Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol. 58, No. 3 (July 2011), pp. 162–163
Central States Archaeological Societies, Inc.
At top: The Ivory Billed Woodpecker (center) was thought to be the inspiration for the bird portrayed on the Cox Mound Gorget (right and left sides). The Ivory Billed Woodpecker was once abundant in the Southeast, but has now disappeared and is believe to be extinct. Although thought to have been sited and heard in Arkansas a few years ago, no further evidence has been found. All that remains today are museum specimens that are stuffed, and portrayals from ages past such as are on this gorget. Essentially this bird vanished forever. The gorget is in the collection of Murray Hughes. The image of the woodpecker is from the Pink Palace Museum Memphis, Tennessee.
By: Steven R. Cooper Editor in Chief
Recently I gave up running for walking, and have a daily walk of three to six miles. I usually listen to the radio to catch up on the news and other events, and was intrigued by a story recently of an interesting character known as “The Leatherman.” He was an historic figure that walked during the last half of the 19th Century, a 365 -mile path between the Connecticut and Hudson Rivers in exactly 34 days, over and over. He was so precise in this walk, that people could expect him to pass by at an exact day and even time. He slept in caves, stashing food and other necessary items in them. He was called “The Leatherman” because he wore a self-made suit of all leather, from his hat down to his shoes. He rarely spoke, and it was reported to be mostly grunts and a little French. His leather suit weighed more than sixty pounds, and he wore it winter and summer. His walking routine took him more than 100,000 miles over 30 years. He was forcibly hospitalized by the Connecticut Humane Society in 1888, but escaped and was discovered dead in a cave on March 28, 1889. Found on his body was a French Prayer book, suggesting a Canadian or European ancestry. No one really knew his name, but still he was buried in Sparta Cemetery, located in Scarborough, New York, as Jules Bourglay. His story entered New England folklore, and as most stories go, the tale grew and twisted itself over time.
His grave has been a place of curiosity for many years, and sat right at the edge of a road. Numerous requests were made to move it to a more central spot of the cemetery, to remove the safety hazard. Then someone recently came up with the idea of taking a DNA sample and perhaps solving once and forever, the mystery of who he was. The idea caught on, and it created such controversy that a whole local movement developed, demanding that they leave the Leatherman alone. The group even had a web site! But a few weeks ago, those wanting answers won, and a tent was erected by the local historians and scientists. Then, shovels hit the dirt!
They dug and dug, but to their surprise, all they found were a few animal bones and old nails. The Leatherman was gone! After some thought, they moved the dirt, animal bones and nails to the new grave. But the mystery deepened, for where had he gone?
Like most things, he was consumed by natural forces at work. We like to think of our body as lasting forever after death, perhaps eventually becoming a skull and some bones, that in our imagination might be discovered far into the future. But in reality our fate can be seen in the story of The Leatherman, for as in a little more than 120 years, no trace remained!
Above: A photo of “The Leatherman.” You can see his handmade leather outfit here, which he wore every day. There is an excellent book on the subject, The Old Leather Man: Historical Accounts of a Connecticut and New York Legend by Dan W. DeLuca and Dione Longley (Garnet Books). It is a 232, page accounting of the Leatherman, including pictures of him, the cave shelters he stayed in, and the mystery surrounding him. It is the definitive guide to this tale. Photo from the Wikipedia
Such is the case of the ancient populations of North America. While a cemetery is discovered here and there, there is scant trace of the peoples who lived here before us in ancient times. We’ve all heard over the years the news reporting such stories as Twenty Ancient Burials Found! or Large Burial Ground of 120 Stone Boxes Uncovered! But really the numbers don’t add up. Where did they all go?
The Wikipedia online encyclopedia sites a source stating the population of North America in 1500 might have been between 2 and 18 million. Looking further at the source, The burdens of Disease: Epidemics and Human Response in Western History by J.N.Hayes, his fundamental reason for the rapid recline and disappearance of the native populations was disease. Watching The Conquistadors on PBS the other night, one of those interviewed states that some diseases brought by the Spanish could kill in less than four days, and anyone nearby would contract the disease too. Of course, the reason for this susceptibility to the diseases was simple. The Native population had never encountered the virus and bacteria that the Spanish carried. Lacking any immunity, they could only suffer and succumb to the unknown afflictions. Unknowingly, the Spanish Conquistadors carried out germ warfare on a massive scale. It was a catastrophe beyond imagination.
In just a short time, millions died. This was 500 years ago, nearly 5 times the length of time it took for The Leatherman to disappear. Nothing remains at all of these peoples.
Earlier populations of the Paleo, Archaic, Woodland and Mississippians all went the same way. If you look at the archaeological literature and ask how many “graves” or remains have been discovered at Cahokia, the answer is certainly nothing approaching the large population that lived there. An estimated 10,000 people lived there at any one time (and some estimates are much higher), and that level of population lasted at least for 100 years. That would equal approximately 6 generations, or 60,000 people over that time period. I don’t know of any huge ancient cemetery even approaching such a scale.
Perhaps we should look at the development and building of populations too. It took from 1500 to 1800 before the earth’s population doubled, nearly 300 years (Amazingly, it took only 39 years for it to double from 1960 to 1999). If we look back at ancient North America and double the population every 500 years, what happens? Calculating a starting population of 100 individuals some 13,000 years ago, by 12,000 years ago the population would have been just 400. But by 6000 BC that band of people, doubling every five hundred years, would have reached nearly 820,000. If you take it all the way to the arrival of the Spanish, the number grows astonishingly large.
It’s obvious from the highly advanced stone working skills evidenced in Archaic times (for example the precise hand manufacturing of some (Bannerstones), that an advanced society with many individuals had developed. Highly skilled individuals were sought out, and there was time to spend on activities that were not just for survival.
There was a show on The Discovery Channel back in the 1990’s called “Archaeology.” In the episode “People of the Bog” aired in 1994, they visit the Windover Site near Titusville, Florida. This site is quite unique in North America, as nearly all the objects these ancient people utilized were preserved by peat. Carbon dating showed those in the bog lived around 5000 B.C. They uncovered 168 bodies, from young children to the elderly. In one scene in the video, the archeologist is standing in a room of twenty tables. On one is laid out some arrowheads and stone tools. He explains that on most sites this is all that remains. But this site is special, and the other nineteen tables have an array of artifacts in antler, fiber, wood and other perishable materials. It is an astounding revelation, for it shows just how much we are missing when trying to understand the past. Except for rare sites like this, most of the work of ancient man has just vanished!
So, our collections are just small windows into the past. Think of our own lives. If all that remained 5000 years from now were forks, spoons and styrofoam cups, would someone really be able to understand how we lived? Would these kitchen utensils give a full picture of our lives, our world and our civilization? We of course, know the answer. And this answer applies to all of those who lived before us. I’ve heard people refer to certain groups by their point styles, such as “The Dalton People” or “The Cumberland People”. It’s easy to see how flawed that reasoning might be, if you refer to us as “the Spoon People” or “The Fork Civilization!”
Each and every tool, arrowhead and object from the past has a tale to tell; a story to convey about the individual who made it. But each is just a small clue to a past, now vanished, just like The Leatherman. Who knows what will really be found of ours 10,000 or 100,000 years from now? Hopefully our story will be more than kitchen utensils or Styrofoam.
