One Year Anniversary...

This month is both the one year anniversary of my permanent arrival in Magnolia and the one year anniversary of the discovery of the theft of the Cedar Grove ceramic vessels from the AAS-SAU Research Station facility in the Bruce Center.

I'll be posting a one-year report to the blog in the next couple of weeks...that'll take care of the anniversary of my tenure as AAS-SAU Research Archeologist....but as for the stolen pots...

Last week, the Magnolia Banner-News ran a nice front-page, above-the-fold story that hopefully puts the pots back into the public memory (so they can keep an eye out for them) and may drum up some donations for building our security measures. Look here for a PDF of the article.

The Magnolia Banner-News continues to do a great job of covering both the case and archeology in general.

All of you out there...keep your eyes out for the pots...Click here for PDF list of what was stolen or here for a full color web site version. The Offical Press Release regarding the theft can be found here.

Of Mounds, Turkeys and Spirits....

As you know from previous posts, in late March the AAS-SAU Research Station hosted the Caddo Archaeological Conference...all went well (with a few of the normal hick-ups)...you can check out my Flickr pages here for pictures of the event if you like.

I have one interesting story to pass along from the conference, however...on Sunday a bunch of archaeologists, members of the Caddo Nation and avocational folks took a couple field trips to two legendary Caddo sites--the emergent Caddo site known as Crenshaw Mounds and the massive Battle Mound. Both are located nearby our home base over in the Red River Valley. John Miller, who was a AAS-SAU station assistant back in 1980s and who had worked some salvage at Battle Mound did us a big favor and lead the tour (Lord knows I don't know enough about these sites to yet speak with any authority and David felt comfortable with Crenshaw, but not Battle).

Turkey in foreground, Battle Mound in background (photo by Duncan McKinnon).

At any rate...we were greeted at Battle Mound (in some accounts the place of Caddo origin) by a very tame turkey who accompanied us from the farm road out to the large, multi tiered mound and back....When I ran into the land owner he said "Did you bring a friend with you?" (pointing at the turkey)...I figured that the turkey belonged on the farm and he was pulling my leg...but he finally convinced me that he had never seen the turkey before.

As the turkey escorted us on our trek away from the mound and back to our cars...I had to wonder if it was symbolic--if not an outright supernatural--manifestation of the ancient Caddo...here to make sure that their descendants and archaeologists treat the place with some respect.