Archeology
Discipline and Dogma
The archeological investigation of the Newport Tower goes back to 1848. But before reviewing that, a few words about the discipline itself are needed.
Two of the most contentious subjects in history/archeology are the peopling of America (when did the first humans arrive on this continent and from where), and when the first European contact took place. It had been long accepted that the first humans arrived in North America about 14,000 year ago and came across the Bering Sea “land bridge.” The theory was that they then migrated through North America and into South America. These were known as the Clovis People and the “Clovis First” was so sacrosanct that anyone 
challenging it was ridiculed and ostracized.
But now there are several sites in Pennsylvania, Virginia and South Carolina that reliably carbon date to 15,000 - 19,000 years. They are clearly pre-Clovis and in the east. That fact suggests that the first humans on this continent came from the Atlantic in boats. (link) The Clovis First theory is under siege and losing ground rapidly.
Likewise, “Columbus First” took a serious hit in the ‘60s with the discovery of Norse settlements in Newfoundland dating to the 11th century. (link) But the Columbus First bias hung on with the spin that Newfoundland wasn’t really the North American mainland.
And still today, any evidence of pre-Columbian European artifacts is met with furious denials, claims of hoax and even personal attacks. This is only made worse by the fact that there “have” been hoaxes. But archeology is not being as open-minded and scientific as it should be, about either the peopling of America or pre-Columbian contact. It is far too much an opinion-based discipline. And archeology is not the only discipline that can or should shed light on these matters. The Newport Tower is the “scientific” community’s greatest failure in discovering our true history.
Archeology of The Newport Tower
As early as 1848, the attempt was on to demonstrate a colonial origin for the tower using what passed as scientific analysis. A Rev. Dr. Jackson of Newport collected mortar from the tower and from several old homes in Newport dating to the Arnold period. He pronounced that because all the mortar was of the same composition, that he had proven the tower was built at the same time as those homes. This, of course, defies logic on several levels. First, the way mortar was made hadn’t changed for centuries. One would expect, and in fact could verify, that mortar from the 14th century would be essentially the same as mortar from the 17th century. And additionally, there is no way of knowing where the mortar samples were taken from within the tower. We know that during the Arnold period, patching and support work were done to the tower using then contemporary mortar. But if nothing else, this folly demonstrates how early a passionate and biased effort was underway to discredit any evidence of pre-Columbian contact.
Fast forward a century to 1948, and we find a dig being conducted by William Godfrey as his doctoral dissertation. Any hopes that he might be less biased and display a modicum of scientific detachment is dispelled by his title, “Digging a Tower and Laying a Ghost,” and in his first chapter when he remarkably states, “some period before 1677, Arnold built the old stone mill.” He then takes dead aim on his own foot when three lines later he says, “Indeed, the only contemporary reference that connects Arnold to the mill is his own will.” The majority of the report is then devoted not to his objective findings but to attacks on those who disagree with him. He calls them crackpots, zealots and the lunatic fringe. And still today, we find the Arnoldist camp flailing wildly in all directions and using the same juvenile name-calling in an apparent effort to express themselves forcefully.
What little of Godfrey’s report that was not devoted to invective still produced nothing to shed any light on the tower’s origin. The few artifacts he excavated would date to 1750-1800. Yet he claims that, “Our excavations set the date of the tower’s construction definitely between the dates of the founding of Newport in 1639, and 1677 when it is first mentioned historically.” But he produced zero evidence, archeological or otherwise, of this claim and one is left with the doubtless conclusion that he began his work firmly committed to that conclusion. In his final paragraph he says, “This study has strayed far from pure archeology.” At least there is that point on which we can agree with Mr. Godfrey unreservedly.
Only four years after Godfrey’s work, his dig was revisited by structural engineer Arlington Mallory and two City of Newport engineers, Gardner Easton and John Howieson. We quote Mallery on his primary finding:
We also dug plaster from under the bottom stones of the foundation and found that every joint and opening in the
foundation was carefully and thoroughly caulked with refill clay containing particles or fragments of plaster to prevent water seepage. Since all that plaster except possibly a few fragments had to come from the superstructure of the tower it could not have been placed inside the joints and crevices of the present foundation unless the foundation had been installed as underpinning after the tower was built. The tower was probably underpinned in 1675. The quantity of plaster fragments in the excavation indicates that the plaster stucco had so far disintegrated that the tower must have been more than 300 years old when it was underpinned.
We remind the reader here that the tower was covered in a white plaster stucco. There is no dispute on this point by any of the camps. The key point is that the stucco was of course applied after the foundation was in place and the tower was built. So for it to be found “under” the foundations of the pillars is conclusive that there was digging under the foundations after the tower was complete and after the stucco was applied. This digging can be dated to Arnold’s time and further, the deterioration of the plaster stucco indicates that it was hundreds of years old when the colonial digging beneath the foundations was done. This is Mallery’s conclusion and we have seen virtually no refutation of it. It is singularly sufficient for the reasonable person to conclude that the Newport Tower was not built from the ground by the colonials but rather, they found it, fancied that it might be converted to a windmill and attempted to strengthen its foundations for that purpose.
Carbon Dating
Everything about the Newport Tower has generated controversy and debate, but the carbon dating done in recent years has been the source of dispute as much as anything. But the dust seems to have settled and what we’ve learned is that carbon dating of mortar is fraught with error. As one would expect, the proponents of the colonial theory made much of the initial report which claimed that the testing verified a build date for the tower in the Arnold period. Since then the methodology and findings have been shredded by a series of highly qualified scientists coming forth to debunk the work and its conclusions.
A Scandinavian team took mortar samples from the tower in 1992. Core samples were taken from all eight pillars but for reasons not explained in the report, only samples from pillars 6 and 7 were subjected to testing (as far as we know). Surface samples were taken from other locations and tested. Overall, the samples yielded dates ranging from 1410 to the 1930s. The simplest of logic would suggest that when a small number of samples are taken from only two of eight pillars and produce dates varying by 500 years, that there is something seriously wrong with the technique being used to date mortar if not with the scientific rigor of the study itself. Nevertheless, The Arnoldists jumped on this study and proclaimed it to have proven that the tower was of colonial construction.
In recent years probably more has been written about the carbon dating controversy than any other aspect of tower research. And, it is the most technical and difficult for the lay person to understand. What follows is a summary of the conclusions of four scientists who have debunked this study with links and citations for the reader who wishes to delve more deeply into the technical aspects.
Analytic chemist James L. Guthrie said the following:
The plaster dating results of Heinemeir and Junger are not to be taken seriously because the small number
of samples tested, the poor precision of the methods revealed by the only test run in duplicate, and by the
unwarranted assumption that all of the mortar and plaster is of the same age. Plaster and mortar applied over
hundreds of years during known episodes of repair and reinforcement complicate the analysis, and the
reported results suggest to me that the samples were mixtures of carbonates of different ages. The possibility
that any of the specimens was a pure sample of the original mortar seems remote. Other things bother me,
such as a preference for the more recent dates obtained from the first fraction of the evolved carbon dioxide,
the apparent belief that a single ambiguous result from a nearby 17th century house is an adequate control,
and the use of a calibration that may not be appropriate for the New England coast ... The plaster samples seem
to be a mix of older and newer plaster, and there is no evidence any is from the date of construction. Errors,
especially the adsorption of modern carbon dioxide would tend to date samples closer to the present than to
the date of mixing.
Dr. Alan Watchman, a geological dating expert at Data-Roche Watchman, Inc. wrote:
The data in table 1 of the article can be used to suggest an age of about 550 radio-carbon years might be
obtained from measuring he more acid resistant carbon in the mortar - taking into consideration possible
diffusion, particle size, crystallisation and fractionation effects. If my hypothesis is correct, then the calibrated age for the mortar would be about 1400 AD.
Professor Andre J. de Bethune, Professor of Chemistry at Boston College, in a 1998 article appearing in Journal of the Newport Historical Society, made a strong argument (backed up by some painstaking physical chemistry calculations) that the penetration of air CO2 over time into the mortar, even several inches into the mortar was likely, and that the quantitative contribution of that “fresh” 14C renewal by ion exchange (error no. 5) would have to be significant, and in fact the most important. He was willing to assume that for particles as fine as .0005 inch there was little chance of poor furnace work and that Heinemeier and Jungner’s sample preparation lowered the remaining errors to relative negligibility. The particles in the sample that would be least apt to be affected by carbon exchange error would be the largest particles which would be represented in the second CO2 fraction collected. Basically, he said that atmospheric CO2 would penetrate the larger diameter particles less completely, and so their dates would be closer to actual (but still not correct). His final conclusion: Tower already standing 1440-1480.
In an article published in the Midwest Epigraphic Journal, J. Huston McCulloch cited the same methodological problems and concluded the following: (the article in its entirety is here
Although HJ conclude from their results that the Newport Tower could not have been built before 1635, I regard this as inconclusive evidence against an earlier date for construction, for several reasons:
1. Two of the dates used were from a surface sample that may have represented a colonial or even later repair to
an earlier structure.
2. The other samples used may have been biased by slow reaction and/or substitution from rainwater. The
inappropriately excluded post-1945 date on one of the samples tested demonstrates that rainwater substitution is
an important factor.
3. The Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House does nothing to demonstrate that the slow reaction and substitution biases are
not a problem, because of the flatness of the dendrocalibration curve since 1665 AD on the one hand, and the fact
that its sample was not exposed to the weather on the other hand.
4. The two Finnish churches do little to verify the Tower date, since the true dates of these churches are unknown, and since the samples were taken from the interior of the churches, where they were not exposed to the weather and
potential carbonate substitution. Indeed, the fact that a few of the samples taken from them were still alkaline indicates that slow reaction may be a serious problem of mortar dating in general.
5. There are several inconsistencies in the results and unanswered questions that remain to be addressed. To be sure, none of these considerations proves that the Newport Tower is any older than 1635. I am merely returning a provisional "Scotch verdict" of "not proven colonial."
The preponderance of evidence shows that the carbon dating fails to do what has been attributed to it - prove that the Newport Tower was not built before 1635. Further, a number of experts conclude that the study provides stronger evidence that it was built around 1400. Either way, more dating is needed by investigators with no up front bias. This may not be possible with current technology since a large section of the wall might have to be removed to get reliable samples. We disagree with McCulloch that the tower is simply “not proven colonial.” The conclusion of a colonial build is more than unproven, it is implausible if not impossible as we will show in our conclusions.
The Most Recent Dig - Chronognostic
Jan Barstad and Chronognostic conducted a study over the last few years with digs in several areas around the tower. They did not find pre-colonial artifacts but did discover the remains of two large post holes. 
No documentary evidence from colonial times indicates that there were any structures in the vicinity of the tower. In fact they indicate the opposite. More interesting, these two posts were positioned directly out from two of the pillars. The team was not permitted to dig around all eight pillars, the one area was available because the sidewalk was being removed for repair anyway. But the assumption is that these large posts were symmetrically placed around the tower in alignment with the pillars and as support for an ambulatory as seen on many round churches in northern Europe. The ambulatory would have been a wooden roof extending from the top of the pillars and extending around the tower. This may also explain why the pillars extend about a foot from the wall on the outside. There is no reason to do this for a windmill and in fact it would have been counterproductive to support and handling the stresses of a windmill.
