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34 ■ ■ ■ “ARKANSAS FOR ARKANSANS” Figure 55. Cat Serpent Bottle with Legs (OSHTL2006.006.06) Ceramic; 21.6 x 14.3 cm Upper Nodena, Mississippi County,Arkansas Late Mississippi period,A.D. 1350–1600 Figure 56.Triune Bottle (OSHTL2006.006.07) Ceramic; 16.8 x 15.9 cm Upper Nodena, Mississippi County,Arkansas Late Mississippi period,A.D. 1350–1600 Several bottles with three human faces (hence the term “triune,” which typically refers to a being with three aspects) have been reported from northeast Arkansas and southeast Missouri. Figure 57. Kneeling Human Effigy Bottle (OSHTL2006.006.08) Ceramic; 15.2 x 20.3 cm Middle Nodena, Mississippi County,Arkansas Late Mississippi period,A.D. 1350–1600 Figure 58. Bird Effigy Bowl (OSHTL2006.006.09) Ceramic; 12.7 x 20.3 cm Middle Nodena County,Arkansas Late Mississippi period,A.D. 1350–1600 Dellinger also was sharply critical of excavations and collections by untrained individuals, as illustrated in a 1933 article: “Remaining prehistoric sites in Arkansas that will assist in interpreting past civilizations should be explored by trained archaeologists, according to Prof. S.C. Dellinger, curator of the University museum in a plea to Arkansans to discontinue the practice of removing and selling archaeological specimens to dealers in these objects. The tangible remains of past civilizations have no value in themselves. “Individual collections are valueless,” said Prof. Dellinger. “The owners of two of the largest private collections are now trying to dispose of their wares, which cost them thousands of dollars to collect. The collection of artifacts destroyed volumes of our richest pre-history, yet these treasures of our ancient races are now worthless from a scientific and historical viewpoint.” Prof. Dellinger suggests to those wanting to make a collection of some sort to collect postage stamps or old coins. These have all the data stamped on them so their value cannot be destroyed. One cannot over-estimate the importance of leaving the few remaining Indian sites in Arkansas for competent hands to explore. This point was forcibly brought out at the Plains Conference of Archaeology at Lincoln, Nebraska, last September, at which I was informed that my work here in Arkansas would indicate that the roaming plains tribes were once peaceful agriculturalists in this region. Later they migrated into the least favorable agricultural areas of the plains and gave up their agricultural life, becoming nomads, and depending for their food on the buffalo rather than corn crops. The statement made at the Southern Conference on Pre-history in Birmingham , Alabama, in December that the archaeology of Arkansas was the very keystone for the whole Mississippi region, because the evidence pointed to this area as the most probable for the highest culture on the North American continent.19 Among many archaeologists, Dellinger is perhaps best remembered as an individual who opposed what is arguably the most famous archaeological project ever conducted in eastern North America.20 This was the archaeological survey of the lower Mississippi alluvial valley conducted during the 1940s by Philip Phillips (Harvard University), James B. Griffin (University of Michigan), and James A. Ford (Louisiana State University) with funding from the National Park Service. The survey was an extraordinarily ambitious attempt to record and make collections at archaeological sites throughout the lower Mississippi River valley, from the confluence of the Ohio River to the Gulf of Mexico, and the resulting publication is one of the true classics of American archaeology.21 The artifact collections almost exclusively were obtained from the ground surface; the few excavations were very limited in extent. Of course, the researchers wanted and needed to include eastern Arkansas as part of the area to be surveyed . Dellinger objected to their work, stating in a letter to the acting secretary of the Smithsonian Institution that: “On February 22, I wrote to [James] Ford, in Louisiana, and protested his coming. My reason being the fact that they could skim over in a hasty survey and take the cream off what I had been doing for a number of years.”22 This letter (and perhaps others) led Phillips and his colleagues to remark: “We have been accused of coming in as outsiders and ‘skimming the cream’ off the archaeology of the region. The metaphor is imprecise. The cream, in the sense of the topmost layer, had long ago been skimmed and safely removed to the collectors’ shelves. It was the less attractive material that lay underneath that we were after.”23 In his letter to Wetmore, Dellinger forcefully stated that...

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