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Ancient America comes alive at Angel Mounds State Historic Site
I’ve always been a fan of crackpot science. There’s something about the unknown and the unknowable that spurs the imagination. I love ley lines, standing stones, the pyramids – be them in Egypt or Central America. I’m frequently asked if I believe in UFOs, to which I always answer yes. After all, there are certainly flying objects that are unidentified. Just what they are I can’t say, otherwise they wouldn’t be unidentified now would they? I’ve made my pilgrimage to Avebury, Glastonbury and even used to brew beer that always included a dash of water from Joseph of Arimathea’s holy well, which might very well have the grail resting at the bottom.
It was about the time that I discovered John Michell’s New View Over Atlantis, that I learned that some of the greatest mysteries of prehistory existed right under my very nose. Back then you did your research in a library, and the extent of your knowledge depended on what books your library had on hand, or that you could persuade the librarian to order for you. It was there I discovered the moundbuilders of North America, and particularly Cahokia, near St. Louis, and Angel Mounds, closer to home in Evansville, Indiana.
I have no memory of the name of the book I found in the library that brought the moundbuilders to light for me, only that it dated from the first part of the nineteenth century, when the theories for who built these mounds ranged from noble savages, to the lost tribes of Israel, to the same European tribes who had built Stonehenge (who had of course also had contact with those who built the great pyramids), to extra-terrestrials. As I recall, the book in question had put forth a theory quite popular at the time, that it was a northward migration of the same peoples who built the pyramids of Central America.
There’s something magical about walking the grounds of Angel Mounds. Covering over 100 acres, the complex was begun around 1000 CE, and thrived for almost 500 years before mysteriously fading away about the same time Columbus came skipping across the water. There’s a distinct lack of things ancient in this country, and to stand in the midst of an abandoned city a thousand years old is a heady experience. It was almost a hundred years after the discovery of sites like this that the world culture was used to describe the people who built them. But what an amazing culture it must have been, in the middle of the wilderness, to sustain a large enough population to have the free time to build these huge mounds.
The Central Mound at Angel is 644 feet long, over 400 feet wide, and climbs in two levels, with a third conical mound standing in the southeast corner. Angel was a chiefdom, and it’s thought that it was from the top of this conical mound that the chief would address his people. The Temple Mound, which once had a reconstruction of the temple built to the Native American’s sun god at the top, lies on the same axis as the Central Mound. It is believed that the structure that originally stood on top of this mound held the bones of the ancestors of the chief, as well as sacred statues and other ceremonial items. A beautifully carved statue of a deity was found buried in the top of the mound, thought to have been done ceremonially at the end of Angel Mound’s occupation.
The interpretative center at Angel Mounds contains a wealth of information about the settlement, including life-size dioramas and a reconstruction of part of the village. There are other reconstructions scattered around the site, including a section of the wall which once encompassed three sides of the 100 acre site. Yet most of Angel Mounds remains blessedly undeveloped. The trees are kept cleared, the grass short enough to allow you to see the shape of even the smallest of the mounds. In short, it’s a blank natural canvas which lets the mind do its magic.
The exploration of the mounds of North American began when Thomas Jefferson decided to excavate one on his property. Even Benjamin Franklin got in on the act of trying to figure out who built them and why. For a long time, many people believed that there was a golden age on this continent, when advanced civilizations built these amazing cities. The same theories used to be tossed about in Britain over sites like Stonehenge and Avebury. I’ve always believed that it’s a natural inclination to want to believe in golden ages, in part because there’s a certain romance to be found in their decline and disappearance, as you find in the myths about Atlantis, or the realities of the antebellum plantations in the south. Even golden ages of the imagination had their real-life horrors, from the slavery of the old south, to the human sacrifices at Cahokia and Angel.
And yet the magic lives on in these sites. The keys to truly understanding the moundbuilders, and their cities like Angel Mounds, Cahokia Mounds and Kincaid Mounds in southern Illinois, might never be found. Then again, perhaps all it takes is seeing the landscape at the right angle, in the right light, and like Alfred Watkins discovering ley lines stretching across the English countryside, it might all come into focus. The focus might be cracked like an old teacup, but for me, the key to history isn’t just in the facts. It’s also in the imagination, which drives us to look deeper for answers.
Posted in Native Americans
Also tagged "fine art prints", mississippian culture, mound builders, moundbuilders, Native Americans, travel photographer
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Stepping back in time and into the muck at Cache River State Natural Area
To view larger or order prints from the Cache River Natural Wildlife Area, click here
Tucked away in the southern tip of Illinois you can find places which don’t seem to belong there. When you think of Illinois – aside from Chicago, or references to Abraham Lincoln, you tend to think of acres of flat land covered in corn, wheat and soybeans. What you might not think of are sheer bluffs, canyons, waterfalls and in the case of the Cache River State Natural area, cypress and tupelo tree swamps.
Formed in the remains of of a floodplain created long ago by glacial runoff coursing through the Ohio River, the wetlands that make up this area are fed by the Cache River and its tributaries. Boasting trees which were saplings when Vikings plundered Europe, as well as much younger trees which date to the time of Christopher Columbus, Cache River State Natural Area gives you a chance to immerse yourself in an area little disturbed by human contact.
My companion had been there before, and suggested the Todd Fink-Heron Pond Trail. The gravel trail which wind through the area, as well as wide and stable boardwalks which take you out over the water itself allow you to experience features of the planet which otherwise would be pretty much off limits. The 1.5 mile trail is labelled easy, which is true, though in July when we visited, the heat was pretty intense. You can’t count on much of a breeze, and the bugs are pretty much what you’d expect in a swamp.
The bottomland forests of the area surround Heron Pond, and a boardwalk extends out to the center. The shallow water is home to towering cypress trees, rising high above the duckweed which covers the surface of the pond. It’s easy to spot signs of life in the green duckweed, including trails left by snakes swimming along its surface. The curious bird-like sound heard frequently is actually the sound of tree frogs, which live in the cypress. What you see while standing on the boardwalk and looking out is a sight relatively unchanged for a thousand years or more.
To view larger or order prints from the Cache River Natural Wildlife Area, click here
It’s a miracle that its survived to this day. In the nineteenth century, only a few sturdy settlers occupied the area, trying to make a go of it harvesting lumber. With the advances in technology however, the wetlands were cleared quite rapidly. It was only when concerned citizens stepped in to stop the harvest, that about 15,000 acres were saved. Almost a quarter of a million acres of wetland were lost.
There are about a hundred species of endangered wildlife which finds a home in the Cache River State Natural area. Bald eagles, red-tailed hawks, great horned owls, barred owls, great blue herons, great egrets, little blue herons, green herons, least bitterns, wood ducks, mallards, snow geese, sora rails, woodcock, quail, mourning doves, red-headed woodpeckers, pileated woodpeckers, prothonotary warblers, black vultures and turkey vultures are among the birds often spotted. White-tailed deer, squirrels, raccoons, beavers, gray foxes, red foxes, opossums, skunks, mink and the occasional bobcat are among the mammals of the area. And a plethora of reptiles inhabit the wetlands, including ird-voiced tree frogs, southern leopard frogs, spring peepers, western chorus frogs, bullfrogs, American toads, cottonmouths, copperheads and timber rattlesnakes. So it’s best to keep your eyes peeled, as those last three are rather venomous snakes.
In addition to hiking, it’s possible to take canoe tours, ranging from three to six miles. There’s also a bike trail which winds through the area. And for fishermen (and fisherwomen), the catch could range from Channel catfish, crappie, bass to bluegill. Authentic swamp fish might also end up on your hook, the bowfin, needlenose gar, grass pickerel and yellow bullhead catfish for example. Two state-endangered fish which live only in forest swamps are the pygmy sunfish and cypress minnows.
We were content to hike the easiest of the trails, and sit on the boardwalk in the middle of Heron Pond and watch the filtered sunlight dancing on the duckweed, changing the color from a bright emerald to a rich green, and listen to the tree frogs high above us. There are few places where you can lose the sound of humanity, and here the only human sounds were the occasional far off sound of a truck out on the highway. My companion said once, that it was a place that felt like we shouldn’t be there. And she was right. It was humans which almost destroyed the Cache River wetlands for all time. But it’s also humans which have managed to preserve at least a part of it, and given us access to areas we could never otherwise reach.
As a reminder, when we got back to the truck, my friend noticed her ankles were swarming with deer ticks. These carriers of Lyme disease are a reminder that even though we might go someplace, we might not be designed to survive in those places for long. Leave no tracks, and wear boots!
If you go:
For more info:
http://dnr.state.il.us/lands/landmgt/parks/r5/cachervr.htm
Directions
To reach Cache River State Natural Area headquarters from the North, take I-57 south to I-24, go east toward Nashville, get off at exit #14 (Vienna), turn right at the stop sign onto US Rt 45, go south on Rt 45 through Vienna, 7 miles, turn right on the Belknap road for 4 miles to the stop sign in Belknap, turn right at the stop sign on Main Street and go 2,000 feet and turn right onto Sunflower Lane (past the Belknap Methodist Church) and go north 1 mile to the park office. The park office is located in the white metal pole building.
To reach the Henry Barkhausen Wetlands from Vienna, IL, go West 5 miles on Route 146 from the intersection of Route 146 & US Route 45, turn left or South on Route 37, then 9 miles to Wetlands Center entrance – follow signs.
While groups of 25 or more are welcome and encouraged to use the park’s facilities, they are required to register in advance with the site office to avoid crowding or scheduling conflicts.
At least one responsible adult must accompany each group of 15 minors.
Pets must be kept on leashes at all times.
Actions by nature can result in closed roads and other facilities. Please call ahead to the park office before you make your trip.
We hope you enjoy your stay. Remember, take only memories, leave only footprints.
For more information on tourism in Illinois, call the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs’ Bureau of Tourism at 1-800-2Connect.
Telecommunication Device for Deaf and Hearing Impaired Natural Resources Information (217) 782-9175 for TDD only Relay Number 800-526-0844.
Posted in Ohio River Valley
Also tagged "fine art prints", off the beaten path travel, swamp photos, travel photographer, wetlands photos
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Historical attractions in Gotham City: A gin-soaked stroll through New York City’s Manhattan Island
To view more photos or order prints from New York City, click here
For nearly eight years, I lived only an hour’s train ride to New York City. Yet I seldom visited there, and developed a true love/hate relationship with the place. The names associated with the place now don’t ring with the same sweet tones as the ones that came before them. There are no Gershwins, Cohens, Mailers – Dorothy Parker isn’t spilling her wit all over and under the tables of the Algonquin Hotel – even Woody Allen is increasingly abandoning the place for new inspiration.
There’s no doubt in my mind that New York is the most egotistical town in the world. Whereas Paris might consider itself the center of the art world, Milan might consider itself the center of the fashion world, New York skips the modifier and is the only city I know that calls itself the center of the world. Come to think of it, New York would try to lay claims to both those titles as well.
About a year or so ago I read a fascinating book, The Island At the Center of the World, by Russell Shorto on the founding of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, and how it shaped the history of what would eventually become known as New York. It turns out that American qualities such as religious freedom and tolerance of ethnic groups other than your own got their start in this country in the original Dutch colony. As well as more tawdry aspects of society such as getting loaded on strong drink and falling into the company of women of ill-repute. While their English brethren at the time living north in Massachusetts were practicing a strict, puritan form of government, the Dutch colony was allowing people to live according to their conscience, or lack thereof, and a fairly lax set of laws.
Keep this in mind the next time Christmas rolls around and people are harping about how Christmas is losing its importance and how the pilgrims who came to this country to worship as they saw fit would be appalled. Those same Christians did not tolerate any deviance from their laws, and the celebration of Christmas was outright banned. That we celebrate Christmas in this country today is a relic of the Dutch colony, whose concept of religious tolerance lives on. This is doubly curious when you consider that Holland was the country the pilgrims sailed from in order to found a new nation based on religious freedom. In other words, that Christmas exists in this country today is because of that heathen bastion now known as New York City.
Anyway, this article isn’t about religious freedom and tolerance, it’s about New York City, and where to see the history of the place, as well as historical attractions there today. It’s not as easy as you think. The original Dutch colony is almost completely gone. In fact, there are more signs of the Viking period in Dublin than there are of the Dutch in New York. When the Dutch occupied Manhattan, there were over 21 fresh water ponds and 66 miles of streams. There was a sandy beach at the southern tip of the island, and the landscape was one of gently rolling hills. The growth of Manhattan has obliterated the very landscape that the Dutch settlers found. There are the occasional discoveries of a piece of road, the foundation of a house or well, and nearly all of it is then covered over with new construction. The best place to see New Netherlands is by looking at a map, where the street layout of lower Manhattan is much the same.
The colonial period doesn’t fare much better. Even the balcony where George Washington was sworn in as our first president, outside the building where the Bill of Rights was enacted, is now remembered by a single stone tucked away in a museum. In New York, history usually plays second fiddle to real estate values.
Walking the streets of Manhattan today isn’t much different than walking the streets of any major city. You have the same chain stores – the high costs of doing business there has pushed out all but the largest retailers. There are restaurants of course, as New Yorkers increasingly define themselves by choices of eateries, few of which reflect any ethnic origins native to a particular neighborhood. The city is still a melting pot of course, but the people you see walking the streets are more than likely living elsewhere in the city or beyond, or tourists, as the cost of living has grown beyond the reach of most mere mortals.
To order prints from New York City, click here
So where do you find history in New York? Look up. Once your gaze rises above the first or second floor, the architectural history of the city comes alive. Get off the train at Penn Station and make your way to the Flatiron Building and head down Broadway for some of the best historical architecture the city has to offer. Pass the temple to one man’s retail dreams, the Woolworth Building – as intricate as a child’s dollhouse, past the looming bulk of the Municipal Building complex and wander the archetypical canyons of the financial district in lower Manhattan. Swing by Saint Mark’s Church of the Bowery, a remnant of the days when this land was owned by New Amsterdam’s last governor, Peter Stuyvesant, and the Stuyvesant-Fish house nearby which he had built as a wedding present for his daughter. Say hello to Alexander Hamilton in his final resting place outside of Trinity Church, a structure itself hoary with history. Dine at Delmonico’s which fed such figures as Mark Twain, or at Fraunces Tavern where Washington said goodbye to his officers at the end of the revolution. Or choose any of the outdoor restaurants on Stone Street which has a fairly medieval air, and get casually fed and watered before staggering your way back up the island.
Head up Fifth Avenue and see what used to be the center of the shopping world. Look up at the Empire State Building’s shorter, Art Deco sister the Chrysler Building for a peek at what skyscrapers could be when people actually gave a damn about such things as aesthetics. Stroll into the Plaza in the footstep of the stars of long ago and hold your head high as they kick your ass back out on the pavement. Stroll along Central Park West where notables still live in buildings that might as well be temples. As for Central Park itself – eh, it’s a park. It’s trees and grass and sure, it’s notable for being in the midst of one of the largest cities on earth, but in the end, it’s a park. It’s a living space for those who live here, who’ll you see in expensive recreational uniforms, or just sitting dazed knowing they’re supposed to get sun, but not entirely sure what they should do when the sunshine hits them. And of course a place for buskers to sell their wares and incredibly high priced bottles of water and soft drinks to tourists. It’s a simulation of nature, and for me, I prefer the real thing.
In short, history is still in abundance, but you have to know where to look. And you have to realize it’s not going to be coherent, nor even make sense in the modern sprawl of the city.
Perhaps New York City is best experienced in small doses. Get there in the afternoon and wander the streets into the night. Try seeing it from the top of a tour bus and avoid the lower stories altogether. See it bleary eyed from drink when emotions might be more likely to take over, and the people might seem a bit less irritating. Yes, the fabled rude New Yorker. There are certainly as many assholes per square foot in NYC as Paris. But just as I found most Parisians to be quite charming, the true New Yorker is really quite friendly as well, eager to chat or to help you find your way.
To view more photos or order prints from New York City, click here
So it’s late in the night, my last trip there, days before fleeing the east coast and New York for good and I had been walking the streets for hours, my pockets full of cash that was a going away present from the office where I worked, feeling like an emigrant in reverse, fleeing west from the city instead of eastward across the ocean. I always felt like an emigrant here, fleeing my home and poverty for a chance at a better life in the promised land. I was looking to say goodbye to the Chrysler Building when a man came stumbling onto the sidewalk in front of me, mussed-up hair and dressed in his P.J.’s, cursing each step he took, as though he was sent out by a shrew wife on some trivial errand. And yet when stopped by some tourists who had lost their way, he was as friendly and courteous as anyone I’ve met anyplace. I dined in the building which inspired Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, and spent more on it than I would a week’s worth of groceries. A black man outside of Penn Station bummed a cigarette from me and in exchange we walked down Broadway and smoked his marijuana. Waiting for the train I fell in with a group of strangers, ranging in age from 21 to 71 in a small bar and drank toast after toast, as I prepared to leave a place I could never feel a part of, but would certainly never forget. I lived in the shadow of that city for almost eight years, and never felt a part of it. But for a few hours, I was a New Yorker. I missed that train and the next, and as the little group who met as strangers and parted as friends drifted apart and I found myself slouched in a seat on the Long Island Railroad, an old song by the Pogues drifting through my fractured mind …
In Manhattan’s desert twilight
In the death of afternoon
We stepped hand in hand on Broadway
Like the first man on the moon
And “The Blackbird” broke the silence
As you whistled it so sweet
And in Brendan Behan’s footsteps
I danced up and down the street
Then we said goodnight to Broadway
Giving it our best regards
Tipped our hats to Mister Cohan
Dear old Times Square’s favorite bard
Then we raised a glass to JFK
And a dozen more besides
When I got back to my empty room
I suppose I must have cried
Lyrics from Thousands are Sailing, by Philip Chevron, recorded by the Pogues.
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Historical Attractions: A stroll through time in the downtown preservation district in Evansville Indiana
To view more photos or order prints of historic attractions from Evansville, Indiana, click here
I was in Beaufort, South Carolina recently which prides itself in its old homes and architecture. And yep, it’s something to be proud of. But I couldn’t help but think that if you take away the Spanish moss, what you’re left with is heat and stunning architecture.
In short, we’ve got that at home.
Evansville, Indiana grew up on a bend of the Ohio river, and summers there rival the lowcountry for hot, muggy weather. Unknown to most people in the area, so does the architecture. Much of the city is pretty typical suburban fare, though the downtown district still retains quite a bit of early twentieth century charm. But where you can truly step back in time is in the preservation district, just off downtown, a block inland from the riverfront.
The riverfront, now growing with riverboat gambling, restaurants, bars and shops attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year, drawn to the river city’s charms. But head a few blocks over and in and you find yourself on tree-lined brick streets, full of turn of the twentieth century homes, lovingly restored. The Reitz Home Museum is the only Victorian residence museum in the state of Indiana, and gives a good idea what many of these homes must have been like in their prime. But it’s easy to get in a good hour stroll down Southeast Second, First and Riverside Drive, past carriage houses, painted ladies, Italianate and Greek revival, elegant brick structures, many with hitching posts still out front, and widow’s walks on the top floors which once gave panoramic views of the river.
Weekday mornings and afternoons are the best times for touring the district, before the cars of those renting apartments in these grand old houses get home and line the streets. Nightime is magic as well, when silence descends on the streets and the smells of these older structures waft out to greet you on the sidewalks.
Time traveling in the midwest is a subtle art, and here you can find it at its finest. Non-commercial, very little in the way of formal historic attractions, instead you find yourself walking through a residential neighborhood, still alive and much as it must have been a hundred years ago. When the light’s just right, when the scent of the flowers is rich in the thick, midwestern air, it’s easy to be transported back. And hard to convince yourself to leave.
Note: I found a great site with info on Evansville history, which helped me put names and dates to these homes. Check it out!
