Chapter 9 - Archaeology
Since the mid-1960s the Army Corps of Engineers has developed a strong interest in archaeology, a development related to the rise in environmentalism and the general public interest in American ethnic culture. The Southwestern Division was the forerunner among the Corps' divisions in archaeological activity. Its interest originated during World War II in the Tulsa District. As time passed, the division broadened its archaeological capabilities.
Prior to the 1930s, federal involvement in archaeology was sporadic and disorganized. Through the public works programs of that decade, archaeology took a great step forward, largely through the Works Progress Administration. But the Corps' involvement in archaeology remained minimal and perfunctory. Economic development took precedence over environmental considerations in the Corps, as it did throughout the United States in both public and private sectors.
During World War II, however, this condition changed in the Tulsa District, partly by chance, partly by direction, and perhaps because of the wealth of archaeological sites in Oklahoma.
The district's first foray into the archaeological arena began with the Flood Control Act of 1944, which authorized the Corps to construct and operate public parks and recreational facilities on its properties. A Tulsa District employee suggested that the act could include archaeological sites along with parks and boating facilities. He contacted the Smithsonian Institution for advice, and by 1946 an archaeologist from the University of Oklahoma was conducting a survey of two Tulsa projects, Fort Gibson and Tenkiller Ferry. A year later he found a significant site at Wister Reservoir. Since 1948 more than 60 archaeological sites have been found on the project's grounds.
"Crisis archaeology"
Archaeological activity in the Tulsa District remained limited, however. The Corps had to depend on the National Park Service for funding and completion of studies. During the 1950s archaeologists working with the Corps practiced "crisis archaeology." That is, they made a quick excavation at a site, salvaging what they could before it was flooded by a reservoir. That was the case with most excavations, federal and private, because of the limited funds and the available technology. Funding was especially poor for Tulsa District projects in the 1960s and early 1970s because most of the limited money Congress allocated to the Park Service for archaeology went to higher-priority projects in the Missouri River Valley.
First official archaeologist
In 1974 Congress moved to allow federal agencies and departments to spend up to one percent of a project's total construction cost on archaeological work. At that point, the Corps of Engineers began placing archaeologists within its districts in the United States. Again the Tulsa District was a step ahead. In 1970 it had taken into its environmental resources branch a geologist who also met civil service requirements for archaeologist. After the position he held was reclassified, he became the first officially recognized full-time (and until 1974 the only) archaeologist in the Corps. He later took the position of division archaeologist, another Corps first.
By 1978, each of the division's five districts had at least one archaeological position and a combined program of more than $3 million annually--the same as the National Park Service's total 1973 archaeological budget.
Because of the division's expertise, the Corps headquarters and other divisions and districts frequently went to it for advice on archaeological matters. Southwestern Division personnel helped draft regulations to implement the new laws on archaeology.
To provide greater uniformity in application of policy and to provide the districts with a forum for discussing the issues, the division in 1976 began conducting annual archaeology workshops. Since 1980, the Chief of Engineers Office has sponsored similar meetings for Corps archaeologists.
One recent landmark in the division's archaeology program was its involvement in the Second New World Conference on Rescue Archaeology. The division sponsored the 1984 meeting in Dallas along with other federal agencies, the Organization of American States and Southern Methodist University. The international conference attracted 250 men and women--business people, international financiers, government administrators and archaeologists--from 19 countries who discussed the problems of studying sites that face damage or destruction from either natural or man-made causes.
In 1984 the Southwestern Division began a comprehensive archaeological overview of its entire jurisdiction that covers the division's physiography, drainage basins, culture areas, reviews of previous archaeological work and assessments of advanced technological developments for archaeological studies. The information was to be placed in a computerized data bank and updated when needed. The overview will provide a common point of reference for future archaeological studies and district and project management plans. If it meets expectations, the project will become a model for application throughout the Corps.
The Southwestern Division's leadership in archaeology is clearly recognizable. From the first steps in Tulsa District in the 1940s, cultural preservation has grown in importance in the division. Archaeology may well be the best example of why the division calls itself the Pacesetter.
