchange off Rte 3
11 Tara Boulevard, Nashua, NH 03062
Reservations: 888-627-7183
Hotel Phone: 603-888-9970
Fax: 603-891-4179
www.sheraton.com
|
Featured Speakers & Abstracts
Evan Pritchard:
Islands of Fire: exploring Native American Council Fire Islands in New England
and New York
Eastern Woodland Algonquin tradition
holds that islands in rivers and lakes were preferred as sites for council
fire meetings as they were easily defensible against enemies, and protecting
the elders and leaders was of particular importance.
In this talk, author Evan Pritchard will
share his recent research into this phenomenon, combining oral tradition,
colonial records, archaeology, linguistics, and
logic, revealing a highly sophisticated network of islands, connected by
trails and rivers. What emerges is a clear picture of how Algonquins used the
land in developing their highly mobile society.
Evan Pritchard,
is director of
the Center for Algonquin Culture and is of
Micmac, Wampanoag and Celtic descent. Through
his lectures and books, such as, ‘No Word for Time’ and ‘Native New Yorker,’
he has worked to highlight the importance of Algonquin culture in North
American history. Pritchard is a professor of Native American History at
Marist College, and lectures throughout the US and Canada.
Daniel J. Leary: Walls & Maps of
Mystery Hill & the Peak of Haverhill, MA: An Argument for Historic Origins
In 1977 Dan was asked for his opinion
about the chambers and stone walls at the North Salem site, known as Mystery
Hill, as to what came first, the walls or the chambers. Dan’s response
surprised the interviewer as he suggested the walls were built before the
chambers. Later he found out that another researcher, Charles Pearson, a
surveyor, made the same observation. This account was printed in the “Mystery
Hill Story” by Mark Feldman in 1977.
It was because of this that Dan focused
all of his efforts toward this study of the walls, though not to prove the
‘who’ but the ‘how,’ ‘why’ and ‘when.’ During this study Dan came across some
startling information regarding surveying angles used in colonial times and
the angles engraved in the large bolder, at the western edge of Mystery Hill,
known as the “G” stone.
Dan later found that these same angles,
on the “G” stone and the walls at Mystery Hill, were portrayed on a 1732 map
outlining the western boundary of the ‘Peak of Haverhill’ where Mystery Hill
is located. This map depicted the eastern boundaries of the towns of Dracut
MA, and Pelham, Windham, Londonderry and Derry NH. Dan’s talk will
demonstrate the obvious similarities between these three items. The viewers
can come to their own conclusions.
Dan Leary joined NEARA in 1974. He
started working at Mystery Hill and continued there until 1980. After that
time he conducted several archaeological projects in both NH and VT. The
projects in NH were under the guidance of the State Dept .of Historical
Resources and then State Archaeologist, Dr. Gary Hume. Dan is a mechanical
engineer and the director of Sales and Marketing for Materials Research
Furnaces, Inc., developing high temperature and high vacuum furnaces for
private research and government funded projects. In addition he is a
financial consultant for Numismatic research and investments.
Richard Boisvert: The Paleo
Highway: Archaeological Research on US Route 2
Over the last decade, several
archaeological investigations have brought to light a series of
paleo-Indian sites along what is now US Route
2. These sites, stretching from Burlington, Vermont, through Jefferson and
Randolph, New Hampshire and on to Mexico, Maine and beyond, form a chain that
lies near the northern frontier of known fluted point sites. A synthesis of
what has been learned to date and some speculations on the trajectory of
future research will be presented. The role of climate change and the history
of the paleo-Indian culture are of particular
interest and will be discussed.
Richard Boisvert is the state
archaeologist for New Hampshire, New Hampshire Division of Historical
Resources.
Donald Gilmore: When the Sahara
was Green: A Rock Art Gallery
From tropical
paleo times through a fertile “golden age” to the desert condition, the
stone surfaces of the vast Sahara area have served as a canvas to record the
life and preoccupations of its’ inhabitants. Detailed study of this richest
of the world’s rock art galleries has only begun, and current insecurities in
the region are hampering further study. But the tantalizing glimpses we
already have of this record of a people only whets’
the appetite for more, especially when it is housed in such spectacular
scenery.
Donald Gilmore is past president of
NEARA. Don also had a career in the US State Department, as an officer,
serving in many locations throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa
before his retirement.
Ted Timreck: Preserving Cultural
Landscape with the Moving Image
Ted will present a program on the
importance of early video documentation to the history of NEARA research. He
will also discuss the current collaborations between his company, NEARA, and
several private donors that will create a celebration video for the
organization's 40th anniversary. The proposed program will document the
history of NEARA's development.
Ted Timreck has been a producer and
director for television and other electronic media since the mid-1970’s. He
has specialized in portraits of artists and scientists. Beginning in 1980, he
has worked extensively with Smithsonian scientists documenting field research
for The National Museum of Natural History creating programming for public and
cable television. He is the producer of the Smithsonian's Arctic Studies Web
site and is also the producer for the National Museum's Paleo Program Web
Site. His previous works include "Franz Boas" for the PBS Odyssey series,
"The Lost Red Paint People" and "Vikings in America" for PBS (Nova). His
television portraits of artists include, Charles Ives, Thomas Eakins, Augustus
Saint Gaudens, Frederick Law Olmsted, Aron Copland, George L.K. Morris and
Suzy Frelinghysen. His latest piece, a multi-part series, tells the story of
early, Eastern Native American sea cultures and the story of Circumpolar human
migration at the end of the last Ice Age.
Malcolm Pearson:
A "Graphic" NEARA Award Presentation to Frederick Pohl
This is a short video
presentation by Malcolm Pearson of Warren Dexter presenting a NEARA award for
Frederick Pohl's exceptional research over the years. The award was
presented to Fred just a few days before his passing.
Michael J. Caduto: A Time Before
New Hampshire
For 12,000 years the Alnôbak (Abenaki)
and their ancestors have lived amidst northern New England's abundance. They
co-evolved with a changing landscape and sustained themselves in ways molded
by practical needs and spiritual beliefs. Author Michael Caduto draws from
his new book as he helps us to imagine a living past. Through stories, slides
and discussion we’ll explore traditional culture, land use and stewardship.
Caduto will also present a brief geologic and glacial history of the New
Hampshire region.
Michael J. Caduto has worked for 25
years to promote a better understanding of Native American cultures and their
relationships to the environment He has studied and shared indigenous
practices through teaching, performing and writing as well as friendships and
collaborations with native peoples. A TIME BEFORE NEW HAMPRHIRE, his 12th
book, explores 4.6 billion years of evolution in the land of northern New
England, including 12,000 years of development in the native cultures of this
region. Michael is also the author of EARTH TALES FROM AROUND THE WORLD, POND
AND BROOK, and is co-author of the KEEPERS OF THE EARTH® series. Caduto¹s
numerous awards include the national Aesop Prize (American Folklore Society's
"best book of the year"), the New York State Outdoor Education Association¹s
Art and Literary Award and the New England Regional Environmental
Educator Award. Michael holds a B.S. in Natural Resources from the
University of Rhode Island and an M.S. in Natural Resources/Environmental
Education from the University of Michigan.
Fredrick Wiseman: Landscape
Geography and Stone Structures; A Test of the Euro-American Hypothesis
Enigmatic stone structures in the Abenaki
homeland of Vermont and New Hampshire are extremely important to understanding
the prehistory of the area. Three relatively well-developed schools of
thought seem to characterize the study of the ruins. The oldest and perhaps
the most well funded is the "Ancient European Mariners" hypothesis, the most
in vogue with professional archaeologists is the "post contact root cellar
hypothesis, and the least popular is an indigenous (Native American) origin.
Archaeology has heretofore been unable to effectively test the hypothesis.
Landscape geography, which studies patterned land use as structured
reflection of cultural norms and ideals, ideals that are empirically different
among Native, Colonial Farmers and ancient mariners. Stone landscape built
environment analogs were investigated in British American and Continental
(German/Swiss. Alsatian) homelands in Berks County PA, and compared with the
New England examples. The analysis
revealed
interesting hints of a solution to the problem of stone built landscapes.
Frederick M. Wiseman is a professor at
Johnson State College in Johnson, Vermont and is director of the Abenaki
Tribal Museum in Swanton, Vermont.
Betty Meggers:
Difficulty in
Distinguishing Diffusion from Independent Invention and Convergence
Much of the
disagreement over transoceanic contact stems from the fact that similar
results can be achieved by independent invention because of environmental and
functional constraints. This will be demonstrated by the similarities in a
variety of artifacts in the prehistoric cultures of the southwestern United
States and northwestern Argentina.
Betty J.
Meggers has been a long time Research Associate at the Smithsonian
Institution and an early proponent of trans-oceanic diffusion. She is well
known for her comparisons of the Valdivian culture of coastal Ecuador and the
early Jomon of Japan.
Schedule of Events
Friday April 23
1:00 - 4:00 pm America’s Stonehenge:
Field trip guided by Dennis Stone and Rick Lynch. (See
details here.)
Dinner on your own at the Sheraton Nashua Hotel or restaurants in the Nashua
vicinity.
5:00 Registration and
Book Sales
7:00 Richard Boisvert:
The Paleo Highway: Archaeological Research on US
Route 2
8:00 Evan Pritchard:
Islands of Fire: Exploring Native American Council Fire Islands in NE and NY
9:00 Ted Timreck:
Preserving Cultural Landscape with the Moving Image
10:00 Free Time: Miscellaneous presentations by
NEARA members **
** For planning purposes, please contact Rick Lynch (401-954-3829) (hstrclrsch@aol.com)
if you wish to present.
Saturday April 24
9:00 am Registration and Book Sales
10:00 State
Coordinator Reports moderated by Lisa Gannon
11:00 Michael J. Caduto: A
Time Before New Hampshire
12:00 Lunch on your own at the Sheraton Nashua
Hotel or restaurants in the Nashua vicinity.
1:30 pm Don Gilmore:
When the Sahara was Green: A Rock Art Gallery
2:15 Dan Leary:
Walls & Maps of Mystery Hill & the Peak of Haverhill,
MA: An Argument for Historic Origins
3:00 Break and Book Sales
3:15 Betty Meggers:
Difficulty in Distinguishing Diffusion from
Independent Invention and Convergence
4:00 Malcolm Pearson: A
“Graphic” NEARA Award Presentation to the late Frederick Pohl by Warren
Dexter, video taped by Malcolm Pearson
4:15 Fred Wiseman:
Landscape Geography and Stone Structures: A Test
of the Euro-American Hypothesis
5:00 Meeting wrap up and announcements.
5:15 Cocktail Hour
6:30 Banquet
7:45 Preserving the Back Forty, Reflections of the Early
Years: Memories saved and savored will be shared in a
special “oral history” presented by long time members, Betty Peterson, Bill
Carey, Malcolm Pearson, Ros Strong and others, looking back over the high-ways
and by-ways of NEARA’s early years. Sue Carlson will moderate a retrospective
of memories and insights on NEARA’s evolution.
Sunday April 25
9:00 am Field Trip led by Rick Lynch and Margaret Venator:
Several stone chambers, a large dolmen and “Druid’s
Hill.” (See details here.)
Special Field Trips
Friday, April 23rd: Dennis Stone
will guide NEARA members on a tour of America’s Stonehenge, formerly known as
Mystery Hill. We will meet at the museum at America’s Stonehenge at 12:00
noon. We will tour t |