I appreciate Mr. Hapke's comments regarding some of our statements. I think it is important to realize, however, that in some states cemeteries are a legal land use, separate from and above being any kind of historic or cultural feature, artifact, or site. It should not be the archaeologists who are called in as to matters of old cemeteries located within project zones, but the attorneys, who should, by necessity, be reviewing the legal title issues according to law, and then determining if the developers even have a right to the place at all. As for the "prostitutes" in California, I stand by what I wrote. In Folsom, where a private cemetery operator graded ground in preperation for building multiple mausoleums on the fence line with an old Chinese Cemetery, the city made them hire an archaeologist to go to the site after the grading had occurred to determine if there were Chinese graves along the fence line and under the asphalt road laid out by the operator. Instead of returning with a report that stated, "I'm sorry, it's impossible to know if there were graves where the grading has occurred, and I cannot detect graves through asphalt", this person pronounced there were no graves affected by the work performed! We still joke about her x-ray tennis shoes.... Another instance in the same town occurred when Intel Corporation, after learning from the local historical society and pledging it would never develop the hill where what was left of the Prairie City Cemetery was located, sold a portion of the hill to the California Dept. of Transportation for a right of way for a highway interchange ramp. CalTrans received three separate archaeological reports that the Prairie City Cemetery was located on the hill where the right of way existed. They went through all the motions of doing ground penetrating radar (the map cites "ground disturbance-not a grave"at one location), did one test excavation, and proceeded with the project. I met with the CalTrans archaeologist one year before they broke ground and was denied the right to lay out a grid and perform probing in areas where photographic documentation showed graves. I left her with, "I'll be surprised if you find less than 10 graves..." In 1997, when CalTrans began to break ground, I called in the press after finding an excavator parked next to two granite tombstone bases. The television media really picked up on it and the first night they showed one CalTrans archaeologist pointing to the bases saying, "this isn't a cemetery, these are just throw aways from earlier damage done when the first off ramp was built." (Quite an admission after 20 years of denying they had encountered graves the first time around!) After arranging for reburial places before they even located the first grave pit, CalTrans found 12 graves on a hill known to be a cemetery and issued a press release seven days later proclaiming they had "discovered" a cemetery! As they were excavating the graves and documenting them, we stopped by the cemetery to see how they were doing. The CalTrans archaeologist stood there puzzled (the same one I'd worked with for three years trying to convince her the cemetery was there), and asked why we thought the graves were all laid out in a similar but slightly different angle. We had to tell her, "Because they were buried facing east, which is the custom of nearly all cultures, and they didn't use a compass when digging the grave. They went by where the sun was in the sky and that varies depending on what season of the year it is." (This is really basic, common sense stuff.) The point here is that most archaeologists truly have no experience in things such as this. Yes, they know about human remains, and they can tell you its a grave. But most of your lay persons with any common sense can tell you that. CalTrans had those remains "for study" for nearly a year and all we found out were they were either an adult or child! The grave size told us that! We found the idea of studying human remains from a period of HISTORY where newspaper accounts document the cause of death, was absolutely ridiculous and lacking in respect. "Their teeth will tell us a lot about their diet...." This is nonsense; it's not like there weren't thousands of other people around writing home about the type of foods and other amenities being experienced in gold rush California. By the way, here comes the prostitution end of this tale....In 1961 a California appellate court ruled that a highway is no better public purpose than a cemetery and ruled that CalTrans and the Federal Highway Administration could not use land dedicated to cemetery purposes. CalTrans deliberately ignored the reports noting the existence of the cemetery to avoid being stopped by a court of law. The archaeologists working for CalTrans had slipped $25,000 in the budget to relocate the cemetery! I have worked with good archeaologists and I have worked with bad archaeologists. The last one I worked with was good - at Native American sites - but had no concept of historic cemeteries or how they functioned. One of his associates sent me her report of an "isolated grave" in another location she'd worked on and asked us to look at that location and tell her if we thought it might be a full cemetery. (It was out in the boonies and badly overgrown.) We did and we detected no fewer than ten other possible grave site within 30 feet of the marked grave. She later told me she had learned a lot working with us at the cemetery we were reviewing to determine the size and extent for a shopping center. But she is a rarity. If I sound jaded, so be it. We have had over 40 cemeteries bulldozed or obliterated in some way in just the past 20 years in this county that should never have been touched without a court order. We have sheriff's deputies telling neighboring residents they have no jurisdiction to stop this activity even though it is a crime to obliterate or desecrate a grave. And we have a board of supervisors who doesn't want to accept the legally mandated public title to the vast majority of the remaining cemeteries that was established by a law enacted in 1872. Those of us out in the field who have volunteered to be the protectors of other people's ancestors (no, Mr. Hapke, we're not all in this because we have affected ancestors), perform a valuable public service and we don't get paid a dime. What we get paid with is ridicule, slander and ignorance of the law by all the "responsible" parties involved in these affairs. But that doesn't stop us because we know what we are doing is the right thing to do. The civilized thing to do. We're living in historic times. In a hundred or more years, the work that we are doing will be known to later historians because we are documenting these matters for the future. So when a cemetery or burial ground cannot be located, the historians will have a road map of what has happened. It is the least we can do and sadly, it is also most often the best we can do. Sue Silver El Dorado County Pioneer Cemeteries Commission a California Non-Profit Public Benefit Corporation Member, California Historic Cemetery Alliance ----- Original Message ----- From: "Russ Hapke" <rhapke@adsnet.com> To: <INPCRP-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2002 11:40 PM Subject: Re: [INPCRP] "Old Cemetery to far gone" ????? > I wish to thank Mr. Briles and Mr. Frevert for their comments concerning the > professionalism of archaeologists, and feel very badly that Ms. Silver has > had what seems some extremely unfortunate circumstances in California. > > Ms Silver refers to archaeologists as 'prostitutes' who 'prostitute their > integrity just to keep being employed'. Well sorry to contradict you Sue, > but for myself and many other archaeologists out there...we have all left a > job (or so) or been asked to leave because we tried to do the moral and > 'right thing'. > > Most of 'John Q. Public' rant and rave when their family's past is > threatened; however it is more unfortunate that if they find they can turn a > buck on their ancestors, many will do just that. SO which is worse, the > archaeologist who cannot save a site or a cemetery because they were > contacted after the fact...or the family member who sells Aunt Tillie's one > of a kind antique broach from Ireland because they want a DVD player? > > Ms. Silver, I feel bad that the experiences you have mentioned thus far have > all appeared to have been negative concerning archaeologists. But anyone out > there please feel free to put yourself in school and get the degree as it is > never too late to find out just how much 'fun' it is being a professional > 'prostitute'. It may be a little different than you believe. > > > Russ Hapke - Archaeologist > LaPorte County, IN >