When the gasoline evaporated, wax came
out of solution and formed a white patchy "skin" all over the exposed surfaces
of the bones and the groundmass. This was an extremely annoying and
unforeseen event. I had to go over all surfaces again and again with
knife, fine steel wool and benzene-soaked rag, lightly wiping away the unwanted
wax “skin." This took many hours, but at last the gasoline passed entirely
off and the block stabilized. To prevent damage to the burial, it was
necessary to get a more rigid bottom sheet beneath it. The original
one-quarter inch plywood was wholly inadequate to support the
weight. Therefore a three-quarter-inch piece of plywood was
slid beneath the burial, leaving the one-quarter sheet intact.
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This materially improved support strength beneath the block, but even with one inch of solid plywood underneath the specimen, minor flexing occurs when moving it. Since this flexing causes cracks and disturbances, the need for rigidity cannot be overstated. A time-honored field method is to use sheet steel, either corrugated or plain. I had none, but a trip to the junkyard may be in order to get a "standby” against further discoveries. The three-quarter inch plywood sheet was trimmed to leave about six inches extending out from the base of the burial around all sides (Fig. 10). This was done deliberately in order to facilitate later construction of the sides and top of the permanent glass-topped exhibit case. |
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Fig.
10. Preparing the bottom sheet for the final glass
case. |
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It was also necessary to secure several bones that were loosened during removal. This was accomplished with "Duco" cement. Teeth were also secured in their sockets. A set of dental tools proved useful instruments for removing small amounts of soil and wax. Ordinary kitchen or pocketknives, spoons, nails, orangewood sticks and similar devices are useful. The secret is to proceed slowly in "reliefing" the bones to make them stand out from the matrix. Care should be taken to avoid any undercuts since these weaken the support for individual bones.
A problem often develops surrounding the removal of scrapings and dust as the work progresses. Sometimes this debris collects in hard-to-reach spots involving the skull or rib cage. Whisk brooms, even small soft bristle paintbrushes may be too hazardous to use in these areas. I solve the problem with a vacuum cleaner! The long tapered snout of the suction hose was ideal for working in close to the bones, and dirt removal was uniform and swift. A caution here: use double collection bags in the vacuum well of the cleaner and check them frequently since the use of a household cleaner in this way represents heavy duty activity.
The gasoline and wax treatment on the whole proved fairly successful, but although the block hardened up quite a bit, it never became rigid to the extent that could be desired. I therefore considered further hardening. The presence of the paraffin, of course, automatically negated any water-based solutions. This was unfortunate since at least two good hardening agents available today involve water soluble products. One is the familiar “Elmer’s Glue All,” a Borden Company product, which can be reduced with water to make a penetrant and hardener. I did not employ it in this field situation because none could be obtained in time: moreover the soil must be absolutely dry for success with this technique (Dumond 1963). Any residual moisture prevents the solution from soaking in thoroughly. Another method makes use of the water-soluble waxes in the “Carbowax” series made by Union Carbide Corporation.
In the present instance, however, I had to use something that would be compatible with the treatment already used. I had experimented with acrylic sprays and “Alvar 7/70” in acetone solution (Alvar is a Shawnigan Chemical Co. product) for patching cracks but these substances left an undesirable gloss and later had to be dulled with more acetone and other commercial solvents.
I found that white lacquer (a good,
inexpensive, color-stable compound) when thinned with either lacquer-thinner or
acetone could be painted over bones and dirt matrix alike and was easily
miscible with and penetrated into the paraffin-soaked areas. Several
applications of this solution materially hardened the specimen. (Caution:
many of the compounds mentioned herein are flammable and give off toxic vapors;
great care must be invoked when using them).
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With the specimen at last restored, it was a simple matter to set up photographic equipment and photograph it under the kind of optimum lighting which field conditions do not often permit (Fig. 11). Carbon-pencil sketches were also easily accomplished under those controlled circumstances. Measurements and details of the burial were determined and documented at our leisure. Burial Number Two was given by me to the Museum of the American Indian of New York. It will be on permanent display in the soon-to-be refurbished Hall of North American Archaeology of that institution. The burial is that of a (probable) middle-aged male. Ante mortem molar losses are evident in the mandible. No grave or mortuary offerings were present, but three tiny sherds accidentally incorporated in the original grave fill indicate the burial was associated with a ceramic period. We hope a radiocarbon sample taken from the finger bones will provide a date that will confirm this inference.2 A more complete description of Burial Number Two in its overall context at the Sasqua Hill Site is available in the formal site report (Powell, ms.). |
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Fig.
11. The finished exhibit
before donation to the Heye Museum.
(and
elsewhere), are valves of the Oyster (Crassostrea
virginica): only
a
few of the myriad archeologically-significant details recovered
and
kept
intact during the removal. |
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Acknowledgments: The efforts of several people made possible the recovery of this burial, and I would like to thank my wife, Jean, for assistance in the field and for typing the manuscript; Ted Jostrand and his wife, Mary, for a grueling day’s work in 90-degree heat during which the burial was removed; and lastly E. P. Crosby of Norwalk - a local resident whose freely-offered cold beverages, color film, camera, and other assistances absolutely made possible the successful completion of our task.
Footnotes
1 Indicated through newspaper references and from personal recollections of local residents. Documentation will be cited in the formal site report (Powell, ms.).
2 I am indebted to the Heye Foundation for making this date
possible.
REFERENCES
Dumond, D.E.
1963 A Practical Field Method for the Preservation of Soil Profiles
from Archaeological Cuts.
American Antiquity, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 116-118. Salt Lake City.
Powell, B. W.
ms. Sasqua Hill: A Multicomponent Site of the
Southern Connecticut Littoral. (In preparation.)
* Bernard W. Powell is with the
Union Carbide Corporation as a Publicity Account Executive and resides in
Norwalk, Conn.
AN ADDENDUM TO BURIAL
NUMBER TWO
The events reported above took place more than a third of a century ago. When I read back, I too, perhaps like the current reader, am somewhat amazed we didn’t all occasionally blow ourselves sky-high larking about with this gas-and-wax method for preparing en blocs in the field! This was not something however that we just invented on the spot: this was field technique, you must understand, in use by the Smithsonian and others at the time… (How do we say today…”state of the art”…yes!).
I am more disturbed however, when I think of the “sea change” that has since come over American archaeology in regard to the de facto “criminalization” of recovering human burials in the first place, and the kowtowing and acquiescing to the dictates and demands of self-styled activists and “bone claimants” of every stripe which is de rigeur today. A whole generation of soft-think “new archeologists” has now arisen it seems, whose main credo seems to be that that archeology is best which digs the least, and it were better to jawbone with the uninformed and the political activists than to study jawbones per se and by so doing extract meaningful data on dentition, diet, DNA groupings and their putative peregrinations, and other facts-of-life about the chew-ees instead…
This is a pity. It is the greater pity because of NAGPRA and Indian boffos of all types, and the ease of claiming Indian ancestry (as though that fact alone were a “sufficient” platform upon which to speak on these matters anyhow - which it is not) and which is very fashionable right now, too. (Since the government now really says anyone may “claim” a shadowy Indian ancestry, it is about as exclusive as Book-of-the-Month Club, or being among the croquet winners at that famous tea party long ago, where the Dodo handed out prizes to one and all…). Don’t take my word for it or rather, do take my word for it, in a way at least: I invite you to read my “Were These America’s First Ecologists?” posted elsewhere on this website as background of sorts. Then read what Geoffrey Clark, an anthropologist of world renown, and now at the University of Northern Arizona, and a penetrating thinker and arch foe of NAGPRA, has to say about that infamous act in his article, also posted here.
I couldn’t agree more with him more over the idiotic “sanctity” that Native Persons and others have now attached to ancient bones and by so doing managed to inhibit much legitimate work and criminalize studies already done. Kennewick Man being but one current example. Clark rightly makes the case that the Federal Government by joining in with the Indian activists has in effect taken sides in promoting a de facto religion - i.e., “bone worship” - and by so doing, is allied with those who believe in this religious nonsense to coerce those others of us who reject it. This is a violation of Constitutional rights and mandates - among other derelictions!
And what then of “Burial Number Two” someone asks? Ah, yes… in that third of a century that has intervened, why such removal and even “display” of these finds have become a Federal offense. Since a man, even an archeologist, cannot be made to testify against himself - let us just say that after having survived a bomb threat by “Indians” (some people have curious ways indeed to show respect for their dead…) as a major exhibit in a major anthropological museum - the Heye Foundation in NYC (now part of the Smithsonian), Burial Number Two then passed nearly another quarter century in a dusty glass case away from public glare to finally met an end so Kafkaesque that even I don’t believe it now and so shall say no more. Interestingly, ere this ancient New Englander vanished once again as a sacrifice to the forces of Unreason, I managed to “draw” (as is said), a production style plaster mold of the entire burial just as you see it above! And this is safely in storage for the moment, against my hope someday to back-cast or perhaps vacuum-form true-to-life replicas of this flexed inhumation - available to museums and other cooler heads who might want to study such a display. If the “bone folk” show up to protest this new and unfeeling display of their ancestors, I am prepared to ask them (after the manner of Wilberforce in the famous Evolution debate with Huxley) if it is upon their mother’s or their father’s side they claim descendancy from a bag of plaster-of-Paris?
In any event, whether you agree or disagree with me (and with Dr. Clark and a great many others now at last coming to the fore) I invite you to express yourself on my website Message Board here. An honest difference of opinion makes for a good horse race, said Mark Twain!
And, (minor detail), I was never with the late, great Union Carbide Corporation as a Publicity Account Exec: I had (i.e., I serviced) their account as a PR exec with a Mad Avenue Agency…
Bernie Powell
North Miami Beach, FL
June 9, 2000