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The Early Years Much of what we know about Algonkian Indian lifeways in the greater Chesapeake Bay region derives from writings of early explorers (Thomas Hariot, John White, John Smith, William Strachey, and others). There are almost no good data about Virginia’s Iroquoian and Siouan tribes other than names, and for most areas west of the Blue Ridge Mountains even these are lacking. Archaeology has risen to ¤ll the gaps in these culture histories. Much evidence left by Indians in Virginia has been lost to a variety of causes. Most prehistoric sites have been disturbed by historic and modern activities , especially construction and surface mining. Coastal erosion and the submergence of sites due to rising sea levels and three-hundred-plus years of farming have contributed to the obliteration of archaeological remains. Although over the years collecting of artifacts, deliberate digging, and serendipitous ¤nds occurred all over Virginia, few records exist. One outstanding exception is the work of Thomas Jefferson. He trenched a burial mound near his Monticello home and wrote about it to a friend in France (Jefferson 1955 [1787]). Because he deliberately sought to answer speci¤c questions, noted the stratigraphy and contents of the mound, and then wrote of his ¤ndings, he is called Virginia’s ¤rst archaeologist. The mound site has not been pinpointed, despite efforts by David I. Bushnell in 1911 (Bushnell 1914) and William Boyer in 1982 (Boyer 1983). We are challenged today to ¤nd the mound base with its encircling ditch and perhaps date any remains present. Nineteenth-century explorers who recorded their work are few.Around 1812, William Pidgeion excavated stone mounds in the Shenandoah Valley and upper James River area (Pidgeion 1853). Lucian Carr, working out of Harvard Univer11 Virginia’s Archaeology A Look Back and a Look Ahead Howard A. MacCord Sr. sity, trenched a Mississippian platform mound in Lee County, not far from Cumberland Gap (Carr 1877). A soapstone quarry in Amelia County was examined by Frank Hamilton Cushing of the Bureau of Ethnology about 1879. His work was later detailed in a study by William Henry Holmes, who tested a soapstone quarry in Fairfax County in the 1880s, studied a lithic workshop near Luray, and recorded quarry-workshops in other Virginia locales. Holmes’s 1897 publication on lithics of the Chesapeake Bay drainage basin provides sound data for today’s students. During the 1880s, Elmer R. Reynolds, an avocational archaeologist, recorded shell mounds along the Potomac River (Reynolds 1889). In 1891–1892, Gerard Fowke of the Bureau of Ethnology explored sites in the upper James and Potomac Valleys (Fowke 1894). Henry Chapman Mercer explored the New River area of southwest Virginia in 1894, seeking evidence of Early Man (Mercer 1894). Although he concluded that Early Man was not to be found in the region, he described, but did not recognize, an aceramic culture under ceramic bearing levels in a cave shelter. Later tests in the shelter found Early Archaic points at the deepest levels. Mercer had Early Man evidence but did not realize it. Around 1900, members of the Valentine family in Richmond explored several mounds and village sites in western Virginia. Their collections formed the basis of the Valentine Museum created by the family and later given to the City of Richmond. Although emphasis during the nineteenth century was placed on seeking information on (and relics of) prehistoric Indians, there were also studies on the ethnology (ethnohistory) of the Indians, done by James Mooney and John Garland Pollard. Mooney’s 1894 study of eastern Siouan groups was for many years widely accepted, although recent works challenge some of his ¤ndings. Ethnological studies were continued in the ¤rst half of the twentieth century by Frank G. Speck (1928), several of his students, and David I. Bushnell (1930, 1935, 1940). Their reports are indispensable for today’s ethnohistorians seeking to relate modern studies to the historical and archaeological record. Parallel with nineteenth-century studies on Indians and their remains was the nascent study we today call historical archaeology. An example of this effort was the acquisition of Mount Vernon in 1852 by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. Efforts to preserve the site of the original 1607 Jamestown led to the founding in 1889 of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities . Its subsequent efforts have preserved scores of additional houses and properties all over Virginia. Archaeology has been essential to the work of both groups. During the ¤rst half of the twentieth century, professional archaeological attention in...

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