Time Sifters Archaeology Society Newsletter April 2022

APRIL-2022 PRESERVATION  EDUCATION  RESEARCH  INSPIRE Dear Member: We the Board of Time Sifters enjoy bringing you the fabulous speakers and interesting stories in the newsletter each month. The results of the recent survey confirm that we are on the right path. Thank you to all the members who took the time to tell us your thoughts. It really helps us put together the various programs. If you haven't already, please pay your dues and if you are not a member, please join us. It is only $25 a year and we have two ways you can pay … via pay pal on the website or dropping a check to the PO Box. Thank you for being a Time Sifters member. Darwin “Smitty” Smith, President [email protected] April 20 - at 6:00 PM – ZOOM. Update on the Savannah River Project: Photo: Jonas/Jordan/USACE, Wikipedia The CSS Georgia Michael Jordan President, Cosmos Mariner Productions Author/Historian/Filmmaker Michael Jordan will give us an shipwreck discovered in the correspondent whose work has update on the major archaeo- river in 2021 and raised in been honored with an Edward logical work which has taken January. R. Murrow Award, a Georgia place in the Savannah River Associated Press Best since his talk in February 2016. Knoxville, TN-based Documentary Award, and a This includes the completion of filmmaker Jordan has produced regional EMMY nomination. the recovery of the CSS Georgia more than 30 He is the author of three and the conservation of the films about books about Savannah history. thousands of remarkable artifacts history and discovered in the process. Jordan archaeology in will share the surprising infor- the southeastern mation uncovered in his search U.S. He was the official U.S. through forgotten primary source Army COE filmmaker for the documents at the National archaeological recovery of the Archives, including a literal “x ironclad warship CSS Georgia marks the spot” map! Also in Savannah, GA, and conducted included will be new video footage original research into the of more than a dozen cannons postwar salvage of the ship in from a Revolutionary War the late 1860s. Jordan is also a former free-lance war Instructions for real time viewing: Register in advance for this meeting: Go to the Time Sifters website, www.timesifters.org and click on the registration url. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Notes from a Time Sifter Photos: YouTube, Pinterest, Wikipedia Who are the Ukrainians? the Greek By Evelyn Mangie, Time Sifters Board Member authors called Taurica. The Recently, there has Photo: x22report Greek colonies been a lot of news were successful about a faraway country believe that the Triploye people until the Romans took over the that concerns us all, were the first to domesticate coast (47 BCE- 340 CE) as a yet many of us have horses and may have invented client state they called the little knowledge of its the wheel (earliest known Bosporan Kingdom. It became history. Ukraine, the example of a wheeled object a Roman economic center second largest country ca. 3600 BCE). protected with Roman garrisons in Europe, occupies an against the waring Sarmatians area of eastern Europe The Triploye culture was until the Sarmatians united with (233,032 sq. miles) followed by nomadic tribes the nomadic Goths and Huns slightly smaller than that arrived from every direction. that weakened the western the state of Texas (268,597 sq. They invaded, settled, or just Roman Empire until it fell in miles) with diverse geographic passed through the area. the 5th century CE. In the 6th features and climate. Most of Cimmerians (10th-8th centuries century CE, the Khazars their land is arable and they BCE), the Scythians (7th to (Turks) added Ukraine and some possess five percent of the 3rd), and the Sarmatian (3rd Slavic states to their large earth’s natural and mineral BCE- 4th CE) came, usually commercial empire. resources. Their population is ruling parts of Ukraine rather A major change came in the ethnically and religiously diverse, than the entire area. We know 9th century CE, when the but the major language is of them from ancient authors Scandinavian Norsemen Ukrainian. like Homer, Herodotus, Diodorus (Vikings) came down the Volga Siculus, and Pliny. and Dnieper Rivers and created The present government is a what came to be called the constitutional multiparty republic. In the 6th century BCE, the Kievan Rus, a loose confederation By popular vote, Ukrainians Ionian and Doric Greeks of Slavic, Baltic, and Finnic elect a president, a prime minister, planted colonies on the northern kingdoms. Rus is a Finnish and a unicameral parliament, Black Sea coast (Crimea) that word meaning “boat rowers” all for five-year terms. They and is the source of the name have a very long and complex for Russia. The Vikings made history that is punctuated by the city of Kyiv, one of the oldest the arrival of many different cities of Eastern Europe, the ethnic groups that frequently capital of this rich trade empire traveled in all directions along because of its strategic the rivers and across the position on the Dnieper River. steppes of Ukraine. Kiev is roughly 300 miles north of the Black Sea coast A Neolithic culture called the Triploye built towns in Continued on page 4 ... Ukraine by 5500 BCE, possibly predating urbanization in Mesopotamia and Egypt. The Triploye culture was unique in that their towns were very large (ca. 800 acres) with houses and mega structures built in concentric rings for a population of perhaps 20,000. Archaeologists have excavated at Maidanetske, ca.100 miles south of the modern city of Kyiv, where they found evidence of this sophisticated culture that used clay tokens, and made beautiful clay jars and other fascinating artifacts. Scientists

Did You Know ... Tabby: The Poor Man’s Masonry By Sherry Svekis, Time Sifters Board Member. Following up on Evelyn’s article Braden Castle evidences all the characteristics of the SpaldingMethod,including last month about how the Romans even tiers of tabby that ran the entire round of improved concrete, along the the building, 12 inch lift heights for each tabby Manatee River we see historic tier, tie holes that lined up directly with those use of tabby, sometimes called “coastal concrete” or “the The Tabby House Ruins show characteristics of the Oglethorpe method. Remaining poor man’s masonry”, in several blocks of masonry illustrate the coarse width and peg spacing typical to the ruin. structures (or their ruins): the Although the ruins are greatly deteriorated, there are obvious cast marks on at least Gamble Mansion, the Braden one remaining tier. Castle, and the Tabby House Ruins at De Soto National Two methods of building Castle and the Gamble Plantation Memorial. with tabby were used along also show some form of tabby the Manatee: tabby placed in bricks, which involved pouring Tabby is known as a vernacular a formwork (a process similar tabby into brick forms for later building material, meaning it to pouring concrete: parallel construction. relies on the use of local materials rows of planks are set up, and knowledge. Used by both wooden plugs maintain the The Oglethorpe Method is the Spanish in St. Augustine separation between the planks, characterized by uneven tabby and the English and Americans the tabby mixture is poured widths, tabby lift heights of 22 along the coast of South Carolina, and then left to set. When the or more inches, irregularly Georgia, and Florida, it never mixture is dry, the process is spaced tie holes, and obvious expanded beyond the South- repeated until desired wall cast marks with distinct jogs. eastern coastal region where height is reached) and tabby The Spalding Method shows the cost was minimal, only that of made into brick. Within the tiers of tabby that were all the labor and equipment. The formwork method there are same width and which ran the composition of tabby is equal two distinct English-American entire round of the building, (or near equal) volumes of lime, patterns of construction: the 12 inch lift heights for each water, sand, and shells. Lime was “Oglethorpe Method” from tabby tier, tie holes that lined derived by burning the shells the 18th century, and the up directly with those below of oysters and other mollusks in “Spalding Method” from and above, and an absence of a kiln or open pit, or simply by 1830. the Tabby House Ruins cast marks. stacking oyster shells and at De Soto National Memorial. heart-pine logs in alternating have been dated prior to the The Oglethorpe Method was tiers right out in the open. Which- 1842 founding of Manatee clearly the cruder of the two ever method, the aim was to partially based on the patterns, and may have affected heat the shell materials to the differences between these two the strength and durability of temperature of decomposition methods. Both the Braden the tabby structure at De Soto. for as long as necessary for them to turn to lime ash. Shells (not burnt) formed the coarse aggregate upon which the lime, sand, and water united and set. Ordinarily, whole shell was used in the construction of tabby walls, while crushed shell was reserved for floor and roof construction (not seen locally) and the manufacture of tabby brick. Oyster shells were readily mined from aboriginal shell middens as evidenced by the cultural debris, such as pottery sherds, seen in the Tabby House Ruins material.

Continued from page 2 ... multiethnic militaristic organi- government that recognized zation, controlled some of the Ukraine’s right to autonomy. … the Ukrainians? Ukrainian provinces. Power over Ukraine shifted between But Russia regained power where those cities became part Russia, Austria-Hungary, and in 1922 was able to force of Byzantium (eastern Roman and Poland until the start of Ukraine into the Soviet Union. Empire) until they and the WWI when major revolutionary The Soviet Union fell in 1991 Kievan Rus were both overtaken upheavals drew new boundaries and Ukraine declared its inde- by the Mongols in the 13th all over eastern Europe. The pendence again. Their future is century. After the collapse of Russian Revolution in 1917 uncertain but whatever happens the Mongols, parts of Ukraine gave the Ukrainians the next will affect the entire fell under the control of Lithuania opportunity to revive their world. and Poland from the 14th to nationalist movement and they the 18th centuries during formed their own provisional which the Cossacks, a Photos: Pinterest, Wikipedia, flickr, democracynow Board of Officers: Lifetime: $350 Pay online at: Directors Darwin \"Smitty\" Smith, President Individual: $25 WWW.TimeSifters.org Sherry Svekis, Vice President Family: $35 Or mail checks to: Mary S. Maisel, Secretary Student: $10 Time Sifters, Inc. Laura Harrison, Treasurer Supporting $50 PO Box 5283 Karen Jensen, Membership Sarasota, FL. 34277 Marion Almy Jean Louise Lammie Evelyn Mangie Copyright © 2022 Time SiftersArchaeology Society,Inc., All rights reserved.