SRAC's 2010 Giving Campaign

“A community with a Center like SRAC is provided with a window to the past that gives individuals a sense of where they came from...and what they all share.”

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The SRAC 2010 Giving Campaign
The fact is that there is no other museum like SRAC within hundreds of miles of our community. SRAC's Andrew A. Burns Exhibit Hall is packed with thousands of local Native American and early historic artifacts and manned by educated and friendly volunteers. This ensures that SRAC gives every visitor an experience filled with interaction, excitement and a sense of belonging. Our gift shop has local artwork, historical books, children’s educational toys, rocks and minerals, pottery, etc, and stands by itself as a viable storefront in downtown Waverly. Our lecture hall seats 80+ individuals, suits every audio/visual need for any occasion, can be rented by local individuals or businesses and hosts several affordable yet entertaining and educational programs throughout the year. Most importantly, whether you are a local visitor or a traveler who has stopped in off the highway, you will find that you are a welcome guest at SRAC the minute that you enter our door.

As you can see, even though we are manned 100% by volunteers, we are working hard for our community. We have plans to begin renovating our lower floor to extend our museum space and our upper floor for research/material space, to include a research library. But as you know, this all takes funding – and that is why we are reaching out to you for support of our efforts and our future stability.

We see your dollar donated to SRAC as an investment in our community. As you learn more about SRAC, we trust that you will too.

If you have already supported us during the 2010 Giving Campaign - Thank You!

If you have not, you can donate online at http://www.SRACenter.org/Donations or you can download our 2010 Giving Campaign form here.

Thank you for sharing the form and/or this post with others!

7th Annual Drumbeats October 2nd!

The final plans are being finished for the 7th annual "DrumBeats Through Time" event to be held at the Susquehanna River Archaeological Center at 345 Broad Street on October 2nd. SRAC's Deb Twigg reports, "The event is totally free to attend and is the organization's celebration of our region's Native Indian and archaeological past with the community."

The event begins at 11:30 am - 1pm for the SRAC membership who are invited to annual membership meeting that will include a chance to see what many are calling the only "Mississipian Mace" to ever be found in New York state.

At 1pm, there will be artists at several vendor tents on the sidewalk outside of SRAC to include Native Indian artwork, beadwork and jewelry as well as other items. Visitors will also be invited to sign up for classes taught by some of these artists later this fall at SRAC.

Also at 1pm in the SRAC lecture hall there will be an archaeology presentation that was rated one of the top ten scientific discoveries - "The Burning Tree Mastodon: Death...and Life...in the Ice Ages!" by popular speaker, Dr. DeeAnne Wymer, Bloomsburg Univerisity. Dr. Wymer will describe and discuss how ancient Paleoindians hunted and killed this mastodon that was uncovered in Newark, Ohio in 1990, how he became preserved in the bottom of a small cold glacial pond allowing researchers to actually see the stomach contents, and the insights into the world of 11,400 years ago at the end of the last ice age. Dr. Wymer reports, "His life...and death...reveal a remarkable story."

From 3 - 4pm, the Seneca Buffalo Creek Dancers will perform. The Dance Group began in 1988 and is well known for being very proficient in their traditional Iroquois Social Dances. Many of the dancers in this group have won dance competitions for their particular categories at Pow Wow's across the country. Respected by Natives and non-Natives, the Buffalo Creek Dancers perform at many schools, colleges, festivals, and Pow Wows throughout the United States and Canada.

SRAC’s Deb Twigg states, “We like to close the DrumBeats Through Time event each year with Native American dancers, and we are lucky to have gotten the very best group, the Buffalo Creek Dancers from the Seneca Nation, because their schedules are filled for most of the year because of their popularity. Rest assured that this will be the very best DrumBeats event yet.”

SRAC DrumBeats Event Schedule
11:30 – 1:00pm : Exclusive Annual Membership Meeting & Luncheon
1:00: Doors Open to the Public
1:30 – 2:30: DeeAnne Wymer, PhD, Bloomsburg Univ., “The Ohio Mastodon” as covered by National Geographic and Discovery Channel
3:00 – 4:00: Buffalo Creek Seneca Dancers: music, songs, culture, regalia, and friendship!
5:00: Doors Close

Admission to this event is free!

Analyzing Proto-Susquehannock sites in the Upper Susquehanna River Valley

Last spring I received an email from one of our SRAC professional advisors, Dr. Kurt Jordan, and anthropologist from Cornell University. He had a student that he said that he thought just might be as obsessed with the Susquehannocks (click here to learn more) as I was - and that he wanted her to come down to SRAC and to have us share all that we know and to share all that we had on every site in our region.

Jasmine also graduated from Elizabethtown College 2009 with two B.A's: one in history and another in sociology/anthropology. Her field work includes: Washington Boro site (Susquehannock - Lancaster, PA), Fort Hunter site (1760's - Harrisburg, PA), London Town (18th century - Edgewater, MD), Pig Point (12thCentury- Anne Arundel County, MD), Walhain-St.Paul site (14th Century - Walhain, Belgium). Currently employed full time as an archaeological field technician with Historic Saint Mary's City in Maryland.

When Jasmine first arrived at SRAC, I gave her all of my research on all the sites I have studied and all of the resources that I used - to include 400-plus letters from the 1916 Moorehead expedition through our region, the videos and reports on the Englebert site, the Griffin report, and many others...Ted Keir also spent several days with her and showed her all the information, photos and slides that he had on all the sites in our region to include the Kennedy site. I also asked SRAC's Don Hunt to join in and take her on a ride to physically show her the sites in our region and I even made a phone call to the family that now own "the Murray Garden" and they walked that site that day as well. We also sent Jasmine to the Tioga Point Museum to see what else they might have that she could use, and although they refused to let her see any skeletal materials, she was happy with what she found there as well.

All of this as well as time she spent with professionals such as Dr. Barry Kent and researching sites such as the Washington Boro Susquehannock site in Lancaster, PA and others on the lower Susquehanna made me feel pretty confident that she was pretty successful in collecting data and all different views concerning all of the archaeological sites reported to be "Susquehannock," "Proto-Susquehannock" and otherwise over the past 125 years.

At the end of the time that we had to spend with Jasmine as a part of her overall studies, I had to admit that maybe she WAS as obsessed with the Susquehannocks as I am - and I want to commend her for all of the hard work she did for this research project.

Since then for the past month Jasmine has been finishing up her thesis to defend at on September 30th at Cornell titled, "Analyzing Proto-Susquehannock sites in the Upper Susquehanna River Valley," and this will be the first of what I hope will be many research efforts on our region to come.

On Wednesday September 29th from 6:30 - 7:30pm, we are invited to preview her work on the night before at SRAC which was my only request to her for all that we did to support her efforts this summer. This will be a joint meeting between Triple Cities Chapter of NYSAA, Andaste Chapter of PA Archaeology, and SRAC - and will be free to the public to attend.

Don't miss your chance to see this presentation which is the first comprehensive archaeological report dedicated to the upper Susquehanna River Valley region and the Susquehannock sites found here to date.

Read Online Here: "Indians in Pennsylvania"

This book is an "oldie but a goodie" and is available here thanks to Google Books - and you can read the full text right here.

Want to find more online books? Visit http://books.google.com/ to learn more!

Woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros and reindeer lived on Iberian Peninsula 150,000 years ago, findings show

ScienceDaily (Sep. 9, 2010) — A team made up of members of the University of Oviedo (UO) and the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) have gathered together all findings of the woolly mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros and the reindeer in the Iberian Peninsula to show that, although in small numbers, these big mammals -- prehistoric indicators of cold climates -- already lived in this territory some 150,000 years ago... Click Here to read the full article.

Nationally Recognized “Buffalo Creek Dancers” to Perform at SRAC

Buffalo Creek Dancers

The Seneca Buffalo Creek Dance Group began in 1988 and is well known for being very proficient in their traditional Iroquois Social Dances. Many of the dancers in this group have won dance competitions for their particular categories at Pow Wow's across the country. Respected by Natives and non-Natives, the Buffalo Creek Dancers perform at many schools, colleges, festivals, and Pow Wows throughout the United States and Canada. On October 2nd from 3-4pm, the Buffalo Creek Dancers will perform at SRAC’s 7th annual “DrumBeats Through Time” event at 345 Broad St., Waverly, NY.

Doors open at 1pm for the DrumBeats event, and the educational programming begins at 1:30pm with a unique archaeological presentation by Dr. DeeAnne Wymer, from Bloomsburg University. This presentation is titled, "The Burning Tree Mastodon: Death...and Life...in the Ice Ages!" Dr. Wymer will describe and discuss how ancient Paleoindians hunted and killed a mastodon excavated in Newark Ohio in 1990, how it became preserved in the bottom of a small cold glacial pond, and what insights the research has given us into the world of 11,400 years ago at the end of the last ice age. The life...and death of this creature...reveal a remarkable story that was covered in the National Geographic, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other numerous media outlets.

SRAC’s Deb Twigg states, “We like to close the DrumBeats Through Time event each year with Native American dancers, and we are lucky to have gotten the very best group, the Buffalo Creek Dancers from the Seneca Nation, because they are so popular that their schedules are filled for most of the year. I hope the community comes out to experience the unique and free celebration that we put on at SRAC every year in celebration of our Native Indian past.”

To learn more, visit www.SRACenter.org , email info@SRACenter.org or call (607)727-3111.

SRAC Receives Two Collections

McQuay Collection

Jackson Collection

The Susquehanna River Archaeological Center (SRAC,) reports two additional collections have been donated and placed under their stewardship. The collection was donated by Sally McQuay of Sayre, PA and was collected by her and her late husband George McQuay in Lycoming County near Williamsport , PA several years ago. The McQuay collection includes celts, blades, net sinkers, paint pots, game stones, and several stone tools and arrowheads. The second collection was donated by long time SRAC member, Richard Jackson. This collection includes research books and 60-some arrowheads that are sited and were collected from sites around Endicott, NY.

The collections have been named "The McQuay/SRAC Collection" and "Jackson/SRAC Collection" respectively and they both are already on display at SRAC along with thousands of local artifacts that can be seen during normal business hours. This makes a total of 15 collections that SRAC has been able to preserve to date.

SRAC's Ted Keir said, "This is how our museum has grown - by families donating their personal collections and entrusting SRAC to preserve it in their family name in order for future generations to enjoy them."

SRAC is located at 345 Broad Street, Waverly, NY and is open 1-5pm Tuesdays through Fridays and 11am - 4pm Saturdays. To learn more, visit www.SRACenter.org or call (607)565-7960.

"Stories From the Natural World" - by Ed Nizalowski

When: Tue, September 7, 6:30pm – 7:30pm

Where: SRAC - 345 Broad Street Waverly, NY

*Stories From the Natural World*, by Ed Nizalowski, Newark Valley Historical Society The Southern Tier prior to the Revolutionary War was the realm of Native Americans who took the bounty of the land, soil and forest in ways that had been developed and sustained for centuries. Although native tribes had altered the environment to suit special needs, the white settlers who streamed in after the Revolution entered a cornucopia of animal life and plant life all sustained by a forest that offered some of the finest building material in the world.

Nizalowski will present how the past 200+ years the transformation that has taken place in the natural world of the Southern Tier has been remarkable to say the least. Those interested in wildlife can read the first reports of animals making their reappearance in Tioga County including the white tail deer, beaver, bear, coyote and bald eagle. Three possible sightings of the eastern mountain lion are sure to be intriguing. Forest history includes accounts of the chestnut blight, Dutch elm disease, wide spread tree plantings in the first quarter of the century and the development of state forests in the 1930's. Ed has been involved with the Newark Valley Historical Society for over 30 years and has developed a special interest in ethnic, immigrant and minority groups along with both agricultural and environmental history.

Doors open at 6pm. Admission is $5 for adults , $4 for SRAC members and students.