Artifacts hold layers of history. They reveal stories about the objects, the people who used them, and the societies and cultures they represent. Collectors must engage with all these aspects to fully understand an artifact’s narrative.
Artifacts serve as records of a people’s history. Studying them alongside written documents clarifies how people lived, thought, and felt in the past.
These objects often uncover dimensions of stories that might otherwise remain unknown. Artifacts can introduce new perspectives, challenge assumptions, and offer critical insights, sparking curiosity and resisting oversimplification.
The information embedded in artifacts reflects the work, skills, and industrial practices of their time. For example, a gown collected for its connection to fashion and status might also tell the story of the dressmaker who crafted it. Similarly, artifacts collected for one purpose often find new interpretations over time, shaped by the contexts in which people encounter them.
Insights from institutions like the Smoky Mountain Relic Room highlight how artifacts hold meaning beyond their original creation. The thoughts and conversations surrounding these objects invite multiple perspectives, enriching the search for stories embedded in every artifact.
Agates are a complex form of microcrystalline quartz formed over millennia from siliceous groundwater deposits that accumulate within rock cavities. They often form in basalt, a young volcanic rock that erupts from the earth’s surface. As the magma hardens, carbon dioxide and water bubble out, leaving pockets or holes within the rock.
Like all mineraloids, agate forms within the existing rock voids, wholly occupying available space. As water containing silica percolates through the now-hardened basalt, minerals such as quartz crystallize out. Some 90 percent of agate is quartz, with the remaining 10 percent a moganite structure. The combination of these two silicon dioxide layers, each with its distinct structure, creates agate fibers that twist in a helical fashion.
Repeating alterations in the type, size, and direction of agate crystals create distinctive banding patterns. Interestingly, the banding layers form parallel to patterns present in surrounding cavity walls. Agate gets its colors from trace elements such as manganese and iron.
Artifacts are key to understanding American history. These objects, created and used by people, offer insights into the past. Unlike textbooks, artifacts provide a tangible way to study history.
Anthropologist Daniel Miller notes that objects influence human actions and perceptions, shaping how people think about the world. Museum Director Elaine Gurian views artifacts as a portal into history, allowing stakeholders to debate their meanings and shape their collective memory. Artifacts bring history to life, making it tangible and real. Recognizing the complexity of artifacts means accepting that they carry multiple, sometimes conflicting, meanings.
Artifacts from the Smoky Mountain Relic Room serve as intersections of many stories with diverse meanings instead of isolated objects. Each artifact represents a point in history, allowing individuals to explore their use. Museums can capture the essence of artifacts by placing them in a historical context and using them as instruments to develop an understanding of the past.
Some ways to think about artifacts in history include understanding how they tell their own stories and how they connect people. Also, artifacts in history may mean many things, capture different moments, or reflect significant changes. These are perspectives that can enrich the collective understanding of history.
Metal detecting is an activity that helps individuals connect with history, uncover lost treasures, and spend more time outdoors. It is a highly accessible hobby for beginners, though there are a few things to know before starting.
First, individuals can choose from a broad range of metal detectors that offer a wide spectrum of settings and features. The three main settings to focus on are discrimination, sensitivity, and ground balance. Discrimination settings allow hobbyists to remove select metals from the detection field, such as iron so that the detector can hone in on rarer, more valuable metals.
Sensitivity settings allow the detector to search for metals at different depths; at higher sensitivity, detectors can find smaller objects at greater depths, yet they become more susceptible to interference. Finally, ground balance settings help mitigate false readings derived from certain minerals.
After choosing an appropriate instrument, individuals can select a terrain. It is not uncommon to see people using metal detectors at beaches, which often function as repositories for lost jewelry, coins, and older relics. Old homesteads are ideal hunting grounds for individuals prioritizing historical artifacts, though detectorists must ensure they have legal access to the property. Public parks, farmlands, and historical trails are great places to explore with metal detectors.
As detectorists expand their search areas and invest in more advanced detection equipment, they must continue to adhere to the rules of detecting. In addition to never using a metal detector on private property without permission, individuals should adhere to the “leave no trace” principle, which includes filling in any holes dug during an investigation. Detectorists interested in historical items must familiarize themselves with all laws governing historical preservation.
One of the unique items in the Smoky Mountain Relic Room is giant fossilized teeth from prehistoric megalodon sharks. An extinct species, Carcharocles megalodon, inhabited the earth from the early Miocene Epoch, around 23 million years ago, to the Pliocene Epoch, 2.6 million years ago. The earliest ancestors of homo sapiens arose 100,000 years after the megalodon went extinct.
One of the largest predators that ever existed, the megalodon, reached lengths between 15 and 18 meters, roughly three times the length of the largest great white shark. Its size was comparable to today’s whale sharks, slow-moving carpet sharks that rely on filter feeding. By contrast, the megalodon was an apex predator with a diet of large prey, including small dolphins and even humpback whales.
Enabling it to eat prey as large as whales, the megalodon’s jaw was between 2.7 to 3.4 meters long when fully opened. This would fit two average adult people laid side-by-side. Lining the jaw were 276 teeth, which gave it a bite force of up to 182,201 Newtons (N). By contrast, the maximal human bite force is 1,31N, while great whites have an 18,216N bite force. The shark’s diet is known by artifacts such as a fossilized whale rib bone that contains an embedded megacolon tooth tip.
Interestingly, scientists have changed depictions of megadolon over the decades. Paleontologists initially envisioned the species as looking like a super-sized great white shark. However, the prehistoric megalodon had a rostrum, or nose, much shorter than its contemporary counterpart. Its jaw was flatter as well, with an almost squashed appearance.
The pectoral fins were lengthy and could support the shark’s larger size and weight. There is no direct ancestral connection between the megalodon and the great white, with the prehistoric shark being the last of its lineage.
The fossil record of the megalodon is dominated by its teeth, and each shark goes through a set of teeth every two weeks. Across a full lifetime, this added up to as many as 40,000 teeth. With humans, teeth have approximately the same hardness as bone, which is coated in calcium phosphate mineral. By contrast, shark skeletons are made up of soft cartilage similar to that in the human ear and nose. This means that, unlike teeth, they rarely survived through the millennia.
The megalodon’s extinction is due to a changing climate, with cooling temperatures sending populations of many marine animals plummeting. As tiny organisms die off at the bottom of the food chain, intermediaries such as sea birds and turtles also go extinct.
The megalodon thrived in warm tropical waters without control over its internal body temperature. It could not follow prey to cooler waters that other fish adapted to (as with whale migrations to the Arctic). Great white and megalodon diets overlapped, and competition for scant food resources may have also contributed to the species’ decline.
Megalodon teeth are popular among collectors and are measured using the diagonal length, which extends from the root corner to the tip. Baby teeth can be as small as an inch long, while mature adult specimens typically range from four to five inches long. Extremely rare finds include seven-inch specimens valued in the tens of thousands of dollars.
A solid piece of an object from outer space, a meteorite survives the transition through the Earth’s atmosphere to hit the planet’s surface. Over the passage, factors like friction, pressure, and chemical interactions cause the piece to heat up. The energy changes it into a fireball called a meteor, often referred to as a shooting star, before it lands on the earth.
Though many subcategories exist, meteorites can be classified into three broad groups: stony, iron, and stony-iron. The primary differences between the groups are the structure, mineralogy, and chemical and isotopic composition.
The most common meteorite is the stony type, accounting for over 95 percent of all those that fall to Earth. Stony meteorites can be further divided into chondrites and achondrites. The former are composed of among the oldest materials in the solar system, dating back over 4.5 billion years. The solar system is thought to have been formed from chondrites – they have mostly stayed the same compared to rocks from the larger planets, which have been subjected to geological activity. Chondrites derive their name from chondrules, small spherical bodies composed of silicate minerals mixed with tiny grains of sulfides and iron-nickel metal.
Achondrites are less common and are composed of silicates, though they have undergone a similar geological process as chondrites. Achondrites include meteorites from the moon, Mars, and asteroids.
Iron meteorites consist mainly of iron and nickel with traces of sulfide and carbide minerals. Known for their extreme density, iron meteorites originally formed the core of asteroids. It is believed that these asteroids melted during the solar system’s early history, with the iron sinking to the center. The structure mimics the structure of planets like Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.
Among all meteorites, the iron type, though they rarely fall to Earth, are those most commonly found in meteorite-hunter collections, as they are easily recognizable due to a vastly different appearance from the Earth’s rocks and resistance to weathering due to their composition.
The primary appearance feature, a distinctive structure referred to as the Widmanstatten pattern, consists of a series of geometric bands. This is caused by the intergrowth of iron-nickel minerals formed during the slow cooling of the asteroid’s core.
Last, the stony-iron meteorites comprise about equal percentages of metal and silicate minerals and form only two percent of all known meteorites. They also may contain precious and semi-precious gemstones. One version of stony-iron meteorite is the pallasite, composed of nickel and a cluster of olivine, a magnesium-iron silicate material. When polished the crystals become translucent, and the resulting effect makes them of great interest to collectors.
Another version, known as mesosiderites, are composed of iron-nickel metal and basalt. They are formed from a collision of two asteroids, with the molten debris mixing. Unlike pallasites, mesosiderites display a high-contrast silver-and-black matrix when cut and polished. Mesosiderites are among the rarest in meteorite collections, with fewer than a hundred recorded.
Scientists and astrologists estimate that an average of 17,000 meteorites enter Earth’s atmosphere every day, with an estimated 100,000 pounds of meteoric material landing on its surface. Some, in a cluster known as a meteor shower, can be observed at night as a bright light in the sky. Mostly, the showers occur periodically in certain cycles, and are named after the nearest star constellation. However, these are small, mostly pea-sized meteors, and burn up before reaching the earth.
For the meteorites that survive the burn, any rock smaller than a football field breaks up after entering the Earth’s atmosphere, with less than 5 percent of the original rock reaching the ground. The impact, depending on size, creates an impression on the ground. The largest recorded intact crater caused by a meteor is the Barringer Crater in Arizona, at 0.6 miles across. It was formed by a 164-foot diameter iron-nickel meteorite.
Locating artifacts and archaeological sites can be challenging and take time and effort, even for known sites. Archaeologists, however, have several ways to ease the process. The locating methods primarily depend on the ground cover, tentative artifact depth, and the size of the site. The common techniques used include surface and walking surveys and using technologies that include lasers, aerial photography, probes, and radar.
Archaeologists can locate sites on foot in areas with zero to low vegetation cover and in favorable weather conditions. Surface testing is one of the most common methods to explore open ground, especially plowed fields. Plowing on known sites exposes artifacts, making for easy visibility. Farmers usually find the items first and then contact archaeologists about the find.
Closely related to surface surveys, walking surveys can either be systematic or unsystematic. The former involves volunteers walking in a predetermined straight line, looking for artifacts, and recording each find. The method works best to determine promising sites. On the other hand, in the unsystematic approach, the volunteers walk randomly on a site without a predetermined pattern.
For areas with grass or a forest, surface surveys don’t work, so archaeologists use shovels at the place of interest. The common way is to dig holes, about 20 inches in diameter, at intervals of approximately 30 to 50 feet apart, then map them. The soil from each spot is examined for artifacts and the hole mapped.
Thirdly, archaeologists examine creek and stream banks, as the water exposes artifacts. The banks also have a high probability of preserving archaeological material due to flood deposits. Sometimes, discoveries occur by accident, for example, during construction on previously unknown sites or during hikes and excursions.
On the other hand, technology aids in locating artifacts in sites inaccessible on foot or too expansive. One of the ways to find, record, and monitor archaeological sites is through aerial reconnaissance. The use of aerial methods for these purposes first happened in the early 20th century and was expanded after World War I . Archaeologists, accompanied by the pilots, explored land formations with a high possibility of being archaeological sites or holding artifacts, taking photographs from the air.
Aerial photography works best to study expansive areas of human habitation or cultivation and is aa fast way to examine the landscape. The ease of identification depends on the archaeologist’s experience, but telltale signs indicate the presence of an archaeologically promising area, such as earthworks like buried stone walls, ditches, and banks. Earthworks usually appear as shadows in aerial photos. Crop marks can also be used to locate buried walls or ditches. In areas with vegetation, plants growing over buried walls tend to be stunted or boosted compared to the rest of the foliage. Lastly, soil marks indicate where a plow has uncovered a buried stone feature. In such areas, the soil with or over buried artifacts differs in texture and color compared with the immediate surroundings.
Technology has drastically changed aerial reconnaissance. One example is Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), which uses a laser to scan landscapes and then generates detailed terrain models. The primary advantage of LiDAR is seeing through ground cover and dense vegetation without clearing it.
Drones have also eased aerial photography, with increased access to constrained areas and affordability. Besides the relatively easy availability of drones, archaeologists can operate the equipment themselves, without airplane rental and pilot-hire costs. For expansive areas, even satellites can be used to spot artifacts that are hard to see at ground level.
Besides aerial reconnaissance, ground-based technologies exist to find buried items. The common ones include magnetic and electromagnetic sensing, using probes and ground-penetrating radar (GPR).
Tennessee is a popular state for hiking enthusiasts. Great Smoky Mountains National Park offers 850 miles of trails, frequented by upwards of 400,000 hikers annually. Any hiker visiting a Tennessee park or campground for the first time should familiarize themselves with some of the region’s potentially dangerous wildlife.
Hikers are mistaken if they believe the nation’s concentration of venomous snakes is limited to the dryer, southwestern regions of America. Copperheads are a commonly observed venomous snake in Tennessee. Like most potentially dangerous animals in the state, copperheads are non-aggressive and will avoid humans whenever possible, striking only if they feel threatened or cornered. Hikers should give these snakes plenty of space to avoid the copperhead’s hemotoxic venom, which can lead to severe tissue damage.
Tennessee is also home to the pygmy and timber rattlesnakes. Timber rattlesnakes are more common and, at five feet long, far larger. Bites from pygmy rattlesnakes can be highly painful but are unlikely to threaten human life. On the other hand, Timber rattlesnakes are the most dangerous of the state’s four venomous snakes.
There are a few larger animals hikers in Tennessee may encounter on the trail, especially in eastern Tennessee. The black bear is the largest predator in the state, growing up to 800 pounds. There are roughly 7,000 individuals throughout the state. Black bears tend to avoid hikers, but humans must be especially careful if they encounter a mother with cubs, and Males in need of food will demonstrate increased aggression.
The black widow spider may be considerably smaller than the black bear, but it can pose just as great a threat to hikers. Black widow bites are somewhat common in America, but fatalities are rare. Still, a black widow bite in the middle of the woods can pose major problems for hikers, with symptoms including nausea and cramping.
The black widow is one of only three venomous spiders in the United States. The brown recluse spider can also be found in Tennessee. A brown recluse spider’s venom is more potent than a rattlesnake’s, but the amount that can be injected into a human results in less of an overall threat to human life. Brown recluse spiders often transition from the hiking trail to the home at the end of the year, when the spiders start seeking warmth.
Ticks are even smaller than spiders but pose arguably the greatest risk to hikers in Tennessee. The average tick bite is a minor inconvenience, but ticks can carry serious diseases that transfer to humans, including Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Lyme disease. These conditions are not as rare as some hikers might think; between 10 and 20 percent of tick bites leave lasting symptoms, such as arthritis or chronic fatigue. Hikers should avoid tall grass, wear long pants and high socks, and thoroughly check themselves for ticks after time spent outdoors.
Finally, no hiker wants to get sprayed by a skunk. While there are certainly deadlier animals on the trail, a skunk’s spray may be more of an inconvenience than some people think. Receiving a direct spray can result in temporary blindness, a major complication on the hiking trail. The spray can also cause nausea, vomiting, and breathing problems. Skunks also rank among the leading careers of rabies in the United States.
Fossils are the remains of flora and fauna preserved on Earth for extended periods. Fossils form in the Earth over such a long period that they are no longer the actual remains of a living organism but a mineral replacement on the cellular level with a rock-like material that took millions of years to form. Paleontologists and other researchers uncover complete fossils or fragments of a specimen on a regular basis.
Many plant or animal parts, including feathers, bones, shells, and leaves, can be fossilized. They can also vary considerably in size: scientists have found entire dinosaur and petrified tree fossils and the microfossils left behind by bacteria and pollen, which are only visible under a microscope.
The planet contains innumerable fossils, but only because the Earth has been around for billions of years. Fossilization is a rare process; most living things decompose after death. To become fossils, plant or animal remains must be covered in deep layers of sediment and in an oxygen free environment almost immediately after dying. Tar, lava, and sand on the ocean floor are examples of sediment layers contributing to fossilization.
The entire fossilization process takes about 10,000 years. During this time, the remains absorb minerals from the sediment. The fossilization process is most effective on organisms with hard, bony components, such as skeletons. Amber is a term used for soft tree resin, which can undergo fossilization.
While 10,000 years may sound like an eternity, it is a minuscule time on a planetary scale. This means fossils on Earth can be from the Archean Eon, four billion years ago, or the Holocene Epoch, the present age. Wooly mammoth teeth rank among the “newest” fossils discovered. On the other end of the spectrum, researchers have discovered fossilized algae from over three billion years ago.
Fossils are broadly categorized as either body fossils or trace fossils. Most people think of body fossils when they think of fossils: bones, shells, teeth. Dinosaur fossil exhibits in museums largely consist of body fossils, though they may not be complete or an assemblage of different body fossil collections. Trace fossils, by comparison, are fossils that do not contain any remains but demonstrate evidence of certain biological activity, such as a footprint.
Various scientists, researchers, and other professionals may interact with fossils, but paleontologists are trained explicitly in uncovering, cleaning, and analyzing fossils. Paleontology is an incredibly complex field of science, partly because of how radically the planet has changed over time. Paleontologists discovered the fossil of a megalodon, an ancient giant shark, in Utah, suggesting the land-locked state was once part of the Pacific Ocean or an adjacent body of water. Similarly, paleontologists have discovered fossilized ammonites, small marine animals, at the top of the Himalayan mountain range in Nepal.
Again, fossil work is not limited to paleontology or even professional scientists. Mary Anning was an amateur fossil collector from Britain during the 19th century. Despite lacking professional credentials, she was one of the first people in the world to find, display, and correctly identify dinosaur fossils. She played a major role in early understandings of the Jurassic period on Earth and, in 2010, was listed among England’s 10 women with the greatest influence on science.
The Renaissance typically refers to the period from the 14th to the 16th century in Europe, where there was a rebirth of the classical tradition, people became more conscious of nature, and there was a significant advancement in the arts. Renaissance is from the French word which means “rebirth.” This rebirth started in Italy before it spread to other parts of Europe. This period marked an increased emphasis on the secularization of daily living, humanistic learning, individualism, and interest in nature, and it still impacts contemporary visual art today.
A contest took place in Florence in 1401 to determine who would receive the contract to install bronze gates on the Baptistery of San Giovanni. Brunelleschi, a sculptor based in Florence alongside his friend Donatello, departed for Rome and engaged each other in studying classical architecture and sculpture. The old world’s refined art was revived upon returning to Florence. They started using what they had learned, marking the emergence of a historical period in European history.
However, Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone Cassai, also known as Masaccio, meaning “clumsy Tom.” was the father of the Renaissance. He was born on December 21, 1401, in San Gio Masaccio. And he is often recognized as a key character in Renaissance painting due to his cerebral ideas, the significance of his compositions, and the high standard of naturalism in his creations.
His work, the Brancacci Chapel paintings at Florence’s Church of Santa Maria del Carmine was very prominent. Masaccio drastically altered Florentine painting in just six years. Several of the key philosophical and artistic pillars of Western painting were eventually developed via his work.
The Renaissance was a rebirth of classical Greek and Roman art forms and aesthetic choices, In reality, the Renaissance’s synthetic nature, especially in Italy, was what made it possible for truly inspired works. Most Western art has developed due to the fusion and merging of many styles and techniques. The same may be stated for the Renaissance’s early stages when the resurrection of the Greek and classical Roman traditions was powerful. The stylized yet realistic three-dimensional shapes of the body were a constant goal of ancient Greek sculpture and painting.
Therefore, when people think of monumental artworks, they often consider Sandro Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus,” Michelangelo’s fresco “Sistine Chapel Ceiling,” or Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.” These paintings were groundbreaking in comparison to the Byzantine iconography they replaced. To portray nature as it is or better than it is, the Renaissance brought in a new focus on realism and modeling. One of the numerous methods that impacted art history throughout the Renaissance was the development of a one-point perspective, sometimes known as linear perspective. The period witnessed a brief return to the ancients’ creative roots and a resurgence of their capacity for invention.
Architecture, sculpture, and other art forms underwent major technical improvements throughout the Renaissance. These modifications improved the tools, procedures, and materials used in art during the middle ages. Early incarnations of the ballet and spinet equally benefited from whole new types of artistic inventiveness in music and dance. A significant development in painting history for the visual arts was the invention of oil paints as we know them today. The actual method of painting and sculpture started to conform to the freshly learned ideals pushed by classical, realism, and naturalist creations of the Greeks, aside from the practical modifications. The modifications included sfumato, quadratura, high contrast, and foreshortening.
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