Creamy Cervical Mucus At Night

Watson Brake

Gisela Ermel

Watson Brake
mystery Erdhügelanlage oldest in North America

In: Q'Phaze, No 18, Kassel 2010

Bamberg Reca Jones grew up in Louisiana, where early on by two, three mounds in the nearby forest heard, who were the inhabitants of the region near Monroe known as examples of artificial mounds. Several times she visited the site and began to care about the past of their homeland. When in the early 1980s, logging began to clean the place and to cut down trees, Reca Jones was again on hand to look after "their Mound.

To their great surprise, was now, after the surface had been largely freed from vegetation, that there were more than three mounds with intermediate connecting ramparts, forming a rounded plant. Reca Jones was curious, she visited every accessible archaeological course at the University of Louisiana, and began to survey the site and explore. Because if you already had a few mounds, so to speak in his own front door ...



your first measurements showed an oval ring of mounds and walls, an interior space of about nine hectares encircling. The mounds were uneven and highly and there was an entrance into the interior. Nothing really special, but this was just another system of so-called Moundbuilder North America, of which at that time already discovered thousands and hundreds were investigated.

However, it took Reca Jones, Joe W. Saunders, make the experts Mounds in Louisiana and archaeologist at Northeast Louisiana University to draw attention to the site. As Saunders came to the residence, the mounds were again difficult to detect by overgrown vegetation and the overall layout. A few vague mound in the forest - there was nothing else to see. But it was not so Harm to determine even the age of these mounds. Since they had come to realize that there had been in North America, not the Moundbuilder as a common culture, but many independent cultures, we wanted to at least know which one of these cultures the plant.

How do you determine the age of a simple mound? It takes such as bore core samples can be analyzed in this laboratory. Based on the degree of weathering of the earth and the organisms present in the material and particulates can at least make a rough dating. As Saunders and his colleagues were moving to Watson Brake in - that you had in the meantime this Facility designated - refer to core drilling, they found frustrated that she and her attached to a truck drilling because of the unfavorable position of the mounds in the forest does not come close enough. Instead, they took samples with a mechanical arm and the vane type device at the end of a few samples to take at least a few charcoal fragments from the so-called A-horizon (topsoil) from one of the Mounds. This then carefully sifted out of the earth samples were analyzed and age-dated it with the radiocarbon method. The result was surprising and disappointing: the coal fragments dated from AD by about 1600.

look at one of the hills of Watson Brake

Photo: Robert Redding Jr.

had But now estimated from the feeling Saunders and his colleagues on the premises have a much earlier time. So one had yet seen diamond drilling. This time, the company succeeded and the result was sensational: The plant was apparently very old! As old as no other Moundanlage had ever dated! Saunders said a newspaper reporter in relation to that which covered the other researchers:

"We had long believed that migratory hunter-gatherers did not have the ability to such a plan a design and organize the construction. "

Reca Jones was immensely proud, had they but the oldest Moundanlage North America" discovered "and made public. But could it really be true that in the time of the primitive Stone Age nomads, long before any previously known Moundbuilder culture, such a plant was built

Artist's reconstruction of the system of Watson Brake

Sketch: Martin Pate

The interdisciplinary team led by Joe Saunders did not rely on this age-dating alone, and turned more modern methods to obtain more precise data. have been this plant was not only very old, she had already built more than 5000 years: and again the same result - Man drew the mounds with thermoluminescence measurements to body!

But that gave Joe Saunders et al still do not. Diligent were further collected hundreds of samples from both the mounds and from the compound walls, air-dried and sent to a laboratory in Vermont this time to the OCR Carbon dating, in which the rate of biodegradation is determined by organic carbon. Still the same result: the construction of the plant had been started prior to 5180 years.

finally learned now and the general public from Watson Brake, in the New York Times as the 19th September 1997 on the archaeological site and reported to readers informing them that primitive hunter-gatherers monumental architecture were able to build and that they had with Watson Brake, the oldest of all North American Moundanlage on.

satellite image of Watson Brake

The people of the time worked from before 5000 and 6000 years with stone tools left, with spears to hunt and put in small mobile groups through the area. For many hundreds of years of time were also at that particular point in the territory of the former river bed of the Arkansas River and over again in the season where you hunted, fished and gathered edible plants, people come.

But one day suddenly gathered together a number of stone Zeitler. They began virtually from one day to the other, a pre-planned Erdwerkanlage build and produce in the same summer workshops such as on an assembly line miniature drills, stone implements and strange geometric objects from clay.

And as suddenly as it all began, it ended well. When all was ready, drew people from left everything behind and emigrated again as before, as hunters and Collectors in small groups around the country. You obviously never came back here.

fact that these people not only accumulated a few hills and ridges associated with intermediate show the archaeological findings. It has been well selected intentionally dry but moist soil in various colors used for the construction, and not indiscriminately. Moist soil is to win fairly difficult to transport and process them. It has therefore made it not easy. The difference between the finer silt and clay Erdsorten as with ordinary material is so striking that it plan to - one must have - to design. Even the procurement of materials alone must have been immensely laborious - not to mention the necessary organization and control, which ensured that each Erdsorte just then came out they should get there.

The northern half of the system followed by the builders of a natural existing patio, while the southern half of everything has been designed so that at last led to the planned Oval. The plant was designed and genaus Sun otherwise, are calculated and then been erected, which was the excavators on site soon clear. Why the mounds were built at different heights and with different materials, is still a complete mystery.

Most Mound measures right now at seven meters in height and has therefore the size of a modern two-story house. That the system was carefully planned and measured, the excavators discovered by Joe Saunders because the individual had been marked by mounds in front of the construction waste and material piles. In most places had been worked quickly and without interruption, other mounds were built in several stages, with intervening time gaps, in which the work was interrupted. Nevertheless, the layout has been maintained over several generations to completion exactly.

What the excavators very thoughtfully made, was the fact that so far hunters and collectors were considered a company that knew no organization and could not have been able to plan such a huge community project and perform. Now had to rethink apparently. What was a social mechanism it here made it possible to mobilize large-scale labor to assemble, to guide, eating, and control? The construction of such a system is inconceivable without a high degree of organization and logistics. Who was this all intentional, planned and monitored?

Today we see Watson Brake not like the project was labor intensive. The Mounds View to see at first not much - in our view. You'd think a few guys with bulldozers and modern construction equipment would "manage" the whole, perhaps in a short time. But then that was a huge undertaking. Watson Brake raises more questions than it answers. But in one respect, the archaeologists are agreed that either were primitive hunter-gatherers of the period of high as previously thought, or ... but since no one dares think ahead.

Why was this system built? It served as a defense definitely not in it for the end house, for within the system have been apparently no activity. On the contrary, the interior was extremely kept clean and empty. There is no trace remains of living, very few at the Mounds and intermediate walls, which were built in several phases, as if each had lived there, the workers only as long until the next construction phase began. Archaeologists agree that the system did not serve as a settlement or limitation of a dwelling. Was this a ritual space? Apparently not. There are no signs to suggest. Burial Mounds these hills were not.

The most puzzling, however, was the fact that people only stayed here so long, until everything was finished. Why was the plant that so much effort and trouble had been built, then just leave? That this is so arduous and strictly not have been further vorgeplantem layout facility is built as a fortified camp of the summer hunting and gathering, because no one believes. On the contrary, the construction of the plant must have been so important to the Stone Age the first time over the winter here, remained something that is totally uncharacteristic of hunters and gatherers.

This plant was not built as a protection against floods, to the cultivated land was too far from the river and the former high water line distance. A defense system was not also been, for in the first were found no traces of militant confrontations, and second, the system would also have been unsuitable as a defensive structure, said Joe Saunders. The "marking territory" could be forgotten, as well as the ceremonial place. Joe Saunders once said with resignation: "I know it sounds to Zen, but maybe the answer to our question so that the purpose of the facility was just the one to be built."

evidence of an astronomical calendar or background of the layout you have not yet detected, even though there is already speculation in this direction. There are still lacking the evidence.

As mysterious as the purpose of this system is the thing with the mass production of mysterious objects. That here was a workshop that produced in the spear tips and simple stone tools, one can understand yet. Also the fact that many manufactures miniature drills have been here, which were found only in one place more than 120 intentionally buried under the earth - and that, although overall only a tiny fraction of the site was excavated. Why does hunting and gathering as many miniature drill? Where were all the beads or objects that had been processed by that? The few scattered beads seemed to have no connection with the numerous miniature drills to stand. Was with them transitory Processed material, which have not survived to this day? You just knew this much: these micro drills had to have been used to anything that it showed the visible signs of wear.

yet mysterious were the objects of fired clay. When you've had to do with not enough building and the potter and drill one well formed and spent countless cubes, spheres, rectangles, and bizarre forms of clay. These articles are without decoration and its intended use unknown.

enigmatic artifacts from Watson Brake

Photo: Richard Lupo

Most of these artifacts were dice. There were standard forms of four by four by three and a half inches and others of similar size with slightly different dimensions. Apparently, the clay figures were buried carefully on a bed of previously attached selected colored clay. Why put forth countless geometric Stone Age clay figures, only to then hide under the ground? The many micro drills came into underground repositories. Moreover, there had been some field offices workshops in a few kilometers away, also like a conveyor belt in which these objects were produced.

Almost everything is in Watson Brake is still a mystery: the sudden start of construction of a pre-planned system of unknown purpose, the mass production of goods, the burying of these objects in underground deposits and the abrupt end of the site: just leave everything and move back as hunters and gatherers of the way as if nothing had happened ...

literature

Ames, Kenneth M.: Myth of the Hunter-Gatherer. In: Archaeology, Vol 52, No 5, 1999

Frink, Douglas S.: OCR Carbon Dating of the Watson Brake Mound Complex. 53. Annual Meeting of

the Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Birmingham, Alabama, 1997

Hawkins, Nancy: Preserving Louisiana's Legacy. Louisiana Archaeological Survey and

Antiquities Commission. Anthropological Study Nr. 5, Baton Rouge 1989

McConnaughey, Janet: Amateur Uncovers oldest Indian Mounds in America. In: The Japan

Times, 14. Dezember 1999

Noble Wilford, John: Study of Ancient Indian Site Puts Early American Life in New Light. In:

The New York Times, 19. September 1997

Pringle, Heather: Oldest Mound Complex Found at Louisiana Site. In: Science, Nr. 277, 1997

Saunders, Joe W.: Speeding Ahead of the Plow. 1996.

www.cr.nps.gov/archaeology/cg/vol1_num1_speeding.htm

Saunders, Joe W.: A Mound Complex in Louisiana at 5400 - 5000 Years before the Present.

In: Science, Nr. 277, 1997

Sauners, Joe W. et al: Watson Brake, a Middle Archaic Mound Complex in Northeast Louisiana.

In: American Antiquity, Vol. 70, Oktober 2005

Walker, Amalie A.: Earliest Mound Site. In. Archaeology, Vol. 51, Nr. 1, Jan./Feb. 1998

Buch zum Thema:

Gisela Ermel: Das Moundbuilder-Phänomen.

Rätselhafte traces of prehistoric North America.

Ancient mail Verlag, Gross-Gerau, ISBN 978-3935910576