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Do not pick that artifact up off of the ground and put it in your pocket.
But.
We're going to build a ballpark on top of this site.
Sheesh
Searching the fields of NW Indiana and SW Michigan -
There was an a baseball field on that site in downtown Nashville for many, many years. It was there when I was a kid, back in the days of the old Southern Association minor league team, the Nashville Vols. I would guess the original field was built before there were laws protecting aboriginal sites. The field was called Sulphur Dell because it was built on the site of sulphur/salt springs. The Central Basin of middle Tennessee has other places where there are "salt" springs. These areas attracted, not only the NA's but deer and bison which used it as a mineral lick. In pioneer times it was called "the French Lick" because of the area's first European use by French trappers and hunters who came down into the Ohio River valley (the Cumberland River at Nashville is a tributary of the Ohio) from French Canada. And a trading post was established there by the French in the early 1700's to trade with the NA'a that frequented the area. As what seems to be the case for much of Kentucky, there were apparently no NA villages or permanent habitations by tribes in the Nashville area during those times. The abundance of game is what attracted the French hunters and trappers. In those days France was trying to claim the Ohio Valley as part of its colonial possessions. When English colonial long hunters from North Carolina and Virginia started hunting and trapping the area prior to the Revolutionary War the area had been visited by the French for several years previously. It was during the Revolutionary War that the settlement that became Nashville was founded. The law now is to have State approval before going forward with construction of that nature on known archaeological sites, thus a salvage excavation was performed by state approved archaeologists and usually paid for by the developer (whoever that is). Wow, it seems like I got a bit long winded this AM. :laugh:
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It is a shame and disgrace when sites like this are not taken full advantage of while the opportunity presents itself, but
$$$$ and a irreverent disregard for american history and its people pave the way. Hopefully there will come some good out
of what was recovered, if it ever comes into public display
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Excellent summary.sailorjoe wrote:
There was an a baseball field on that site in downtown Nashville for many, many years. It was there when I was a kid, back in the days of the old Southern Association minor league team, the Nashville Vols. I would guess the original field was built before there were laws protecting aboriginal sites. The field was called Sulphur Dell because it was built on the site of sulphur/salt springs. The Central Basin of middle Tennessee has other places where there are "salt" springs. These areas attracted, not only the NA's but deer and bison which used it as a mineral lick. In pioneer times it was called "the French Lick" because of the area's first European use by French trappers and hunters who came down into the Ohio River valley (the Cumberland River at Nashville is a tributary of the Ohio) from French Canada. And a trading post was established there by the French in the early 1700's to trade with the NA'a that frequented the area. As what seems to be the case for much of Kentucky, there were apparently no NA villages or permanent habitations by tribes in the Nashville area during those times. The abundance of game is what attracted the French hunters and trappers. In those days France was trying to claim the Ohio Valley as part of its colonial possessions. When English colonial long hunters from North Carolina and Virginia started hunting and trapping the area prior to the Revolutionary War the area had been visited by the French for several years previously. It was during the Revolutionary War that the settlement that became Nashville was founded. The law now is to have State approval before going forward with construction of that nature on known archaeological sites, thus a salvage excavation was performed by state approved archaeologists and usually paid for by the developer (whoever that is). Wow, it seems like I got a bit long winded this AM. :laugh:
The archaeologists working in the Nashville area are far more committed to public archaeology than a lot of archaeologists in other places around the nation. The Tennessee Division of Archaeology has a designated State Programs Archaeologist (Mr. Mark Norton). A portion of his duties is to go across the state and make archaeological presentations to local archaeological societies and other public groups interested in ancient Americans. They have already talked the Ballpark site to death in public archaeology venues and will continue to do so for years to come. As far as artifacts go, they found a very large amount of salt pan pottery, which is what you would expect of an ancient salt evaporation operation. If the Ballpark construction involved federal funding and was done as part of NEPA, a redacted copy of the site excavation report is (or probably will be) available for public inspection and review in the Nashville Public Library or a designated Federal Reading Room in Nashville.
Some collectors may wonder what they did with the hundreds of whole pots, steatite pipes, ground stone tools, and magnificent lithic artifacts found during the excavations at the Ballpark site. I suspect the answer is simple. They probably did not find much of that sort of stuff---if any. Professional archaeological excavations are great if you like chert flakes, pottery sherds, charred hickory nuts, sweat, sunburn, poison ivy, and insect bites/stings. Really nice, museum grade artifacts are found only rarely.
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