WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:05.520 Well we will get started. Hi everyone! We really  thank you today for joining us for the webinar,   00:00:05.520 --> 00:00:10.320 "Where the Water is Shallow the and Current  is Strong: Stone Fish Weirs of the Eastern   00:00:10.320 --> 00:00:15.920 Woodlands" with Dr. David Cranford. I'm Shannon  Rickles, the education and outreach coordinator   00:00:15.920 --> 00:00:19.680 for Monitor National Marine Sanctuary  and I'll be your host today and joining   00:00:19.680 --> 00:00:24.960 me is Mark Losavio. He is the media and outreach  coordinator for Monitor National Marine Sanctuary   00:00:26.560 --> 00:00:30.880 and this webinar is brought to you by  NOAA's Monitor National Marine Sanctuary   00:00:32.720 --> 00:00:36.320 in collaboration with the North  Carolina Office of State Archaeology.   00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:42.560 Partnering since 1975, NOAA and the State  of North Carolina worked to research,   00:00:42.560 --> 00:00:46.960 honor, and protect the hallmarks of North  Carolina's underwater cultural heritage   00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:51.680 which is shipwrecks! These shipwrecks hold  information about the ever-changing technologies   00:00:51.680 --> 00:00:57.280 and cultural and physical landscapes. They serve  as a uniquely accessible underwater museum and   00:00:57.280 --> 00:01:02.720 a memorial to the generations of mariners who  lived, died, worked, and fought off our shores.   00:01:02.720 --> 00:01:06.480 This is one of the many webinars we'll be hosting  in the coming months for the Submerged North   00:01:06.480 --> 00:01:11.840 Carolina webinar series in collaboration with  the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology.   00:01:12.880 --> 00:01:17.760 Now, Monitor is just one of 15 national marine  sanctuaries and two marine national monuments in   00:01:17.760 --> 00:01:23.520 the national marine sanctuary system. The system  encompasses more than 620, 000 square miles of   00:01:23.520 --> 00:01:28.240 marine and great lakes waters from Washington  State to the Florida Keys and from Lake Huron   00:01:28.240 --> 00:01:34.240 to American Samoa. Now during the presentation  all attendees will be in listen only mode. You   00:01:34.240 --> 00:01:38.800 are welcome to type questions or comments for the  presenters into the question box at the bottom of   00:01:38.800 --> 00:01:43.920 the control panel on the right hand side of your  screen. This is the same area you can let us know   00:01:43.920 --> 00:01:48.800 if you're having any technical difficulties that  we can help you with. We'll be monitoring those   00:01:48.800 --> 00:01:52.800 incoming questions and technical issues and we'll  try to respond to them just as soon as we can.   00:01:53.440 --> 00:01:58.080 We are recording this session and we will share  the recording with registered participants via the   00:01:58.080 --> 00:02:04.000 webinar archive page and a url for this webpage  will be provided at the end of the presentation.   00:02:05.440 --> 00:02:08.720 So let's get started to learn more  about fish weirs! So David I'm going   00:02:08.720 --> 00:02:11.200 to turn it over to you. Let me change presenters. 00:02:18.320 --> 00:02:22.800 All right. Did you get it? I got it. All righty. 00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:29.280 All right hopefully everybody's  able to see my screen?   00:02:29.920 --> 00:02:35.760 Yeah. Very good. Well thank you all for  tuning in my name is David Cranford. I'm   00:02:35.760 --> 00:02:39.360 an assistant state archaeologist with the  North Carolina Office of State Archaeology   00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:46.320 and today I'm going to talk to you some about  stone fish weirs in the eastern woodlands. The   00:02:46.320 --> 00:02:52.640 title of my talk "Where the Water is Shallow  and the Current is Strong" is a quote from   00:02:53.520 --> 00:03:00.160 Robert Beverly in his 1705, "History and Present  State of Virginia". It's one of the earliest 00:03:02.640 --> 00:03:06.800 descriptions of fish weirs that we  have and it is a very apt description   00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:12.080 of where we find the majority of  these archaeological features. So   00:03:13.120 --> 00:03:16.880 over the course of this talk. I'm going  to talk about kind of the introduction   00:03:16.880 --> 00:03:24.960 or the beginnings of the North Carolina...  I'm getting a screen sharing is now paused 00:03:29.440 --> 00:03:34.080 everything.. I can -- I can still see your  screen so try clicking to the next side? 00:03:40.320 --> 00:03:46.560 Let me try changing presenter back to you again?  Nope it still show... it won't let me... it shows   00:03:46.560 --> 00:03:54.320 that you still have control. Okay, all right that.  I think we're back? Okay all right so this talk   00:03:54.320 --> 00:03:59.040 will begin with kind of the introduction of the  North Carolina fish weir archaeological project   00:03:59.040 --> 00:04:07.120 that I started a few years ago and generally talk  about why, what, where, when, and the whos of   00:04:07.760 --> 00:04:14.400 stone fish weirs and I'll end by talking about  future research goals and opportunities for future   00:04:14.400 --> 00:04:20.960 research and collaboration regarding stone  fish weirs. So the North Carolina fish weir   00:04:20.960 --> 00:04:28.160 archaeological project is a project housed here  at the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology   00:04:28.160 --> 00:04:34.880 and it really started with the recognition that of  the over 50,000 archaeological sites that are in   00:04:34.880 --> 00:04:41.760 our state site files, very few of them are fish  weirs even though we know that there are many,   00:04:41.760 --> 00:04:46.080 many of these archaeological sites  and features across their state   00:04:47.040 --> 00:04:54.880 and this has implications for a number of aspects  of the job that I do for our office namely   00:04:54.880 --> 00:05:02.160 environmental review. So determining whether or  not archaeological surveys are conducted before   00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:08.800 construction or development takes place. Knowing  where archaeological sites are can really help us   00:05:08.800 --> 00:05:15.680 determine what needs to happen for those projects.  It's also important for education and outreach   00:05:16.640 --> 00:05:21.200 making sure that the citizens of North  Carolina and other archaeological researchers   00:05:21.840 --> 00:05:28.640 are aware of these features and what they mean for  understanding the past. So a few of the goals that   00:05:28.640 --> 00:05:36.720 I set out to accomplish with this project is to  create an inventory of fish weir locations within   00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:42.160 North Carolina but also within the broader  region because we know that North Caro--   00:05:42.960 --> 00:05:51.440 modern state boundaries didn't mean a lot in  pre-colonial worlds so it's important to kind of   00:05:51.440 --> 00:05:58.960 get a regional perspective if we can. I also hope  to investigate the spatial distribution and the   00:05:59.760 --> 00:06:07.200 differing morphologies of these various fish weir  types. I want to document individual fish weir   00:06:07.200 --> 00:06:13.120 locations and understand their relationship  to nearby terrestrial archaeological sites   00:06:14.640 --> 00:06:22.080 and we do that through systematic mapping and  archaeological survey and research. And all of   00:06:22.080 --> 00:06:30.800 this I hope will facilitate the preservation and  public awareness of these important parts of our   00:06:31.920 --> 00:06:39.280 cultural landscape. Which the picture  here you see is of a fish weir in   00:06:39.280 --> 00:06:45.680 Caswell county, near the Virginia border  and this is a -- you can see the W-shape,   00:06:46.880 --> 00:06:53.040 a very distinctive feature within  the river. So why do we study   00:06:53.040 --> 00:07:01.840 weirs why would we want to study these  features? Well oh we're having another-- 00:07:03.040 --> 00:07:10.720 I'm having more technical- there we go. I think  we're just having a delay. Anyway so fish weirds   00:07:10.720 --> 00:07:17.520 are often overlooked cultural and archaeological  features. They tend to be in the middle of streams   00:07:18.400 --> 00:07:26.000 unless that stream has moved and dried out so they  typically are hard to access or directly observe   00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:34.720 and study. But as archaeological resource fish  weirs are protected by North Carolina state law   00:07:35.760 --> 00:07:42.160 in most navigable rivers and so that's  that becomes part of our office's purview.   00:07:43.920 --> 00:07:49.120 And beyond that they provide important information  about how communities interacted with their   00:07:49.120 --> 00:07:58.080 environments and their ecology in both the  pre-colonial and historic periods. And with new   00:07:58.080 --> 00:08:07.120 and developing technologies there are new ways to  document and investigate these types of features.   00:08:07.920 --> 00:08:17.120 What you see here is a sketch of a fish weir  up in the Little Tennessee River and one of   00:08:17.120 --> 00:08:23.200 the many types of fish that we know historically  were caught in fish weirs. This is American shad   00:08:24.080 --> 00:08:33.520 although we know that in other regions things like  American eels and other types of fish were were   00:08:34.160 --> 00:08:45.360 products or catches of this type of fishing  apparatus. So beyond just what we can do in   00:08:46.880 --> 00:08:53.280 understanding archaeological features as part of  the past, the human past, fish weirs represent an   00:08:53.280 --> 00:08:58.160 important part of the cultural heritage of  many groups including many American Indian   00:08:58.160 --> 00:09:10.480 communities. They are also for members of this  community who are who are still around. They can   00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:17.680 become important tools for teaching and learning  heritage preservation and the role of ecology in   00:09:18.960 --> 00:09:29.840 everyday life. So what you can see at the top of  this screen is a group of Cherokee using a fish   00:09:29.840 --> 00:09:36.480 weir. They're tapping --they're splashing, driving  fish towards a fish weir and you can see a similar 00:09:38.800 --> 00:09:42.640 scene in the bottom photograph. 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:53.840 So what are fish weirs? Fish weirs are--  they go by many names, fish weirs, fish traps   00:09:53.840 --> 00:09:58.640 fish falls, fish dams, and they  all relate to an essentially a very   00:10:01.120 --> 00:10:11.360 simple way to extract fish from the water.  They're usually fish -- fish weirs are usually   00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:20.560 referred to the component of a fish weir that is  permanent and what I will be referring to is fish   00:10:20.560 --> 00:10:31.920 weirs are usually the stone walls that create  a V-shape or a dam to focus the fish into one   00:10:31.920 --> 00:10:39.920 area and then a fish trap tends to be used as  the movable or often perishable elements of a   00:10:39.920 --> 00:10:45.920 fish weir and they tend not to be preserved  archaeologically. Although in some cases   00:10:45.920 --> 00:10:55.520 preservation can happen and in those cases they  become very important components for dating 00:10:57.840 --> 00:11:03.040 this year and understanding how the mechanism  that they use to actually extract the fish.   00:11:03.040 --> 00:11:10.480 Whether they are using spears such as these  Inuit fishermen are doing, or using a seine   00:11:11.040 --> 00:11:17.840 or conical bat fish trap basket so all of those  things can be important archaeological features. 00:11:20.160 --> 00:11:26.880 Essentially when you boil down to the the core a  fish wear can be any structure that's built in the   00:11:26.880 --> 00:11:35.520 water to funnel, block or direct fish into a trap  or enclosure that makes it easier to catch so, 00:11:37.680 --> 00:11:44.160 fish wears come in a variety  of shapes and forms but when   00:11:45.280 --> 00:11:51.680 you can think about fish weirs  as falling into one of three main   00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:59.440 categories depending on how the fish are  moving or how the water is moving. So! 00:12:02.400 --> 00:12:09.840 oops let me go back 00:12:12.720 --> 00:12:23.840 There's a little bit of a lag on my presentation. 00:12:24.560 --> 00:12:25.440 I apologize. 00:12:28.480 --> 00:12:32.480 David we're seeing types of fish  wears. Flowing streams, tidal weirs,   00:12:32.480 --> 00:12:39.360 long shore... is that what you want us to see? No  I'm trying to go back a slide but my program is... 00:12:41.920 --> 00:12:42.160 Okay 00:12:45.360 --> 00:12:54.800 Okay there we go so if you think about fish weirs  as falling into one of three main categories.   00:12:54.800 --> 00:12:59.360 You've got the floating stream weirs which is  what I'm going to focus on in today's talk.   00:13:00.240 --> 00:13:10.080 And these really, there's a variety of ways  that these fish weirs are kind of formed but   00:13:11.120 --> 00:13:16.000 most of the time you expect  to see a V-shape or linear 00:13:18.240 --> 00:13:22.560 lines of twigs or branches  or stones across a stream.   00:13:23.840 --> 00:13:30.480 That really requires the flow, the swift flow  of water to help aid in the capture of the fish.   00:13:31.440 --> 00:13:37.440 Other types include tidal weirs that  depend on the tidal flow of water.   00:13:39.200 --> 00:13:46.800 The difference between high and low water at  tide. And then the third type are longshore   00:13:46.800 --> 00:13:53.600 weirs that really require less on the flow of  water and more on the movement of fish along   00:13:54.640 --> 00:14:02.320 a beach or shoreline. So just to give  you a couple of examples of these. So   00:14:02.320 --> 00:14:10.800 these are some of the typical stone fish weir that  we'll talk more about today so I won't spend a lot   00:14:10.800 --> 00:14:18.480 of time on them right now but here are a variety  of tidal weirs. This one was actually identified 00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:30.640 in Wales off the coast of Britain and  2009 using google earth and this was,   00:14:34.480 --> 00:14:42.160 this made global headlines which is how  I found out about it and so it has been   00:14:42.160 --> 00:14:48.640 in that place for over a thousand years but it  really wasn't identified in modern times until   00:14:50.160 --> 00:14:54.720 aerial imagery became kind  of available and accessible. 00:14:57.600 --> 00:14:58.800 So let's 00:15:01.200 --> 00:15:05.200 Here is another example of a  very simple tidal weir from   00:15:05.200 --> 00:15:13.480 Fiji as you can see these are global  examples of fish weirs that -- 00:15:15.600 --> 00:15:25.840 I don't know what's wrong with my  presentation but it is wanting to pause. 00:15:33.440 --> 00:15:39.120 Here are more examples of tidal weirs.  These in this case are from Taiwan.   00:15:40.400 --> 00:15:45.600 Very beautiful with the shallow  waters from these islands. 00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:59.760 Along here are some longshore weirs they  may be hard to see but they are arrow-shaped   00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:21.840 constructions right offshore  in Bahrain as well as in- 00:16:25.920 --> 00:16:28.240 here we go, here are some from Micronesia   00:16:28.960 --> 00:16:36.880 again you can see that long spit of the weir  that helps direct fish into the arrow point. 00:16:42.400 --> 00:16:45.520 Probably one of the most iconic, most famous   00:16:46.480 --> 00:16:51.440 longshore weirs this one again is  from Taiwan, double heart weir.   00:16:55.520 --> 00:17:02.800 So coming back to North America the majority  of fish weirs that we tend to talk about   00:17:03.520 --> 00:17:12.160 fall into one of two categories. These flowing  stream weirs either steak -- wooden steak weirs   00:17:12.160 --> 00:17:19.200 or stone fish weirs which I'm most interested  in this talk. But if you think about it 00:17:21.920 --> 00:17:28.800 most of the stone fish weirs even though  all we see right now when we look at them   00:17:28.800 --> 00:17:34.800 are the stone structures, very often they had  components that were made out of perishable   00:17:34.800 --> 00:17:44.960 materials such as wood. And here's an example of a  fish weir in the Swannanoa River in near Asheville   00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:52.320 out of a historic postcard you  can see the stone V and the trap. 00:17:54.400 --> 00:18:02.480 Previous archeological studies have been  spotty at best for a variety of reasons.   00:18:02.480 --> 00:18:07.680 Fish weirs just tend to be hard to  identify and study systematically   00:18:09.600 --> 00:18:16.960 but there have been attempts to get at  archaeological understandings of fish weirs.   00:18:18.480 --> 00:18:25.120 Rodney Peck was one of the first to try to look  at fish weirs on a particular river. He estimated   00:18:25.680 --> 00:18:31.280 that there were probably thousands of fish  weirs in the piedmont regions along the   00:18:31.280 --> 00:18:36.480 Atlantic seaboard and I want to point out that  he was looking at the the Yadkin-Pee Dee river   00:18:36.480 --> 00:18:44.480 which, as we'll see, is one of the, has the  highest density of fish weirs in North America   00:18:44.480 --> 00:18:51.600 so he's-- he was way off in his estimation but  based on what he was seeing in that location   00:18:51.600 --> 00:19:00.880 it was probably not unreasonable for him to think  that way. A variety of other individuals have   00:19:00.880 --> 00:19:09.840 tried and to varying levels of success look  at fish weirs in a general regional sense and   00:19:10.560 --> 00:19:16.160 from a global perspective. John Conaway has  done probably the the most work at trying to   00:19:16.160 --> 00:19:22.560 understand them from a very wide perspective.  He literally wrote the book on fish weirs and I   00:19:23.760 --> 00:19:30.720 rely on his research all the time but  he was mainly focused on wooden steak   00:19:30.720 --> 00:19:37.760 weirs from Mississippi and so there there  still was a large gap in understanding   00:19:37.760 --> 00:19:45.360 the role fish, stone fish weirs played in the  Eastern U.S. There are a number of obstacles to   00:19:45.360 --> 00:19:52.400 studying fish weirs as I've mentioned before  sometimes they're really hard to identify,   00:19:54.160 --> 00:19:58.000 sometimes you have to be in the right  time, right place, in the right time   00:19:58.560 --> 00:20:05.760 to see them from the shore. If the river's too  high you can't see them they're also difficult   00:20:05.760 --> 00:20:13.440 to date stones don't lend themselves by themselves  to traditional archaeological dating techniques   00:20:15.280 --> 00:20:22.880 and trying to identify nearby terrestrial  sites and making it a distinct link between   00:20:23.440 --> 00:20:31.040 fish weirs and terrestrial sites takes a lot  of work. Fish weirs generally are not directly   00:20:31.040 --> 00:20:39.200 impacted by most development or construction  projects and so they have traditionally not been   00:20:41.280 --> 00:20:47.840 the focus of compliance projects and  cultural resource management projects   00:20:48.640 --> 00:20:54.560 but they-- a few have and we have  learned a lot from that work.   00:20:56.720 --> 00:21:02.880 In the end they tend to be less glamorous than  other types of archaeology they don't yield very   00:21:02.880 --> 00:21:13.200 many artifacts and so the focus is, has been  on places like Town Creek. You can see here   00:21:14.400 --> 00:21:23.040 there's a fish weir that was recorded historic  fishery that was still in use in the 1930's when   00:21:23.040 --> 00:21:28.640 uh Dr. Joffrey began his work at this  iconic Mississippian site in North Carolina   00:21:30.560 --> 00:21:34.720 presumably this was used  in prehistoric times but we   00:21:35.280 --> 00:21:39.280 we know from this photograph that it  was used in the historic period as well. 00:21:41.600 --> 00:21:51.120 So one of the -- when I started this project  this, I began using Google Earth as the main   00:21:51.920 --> 00:22:02.480 way to identify and record the locations of weirs.  This is a technology, Google Earth has been around   00:22:02.480 --> 00:22:09.680 since 2005. Its initial predecessor was  first available in 2001 but really the   00:22:09.680 --> 00:22:14.880 the key tool that I use, the historical  imagery feature, wasn't even introduced until   00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:23.840 2009 so, so really this work has only been  something we can -- we could do for the last   00:22:25.680 --> 00:22:35.360 a handful of years. This historical imagery  typically, in Google Earth begins around 1993   00:22:36.160 --> 00:22:43.600 give or take, though as you can imagine the  resolution and the visibility varies greatly   00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:52.400 based on the location, the time of year, the  river level, and there are still places where   00:22:52.400 --> 00:22:59.040 you don't have high enough resolution to  adequately distinguish or discern fish weirs. 00:23:01.280 --> 00:23:09.200 But generally by about 2012 the quality of the  satellite imagery that google was collecting   00:23:09.200 --> 00:23:15.120 and making available was good enough to  start making these kinds of surveys possible.   00:23:16.800 --> 00:23:23.680 So one of the big benefits of using google earth  and other satellite-based imagery is that it's   00:23:23.680 --> 00:23:27.760 very accessible Google makes this  free and it's very easy to use,   00:23:27.760 --> 00:23:31.600 though there are as we'll see  some limitations and biases   00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:40.400 to using Google Earth. So here's an example of a  fish weir in North Carolina in Montgomery County   00:23:40.400 --> 00:23:48.160 on the Pee Dee River. As you can see the earliest  imagery that Google has is from 1993 and you   00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:57.520 wouldn't know that there's a fish weir here but  as we scroll through the imagery by 2005 we start   00:23:58.240 --> 00:24:04.880 seeing, we're able to resolve that there are --  that there is a fish weir here. There's a multi--   00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:10.160 multiple V shape within the river but it's very  pixelated, very hard to make out the details.   00:24:11.840 --> 00:24:26.480 So by 2008 we have a much clearer view of this  fish weir that I've identified as NC weir 3. 00:24:27.040 --> 00:24:36.480 And as you can see this is one of the downsides  or one of the the potential pitfalls of using this   00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:42.480 technology and this platform for surveys. That  -- as you can see by 2018 the image quality is   00:24:44.400 --> 00:24:52.160 fantastic but when they took this picture the  river was up and you can't see you couldn't--   00:24:52.160 --> 00:24:57.280 can't tell that there is a fish weir at  this location so it's really a combination   00:24:57.280 --> 00:25:10.720 of high quality image imagery at the right time  at the right river level so other limitations that   00:25:11.920 --> 00:25:18.560 come with using satellite imagery is that there  tends to be a seasonal variation not only in   00:25:18.560 --> 00:25:25.040 the amount of leaf coverage but also of water  levels and turbidity. How clear the water is   00:25:25.600 --> 00:25:32.000 really determines whether or not you're able  to distinguish whether or not a fish weir is   00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:37.680 in a given location although the fall  and winter tend to be the best times if   00:25:37.680 --> 00:25:42.640 you can find imagery from that-- from that  season. There are fewer leaves on the trees   00:25:43.680 --> 00:25:51.040 and water quality and clarity tend to  be a little bit better. The time of day   00:25:51.040 --> 00:25:57.920 that the satellite imagery was collected  can also provide a present problems. If the   00:25:58.560 --> 00:26:04.880 imagery was taken early in the morning or late  in the evening shadows from trees or nearby   00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:15.040 topography like hills or mountains can obscure  what you can see in those photos. As you can   00:26:15.040 --> 00:26:21.680 imagine looking straight down at some of these  features it can sometimes be hard to distinguish   00:26:23.040 --> 00:26:33.280 weirs from natural features like natural shoals.  And so a lot of that requires just experience and   00:26:34.640 --> 00:26:41.520 I got into a pattern of marking nearly everything  that was potentially a fish weir and through an   00:26:41.520 --> 00:26:48.240 iterative process going back through and cleaning  the data to make sure that what I thought   00:26:49.120 --> 00:27:00.800 were fish weir is kind of early on still seem to  be legit and there are still some limited high   00:27:00.800 --> 00:27:10.480 resolution imagery for some locations especially  in rural lake locations. This type of survey   00:27:10.480 --> 00:27:19.840 does seem to bias towards larger order streams  so larger rivers I have found more fish weirs and   00:27:21.680 --> 00:27:28.480 the this has a lot to do with just being able  to identify streams. Smaller streams that   00:27:28.480 --> 00:27:38.480 have-- may have larger kind of narrower creek  beds with more trees and the question remains   00:27:38.480 --> 00:27:45.440 whether or not there truly are fewer weirs  on these smaller creeks or whether this is a   00:27:45.440 --> 00:27:51.840 result of real cultural patterning. Whether  there are just different methods that were more   00:27:51.840 --> 00:27:58.560 successful on smaller streams than the investment  required to build a large stone fish weir.   00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:04.880 So that those are research questions  that still remain to be answered.   00:28:06.560 --> 00:28:16.720 In general there are I've found about five  different types of stone fish weirs in this   00:28:17.760 --> 00:28:25.280 investigation the most simple is the single wing  fish weir. It's instead of a V shape it's usually   00:28:25.280 --> 00:28:35.040 a very long diagonal stone dam or wall directing  fish to one side of the creek or the other   00:28:36.560 --> 00:28:44.480 the most common by far is the simple v shape where  fish are directed towards the the narrow apex   00:28:45.360 --> 00:28:53.440 downstream and that was where the fish baskets  and fish traps were placed to collect the fish.   00:28:54.720 --> 00:29:02.080 Other types, this is a compound V so there  is again a V shape to direct the fish but   00:29:02.080 --> 00:29:11.840 then they have perpendicular elements to the  shore there are also V shapes with shoots and 00:29:14.480 --> 00:29:25.120 another variation on the V-shape and then there's  a whole class of V or multi-V, W-shaped weirs that 00:29:27.600 --> 00:29:35.040 had gave you the option of having multiple places  to collect fish and one of the most spectacular   00:29:35.680 --> 00:29:46.240 examples of this is 31AN201 in Anson County as  you can see just multiple very clear V-shapes.   00:29:49.360 --> 00:29:56.400 One of the most spectacular ones that I've  found. There are other ways and other sources   00:29:56.400 --> 00:30:02.400 of documenting fish weirs. I've been able to  use historical maps and navigational charts ,  00:30:03.360 --> 00:30:11.360 travelers accounts, archaeological reports, and  even working with local citizens and interested   00:30:12.240 --> 00:30:21.280 research collaborators from across the the  region. So we've kind of answered the question   00:30:21.280 --> 00:30:28.160 what are fish weirs. Now we can talk about where  are the fish weirs and it's important to to note   00:30:28.160 --> 00:30:35.280 that fish weird are not evenly distributed across  the landscape. As I've already mentioned most of   00:30:35.280 --> 00:30:42.480 the fish weirs that I've identified are on large  first order streams and they tend to be in the   00:30:42.480 --> 00:30:49.120 swift flowing streams and rivers above the fall  line in the Piedmont region and in the mountains   00:30:49.120 --> 00:30:56.720 where the current aids and pushing the fish  into these traps where they cannot then escape.   00:30:57.600 --> 00:31:02.400 They are often found near natural shoals  and islands and natural rock formations   00:31:03.840 --> 00:31:10.080 and as you can see here the density map in  North Carolina the Yadkin-Pee Dee river has   00:31:10.080 --> 00:31:14.800 one of the highest concentrations of stone  fish wears of any river in the eastern U.S.   00:31:15.840 --> 00:31:20.160 Again this might be a slightly biased since I am  from North Carolina that's where I started this   00:31:21.440 --> 00:31:30.240 investigation but as you can see I've identified  nearly 900 fish weirs, stone fish weirs across   00:31:30.240 --> 00:31:41.040 the entire eastern woodland area region. As you  can see North Carolina has the most documented   00:31:41.040 --> 00:31:48.640 fish weirs followed closely by Georgia and  Pennsylvania but as you can see there are a few   00:31:49.360 --> 00:31:55.600 isolated examples from Florida and Mississippi  and Indiana and going all the way up to Canada.   00:31:57.200 --> 00:32:03.440 So here's just a heat density map  showing kind of the concentrations   00:32:04.720 --> 00:32:13.840 where you can find the most  fish weirs in one location 00:32:16.640 --> 00:32:19.440 and I'm locked up one more time there we go. 00:32:21.600 --> 00:32:29.840 So when the question of when fish weirs were  built and used is an exceedingly difficult   00:32:29.840 --> 00:32:33.200 one. Especially when we're talking  about stone fish wears as. I mentioned   00:32:34.880 --> 00:32:39.520 archaeological methods of dating don't  lend themselves to inorganic materials.   00:32:39.520 --> 00:32:45.200 We rely heavily on radiocarbon dating.  Though other techniques are often used   00:32:46.400 --> 00:32:53.440 but those are also don't always apply to stone  fish weirs. So just to kind of give you a context   00:32:53.440 --> 00:33:01.200 for what we do know about wooden stake weirs  which we can date using radiocarbon methods 00:33:03.440 --> 00:33:10.160 the ones for which we have the most information  appeared to show that fish weirs were in use, were   00:33:10.160 --> 00:33:16.960 being built during the late Archaic period around  5000 years ago all the way up through contact and   00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:26.160 the historic period. So if we can use those as  a proxy with the understanding that fish weir's   00:33:27.200 --> 00:33:36.720 stone fish weirs may have been used in parallel  or in slightly different contexts environmental   00:33:36.720 --> 00:33:42.800 contexts as wooden stake weirs but this gives us  a good place to start thinking about when these   00:33:42.800 --> 00:33:49.600 kinds of features may have been built and used  and it's also important to to keep in mind that   00:33:50.880 --> 00:33:56.640 as with with many archaeological contexts and sites stone fish weirs   00:33:56.640 --> 00:34:03.120 likely had complicated use lives with multiple  construction and reconstruction episodes   00:34:03.120 --> 00:34:10.400 by various groups through time. One of the ways I  approach this question of trying to under --get a   00:34:10.400 --> 00:34:17.680 better sense of when stone fish weirs were used  was by looking at an indirect approach using   00:34:17.680 --> 00:34:25.040 proxy temporal information from archaeological  sites that occur nearby onshore for which we might   00:34:25.040 --> 00:34:33.280 have more information. So using the archaeological  site files here in North Carolina I looked at,   00:34:33.280 --> 00:34:39.360 I created a buffer around all of the known  fish weir sites and looked at what kinds of   00:34:39.360 --> 00:34:48.240 archaeological sites we had documented within  500 meters of of fish weirs and this is not a a   00:34:49.280 --> 00:34:56.560 a perfect match for dating fish weirs but it  would give us at least a sense for what kinds   00:34:56.560 --> 00:35:03.040 of sights are being occupied near fish weirs at  the time and as you can see we do see Archaic   00:35:03.920 --> 00:35:06.320 sites, woodland sites, Mississippian sites,   00:35:07.120 --> 00:35:16.480 associated with nearby fish weirs and  there's a breakdown of components down here. 00:35:21.440 --> 00:35:29.840 Additional research hopefully will help us  zero in and refine our chronology of fish weirs 00:35:38.640 --> 00:35:44.560 This is an example of some -- of  an artifact that was recovered from   00:35:44.560 --> 00:35:49.280 a fish weir, a fish weir that  I had not actually identified   00:35:49.840 --> 00:35:55.760 before this was brought to my attention. A  citizen had found this while fishing near this   00:35:57.280 --> 00:36:06.800 prehistoric fish weir. It turned out to be a Pee  Dee style ceramic pitcher and it is very closely   00:36:06.800 --> 00:36:12.160 associated with the types of pottery found  at the nearby Town Creek Indian mound site   00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:21.920 so and i just want to take this time to note  that fish weirs and all associated artifacts   00:36:21.920 --> 00:36:30.240 are considered state property and protected  by state law in navigable waters so this was   00:36:31.520 --> 00:36:37.920 identified and they contacted our office and we  could document this location in this site. So   00:36:38.800 --> 00:36:43.680 this helps give us a little bit of understanding,  a little bit of context for when this might have   00:36:43.680 --> 00:36:50.720 been used. We don't know for sure if this was initially created during the time   00:36:52.640 --> 00:37:00.880 the town creek was occupied but it indicates that  maybe this was being used at least by that point. 00:37:05.600 --> 00:37:14.160 All right so who made fish weirs it should come as  no surprise that based on our archaeological and   00:37:14.160 --> 00:37:23.680 ethnohistoric evidence that fish wares have been  in use for a very long time and were used both by   00:37:23.680 --> 00:37:29.120 American Indian communities as well as later  euro-American settlers and as I mentioned   00:37:29.120 --> 00:37:39.440 they had complicated use lives. We know of many  examples of historic weirs that were re-modified 00:37:40.960 --> 00:37:48.960 from earlier indigenous fish weirs  and were in near constant use until   00:37:48.960 --> 00:37:56.640 they were abandoned usually by  the early colonial periods. Local 00:37:58.720 --> 00:38:05.200 laws were being put into effect to limit  the use and construction of fish weirs that  00:38:07.520 --> 00:38:12.640 both hindered local travel and  trade along river routes and so   00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:21.120 in most cases fish weirs became  outlawed during the historic period.   00:38:23.200 --> 00:38:32.480 A really good example of this kind of long-term  use of fish weirs is from the Allman weir. This   00:38:32.480 --> 00:38:39.520 is probably one of the best preserved examples  in western North Carolina it is currently owned  00:38:40.240 --> 00:38:49.920 by the the Allman family and they have had-  they've kind of managed and used this weir for   00:38:49.920 --> 00:38:58.080 multiple generations. Their weir was reportedly  already present when Polk Allman acquired the   00:38:58.080 --> 00:39:07.520 land in the 1870's and they continued as a family  to use and rebuild the weir even into the 1940's   00:39:08.720 --> 00:39:15.920 and they reported catching truckloads of  fish variety of various types red horse,   00:39:15.920 --> 00:39:23.200 suckers, and even trout during seasonal  migrations of fish up and down the stream.   00:39:24.960 --> 00:39:33.680 This is and you can see that this line is from  a balloon survey before they had--before there   00:39:33.680 --> 00:39:41.840 was ready access to drones this was one  method to get high quality aerial imagery. 00:39:44.080 --> 00:39:48.480 One of the things that I'm kind of proud of  and will hope to continue working on in the   00:39:48.480 --> 00:39:56.400 future is working with local citizens to identify  fish weirs that are not necessarily easily seen   00:39:56.400 --> 00:40:03.040 through satellite survey and also with other  archaeological researchers in the region.   00:40:04.720 --> 00:40:13.520 Notably I've been in contact with researchers in  Tennessee, Florida, Pennsylvania, and I hope that   00:40:13.520 --> 00:40:21.760 these kind of collaborative research endeavors  will continue to go through go on and can really   00:40:22.960 --> 00:40:30.960 give us more information about these sites  and potentially find elements of stone fish   00:40:30.960 --> 00:40:38.800 weirs that we can date including this wooden  artifact found in a stone fish weir in Tennessee 00:40:42.720 --> 00:40:44.640 One of the things that I.... 00:40:44.640 --> 00:40:48.320 did as part of this project was a  little bit of experimental archaeology. 00:40:50.480 --> 00:40:59.040 A number of ethnographic historical sources  describe these conical fish traps being used   00:40:59.040 --> 00:41:06.480 in conjunction with stone fish weirs and so as  one of my early pandemic projects I collected   00:41:06.480 --> 00:41:16.160 some local native river cane and created a conical  fish trap with the main purpose being to create a   00:41:17.120 --> 00:41:24.640 educational tool an outreach tool but also to kind  of get a sense for what it would take to build one  00:41:24.640 --> 00:41:33.200 of these and use it in the context of a fish weir.  That was a nice side project one of the future   00:41:33.200 --> 00:41:42.320 goals that I hope as this project goes forward  is to continue to document fishery locations   00:41:44.080 --> 00:41:52.560 and eventually work on preserving these sites  through a variety of means including either   00:41:52.560 --> 00:41:58.560 as individual or multiple property listings  in the National Register of Historic Places, 00:41:59.840 --> 00:42:08.320 continue regional outreach, and collaboration.  I also intend to start reaching out to   00:42:09.920 --> 00:42:21.840 native communities to provide this information  to to them as potential sites of heritage  00:42:24.480 --> 00:42:32.720 places of important heritage and also to  try to learn what I can from from them. 00:42:35.440 --> 00:42:44.080 There are a variety of other methods that I hope  to use to document fish weir sites including   00:42:44.080 --> 00:42:50.960 drone-based Lidar mapping, specifically  bathymetric Lidar which will incorporate 00:42:53.520 --> 00:42:58.000 both red and green lasers that could  help penetrate the water column and get   00:42:58.000 --> 00:43:07.600 high resolution data point clouds to create  3d models of these features as well as around   00:43:07.600 --> 00:43:20.000 penetrating radar and I also hope to eventually do  some controlled excavations on a intact stone fish   00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:26.960 weir although as you can imagine the logistics of  doing that are pretty complicated but those are   00:43:27.840 --> 00:43:34.800 as we go forward additional goals for the North  Carolina fish weir archaeological project.   00:43:35.840 --> 00:43:41.040 So thank you! I am happy to take  any questions if there are any 00:43:45.600 --> 00:43:50.000 All right! Well thank you David that was  very interesting I learned a lot about   00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:55.680 fish weirs that I did not know! So anyway, yes if  you have questions for David there have been quite   00:43:55.680 --> 00:43:59.920 a few that have come in already but if you have  questions and you would like to ask them please   00:43:59.920 --> 00:44:05.520 put them in the question box. Also if you haven't  downloaded David's bio that's in the chat box be   00:44:05.520 --> 00:44:11.280 sure to do so now and in his bio you'll also find  links to learn more about North Carolina Office   00:44:11.280 --> 00:44:16.640 of State Archaeology and their projects. So  one of the questions that came in David is,   00:44:18.560 --> 00:44:24.800 you talked a little bit about dating, that they're  kind of difficult to date but it says are what   00:44:24.800 --> 00:44:31.680 are the oldest dated-- wait sorry about that  everybody just had some technical difficulties   00:44:31.680 --> 00:44:38.000 on GoToWebinar, but we will go right back to it  if you guys had your questions please retype them   00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:45.600 in the question box right now and I will try and  remember which ones we had before. But I remember   00:44:45.600 --> 00:44:52.080 David that you were showing that map of all of  the weirs that you had charted and someone in the   00:44:52.080 --> 00:44:56.880 in the attendees was asking why there weren't a  whole lot of coastal fish weirs that you found.   00:44:58.240 --> 00:45:05.040 That's a good question and I want to make  sure that everybody's kind of clear I was   00:45:06.480 --> 00:45:13.040 identifying the stone fish weirs and by and large  those stone fish weirs the way they work those   00:45:13.040 --> 00:45:21.760 V-shaped or kind of diagonal, diagonal shape fish  weirs really function well and function best in   00:45:21.760 --> 00:45:28.080 these swift flowing streams and really by  the time you get the below the fall line   00:45:29.200 --> 00:45:37.840 rivers tend to slow down and become more  meandering they get wider and so the current that   00:45:37.840 --> 00:45:44.560 is that kind of makes those fish weirs those stone  fish weirs work the way they're intended you don't   00:45:44.560 --> 00:45:52.400 find those conditions at the coast. Not to say  that there weren't fish weirs or fishing, ways to   00:45:52.400 --> 00:45:58.960 fish in those locations they just didn't look like  the stone fish weirs. Another reason why you don't   00:45:58.960 --> 00:46:04.320 see a lot of stone fish weirs down at the coast is  that you just don't see a lot of rock by the time   00:46:06.160 --> 00:46:11.600 The piedmont is where you tend to find a lot  of the the stone naturally occurring to the--  00:46:13.520 --> 00:46:20.800 that were used to make those stone dams and  stone fish weirs but at the coast you get   00:46:20.800 --> 00:46:27.760 a lot more sand and so the materials that they  would have used in that location are going to be   00:46:27.760 --> 00:46:34.320 the this--- the wooden stake weirs and they likely  are there but they just have not been identified   00:46:34.320 --> 00:46:44.800 they're harder to find through satellite detection and yeah so they probably are there   00:46:44.800 --> 00:46:49.120 but they're not going to look like the stone  fish weirs of the piedmont in the mountains.   00:46:50.320 --> 00:46:54.960 Okay cool! This question is actually kind  of related to that so I'll go ahead and ask   00:46:54.960 --> 00:46:59.920 it but are there any weirs designed to capture  anadromous fish as they move upstream to spawn?   00:47:01.280 --> 00:47:11.360 Yes so the American shad that's an anadromous fish  and what that means is that they are born in kind   00:47:11.360 --> 00:47:18.080 of these freshwater streams and they through part  of their life cycle move down the streams and live   00:47:18.080 --> 00:47:26.000 and grow for parts of their life cycle in open  ocean water and then at certain points they travel   00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:34.720 back upstream to spawn the reverse is also true  the catadromous fish like American eels are born   00:47:34.720 --> 00:47:41.120 in the ocean and spend most of their life cycle in  freshwater streams and there are fish weirs that   00:47:42.000 --> 00:47:48.880 I believe were probably designed to catch fish  both that could have caught fish in either   00:47:48.880 --> 00:47:53.680 direction but for the most part the  these stone fish like I said really are   00:47:53.680 --> 00:47:59.200 dependent on the current of the water to help  contain those fish in those fish traps and so   00:48:00.880 --> 00:48:09.440 these multiple weir could have created  the V-shape or the apex can I-- in the up 00:48:13.040 --> 00:48:19.840 the kind of up-flow direction as well but  for the most part the these fish weirs   00:48:20.560 --> 00:48:23.920 were most functional when the fish were being   00:48:23.920 --> 00:48:29.040 kind of funneled down river. All right this  is a question that I actually really like   00:48:30.240 --> 00:48:34.640 but can certain fish weirs be correlated  or associated with certain kinds of fish. 00:48:36.960 --> 00:48:43.200 That is a really good research question  that I don't think has been answered and   00:48:44.480 --> 00:48:52.880 I think that there are probably certain  times of year that people who created and   00:48:54.720 --> 00:49:02.080 kind of used fish weirs were trying to target  specific species but I don't think that they would   00:49:02.080 --> 00:49:09.680 have passed up the opportunity to take in whatever  fish was caught in their their traps or nets   00:49:10.960 --> 00:49:20.080 so that is an open question. Trying to figure out  if a certain morphology a certain shape of fish   00:49:20.080 --> 00:49:27.600 weir is better or more efficient at catching  certain species my I suspect that probably not   00:49:29.120 --> 00:49:33.600 but there are certain regions certain  times of year where certain types of fish   00:49:33.600 --> 00:49:40.240 especially these anadromous fish are are doing  their their migrations that are going to be   00:49:42.080 --> 00:49:47.440 kind of targeted by certain groups. All right  and so you might not have an answer for this   00:49:47.440 --> 00:49:52.480 question but can weir direction tell you  about the species maybe do you think?   00:49:54.720 --> 00:49:59.920 Possibly like I said there are  there are some that have the V-shape   00:50:00.960 --> 00:50:07.520 in both directions and they could have functioned  if there were, that was a migration going upstream   00:50:07.520 --> 00:50:19.040 they could have used the up stream portion of  the the weir to funnel the fish going upstream   00:50:19.040 --> 00:50:29.760 but again probably the down stream current  was what was really critical for making these   00:50:29.760 --> 00:50:37.600 these work. All right and we have a couple of  questions that are sort of the same but can you   00:50:38.320 --> 00:50:43.680 kind of talk a little bit more about maybe the  citizen science aspect. Like are you working   00:50:43.680 --> 00:50:49.360 with kayak groups or any of that kind of thing in  terms of like reporting and finding these weirs?   00:50:51.440 --> 00:50:56.160 That is certainly something I would like to  explore I've done it kind of on an individual   00:50:56.160 --> 00:51:06.080 basis. So far there's no kind of general effort  to do outreach to kayaking communities although   00:51:07.600 --> 00:51:12.560 fishermen, kayaking groups they see, all the  communities that are on the river those are   00:51:12.560 --> 00:51:19.120 the folks who see these, may recognize them for  what they are, may not and so in the future I   00:51:19.120 --> 00:51:25.520 hope that one component of this project will  be to either just do educational outreach or   00:51:26.160 --> 00:51:36.000 to hopefully get some sort of identification  program started I've already had folks reach   00:51:36.000 --> 00:51:44.400 out kind of independent they've either seen a  previous talk or or seen a new story about the   00:51:44.400 --> 00:51:50.400 fishway project and then hey have you seen  this one or is this one that you know about   00:51:50.400 --> 00:51:57.760 and those have been really helpful and in that  case where there was a citizen who found that 00:51:59.840 --> 00:52:06.000 ceramic artifact in the fish weir that  came to our office and I was able to   00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:11.680 identify a fish weir based on that so there are  definitely opportunities to work with public   00:52:13.280 --> 00:52:21.760 and other researchers to kind of cast a wider net  if you will. So if I were to go out on a hike and   00:52:21.760 --> 00:52:30.960 I think I see one should I email you or ...? Absolutely yep very likely I'm gonna say that   00:52:30.960 --> 00:52:35.760 yes I've already found it or actually this  is a new one thank you for sending me photos.   00:52:37.200 --> 00:52:41.520 All right I think that's all the time we have  for questions now. Shannon if you want to   00:52:41.520 --> 00:52:47.120 take it away? Yeah thank you and sorry about that  folks! Have no idea what happened but we'll figure   00:52:47.120 --> 00:52:53.920 it out. All right so if we did not get to your  question or if you have additional ones you can   00:52:53.920 --> 00:52:58.720 always send them directly to David at the email  address that's listed here on the screen and David   00:52:58.720 --> 00:53:04.240 just so you know there will be a print out of the  Q&A at the end after the webinar wraps up and so   00:53:04.240 --> 00:53:09.520 some of those questions that maybe we missed from  the first part of it you'll see those on there and   00:53:09.520 --> 00:53:14.640 if you can answer them if you want but you're  always welcome to email David at that address.   00:53:15.680 --> 00:53:20.080 Now a video recording of this presentation will  be available on the sanctuaries webinar archives   00:53:20.080 --> 00:53:24.400 page. It's found at the url listed at the top  and that's a long url but don't worry I'm going   00:53:24.400 --> 00:53:29.280 to send it to you in an email. In addition the  webinar will be archived on the Monitor National   00:53:29.280 --> 00:53:33.680 Marine Sanctuaries website you'll click on the  multimedia section of the toolbar to access the   00:53:33.680 --> 00:53:38.880 webinar box you'll also find future webinars in  that same section and as I said don't worry we're   00:53:38.880 --> 00:53:44.400 going to send all this to you in a follow-up email  once the recording is ready. So to be sure to   00:53:44.400 --> 00:53:49.600 check out upcoming sanctuary webinars "The World  Does Not Stand Still: Understanding the Impacts of   00:53:49.600 --> 00:53:55.120 Climate Change in Papahanaumokuakea" learn how  current and future impacts from climate change   00:53:55.120 --> 00:54:00.800 are considered to be the single greatest threat  to the long-term integrity of Papahanaumokuakea   00:54:00.800 --> 00:54:06.080 aka discover how the effects of climate change  are already being observed with sea level rise   00:54:06.080 --> 00:54:10.320 leading to shoreline retreat, increasing  ocean heat content producing more frequent,   00:54:10.320 --> 00:54:16.000 and severe coral bleaching and more and  that is coming up I forgot to tell you   00:54:16.000 --> 00:54:21.840 on August the 19th at six o'clock p.m.  eastern time 12 o'clock p.m. Hawaii time   00:54:22.800 --> 00:54:28.320 and on Thursday September 16th at four o'clock  p.m. I'm going to be hosting a teacher workshop   00:54:28.320 --> 00:54:33.040 on World War I off the North Carolina coast. I  will explore the shipwrecks that sank during the   00:54:33.040 --> 00:54:37.360 war and highlight the free curriculum guide  and other activities and although this is   00:54:37.360 --> 00:54:41.840 a teacher workshop it is open to anyone who  is interested in World War I and shipwrecks   00:54:42.800 --> 00:54:47.440 and be sure to check out and register for these  upcoming webinars in our Submerged North Carolina   00:54:48.720 --> 00:54:54.000 series we have coming up for Maritime Archaeology  month in October we'll be talking about   00:54:55.360 --> 00:54:59.760 maritime archaeology and we'll be showcasing  a lot of the free curriculum but also a lot   00:54:59.760 --> 00:55:04.640 of the webinars and then Mary Beth Fitz and  Allison Roper with the North Carolina Office   00:55:04.640 --> 00:55:10.560 of State Archaeology will present on near coast  archaeology and then November 16th John Mintz and   00:55:10.560 --> 00:55:15.120 Chris Southerly will talk about the recovery  of the Lake Waccamaw and Autryville canoes.   00:55:16.800 --> 00:55:19.840 And of course we invite you  to follow us on social media.   00:55:21.520 --> 00:55:26.320 Lastly as you exit the webinar there is a short  survey for formal and informal educators so if   00:55:26.320 --> 00:55:30.000 you're an educator NOAA would really appreciate  it if you just take a minute or two to complete   00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:34.080 the survey. Your answers will help NOAA  develop future webinars to meet your needs   00:55:34.080 --> 00:55:37.680 and your participation is voluntary and  your answers are completely anonymous.   00:55:39.120 --> 00:55:44.560 Once again we want to thank David Cranford for giving us such a wonderful   00:55:44.560 --> 00:55:49.440 presentation on fish weir. And we thank you today  for taking the time to join us! Have a wonderful   00:55:49.440 --> 00:55:55.040 day and this finally concludes the presentation  and will end for everyone hopefully this time.