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Layers of history

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Courtney Caine
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« on: April 01, 2008, 01:09:28 am »

Layers of history


By RENEE FITE
 
A bone domino was among the artifacts unearthed during an excavation last year near Fort Gibson.
Stone foundations uncovered near the historic replica stockade add to the clues helping scientists and historians create an accurate scale map of the site started in 1824.
University of Oklahoma anthropologist Dr. Leland Bement, who led the archaeological dig, was guest speaker Thursday night for the Tahlequah Archaeological Society’s meeting.
“We know more about the fort landscape now than we’ve known for 100 years,” Bement said.
Early maps, diaries and records kept by soldiers and pioneers also give clues, as well as history.
Bement said the goal in Fort Gibson is to find sections of the four original walls to determine exactly where it was located. It’s challenging, he said, considering the roads and train tracks, movement of the river, and how many times the fort burned down.
“These are major impediments,” he said. “But there are always pieces left behind.”
In March last year, Bement conducted several geophysical surveys, using a variety of instruments, to determine where to excavate.
In the fall, staff of the historic site and volunteers dug two 30-foot trenches and several 3-foot by 3-foot squares, a meter deep, to discover stone foundations, two massive hearths and possibly fence sites. They believe they located two wells, which would have also been used beginning in the 1870s as a water source for steam engines.
“Early photographs show a water tower, but we don’t know where it was,” Bement said. “We also hope to find the original ferry crossing on the south side of the Neosho Grand River, even though the river has changed course some.”
The bone domino is Bement’s favorite artifact.
“Soldiers were assigned to do a job that’s not very nice,” he said. “Yet they found leisure time to play dominos, smoke their pipes. I could relate to them that way.”
Visitor Jim Roaix also said the bone artifacts were interesting.
“A bone handle turned into a scraper was more humanizing than a button,” Roaix said. “I can identify with the person sitting there.”
The fort’s occupants also ate deer, fish, ducks, and salt pork that arrived by boat.
Other artifacts included many large nails, believed to have held the picket fence together; pipe stem sections; buttons made of shell, bone, glass and metal; window pane glass; bottles that contained medicine, whiskey and beer; lots of chicken bones; a door hinge; French, English and native gun flints; a few musket balls; gun parts from the Civil War era and earlier; pennies from 1828 and 1831, about the size of today’s half dollars; and a skinning tool for working leather.
“We’ll leave most things as we found them for the conservators to clean and study,” Bement said.
Part of the excavated area will be left so visitors can observe during tours.
“They can look at artifacts of soldiers confined at Fort Gibson for a short lifetime due to disease,” Bement said.
Bement explained that artifacts found on private property belong to the landowners, but the area by the river belongs to the Corps of Engineers and is protected by the federal government.
“Human remains are protected, no matter where they’re found, and belong to the state,” he said.
One reason the site was selected for the fort was all the best locations were already taken by traders.
“It was the one place along the river with a good, firm landing spot, with solid bedrock,” he said. “Mooring points are still in the bedrock.”
Fort Smith was closed because the frontier had moved to Oklahoma, and the Osages were fighting with everyone. Soldiers needed to be closer to stop the fighting, and also due to the diseases at that site.
“They brought many diseases with them,” Bement said. “And building Fort Gibson in the bottoms, they had mosquitoes. When they rebuilt later, they built up on the hill, where there was a breeze and fewer mosquitoes.”
Bement said no one asked the Osages when the Cherokees were moved here to their territory.
“The Osage had been harassing everybody in the area,” he said. “But when the Cherokees came, they couldn’t be intimidated. So there was always fighting.”
Occasionally, one group or another would wipe out a trader, and white folks who were moving into the area wanted protection.
“The soldiers found themselves in the middle of tribal wars,” Bement said.
French traders were here since the 1700s, trading for bison furs and meat from the Wichitas, who were chased north and south by the Osage, he said.
If all this history talk is intriguing, an opportunity to help with the next excavation is coming the end of May. Any member of the State Historical Society can participate, Bement said.
“We can sign you up on the spot,” he said.
They will dig from about 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 23-June 1, with activities and entertainment in the evenings.
Bement expects some of the artifacts to return to Fort Gibson to be on display and some to go to the new history museum in Oklahoma City.
Mac Stermer came to the meeting learn more about the dig. “I loved everything,” Stermer said. “I love Fort Gibson. I didn’t get to go to the dig, but I wanted to know what they found and where the fort was. That’s part of our history.”


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