00:08 - Bernard Means is an associate professor

00:10 - of anthropology at Virginia Commonwealth University and the

00:14 - and contributor to Shovel Ready Archaeology and Roosevelt's New Deal for America.

00:18 - During the Great Depression.

00:19 - New Deal work relief programs fi archeological projects around th.

00:23 - How did you first discover these.

00:26 - So I was working for an archeology company

00:29 - that was doing archeology ahead of, US 19,

00:34 - being built around the town of Meyers Dale.

00:36 - And so I had to do research about archeology that had been done be

00:41 - particularly any of you that might be on the path of the highway itself.

00:44 - And when I did that, I found out that there were,

00:47 - three major archeological are actually

00:49 - major archeological sites excavated, in and around Mars.

00:52 - You know, there were two,

00:54 - indigenous villages inhabited by that archeologists call them.

00:57 - And on the Isla and also two rock shelters, that

01:01 - directly on the rock shelters or directly on the path.

01:05 - And so I was doing that research into those archeological sites.

01:09 - I started getting into why archeology was done during t

01:14 - and that led me into finding out I knew the archeology,

01:17 - which is something that I had no in my training.

01:21 - And prior to to doing this resea.

01:24 - How significant was this period in archeology th.

01:27 - Did it lead to significant Chang from what had gone before?

01:31 - A lot of people, a lot of histor including myself,

01:35 - say that this is actually the pe that, changed

01:39 - completely how we did archeology in the United States.

01:42 - Prior to this, when people did archeology, it w

01:46 - a small number of individuals, usually funded by,

01:50 - East Coast institutions,

01:52 - and primarily in unique

01:56 - areas like the American Southwes or actually mostly outside of th.

02:00 - And so in new to archeology, you had archeology done everywhe.

02:04 - Well, not quite everywhere, but, throughout the country, in place

02:07 - where nobody would have done arc or funded archeology.

02:11 - So with Nubian archeology, the goal was, to provide work.

02:17 - And so wherever there were peopl that were unemployed was where a

02:20 - was, one of the push archeology.

02:23 - And so suddenly you had all of these people

02:25 - who were not trained that were being asked to do arch.

02:28 - And so universities and other places had to sort of

02:32 - and expand their programs so that there would be people

02:35 - who would be sort of in charge of these digs.

02:38 - So that's, that's also another major thing that you see.

02:42 - And then people started thinking after the New Deal,

02:46 - how do we respond to, like dam projects and construction projec.

02:52 - And they sort of used the New De as a model, for the way we do ar

02:56 - today.

02:57 - The big thing about New Deal archeology, was that it was,

03:03 - designed to not

03:04 - compete with what people did, commercially.

03:08 - So, so as far as New Deal progra

03:11 - focused on things that businesse didn't do,

03:14 - he didn't want the government to be in competition with busine.

03:17 - And so at the time, archeology was not a business.

03:20 - But there was also, plenty of that archeology for people th.

03:25 - Well, take us back to the 1930s.

03:27 - We were in the midst of the Great Depression.

03:29 - How serious was the depression?

03:31 - And, talk a little bit about what the New Deal was and

03:34 - that was a response to what was.

03:37 - I'm sure. So,

03:39 - prior to FDR being nominated, pr to FDR actually being elected,

03:44 - people were trying to rely on private charities, to support

03:50 - people that were unemployed, or sort of like state level initiat.

03:55 - And they weren't working out.

03:58 - You know, thousands and thousands of people were une.

04:01 - People were starving.

04:03 - There weren't any jobs for them.

04:05 - And so when FDR, ran for the nom he pledged to,

04:10 - to to America that he would crea what he called a new deal for Am.

04:14 - And by that, he meant that the government wou

04:17 - become sort of activist in a sen.

04:20 - The government would create jobs to get people to work.

04:24 - He, he thought, FDR his philosop was that

04:29 - people felt better about themsel if they were doing something mea

04:33 - to get money from the government

04:35 - as opposed to the government just giving them money,

04:37 - which was sort of another option that people did.

04:40 - And so he designed the New Deal programs, to,

04:44 - to work on things that he though were critical,

04:48 - to the country's, infrastructure.

04:52 - And to the country's heritage.

04:53 - So they built roads,

04:55 - they did a lot of, you know, bui a lot of water mains and sewers

04:59 - and things like that. And he was interested

05:02 - in, you know, learning more about the country's heritag.

05:05 - So he not only sponsored archeol

05:08 - but they also had programs that supported the arts.

05:11 - They had programs that supported writers, and all of these things

05:17 - of, build up sort of a, you know sort of American sort of sense.

05:22 - And so,

05:24 - as part of these New Deal progra one of the very first New Deal p

05:28 - something known as the Civilian Conservation Cor

05:31 - where basically people, young me

05:35 - mostly, between the ages, I thin

05:38 - and early 20s, would go out and,

05:42 - basically clear up wilderness of built parks and things like t.

05:46 - Because Roosevelt also felt that communing with na

05:49 - was something that was important

05:51 - in some of those programs, ended up supporting archeology,

05:55 - in, in the at the beginning of the New Deal, work really pro.

06:00 - Archeology wasn't something that people really thought about.

06:03 - But the Smithsonian and the National Park Service go

06:07 - in the 90s, in the early 1930s in, in Louisiana.

06:12 - And, and said, let's see if we c

06:16 - mostly untrained people, to do archeology.

06:20 - And it was very successful.

06:21 - And then it was, copied, and states across the co

06:26 - talk a little bit about, the

06:29 - impact of these archeological pr on the local communities.

06:33 - So the, the interesting about these, local communities

06:36 - is that, well, for one thing, of course, it gave people work.

06:40 - And that was sort of a big part of the work, reall.

06:42 - Programs.

06:43 - And so the communities learned

06:45 - a lot about their own heritage that they didn't know before.

06:48 - And particularly in the like the the dig site study did in Pennsy

06:54 - almost nothing was known about, the indigenous,

06:58 - heritage, prior to the excavatio.

07:02 - There were there were no direct historical

07:05 - of the indigenous people that lived in Pennsylvania in th.

07:09 - And so it was it was very much a.

07:13 - And until these needle excavatio happened, and in fact,

07:16 - some historians had argued

07:18 - that there was never really any indigenous presence

07:21 - in that part of Pennsylvania, th it's the, marginal areas, you kn.

07:27 - Somerset County in general.

07:28 - It's the most rugged part of Pen.

07:30 - It's the highest part of Pennsyl.

07:32 - And so people thought that in dig people had best would have use

07:35 - as a hunting ground and not live in these sort of large groups at.

07:40 - One of the key figures that you write about is Edgar Au.

07:44 - Who was he?

07:44 - In what role did he play in Somerset County?

07:47 - I had loggers, it's actually still kind of a bit of a mystery.

07:51 - And, there's not a lot written a personally.

07:56 - He's,

07:59 - he himself wrote quite a bit, and I've read a lot of his corre

08:02 - which is in the, Pennsylvania.

08:04 - State Archives and at the State of Pennsylvania in their archeol.

08:08 - He sort of just appears on the s

08:10 - and, in Somerset County, he's hi

08:15 - to work for what was called the, WPA, the Works Progress Administ.

08:20 - But I don't know anything about where he got

08:23 - his training, but it's clear tha some really good training from s.

08:26 - But, his notes are very good, especially for the time.

08:30 - And, in fact, I use them for my research today.

08:34 - He was, clearly very concerned a

08:39 - keeping his men employed.

08:40 - That was sort of a main thing, but he was also very concerned

08:43 - about being, careful and respect of the archeological record.

08:47 - So some New Deal digs, they would just throw people on

08:50 - and they would just dig.

08:51 - And no, keeping wasn't necessari particularly good.

08:54 - Augustine, very much insisted that he not have more men

08:59 - that he could deal with under th who kept small.

09:02 - And he also another interesting about Augustine,

09:06 - is that he, insisted

09:09 - that he be allowed to take a crew of trained people

09:13 - small number of trained people to the digs around, Somerset Cou.

09:18 - So the normal practice was that he would be in charge as a super

09:22 - and he would go to the place and hire a completely all new cr.

09:26 - But then he knew that, he would that sort of institutional knowl.

09:30 - So Augustine was very good at, keeping his crews

09:34 - together and very respectful of the archeological record.

09:37 - I took very, very good notes, an

09:40 - he spent a lot of his own time, trying to get these notes togeth.

09:44 - One of the challenges for people who look at New Deal archeology

09:48 - today is that they didn't really

09:52 - in most cases, somebody to actually write up th.

09:55 - So there are actually still plen of archeological projects,

09:58 - even from the 1930s and early 19

10:01 - that have never actually been pu or even finalized.

10:05 - And so Augustine spent, a lot of his evenings,

10:08 - trying to get his notes into, in.

10:11 - And he did publish a series of short articles in the journal

10:15 - called Pennsylvania Archeologist.

10:18 - How did they know where to dig?

10:21 - So that's, that's, really intere

10:23 - because as archeologists, we wan be able to find archeological si.

10:27 - And it was really critical, for the New Deal, if Edgar Augus

10:32 - did not have archeological sites already, like,

10:36 - already lined up to dig.

10:38 - And if there is any kind of halt then then

10:41 - people would stop funding his ex.

10:44 - Because again, it was about keeping people busy.

10:46 - And so what he did is he went ar and he talked to farmers,

10:51 - and he asked them if they saw th like it's a broken pottery

10:55 - in the ground or animal bone in the ground.

10:58 - And were there any places where darkened soil, that covered larg.

11:04 - Because when people live in a in that's in the same location

11:06 - for a long period of time, their natural activities,

11:10 - sort of basically enrich the organic nature of the soil.

11:13 - And you can actually see, the vi the people lived in were, circul.

11:18 - And you can actually see large circular stains in the plowed fi.

11:23 - And so he basically asked farmer he even, at one point in time,

11:27 - got some pottery from one of the and handed them out to Boy Scout

11:32 - and told them to run around the to see if they could find

11:34 - more of this kind of

11:37 - if we were

11:38 - to see his crew in action, what would it look like?

11:42 - Size crews usually, numbered abo

11:44 - 13 to 18 people.

11:47 - They were sort of colloquially k as the boys, regardless of age.

11:53 - In fact, one of the people that was on th

11:55 - was, 79 years old, on the excava.

11:59 - And so his crews would have worn whatever clothes

12:03 - they had, for, for wearing.

12:05 - So there's quite a bit of variat and in fact, when you see these

12:09 - images in detail, excavators, they look pretty dapper, I think.

12:14 - But that's because that's the clothes that.

12:17 - So they would have it's the crew that Augustine had were all male.

12:22 - They tended to be people who cou otherwise get work.

12:26 - So they tended to be a little bi.

12:29 - Than the normal work population.

12:31 - And a lot of the work that he di if you look at the photographs,

12:34 - for the excavations, was done during the winter time,

12:37 - because that was a period, in So.

12:40 - County, at least, where there wasn't really a lot.

12:43 - And maybe during the spring, in the summer, in the fall, you

12:46 - for the railroad, or you can wor in, you know, for farmers,

12:50 - but in the wintertime, there was there was no sort of no option.

12:53 - And so when you see these digs, they're actually working in bliz

12:56 - and stuff sometimes. And you'll see snow on the groun.

13:01 - How cooperative were the

13:02 - farmers in letting these work crews on their property to dig?

13:06 - The farmers were very cooperativ actually.

13:07 - So and in fact, he talks about, there are some sites that he exc

13:12 - in, northern, Somerset County,

13:16 - owned by a cow family.

13:19 - And he, talks about them, keeping him and his crew

13:23 - full of sauerkraut and sausage.

13:26 - So they, they, they very they had quite well,

13:29 - working with these farmers, so the farmers are quite coopera.

13:33 - And

13:35 - one of the sort of practices of

13:38 - was that the artifacts that they excavated,

13:41 - after they studied them, went back to the farmers,

13:45 - which which is good in that, it's bad in the sense

13:48 - that we don't really know where most of those artifacts ar.

13:52 - So which is why, Agora Augustine meticulous records are so import.

13:58 - So even though we don't necessar have the artifacts,

14:00 - his records are enough for us to some pretty significant research.

14:05 - Talk more about what he discover.

14:07 - How many villages did he discove.

14:09 - And, you know, what types of thi would have been found there?

14:13 - So they excavated 12 different village sites.

14:17 - There were two in, adjacent to Mires Vale.

14:21 - They excavated a number of rock so,

14:26 - including the two that were exca in the Mars Hill area,

14:30 - the villages they found, numbere

14:33 - between about,

14:36 - anywhere between like five house.

14:38 - So, you know, kind of a small vi to as many as 30 houses.

14:43 - And each house, probably would have held a famil

14:46 - of around 5 to 7 people.

14:49 - So some of these villages were s.

14:52 - And one of the things that was discovered,

14:55 - and shown by his excavations is that people had a very

14:59 - strong understanding of how they can organize some small sou.

15:04 - And in terms of

15:05 - sort of, spatial geometry, they knew their geometry really

15:09 - and they used that geometry, to themselves, organized as a comm...

15:15 - And so the villages would have a plaza area,

15:18 - sort of an open area that everybody shared.

15:21 - Their houses would be around the and, one or usually one single r.

15:26 - And then there'd be a wall aroun plaza, around the village.

15:32 - That was probably mostly designe to sort of keep animals out.

15:36 - And, so, so those,

15:38 - those aspects of, village life, they learned they also excavated

15:43 - a number of graves, that were us either inside of houses or bet we.

15:48 - And so using their, the,

15:51 - that burial data,

15:54 - we're able to understand quite a bit, about how the Monon

15:57 - thought about their early slate there, death in terms of the aft.

16:02 - So the,

16:04 - now, Augustine himself didn't know this at the time, bu

16:08 - based on a research that I've do and other other people have done

16:11 - we were able to use,

16:13 - the artifacts that they recovere to get radiocarbon dates.

16:17 - And so we know that those particular villages

16:20 - that Augustine looked at, were lived in about the year 10,

16:26 - to about,

16:28 - the mid to late 1500 A.D., which was a time period where pe

16:33 - of course, previous that there w

16:36 - nobody lived in villages in that.

16:39 - So we learned quite a bit about how they organized

16:41 - the Monongahela, as some mention they call themselves, and around

16:45 - how they organized themselves in and how they built their communi.

16:49 - And we learned something about their spirituality and bel

16:52 - from how they, placed their dead in their graves.

16:57 - Now, these workers, had lives and continued to,

17:00 - to be parts of their communities.

17:02 - You write about, the impact of deer hunting sea so

17:05 - coming upon these expeditions.

17:07 - What did you find?

17:09 - So basically, Augustine,

17:11 - he was very, he had a very dry sense of humor.

17:14 - So if he if you read through his you would see that.

17:16 - But, he notes that on the first day of deer season,

17:20 - none of his crew showed up.

17:23 - And he was not he was not really surprised by t.

17:25 - And I know that, from people I'v to who lived in that part of Pen

17:29 - today, you don't usually see a lot of people in schools

17:32 - on the first day of, deer hunt in if they're old enough,

17:35 - to, to go deer hunting. So,

17:39 - so that's a pattern then.

17:40 - That certainly has continued.

17:42 - And he was very concerned with his workers, and it was a c

17:45 - to be an ideal worker.

17:47 - You had very limited hours.

17:48 - You could do, so he did work ful.

17:51 - You were expected the entire time that you were wo

17:54 - to be looking for a quote unquot.

17:57 - And if you got that real job, you had to leave right away.

18:00 - So you couldn't.

18:01 - So that was a challenge for Augu as crews were constantly,

18:05 - rotating in and rotating out.

18:08 - He did have some, sort of political pressures as w.

18:13 - The, county commissioners, and Somerset County

18:18 - at the time were Republicans and they were not fans of FDR.

18:21 - And so they threw up a few roadb for him for his excavations.

18:26 - And, but he, he, he was very

18:28 - passionate about doing the arche and very passionate about,

18:31 - employing and keeping his worker employed as much as he could.

18:35 - So he was running these digs, and then he was always

18:38 - talking to people and finding ou where's another really exact.

18:43 - And the reason they picked village sites to excavate

18:46 - is that they are kind of complic to deal with Archeologically.

18:50 - And so he knew if he found a vil he would guarantee

18:53 - at least several weeks work for.

18:56 - And then he could move on if he had another village site

18:59 - ready, then he would just move o next village,

19:02 - with, with, hopefully at least some of the same people.

19:06 - How many years did this program.

19:10 - So the, New Deal archeology in S.

19:14 - County began in 1934, and a litt before Augustine was involved.

19:19 - So the state archeologist was involved in those excavation.

19:23 - And then Augustine came in pretty quickly in 1935.

19:28 - And then the programs lasted until 1940, in Somerset C.

19:33 - So basically, as the United Stat moved, to World War Two,

19:38 - getting involved in World War Tw even before the attack on Pearl.

19:42 - Resources were beginning to be s.

19:46 - From New Deal work relief programs to preparing, fo

19:51 - entry into World War Two.

19:52 - Augustine was hired, in 1941.

19:56 - The state had a couple of, what we call salvage projects.

19:59 - Sites that were going to be dest by construction or by building r.

20:05 - And Augustine was asked to be in in helping run those projects.

20:09 - And so he continued working on those projects in 194.

20:13 - And then he was hired by the sta

20:15 - write a report, summarizing his.

20:19 - And that report was actually nev published

20:22 - was written under the direction of a PhD stu

20:26 - Francis Cresson Jr, whose father

20:31 - sort of a prominent farmer in the Philadelphia area.

20:36 - And Cresson never finished the r

20:38 - because he got drafted and went to five World War two.

20:42 - So that, that was part of the re as I was doing the research,

20:45 - I, came across this manuscript and it was very important for he

20:51 - with my own research and into these, Augustine, excav.

20:56 - Did these New Deal era workers leave behind artifacts of their

21:00 - that are now becoming subjects of archeological excavations?

21:04 - When we excavated the rock shelt

21:07 - we actually did find, two art if a.

21:10 - That one, we could sort of say was probably New Deal.

21:16 - It was a broken shovel.

21:17 - Had, that was kind of rusty,

21:19 - and it was jammed in an area where we know they were excavati.

21:23 - We can't say for sure it was the.

21:25 - Artifact.

21:27 - Because it's sort of a generic kind of shovel had it was so rus

21:32 - that we couldn't put a into a specific time perio.

21:34 - But as we were digging, so we went up to do

21:38 - more archeology at the March Rock shelters in the 1990s,

21:42 - to get a sense for whether they,

21:45 - how much archeology still need to be left. And,

21:49 - one of our crews dug down about

21:52 - and found the base of a bottle, and there's that bottle had gone

21:56 - because of actually, there's there's no way that

21:59 - it could have a burrowing animal could have burned through the ro.

22:02 - So that artifact, we can definitely say, got

22:07 - got to where it was because of t the new the excavations.

22:11 - But as far as other artifacts are concerned, I'm not aware of

22:15 - and one of the challenges, for m

22:17 - when I got into the studio,

22:21 - heritage histories, is that most of the people

22:24 - that I would have liked to talk to, were now no longer a lot.

22:28 - So I couldn't really interview p directly about these particular.

22:34 - I did,

22:35 - publish an article in the Somerset magaz

22:38 - with a list of all of the people that worked in Somerset County.

22:40 - And we were kind of hoping that that might encourage,

22:43 - family members to come forward.

22:45 - But the few family members that forward only had vague memories

22:50 - fathers or grandfathers, working on the New Deal projects.

22:54 - And so there may be some stuff buried in people's

22:57 - diaries and buried in people's I.

22:59 - But that's, not something I was able to sort of come acros.

23:03 - I will say that the Meyers Photo Public Library, was very h

23:08 - in pulling together what what information they could

23:12 - from that time period

23:15 - now, we've been focused on, Somerset County, but,

23:18 - what types of programs were goin in other parts of the country?

23:22 - So, yeah.

23:23 - So, some of the biggest archeology progra

23:26 - that we're done were done in, the Southeastern United Stat

23:30 - like in Alabama and, Kentucky and Tennessee, where so

23:35 - sort of the bigger states where archeology was done, for t

23:40 - Roosevelt was having dams built in those areas to basically prov

23:43 - electricity with the idea of tha there was more electricity avail

23:47 - that would allow, more businesses from and,

23:51 - and so ahead of those, dam const projects, they did a lot of arch.

23:56 - And in fact, until very recently I think more archeology was done

24:01 - during the Great Depression in A than was

24:05 - and has been done, until very into modern times.

24:08 - And prior to those excavations, nobody really paid much attentio

24:12 - to the archeology of Alabama or Kentucky or Tennessee.

24:15 - So those are some of the, some of the big projects were do.

24:18 - They dug a lot of mound sites.

24:20 - So, so that was those those were part of the New Deal.

24:25 - There are also some interesting archeology done.

24:28 - So, for example, I didn't know t until, doing the research.

24:32 - But, Daniel Boone was born in Pennsyl

24:37 - and so they did archeology at Daniel Boone's birthplace,

24:40 - as part of a New Deal project, in, Erie County, Pennsylvania.

24:46 - There was a,

24:47 - major, indigenous mound that was excavated.

24:51 - On land that was going to be flo and it was, and the

24:56 - the indigenous man, a mound was that belonged to the Seneca

25:00 - and the Seneca themselves.

25:01 - Actually, as part of a New Deal excavated this mound of their an.

25:07 - So, so most of the archeology

25:10 - that was done, was done either in the southeast.

25:14 - There's quite a bit done in Penn.

25:16 - New Jersey had all but one count I had archeology done in it.

25:21 - And a lot of the archeology focused on indigenous sites,

25:25 - but there were some historic sit excavated as well.

25:28 - And Arizona, there was quite a bit of archeology done as well.

25:32 - And Nebraska was another big sta.

25:34 - And there were some sites where,

25:36 - no new Deal archeology was done for one reason or anoth.

25:39 - Usually,

25:42 - they didn't really have,

25:43 - in some states to have a univers

25:46 - or other sort of major research to have an archeologist

25:50 - who could direct things and who can also suggest project

25:54 - Kansas was one of those, one of those states

25:58 - we've been speaking with.

25:59 - Bernard Means, he's an associate professor

26:01 - of anthropology at Virginia Commonwealth University.

26:03 - Thanks for joining me.

26:05 - Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.