The Arkansas Archeological Society held its 1985 and 1986 Training Program digs at the Holman Springs site (3SV29) in Sevier County. Holman Springs was a salt-processing site, situated near a salt marsh, where Caddo Indians made salt by filling wide, flat pans with brine, which they placed on fires to evaporate the water, leaving salt behind. Salt was and is an important part of the diet, so places like Holman Springs were important to sustaining health.
The SAU Research Station staff are working on organizing the data from this project into digital databases as a first step towards reporting the results of the Training Program digs. In support of that effort, the Computer Services Program of the Arkansas Archeological Survey scanned the large-format maps from the 1980s. These have been added into a digital map of the excavation units, features, and other spatial data to build a site-wide framework for analyzing the collection.
To georeference those and maps, orienting them properly on top of aerial imagery and other basemaps, the SAU Research Station staff yesterday paid Holman Springs a visit. We collected GPS points on several trees, utility poles, and bridge corners that appear in the maps, and will use these to properly register the 1980s maps. We used our new Trimble Geo7X to collect the data, and even made use of its laser rangefinder to collect points on a few things we could see, but were across a tall fence from where we were at.
Our thanks to the landowner, the John Hendrix Corporation, of Midland, Texas, for granting us permission to go out and collect the data!
