Posted on April 15, 2019 by admin
In this new phase of my life I’ve returned to take up something that has long — and I do mean long — interested me. That is, archaeology, specifically that of New England Indians. It’s hard to say exactly when this started, but two moments stand out.
When I was living in Armonk in 1960-something, my father got me a metal dectector that had been advertised in the back of a Boy’s Life Magazine. I remember it cost all of $12.95 and was worth every penny which is to say not much at all. Still, I found something with it on the path that lead from Blair Road to Byram Hills High School. It was an tomahawk head, the real deal. A bit of research proved it was from the 18th century, often traded with natives, but also used by Colonials during the French & Indian War and Revolution. How it got lost in the woods near my home I’ll never know, but you can imagine the fantasies I conjured up as to who owned it.
I had the thing until a few years ago when it mysteriously disappeared from the house in Westport.
The second event also took place in Armonk. I was watering an area where my father must have planted something — which inevitably died — and I was spraying around, maybe our dog Rusty or just the ground in boredom when a quartz arrowhead showed through the dirt I was eroding. I tried to identify it’s provenience, and think I came up with 1,500 years before, but that’s probably a guess based on my then rough sense of projectile identification. That arrowhead, too, has been lost over the years.
Wind the clock forward some 50 years and I’m at it again, this time under the auspices of Norwalk Community College where I’m taking a class, my first formal one, in archaeology. It’s great on many levels, not the least of which is to engage with people interested in the topic as opposed to those friends and family members who merely indulge me. Like last night when Nicho was trying to speak to me. He was on speakerphone and I was chipping away on a rock with an antler when he yelled, “You dingus! You’re flintknapping, aren’t you!?!”
Be kind. I had earlier that day found an arrowhead with the classes dig in Redding. It has been the only find of its kind so far and the professor took it seriously with all sorts of measures and dusting. “I think it’s a Levanna point,” I said. He looked at it and agreed, which means the site is 600-1200 years old.
“You really like this don’t you?” he said to me while I was beaming over the point and my identification. “You should take it as a Certificate Program or get a Bachelor’s. Given your education you’d just need six classes.”
The next day I went directly to the Registrar at NCC to sign up; I was on my way to a certificate in Archaeology.
There was, however, what a budding archaeologist might call a pitfall. Said the older woman with half glasses tediously attached to the tip of the nose she was looking over, “Hmm. You’ll need a copy of your High School diploma. Have you graduated?”
I laughed perhaps with just a little too much confidence and replied that I had indeed graduated, more than 40 years ago and that I no longer had a diploma and wasn’t even sure if my school was still standing. I did, chuckling, say that I had my bachelor’s from Tufts, summa cum laude (I didn’t expect her to check), and Masters from Columbia with Honors and could bring in those diplomas.
“No,” she said with more adamance than necessary. “We need High School proof.”
“But,” I countered, “I of course needed to graduate from high school to go to (I said this more loudly and clearly) TUFTS and needed a Bachelors to go on for my Masters at COLUMBIA.”
“I don’t know about those, but I know NCC needs your High School diploma. And some shots. You’ve had your shots? We’ll need a doctors note.”
My shots? I may have been foaming a bit at the mouth with this exchange, but whether it was rabies, distemper or something else I assured her my doctor could vouch for me.
At this point a helpful young lady whispered something about the GED exam in May not being too difficult and the woman in front of me nodded that I’d need a passing grade if I wanted to be accepted at NCC. I said “just give me the application….please” and she pointed to a bin against the wall saying they were in there. I turned to where she was pointing…an empty bin and advised her of such. She took a deep breath, rose to her full 4’7″ and walked with what I thought was deliberate slowness to a table 6 ft behind her and got the form. She handed it to me and just before saying, “Next” — presumably not realizing there was no one behind me — added, “Oh, they don’t offer that program any more.”