Time Sifters Archaeology Society Newsletter July 2021

JULY-2021 PRESERVATION  EDUCATION  RESEARCH  INSPIRE Dear Member: I hope you are enjoying your summer. I have just finished a trip that included visits to: The Pabst Mansion in Milwaukee, one of US Grant’s homes in Galena, IL, Lincoln’s homestead in Springfield IL, the fantastic Cahokia Mounds, President Harrison’s Home in IN, three Frank Lloyd Wright houses, the awesome Serpent Mound in OH, the Fort Hill Earthworks and the Fort Ancient Earthworks in OH. It was a great drive through the countryside seeing part of our history. We are putting together our 2021/2022 season, which will kick off in September. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please drop me a line. If you haven’t been to our website, www.timesifters.org or our YouTube channel, please check them out for the latest society information and other interesting stuff from the world of Archaeology. Have a great summer and thank you for being a Time Sifters member. Darwin “Smitty” Smith, President [email protected] Paleoanthropologist You Should Know Donald Carl Johanson Discoverer of “Lucy,” one of the most complete skeletons of Australopithecus Afarensis By Smitty, Time Sifters Board Member. Sources: Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica. Donald Carl Johanson, was Photo: Academy of American anthropologist born June 28, 1943 in Chicago. Achievement; Cleveland F. Clark Howell for his graduate He was the only child of Museum of Natural History; studies, doing a comprehensive Swedish immigrants study on chimpanzee dentition for Carl Johanson and Sally Johnson. Wikipedia; Wired. his doctoral thesis. Johanson His father died when he was completed a master’s degree in two years old and he was 1970 and a Ph.D. in 1974. raised by his mother in Hartford, CT. He attended the University In 1973 he discovered of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. AL 129-1, a small but Although he initially studied humanlike knee, and the first chemistry at the university, he knee known from the hominid eventually switched majors to fossil record in Hadar, Ethiopia. anthropology and worked during The following year, Johanson summers on archeological digs. and Tom Gray discovered an He graduated with a bachelor’s even more spectacular find, degree in anthropology in 1966. He AL 288-1, a partial skeleton of transferred to University of a female australopithecine Chicago to study under noted better known by its nickname of “Lucy”. The specimen was dated to 3.2 million years ago and is the first known member of Australopithecine Afarensis, a species thought to be one of the direct ancestors of modern humans. Eventually over 40% of the skeleton was Continued on page 4 ...

Did You Know? The Star-Spangled Garrison Banner. Permission by: Hallowed Ground, American Battlefield Trust Photo: George Henry Preble the British will have no difficulty seeing it from a distance.” The commission to make the banners went to a well respected Baltimore flag maker named Mary Young Pickersgill, who had undertaken other smaller projects set by the U.S. Army and Navy. Over the course of six weeks, 37 year old Pickersgill worked with her daughter, Caroline; two teenage Photo: reddit.com Photo: Wikipedia For as famous as it is, the termed “ensigns”; as an nieces, Eliza and Margaret so-called Star-Spangled Banner is especially oversized version, Young; an indentured African shrouded in plenty of the larger one was a “garrison American apprentice, Grace misconceptions. Perhaps most flag.” In fact, before it received its Wisher, and her own mother important is this: The massive more poetic moniker, Fort Rebecca Young; who had relic on display in the McHenry’s example was taught her the art of flag making, Smithsonian National Museum known as the plus additional hired of American History is NOT “Great Garrison Flag.” seamstresses as necessary. the flag that flew over Fort McHenry while it was under Both flags that figure into The dimension of the Great British attack. Given the foul the Battle of Baltimore were Garrison Flag dwarfed the weather during the bombard- ordered by the fort’s commandant home that Pickersgill rented so ment, the fort instead flew its in the summer of 1813. to have enough workspace, the smaller storm flag, raising the Although only newly arrived women negotiated use of the massive version when the British from the war at the Canadian nearby Claggett’s Brewery disengaged the following frontier, Major George Armistead late into the evening after the morning. was confident that the British day’s production had ceased. forces would turn their might For their labors, they were In the terminology of the toward Baltimore and wrote to ultimately paid $405.90 for time, as national flags, both his superiors that it was “my emblems would have been desire to have a flag so large Continued on page 3 ...

Continued from page 2 ... stayed for around 90 years, evolutions of display. Deter- occasionally displayed for mined to keep the relic on dis- Banner ... patriotic gatherings. During play without compromising its this time, as was typical integrity unnecessarily, in the Great Garrison Flag and before any formal regulations 1996, the Smithsonian began $168.54 for the storm flag – for treatment of the nation preparations to give the flag a about $9,200 adjusted for flag were adopted, pieces of full conservation treatment. inflation. the ensign were clipped off to use as gifts. Increasingly The multimillion-dollar Just how big was the flag concerned about the flag’s project began in 1998, and flying over Fort McHenry at fragility, in 1907 Armistead’s museum visitors were able to dawn on September 14, 1814? grandson Eben Appleton watch the painstaking work of It measured 30 by 42 feet, loaned the Star-Spangled undoing previous, well inten- making it reportedly the largest Banner to the Smithsonian tioned repairs – even today, flag flown in combat up to that Institution, making it an there remain 37 visible patches time. Each of the 15 red and outright gift five years later. – through a massive window. white stripes measured two Specialized techniques were feet across (until 1818, a star In 1914, the Smithsonian used to clean and stabilize the and a stripe were added for began a massive restoration, flag, and to protect it as the each state that joined the Union), as legendary embroiderer surrounding museum underwent do the 15 stars, arrayed in five Amelia Fowler and a team its own renovation. offset rows. The whole project of assistants applied 1.7 took about 400 yards of fabric million patented honeycomb Photo: reddit.com (English wool bunting for the stiches to mount the flag to a stripes and blue canton, white linen backing. Permission by: Hallowed Ground, cotton for the stars) and American Battlefield Trust weighed more than 50 Over the ensuing century, pounds. It took 11 men to the science of material hoist the great Garrison Flag conservation has evolved to the top of its 90-foot pole. considerably (from attempting to replicate its original After the war, the flag passed appearance to ensuring its into the possession of the long-term stability), and the Armistead family, where it flag has gone through multiple A Time Sifters Book Review Tim White, whose energy, work ethic, and opinions made him a Fossil Men lightning rod for controversy even before his team’s 1994 finding of The Quest for the Oldest Skeleton “Ardi,” a skeleton older than Lucy and the Origins of Humankind whose age approaches the era when hominids and chimpanzees By: Kermit Pattison diverged from their presumed common ancestor. Colleagues Review by Kirkus readers prefer personalities to fumed for 15 years as his team Perhaps once a decade, a events, and Pattison describes studied the bones, and the resulting journalist recounts the history plenty of ambitious, media-savvy massive 2009 report aggravated and latest findings in human researchers whose often bitter matters. The anthropological evolution, a subject of apparently hostility has stalled progress but community learned that “they endless appeal - Martin Meredith’s makes for lively reading. He were looking up the wrong tree for Born in Africa (2011) remains a passes quickly over the father of human origins, and that their page-turner. Pattison caught the African anthropology, the colorful quest to link early humanity to bug in 2012 and devoted seven Louis Leakey, spends more time modern apes was nullified by Ardi years to gathering material. The on his wife and family and their because the last common ancestor result is a satisfying education on pioneering findings, and gives a looked like no modern species.” the status of the human family major role to Donald Johanson, Pattison delivers a gripping and tree over the past five million whose 1974 discovery of a partial reasonably balanced account of years, and the author provides skeleton of “Lucy,” a small, primitive the predictably hostile reception, detailed explanations of how human ancestor. Mostly Pattison and this remains a controversial anthropologists tease information focuses on anatomist Owen interpretation, although it has from bones, teeth, and local geology. Lovejoy and anthropologist made some converts. It’s a journalistic maxim that

Continued from page 1 ... conduct an expedition to Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania where he Donald Carl Johanson … discovered a jaw and limb bones of a specimen of Homo recovered. Johanson was habilis, later known as astonished to find so much Olduvai Hominid 62 (OH 62). of her skeleton all at once. OH 62, dated to 1.8 million Pamela Alderman, a member years ago, which were the of the expedition, suggested first H. habilis specimens she be named \"Lucy\" after discovered that had parts of the Beatles' song \"Lucy in the arms and legs. Sky with Diamonds\" which was played repeatedly during During his tenure at IHO, the night of the discovery. Johanson oversaw the discovery of AL 444-2, the most complete A bipedal hominin, Lucy A. afarensis skull known, stood about three and a which supported the idea that half feet tall; her bipedalism A. afarensis was separate from supported Raymond Dart's other hominid species. In theory that australopithecines 1997, the IHO moved from walked upright. Johanson Berkeley to Phoenix, AZ and and his team concluded from became affiliated with Arizona Lucy's rib that she ate a State University. plant-based diet, and from her curved finger bones that Johanson wrote or co-wrote she was probably still at several books, including home in trees. “Lucy, the Beginnings of Humankind” (1981; with In 1975 there was yet Maitland A. Edey), “Journey another major find in Hadar, from the Dawn: Life with the when his team found World’s First Family” (1990; AL 333, nicknamed “the with Kevin O’Farrell), and First Family”, a collection “From Lucy to Language” (1996; of prehistoric hominin teeth with Blake Edgar). and bones of at least 13 individuals. In1976, more He currently lives in Chicago. hominid fossils were discovered, along with stone tools which, Photos: Cleveland Museum of Natural at 2.5 million years, were History; Wikipedia. the oldest in the world. After 1976, political conditions in Ethiopia prevented further expeditions for nearly15 years. In 1981, Johanson founded the Institute of Human Origins (IHO), a non-profit research institution devoted to the study of prehistory, in Berkeley, CA. In 1987, the IHO was given permission to 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 Don Nelson Copyright © 2021 Time SiftersArchaeology Society,Inc., All rights reserved.