Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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CULTURE
GLISIC, J. 1961. Pojava ranih bronzanodopskih kultura na Kosovu related sites and visited others. Field investigations included
i Metohiji. Glasnik Muzeja Kosova i Metohije 6: 133-44. soil-core transects, detailed measurements of structures and
. 1968. "Ekonomika i socialno ekonomski odnosi u neolitu
Podunavsko-Pomoravskog basena," in Neolit centralnog Balkana recordings of their geographical and cultural environs, and test
Edited by L. Trifunovic, pp. 21-61. Beograd. excavations at four sites. Combined with reviews of published
NARODNI MUZEJ, BEOGRAD. 1972. Bronzano Doba Srbije (The Bronze and unpublished information on other sites, the research
Age of Serbia). (Exhibit catalogue.) Beograd. strengthens the case for historic-period origins for these struc-
NARODNI MUZEJ, NiS. 1971. Les civilisations prehistoriques de la
Mor-avaet de la Serbie Orientale. (Exhibit catalogue.) NiS. tures, despite their reputations as "monks' caves," Celtic
PopoviC, V. 1965. Sur la chronologie de l'age du bronze en Serbie et shrines or altars, Phoenician or Libyan colonial remains, and
en Bulgarie. Archaeologia lugoslavica 6:37-54. so on (Burbank 1976, Feldman 1977, Fell 1976, Goodwin 1946,
STALIO, B., and A. JURISIC. 1961. Jasik-Gornja Komarica. Starinar,
n.s. 11: 157-62. Oren 1959, Rothovius 1964).
TASIC, N. 1961. Djurdjevacka Glavica:Prilog proucavanju Vuce- The phenomenon of public fascination with sensational
dolske grupe juzno od Save i Dunava. Starinar, n.s., 11: 143-56. popular archaeology (Cole 1980, Silverberg 1967, Wauchope
. 1971. The Bosut group of the Basarabi complex and the 1962) is as interesting as the empirical archaeological details,
"Thraco-Cimmerian" finds in Yugoslav regions along the Danube but the latter deserve professional note as well. Neudorfer
and in the Central Balkans. Balcanica 2:27-67.
TRINGHAM, R. 1972. Hunters, fishers, and farmers of eastern Europe, (1979) argues persuasively that most of the approximately 50
6000-3000 B.C. London. slab-roofed, straight-walled semisubterranean chambers inves-
tigated in Vermont were built as root cellars. Massachusetts's
structures may be a bit more diverse in function as well as
"EnigmaticStoneStructures"in Western form. Five investigated were completely subterranean except
for small (less than 1 m) rectangular openings in their upper
Massachusetts sides, and they were characterized by corbeled-arch ceilings
topped with a stone slab capstone; their circular to oval bases
by JOHN R. COLE ranged from about 1 m to 3 m in diameter. Another was only
Department of A nthropology, University of Massachusetts- partially buried but otherwise similar, and yet another was
Amherst,Amherst,Mass. 01003, U.S.A. 21 viii 79 characterized by post-and-lintel rather than corbeled-arch con-
struction. The latter two and one other were filled with fresh,
"Enigmatic stone structures" in western Massachusetts and
flowing water and probably were springhouses. Another, adja-
elsewhere in New England have given rise to a large amount of
cent to an 1840 house, included as part of its original masonry
speculation and argument. Some writers have claimed or
construction two bricks which were indistinguishable from
implied that these dry-stone masonry constructions are evi-
those used in the house. Located outside the former kitchen,
dence of pre-Columbian colonization bv one or several Old
it may have been a dry well for sink drainage (as the owners
World civilizations of antiquity (Cook 1978, Feldman 1977,
in fact assumed). The dry structures could have been spring-
Fell 1976, Goodwin 1946, Trento 1978). The popular press has
houses when the water table was different, but they differ from
capitalized upon often extremist claims while paying less
the currently spring-filledchambers in having sand rather than
attention to professionals who argue that the structures seem
stone floors and no evidence of trenching for a gravity-feed
to be historic (Neudorfer 1979; see Cole 1978, 1979 for news
water supply. One, several meters from a 19th-century ceme-
clipping compendia). University of Massachusetts-Amherst
tery, might have been a winter body-storage vault or a cellar
archaeological research directed by me, assisted by Dorothy
for nearby (but now abandoned) houses and a tavern. It and
Krass and Linda Towle and nine graduate and undergraduate
the other dry structures were extremely well insulated, cooled in
students, was undertaken in answer to public curiosity and
summer and warmed in winter by the water table deep below
our own interest in early New England a(idptive technology
the sand floors; one, at least, had walls extending 80 cm deeper
and its relationship to patterns of settlement and abandon-
ment.' The project investigated nine stone structures and two acknowledged,and particularthanksare due to the Town of Pelham
Board of Selectmen and Historical Commissionand the Massa-
1 The assistance and cooperation of landowners in Amherst, chusetts State Archaeologistfor permissionto conduct researchon
Shutesbury,Leverett, and Wendell, Massachusettsare gratefully publiclands.
Vol. 21 * No. 2 * April 1980 269