Diggers

In some parts of the world not too disturbed for archeology, the diggers were busy last week filling in with spades and delicate brushes a few blank pages of history.

Neolithic New Yorkers. U.S. archeology is mostly concerned with Indians, who are more appreciated now than in the early settlers' days. Dr. William A. Ritchie, New York State Archeologist, told how he dated Indian remains by means of carbon 14 in charcoal from long-dead campfires.

Carbon 14, faintly radioactive, is formed in the upper atmosphere by cosmic rays. AH carbon in living things contains a tiny amount of it, but after the death of an organism, its carbon 14 gradually disintegrates; half of it disappears in about 5,800 years. The amount that has disappeared is a reasonably accurate measure of the object's age.

Tested in this way, by Drs. W. F. Libby and J. R. Arnold of the University of Chicago, one sample of charcoal from a buried campsite in Schuyler County proved to be about 5,400 years old. Most previous estimates had given the Indians only 2,000 years in New York State, but Dr. Ritchie's finding seemed to indicate that rather primitive redmen lived there in 3450 B.C., when the neolithic inhabitants, of northern Europe were not much more advanced.

Some more recent Indians proved to have had some odd customs. While investigating village sites near the Trinity River in Texas, diggers under Robert T. Stephenson of the Smithsonian found "ceremonial pits" 90 feet across and ten feet deep. In one was the skeleton of a bear, laid out with a full ceremonial burial. Apparently the Trinity River Indians worshiped or otherwise honored bears, as did the hairy Ainu of northern Japan.

Great Spirit. One Indian finding was negative, and damaging to a colorful legend--that the meteor crater near Canyon Diablo in Arizona was feared and shunned superstitiously by the Indians. Legend has it that the crater was regarded as the place where the Great Spirit appeared as a huge ball of fire and plunged into the earth. This story, according to Professor Lincoln La Paz, meteor expert of the University of New Mexico, even penetrated scientific writings and was used as "proof" that the meteor fell at a date when the region had human inhabitants to witness its fall.

But Professor La Paz spoiled the whole yarn by announcing that he had found, close to the lip of the crater, a pit house of prehistoric, 1000 A.D. Indians who obviously did not fear the place too much to live there. He suspects that the legend was invented recently by white men. Geological evidence indicates that the meteor probably fell more than 50,000 years ago, when it is unlikely that humans were around to be frightened by it.

Classical Perspective. From the Mediterranean, paradise of diggers, came news of gaudier digs. At the site of ancient Stabiae, near Naples, Professor Libero D'Orsi was impatiently watching a field of ripening tomatoes, the property of Peasant Vincenzo Tammaro. Under the tomatoes, he was sure, lay riches of classical art. But the peasant had the professor neatly trussed in red tape. He could not sink a spade until the tomatoes were safely in the sauce factory.

Stabiae is only a mile or so from Pompeii, and was buried by the same eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Digging was started by King Charles III of Naples in 1749, but to no great effect. Early this year Professor D'Orsi dug in earnest, and made an extraordinary find 13 feet underground: a patrician villa of the Roman period, whose walls were decorated with 30 rather dim paintings of mythological subjects. They were not flat, like other classical paintings, but showed excellent perspective. The anatomy of some of the figures resembled Renaissance painting.

Professor D'Orsi's find started a brisk controversy. Some diggers thought the advanced paintings must have been produced by a lonely Roman genius. Others theorized that Stabiae may have been the seat of an ancient tradition and artistic style unknown elsewhere in the classical world.

Before the controversy could be settled by more digging, Vincenzo Tammaro planted his tomatoes, remarking: "If you won't dig for antiquities, I shall dig for modern products." Once the crop was planted, the law protected it. So the art of Stabiae will have to stay under the tomatoes until after the October harvest.

Palm Springs, Palestine. From Palestine, where nearly every stone is historic, Professor James L. Kelso of the American Schools of Oriental Research returned with news of yet another Jericho. Located on the floor of the desert Jordan Valley, 800 feet below sea level, Jericho has had many lives. Beneath the most famous Jericho, which Joshua's Children of Israel blitzed with their trumpet blasts, lie at least five earlier versions.

Near the small modern Jericho two miles away, the American diggers (the actual digging was done by Arab refugees) found close below the surface the winter capital of Herod the Great (40 to 4 B.C.) The well-preserved government buildings are made of concrete in massive Roman style. Some of them are painted, with the paint still brightly colored. Most interesting is a sunken garden near the river bank. Its flowerpots are still in place. Here Herod came in winter from drizzly, chilly Jerusalem, 17 miles away, much as the wealthy of Los Angeles sun themselves in the desert at warm Palm Springs.

Miami Beach, Greece. Fresh from excavations at Corinth, Professor Oscar Broneer of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens will teach this winter at the University of Chicago. Swedish-born Dr. Broneer is one of those happy archeologists who lead vicariously riotous lives (and still stay sober and solvent) by reconstructing the dissipations of ancient times. His favorite item at Corinth is a colonnaded building over 500 feet long, which has recently been identified as an entertainment supermarket.

Corinth, according to Professor Broneer, was the Paris of the ancient world. Perhaps the Miami Beach would be more accurate. The city did not shine in matters military, political or intellectual, but it was the place that all Greeks longed to visit at least once without their wives. Dr. Broneer's elegant building (built with subtle curves) was the center of its famous festivities. Behind the long arcade were 33 bars & grills, each with a well sunk to an underground stream to cool its refreshments.

But it was not wine that made Corinth the leading resort of the olive-oil-lit era. It was the 1,000 beautiful girls who paraded up & down the long colonnade, sat in the bars at intimate little tables, danced or made music on ivory flutes for all who could pay the cover charge. These young women of Corinth were famous all over the classical world for their beauty and talent. They were not mere prostitutes, Professor Broneer says firmly. They were "Hetairai"--more like Japanese Geishas, trained in the arts and sciences, skilled in conversation. But the professor admits that from some of the taverns, staircases led to small rooms on the second floor of the building.

In 146 B.C. the Consul Lucius Mummius visited Corinth--with a Roman army. The legionaries looted the famous nightclub; they tossed the tables, dice, ivory flutes and drinking cups down the 33 wells (where Professor Broneer found them more than 2,000 years later). But the riotous spirit of Corinth survived. In 60 A.D., St. Paul reproved his little flock at Corinth (II Corinthians 12:20, 21): "For I fear," wrote St. Paul wearily, "lest, when I come . . . I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed."

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