Post by blackcrowheart on Jun 13, 2007 14:55:16 GMT -5
No, it's not Cahokia … … it's West County By Stephen Deere ST.
LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Amateur archeologist Mark Leach cleared the trees from this burial mound
to help prevent looters from digging for artifacts. Over the last 18
months, with the help of others, Leach has added about 30,000 pounds of
fill soil to restore the mound.
(Jarrett Baker/P-D)
West St. Louis County — He steered his red Volvo to the side of the
road and pointed to a spot in the woods. The land rose and fell slightly
— a bump in the landscape.
"Here," Mark Leach said. "You're seeing the mound. If you're not knowing
what to look for, you'd pass right by it."
He climbed out of the car and walked up the gentle slope, the sound of
dead leaves crunching beneath his dress shoes.
At the top of the mound, three large holes appeared in the ground.
Someone had dug into the soil, and it looked like they found something
of value — proof that another looter found treasured relics in a
mound left behind by early Native Americans.
"The people who are looting — if they did one and found nothing,
they wouldn't come back," he said.
Leach, an amateur archaeologist, is hoping at least one West County city
will pass a law to help crack down on the robbing of ancient burial
sites.
He's also trying to persuade people to adopt mounds and watch over them.
"It's just one person who is going to say, 'They may bulldoze every
other mound in Missouri or loot every other mound, but not this one,'"
Leach said.
Not long ago, thousands of burial mounds dotted the landscape in west
St. Louis County.
Archaeologists now estimate there are probably fewer than 20 in
Chesterfield and surrounding cities. Most have become casualties of
development, buried beneath subdivisions and parking lots.
Others, like the one Leach inspected recently beside Wild Horse Creek
Road in Wildwood, have become victims to decades of looting.
Relic hunters search for pottery, arrowheads and other artifacts. Some
pottery can fetch as much as $1,000. And the proliferation of online
auction houses, such as eBay, fuels the trade.
"I ran into a dentist who quit his job and basically goes out and loots
from burial and archaeological sites," said Joe Harl, an archaeologist
with the Archaeological Research Center of St. Louis. "They can make
quite a bit money."
So far, efforts to preserve the area's ancient heritage have had mixed
success.
"The problem is that the bad people know where to find mounds and loot
them," Leach said.
Earliest settlers
Drawn by the Missouri River, the earliest known settlers arrived in the
Chesterfield area between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago, archaeologists
believe.
The river's bluffs offered protection from floods and gave them an
abundant supply of flint for making tools.
It's difficult to say when the first burial mounds appeared in the area
because they have never been professionally studied, said Leach, 43, who
has written the book, "A Guide to Chesterfield's Ancient History." But
he guesses the earliest one was built about 4,000 years ago.
Not all of the mounds were used as burial sites. Some were platforms for
the homes of the elite. Others could have simply been markers to signal
ownership.
The early settlers populated the area up until about 700 years ago, Harl
said.
Then they mysteriously disappeared.
Theories abound for why they vanished. Whatever the case, no written
records of the area's prehistoric people have been discovered. So
researchers don't even know what they called themselves, and it is
impossible to link them to modern-day Native American tribes.
Leach's own interest in the area's ancient history began 10 years ago.
He and his two sons were hunting for tadpoles in a neighborhood creek
when one found an interesting rock.
"It looked like a stone knife," he said.
Leach took it to an archaeologist.
"She said 'Oh, yeah, you can barely turn over a clod of dirt in
Chesterfield without finding that, and that one is only about 4,000
years old,'" he recalled. "That was it. I was hooked … I wanted to
know more."
The law
About 20 years ago, Missouri enacted a law making it a felony to
knowingly rob an unmarked burial site. But no one has ever been
prosecuted under it, said Judith Deel, an archaeologist with the
Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
Local law enforcement agencies are responsible for enforcing it, but
many don't have the interest or the resources to pursue looters, Deel
said.
Leach wants Chesterfield to adopt a law that calls for a fine of up to
$5,000 or up to 120 days in jail for vandalizing an ancient burial site.
He also wants the city to require an archaeological study of land before
construction projects begin.
He presented a written proposal at a recent City Council meeting.
Michael Geisel, Chesterfield's public works director, said the city is
considering the proposal but needs to study the details.
"It's just a concept right now," he said.
Leach also is recruiting people to watch over the mounds. Don Prestien,
a former West County farmer, has been watching over two mounds in
Chesterfield for the past few years.
"A lot of effort went in to putting these things up," he said. "I just
feel that we should have a little respect for some of the work that came
before us."
On different occasions, Prestien has spotted places where looters have
dug into a mound, and he has filled the holes to keep acid from fallen
leaves from leaching into the ground.
Atop remains
While he drove his Volvo through West County, Leach noted subdivisions
and elementary schools that sit atop the remains of ancient villages.
At a private school in Chesterfield, he walked along the edge of a
soccer field. The site was once home to a U-shaped settlement about
1,200 years ago, perhaps a satellite community of Illinois' Cahokia
empire, which once had between 10,000 and 20,000 residents. Today, the
Cahokia Mounds remain the region's most famous Native American burial
grounds.
A few hundred yards away from the Chesterfield school stood the largest
surviving mound in St. Louis County: the 20-foot-high Blake Mound, named
after Leonard Blake, another amateur archaeologist who began documenting
the county's Native American sites in the 1930s.
Leach didn't want the location published, for fear it would attract more
looters.
For more than a year, he and area college students have worked to
restore the damage done by looters.
It took more than 186,000 basket-loads of dirt to build up the
conical-shaped hill, Leach said.
"To date we've put over 30,000 pounds of fill soil into it, filling in
damaged areas," he said.
He stooped down to pick up little pieces of flint, used for tool-making
and left behind centuries ago.
"You see a lot of it, all over the place," he said.
LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Amateur archeologist Mark Leach cleared the trees from this burial mound
to help prevent looters from digging for artifacts. Over the last 18
months, with the help of others, Leach has added about 30,000 pounds of
fill soil to restore the mound.
(Jarrett Baker/P-D)
West St. Louis County — He steered his red Volvo to the side of the
road and pointed to a spot in the woods. The land rose and fell slightly
— a bump in the landscape.
"Here," Mark Leach said. "You're seeing the mound. If you're not knowing
what to look for, you'd pass right by it."
He climbed out of the car and walked up the gentle slope, the sound of
dead leaves crunching beneath his dress shoes.
At the top of the mound, three large holes appeared in the ground.
Someone had dug into the soil, and it looked like they found something
of value — proof that another looter found treasured relics in a
mound left behind by early Native Americans.
"The people who are looting — if they did one and found nothing,
they wouldn't come back," he said.
Leach, an amateur archaeologist, is hoping at least one West County city
will pass a law to help crack down on the robbing of ancient burial
sites.
He's also trying to persuade people to adopt mounds and watch over them.
"It's just one person who is going to say, 'They may bulldoze every
other mound in Missouri or loot every other mound, but not this one,'"
Leach said.
Not long ago, thousands of burial mounds dotted the landscape in west
St. Louis County.
Archaeologists now estimate there are probably fewer than 20 in
Chesterfield and surrounding cities. Most have become casualties of
development, buried beneath subdivisions and parking lots.
Others, like the one Leach inspected recently beside Wild Horse Creek
Road in Wildwood, have become victims to decades of looting.
Relic hunters search for pottery, arrowheads and other artifacts. Some
pottery can fetch as much as $1,000. And the proliferation of online
auction houses, such as eBay, fuels the trade.
"I ran into a dentist who quit his job and basically goes out and loots
from burial and archaeological sites," said Joe Harl, an archaeologist
with the Archaeological Research Center of St. Louis. "They can make
quite a bit money."
So far, efforts to preserve the area's ancient heritage have had mixed
success.
"The problem is that the bad people know where to find mounds and loot
them," Leach said.
Earliest settlers
Drawn by the Missouri River, the earliest known settlers arrived in the
Chesterfield area between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago, archaeologists
believe.
The river's bluffs offered protection from floods and gave them an
abundant supply of flint for making tools.
It's difficult to say when the first burial mounds appeared in the area
because they have never been professionally studied, said Leach, 43, who
has written the book, "A Guide to Chesterfield's Ancient History." But
he guesses the earliest one was built about 4,000 years ago.
Not all of the mounds were used as burial sites. Some were platforms for
the homes of the elite. Others could have simply been markers to signal
ownership.
The early settlers populated the area up until about 700 years ago, Harl
said.
Then they mysteriously disappeared.
Theories abound for why they vanished. Whatever the case, no written
records of the area's prehistoric people have been discovered. So
researchers don't even know what they called themselves, and it is
impossible to link them to modern-day Native American tribes.
Leach's own interest in the area's ancient history began 10 years ago.
He and his two sons were hunting for tadpoles in a neighborhood creek
when one found an interesting rock.
"It looked like a stone knife," he said.
Leach took it to an archaeologist.
"She said 'Oh, yeah, you can barely turn over a clod of dirt in
Chesterfield without finding that, and that one is only about 4,000
years old,'" he recalled. "That was it. I was hooked … I wanted to
know more."
The law
About 20 years ago, Missouri enacted a law making it a felony to
knowingly rob an unmarked burial site. But no one has ever been
prosecuted under it, said Judith Deel, an archaeologist with the
Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
Local law enforcement agencies are responsible for enforcing it, but
many don't have the interest or the resources to pursue looters, Deel
said.
Leach wants Chesterfield to adopt a law that calls for a fine of up to
$5,000 or up to 120 days in jail for vandalizing an ancient burial site.
He also wants the city to require an archaeological study of land before
construction projects begin.
He presented a written proposal at a recent City Council meeting.
Michael Geisel, Chesterfield's public works director, said the city is
considering the proposal but needs to study the details.
"It's just a concept right now," he said.
Leach also is recruiting people to watch over the mounds. Don Prestien,
a former West County farmer, has been watching over two mounds in
Chesterfield for the past few years.
"A lot of effort went in to putting these things up," he said. "I just
feel that we should have a little respect for some of the work that came
before us."
On different occasions, Prestien has spotted places where looters have
dug into a mound, and he has filled the holes to keep acid from fallen
leaves from leaching into the ground.
Atop remains
While he drove his Volvo through West County, Leach noted subdivisions
and elementary schools that sit atop the remains of ancient villages.
At a private school in Chesterfield, he walked along the edge of a
soccer field. The site was once home to a U-shaped settlement about
1,200 years ago, perhaps a satellite community of Illinois' Cahokia
empire, which once had between 10,000 and 20,000 residents. Today, the
Cahokia Mounds remain the region's most famous Native American burial
grounds.
A few hundred yards away from the Chesterfield school stood the largest
surviving mound in St. Louis County: the 20-foot-high Blake Mound, named
after Leonard Blake, another amateur archaeologist who began documenting
the county's Native American sites in the 1930s.
Leach didn't want the location published, for fear it would attract more
looters.
For more than a year, he and area college students have worked to
restore the damage done by looters.
It took more than 186,000 basket-loads of dirt to build up the
conical-shaped hill, Leach said.
"To date we've put over 30,000 pounds of fill soil into it, filling in
damaged areas," he said.
He stooped down to pick up little pieces of flint, used for tool-making
and left behind centuries ago.
"You see a lot of it, all over the place," he said.