Darcy Dougherty Maulsby is shown with a piece of fire-cracked rock which would have been used in an ancient cooking pit along the Middle Raccoon River.

By DARCY DOUGHERTY MAULSBY

yettergirl@yahoo.com

It looked like an ordinary, nondescript rock when archaeologist Joe Arts passed around a brown stone that you could easily hold in your hand. But when he started telling the story behind this sandstone, I was hooked.

“We’ve carbon dated a cooking hearth from the area where we found this rock and found that it was about 2,400 years old,” said Arts of Iowa City, explaining that the stone we were passing around was fire-cracked rock, which would have been heated to cook food in a pit.

I was stunned-and even more excited that I’d chosen to spend my Saturday assisting a team of professional archaeologists working along the banks of the Middle Raccoon River at Whiterock Conservancy near Coon Rapids. “As river levels change and meander, artifacts from Native American camp sites are exposed,” said the Whiterock email inviting the public to join the archaeologists. “Excavations are truly unique experience as you never know what you will uncover!”

About 10 of us, including professional archaeologists and rank amateurs like me, gathered on a warm, sunny Saturday morning on September 15 to dig into history, literally, at Whiterock Conservancy, a 5,500-acre, non-profit land trust along seven miles of the Middle Raccoon River valley that balances sustainable agriculture, natural resource protection and public recreation on the landscape.

Whiterock Conservancy began inviting archaeologists to conduct archaeological studies in the conservancy in 2010 when plans were taking shape to add trails in the area. There was have been some remarkable finds in the area since then.

Here are 10 things I learned about Iowa’s amazing natural history and Native American heritage:

1. Iowa was-and is-defined by the glaciers. The famous Wisconsin glacier that transformed the Iowa landscape between 12,000 and 14,000 years ago was a monster of an ice sheet. Archaeologists tell us the massive glacier was 5,000 feet tall-about a mile. It pushed its way south across the Des Moines lobe from northern Iowa to the area where the state capitol stands in Des Moines at about 0.8 mile per year-a blistering fast pace for a glacier. Once the glacier got to central Iowa, however, warmer temperatures caused it to melt about 12,000 years ago.

2. People have been living in Iowa for hundreds of generations. People have lived in Iowa for 13,000 years, with some of the earliest traces of human habitation in areas like Mills County in southwest Iowa that weren’t affected by the most recent glacier.

3. Early Iowans invented the concept of eating what’s in season. Before Native Americans began settling in permanent villages, they would move across the landscape to find food as the seasons changed. Maple sap might entice them to come to an area with maple trees in the spring, while areas of wild game would lure them elsewhere as the year progressed. “People knew the land,” Arts said.

4. Agriculture goes back thousands of years in Iowa. Native Americans began farming in Iowa for 3,000 years, noted Cherie Haury-Artz, an archaeologist and education assistant with the Office of the State Archaeologist in Iowa City who joined the Whiterock dig. The development of agriculture and pottery go hand-in-hand in the archaeological record, she noted. “Also, women were the farmers, while men were hunters and warriors,” she added.

5. Ancient crops are surprising. While ancient Iowans relied on familiar crops like sunflowers, they also grew things we consider weeds, including pigweed and lamb’s quarters.

6. Corn has defined Iowa for 1,000 years. Corn (maize) was domesticated in Mexico 7,000 years ago, and ancient Iowans began raising it about 1,000 years ago, Haury-Artz noted

7. Farming led to villages. Sometimes hundreds or even thousands of people would congregate in permanent villages in Iowa. Earth lodges that have been found in Mills County reflect this, said Haury-Artz, who added that these Native Americans were “big time corn farmers” about 1,000 years ago.

8. Life was harsh. Living to a ripe old age as a Native American in Iowa hundreds of years ago usually meant living to 35 or 40.

9. Tradition of the food askers. Spring was the “hungry time,” since winter food supplies were dwindling and new crops were not growing yet. Life could be especially tough for widows and those with disabilities who had no way to secure an adequate food supply. “The Native American tradition of the food askers means that you feed anyone who shows up at your home with an empty bowl,” Haury-Artz said. “This is borne out in the archaeological record.”

10. Native Americans engaged in trade. Archaeological digs across Iowa have revealed that as early as 2,000 years ago, Native Americans here were engaging in trade from the Rocky Mountains to the eastern part of North America and beyond, as evidenced by mica from the Appalachians and marine shells from the Gulf of Mexico.

There’s a remarkable story to be told through the Iowa landscape and the secrets that lie hidden in the soil, Joe Arts said. “There were people here long before us. I view our work as a tribute and a thank you for letting us learn more of their story.”

Darcy Dougherty-Maulsby (a.k.a) Yetter-girl grew up on a Century Farm between Lake City and Yetter and is proud to call Calhoun County home.

Contact her at yettergirl@yahoo.com and visit her online at www.darcymaulsby.com.