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Ancient Indian cemetery found |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Sunday, 26 December 2004 |
Construction work unearths skeletons
By TOMAS ALEX TIZON Los Angeles Times
SEATTLE — If it had been just one skeleton, the project would have continued.
Even a few dozen skeletons might not have been enough to persuade Washington state officials to abandon a $283 million bridge-repair project along the Strait of Juan de Fuca, about 65 miles northwest of here.
But what construction workers stumbled upon went beyond anything ever found in the Pacific Northwest: an Indian village dating back 17 centuries, with lodges, dance halls and cemeteries containing hundreds of skeletal remains. So far, nearly 300 complete skeletons have been unearthed, many of them buried in clusters, including entire extended families.
Men and women lay in ritual embrace. Infants were buried with mothers, the young and the old lay side by side, as many as 11 in one grouping.
“This is just the tip. There could be thousands of people buried there,†said David Rice, a senior archeologist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Seattle, who characterized the site as potentially the largest ancient village and burial grounds ever found in the United States.
Rice said parts of the village, which has been identified as the ancient settlement of Tse-whit-zen, were at least 1,700 years old.
The skeletons are believed to be the ancestors of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, who still live near the site, just outside Port Angeles. The leaders of the 900-member tribe asked the state to halt the construction project. In a letter to transportation officials, tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles explained that the daily exhumations were “just overwhelming everybody.â€
This month, 15 months and $58 million into the project, the state complied. The heavy machines rumbled to a halt. Construction workers began packing up.
The project, part of a major overhaul of the aging Hood Canal Bridge, which connects the Olympic Peninsula to the rest of the state, is on hold.
“Money is money, and we regret we couldn't have made the decision earlier so we could have saved some,†said Doug MacDonald, state secretary of Transportation. “But what has been discovered has an importance that money can't value. We started out fixing one kind of bridge, but we ended up finding a bridge into the past.â€
Tribal members, who have been helping archeologists and construction workers, now must figure out what to do with the unearthed remains. Each complete skeleton has been blessed and placed in a cedar coffin. In addition, workers have found nearly 800 other bones and bone fragments and more than 5,000 artifacts.
The state has given $3 million to the tribe to acquire land and rebury the remains. Some tribal leaders have said they want to return them all to Tse-whit-zen.
The state and tribe have agreed to stop further scientific excavation. Archeologists say the true size and scope of the village and burial grounds might never be known. “This has been wrenching for us,†said Dennis Sullivan, vice chairman of the Lower Elwha Klallam.
The arrival of Europeans in the late 1700s and early 1800s marked the beginning of a devastating decline for the region's Indians. Smallpox and other European diseases wiped out 90 percent of the native population, scientists say. Rice believes the mass graves at Tse-whit-zen resulted from these illnesses.
His ancestors were part of one of the largest Indian nations in the region, made up of 29 villages on the Olympic Peninsula and an additional six in what is now the Canadian province of British Columbia.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/10498891.htm |
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“Even at our birth, death does but stand aside a little. And every day he looks towards us and muses somewhat to himself whether that day or the next he will draw nigh.” Robert Bolt
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
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