Tulsa World, Okla., Action Line Column: Tulsa County Soil Rich With Archaeology Sites

Nov 05, 08:51 AM

Current Headlines: By Phil Mulkins, Tulsa World, Okla.

Nov. 5--Dear Action Line: Your Friday column on human remains found on BOK Center grounds was interesting, especially the part about the state archaeologist examining them. Is there an archaeology department or some state archaeological function and are there any archaeological sites in Tulsa County? -- D.I.G., Tulsa.

Oklahoma Archaeological Survey: Try 1,679 sites! The Survey is funded by grants and operates out of the University of Oklahoma at Norman. Visit its Web site at www.tulsaworld.com/archeology or e-mail State Archaeologist Robert L. Brooks at rbrooks@ou.edu. He is an OU anthropology professor, with the Survey since 1981.

Mission statement: It researches Oklahoma's archaeological record, works with state and federal agencies and Oklahomans to preserve archaeological sites and offers information on Oklahoma's cultural heritage by publication and presentation. It joins the State Historic Preservation Office and the Oklahoma Historical Society in preserving Oklahoma's archaeological resources.

Dig these digs: A 2004 inventory of federally

funded archaeological site reviews, required by the National His toric Preservation Act, revealed 41,640 projects or reiterations of projects examined by the Survey since 1977, the year it began evaluating them. Including 20,000 site files for the Natural Resource Conservation Service and the Oklahoma Department of Transportation since the 1990s, the total number is around 61,000 projects, from 1977 through 2004. Harmon County has the fewest at 74 and Tulsa County the most at 1,679 -- compiled in the "Oklahoma Atlas of Archaeological Sites and Management Activities," by Brooks. See www.tulsaworld.com/digs.

Sewage pits to toilet paper: In 1988, Kimberly-Clark Corp. initiated an archaeological survey of land along the Arkansas River in Tulsa County where it intended to build its plant along 131st Street, between Harvard Avenue and Sheridan Road -- a tissue factory. The survey was expedited using a Ditch Witch trenching machine by University of Tulsa archaeologist George Odell. The team found an early, historic-period site with both 18th-century Native American artifacts and European trade goods. As the site was important to the understanding of this little-known period, a two-month salvage excavation was commenced. Odell determined the site's extent, its artifact types, distribution and concentration. Time constraints forced the upper, plowed portion to be removed with a belly loader. Soil smears revealed where storage cellars, trash and sewage pits and hearths had been, and 81 features were excavated.

WAY back: Oklahoma's Archaic Period (pre-Clovis, prehistoric) could go back 34,000 years, as implied by a dig in Woods County where stone-tool flakes, associated with giant Pleistocene mammals, have been unearthed in the Burnham site. Other sites belong to the Village Farming Period (1,200 to 500 years ago), the Woodland Period (2,000 to 1,200 years ago), the PaleoIndian Period (12,000 to 8,000 years ago) and the Archaic Period (12,000 to 35,000 years ago).

------

Submit Action Line questions to 699-8888. Action Line pursues consumer complaints submitted with photocopies of documentation to Tulsa World Action Line, P.O. Box 1770, Tulsa, OK 74102-1770.

-----

To see more of the Tulsa World, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.tulsaworld.com.

Copyright (c) 2007, Tulsa World, Okla.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

NYSE:KMB,