Buffalo River projects proceed

Archaeologist updates group

— The Buffalo National River is in the midst of two major projects to record prehistoric and historic cultural sites in the park.

Melissa Baier, archaeologist for the river, which is administered by the National Park Service, said abouttwo-thirds of the Lower Buffalo Wilderness Area has been surveyed for bluff shelters once occupied by American Indians.

The area consists of 22,000 acres, Baier told a group of about 35 at the Boone County Library in Harrison this week. The park in north Arkansas hired four archaeological technicians to do the work, Baier said.

“This is the heart and soul of the archaeology program,” she said.

The park is also conducting a survey of a 14-mile extension of the Buffalo River Trail, from the U.S. 65 bridge at Grinder’s Ferry to Maumee South Campground near Morning Star, Baier said. The extension is a project of the Ozark Society of Fayetteville, which took 2 1/2 years to blaze the extension’s first six miles.

The Buffalo National River, which flows through Newton, Searcy and Marion counties, has about 1.5 million visitors a year, according to park officials. The national park encompasses roughly 95,000 acres and 135 miles of the 150-mile-long river.

It’s Baier’s job to ensure that the trail does not disturb or negatively impact historic sites in the park, which are protected by three federal laws: the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and the Native American Graves Repatriation Act.

It’s her responsibility to find artifacts on the Buffalo and catalog them. In addition to ancient bluff shelters, the park has four districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“We do it because we want to understand past human life, past human behavior,” said Baier, who has two degrees in anthropology.

So far, she’s performed soil tests on two miles of the trail and recorded five undiscovered archaeological sites. Her goal is to be finished by December, she said.

“I only have 12 more [miles] to go,” she said, drawing laughter from the audience.

When conducting “shovel tests,” she digs a hole that must be at least 1 foot in diameter and about 1 foot, 7 inches deep. She puts some of the dirt in a bag and writes down the date and the site.

“Usually I find chipped stone,” she said. “SometimesI find some rusty nails. I find cigarette butts.”

The previous bluff shelter survey was completed in 2003. The latest survey is in the first year of a five-year plan to record previously unidentified shelters, revisit known sites and identify looted sites, she said.

“Right now we don’t know where all the sites are, so we can’t protect them,” she said in an interview Wednesday.

Looting has become a major problem, not only on the Buffalo but in federal parks across the country, Baier said. Digging in a bluff shelter for arrowheads on any archaeological site constitutes looting, for example.

The protection act addresses thievery of artifacts from federal property, she said.

“They don’t even have to take anything out of a hole,”she said. “They just need to intend to take something out of it.”

Some audience members asked what they should do if they come across evidence of looting, such as a freshly dug hole on a trail or bluff shelter.

“Leave the site as it was when you found it,” she said, adding that they shouldn’t even pick up litter left behind.

“That trash is evidence,” she said. “It could have their fingerprints on it.”

Baier marked her second anniversary as the park’s archaeologist on Tuesday. She said so far her work has supported the recordings of previous archaeologists.

“It’s not boring at all,” she said. “I love it.”

Her talk on Tuesday was part of a monthly program sponsored by the Buffalo National River Partners, a nonprofit organization whose mission is “preserve, protect and promote” the river, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.

The Harrison-based group formed in 1998 and has 61 members, said President Sybil Craig.

The membership varies; some want to help build and maintain the park’s trails, and some help with occasional river cleanups, she said.

“We all have different aspects that we focus on, but we all love [the park],” she said. “That is the thread that runs through the organization.”

The park will hold a 40th anniversary event from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. on Saturday at the Tyler Bend pavilion, near the visitor center, 11 miles north of Marshall on U.S. 65.

To contact this reporter:

[email protected]

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11 on 08/31/2012

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