NORTHERN VIRGINIA DAILY

Article date: October 03, 2000

Cindy Auman, archaeologist for Parsons Engineering Science

By: Ashley May

An archaeologist hired to study the only undisturbed portion of the Avtex Fibers Superfund site said Monday that a field team found flakes of stone, ceramic pieces and fire cracked rocks in two places on about 12 acres , evidence that American Indians once occupied the site.

Cindy Auman, an archaeologist for Parsons Engineering Science of Fairfax, said that not many conclusions can be drawn about the artifacts or the people who left them because of the limited scope of the survey, but called the discovery a " good, respectable site."

Artifacts were found to be scattered widely, but indicated two clear sites, on about 12 of the 37 acres studied, Auman said.

Divided by a wetland area both are near the administrative building of the plant, on the only portion of the 500 acre grounds that has never been disturbed, according to Stephen A. Heavener, executive director to the Front Royal Warren County Economic Development Authority, who is charged by the town and county to oversee the cleanup and redevelopment of the former viscose plant.

On the larger site to the north, Auman said that archaeologists have found chips of rock, called lithics, which are left when stone tools are made. Also on that site were stones that have been cracked by fire, a sign that campfire hearths may have been built there, she said.

On the northern site are bits of ceramic, which show a somewhat more recent occupation than the smaller site to the south she said. Ceramics, a newer technology than stone tool making, are not present on the southern site, she said, but the stone chips and fire cracked rocks were found there, she said.

Neither site yielded actual tools, but a broken stone point found on the southern site looks as if it might be a "bitface" broad spear point, Auman said. Because it was incomplete and broken, there is no way to determine exactly what it is or when it was tooled, she said.

Without a known tool pattern, it is hard to determine who occupied the site, how long ago or for how long, she said.

"It’s interesting from every standpoint, but we don’t really know very much about it," Auman said.

"At the moment it is very good, respectable site," she said.

Parsons conducted the phase one study on behalf of FMC Corp., a former owner of the plant and the major private party responsible for its cleanup.

FMC plans to use topsoil from the front of the site, where the administrative buildings are, to fill in basin areas near the river as they are cleaned up.

The phase one study, which is not an exhaustive search of the site but is used simply to determine the presence or absence of an archaeological site, was the result of an agreement between the EDA and FMC, Heavener said.

Heavener said the discovery doesn’t set back the multimillion-dollar cleanup effort because if any other sites may have been present on the 500-acre property, they were long ago destroyed by the operations of the plant, he said.

He said that the redevelopment plans for the property, which call for a 240-acre Shenandoah River conservancy park, a 25-acre soccer complex, a 70-acre passive recreation park on the west bank of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River, and a 165-acre "green" business park, can only be enhanced by the discovery.

Heavener said that the EDA would recommend that FMC take the next step and enter a phase two, or active archaeological dig phase, He said that based on FMC’s cooperation in the past, the plant’s former owner will probably agree.

The Avtex site is the home of a former rayon manufacturing facility that was first operated by the American Viscose Co. from 1940 to 1963 and then by FMC Corp. from 1963 to 1976. Avtex Fibers operated from 1976 to 1989, when the plant was shut down for financial, environmental and safety reasons.

Because of pollution from plant operations, the Avtex site was designated a federal Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1986.

Over 100 acres of waste impoundments or basins are located in the conservancy park area, where sulfate sludge, fly ash and viscose have leached into soil and ground water.