‘Big, archaeological mystery’ Corps archaeologist shows off Rolling Fork finds

Published 11:45 am Wednesday, August 17, 2011

ROLLING FORK — Leaving burned corncobs around the house to keep mosquitoes away is a tip archaeologists learned while excavating an area that had been planned for the site of a $6 million museum.

“It was a big, archaeological mystery,” Chris Koeppel of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told about 50 people at the monthly Lower Delta Talks in Rolling Fork Tuesday night. “Why do you find little pits with burned corncobs all around the house? We talked to some Native Americans and found that (they) keep the mosquitoes out. We had all sorts of theories.”

The corncobs are part of more than 130,000 artifacts discovered by Corps and Panamerican archaeologists on 2.5 acres of a 33-acre site off U.S. 61 North purchased in April 2010 by the U.S. Department of Defense. Planned at the property was a museum dedicated to history and life in the Mississippi Delta, set to open in June 2012.

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But the project was halted after Native American burial grounds were discovered and funding cuts were announced.

What was discovered during the months of digging was “an enormous density of human activity on one, little spot,” said Koeppel, the Corps environmental section team leader on the project.

“What we bought was smack-dab in the middle of an historic village,” he said. “We got great evidence out of the pits. They’re full of animal bones, full of broken tools, old pottery. It gave us a lot of details into what these people were doing.”

“A lot of these things I didn’t even know about,” said longtime Rolling Fork resident Lucy Boykin.

Also at the site is the 93-year-old iconic Red Barn, which was not to be part of the museum.

The barn collapsed in April due to heavy winds and years of neglect. Preservation talks are in the works, Koeppel said.

“We want to see it redone, but it’s going to cost a lot of money,” Boykin said. “We’re hoping we can at least do part of it back. It’s a landmark to this community.”

The artifacts found at the site show evidence of a sprawling community that dates to the 1300s, Koeppel said. The discoveries are being cleaned and examined. Many will be housed at the Cobb Institute of Archaeology, a research center at Mississippi State University, while others will be returned to Rolling Fork.

“Archaeologists love pottery,” Koeppel said. “Pottery is a great technology that has been shared across the world. At some places, it was passed from one civilization to another.”

Though work has stopped, the site remains federal property, Koeppel said: “We still have a responsibility to maintain it.”

But, “right now, there is no funding,” he said. “We’re talking to the (Mississippi Department of Archives and History) and the tribes for the best way to maintain it.”

In downtown Vicksburg, the Corps is working to build the Lower Mississippi River Museum and Interpretive Center, a $16 million facility that will include the dry-docked MV Mississippi IV, a Corps vessel.

The completion for the museum and interpretive center is set for August 2012.