These are summaries of articles in the Fall 2013 issue of "american archaeology", a publication of the Archaeological Conservancy Link. As an aside, they can always use money, if you have some to spare.
Oldest Free African American Settlement Discovered
by Melissa Montoya
Predating the free African American Settlement at the Treme neighborhood in New Orleans by about 20 years, a site in Easton Maryland has been tentatively dated to 1790. Excavated by researchers from the University of Maryland and Morgan State, the settlement is possibly the oldest free African American settlement in the country. Available evidence indicates that just over 400 free African Americans lived there by 1790.
Large Alaska Village Found To Be Precontact.
by Tamara Stewart
Brown University researchers are excavting a large village in northwestern Alaska that turns out to have been occupied from the late 1700s to the early 1800s. The village in the Kobuk Valley National Park is among the largest yet discovered in the arctic and contains dwellings larger than those found in other villages in the area. It may have contained around 200 people and have served as a regional capital. A local elder told researchers that the village was known as a place of strong shamanism and skillful people.
Oldest Cave Art in North America Discovered
by Melissa Montoya
Researchers led by University of Tennessee archaeologist Jan Simek have found a pictograph dating nearly 6,000 years ago in a cave in Tennessee. It is part of a landscape of rock art that the researchers believe to reflect religious ideas. The researchers consider it and other sites in the mult-istate Cumberland Plateau to be part of an enormous diagram of their cosmos mapping the prehistoric people's spiritual belief system onto the physical world. Open air sites representing the celestial world are stacked above cave art sites representing the underworld.
Rare Boat Effigy Found
by Melissa Montoya
The Navy periodically performs archaeological surveys of San Clemente Island, which has middens, artifacts and relics of the Gabrielino {Tongva} who inhabited the island in prehistoric times {possibly dating back 10,000 years ago}. The effigy is believed to be a representation of the plank-sewn canoes used for ocean travel, trade and fishing {and which are the source of some unrelated controversies concerning their origin.}
Information in curly brackets is not from the article.
Earliest European Settlement in Interior US found
by Tamara Stewart
Fort San Juan was built by Spanish Captain Juan Pardo in North Carolina in 1566. Built in the Native American town of Joara, this was the earliest European settlement in the interior. Though researchers have known the location of the Spanish soldiers' houses for years, they have only now discovered evidence of fortifications, confirming that this was in fact Fort San Juan.