Friday, July 09, 2021

California nixing algae that crowds out food for sea animals


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Marine scientist Robert Mooney shows off Caulerpa, an evasive alga, that is being removed from China Coast in Corona del Mar, Calif. on Wednesday, July 7, 2021. (Mindy Schauer/The Orange County Register via AP)

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) — For the first time, scientists say they have seen a species of bright green algae growing in the waters off California — and they are hoping it’s the last.

The invasive algae can overtake the environment and displace critical food sources for ocean animals on the Southern California coast. A team on Wednesday started removing the patch of fast-growing algae known as caulerpa prolifera from the harbor in Newport Beach, suctioning it through a tube and filtering the ocean water back out.

The process will take four or five days to complete and much longer until scientists can determine the algae is gone for good. So far, it’s been confined to a roughly 1,000-square-foot (90-square-meter) area not far from a small but popular beach. But tiny fibers can easily break off and take hold elsewhere.

“We’re at a point here where we’ve got a shot to get rid of it,” said Robert Mooney, a biologist with Marine Taxonomic Services overseeing a large pump that a team of three divers uses to remove the algae. “We don’t have the luxury of waiting to see what happens.”

The discovery of the species late last year and confirmation this spring spurred federal, state and local officials to act. They are eager to prevent it from spreading, noting the algae has invaded other habitats like the Suez Canal. It was crucial to act quickly, they said, because swimmers and boaters moving through the water could contribute to the algae spreading.

California faced a similar problem two years ago when a related invasive algae was detected off the coast of Huntington Beach and Carlsbad. It cost $7 million to eradicate and prompted the state to ban the sale of caulerpa taxifolia and other algae.

That species — known as “killer algae” — has caused widespread problems in the Mediterranean Sea. It isn’t edible by many fish and invertebrates and can displace plants that are, Mooney said.

“It looks like somebody took a roll of AstroTurf and laid it out across the sea floor,” said Christopher Potter of California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The invasive algae recently identified in Newport Beach is related but isn’t prohibited in California. It is used in some saltwater aquariums, and scientists think it likely wound up in the harbor when someone washed out a fish tank, possibly into a storm drain.

“It’s more than likely the source is an aquarium release,” said Keith Merkel of Merkel & Associates, biological consultant on the project. “It can spread from very small fragments if you replace water in your aquarium, cleaning gravels and using buckets to dip water out and in.”

For now, the source hasn’t been confirmed, and the push is on to remove the algae as quickly as possible from Newport’s China Cove. While native to Florida and other tropical locations, it can overtake natural habitats in California, experts said.

So far, divers haven’t detected the algae elsewhere in the harbor. But it will require surveys over time to be sure, and repeat removals if more is detected, Merkel said.

“There’s a good chance that it has spread, we just don’t know where — which is the biggest fear that we have,” Merkel said.
Beyond Meat adding substitute chicken tenders at 400 U.S. restaurants


Beyond Meat announced the chicken substitute, a mixture of fava beans and peas, will be available in 400 restaurants nationwide. Photo courtesy of Beyond Meat

July 8 (UPI) -- Beyond Meat announced on Thursday that it's launching substitute chicken tenders at restaurants nationwide.

The company, which produces alternative beef products, said the breaded chicken substitute will be available in more than 400 restaurants.

"The demand for our beef products really started to pick up to the point where we really had to allocate all of our production capacity to it," Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown said, according to CNBC.

The company said it's shifting focus to chicken after spending years working on its Beyond Burger products. It's been testing the chicken substitute -- a mixture of fava beans and peas -- with partners like Yum Brands, which operates KFC.

"We're innovating the poultry market with the new Beyond Chicken Tenders -- the result of our tireless pursuit for excellence and growth at Beyond Meat," the company's chief innovation officer, Dariush Ajami, said in a statement.

The company, which reports annual sales of about $400 million, first tried a plant-based "chicken" product a decade ago.
SMALLER THAN A MEGALODON
Rhode Island researchers tag second 'GREAT' white shark in season

July 7, 2021

WAKEFIELD, R.I. (AP) — Researchers have tagged their second great white shark on the Rhode Island coast in two weeks.

The Atlantic Shark Institute said in a statement that the female juvenile shark is about 5 1/2 feet long. It was tagged and released on Saturday.

The tag will allow researchers to trace the shark whenever it passes within 500 to 800 yards of an acoustic receiver. The tag should record the time that the shark swam by and it should for last 10 years, the Providence Journal reported.

Jon Dodd, executive director of the Atlantic Shark Institute, said so far this year, this was the third shark they tagged. Fewer than 300 sharks have been tagged with this technology in the Northwest Atlantic, he said.

The tag will allow the institute to collect insightful information about complexities of white sharks, he said.

“That’s what makes this work so exciting and so important,” Dodd said. “These juvenile white sharks aren’t easy to find, tag and release so every one of them is really important if we are to understand how size, age and sex plays a role in what they do and where they go.”

The Institute is studying sharks in partnership with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, the newspaper said.
Florida man finds a second megalodon tooth in three weeks

July 8 (UPI) -- A Florida man talking a walk on a beach found a 4-inch tooth from a prehistoric megalodon shark just three weeks after he found a smaller tooth from the same species on the same beach.

Jacob Danner said he was walking on Fernandina Beach on Thursday morning, after Tropical Storm Elsa swept through the area, when he came across the 4-inch tooth.

Danner said he found the tooth near where he found a 3-inch megalodon tooth three weeks earlier.

Jim Gelsleichter, an associate biology professor at the University of North Florida, said the first tooth Danner discovered could be millions of years old. He said tooth discoveries can tell researchers a lot about the extinct species.

"The megalodon fossils that have been observed usually run around 30 feet in length or so," Gelsleichter told WJXT-TV.

"So we can use information about the size of the teeth to extrapolate the ultimate size of the animal. We can look at the distribution of where teeth are found and get an idea of the distribution of the animal."

 BIBLE LITERALISTS ARE WHITE SUPREMACISTS

Noah’s Ark park seeks expansion with new religious exhibit

July 7, 2021

WILLIAMSTOWN, Ky. (AP) — A Bible-themed attraction in Kentucky that features a 510-foot-long (155-meter-long) wooden Noah’s ark is planning to begin fundraising for an expansion.

The Ark Encounter said Wednesday that it would take about three years to research, plan and build a “Tower of Babel” attraction on the park’s grounds in northern Kentucky.

A release from the Ark Encounter park said the new attraction will “tackle the racism issue” by helping visitors “understand how genetics research and the Bible confirm the origin of all people groups around the world.” No other details were given on the Babel attraction or what it might look like.

Answers in Genesis, the ministry behind the ark, raised private funds to construct and open the massive wooden attraction in 2016. The group preaches a strict interpretation of the Earth’s creation in the Bible. The group also founded The Creation Museum, which asserts that dinosaurs walked the earth just a few thousand years ago, millions of years after scientists say they went extinct. That facility is just south of Cincinnati in Boone County, Kentucky.

The Ark Encounter’s expansion plans also include an indoor model of “what Jerusalem may have looked like in the time of Christ.”

The Ark Encounter said attendance is picking up after the pandemic lull in 2020, with up to 7,000 visitors on Saturdays, according to the news release.
THEY SHOULD KNOW

Vatican suppresses Italy group, determines revelations fake

July 3, 2021

ROME (AP) — The Vatican has taken the unusual step of suppressing a small Italian lay movement after determining that the presumed “revelations” that were the basis of its 1979 foundation were fake.

The dissolution of the Apostolic Movement, which is based in Catanzaro, Italy, and boasts a presence in several European and African countries, is the latest move taken by Pope Francis to crack down on local-level religious orders and Catholic movements. These groups were often encouraged under the previous two popes but in many cases have turned out to have serious governance, financial, sexual abuse or other problems.

In a joint decree, three Vatican offices — the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for Clergy and the Dicastry for Laity — ordered the dissolution of the Apostolic Movement and the distribution of its assets to charity.

It took action after concluding a six-month investigation into concerns about the legitimacy of the movement’s origins, doctrinal, disciplinary and governance problems, as well as the “profound divisions” its presence had created among the diocesan clergy, the decree said.

Fundamentally, the Vatican investigation determined that “the presumed revelations that gave origin to the Apostolic Movement through its founder, Ms. Maria Marino, are to be considered to not have a supernatural origin.”

The decree was dated June 10 and published this week on the website of the Archdiocese of Catanzaro, where the movement was founded as a private association of the faithful and received local diocesan approval in 2001.
Review: Working undercover every day as a straight Catholic
By MOLLY SPRAYREGEN
July 5, 2021

This cover image released by Atria shows "Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead," by Emily Austin. (Atria via AP)

“Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead,” by Emily Austin (Atria)

In Emily Austin’s first novel, “Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead,” 27-year-old Gilda is anxious, insecure and lost. She struggles to hold down a job and is a massive hypochondriac, visiting the emergency room multiple times per week.

She is constantly thinking about death, how many ways there are to die, and the insignificance of her own existence. She’s also obsessed with making sure her presence in the world does not have a harmful effect on others. Everyday tasks are difficult for her. Often, she can’t bring herself to respond to texts from a girl she really likes, show up to work, or even do the dishes.

One day, Gilda responds to a flyer for free therapy at a Roman Catholic church. When she arrives, the priest thinks she is there for a job interview to replace the receptionist who had recently died. Gilda, who just lost her job, doesn’t correct him.

She is hired, and now Gilda, a gay atheist, must work undercover every day as a straight Catholic. But as the circumstances of the former receptionist’s death become more and more suspicious, Gilda finds herself swept up in a murder investigation.

Filled with dark humor, “Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead” is a beguiling read. Gilda is wholly unique, yet at the same time, exceedingly relatable. The world through her eyes is often a terrifying one, but it is one that anyone who has dealt with anxiety will no doubt recognize. Through it all, Gilda’s endlessly good heart shines through, making her impossible not to root for.
BYU students launch underground newspaper

By COURTNEY TANNER
July 3, 2021

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — To work for the student newspaper at Brigham Young University, you must first understand what you cannot write about.

Students aren’t allowed to report anything that’s critical of the school or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns it. That includes any mention of the faith’s past support for polygamy or segregation that “could cause embarrassment” now, The Salt Lake Tribune reports.

Reporters should also avoid the topics of drugs, sex education, birth control, evolution and other “claims of science,” according to rules established for the publication in the 1970s that largely remain in place today. At the time, there was also a specific ban on any stories about “acid rock music.”


(The university president then wasn’t a fan of Pink Floyd, a band he considered “evil.”)


One communication student noted: “I feel like there’s just a lot of things I can’t say.” But there’s not much they can do about it at the private religious school.

Now, one group is trying a different approach. A few of them have left the staff at the school’s paper, The Daily Universe, and have launched their own underground, independent publication not controlled by BYU.

Their new paper, Prodigal Press, covers what happens on campus without the limitations that come with the university’s sanction.

“We talk about things that aren’t allowed to be talked about in other media outlets on campus,” said Martha Harris, a senior in the school’s journalism program who was frustrated by the “minefield of censorship, both spoken and unspoken” at the official newspaper.

Harris reported the cover story for the second issue of Prodigal Press, a piece on discrimination LGBTQ students describe encountering at the conservative Provo school. The story included Harris’ personal experiences, as someone who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, choosing a restroom on campus and being called derogatory names. The same pitch was rejected at the campus paper.

“That would never appear in The Daily Universe,” Harris noted. “They just wouldn’t even consider it.”

Isabella Olson, a sophomore who does social media for Prodigal Press, said that’s the point — to cover subjects that would be ignored or blocked by the school. They’re not trying to attack BYU or the church or even the student newspaper, she noted. They just want to highlight perspectives that aren’t always given space.

“Without a platform that is unbiased, you can’t have truth,” Olson said. “We’re not being critical. We’re just being honest. And I think it’s very important, especially at a school like BYU where I would go as far to say things are censored, to have an independent voice. ”

This isn’t the first time students at BYU have published an underground newspaper. 

In fact, the private university has a rich legacy of independent publications that started as early as 1906. The first, titled The Radical, printed one 32-page edition that called for a cafeteria on campus and more resources at the library. The requests were granted.

Another paper in the 1980s, called Seventh East Press, was able to pay to print issues after its editor sold his car for cash. The students famously published an interview with an academic who was critical of LDS Church founder Joseph Smith, which caused the then-president of BYU to banish the publication from campus. Students caught reading it faced discipline.

After that, the biggest underground newspaper, The Student Review, started in 1986 and printed 15,000 copies at its height. It operated for about two decades entirely off campus, after what happened with Seventh East Press.

David Clove, a junior in political science who created Prodigal Press, said stumbling onto those earlier papers last summer inspired him. “That really provided the spark,” he said. “And I realized I had to do something.”

He had been feeling frustrated that there wasn’t a space where he and other students could openly publish their thoughts about BYU, on the good and bad, what was working and how things could be better.

“There was just this void,” Clove said. “There are topics that everyone just stays away from. But I wanted to talk about them. And I knew people who wanted to talk about them. It was the same reason why all those other papers existed.”

He added: “They knew that there needed to be something separate from the university, something independent.”

The private school needed a public platform.


So he started making a few calls to friends. Gracia Lee, a junior in graphic design, said she was surprised by Clove’s idea and surprised that she didn’t hesitate to join the cause.

“I never saw myself working at a secret, underground paper that’s occasionally critiquing my university,” she said with a laugh.

When she worked at BYU’s broadcast station, she knew there were things they couldn’t report on. The “most political story” they did, Lee said, was about an Indigenous museum.

“We were told to stray away from anything that was more political than that,” she said. “I didn’t realize what kind of a silencing effect that had. The museum wasn’t even political anyway.”

Together, Clove and Lee formed a team of six student editors and about 30 contributors, and their advisor is Bill Kelly, a BYU alumnus who co-founded The Student Review.

The first Prodigal Press launched in September, and they have published eight issues. The staff has tackled things like racism in the LDS Church and on campus, school police, feminism and the monopoly between BYU and landlords in Provo.

There was a graphic from a student showing how many times she’d been sexually assaulted at BYU. They printed an essay about whether the university really cares about its Black students. They featured students, too, questioning their faith.

There has been a long gap since the last underground paper printed at BYU. Clove said the name Prodigal Press plays off the parable of the prodigal son in the Bible — though he jokes they haven’t been welcomed back with such open arms as the man in the story — and signifies a return of an independent newspaper to campus readers.

He wants this one to stay.


Even though the founders call it a student newspaper, Prodigal Press is not technically distributed to students anywhere on campus — at least not intentionally. It’s not allowed to be, Clove said, because it’s not approved by the private school.

Instead, the staff members get together off campus every month to fold a few hundred copies of the paper and distribute them to local restaurants and coffee shops around Provo. (Yes, they find it funny to be at coffee shops when coffee is also not allowed at the school.)

But they also have something the other unsanctioned papers before them didn’t: the internet. And sometimes, they end up on campus anyway through that.

“That’s made a huge difference in how far our reach is,” Clove said. “It’s really amazing. We’re definitely getting to students that way. Some are brave enough to go to our site on BYU’s computers.”

It hasn’t been blocked yet, he added with a laugh.

Prodigal Press has more than 1,000 followers on Instagram, its most popular online platform. And it gets about 3,000 readers, on average, on the stories posted to its website, prodigalpress.org.

So far, they’ve financed the publication with advertisements, donations and support from about 100 people who pay to have it mailed to their homes.

There’s always some concern that the university might try to penalize the students who are involved. BYU’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

Some of the students who write stories for the paper do so anonymously or only once they’ve graduated. That includes some LGBTQ students who don’t want to be reported and possibly expelled for having same-sex relationships, which break the campus Honor Code.

Helaman Sanchez, a graduate, wrote a piece for Prodigal Press about how the leadership of the LDS Church has said it supports Black Lives Matter but hasn’t taken action “that would make a real difference.” He waited to publish until his diploma was in hand.

Sanchez, who identifies as Mexican American, previously worked for BYU Political Review, a policy and opinion publication at the school. He said he was told he couldn’t call out church leadership like that. But he was frustrated by his experience in the faith and on campus where he was often told to “go back to Africa” or had people shout “White Lives Matter” at him.

“Somehow that’s OK but my piece calling attention to the problem was not,” Sanchez said. “I felt silenced. I’m glad the Prodigal Press gave me the space to say what I needed to.”

One of the editors at Prodigal Press published a piece under the pen name Lou Tenant, meant to sound like lieutenant, to criticize campus police and previous actions by the department to report victims of sexual assault to BYU’s Honor Code Office. The staff put up “Defund BYUPD” stickers around downtown Provo with QR codes that linked to the story.

“It was really edgy,” Olson acknowledged. “But it was also one of our most read articles. I don’t know if we’re doing anything that BYU could punish us for. But I’m willing to stand up for what I believe in. All these voices we’re getting out there deserve to be heard. They wouldn’t be heard otherwise.”

Grant Frazier, a junior who works for the newspaper, said he knows there are risks with the publication and any effort to speak out against the university.

He previously helped lead protests against the Honor Code Office in 2019. He requested his transcripts immediately after that, afraid that he would be expelled.

Frazier and Harris, though, want the university to understand that their purpose is to make things better. And they believe that requires a platform to talk about what’s not working that is independent from the institution. (They point out that the LDS Church also owns The Deseret News.).

Some of the students say the experience has helped them learn to think independently and a few, including Harris, want to go into journalism as a career. Above all, though, they still want people to know that they’re proud students of BYU and members of the church.

With that in mind, Frazier was the one who came up with the tagline for the newspaper, which he believes gets at the balance they’re aiming for in their reporting with Prodigal Press, which so far hasn’t included anything on acid rock music.

Under the underground newspaper’s masthead on each issue, it reads: “Not quite holy, not quite heretical.”
Archaeologists plan more digging after Wyoming finds

By EVE NEWMAN
July 5, 2021

LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) — The southern Laramie Valley has served as a travel corridor for as long as humans have been crossing the plains, from Native American routes to the Cherokee Trail, Overland Stage Route, Union Pacific Railroad, Lincoln Highway and Interstate 80.

An archaeological site near Tie Siding, called Willow Springs, was recently the focus of an excavation conducted by the Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist, and the quantity of artifacts they discovered has the office planning to continue digging in the future.

Spencer Pelton, the Wyoming state archaeologist, said the site, which sits on private land northwest of Tie Siding, was used by Native Americans and later settlers traveling overland routes through the area, the Laramie Boomerang reports.

“It’s a beautiful spring in a pretty dry place, and it also has a really nice stand of trees around it,” he said.

In addition to fresh water and shade trees, the site attracts plentiful big game.

“There were a ton of elk hanging out there when we there,” he said. “It’s just a great oasis in the southern Laramie valley.”

In the 1850s, the Cherokee Trail took wagon trains from Oklahoma along the Arkansas River, the South Platte River and then along the Colorado/Wyoming border to Green River and points west. In the 1860s, the Overland Stage Route ran from Kansas to Salt Lake City.

The transcontinental railroad blazed a new overland route that allowed for the settlement of the city of Laramie in 1868, followed by the transcontinental Lincoln Highway in 1913.

“They all come through the same area right there, and before that it looks like Native Americans were using it comparably as well,” Pelton said.

The Willow Creek site was first excavated in the 1960s by archaeologist William Mulloy, the founding faculty member in the University of Wyoming Department of Anthropology. Mulloy found extensive Native American campsites with stone tools, pottery pieces, animal bones and beads. He also found artifacts from the 1860s suggesting the site’s use by overland travelers.

Pelton said Mulloy’s work at Willow Creek was never written up in a report and the artifacts are still stored at UW. Last year, the landowner approached the state office, knowing that the area had been studied before.

“The Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist decided it would be a good idea to return to it, answer some questions, and try to get a report,” Pelton said.

Archaeologists worked at the site for about 10 days in mid-June. They found an extensive collection of arrowheads, pottery pieces and animal bones.

“This has one of the largest prehistoric ceramics assemblages that have ever been found in the state,” Pelton said.

They also found a surprising number of artifacts from the 1860s, including shell cartridges, pieces to muzzleloaders and equipment for melting down lead and making bullets.

“It looks like this Willow Springs was part of the Overland Stage Route or Cherokee Trail — which slightly preceded it in the 1850s — even though it’s not been recognized as such yet,” Pelton said. “We’re trying to answer the question of what role it actually did fulfill.”

Pelton’s office has plans to spend the next year cataloging the artifacts and synthesizing their findings. They’ll return next summer for further digging, with the goal of writing up the project for a journal publication.

“We still have some lingering questions,” he said.
Dig at Pilgrim and Native American memorial sparks intrigue

By WILLIAM J. KOLE


FILE — University of Massachusetts Boston graduate students Sean Fairweather, of Watertown, Mass., left, and Alex Patterson, of Quincy, Mass., right, use measuring instruments while mapping an excavation site, Wednesday, June 9, 2021, on Cole's Hill, in Plymouth, Mass. The archaeologists are part of a team excavating the grassy hilltop that overlooks iconic Plymouth Rock one last time before a historical park is built on the site. David Landon, not shown, of the University of Massachusetts-Boston's Fiske Center for Archaeological Research, says his team unearthed a cache of personal items he thinks were buried there in the late 1800s, most likely by a brokenhearted settler who had outlived all three of her children. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

Archaeologists combing a hill near Plymouth Rock where a park will be built in tribute to the Pilgrims and their Native American predecessors have made a poignant discovery: It’s not the first time the site has been used as a memorial.

David Landon of the University of Massachusetts-Boston’s Fiske Center for Archaeological Research says his team unearthed a cache of personal items he thinks were buried there in the late 1800s, most likely by a brokenhearted settler who had outlived all three of her children.

Landon says the objects — eyeglasses, clothing, sewing implements, a pocket watch and a book — gave him chills. That’s because they turned up during final excavations of Cole’s Hill, a National Historic Landmark site in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where Remembrance Park is set to be constructed.

“Someone clearly used that space in that fashion in the past to memorialize members of their family,” said Landon, whose team spent the past month scouring the waterfront site where the Pilgrims are said to have come ashore in 1620.

“It’s an amazing array of things you don’t usually find as an archaeologist,” he said. “It plays very much to the remembrance aspect of the site. The idea of a human memorial there is emotionally powerful.”

Remembrance Park originally was conceived to mark 2020′s 400th anniversary of the Pilgrim’s 1620 arrival, the founding of Plymouth Colony and the settlers’ historic interactions with the indigenous Wampanoag people. But then the coronavirus pandemic hit, idling many commemoration events as well as construction. Work on the park is expected to begin late next year or early in 2023.

The newly reimagined park will highlight three periods of epic historical challenge: the Great Dying of 1616-19, when deadly disease brought by other Europeans severely afflicted the Wampanoag people; the first winter of 1620-21, when half of the Mayflower colonists perished of contagious sickness; and the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.


FILE — University of Massachusetts Boston graduate students Nicholas Densley, of Missoula, Mont., left, and Kiara Montes, of Boston, right, use brushes while searching for artifacts at an excavation site, in this Wednesday, June 9, 2021 file photo, on Cole's Hill, in Plymouth, Mass. The archaeologists are part of a team excavating the grassy hilltop that overlooks iconic Plymouth Rock one last time before a historical park is built on the site. David Landon, not shown, of the University of Massachusetts-Boston's Fiske Center for Archaeological Research, says his team unearthed a cache of personal items he thinks were buried there in the late 1800s, most likely by a brokenhearted settler who had outlived all three of her children. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)



Donna Curtin, executive director of the Pilgrim Society & Pilgrim Hall Museum, which owns the tract, said the discovery of “this exquisitely personal family cache” makes the site even more evocative.

“A project like this helps reminds us that there’s real emotional power in history because real people lived through it,” she said. “That’s really the purpose of Remembrance Park.”

Who left the items in the soil? Initial research points to Judith Jackson, a 19th-century family matriarch who died in 1905. She was predeceased by all three of her children — a daughter who died very young, and then an adult son and adult daughter.

Some of the items found date to the 1840s, and Landon believes it’s likely that Jackson — who once lived in one of four colonial houses that once stood on Cole’s Hill — buried the objects in memory of the offspring she’d outlived.

The archaeologists also recovered stone-cutting tools — evidence of a much older Wampanoag living site that appears to have survived the ravages of time because a 1700s home was built atop it, shielding it from the elements, Landon said.

“Sometimes when you look, you find something, and sometimes you don’t,” he said. “This was a great success.”