The SRAC Journal

SRAC as a non-profit has been around since 2005, and since then we have not only acquired our first building, but we have also outgrown our quarterly publication from a newsletter to a full-fledged journal. Members of SRAC now get a newspaper-styled publication filled with articles and high quality images at no additional cost, even though this next newsletter coming out next week is 18 full pages (8 1/2 x 11) of great information about the history and archaeology found in the surrounding region of the Northern Tier of PA and Southern Tiers of NY.

The faced artifacts that you see here were discussed in the last publication in an article that discussed a recent field trip that some of the SRAC board members took to the NYS Museum to catalog all of the artifacts they had in their possession from our region.

The main article is by Dr. Marshall Becker, PhD, Senior Fellow in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as SRAC Advisory Board Chair. The article includes 4 incredible pieces of wampum that we were able to see at the Oneida Nation near Syracuse, NY, as well as a summation of many years of research by Dr. Becker on wampum usage.

You can now download a low res version of this last quarter's publication by clicking here.

This quarter we have renamed our publication to the SRAC Journal for two reasons. First we believe that as a publication it demands such a title change, and secondly, we want our authors and other researchers to be able to cite the articles in our journal for future references.

The Journal Volume 3, Issue 4 that is coming out next week has some pretty great article as well. First is an article by our Board Chairman Ted Keir concerning a little known collection to scientists called the Jake Vanderpoel collection which was for the majority a collection from an incredibly historic site called "Tioga Point." This is the place that General Sullivan set up camp before joining Clinton's army in 1779. This is also the "meeting of the waters" between the the Cheming and Susquehanna rivers. This is the place that the old "Forbidden Path" - otherwise known as the backdoor to the Iroquois nation ended. Unfortunately, the collection went to auction, but our own Ted Keir was with Jake for many digs at the site and lucky for us has photos and records of many artifacts that we fear will never be seen again in real life. The deer antler artifact shown here is an example of items that are in the article, and this was dated in Ted's records at 1615 - 1630 AD....which may very well be an argument that the area WAS in fact inhabited during that time period that some have said wasn't possible! Other photos include a copper hair coil found with 2,428 white beads, 107 black beads, and 33 cobalt blue Russian beads (dated 1727-1734 AD,) a stone with an incised spiral design, and many other items.

Of the several other articles of note in the SRAC Journal, the other favorite of mine is on the ARC Site in NY, by Stanley Vanderlaan, which is the Paleo site which is said to cover over 100 acres and the author claims it is the largest Paleo site in all of New York State. Several images of the Paleo material are included in the article as well.

Rest assured that all of you that are SRAC members are going to be receiving a wonderful publication next week in your mailboxes!

Not an SRAC Member ? Click here to join online and to begin receiving your SRAC Journal with your membership today or click here to download our membership form to mail in!

Want To Submit an Article for the next SRAC Journal* ? Contact me at dtwigg@sracenter.org.

*Subject to review process