SRAC's Tenth Annual Drumbeats Through Time

(WAVERLY, NY) The Susquehanna River Archaeological Center (SRAC) is announcing their tenth annual “Drumbeats Through Time” event which  is planned for Saturday, October 5^th from 11- 4pm at 345 Broad Street in Waverly, NY. The event, which is a celebration of their Center, their mission, their supporters and the region’s Native American past begins at 11 am with a SRAC membership luncheon that will be catered by the Waverly Methodist Church, and includes prizes and gifts exclusively for the SRAC members. 

At 1pm, the doors open to the public and the first speaker of the event will be Dr. Barry Kass, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Orange County Community College,  S. U. N. Y., in Middletown, NY,  where he has taught various courses in anthropology, sociology, and  human geography for  more than forty years. Dr. Kass will present, “Quarry Caves Site near Florida, N.Y.: Key Archaeological Discoveries of the Earliest Inhabitants of the Lower Hudson Valley in New York State.” The site yielded an extraordinary archaeological assemblage ranging from the PaleoIndian to the Woodland stage. Most noteworthy was the discovery of a classic Cumberland fluted point, dated through association with caribou bones found at the site, which provided one of the earliest carbon dates for human occupation in the Americas. The archaeological material will be illustrated and described, and historic photos of the early excavations will be shown.

At 2pm, SRAC advisory board member,  Dr. Deeanne Wymer, professor of Anthropology at Bloomsburg University will give a presentation on the excavations she led in 2012 on a Hopewell ceremonial mound site that had numerous significant features that will be discussed and shown on screen. SRAC’s Deb Twigg commented, “Dr. Wymer has been with SRAC for many years and has given a handful of presentations in that time that always are popular and in fact I still refer to in many of the tours that I give at SRAC.”

At 3pm, SRAC welcomes back the national award winning Seneca “Buffalo Creek Dancers”, who regularly close the Drumbeats event  and have become the ambassadors of the Native Americans during the event, sharing their history, culture and friendship with the audience who are invited to take part in some of the dances as well.

The whole event is free to attend and the SRAC Exhibit Hall will also be open and include several local private collections that are not normally on public display.  Twigg added, “This truly is a huge celebration of SRAC and what we stand for, filled with friendships, education, and of course representation of the Native Americans that we all include as a part of this region’s local heritage. There’s just nothing like this event anywhere else around, and I hope the public comes out and supports our efforts.”