Davenport Tablets

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The Davenport Tablets are three tablets found in mounds near Davenport Iowa, two in 1877 and one a year later. The first two were discovered by a local clergyman, the Reverend Jacob Gass, and the third by Charles Harrison, the president of the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences. They are often associated in discussions with a pipe found by Gass and another Lutheran minister, the Reverend Ad Blumer in 1880 in a separate group of mounds, referred to as the 'elephant pipe' by Gass. Blumer gave the pipe to the Academy and shortly after his donation, the Academy acquired a similar pipe from Gass which he reported had been found by a farmer in Louisa County, Iowa.

Charles Putnam wrote the Vindication of the artifacts in 1885. McKusick suggested that the tablets were modified roof tiles stolen off a neighboring building of the Davenport Academy museum even though Gass described finding them in a burial mound on the Cook family farm.

McKusick suggested that the contextual ambiguity of the tablets – along with questions of Gass' honesty as an archaeologist, and even rumors of a plot by envious colleagues to plant the pseudo-artifacts in an effort to discredit and to expel the foreign-born Gass from his recently awarded post at the Davenport Academy – have all attempted to discredit the credibility of the Davenport Tablets.

University of Iowa Professor, Marshall McKusick, now refers to the find and the circumstances surrounding it as, “The Davenport Conspiracy”. It is, therefore, a ripe topic for present-day pseudo-scientists to cite as “evidence” for alleged Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact.

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[edit] Myth of the Moundbuilders

In popular scientific literature, ancient Native American Indians have rarely been attributed with the same technological and artistic innovations as their ancient Mesoamerican and South American counterparts. The ancient Olmecs, Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas, among others, have all been interpreted as possessing complex societies that make ancient North American Indians seem relatively simple. But this line of thinking is misleading.

It is evident to us now that the ancient North American Indians not only had hierarchical societies comparable to those of their contemporaries to the south, but structured societies so advanced they were able to organize the construction of enormous ceremonial Mounds, found throughout the continental United States, that mimic the scale of ancient Mesoamerican and South American-style pyramids and temples. However, this was not always the prevailing opinion of the academic community, nor was it held by the public to be true.

According to current research, for over a hundred years, (from the late 18th century to the late 19th) the North American Indians were the targets of far-fetched, racist explanations and interpretations of their ancient past via the misuse of the burgeoning archaeological field in the United States at that time. “Far-fetched,” because a number of fraudulent artifacts were being used to confirm preposterous theories of transatlantic diffusion, with the Native Americans playing the role of the savages that killed the “original inhabitants” – who were guessed to be any people from Vikings to Atlanteans – and then took their land, including the Mounds. “Racist,” because the combination of these pseudo-artifacts and the theories they supported helped to rationalize prejudices toward the Native Americans as simpletons and savages, who could have never have built the enormous Mounds in the first place. Accordingly, these archaeological interpretations are also “racist” because they helped to justify the genocides and land grabs by white Americans (who were simply taking back what once belonged to them, before the Indians took it). In other words, the Native Americans couldn’t have built the enormous Mounds, thus, an ancient race of intelligent, white-skinned people must have arrived in North America first and constructed them, before they were overrun by the savage Indians.

If the Davenport Tablets, then, would have turned out to be real and not poorly made fakes, they would have helped confirm this theory. Surely, these early archaeologists andpseudo-archaeologists believed, no dark-skinned, Native American Indian would have known about the mythical tales of the Bible had they not had Old World influences to guide them. Nor would they have known how to write Hebrew. Nor would they have necessarily known European mathematics, Western musical notations, or the signs of the Ptolemaic astrological calendar without the direct relation to Old World Peoples. Jacob Gass and the scientific community of the late 19th century initially thought they were on the verge of the largest archaeological discovery to date. But this turned out to be one of the biggest letdowns, and a career-ending mistake for Gass.

[edit] Previous interpretations of the Davenport Tablets

Initially, the authenticity of the Davenport “artifacts” were not questioned, and even received good reviews from people like Spencer Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution, and businessman Charles E. Putnam. However, as the debate escalated from the pages of minor scholarly journals to the foremost news in the journal Science, eventually the tablets’ authenticity fell under the criticism of the new Smithsonian spokesman, Cyrus Thomas. Thomas lambasted them as “anomalous waifs,” that had absolutely no supporting, or contextual, evidence to aide in their authenticity.

In his 1991 book, The Davenport Conspiracy Revisited, Professor Marshall McKusick asserts that Gass may have been the victim of an ill-advised joke played on him by fellow Davenport Academy members, who were possibly motivated by their jealousy of a foreign-born outsider in their midst. In 1874 Gass had made important discoveries of beautiful and complex Native American art at the Cook farm, such as copper axes. The level of technical ability and artistic craftsmanship by ancient Native Americans was evident in these artifacts.

Another explanation of the “artifact”'s dubious origins might involve the credibility of Gass himself. It is believed that Gass dealt in fake Native American effigy pipes, such as the many examples illustrated in The Davenport Conspiracy Revisited. Genuine effigy pipes are a testament to the creative abilities of the ancient Native American Indians, but their counterfeits are of poor quality. Made of shale, clay, and limestone, these frauds were often traded amongst Gass and his colleagues, many ending up in the Davenport Academy museum. However, it is possible that Gass himself was not the perpetrator of these fakes, but was again under the influence of people who were jealous of his abilities and luck in selecting excavation sites. This time though, it was his own relatives, Edwin Gass and Adolph Blumer that persuaded him to take these fakes seriously and trade them. At a time when people digging along the Mississippi River in Iowa and Illinois were turning up nothing, Gass had the luck of hitting a genuine archaeological jackpot in 1874. After that date it is questionable as to what the motives of his academic rivals and relatives were.

[edit] Related pseudo-scientific artifacts

The Grave Creek Stone was discovered by amateur archaeologist Henry R. Schoolcraft, at the Grave Creek Mound site in the Ohio Valley in the early 1800’s. It was a small stone with esoteric writing on it, believed to be Egyptian / Hebrew glyphs, among other ancient languages. Initially it was thought be genuine but, like so many of these fraudulent artifacts, it was later proved to be a complete forgery. In 1877, Matthew Canfield Read, an Ohio geologist took up the case. He instructed a teacher, a schoolgirl, a druggist, and a college professor to write down 20 or so arbitrary symbols using only straight lines. Read concluded that they were highly similar to the Grave Creek Stone, in that they could be “deciphered” or interpreted as Phoenician, Coptic, Gothic, Runic, etc. Read concluded that there was no way of telling if the writing was alphabetical, or if the writing was based on an ancient language at all. Even though Read essentially disproved the authenticity of the object, pseudo-archaeologists like Barry Fell still cite the relic as genuine in their recent works, often “reinterpreting” the inscription to fit their argument’s needs.

The Glozel Stone has been cited by pseudo-archaeologist Erich von Daniken as a genuine find and a testament to his Old World diffusion theory (which involves the interaction between humans and space aliens). There is no supporting evidence for this relic.

The Cardiff Giant was “discovered” on the Newell farm in 1869 by George Hull. Even after Hull admitted that he had forged the 10-ft tall “original inhabitant” of the New World, it was still believed by the public, and a replica was soon produced by P.T. Barnum and he ended up making a considerable sum of money from it.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • <cite id="Putnam"Putnam, Charles E. A Vindication Of The Authenticity Of The Elephant Pipes And Inscribed Tablets In The Museum Of The Davenport Academy Of Natural Sciences, 1885. ISBN 054861492X
  • Guthrie, James L. "The Blind Men and the Elephants: The Davenport Relics Reconsidered." NEARA Monograph, 2005.
  • Silverberg, Robert (1970). The Mound Builders. Ohio University Press. ISBN 978-0821408391
  • <cite id="Williams"Williams, Stephen. Fantastic Archaeology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991. ISBN 978-0812282382
  • McKusick, Marshall. The Davenport Conspiracy Revisited. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1991. ISBN 978-0813803449