Anthropology students get hands-on learning

SALLISAW, Okla. (AP) _ The professor and a handful of students from the University of Oklahoma had traveled a long way for such little bounty. <br/><br/>Tom Pluckhahn, an assistant professor of anthropology,

Sunday, July 24th 2005, 2:23 pm

By: News On 6

SALLISAW, Okla. (AP) _ The professor and a handful of students from the University of Oklahoma had traveled a long way for such little bounty.

Tom Pluckhahn, an assistant professor of anthropology, is leading an archaeological dig at Lees Creek Mound in far eastern Oklahoma. The site is northeast of Sallisaw and about eight miles from the Arkansas border.

The American Indian mound dates back about 1,000 years, and the Oklahoma group has indeed found a lot there _ a lot of heat, humidity, ticks, mosquitoes and tall, thick grass and weeds that must be God's shag carpet.

When they first arrived, students had to slash through the grass with machetes to form trails and start test sites.

Artifacts, well, those haven't been as plentiful. Some bits of pottery and projectile heads and a few rock clusters for boiling, but nothing earth-shattering.

``It's probably a little harder than I expected as far as the environment goes,'' senior Mike Hester said of the field school while resting for lunch.

Yet, the group to a man and its one woman says the experience is well worth it.

Moments after mentioning the tough conditions, Hester's demeanor was upbeat when saying things we find here could be written in literature, and people can read about it for years.

The archaeologists in training went in knowing their field of study usually requires years of work to produce results.

The OU group, resuming study of a site last examined in the late 1970s, is looking for signs and trends of habitation around the mound.

Bob Brooks, director of the Oklahoma Archaeological Survey at the OU campus, explained mounds were built with dirt over time to cover religious sites and/or burial grounds. He and a few other experts from Oklahoma and Arkansas visited the site while the students were working.

Pluckhahn said state officials have agreements with the Wichita and Caddo nation not to dig actual mounds or their immediate perimeters, but scientists may look a few yards further out.

``We have been shoveling test sites every 20 meters or so,'' the professor said. ``It's been positive, but not much new information.''

Yet the field school, which includes Pluckhahn, two graduate students, and a few undergraduates, consider their mission a success.

The test sites are helpful in mapping where to look for items on future digs.

Pluckhahn said the rock clusters his students found could have been used for roasting or boiling, or could be ritual purification. Even the bits of pottery, knife handles and spear or arrow points could, collectively, prove beneficial because styles of such things change over time. Thus, they can give approximate clues to their age.

``The little pieces of pottery we found date around 900 to 1300 A.D.,'' Pluckhahn said.

Luther Leith said the group also has found post-mold features in the ground, which indicate some sort of built structure in the past.

After lunch, Leith, Rob Nold and Nathan Masters found pieces of chert and silt stone, along with charred ground at their one- by two-meter test site. Leith explained chert is a brittle rock that can fracture at any plane, which makes it helpful for sharpening. The burned rock and earth give further evidence people lived, or at least visited or conducted business, near the mound. These finds will add to the knowledge base at the site that could prove useful for historians and scientists.

The students, meanwhile, gain firsthand knowledge they never could get just from a textbook.

``We're out here to learn,'' senior Dovie Warren added. ``You're not going to get this experience anywhere else.''

The professor and students spend about five days a week at the site, from Sunday night through Friday evening.

They travel back to Norman on the weekends, and rest each weeknight at a campsite nearby.

Ticks are a constant problem and the conditions make it challenging to what the group called the first rules of archaeology: ``You're not supposed to get hurt, and you're not supposed to get sick.''

Still, there are few complaints.

``Generally it's fun,'' Nold said. ``You can do everything your mom told you not to do _ play in the dirt, get out in the heat, all that stuff.''