Cliffline Archaeological Survey Project

Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area

A Cooperative Project of the National Park Service and Middle Tennessee State University funded through the Southern Appalachian Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit

Project Directors

Kevin E. Smith, Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) and Tom Des Jean, National Park Service (BIS0)

Background

Since 1996, the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area (National Park Service) and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology (Middle Tennessee State University) have collaboratively sponsored a summer archaeological survey project supporting student interns from MTSU.

During six summer field seasons to date, advanced archaeology students have had the opportunity to work with Tom Des Jean (archaeologist and cultural resource specialist with the National Park Service) for periods of six-twelve weeks conducting archaeological survey work at Big South Fork.

Project Goals

Locate, assess, and record archeological rockshelter sites found along the approximately 750 miles of cliffline within the boundaries of the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area.
Provide MTSU undergraduate student interns with valuable career-training in archeological survey through an intensive experience in a service-learning environment.

Partership Benefits

The project supports BISO efforts to identify its archeological baseline data as defined in the NPS Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA). Specifically, the project is designed to address BISO GPRA Goal Ib.2, a lack of rockshelter site location information. By recording baseline information, the project has enhanced management and protection of these irreplaceable cultural resources.
This project supports the academic mission of the anthropology program at Middle Tennessee State University to provide students with hands-on experience in applying classroom skills in a"real-world" setting

Big South Fork NRRA

Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area includes 125,000 acres in northeast Tennessee and southeast Kentucky managed by the National Park Service. Situated on the the Upper Cumberland Plateau, the elevated sandstone of the plateau here exhibits ridge and hollow topography with elevations ranging from 775 feet in the river basin to over 1600 feet at the ridgetops. Much of the National Area is elevated tableland but eons of erosion by the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River and its tributaries have created deep gorges in the soft sandstone bedrock. This cutting action produced approximately 750 miles of high clifflines but very little terrace or bottomland. The relatively soft sandstone cliffs have also eroded horizontally at the base producing thousands of rock ledge overhangs. These features were used as rockshelter base camps by many of the prehistoric Native American cultures identified throughout the southeast. Rockshelters were also used by later historic settlers as niter mines, cattle pens, moonshine production sites, and occasionally as habitation sites. Many thousands of these types of sites are located within the boundary of the National Area -- but the locations of most remain unrecorded. In order to protect these sites from looting and to effectively manage these important cultural resources, the cooperative archaeological survey project was developed.

Project Information

During the six seasons of survey (1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2003), over sixty miles of cliffline have been surveyed and nearly 250 new archaeological sites recorded. Upon arrival at Big South Fork, students are provided orientation and training in field safety procedures, use of Global Positioning System equipment, NPS field recording requirements, and recognition of certain threatened and endangered plant and animal species.

Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area Over the course of the project, interns have averaged approximately one mile of bluffline per week -- while that might seem small, the survey locations are often miles from existing roads or even trails, requiring much of the day in entry and exit. In addition, survey conditions are extremely rigorous and exhausting - involving steep climbs on rough terrain, often through dense rhododendron thickets (and since the plants are protected, students can't use machetes to cut their way through!). Just for example, after hiking to an access point, students have often been required to crawl on hands-and-knees for thirty minutes and more through rhododendron thickets just to get to their survey location.

Student interns carefully inspect each potential rockshelter for surface artifacts, map and make a representative collection of diagnostics, use a Global Position System to fix the location, measure and draw the site, record any looting episodes, and do photographic recording.

The rockshelter sites range in size from relatively tiny overhangs...