New Acquisitions

As the only national non-profit organization that acquires endangered archaeological sites, The Archaeological Conservancy has preserved more than 365 sites across the country. Below are some of the Conservancy's most recent projects.

Contentnea Creek (North Carolina)

The Contentnea Creek site on North Carolina’s Inner Coastal Plain has been periodically occupied by Native Americans for centuries. Archaeologists believe the Native Americans were drawn to the plant and animal resources located around nearby Contentnea Creek.

Artifact dating from approximately 8000 B.C. to the 18th century have been found there, with the most intensive use of the site occurring during the Late Woodland period. Nearly 3,000 features including human and dog burials, postmolds, hearths, and storage pits were recorded. A variety of ceramic types were also found at the site.

The wealth of information recovered from the Contentnea Creek site will provide researchers with a comparative database that will be useful for studying a variety of subjects such as human-dog relationships and radiocarbon dates for pottery types.

Culture & Time Period: 8000 B.C. to the 18th century

Status: Threatened by development

Acquisition: The Conservancy has optioned the property and has until October 10, 2007 to raise $250,000 to complete the purchase.

How you can help: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Contentnea Creek, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108.

Insley Mounds (Louisiana)

The Conservancy’s latest Southeast acquisition is the Insley Mounds site near the town of Delhi, in northeastern Louisiana. Insley was first visited in 1913 by C. B. Moore, the noted archaeologist who traveled the waterways of the Southeast visiting some of the region’s best-known mound sites. Located on the bank of Bayou Macon, Insley has been disturbed by years of cultivation, consequently it’s uncertain how many mounds were built there. But there are three confirmed mounds, and the Conservancy is acquiring all three in three separate puchases.

Culture & Time Period: Middle Archaic Period to Coles Creek Period (5000 B.C. - A.D. 1200)

Status: The mounds have been damaged by erosion and heavy equipment and are threatened by possible waterfront development.

Acquisition: The Conservancy needs to raise $12,000 to match the Lower Mississippi Valley challenge grant and purchase the site.

How you can help: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Insley Site Project, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108.

Spruce Hill (Ohio)

The Archeological Conservancy, working in conjunction with Wilderness East, a central Ohio land trust, and the Conservation Fund, a national environmental organization, has made an emergency acquisition of the Spruce Hill Earthwork near Chillicothe, Ohio. The acquisition prevented the rare earthwork from being sold at an estate auction, where interest from land developers and other parties was high.

The Spruce Hill Earthwork is a Hopewell period (ca. 100 B.C. to A.D. 500) hilltop enclosure encompassing about 140 acres. Its principal feature is a low stone and earthen wall with a stone gateway that circles the top of the hill. Hilltop enclosures are the characteristic Hopewell expression in southwestern Ohio, but the Spruce Hill earthwork is unique in that it’s located in the Paint Creek-Scioto River region of central Ohio.

Culture and Time Period: Hopewell (100 B.C. to A.D. 500)

Status: Saved from development by emergency acquisition.

Acquisition: The Archaeological Conservancy has an outstanding loan of $300,000 from the Conservation Fund. Money is needed to pay down our debt.

How you can help: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy. Attn: Spruce Hill, 5301 Central Avenue NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517.

Spier 142 (New Mexico)

The El Morro Valley saw the rapid establishment of a number of communities during the mid-13th century when thousands of ancestral Puebloan farmers set up permanent residence in this area. It was during this time of transformation that large settlements such as the Conservancy’s latest New Mexico acquisition, known as Spier 142, and another nearby Conservancy preserve, Scribe S, were built in the valley.
           

The new site is considered to be one of the largest Pueblo III period communities in the valley. It was recorded as Site 142 in 1916 by Leslie Spier, an archaeologist with the American Museum of Natural History who worked in the area in the early 20th century. It’s estimated to have 165 masonry rooms in its main roomblock and an additional 195 rooms and a possible great kiva in adjacent areas. This well-preserved site is thought to have at least two and possibly three walled plaza areas.

Culture and Time Period: Proto-Zuni, A.D. 1250 to 1290

Status: Saved from possible development.

Acquisition: The Archaeological Conservancy has an option to purchase 160 acres of the site for $90,000 in a bargain sale to charity.

How you can help: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Spier 142, 5301 Central Avenue, NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517

Pamplin Pipe Factory (Virginia)

Just 10 miles east of Appomattox, where the Civil War ended, is the small, remote town of Pamplin, Virginia. It’s thought that pipe making was underway in Pamplin by the 1740s, shortly after the first settlers arrived, and it developed into a cottage industry. The pipes were made primarily by local women from the nearby deposits of red clay. They were fired in backyard, wood-burning ovens and were then packed in barrels and crates lined with pine needles or sawdust by local storeowners.  Pamplin pipes were shipped all over the United States.

Pamplin’s cottage industry paved the way for the establishment of a factory sometime before 1880 by E. H. Merrill, an Akron, Ohio company that was the leading producer of tobacco pipes in America in the 1850s. The Merrills invented a pipe-making machine, and it’s believed that eight to 10 of these machines were utilized at the Pamplin factory.

Culture and Time Period: 18-20th century.

Status: The site is threatened by possible commercial development.

Acquisition: The Archaeological Conservancy has an option to purchase the site for $77,500.

How you can help: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn: Pamplin Pipe Factory, 5301 Central Ave. NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517.

Gault (Texas)

Located along a creek in Central Texas near the eastern edge of the Edwards Plateau, the Gault site has yielded a dense concentration of artifacts indicating intermittent human occupation spanning more than 13,000 years.  Gault is one of the largest and most prolific Clovis sites in America and it has yielded considerable evidence that challenges the notion that Clovis was the first American culture.

Archaeologist Michael Collins has investigated the site since 1991, and he founded the non-profit Gault School of Archaeological Research to ensure future research at, and public interpretation of, the site. Early last year, Collins purchased a major portion of Gault and recently donated it to the Conservancy for permanent preservation.

Puzzle House (Colorado)

It can be hard to imagine that what are now mounds of sandstone rubble amidst plowed fields were once thriving prehistoric settlements. But these ruins are in fact what remain of the Puzzle House Archaeological Community. The Conservancy holds an option to purchase 154 acres containing the well-preserved ruins of this extensive community in southwest Colorado, which dates from A.D. 650 to 1250. There are several major pueblos, field houses, and other associated activity areas, and three to five prehistoric road segments connecting these outlying settlements with Lowry Pueblo’s monumental Great Kiva and Great House. Lowry Pueblo, a National Historic Landmark within the Bureau of Land Management’s Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, is considered by researchers to be one of the most significant archaeological resources in the Southwest.