National Endowment of the Humanities rejects PMOP grant application to publicize artifacts

The NEA review of the application can be found here - along with applicant's comments.

The original grant proposal can be found here.

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Testimony Before the Committee of the Whole, Feb.26th, 2009 oversight hearing on the Office of Planning

I am here to testify about archeology in the District, as well as, HPO policy concerning artifact curation.

My name is Doug Dupin, and I am the Director of the Palisades Museum of Prehistory, a small non-profit in the Palisades neighborhood of Washington DC.  The museum, which I built, stands next to the house where I live with my wife and three children.  The museum curates and exhibits artifacts (mostly Native American) from the neighborhood, and serves as an advocate for the archeological record in the District of Columbia.

I started this museum after discovering on my property prehistoric relics produced over a span of thousands of years.  As I researched the subject, I found it difficult to get proper interpretation of the artifacts.  I also saw the pace of development exacting an enormous toll on the archeological record within the District, on both private and public lands.  These two factors influenced the museum’s establishment.

In the case of private lands, there are no laws that protect the archeological record.  The museum sought to raise awareness of archeological potential in hopes that developers might consider conducting some archeo investigation prior to the disturbance of earth.

Essential to raising awareness of the history/prehistory, I think is the exhibition of artifacts.  This is why the HPO’s policy of keeping all public artifacts in the District inaccessible to the public is incredibly disappointing.  My repeated attempts to study DC’s public collections have been denied by the HPO.  The stated reason for this refusal is that the collection is not set up for viewing.  To alleviate this situation, I would like to donate, on behalf of the Palisades Museum of Prehistory, a table and a light so that the collection might be available for study. 

In spite of this inaccessibility policy, there are some people who are granted access to the collection.  In fact some people are given more than access, they are given public collections.  The private, non-profit Tudor Place in Georgetown has been given a large collection of public artifacts, with the condition they are not to be made public.

The museum’s attempts to document the loss of the archeological record on public land in the District of Columbia has been publicized in the museum’s newsletters.  Soon after the museum was incorporated in 2006, I watched the Dept. of Parks and Rec. bulldoze a forest at the Palisades Park in order to install a soccer field.  The Palisades Park sits on a bluff above the Potomac River, just to the north of Fletchers Cove and Battery Kemble Park.  These two places have been well documented as archeologically rich Indian locations.  During the excavation of the park, the museum publicized some of the artifacts that were churned up by the bulldozers there, as well as a map showing an Indian settlement at the site.  The only reaction I received from the HPO was from Tim Denee, who responded on the Historic Washington listserv, with a reference to the unlawful collection of artifacts from federal lands.  The Palisades Park, however, is not federal land.  It is city land.  Eventually, Ruth Trocolli, the new city archeologist, came out to see the park and commented at the end of her visit that it was “not as bad as she thought it was going to be” – this said without having seen the artifacts recovered from the site.  These are comments not based on the interests of historical preservation.  These are comments based on the interests of bureaucratic self-preservation. 

We continue to lose the archeological record on public land, in spite of laws that are designed to prevent this from happening.  Where federal money is used for a project, there is supposed to be a cultural resource assessment conducted.  At the construction site of the U.S. Institute of Peace in Foggy Bottom, no cultural resource investigation was conducted.  According to Jan Herman, who is the naval historian at the adjacent Naval Bureau of Medicine And Surgery, Dr. Trocolli told him that the site “was one of the most archeologically significant locations in the District”.  Research of the site suggests a “ non-denominational place of burial on Govt. Land used since the time of the French & Indian War."  This information conforms to Jan Herman’s discussion with a US Instittue of Peace official who said that during excavation “bones had fallen out of a box”.  Mr. Herman also witnessed a vintage medical bottle collection that had been displayed by a Clark Construction foreman in one of the company’s construction trailers. 

This example is one of the more egregious violations of the law, but unfortunately seems rather common.  Within the last six months, in my part of the city, no archeology was conducted where WASA is building a new sedimentation plant alongside the Dalecarlia Reservoir.  And at the site of American University’s  School of International Service, I was told that construction workers had taken Native American artifacts during excavation.

Today, the focus of the Historical Preservation Office today is on architecture.  This emphasis, which addresses approximately the past 150 years, seems to be at the expense of the rest of human history here.  This is probably a function of simple economics.  Financial interests behind property development and building restoration garner special interests that dominate the business of the HPO.  The specter of something lying in the ground that might generate interest and conceivably slow project schedules will be, and have been, swept under the rug. 

The first step in fixing the situation is to make sure that a cultural assessment occurs early in the planning stage of a building project.  The second step is to make all of the historical records public.  This means that public artifacts and archeological studies are made accessible.  And the third step is to make those who violate the law, remediate the situation with archeological investigations in proximate, undisturbed locations.

Thank you.

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Tiny Museum Connecting DC to BC

Washington Times Article - a corrected version

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PMOP NEWSLETTERS
January 2008	March 2008	May 2008
July 2008	September 2008	November 2008
NEWSLETTERS FROM 2007

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FOIA REQUEST of DC's Dept. of Parks and Recreation

Mr. Johnson,
Thank you for getting back to me. I have four basic requests for a FOIA on the development of Palisades Park.
1) How much fill (earth, dirt) was brought to the site during the redevelopment of the park. I would like either the number of truckloads, or cubic feet.
2) Where did the fill come from?
3) I am trying to determine if the park's archaeological value was ever considered. Can you do a search on "archeology" or "archaeology" in conjunction with Palisades Park?
4) I would like to know what the budget was for the park's development.

Thank you,
Doug Dupin, Palisades Museum of Prehistory

Dear Mr. Dupin,

This letter is in response to your FOIA request received by the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) on January 22, 2008 regarding the construction at Palisades Park. Given the fact that this work was
completed through a general construction contract with Jair Lynch/Alpha (JLC/Alpha) DPR was unable to provide documentation or answers to the following questions: 1) How much fill (earth, dirt) was brought to the site during the redevelopment of the park; 2) Where did the fill come from. While DPR has requested the answers to these inquiries from the general contractor, at present no responsive answers or documentation have been provided. In response to your question concerning whether the park's archaeological value was considered, DPR does know that prior to the construction, an archaeological study was performed on the site by JLC/Alpha or its subcontractor, however, DPR does not have the data from this study and must also be provided by the general contractor. DPR reserves the right to amend this information if responsive documents become available in the future.

Pursuant to your final request regarding the budget for the Palisades project, the budget for Palisades Design Project was nine hundred twenty-two thousand, nine hundred seventeen dollars ($922,917.00.) The Palisades Construction Project budget was two million, two thousand, four hundred seventy-three dollars ($2,002,473.00.)

Jamarj Johnson
FOIA Officer
Department of Parks and Recreation

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Primitive Technology Event Dec. 1, 2007

More photographs from the event

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SEE DC GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSE TO THE ISSUE

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No Archaeology at the House of Sweden - The Harborside Development in Georgetown

Within the District of Columbia, one of the more significant locations of prehistoric (and historic) activity occured at the mouth of Rock Creek. Well-known centers of indian activity are found throughout Rock Creek Park, with notable examples in Soapstone Valley and Piney Branch. It is obvious that the confluence of the creek and the Potomac River would have been an attractive spot for camps and settlements. In fact, during the construction of ramps to Whitehurst Freeway, the archaeology turned up some fascinating prehistoric artifacts. The curious “penis effigy” is just one of the amazing finds. The new Georgetown Harborside development spans the west bank of Rock Creek from the Potomac River to the Whitehurst Freeway. There was no archaeology conducted at the site. The nearby Ritz-Carlton Hotel prominently displays prehistoric artifacts recovered during its construction. It's unfortunate that the "rumored" Mayoral fast-track for the Harborside development presumes history a nuisance.

One can visit the the development's website here: http://www.houseofsweden.com