Shiloh Indian Mounds

So after a week of geophysical work at Etowah Indian Mounds in Cartersville, Georgia, I decided on my drive back to Fayetteville to make a detour along southern Tennessee and visit the Shiloh Military Park which also contains the Shiloh Indian Mounds. Of course, I was excited to visit the military park but I was just as excited to visit the mounds.

When I checked into the visitor center, I was told that the road leading to the Shiloh Indian Mounds was closed for construction. Bummer, I thought. Once I got around to the closed off road, I realized that I could easily walk back to the mounds. So after a call to the wife stating that if she doesn't hear from me in an hour (being arrested for trespassing on federal property), I started walking across the open field toward the Tennessee River and the Indian mounds.

National Cemetery entrance at Shiloh

Cannons and monuments are throughout the 4,000 acre park

"Area Closed". That didn't stop me. I was going to see the mounds.

I cut across this field...

.. to get to the closed road.

The machinery blocking the road didn't faze me.

Continuing down the closed road toward the river it became very hot and sticky (no breeze) but I was finally able to see the mounds in the distance. Mound F can be seen through the trees.

Mound A as seen through the unmanaged part of the park. This area really needs some work clearing out dead trees and brush.


A sweaty explorer with Mound A in the background. Mound E is to the left.

Mud, Cow Poo and Geophysics

Well, here I am again doing more surveying at Battle Mound for my thesis. This Caddo mound site is enormous and it seems endless but I'm getting good results. This past week has been one of the oddest, in terms of weather. The first day was spent discovering that the cows had completely destroyed the grid that was left from last November. It was expected that some of the PVC corner pipes would be missing, but out of 160 or so, only three remained. The rest were scattered about, often far from where they were placed. With help from Jamie Brandon and Clay Newton, we were able to reorient ourselves and this time we set the datum within the fenced area at the north base of the mound. After taking care of that situation, we were ready to head out the next day and start collecting data.

One problem. An ice storm in Magnolia hit that night and going out to the site was made impossible - not to mention very cold. So, it was a day spent at the Arkansas Archeological Survey working on getting the details worked out with the Trimble GeoXT that I am testing. Did I mention that ice storms in SW Arkansas are rare?

Anyway, the next day we headed out late because it was still wet and cold out. We were concerned about getting to the site with all the wet weather but with a little high school 4x4 knowledge, I drove the big Dodge survey truck out to the site with no problems. The site was very muddy and after slushing around a bit, the first set of grids were set up to start collecting. I collected 19 grids that day - spaced at .5 meter transects - over an area that had previously resulted in high daub concentrations during surface collections.

Today I collected an additional 28 grids (again at .5 meter) and my feet are killing me. It was another day of slushing around in the mud either collecting GPS data or collecting Mag data. Unfortunately, my cheap rubber boots DO have a metal shank in them so I was unable to use them during mag survey - which has led to wet feet and mucho blisters while surveying in my non-waterproof tennis shoes. Oh well. This morning at the site was very nice with a low fog. It was still and quiet. Birds could be heard from far away either chirping or banging their beaks on trees. Cows in both distant and near fields could be heard moo'ing and every now and then duck hunters would release a rapid fire of ammo, echoing the air with noise.

Tomorrow is my last day for this visit and I expect to collect an additional 22 grids in some key areas. This puts me shy of almost 70 grids that I had hoped to do but the weather (and my feet) just didn't hold out.











Oh, one other thing. It's amazing how destructive cows are to the environment. Sure, I realized this from various images but I never saw first hand until walking around the site and seeing the areas where the cows have turned areas into a muddy mess, damaged trees with their scratching and rubbing and created deep grass-less trails throughout the site. This doesn't even take into consideration the smell of cow feces that permeates the entire site and is deposited in every imaginable spot. It's too bad. This is an important Caddo site that should be preserved better.

Is there a (P) in Remote Sensing?

Recently I attended a very informative lecture entitled Remote Sensing for the Environment hosted by CAST as part of the AmericaView Annual Conference. It was a pretty standard overview lecture of remote sensing with topics on the history and development, current application and future directions. What made it important was that Dr. John R. Jensen, a pioneer in remote sensing applications, presented it. Sure, some historical applications were presented that I was not aware of that were really interesting. For example, during the US Civil War, men would climb into a balloon and rise up to elevation not to far out of reach of surface weaponry. Their goal was to take aerial photographs of enemy troop infrastructure and offensive battle front lines. Not surprisingly, no aerial photographs from the Civil War exist – the photographers where probably all shot out of the balloon. Sometimes ideas that seem perfect are just not thought through with regard to consequences. We (the human race) still do this kind of “blinders on” planning. But it was not so much the past idiotic and overly daring applications that made me wonder. It was the some of the current applications – and more so the current resolutions – of remote sensing today and projected for tomorrow.
Let me start by saying I’m all for remote sensing. I think when used properly it has amazing benefits for many disciplines – environment, geography, geology, archaeology, etc. It’s no small secret that the development of remote sensing is primarily advanced in military applications until it becomes declassified and cost effective for civilian use. That’s just the way it goes and the way it will continue to proceed. But how far is too much? In the lecture Dr. Jensen was discussing satellites that currently have a resolution of 6 inches. At a resolution of 6 inches one could discern what kind of pizza (a large pizza – enough to get at least four data points) someone is eating from space. One part of me says, sweet.. applications in archaeology will really benefit from this high resolution. The other part says, what about privacy? It’s a tough dilemma. Here’s the topper. Currently, along political borders, a specttrophotometric X-ray that uses gamma rays to penetrate and bounce back based on densities of objects in order to create a 3D X-ray model – similar to ground penetrating radar - is often used. Its application along the border is used for the detection of contraband, of course. Certainly this is an applicable application. Currently, this technology is not airborne but as Dr. Jensen mentioned, developing the technology in an aerial capacity is in development - satellite X-ray to see into houses, buildings and under the ground. As I left the lecture, I am torn, confused and concerned. Seeing into the ground can have excellent applications in archaeology, but it can have serious ramifications to privacy. One could also speculate that if this X-ray technology is being used in a declassified manner (openly along borders), what level of classified developments exist that are currently being used in military applications?