"We're Losing Pages from It Every Day"

"Half a dozen scientists armed with trowels, clipboards and global positioning devices fanned out across the island's headlands and rocky fingers earlier this month to take the first full accounting of archaeological sites heavily threatened by shoreline retreat and storm erosion.
"The inventory will create baseline information to help guide conservation decisions at imperiled sites where human culture and island ecosystems have a shared history. It will also enable scientists to monitor the destructive forces of marine erosion, which are predicted to get worse."


Louis Sahagun in the Los Angeles Times reports on efforts by archaeologists on Santa Cruz Island.

"The First Direct Evidence of Black Drink"

"Crown explains that because the bushes weren’t native to Cahokia but to the coastal region between eastern Texas and Florida, the leaves must have been brought to the inland city through trade routes connecting the two areas, which suggests the drink had huge cultural importance. Whether the Cahokians used black drink ritually isn’t known, but its appearance in fine-quality beakers suggests it was highly prized, if not sacred."

Elizabeth Norton in Science magazine reports on new evidence of an old beverage in pre-colonial America.