[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
degree, which is one reason why commentators in our own time
can find passages to prove whatever beliefs suit their own dogma.
Jefferson, for example, suggested in one of his letters to Joseph
Priestley that the day might come when all young men might be
Unitarians a heretical statement in the context of the times.
Jefferson was not quite willing to embrace Unitarianism for him-
self, but as an open-minded son of the Enlightenment, he could
see that such a possibility existed. Most others had difficulty
in going even that far, however. Thus the scientific aspects of
archaeology that are now taken for granted could be seen as
unnecessary to most investigators. If Earth was only 6,000 years
old, ancient still meant something quite recent, an attitude
that slowed the development of methodologies for determining
such dates.
Thomas Jefferson 175
Jefferson, however, in line with the meticulous notes in his
Garden Book, approached his investigation of the mound with
intellectual rigor. The mound was not undisturbed even as it
stood. Some forty feet in circumference, it was about seven and
a half feet high. It had previously been about twelve feet high,
he knew, and covered with substantial trees. The spheroid had
been leveled off and the trees cut down a dozen years earlier,
and the top of the mound was under cultivation. There was an
ancient trench some five feet wide and deep around the entire
perimeter, from which earth had clearly been removed to build
the mound in the first place.
Jefferson first dug superficially at various points on the
mound, as anyone else at the time would have done. He came
upon
collections of human bones, at different depths, from six
inches to three feet below the surface. These were lying in the
utmost confusion, some vertical, some oblique, some horizon-
tal, and directed to almost every point of the compass, entan-
gled, and held together in clusters by the earth. Bones of the
most distant parts were found together, as, for instance, the
small bones of the foot in the hollow of a scull [sic], many
sculls would sometimes be in contact, lying on the face, on the
side, on the back, top or bottom, so as, on the whole, to give
the idea of bones emptied promiscuously from a bag or bas-
ket, and covered over with earth, without any attention to
their order.
Helter-skelter though the bones were, Jefferson examined
them with care.
The sculls [sic] were so tender, that they generally fell to
pieces on being touched. The other bones were stronger.
There were some teeth which were judged to be smaller than
those of an adult; a scull, which, on a slight view, appeared to
be that of an infant, but it fell to pieces on being taken out, so
176 It Doesn t Take a Rocket Scientist
as to prevent satisfactory examination; a rib, and a fragment
of the under-jaw of a person about half grown; another rib of
an infant; and part of the jaw of a child, which had not yet cut
its teeth. This last furnishing the most decisive proof of the
burial of children here, I was particular in my attention to it.
It was part of the right-half of the under-jaw. The processes
by which it was articulated to the temporal bones, were
entire; and the bone itself firm to where it had been broken
off, which, as nearly I could judge, was about the place of the
eye-tooth. Its upper edge, wherein would have been placed
the sockets of the teeth, was perfectly smooth. Measuring
it with that of an adult, by placing the hinder processes
together, its broken end extended to the penultimate grinder
of the adult. The bone was white, all the others of a sand
color. The bones of infants being soft, they probably decay
sooner, which might be the cause so few were found here.
The forensic detail of this passage is in itself highly unusual
for the time. In the Old World, the ruins of Herculaneum, below
the volcano Mt. Vesuvius, had been discovered in 1709. The
Prince of Elbouef uncovered the first complete Roman theater,
but was far more interested in unearthing works of art for his
collection, and did not bother to record where any of them were
found. Pompeii was discovered in 1748, with much the same
results, as the King and Queen of Naples added to their collec-
tion. Indeed, it wouldn t be until 1860, as reported by Colin Ren-
frew and Paul Bahn in their highly regarded book Archeology,
that well-recorded excavations began to be carried out by Giu-
seppe Fiorelli. The kind of detail provided by Jefferson was far
ahead of its time.
Jefferson s next step was quite simply revolutionary. He
made a perpendicular cut to within about three feet of the cen-
ter of the mound. It was wide enough for Jefferson to walk into
in order to examine the sides of the cut. That revealed the vari-
ous strata of the mound from bottom to top.
Thomas Jefferson 177
At the bottom, that is, on the level of the circumadjacent
plain, I found bones; above these a few stones, brought from
a cliff a quarter of a mile off, and from the river one-eighth of
a mile off; then a large interval of earth, then a stratum of
bones, and so on. At one end of the section were four strata
of bones clearly distinguishable; at the other, three; the strata
in one part not ranging with those in another. The bones
nearest the surface were the least decayed. No holes were dis-
covered in any of them, as if made with bullets, arrows or
other weapons. I conjectured that in this barrow might have
been a thousand skeletons.
The concept of examining the strata of a mound, or of any-
thing else, was entirely new. It would not be until the following
year that the Scottish geologist James Hutton would publish his
Theory of the Earth. As Renfrew and Bahn succinctly put it, Hut-
ton had studied the stratification of rocks (their arrangement in
superimposed layers or strata), establishing principles which were
to be the basis of archeological excavation, as foreshadowed by
Jefferson.
Jefferson was able to draw some very specific conclusions
from his new approach to archaeological excavation:
Every one will readily seize the circumstances above related,
which militate against the opinion, that it covered the bones
only of persons fallen in battle; and against the tradition also,
which would make it the common sephulchre of a town, in
which bodies were placed upright, and touching each other.
Appearances certainly indicate that it has derived both origin
and growth from the accustomary collection of bones, and
deposition of them together; that the first collection had been
deposited on the common surface of the earth and a few
stones put over it; and then a covering of earth, that the sec-
ond had been laid on this, had covered more or less of it in
proportion to the number of bones, and was then also cov-
ered with earth; and so on. The following are the particular
178 It Doesn t Take a Rocket Scientist
circumstances which give it this aspect. 1. The number of
bones. 2. Their confused position. 3. Their being in different
strata. 4. The strata in one part having no correspondence
with those in another. 5. The different states of decay in these
strata, which seem to indicate a difference in the time of inhu-
mation. 6. The existence of infant bones among them.
In 1784, when Jefferson made this archaeological survey, the
first of its kind anywhere in the world, mounds like the one he
excavated were a great mystery. Contemporary Native American
tribes were building nothing like them, and could not explain
them, either. Some scholars suggested that they belonged to a far
earlier civilization. It would not be until the 1960s that work by
archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians managed to arrive
at a consensus about their origins. Mounds were to be found in
many parts of the country, from the Southeast through the Mis-
sissippi Valley into the Midwest. This suggested that there could
have been more than one group of mound builders, and in the
end it was concluded that there were three different cultures [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl wyciskamy.pev.pl
degree, which is one reason why commentators in our own time
can find passages to prove whatever beliefs suit their own dogma.
Jefferson, for example, suggested in one of his letters to Joseph
Priestley that the day might come when all young men might be
Unitarians a heretical statement in the context of the times.
Jefferson was not quite willing to embrace Unitarianism for him-
self, but as an open-minded son of the Enlightenment, he could
see that such a possibility existed. Most others had difficulty
in going even that far, however. Thus the scientific aspects of
archaeology that are now taken for granted could be seen as
unnecessary to most investigators. If Earth was only 6,000 years
old, ancient still meant something quite recent, an attitude
that slowed the development of methodologies for determining
such dates.
Thomas Jefferson 175
Jefferson, however, in line with the meticulous notes in his
Garden Book, approached his investigation of the mound with
intellectual rigor. The mound was not undisturbed even as it
stood. Some forty feet in circumference, it was about seven and
a half feet high. It had previously been about twelve feet high,
he knew, and covered with substantial trees. The spheroid had
been leveled off and the trees cut down a dozen years earlier,
and the top of the mound was under cultivation. There was an
ancient trench some five feet wide and deep around the entire
perimeter, from which earth had clearly been removed to build
the mound in the first place.
Jefferson first dug superficially at various points on the
mound, as anyone else at the time would have done. He came
upon
collections of human bones, at different depths, from six
inches to three feet below the surface. These were lying in the
utmost confusion, some vertical, some oblique, some horizon-
tal, and directed to almost every point of the compass, entan-
gled, and held together in clusters by the earth. Bones of the
most distant parts were found together, as, for instance, the
small bones of the foot in the hollow of a scull [sic], many
sculls would sometimes be in contact, lying on the face, on the
side, on the back, top or bottom, so as, on the whole, to give
the idea of bones emptied promiscuously from a bag or bas-
ket, and covered over with earth, without any attention to
their order.
Helter-skelter though the bones were, Jefferson examined
them with care.
The sculls [sic] were so tender, that they generally fell to
pieces on being touched. The other bones were stronger.
There were some teeth which were judged to be smaller than
those of an adult; a scull, which, on a slight view, appeared to
be that of an infant, but it fell to pieces on being taken out, so
176 It Doesn t Take a Rocket Scientist
as to prevent satisfactory examination; a rib, and a fragment
of the under-jaw of a person about half grown; another rib of
an infant; and part of the jaw of a child, which had not yet cut
its teeth. This last furnishing the most decisive proof of the
burial of children here, I was particular in my attention to it.
It was part of the right-half of the under-jaw. The processes
by which it was articulated to the temporal bones, were
entire; and the bone itself firm to where it had been broken
off, which, as nearly I could judge, was about the place of the
eye-tooth. Its upper edge, wherein would have been placed
the sockets of the teeth, was perfectly smooth. Measuring
it with that of an adult, by placing the hinder processes
together, its broken end extended to the penultimate grinder
of the adult. The bone was white, all the others of a sand
color. The bones of infants being soft, they probably decay
sooner, which might be the cause so few were found here.
The forensic detail of this passage is in itself highly unusual
for the time. In the Old World, the ruins of Herculaneum, below
the volcano Mt. Vesuvius, had been discovered in 1709. The
Prince of Elbouef uncovered the first complete Roman theater,
but was far more interested in unearthing works of art for his
collection, and did not bother to record where any of them were
found. Pompeii was discovered in 1748, with much the same
results, as the King and Queen of Naples added to their collec-
tion. Indeed, it wouldn t be until 1860, as reported by Colin Ren-
frew and Paul Bahn in their highly regarded book Archeology,
that well-recorded excavations began to be carried out by Giu-
seppe Fiorelli. The kind of detail provided by Jefferson was far
ahead of its time.
Jefferson s next step was quite simply revolutionary. He
made a perpendicular cut to within about three feet of the cen-
ter of the mound. It was wide enough for Jefferson to walk into
in order to examine the sides of the cut. That revealed the vari-
ous strata of the mound from bottom to top.
Thomas Jefferson 177
At the bottom, that is, on the level of the circumadjacent
plain, I found bones; above these a few stones, brought from
a cliff a quarter of a mile off, and from the river one-eighth of
a mile off; then a large interval of earth, then a stratum of
bones, and so on. At one end of the section were four strata
of bones clearly distinguishable; at the other, three; the strata
in one part not ranging with those in another. The bones
nearest the surface were the least decayed. No holes were dis-
covered in any of them, as if made with bullets, arrows or
other weapons. I conjectured that in this barrow might have
been a thousand skeletons.
The concept of examining the strata of a mound, or of any-
thing else, was entirely new. It would not be until the following
year that the Scottish geologist James Hutton would publish his
Theory of the Earth. As Renfrew and Bahn succinctly put it, Hut-
ton had studied the stratification of rocks (their arrangement in
superimposed layers or strata), establishing principles which were
to be the basis of archeological excavation, as foreshadowed by
Jefferson.
Jefferson was able to draw some very specific conclusions
from his new approach to archaeological excavation:
Every one will readily seize the circumstances above related,
which militate against the opinion, that it covered the bones
only of persons fallen in battle; and against the tradition also,
which would make it the common sephulchre of a town, in
which bodies were placed upright, and touching each other.
Appearances certainly indicate that it has derived both origin
and growth from the accustomary collection of bones, and
deposition of them together; that the first collection had been
deposited on the common surface of the earth and a few
stones put over it; and then a covering of earth, that the sec-
ond had been laid on this, had covered more or less of it in
proportion to the number of bones, and was then also cov-
ered with earth; and so on. The following are the particular
178 It Doesn t Take a Rocket Scientist
circumstances which give it this aspect. 1. The number of
bones. 2. Their confused position. 3. Their being in different
strata. 4. The strata in one part having no correspondence
with those in another. 5. The different states of decay in these
strata, which seem to indicate a difference in the time of inhu-
mation. 6. The existence of infant bones among them.
In 1784, when Jefferson made this archaeological survey, the
first of its kind anywhere in the world, mounds like the one he
excavated were a great mystery. Contemporary Native American
tribes were building nothing like them, and could not explain
them, either. Some scholars suggested that they belonged to a far
earlier civilization. It would not be until the 1960s that work by
archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians managed to arrive
at a consensus about their origins. Mounds were to be found in
many parts of the country, from the Southeast through the Mis-
sissippi Valley into the Midwest. This suggested that there could
have been more than one group of mound builders, and in the
end it was concluded that there were three different cultures [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]