Finding Aid, Cemochechobee

Summary

The Veterans’ Curation Project utilizes the standard archival practice of unique naming of collections. The purpose of this practice is to avoid redundant and confusing collection names commonly found with archaeological investigations. Therefore, this collection is referred to as Cemochechobee Associated Documentation 1960-2005. This name is consistent throughout the finding aid, the file folders, and the box labels. The extent of this collection is four (4) linear feet.

Several observations were made regarding the field conditions, the financial difficulties encountered by the Columbus Museum of Arts and Crafts, Inc., and extensive and frequently fruitless analyses. For example, various personal field notes state that the field work was constantly hampered by rain, freezing weather, inconsistent transportation, and an inexperienced crew with a high turnover rate. Although several people who wrote these field notes remain unknown, there is a wealth of personal observations and opinions concerning the excavation of Cemochechobee. Unfortunately, the spelling and grammar of many of these notes is indecipherable and/or illegible, often requiring deciphering of the statements. Contributing to this legibility difficulty was that some of the comments were written on graph paper, notebook paper, and grocery store receipts, which have not withstood the test of time well. Additionally, these materials arrived in no discernable chronological or logical order necessitating substantial time to place them in chronological order (when possible given the presence of a date).

These same field notes remark on the day-to-day complications inherent in most archaeological mitigations. These complications included: several complaints about freezing pipes in a rental house; inconsistent pay; unusual amounts of snow and freezing rain inhibiting excavation; an entire side of a profile wall collapsing on top of one of the field workers; and profiles collapsing overnight, requiring considerable clean up time. Despite these setbacks, Cemochechobee yielded incredible discoveries, observations, and connections to the local archaeological time periods referred to as Roods Landing and Cool Branch.

According to the documents written between 1976 and 1977, Cemochechobee consisted of three adjacent platform mounds on the banks of the Chattahoochee River in Clay County, Georgia. Portions of this site are classified under different site numbers: 9CLA44, 9CLA45, 9CLA46, 9CLA50, and 9CLA62. The late 1970s investigations focused on 9CLA62 (the Mound area) and 9CLA44 (the village area). All of these sites contained Rood Phase artifacts and according to the documents, comprised and were defined as part of the “Cemochechobee Archaeological District.” The documents state that the three mounds at 9CLA62 were the “Nuclear Zone.” The “Nuclear Zone” is defined as the area of occupation.

It was hypothesized that the structures found within Mound A and B served, at least in part, as charnel houses. Charnel houses are believed to have been used for mortuary services. Throughout the course of the dig, this was found to not be true. Instead, the structures found within Mound B “were quite obviously domestic buildings, and those that were not were either hot houses or communal chambers,” (Brown 1971:94,100) and at least one of the structures within Mound A is thought to be a charnel house due to the mortuary use of Mound A as a burial mound.

Meanwhile, the administrative documents reveal the continual back and forth between Frank Schnell, the Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, and William Scheele, the director of the Columbus Museum. For example, it was observed that the Principal Investigator, Frank Schnell, originally underbid the contract. He then needed to continually ask for additional money. The United States Army Corps of Engineers granted several extensions to Frank Schnell to continue work on the Cemochechobee site. There are several pages of correspondence between Frank Schnell and the United States Army Corps of Engineers explaining the need for more time to type up the progress reports.

The Administrative records were typed and easily read. As a result, it can be observed where most of the money was wasted, and where it was used wisely. One example of wasted money was spending time on suggested sine relationship for mound constructed based on sun declination. They spent weeks trying to make it work, using extensive math calculations. These calculations attempted to answer questions about the construction of the mounds and associated village. Although the processing archivists are not mathematicians, it is obvious that the numerous calculations could yield no discernable answers. This is especially true given that after all the hard work it never made it to the final report.

Over the several years of this project, there was an extensive amount of time spent on soil samples. The problem with this is that very little of this information was noted in either the final report or the published book despite the extensive field and analysis work put into soil sampling and testing (i.e., soil samples taken in the field, inventoried by lot numbers, comparison of soil chemical results by excavation, soil results by vessel and sherd cluster, soil chemistry results from burial, soil chemistry data by quadrants, etc.). Additional charges were incurred by having the University of Georgia, Athens analyze the soil samples. Considering the continual pleas for additional funding (see below) from Frank Schnell to analyze the data recovered from Cemochechobee, it seems that this extra step was wasteful and serves as one reason more money was requested.

Nonetheless, not all the money used for data analysis was spent on fruitless endeavors. It was used wisely by putting statistical artifact analysis on computer cassette tapes which were state-of-the-art at the time. The final report tables, enhanced by hand calculations, were generated using statistical analyses performed by the computer. Regrettably, the speed of technological advances has now rendered the computer cassette tapes inaccessible. As such, it is not possible to retrieve this data without considerable effort not performed at this time.

Also in the administrative records there are copies of budget proposals to the United States Corps of Engineers about the cost of the project which vaguely covers travel, lodging, utility, and supplies. However, Frank Schnell goes into great depth on personal salary for the

Cemochechobee project which the United States Corps of Engineers agree upon, and later had to conduct at least four modifications to the contract. The records and following correspondence shows Frank Schnell encountered a lot of unforeseen problems with money, time limits on the progress reports, weather, personnel, and his personal life.

While combing through over 300 folders of documentation, there were obvious times when the biggest obstacle for the Cemochechobee project was communication. Maybe this was to be expected with the varying archeological standards that comes along with the number of different archeological entities (i.e., the Corps of Engineers, the Columbus Museum, and the National Park Service). There were episodes throughout the exploration of the Cemochechobee files when the different entities involved seemed to be speaking slightly different languages. To be more specific, in one instance, there was a letter between Frank Schnell, the Primary Investigator of the Cemochechobee excavations, and Jim [last name unknown]. In the letter, Jim expresses his discontent with the faunal analysis produced by Dave Hally and Barbara Ruff. Jim questions whether Hally should bear any of the blame because“…he was totally ignorant of all the background info we sent to Barbara.” This supposed breakdown in communication would later be the blame for a wasted month of work by Judy[last name unknown], Kim [last name unknown], Sherri [last name unknown], Kathy [last name unknown], and Jim himself. Later, in another correspondence, Mr. Scheele sent a letter to Frank Schnell questioning one of his worker’s requests for $1500 for Hally and Ruff’s service.

Ninety-eight oversize maps and figures, 25 oversize report graphics, 10 pages of FAXES, twelve pages of newspaper clippings, and several hundred artifact accession cards were processed. During this process, contaminates were removed as much as possible, and tears were mended using acid free mending tape and/or acid-free paper. The cartographic and graphic documents were then assigned numbers, and as much provenience information as possible was gathered given the fact that most of the maps were photocopied, and barely readable. After making sure all information was correct and continually re-locating map 19 (its relatively small size contributed to its misplacement), permanent acid free tags were attached to the back of the maps. The maps were then rolled together according to size, and placed in an acid free container that would not do further damage to the maps. The old map containers were overstuffed tubes, and the maps were placed in these tubes with different sizes, resulting in the ends of the maps being damaged. Several maps were photographed, and placed on a proprietary computer program (FORAY™) so future generations can view and understand our rich culture and heritage without leaving their home area. The FAXES and newspapers were removed, cross-indexed, and encapsulated in stable mylar. They were placed, along with the oversize cartographic records, into the archival tubes.

In the midst of double-checking the cartographic documents inventory, it was discovered that one map was erroneously assigned two separate numbers and one report graphic did not exist, despite its presence on the inventory. As a result, the oversize inventory listed here does not run in exact consecutive order; numbers 87 and 102 are omitted.

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): US Army Corps of Engineers Mandatory Center of Expertise for the Curation and Management of Archaeological Collections, St. Louis District

Principal Investigator(s): Frank T. Schnell

Landowner(s): US Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District

Sponsor(s): US Army Corps of Engineers Mandatory Center of Expertise for the Curation and Management of Archaeological Collections, St. Louis District

Repository(s): University of Georgia, Laboratory of Archaeology, Athens, Georgia

Prepared By(s): Veterans Curation Program

Submitted To(s): US Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District

Notes

General Note: The digital materials in this collection were processed by the Veterans Curation Program (VCP) and include the artifact catalog, select artifact photographs, artifact report, finding aid, oversized materials database, photographic materials spreadsheet, and scanned assets. Additional digital materials held by the VCP include additional artifact images, documents removed, electronic materials, folder number and title inventory, oversized photo and tape inventories, oversized tube inventories, and records removal sheets. For additional information on these materials, refer to the Finding Aid.

File Information