Today, 6-29-99, it started raining five minutes after we set up.  And it didn't stop until 10:30.  So for the first part of the morning we went up to the lab and had another slide show.  Since we believe that our current excavations are uncovering another house, we looked at the site map from former excavations and discussed the house patterns.  These houses are about 20 to 25 feet in diameter.  They have outer walls with rounded corners, and then four internal posts to hold up the roof.  One of the long-term goals of the Cherokee Archaeology Program at Warren Wilson is to reconstruct two or three houses as well as a portion of the surrounding palisade.  This would be done using only aboriginal tools and materials such as stone axes for cutting and cordage or sinew for latching the beams together.
    We also had very distinguished guests today.  Dr. George Stuart and his wife Melinda visited the Warren Wilson site.  Dr. Stuart retired in December after 38 years with the National Geographic Society.  He recently has served as chairman of the Committee for Research and Exploration.  Currently, he is in North Carolina developing and building a study center for Archaeologists including a 10,000 volume library.