Situation: Sandhill is located on a bluff overlooking the Arkansas River southeast of Tulsa.  In the course of building a house on the property, the landowners had the feeling that there was something special about the place.  They held a dedication for their new house and invited a Native American medicine man, who conducted a blessing ceremony and confirmed that there seemed to be an aura about this particular locale.  The landowner's foremost motivation is to preserve, so if there is something special about the place itself, he wishes to maintain its integrity and special character. 

            But first he needs to know what it is that should be preserved, knowledge that will be employed to determine the most appropriate land use.  There are some indications that the open field between his house and the bluffline is an ancient cemetery, but no graves have ever been discovered at this locale and there are no indications of burials on the surface.  To provide information on what is below the surface, the landowner asked me to conduct limited excavations and testing of his field.  So far we have dug one large 1x2-meter hole 310 centimeters deep. 

            This excavation yielded no bone -- but that, of course, does not mean that bone was never present.  Therefore, we have undertaken a program of augur sampling at 25 centimeter intervals.  Augur holes normally descend about 5 meters and are placed both at locations at which a burial is suspected and at locations that are supposedly off-burial.  Samples are submitted to chemical analysis by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) analysis.  The machine we use in the Chemistry Department at TU also has a laser ablation unit, which enables solid materials to be sampled.  In addition, the Chemistry Department has just received funding to buy a microwave digester, which should facilitate the preparation and presentation of soil samples.

            So far two burial locations and one off-burial (control) sample have been submitted to ICP-MS analysis.  Both burial samples have yielded positive results in either calcium or calcium and phosphorous at one data node (i.e., depth sample); the control sample yielded only background noise.  Four additional projected burial locations and two control samples have been augured and await chemical analysis. 

          In addition, we are planning a program of deep soil testing using a geoprobe, which will provide geological information concerning the development of the Arkansas bluffline.  We are also actively engaged in a program of remote sensing using ground penetrating radar and other devices.  Unfortunately, these machines don't work very well if the soil is saturated with water, which accurately describes the current situation.  We will accomplish as much data collecting as we can under these conditions, but may have to postpone much of it while we wait for drier conditions.

 

            Future Prospects: If the results of chemical analyses are in line with our hypotheses, then we have a very serious archaeological site here that begs explanation on a number of parameters.  Your best bet for late-breaking news may be to stay tuned to this website, provided that I can figure out how to use it.  Now that’s a scary thought.

 

            Publications: Nothing so far.