A LESSON IN APPLIED ARCHEOLOGY
Or
SuperSleuths to the Front: How Would You Solve This One…
B.W. Powell ©
I SEEM TO BE DREDGING deeper and deeper these days into old grudges and past irritations (a pleasure, I pray, that none of you shall be denied as Father Time creeps inexorably upon you, too!).
My onetime "archeology juices" been running again, and I thought of one of the many bizarre incidents I was involved in in the past. This, to me, is one of the most bizarre, and I thought that to relate it to you, I would cast it in the form of the puzzle it (may) truly present, and invite you, after your several inclinations and understandings, to "solve" or "resolve" it for us (all of us). It might be illuminating to see what "solutions" are put forth, and by whom after what (known) mindsets and/or lifeways followed, etc. I, myself, published a "wrap up" on this strange find long ago in the Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archeological Society (and references elsewhere). But before I tell you my conclusions - let's all of us hear yours (collectively). Then we may (profitably?) compare notes…
Anyhow it IS an interesting tale, even if you are not into solving mysteries. Have to do this from memory now as none of my files are at hand, so you must allow for some lapses and some omissions. But I shall try to include as much (relevant and irrelevant) as I can recall: this will be the only data you have to work with.
________________________________________________________________________
Sometime back in the mid-fifties I guess, I was living in CT and in my free time I engaged in archeological studies largely of my own initiating, and mostly concerning the location, salvage and eventual publication on prehistoric Amerind sites. (I still prefer that designation for today's trendy "Native Persons" - which they are not).
I was strictly a mainstream type worker here - having learned my field techniques as a member of summer field parties on Smithsonian "digs" at sites in the Great Plains States. About this time, there was a rekindled interest (which seems to go in about 40-year cycles) among various armchair types and literacists in the whole subject of "Pre-Columbian Voyages" and visits to North America. Most of the professionals I had trained with and under, eschewed such concerns as a matter of policy - the usual advocates being easily exposed cranks and crackpots. And most glaring of all, was the paucity of valid artifactual finds to bolster these various claims.
Preeminent among the many contenders for the Pre- Columbian Sweepstakes were (and are?) "the Vikings" and the U.S. Northeast coast (mainly New England) has been combed with a fine tooth comb in the search for hypothetical landing sites. Not all this work, and not all tendered "finds" are frauds however, just most of them. To this end, then, if one was somewhat circumspect in his associates and what he allowed himself to be drawn into, there were certain "finds" that defied - and still may - rational explanation.
Nor were the Vikings the only contenders here: there were others, mostly various maritime cultures of Northern Europe: the Irish, and the Basque fishermen, and the Welsh….
But what about the Scots and the Court of Henry IV?….
I will try to tell this chronologically. One day I got a phone call from my sometime friend Charlie Boland, who some of you may remember was a sidekick of sorts with whom I once "….sailed Leif Ericson's last day's sail in from the Open Sea" and with whom I often rapped long hours about his white-hot heat and contention that myriads of European peoples had all sailed out to North America over the millennia before Columbus. Charlie was actually a TV Director for the once-popular "Herb Shriner Show" - the modern Hoosier poet whose untimely death cut short both his show and Charlie's livelihood. But Charlie was a fast-on-his-feet literary type and writer and scriptwriter par excellence, and drawing on many sources (including some behind-the-back pilfering of my own files) he had managed to pull together a very successful book ("They All Discovered America" - a former Book of the Month Club selection no less) on the entire subject as he saw it - which was long on fantasy and short on fact - about which we used to argue over - and drink over - until the wee small hours of the morning.
Another attainment of Charlie's was that he was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party, which in that McCarthyesque era took some chutzpah. This latter desideratum may seem the most unlikely detail I shall relate in the whole long tale I am going to tell here - at least to those of you who know my (feigned?) arch conservatism from the Skeptics Board, but which should serve as a caution to you that I have been most catholic in my taste of associates throughout my life, and anyhow has not mighty Solomon in his wisdom said, "One man in his life leads many lives" or some such…
One day Charlie got a phone call from a schoolteacher who lived in nearby Newtown, CT. She had just read his book, and had got to thinking of something and wondered if he would like to come see a peculiar stone on her property known thereabouts as the "Viking stone." (Charlie at that time lived in New Canaan, and I lived in Norwalk… all closely adjoining towns in southwest suburban CT). NYC is about 50 miles to the west…
Charlie called me at once and requested me to accompany him, as he sensed "something important" and he wanted bona fide archeological counsel from the outset. Best offer I had had that day, so I said where do I meet you?
He also as best I can recall, got a "chemistry" friend or I think that was his degree - he might have been a physicist or something else. And some local historian whom Charlie knew… I cannot remember the names of these other two fellows at this late date. One afternoon (I believe it was in the Fall) the four of us drove to this woman's house (I cannot remember her name either, but I recall she lived off Parmalee Hill Road, and that can be found on the USGS 7.5Min Quad Series Topo map for that area.. From all my years of being lost in the woods generally, I have instant recall of anything I have ever seen on old, rain-spattered, torn quad maps…). All these particulars are in my published report on the find.
Introductions were made all around, and she then led us down a garden path and through some scrub into "the woods" which stretched down a rather steep slope behind her place. There a short distance down from the top she showed us a large, dark, flat rock slab lying in the ground, its surface nearly level with the surrounding soil, and save for the fact that the spot was on a very steep hillside, the stone looked for all the world like a flat, natural paving stone or slab one might put down in a walkway or path.
There were no signs of disturbance or unusual conditions around the site. Nor was there any visible evidence as to why this rock, by contrast to other similar rocks here and there through "the woods" should have been remarked! There was no visible mark or alteration on the slab… As we stood in a group she related her tale (she had already told Charlie over the phone). She had grown up here, and as a child she and her friends had often played back "in the woods" and they had skipped and danced on the Viking stone many times. She had not seen it in years and had not even thought about it in all this time till she read Charlie's book. She was quite adamant that if we would "dig" the stone out or turn it over, we would see something very surprising…
This we accordingly did: I would guess the stone, which as I said is roughly irregular tabular (similar in size and shape to a large rough tombstone) is maybe 3 or 4 feet long by maybe 20 inches or more wide and maybe 6 to 8 inches thick. It is in all these particulars an unmodified natural fieldstone: I do not want the size comparison to a tombstone to convey a sense of any "working" as to the overall outline or shape…
The four of us managed to "pluck" and pry the stone up out of the soil and leaf mold, and turn it out downside face uppermost. It left behind a perfect negative impression in the sod of where it had been laying: leaf mold and packed and matted roots and soil on the bottom and sides of the impression were mute evidence that the stone had been lying (as the school mar'm said) face down and "forgotten" for a long, long time…
It was indeed immediately apparent that there were inscriptions on the downside face and as the stone air-dried and we whisk-broomed it clean, they became more apparent.. They were for the most part clearly apparent, though showed weathering on their edges and all - but not to the extent that anyone would have to guess at the marks: all see them the same.
Perhaps it is best I now try to give as close a verbal description of this side of the stone as possible:
There is a "prepared panel" or rectangular sort of "box " inset on the upper one-third of the face. (It would really be to the point here to take a look at a drawing I made of the stone at the time Bresson Stone as it appears in my formal report on the object). It is shallow as I recall, but readily noted and might measure about 12 x 15 inches or so. In the center of this "panel" is what can only be a date: "1284", as I recall but it might be some decades before this, as I am trying to do this all from memory here. I do know it was in the 1200’s… The figures are in an "oldstyle" script (I am no authority on these) - but I seem to recall the "2" for instance was more nearly like a modern "Z" in some ways, and I believe the ends of it and maybe some of the other characters had tiny chiseled "forks" or splits in them. I am sure you will recognize the general Old English typeface I am describing. There is also just below this "date" (the figures by the way might be about 3 in. high I would guess) about the only element on the stone which seems "probabilistic" as some see it and some don't. (I do, and pointed it out early on).
I called it the "angel". (Please gang, I have not backslid here: I am merely using descriptive language! Lol). It is sort of a little shrouded or "fluttery" appearing image of some sort, with "wings" (maybe) and it runs right into the base almost of the "date" as I recall. It may be wholly a natural mark in the stone and I don't believe it is really a significant part of the composition here but note it just in passing.
Now just below the panel are two or maybe three horizontal lines of inscribed characters - again reminiscent of some "oldtime script face". It is obvious right off that they are Latin words and abbreviations. From memory then:
HENRICUS
D. Gra. Anglorem Re(x)
DOM. Hyb………………
Now that I think on it… it may just be that the "henricus" is in the panel with the date, but I don't think so. This is a minor detail in any event. That much we could all see and the Schoolteacher confirmed that from memory that was what she recalled seeing as a girl. It was Boland's desire to remove the stone to his garage where he proposed to take it for better examination under better light and to photograph it. To this the woman readily assented. To get it to the car was some struggle but the four of us managed to get it up the hill and back through her property and into the car trunk. I guess it might have weighed up to 400 pounds or so…
A few days later, Boland called me to tell me that what we had was a "Land Grant Marker from the reign of Henry the Fourth!" What he had done to ascertain this when he got home, was to call and speak with someone over the phone at "The Cloisters" in NYC. Now for those of you who don't know, "The Cloisters" is a museum on the Upper West Side just above the George Washington Bridge entrances, and it is dedicated to the study and preservation of Middle Ages European artifacts and culture. It is in fact, built in the manner of a "castled" sort of old building and houses many such things as suits of armor, tapestries, etc. There is a resident staff of "Europeanists", library, etc. I believe it is privately funded but don't know for sure.
Boland had called cold, and gotten a Dr. Bober (whose name I am sure of here). I believe I have heard of him elsewhere and since, and he IS an accredited "medievalist." Boland had given him only just the barest particulars when the conversation opened, including his stumbling over the Latin inscription, when this Dr. Bober interrupted him to say "What you have there is the correct wording for a land grant marker from the reign of Henry IV". While Boland was taking this all in, Bober then asked, "Where did you see this or where is it located?" Apparently anticipating the naming of some site in England, he replied almost instantly when Boland told him that it had just been uncovered in the woods in southern Connecticut, "Oh, well then! It is obviously a fake!" And with that I believe he hung up and would have nothing further to do with the find. I may be wrong here, as Boland may have tried to weasel more from him - but this is my recollection at this stage.
What the inscription says is the ancient title of the English Kings: "Henry, King of England, and Lord of Hibernia …." The latter is the ancient name for Ireland. The "x" I put in parenthesis to indicate that actually it is missing, as this is the very edge of the stone. It would appear that some of the inscription has been lost through a break in the stone after it was carved.
This was an abrupt if interesting turn in affairs at any rate. A land grant marker from Henry IV's reign. What, indeed! might such an object (if genuine) be doing on a remote CT hillside?
One of our group - the historian - had assumed the obligation originally to "research" all local records and pertinent data he could find to give us a general report on the local recorded history of the area. But this he never did. I waited somewhat impatiently for this information, as I too, wanted to see the investigation go forth. At this date, I cannot recall, but not long after, either this errant historian or it may have been Mrs. X the schoolteacher herself who told us, but some way we learned of "Olivier". Now this "Olivier" on the basis of just local rumor and area gossip (never documented) and using info passed along mainly by the schoolteacher (she had grown up here, recall) was said to have been a "French émigré'". Indeed, it was further said that he was of "French nobility or something like that". And it was further recalled or rumored that Olivier had had an uncle who in the 19th Century was a renowned linguist and spoke many languages and studied and taught history or something in European Universities. All very vague, indeed.
Oliver arrived in this community I think maybe back in the 1920's or perhaps earlier. It was all farm country then, and he moved into a small farmhouse which lay at some distance below the schoolteacher's house and farther down the long slope. The house was still there at the time of our investigations. Olivier seems to have always been under a cloud of sorts. Certain it is that he was not liked by his neighbors and more or less shunned by them. His "Frenchified" ways did nothing to endear him, and he is said to have been unemployed mostly and came and went at night and all that sort of thing. He is also said to have raised garden truck, which he sold to the townspeople for cash, and this further heightened suspicion of why should such a highblown "gentlemen" from a far country bury himself in the CT countryside and grub and farm with his hands? Those hands however, figure in the legend too - for it seems a general impression thereabouts today that Olivier could make or do anything with his hands and was known to be a consummate craftsman. That is about as much as I can recall about Olivier. He apparently died and disappeared or something...( We often disappear when we die, alas…). No other particulars.
Meanwhile, Boland had inaugurated a one-man publicity campaign wherein he was using the "find" of this stone to hype his book and his many speaking engagements and whatall that he gave around town to garden clubs, women's service organizations etc. Next thing I knew he had landed a big interview story in one of the major NYC daily papers: it was the old Journal-American which was still publishing back then and the New York Times did not have the whole field to itself so much as nowadays. The first contention that developed between me and Boland was that he was running around spreading the gospel that this was indeed a proven pre-Columbian find - and invoking this Dr. Bober's positive comment (not his negative one!) in support! Soon there were other articles in our local papers, etc.
About this time too, I finished my archeological investigations on the "site." A bit on these: for one, we trenched the actual findspot for the stone to base (sterile) soil and carefully profiled and sampled all levels, etc. The spot was wholly neutral: there were no other objects of an artifactual nature or anything recorded in the stratigraphy below it or its contents that was the least out of the way. From the time of the first visit, however, my attention and that of others (the schoolteacher herself may have pointed it out) was drawn to an "anomaly" (at least for this area) right on the lip of the slope further down along the edge of it behind her property. This was a round, smooth, "tumulus" of earth which contrasted greatly with the appearance of the rest of the rolling countryside. It was maybe 20 feet or so in diameter and at its central elevation maybe two feet above the height of the surrounding land surface. On the slope-facing "side" there was a strange "opening," choked with debris and maybe only about 6 or 8 in. of it visible. An inspection of it disclosed a very unusual thing though: it seemed to pass through a "wall' of very rough, coursed or layered field stones!
Whatever in the world could such a thing be? Speculation grew that it might be a barrow, or a cairn, or a deliberately constructed burial tumulus or some other wonder made or left behind by whomever "brought" the Land Grant Marker to this place. There was nothing for it but to trench the tumulus and settle the issue, and accordingly, a field party under my direction did this over several days and we established what it was (and what it was not - which was a tumulus! Lol). It was a happenstance of several things: basically it was an outcrop of schistose rock (a country rock widely distributed in CT which breaks or separates readily along obscure bedding planes into "slabs"). This ledge had been breaking up under the weather (cyclic freeze/thaw) for centuries here and the result had been a radiating pattern of slabs loosely superposed on one another and ultimately covered by soil which latter had probably been mowed or perhaps raked over smooth by onetime gardeners here… To cap it all off, a family of foxes had at one time burrowed right into the heart of this "pseudo-tumulus" and we even found either their remnant bones or those of their prey in the "nest" at the heart of the barrow! This is all detailed in the report, and the tumuli must not be presumed relevant to the "find" - though it was all mingled in with the first speculations about the site.
By now some months had passed and nothing further seemed afoot. The historian as noted had fallen by the wayside, the physicist had never showed again to my knowledge from the day he helped retrieve the stone, an unquestioned and widespread "acceptance" for the stone at least in popular quarters was seemingly a de facto establishment, and Boland himself, whose interest tended to the ephemeral side at best, was off on another tack - perhaps this was the one about the early Greek sailors he thought landed near New Haven and which I "solved" too - but that is another story…lol. The schoolteacher (and her husband who had now entered the picture on occasion) often "resisted" me when I tried to discuss their interesting stone with them. They persisted in calling it the "Viking stone" and felt I was just splitting hairs when I said that if it were anything at all, it was certainly nothing to do with the Vikings! They felt my presenting any skeptical comment at all was only a sort of spoilsport attitude and they were much more drawn to Charlie with his bonhomie and enthusiasm…
I frankly do not think either of these "simples" committed a fraud here or ever had anything to do with a hoax or creating the stone, but I do believe from things I have inferred in later years, that the two of them saw in this stone a meal ticket for the future. They thought this find was the greatest thing ever found in North America, and when Charlie began dragging heels on returning it to them, they issued certain threats and he got it back to them pronto! They ultimately came to dislike me intensely I believe (don't know this for a fact) but I believe they thought that my continuous skeptical review of the situation was robbing "their" stone of its inherent import and it would never be something they could "cash in on" and live on the bounty!
So I continued with some research of my own upon the stone…
Part 2