New Deal Archaeology in Tennessee: Intellectual, Methodological, and Theoretical Contributions

By David H. Dye, Thaddeus G. Bissett, Jessica Dalton-Carriger and 12 more

New Deal Archaeology in Tennessee is a collection of essays that explore how contemporary archaeology was catalyzed and shaped by the archaeological revolution during the New Deal era.

New Deal Archaeology in Tennessee tells the engrossing story of Southeastern archaeology in the 1930s. The Tennessee Valley Authority Act of May 1933 initiated an ambitious program of flood control and power generation by way of a chain of hydroelectric dams on the Tennessee River. The construction of these dams flooded hundreds of thousands of square miles of river bottoms, campsites, villages, and towns that had been homes to Native Americans for centuries. This triggered an urgent need to undertake extensive archaeological fieldwork throughout the region. Those studies continue to influence contemporary archaeology.
 
The state of Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley were especially well suited research targets thanks to their mild climate and long field seasons. A third benefit in the 1930s was the abundance of labor supplied by Tennesseans unemployed during the Great Depression. Within months of the passage of the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, teams of archaeologists fanned out across the state and region under the farsighted direction of Smithsonian Institution curators Neil M. Judd, Frank H. H. Roberts, and Frank M. Setzler. The early months of 1934 would become the busiest period of archaeological fieldwork in US history.
 
The twelve insightful essays in New Deal Archaeology in Tennessee document and explore this unique peak in archaeological study. Chapters highlight then-new techniques such as mound “peeling” and stratigraphic excavation adapted from the University of Chicago; the four specific New Deal sites of Watts Bar Reservoir, Mound Bottom, Pack, and Chickamauga Basin; bioarchaeology in the New Deal; and the enduring impact of the New Deal on contemporary fieldwork.
 
The challenges of the 1930s in recruiting skilled labor, training unskilled ancillary labor, developing and improvising new field methods, and many aspects of archaeological policies, procedures, and best-practices laid much of the foundation of contemporary archaeological practice. New Deal Archaeology in Tennessee offers an invaluable record of that pivotal time for professional, student, and amateur archaeologists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Release date: Jun 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9780817389581

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grateful.

An Overview of Federal Work Relief Projects in Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley, 1933–1942

An Introduction

David H. Dye

In the decade between the worldwide economic depression that began in late 1929 and the mobilization for World War II in early 1942, North American archaeology came of age and underwent major substantive developments in field methods, interpretative stances, laboratory techniques, and publication standards (Browman 2002; Dye 1991; Fagette 1996; Haag 1961, 1985; Griffin 1976; Guthe 1952; Hawley and Dye 2011; Lyon 1996; Means 2011, 2013; Setzler and Strong 1936; Sullivan et al. 2011). President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation was not only the engine of economic recovery, but also archaeological innovation. The basic and fundamental needs and procedures for conducting archaeology were also proposed and implemented during this time (Haag 1973, 1986). As Carl Guthe (1952:5) later observed, the growth in American archaeology as a result of the New Deal era was explosive. Likewise, William G. Haag proclaimed that these changes represented nothing less than a revolution in American archaeology (1985:278). These momentous events, born of poverty, suffering, and unemployment for thousands during the 1930s and the federal government’s desire to alleviate the national plight forever changed North American archaeology. Contemporary archaeology owes a great deal to the multiple federal work relief efforts, the New Deal policies, and the impetus on the part of archaeologists to achieve a more scientifically oriented archaeology in the face of overwhelming bureaucratic and logistical obstacles.

Understanding New Deal archaeology, and the economic, political, and social world in which it was born, provides an appreciation not only of the origins of modern approaches to archaeology, but also their current practice. James B. Griffin (1976) lists 14 benefits of the relief labor programs that are as relevant today as they were when he penned them. Foremost among these developments was transforming the orientation of Eastern United States archaeology from a primarily timeless culture area approach to a chronological-developmental strategy (Griffin 1976:28). The New Deal ushered in the first revolution in American archaeology and prepared the foundation for the second revolution in the 1960s (Binford 1962; Taylor 1972). As Bernard Means (2013:2) notes, many people today, including some archaeologists, are largely unaware of the significant contributions made by New Deal archaeologists. Nowhere is this truer than with the archaeological projects in Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley.

The Smithsonian Institution assumed overall direction for the New Deal relief programs, making sure the scientific results would be as complete and extensive as possible. The institution’s leadership included curators Neil M. Judd, Frank H. H. Roberts, and Frank M. Setzler. Matthew W. Stirling held the position of Smithsonian Institution chief and oversaw the management of the various programs. The Works Progress Administration established a national office to oversee archaeological projects and required quarterly progress reports to be submitted to the United States National Museum’s Department of Anthropology (Guthe 1952). Haag (1973:3) notes that much of the research was slightly on the frantic side since the problems confronted were hardly scientific but rather administrative and bureaucratic. For example, the original plans failed to incorporate assistants and field supervisors who were trained in archaeology. This in turn prevented the accurate planning needed for the completion of productive scientific investigations (Setzler and Strong 1936:114–115).

Guthe (1952:6) observes that the winter and spring months of 1934 will stand in history as a period of greatest field activity in eastern United States archaeology. In spite of almost insurmountable physical and administrative difficulties, these projects contributed immensely to our knowledge of the subject, as is evidenced by the publications resulting from the work. Haag (1973:8) notes, No excavations in modern times exceeded the care with which notes were taken and archaeological material collected than those of the [New Deal] TVA operations. Field research improved greatly over the course of the New Deal era, and archaeologists came of age in their efforts to develop and augment the basic framework and policies for conducting archaeological research.

After almost five and a half years of federally sponsored archaeology, a committee composed of William D. Strong (chair), J. O. Brew, Fay-Cooper Cole, A. V. Kidder, W. C. McKern, William S. Webb, and Clark Wissler was appointed in April 1939 and convened in June to evaluate and to study the basic needs of American archaeology, especially in light of recent and ongoing New Deal archaeology. The committee, organized within the Division of Anthropology and Psychology of the National Research Council (NRC), was deeply concerned with past and current federal and state New Deal programs that were being carried out by untrained persons and without well-defined aims (Guthe 1939:528). They argued that the aim of American archaeology should be making the past live again and preserving for posterity the story of the rise and spread of early cultures on this continent. Foremost of their concerns was the necessity that investigators provide a definite need for the solution of a well-defined archeological problem or the conservation of prehistoric material placed in jeopardy by public works or other agencies, whether natural or human (Guthe 1939:528). They argued that unless the proposed minimum requirements of scientific archaeology could be fully met by any federal, state, or local institution, then the archaeological fieldwork should not be undertaken.

To correct these deficiencies, the committee set forth minimal requirements for future fieldwork funded by federal and state governments, and local institutions, including colleges, museums, and universities. The committee quickly circulated a confidential mimeographed set of recommendations concerning the excavation techniques, methods, policies, procedures, and publication plans for New Deal bureaucrats, project directors, and field supervisors. The results were subsequently published in synoptic form in the December 8, 1939, issue of Science as a public statement of the need for scientific goals of archaeology (Guthe 1939). Despite the shortcomings and hasty beginnings, especially the early New Deal efforts, the committee’s corrective policies brought about improvements that resulted in more successful New Deal projects and prompted new approaches and perspectives for the conduct of archaeological practice (Krieger 1940).

Tennessee and Tennessee Valley New Deal Archaeology

Much of Tennessee’s New Deal archaeology was part and parcel of Tennessee Valley archaeology, which expanded in breadth and scope in the 1930s through the passage of the New Deal legislation (Table I.1). As part of the 100 days that Roosevelt had congressional support, he signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act on May 18, 1933. Passage of the act created an almost immediate need for archaeological investigation within the valley (Kennedy 1999:148). The congressional charter provided for economic development, electrical power generation, fertilizer manufacture, flood control, improved navigation, and public recreation, but unfortunately, while important to archaeologists and concerned citizens, the study of prehistory was not a federal priority.

Tennessee had been especially hard-hit by the Great Depression. To compound matters, the Tennessee Valley had witnessed intense deforestation through rampant removal of the old growth timber and extensive surface mining prior to the 1930s, which resulted in widespread devastation, especially increased flooding and soil erosion (Yarnell 1998:21). By the early 1930s, croplands had been severely eroded due to poor farm management, such as plowing hillsides and neglecting the use of phosphate fertilizers. The Great Depression heaped additional misery upon an already destitute and stressed population in the Tennessee Valley, especially the Appalachian region of eastern Tennessee. Many of the households remained economically frozen in the nineteenth century because of a lack of basic necessities that had by then become a standard part of the American lifestyle for much of the United States: gas-power machinery, indoor plumbing, and a rural electric grid. The level of mundane drudgery imposed by the dismal poverty and lack of power sources was appalling. Malaria, smallpox, and typhoid claimed numerous victims, as health care in the Tennessee Valley lagged behind the rest of the country (TVA 2013). As many as half the inhabitants along the smaller Tennessee Valley streams suffered from endemic malaria (Morgan 1974:86).

With the establishment of the TVA, plans quickly commenced for building the first dams that would inundate the Tennessee River: first, Norris Dam on October 1, 1933, in eastern Tennessee and then Wheeler Dam on November 21, 1933, in northern Alabama. The impending destruction of archaeological sites that would take place in these reservoirs increased awareness of the need for field investigations among concerned and interested citizens and local, state, and federal scientific organizations. As early as August 1933, just months after passage of the TVA bill, interested archaeologists and the public at large pointed out that inundating the Tennessee Valley would destroy an immense and irreplaceable archaeological record, even if performed in the public interest, unless some plan of conservation and mitigation could be implemented (Judd 1933). The means for undertaking these investigations soon became available through funding from the Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA) created in May 1933 and FERA’s Civil Works Administration (CWA), which was unveiled by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on November 8, 1933 (DeJarnette 1935; Gough 1935; Jones 1935:47–48; TVA 1940a,b; Webb 1939a:1–2). Almost immediately after the passage of the TVA and federal work relief legislation, numerous large-scale, multistate archaeological salvage programs were created (Fagette 1996; Haag 1973, 1985; Lyon 1996:123–169; Olinger and Howard 2009).

In the fall of 1933 the National Research Council created a subcommittee to implement a plan that would mitigate the impending destruction of archaeological sites in the Tennessee Valley, acting on the advice of Arthur E. Morgan, the new TVA board chairman, and in cooperation with the Science Advisory Board and the Smithsonian Institution. The Carnegie Corporation provided a grant of 2,000 dollars for the plan to be evaluated and studied (Guthe 1952:5–6). The TVA hosted the planning conference that was held in Knoxville in December to discuss the issue of scientifically investigating the proposed TVA reservoir basins. It had been decided that the work would be under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution, so Neil M. Judd, curator of archaeology at the Smithsonian Institution, served as a consultant to the subcommittee. In addition to Judd, members included representatives of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the University of Alabama, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Tennessee. David L. DeJarnette, director of the Alabama Statewide Archaeological Program, was the only archaeologist invited who had formal archaeological training—having been a student in the 1932 Chicago field school in Fulton County, Illinois. Most of the individuals at the meeting were either federal or state administrators.

Difficulties immediately arose in finding a qualified archaeologist who would agree to take on the task of not only directing the fieldwork, but also serving as consulting archaeologist to the TVA. After W. C. McKern turned down the position, William S. Webb accepted the committee’s offer (Haag 1973; Lyon 1996; Webb 1939a:2). The main committee charge centered on how archaeologists and bureaucratic officials would plan, allocate, and implement funding for the proposed work in the Norris and Wheeler Reservoirs to take place early in January 1934. The resulting plan called for dispensing funds for fieldwork labor by the CWA, which had become available on November 9, 1933, and for administrative support for supervisors by the TVA.

In January 1934, the Smithsonian Institution inaugurated 11 CWA projects employing some 1,500 workers in seven states. One of these CWA projects was located in Alabama (Wheeler Basin), and another was in Tennessee (Norris Basin). The archaeological fieldwork in these two basins, in addition to recovering valuable archaeological information, would serve the national interest by putting the unemployed of the Tennessee Valley to work under the CWA—a program specifically created by Congress to help reduce unemployment as soon as possible for the jobless so that they might survive the winter of 1933–1934.

Haag outlines the basic pattern of the CWA archaeology program, which was

designed to employ the unemployed in as many programs as were conceivable that could utilize unskilled laborers. Archaeology was ideally suited to such an endeavor for the greatest need in archaeological work is for practically unlimited hand labor. Of course many of the men working in our field crews were not necessarily unskilled they were just unemployed. Many of them brought to the archaeological dig a great deal of native intelligence and knowledge about how to accomplish certain tasks. In a very short time many of them became very proud of their ability or the recognition as a particularly adept man with a trowel. In the long run, of course, archaeological work did lend itself to developing the more or less stereotype of the WPA worker because we were forced constantly to admonish them to dig slowly and carefully. Thus if there was any innate laziness in any worker our programs developed it to a higher degree [1973:3–4].

As a result of CWA funding, an explosive expansion of archaeological fieldwork soon took place (see Fagette 1996; Guthe 1952:5; Haag 1961, 1973, 1985, 1986; Lyon 1996; Setzler and Strong 1936; Stirling 1935; Webb 1939b). Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley were favored areas for excavations as the Midsouth had a mild winter climate and abundant unemployment close at hand (Setzler and Strong 1936:109). The fortunate combination of these two requisites (favorable climate and a large number of unemployed) provided the Southeast, and especially Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley, with more funds than any other area of the United States. Over 60 percent of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds for archaeology were assigned to the Southeast, amounting to approximately 1.5 million dollars per year for labor (Setzler 1943:212). Unfortunately, as there was no real concern at the federal level for the destruction of archaeological sites, funding had to be knitted from several agencies. For example, William S. Webb, archaeological consultant to the TVA, had to be listed as a social welfare research worker to circumvent federal bureaucratic policies and procedures in order to be employed by the TVA (Lyon 1996:144).

The Great Depression witnessed growing awareness of the need for improved archaeological investigations. Major federal work relief programs, under the auspices of the New Deal, took place in Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley from late December 1933 to May 1942, when massive salvage projects focused on now well-known sites such as Chucalissa, Eva, Dallas, Hiwassee Island, Jonathan Creek, Kogers Island, Link Farm, Mound Bottom, Pack, and Shiloh.

Archaeologists continue to use these excavations to aid their understanding of the past, as is evidenced by the chapters in this volume. Unfortunately, many of the Tennessee Valley sites are no longer available for investigation, which makes the current database of artifacts, excavations, official correspondence, photographs, and primary records that much more valuable and significant. Numerous archaeological sites throughout Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley were excavated, some completely, as part of the federal work relief programs. The resulting database continues to function as a rich resource for innovative hypotheses and new research questions. These investigations had, and continue to have, a lasting impact on archaeological theory, excavation methods, and regional culture history, and will continue to be a significant source of information concerning Tennessee Valley prehistory.

The Tennessee River and its tributaries drains some 40,600 square miles, including two-thirds of the state of Tennessee and portions of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Virginia. Between December 1933 and May 1942, eight Tennessee Valley basins—Chickamauga, Fort Loudoun, Guntersville, Kentucky, Norris, Pickwick Landing, Watts Bar, and Wheeler—were scheduled for inundation. The work would constitute a major locus of archaeological salvage in the United States. These projects, together with federal relief efforts throughout the South (Fagette 1996; Lyon 1996) and much farther afield (Means 2011), would have a deep and lasting effect on the development of Americanist archaeology (Fitting 1973; Means 2013; Pritchard 2009; Tushingham et al. 2002; Willey and Sabloff 1993).

The Committee on State Archaeological Surveys (CSAS), established in 1920, was instrumental in pressuring the Tennessee Valley Authority to institute and to pursue a program of salvage archaeology within the valley (Lyon 1996:38). Aside from Clarence B. Moore’s Tennessee Valley work in 1914 and 1915, the valley was virtually unknown prior to 1933, and field supervisors had little background information to rely on for artifactual assemblages, cultural sequences, and research questions. Jesse D. Jennings (1994:89) notes, So little was known about Tennessee’s prehistoric resources that probably no one . . . could have architected a research plan at the time. The available literature was limited, including the earlier work of Mark R. Harrington (1922), William H. Holmes (1903), Clarence B. Moore (1915, 1916), William E. Myer (1924, 1928), M. C. Read (1868), J. Parish Stelle (1870a, b), Cyrus Thomas (1894), and Gates P. Thruston (1890). The younger archaeologists, the Young Turks of the time, were interested in chronology and classification (Haag 1985:17), and the older studies lacked the necessary stratigraphic information and theoretical paradigms upon which such a culture-historical sequence could be constructed. The objectives of the early New Deal excavations were aimed at conserving and preserving as much as possible an accurate, complete, and permanent record of all significant data. Based on the excavations and distinctive culture traits, a clearer image of cultural history would begin to