This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

Randall Buchanan logs data collected from an excavation in r'ort Bienville.
?It?s been a very mundane summer,? Jackson said. *
As the dig neared its eni is week, exciting moments were subtle, almost undetectable, and brought on by seemingly fneaningless objects that most people never would have noticed?a dirt-caked bit of deer rib; a smooth, hardened lump of clay, a layer of charred soil.
Hunkered down in precisely measured square holes?the only apparent result of their six weeks of labor?the students
Each item, however unremarkable, is consigned to an appropriately marked bag. The depth and location at which it was found within the hole are dutifully recorded.
Had the project been conducted 25 years ago, things would have been different?
Archaeologists are not certain why the rings were constructed?they never will be. In a narrow-sighted effort to develop the port in the late sixties, the rings were bulldozed into oblivion. Witnesses reported that as many as five dozers at once were employed at
served to clear the way for another kind of destruction? that of the relic hunter.
The newly-exposed ground was virtually littered with artifacts from the long-lost civilization?spearheads, clay cooking balls, clay vessels.
Like vultures to a week-old road kill, relic hunters, serious and casual, flocked to the once-beautiful hillock overlooking Mulatto Bayou and the marshes that stretch to the south and west toward Pearl River.
The hillock soon took on the appearance of a lunarscape? barren land pocked with holes left by the hundreds who had plied the ground hoping to cart off a piece of history.
?I don?t want to hear about it,? Mann says when he hears about the volume of artifacts that were removed from the site. To him the countless items that are boxed away in closets and adorn mantels throughout the area only represent so much knowledge lost to posterity? knowledge that rightfully belonged to everyone, instead of just a few.
?The relics themselves have a very limited value to us. We need to how they were left, whether they were left as part of a burial ritual, as household refuse or whatever. That is the tragedy; all that information is lost,? Jackson said.
Some of Jackson?s experiences this summer indicate the site?s renown apparently continues today.
?We?ve had a pretty amazing parade of people coming through, showing the things they had found here. Some of them even offered suggestions on where to dig,? Jackson said.
CHANGING VIEWS
In the past, a lack of concern by those with whom the valuable site had been entrusted led to its being violated. The current guardians have a better appreciation of that value, according to Jackson.
?The port (Port and Harbor Commission) realizes today they need to try to manage what is left, and they got us out here to determine what is still here.
render the information it could have before it was sacked, but the researchers are optimistic that there is still much to be gained there.
?Some archaeologists might write this site off, but there is still important work left to be done here, important information to be gained about the Coast?s pre-history,? Jackson said.
Jackson finds encourage-
tneni ctllU Lllfcjy men, uavin^ become imbued with symbolism, nctioned within the cultm _.
?This is all purely supposition,? Jackson said. ?Most of our knowledge is based on work in other areas. In this area we are working in a vacuum. Other places we could come up with lots of answers based on 30 or more years of study. Here we are looking for the questions instead of the answers.
?It will be a long time before we have a firm grasp on what was happening here. There is a lot of work to be done on the Coast,? Jackson said.
Gayle Ross plots a find.
/
Brett Randall, left, and Matt Hall wash soil through screens to find objects that might be overlooked otherwise.
Buchanan uncovers part of an earth-oven.
A collection of spear heads and pottery sherds discovered years ago at Port Bienville.
Story and photos by D.C. Harvill