SOU field school unearths puzzles of life 1,500 years ago in upper Rogue drainage

Archaeological student Christian Solfisburg figured he had just found another rock when he gently scrapped off a layer of dirt from the test plot.

"But as I brushed the dirt off and looked at it closer, a little signal went off in my head," said the Southern Oregon University senior.

"From the other test digs that were done and what I had read, I had an idea I was looking at a clay fragment," he said.

Sure enough, the student participating in SOU’s and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s annual archaeological field school found an unusual ceramic figurine fashioned centuries ago by American Indians.

The site is on the BLM’s Medford District not far from Lost Creek Lake in the upper Rogue River drainage. Because of the potential for illegal digging, officials asked that the exact location not be disclosed.

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"It may not look like much, but it is the most complete figurine found in this region so far," observed Mark Tveskov, associate professor of anthropology at SOU.

"Mostly, they find little arms or the head or the tail of a fish," he said, adding that larger figures are rare.

Found late last week but revealed on Monday, the figurine is a human, broken off at the waist, with two small arms. The facial features are gone.

Tveskov, who is leading the school along with Ann Ramage, the BLM’s district archaeologist, explained that the use of ceramics in Oregon was unique to Indians in the upper Rogue and Klamath rivers.

"No other Indians in Oregon used ceramics in the same way," he said.

It’s unknown what the clay figure was used for, he said.

"There isn’t a lot of information in Indian oral tradition about these kinds of figurines," he said. "It could be anything from a toy to a real sacred object. We don’t really know.

"But they come in all kinds of forms — human, fish, deer and some really abstract geometrical forms," he added.

He believes the site, about 1,500 years old, was a seasonal camp with people traveling up from larger riverside villages. The inhabitants were probably upland Takelma or Mollala Indians, he said.

In addition to giving students hands-on experience, the purpose of the school is to help the BLM learn more about its cultural sites.

Unfortunately, before the scientific test dig began, illegal "pot hunters" had already torn up the landscape with their picks and shovels.

Tveskov estimates that 75 percent of the site has been destroyed by the looters. What once was a family hobby decades ago now is an underground business often associated with illegal drug activity, he said.

The problem with illegal pot hunting, in addition to its cultural destruction, is that it takes artifacts out of context, Ramage said.

"These are precious resources," she said. "When the looters come in, they are taking resources from the public."

Under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, which put more law enforcement muscle into the Antiquities Act of 1906, it is illegal to gather or dig artifacts on federal land without a permit.

In addition to the figurine and remnants of stone tools, the site is also revealing evidence of how Indians managed their landscape, particularly with fire, Tveskov said.

"This flat spot right here is a good example of that," he said. "It probably has about 1,500 years of Native American campsites overlapping on it."

The local trees, mainly pines, were likely not there when the site was in use, he said.

"They would have burned this landscape on a regular basis and kept these trees down and fostered growth of oaks that produce acorns," he said.

They would dig blue camas root from local meadows, pick wild strawberries, hunt deer or elk, he said.

He displayed several projectile points found during the research at the site. The fine points are made from jasper or agate.

"They would have probably hunted deer with that — it has a jagged edge for cutting arteries," he said of one point that could have fit on his thumbnail.

Eirik Thorsgard, an SOU senior majoring in anthropology, is interested in the dig from a scientific and a personal perspective. He is an American Indian from the Yakima and Clackamas tribes.

"I was highly interested (in the figurine) but also nervous because I don’t know what they are for," he said. "It’s different than finding a projectile point or some kind of tool. We pretty much know what they are for."

Not so with the figurine, he said.

"When you find something of symbolic value, it’s harder to determine what the meaning is," he said.

SOU juniors Darby Keenan, who hails from La Grande, and Amie Bohen, from Armstrong, British Columbia, took a break from scraping and brushing dirt to talk about the dig.

"I’ve wanted to be an archaeologist since the first grade," said Keenan, noting she worked on a dig into an old Chinese camp as a youngster. "I love it."

Bohen originally went to SOU to study theater but switched to anthropology.

Both students have found several barbed points and fragments of a "mano," a stone used to grind food on a flat rock.

"When I hold one of these stones, I think someone made this, they sat right here and made this and used this," Bohen said. "It’s like putting a puzzle back together."

Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at pfattig@mailtribune.com