When Did The Indiana Dnr Begin Registering Archeological Sites?

Feb 26, 2020

Volunteers at Pockoy Island

The public is invited to join the South Carolina Department of Natural Resource (SCDNR) Archaeology team as they deport excavations at Pockoy Isle, located on Botany Bay Plantation Heritage Preserve. Archaeological earthworks will take place from Friday, May 1 through Saturday, May 23, 2020. The site volition be open to the public throughout the flavor from ten a.m. until 4 p.m. on Wed through Sat each week. The site is airtight to the public on Sunday, Mon and Tuesday.

Guided public tours of the site are offered at 10 a.k., 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. The public tin pre-register for tours at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/guided-tours-of-the-pockoy-island-archaeological-excavation-tickets-84750074755.

The public tin can besides volunteer to assistance sift for artifacts throughout the field season. Pre-registration for volunteers is available at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/volunteer-at-the-pockoy-island-archaeological-digging-tickets-85202957339.

Groups of 10 or more who wish to visit the site may register at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TV68NHF.

Well-nigh Pockoy Island:

The Ring People, a documentary picture show produced in 2019, takes viewers to remote archaeological sites, including Pockoy Island, as scientists detect more than about monumental rings of shell constructed during the Late Archaic flow past American Indians. The Ring People and other SCDNR Archæology documentary films tin can be found at http://heritagetrust.dnr.sc.gov/films.html.

For more information about the May 2018 field season at Pockoy Island, visit http://www.scwildlife.com/articles/septoct2018/TheShellRingsofPockoy.html.

For more information about the SCDNR Heritage Trust Program, visit: http://heritagetrust.dnr.sc.gov/.

Directions to the preserve can exist found on the Botany Bay Plantation Heritage Preserve website: https://www2.dnr.sc.gov/ManagedLands/ManagedLand/ManagedLand/57.

Why Pockoy Island?

The Pockoy Island Shell Ring Complex (Pockoy one and Pockoy 2) are the latest archaeological discovery on Botany Bay Plantation Heritage Preserve, a SCDNR managed area on Edisto Island. The rings were found using Lidar in 2017. Pockoy 1 is the oldest known beat out ring in South Carolina – dating to the Late Archaic menses, approximately 4,300 years ago. That's the aforementioned time menstruation as the construction of the start Egyptian pyramids!

While the two beat out rings are considered one archaeological site, recent excavations take focused on Pockoy 1 since information technology is experiencing a rapid charge per unit of erosion – about 9.five meters per yr.

The Pockoy Island Shell Ring Complex is among thousands of coastal archaeological sites threatened by sea level ascension. It is because of this threat that Pockoy is considered an instance of Heritage at Risk – a global term used to define cultural resources threatened past natural and human impacts.

For most 70 years, Phytology Bay Plantation has experienced one of the highest rates of erosion in coastal S Carolina. The shoreline has moved as much equally 3 quarters of a mile inland in some locations.

Inside the Southeastern United States, more 19,000 recorded archaeological sites will be submerged by the cease of the century with a one-meter rise in sea level. Unfortunately, Pockoy 1 will be gone past 2024. Rapid archaeological investigation of this site is critical every bit information technology is under immediate threat of being lost.

Pockoy ane is one of the most intensely investigated shell rings in the world. Excavations of Pockoy 1 began in July 2017 with shovel testing and probing of the site. Shovel test pits (STPs) were excavated by hand every ten meters beyond the site, and each STP was 30 centimeters in bore and one meter deep. These STPs helped SCDNR archaeologists make up one's mind where larger excavation units and trenches should be located for future field seasons.

Probing through the vanquish used to construct Pockoy ane over iv,000 years ago helped SCDNR archaeologists determine the thickness and diameter of the shell band. Pockoy 1 is in the shape of a donut, and measures nearly 60 meters across and 60 centimeters at its thickest indicate. The heart of this donut-shape is void of shell and is chosen the plaza. Excavations in May 2018 focused on the west side of the shell ring into the plaza, while excavations in December 2018 focused on the plaza itself.

During the May 2019 field season, while SCDNR archaeologists expanded their excavations of the Pockoy one plaza, they were joined by over 400 volunteers and near 1,400 visitors. They were also joined past other teams of archaeologists who assisted in laying the groundwork for future archaeological investigations of the isle. Mississippi Country University archæology staff and students conducted an STP survey of Pockoy Island in social club to determine artifact patterns across the island. Archaeologists from the National Park Service Southeastern Archaeological Center besides joined the squad to conduct probing of Pockoy 2 to determine the shell band's diameter and thickness. Pockoy 2, like Pockoy ane, is in the shape of a donut, simply measures approximately 80 meters across and 45 centimeters at its thickest indicate.

During the May 2020 field season, SCDNR archaeologists volition focus on expanding their investigations of the Pockoy i plaza and northern portions of the shell ring. They will exist joined by Indiana Academy of Pennsylvania staff and students who will conduct an archaeological field school on Pockoy Island.

Information carefully collected from Pockoy i by SCDNR archaeologists include artifacts, faunal remains, flotation samples for ethnobotanical analysis, pollen samples, radiocarbon (C-14) dating samples, optically stimulated brilliance (OSL) dating samples, and photographs for 3D animation of the excavation units.

Dates from some of these samples advise that Pockoy 1 was constructed and occupied over a relatively short period of time, inside 20 – 100 years. But in that location are so many more questions to answer including – Why were the Pockoy Isle Shell Rings synthetic? Are they connected to a larger network of shell ring communities across the Southeastern United States? Were they created for a ceremonial purpose, or the result of subsistence activities? Time is running out to get together information to respond these and many other questions that can help archaeologists add together to our shared cultural heritage and homo history.