Harvard Archaeologist Digs in South

Almost 3000 years ago, a civilization of a few thousand dominated the Lower Mississippi Valley, building elaborate ceremonial sites and establishing an extensive economics system that included trading for lead and iron ore drum as far away as Illinois.

For the past 30 years, Stephen Williams, Pea body Professor of American Archaeology and Technology, has led the Lower Mississippi Survey, a project of excavations in the valley stretching from the mouth of the Ohio River in the Gulf of Mexico--an area Williams calls the richest archeological site on the continent.

As a result of this work Harvard, Peabody Musuem currently houses a dozen floor to-ceiling cabinets filled with thousands of clay and metal objects holding clues to the prehistoric culture.

The survey is the Museum's longest running project, and C.C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, the director of the museum, notes that the average project usually runs about five to 10 years.

Williams attributes his desire to spend the unusually long time investigating this relatively obscure part of the eastern U.S. to the long unanswered cultural question involved. The ceremonial structures, he says as an example. "are as elaborate as any in the New World--comparable to those in Peru." yet no one knows what they were used for.

Even why the civilization chose to settle in this valley's anyone's guess. There are no outstanding military, agricultural, or other features that would appear to make it advantageous.

The elaborate economic system which has been uncovered also raises question. "Quite literally hundreds of pounds [of raw one] were coming down," from as for away as Illinois says Williams, but no one can explain what these prehistoric men were trading for it.

This summer, the project to focusing on Poverty Point, located some 150 miles north of Baton Rouge. La--the site of an advanced ceremonial center which has attracted archeological attention worldwide. The structures there consist of tall sloping mounds and a series of terraces in the shape of a semi-circle. Their purpose remains a mystery. The excavations have so far uncovered an estimated 23 million "baked clay objects," round irregular lumps of pottery which look like man made rocks.

The researchers have also taken on a different lack for the summer months. The bulk of the work done so far has been excavation, but starting last May, the team has focused on doing the first major surface survey of the land. Williams, who is currently in Cambridge teaching two summer school courses, explains in an interview, that most of the recent findings came from near the surface, in during the group to take the relatively unconventional approach.

The five researchers, including a Harvard graduate and undergraduate, are currently "walking the ground" and doing the "sweat work" to locate the richest sites, according to Williams. They are also talking extensively with the people who live in the area. "They've farmed the land, they know where the sites are," Williams explains.

Such cooperation is a recent blessing for the researchers who have in the past had to actually avoid such sites because of farmers working the land. "Only within the last 10 years has archaeology been recognized as an important part of Louisiana culture," says a Louisiana archeological Kathleen Hyrd.

That recognition prompted the Cajun State to provide matching funds for Williams project In the post funding has crime from the other states in which the research has been carried out--Mississippi, and Louisiana. The private sector and other scientific associations have also contributed money.