Sinchangdong Wetland Site in Gwangju, KOREA

Akira Matsui, NewsWARP’s Asia Coordinator, provides this update report on a major wetland site in Korea.  The Sinchangdong wet site contains an abundance of agricultural remains originating from the period between the late 2nd B.C. to 3rd A.D. century.  The site contains three ditch features with a U-shaped cross-sectional view, one of which one contains large wooden posts measuring 25cm in diameter erected at regular intervals, along with a door panel. Archaeologists believe that they are the remains of a raised-floor building used as a storage facility or workshop. Found in another ditch were a line of smaller wooden posts measuring 5 to 10cm in diameter, which were probably used to set a net for fishing. Please see the full report at:  Sinchangdong Wetland Site in Gwangju, KOREA

Ozette Village Basketry Dissertation Digitized

I have scanned illustrations (example here), re-made graphs, scanned computer generated maps, and digitized text for the Ozette Village wet site basketry analysis of 1977.  Since only poor copies of this work are in circulation, I wanted to make a better copy available for future wet site basketry research (though still a low resolution copy and in two parts because of its size):   ANCIENT BASKETRY ATTRIBUTES AND TYPES–CROES 1977 DISSERTATION Part I ;  OZETTE VILLAGE BASKETRY FUNCTIONAL CLASSIFICATION AND CONCLUSIONS–CROES 1977 DISSERTATION Part II

I have also posted here a Useful Wet Site Research References reflecting ancient basketry research that has been conducted since 1977: Useful References for Wet Site Basketry Research and Reports since 1977 Ozette Dissertation

The patterns of inter-site comparisons in 1977 seem to be holding up–and the new data uncovered seems to only bolster these general patterns (even cladistic analyses).  Hope this is helpful to researchers–do let me know references I undoubtedly left out.  Thanks, Dale Croes

New Blog for Waterlogged Basketry Research

Hello all-

I’ve started a blog for waterlogged basketry materials located at: www.waterloggedbasketry.blogspot.com and would appreciate your input.   Some of the research I have done over the past few years is represented here included a table of conservation information regarding wet sites in the NW that contained waterlogged basketry material, cross sections of fresh and degraded materials etc.

This is, of course, a work in progress.  As I have been pulling together the research and testing projects completed over the past few years I began to feel the desire to share some of my thoughts and find another way to learn from other peoples experiences.  I would like this to become a sharing space for those thinking about some of the issues related to conservation of waterlogged basketry materials.

I have not yet put the testing results up on the blog-  however, some of the summaries of those tests may make it there as I try to explain my new thoughts and approaches.

Looking forward to your input-

Dana

Toy Canoe from Ozette Wet Site–reply to Alan Hoover

Alan and all:  I have some pictures of a toy canoe being excavated from the Ozette Village wet site houses and will post them here.  Does anyone else from around the world have toy canoes from their wet sites?  Certainly museums have several models made when canoes were remembered in this manner and sold as tourist items (one Makah model from US Smithsonian Museum pictured here). 

Today there has been a big revival of canoe carving and journeys along the Northwest Coast–called Canoe Journeys or Paddles.  The next one is a Paddle to Quinault this summer.  Thousands of mostly Native Peoples attend–all are welcome for a week of Potlatching.  Akira Matsui and his friends frequently visit our sites during the Canoe Journey (see his report here from last summer) so they can attend these huge celebrations. 

 A good web site from last year’s Paddle to Squaxin–the community I worked with on the Qwu?gwes Wet site–is:  http://paddletosquaxin2012.org/ and view their amazing photo gallery–and come this summer.  We can all camp together on the Washington West Coast for a week of celebration!  Aidan can bring his kids!  And Francesco can work on his new book–it will be an official NewsWARP Coordinator meeting with Akira and friends.  Dale