On Mar 8, 2007, at 10:27 PM, Sunshine49 wrote:
> Did you have anything about Basse's Choice, in Isle of Wight
> County? A friend and I discovered it and I wrote to Ivor Noel Hume
> [having been unable to get any other archaeologists interested,
> they seemed to think we must have found a few old Coke bottles and
> studiously ignored us, so I decided to "go to the top"], who then
> looked into it and someone excavated it. I had moved away from
> Smithfield by then, so I never found out what sorts of things they
> discovered. I know there was a brick wall a few feet down and
> eroding out of the cliff above the river. We actually found several
> sites in that area where Pagan Creek emptied into the James, and
> the fellow who was sent to look at it [who shall remain nameless]
> never got in touch with us, so as far as I know the other sites
> were never located. I drew a map, I still have it, showing the
> sites we found [walking around the fields in the winter, no we did
> not dig anywhere, I know better than that], if the places haven't
> been developed and built over by now. If anyone wants a copy of the
> map, send me a snail mail address privately and I will mail you a
> copy.
I would love to have a copy. I would also suggest you contact the
Nansemond Chapter of the Archeological Society of VAa who can
probably help with recording the sites. The ASV has a long history of
local chapter involvement in archaeology statewide. They're the local
ears and contacts and without them, more sites than we could know
would have been lost. ASV has statewide chapters and if yo go to the
ASV website at www.asv-archeology.org you can find a multitude of
info about the society and contact info for the various chapters.
>
> I don't wish to offend anyone, but from the experiences my friend
> and I had, I can't help but wonder if those copper mines of Byrd's
> are out there, old ruins of homesteads, mills, who knows what,
Oh, they're out there by the thousands. I would estimate about 10
million sites are out there statewide waiting to be recorded. Mills
are most certainly there as well. They're one of my pet interests. In
the 1880 census of VA there were 1688 of them operational. That will
give you an idea of the problems faced every day in trying to locate
sites. Mills are also among the least plentiful site types in the
state, after iron furnaces.
> and the locals know all about it but the archaeologists won't pay
> them any mind.
I have known so-called professional archaeologists who will not give
"civilians" the time of day or credit enough to walk and breathe at
the same time archaeologically. Thankfully, they are a dying breed.
All of us professional archaeologists try to record sites, to use
local contacts who know the area better than we will ever do and try
to do the right thing by the sites.
Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in a day and years in a
lifetime. If we had the luxury of one archaeologist per county who
did nothing but survey, it would take a lifetime for that one
archaeologist and they could not survey a complete county. The
problems are that big. The ASV has for years run certification
programs to teach folks how to record archaeological sites and at
least get them into the system so that when development comes, we
have some small heads-up on things.
> Maybe if they listen, they might find more. Our experience in this
> regard was very disappointing, we tried for years, beating our
> heads against a wall, ignored and dismissed, till I was so
> frustrated and so worried the place would be built over,
Please don't allow the rest of us to be tarred with the brush of a
bad experience by association. That's grossly unfair.
> I took a chance on Ivor Noel Hume. Thank heavens he did listen.
I rather think you found a real archaeologist in INH, nothing chancy
about it. Just doing what he does so well all this time.
Unfortunately, the winning lottery tickets went elsewhere, but my
plan was to endow two chairs of archaeology and to have a statewide
system of survey and threatened sites triage that dealt with each
county on a manageable basis, working in complement with the
Department of Historic Resources and the ASV to systematically and
thematically go after site types. Maybe next time when it gets above
non-trivial sums (>50000000).
The copper mines Byrd visited would be among them. Maybe when I
retire, if I can still go out and find landowners who are willing to
have us on their property to find these vanishing sites.
Lyle Browning, RPA
>
> Nancy
>
> -------
> I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.
>
> --Daniel Boone
>
>
>
> On Mar 8, 2007, at 4:19 PM, Lyle E. Browning wrote:
>
>> I would echo the perception and the actuality of the problems
>> brought to the list by Mr. Vejnar & Dr. Levengood. I was formerly
>> the editor of the Archeological Society of Virginia's Quarterly
>> Bulletin. We were totally dependent upon outside submissions. We
>> had no control over who submitted what and from where and about
>> what. We were also criticized for not having enough articles about
>> historic archaeology, or prehistoric archaeology, or too much on
>> theoretical archaeology, or too many articles by professional
>> archaeologists, etc. but the drift is clear.
>>
>> I too did an article by article count and we were roughly evenly
>> divided, during my tenure, between the different time periods.
>> That's not to say that the perception has expired. Our articles
>> ranged in quality from excellent to otherwise. We aimed to cover
>> the spectrum and in some years, historic archaeology submissions
>> far outnumbered prehistoric and vice versa. I suspect that other
>> editors of journals with a scholarly bent will undoubtedly have
>> similar stories.
>>
>> This should not be misconstrued as a thinly disguised plea for
>> contributions to the Editor's Guild Body Armor Fund. ;>))
>>
>> Lyle Browning, RPA
>>
>>
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