I guesstimate that the pond now called Lake Saponi is about eight miles NNE of the historic Monacan village of Monasukapanough. It’s a little hard to pin down the latter because it’s an archaeological site, otherwise known as 44AB18, and I guess they want to discourage “pot hunters” or whatever. Not that there are any pots left; anyhow the serious dig sponsored by UVA found about two chips of the rims of pots there.
I found the earlier post on this by Roca, it was Jan. 12, 2006. I still haven’t figured out how to link one Saponitown thread or post to another. Deirdre has also expressed an interest in the Saponi or Monacan sites near Charlottesville. And there was a thread started by Brenda Collins Dillon Aug. 15, 2001 (just five years ago) about this same vicinity.
There is a lot of good information about the Monacans at this url:
http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/lewisandclark/students/projects/monacans/Monasukapanough/index.html
This is a pretty rich web site, with many links to other useful info, photos etc., especially about the Monacan people. If you click on their Glossary, you will find that Saponi and Tutelo are treated more or less as synonyms for Monacan. One might quibble with that and a few other things, but it’s overall a very well done project, and needs to be referenced here in the Sources thread.
One of the unusual features at Monasukapanough was the mass burial (over a long period) of somewhere between 1,000 and 2,700 sets of disarticulated human bones. It is assumed that the dead were kept above (or very near) the surface of the ground for months or a few years, and periodically these remains were brought to Monasukapanough for reburial together in a large (and ever growing) earthen mound. There’s quite a bit of information about this mortuary custom, here and elsewhere (mainly in the south and east), in the late Woodland and early historic period. That may be the source of a recent comment (on some other thread) that the Saponi were “mortuary people.”
