Riverbank project uncovers American Indian remains

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) – Workers shoring up the riverbank at Moccasin Bend uncovered human remains, and an archaeologist at the Tennessee River project west of downtown Chattanooga has found an American Indian burial place elsewhere opened for apparent looting.

The chief park ranger for the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park said the archaeological site is under guard and an investigation of possible grave looting recently at the Moccasin Bend National Archaeological District is underway.

Native American Indian Movement chief Carl “Two Feathers” Whitaker said he has been told that “remains were disturbed where they're working, and that they are not being protected and guarded.”

Chief ranger Todd Roeder told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that officials would meet with representatives of tribes who signed a park stabilization work plan and memorandum of agreement.

Park Service officials and contractors said recent storms and the river washed out a grave, not the erosion project.

Kent Cave, a park ranger and spokesman, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that Whitaker's group is “misinformed.”

To protect the sites of hundreds of burials on what is known to have been a huge American Indian village, no machinery has been allowed on the riverbank, park officials said. Rocks and fill dirt are handled from a barge in the river.

“We found these things because this project was occurring. It wasn't a result of that (work),” said Jim Szyjkowski chief of resource management at the park. “And this whole project ... is intended to protect against this kind of thing happening in the future.”

After the remains were found, the park service called in the Southeastern Archaeological Conference.

Whitaker said he hopes tribal representatives will insist that the park service treat the remains respectfully and not use them for testing or exhibit.

“According to our Native American customs, and also the law, the remains are to be treated with great spirituality,” he said. “And if it's not done that way we will have a large gathering there. Think of it as like a drum getting closer and closer. We're waking up, and we're not going to be shoved around anymore. And our burials aren't either.”

The river for decades has been washing away about a foot a year from Moccasin Bend, which officially became the Moccasin Bend National Archaeological District in 2003. The $3.2 million first phase of stabilization work started earlier this year and covers about a mile of Moccasin Bend's 5.4-mile perimeter. Rocks and fill dirt are being used to raise the riverbank. The fill dirt will be planted first with grass, then with native plants to hold the soil.

Nick Honerkamp, an archaeology professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, described the project plan as “kind of a model for what should be done. And actually what has been done is a model, too. Everything is working the way it's supposed to work.”

Stabilization work on other areas of Moccasin Bend have not been funded. In 2004, an estimate showed a total cost of about $6.5 million.

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Information from: Chattanooga Times Free Press, http://www.timesfreepress.com