Minnesota Archeological Newsletter
Department of Anthropology
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis 14, Minnesota
Number 1, March 1960
Elden Johnson, Editor
[7 pages, 1 figure]
This is a new venture for archaeology in Minnesota and it our hope that you will find it useful. The Newsletter will be issued each spring and fall to those of you who find it interesting and who indicate a wish to continue receiving it by returning a postal card with your name, address, and comments. Many of you are interested in the prehistoric archaeology of Minnesota and all of you have given time and information on local sites and collections to Professor Wilford, myself, or other professional archaeologists. It is our hope that your interest will be sustained and that through this Newsletter we can keep you better informed about current archaeological activities.
Each issue of the Newsletter will contain information on the current University field excavations, news of research activities here and at other institutions, comments on recent publications that will interest you, and brief original articles on local archaeological problems. We hope that you will feel free to offer your own comments and suggestions on the Newsletter, and that some of you will have information of interest to all that we may include in future issues.
The Newsletter is written for you in appreciation of your interest and help in the past. Your continued contributions can make it more useful in the future.
Please return a postal card with your name and address if you wish to continue receiving this Newsletter. If you know of others who should be on the list, please add their names and addresses. Send your return postal card to:
Itasca State Park was the headquarters for the 1959 Department of Anthropology summer field session. Twelve students spent five weeks during the first summer session excavating a late prehistoric Blackduck site on Hill Point on Lake Itasca and a smaller, and perhaps earlier site, at Chambers Creek between Elk and Itasca lakes. Smaller survey parties surveyed areas north and east of Itasca locating sites, examining and recording collections in the area, and testing a large site near Waskish [sic] on Upper Red Lake.
Undergraduate and graduate students from the University and other institutions participate in these summer field sessions by registering for a course in the Summer School. The purpose of these five-week field sessions is primarily that of training students to become skillful in the field techniques of surveying, excavating, and photographing, that area a part of every archaeological dig. They learn these techniques by participating in actual excavations while earning 6 credit hours.
The Hill Point site lies opposite Schoolcraft Island on the west shore of Lake Itasca. It is an habitation site, and although badly disturbed by previous indiscriminate digging, did prove to be a fruitful site. A small conical burial mound on the site was not excavated because it exhibited too much disturbance. Hill Point produced a good sample of typical Blackduck pottery sherds plus a smooth-surfaced, dentate-stamped pottery not heretofore associated with Blackduck.
Quantities of animal bone refuse were discovered and several small fire hearths were located at the site. The animal bone is awaiting identification and the site itself will be analyzed by Mr. G. E. Evans, a University graduate student in anthropology who acted as field assistant last year. Mr. Evans will include the Hill Point study in a larger study in which he will re-examine all of the excavated materials from Blackduck sites in our collections.
The survey teams from Itasca received generous help from many individuals. They were successful in locating approximately 30 previously unrecorded sites, and among these, several which show late prehistoric materials quite different from Blackduck. Particularly interesting were shell-tempered, cord-marked sherds without decoration found in the Leech Lake area. Mr. Paul Creech, who has an extensive collection from the Leech Lake area, is responsible for making us aware of this material. This pottery is not found in association with Blackduck in the Leech Lake area and we hope to excavate one of these sites in the near future.
Another interesting and previously unknown group of pottery sherds from both Upper and Lower Rice lakes in Clearwater county was located. A small percentage of these sherds are marked with the carved wooden paddle characteristic of the early Mandan pottery on the Missouri River to the west. Mr. Robert Littlewolf of Bagley pointed out one important site and gave a collection of bone and stone artifacts from the site to the Anthropology Museum at the University.
The summer field session was successful in pointing out several sites and complexes that bear further work. This area of northwestern Minnesota is important archaeologically in understanding the movements of several important Plains Indian groups westward to the Plains in the late prehistoric and early historic period. The Assiniboin, Cheyenne, and perhaps the Arapaho and Hidatsa-Crow may have earlier habitations in northwestern Minnesota.
Plans for 1960
The 1960 field session will be given during the second summer term from July 18 through August 20. The field party will headquarter at the University of Minnesota Institute of Agriculture and Experiment Station at Crookston. The specific sites to be worked next summer have not been chosen as yet, but they will be in the Crookston-Fertile-Red Lake Falls area and will represent a much earlier prehistoric period than those excavated in 1959. Habitation sites dug will be per-pottery Archaic horizon sites, perhaps associated with a late stage of Glacial lake Agassiz. We also hope to excavate an early burial mound in the same area. Visitors to the digs are welcome and I hope that many of you will have an opportunity to see the sites while they are being excavated.
News of People and Places
Lloyd Wilford, who officially retired last June after many years of service to archaeology in Minnesota, has retired in name only. He is hard at work on his reports of previous excavations. Lloyd can be reached at this address at any time.
Alan Woolworth has joined the staff of the Minnesota Historical Society as Curator of the Museum. Alan is an archaeologist trained at the Universities of Nebraska and Minnesota. He has had considerable experience in both historic site and prehistoric archaeology in North Dakota where he worked with the North Dakota Historical Society and the Missouri River Archaeological Salvage program. Most recently he has been with the Dearborn County Historical Society in Michigan. It is a pleasure to welcome Alan to Minnesota and to hope that his appearance signals the return of the Historical Society to active archaeological research.
Peter Jenson and Wilda Anderson of the Science Museum in St. Paul excavated an interesting burial site near Bruton last summer. A report describing the excavations will be published in the Minnesota Journal of Science, Vol. 3, No. 4, April, 1960. The Museum will have copies available after that date for 50 cents each. The address is 51 University Avenue, St. Paul 3.
An archaeological survey was conducted in the Glacial Lake Agassiz basin last summer and intensive field excavations will be carried out in that area this summer. The work has been supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. The last page map in this Newsletter outlines the area of Lake Agassiz lying within the United States and shows the beach lines which indicate the former extent of the lake. The following paragraphs describe this research project and it is hoped that you who live in the area or who know the region will be able to help provide information useful to the program.
This archaeological research program will determine first the nature and sequence of human occupation associated with Glacial Lake Agassiz II, and second analyze the resulting record of human occupation in its relation to changing environmental conditions.
Powell and Johnson, in a brief publication in 1957, proposed a probably specialized cultural adaptation of man to the series of post-Pleistocene lakes marginal to the western perimeter of the continental ice sheet. These lakes, with Glacial Lake Agassiz as the southernmost, extended north into the MacKenzie River valley. The authors further posited the specialize Agassiz lakeshore culture to be circumpolar in distribution and Asian in origin. These propositions were based on knowledge of limited surface archaeological materials from the Lake Agassiz basin and the assumption that this long-lived series of glacial lakes must have had considerable influence upon climatic, environment, and indirectly, cultural phenomena. Materials associated with the 110 archaeological sites located during the 1959 survey of the Lake Agassiz basin indicate our hypothesis concerning human occupation of the lakeshore to be correct.
Recent studies by Wright and Elson have reinterpreted the post-glacial history of Lake Agassiz. As the terminal Pleistocene ice sheets retreated, this large body of water was formed on the area now drained by the Red River of the North. The major water areas covered portions of present northwestern Minnesota, northeastern South Dakota, eastern North Dakota, and southern Manitoba. The history of the lake has three phases: the Agassiz I stage associated with the waning of the Port Huron (Mankato) ice and dated c.f. 12,000-9,500 B.C.; and [sic] Agassiz I - Agassiz II interval during which the lake was drained, coinciding with the Two Creeks interval; and the Agassiz II stage associated with the Valders substage ice and subsequent retreat, dated c.f. 9,000-3,000 B.C. It should be noted that the terminal date for the Agassiz II stage is an approximation and that geologists hope for archaeological evidence to further clarify that date.
The margins of the various water stages of the lake are clearly marked in many areas by gravel beaches and extensive sand dunes. A definitive study of these beach remnants with detailed maps has been published by Upham.
Archaeologically, we have striking evidence of human beings associated with Agassiz II in the form of Minnesota Man described by Jenks, and Browns Valley Man described by Jenks and Wilford. In addition, we have examined many private collections of archaeological materials from the area. These collections contain a high percentage of preceramic materials, much of it distinctive. A brief survey by Richard MacNeish of the Canadian National Museum has tentatively shown two preceramic foci identified as Larter and Whiteshell associated with Agassiz II beaches in Manitoba and tentatively dated at 1,500-3,000 B.C. Wilford's Arvilla focus, a ceramic horizon certainly subsequent to Agassiz II, contains certain bone, copper, and stone forms apparently persisting from the earlier horizons.
The time period is particularly interesting for it is during this period in the eastern United States that the transition from Early Lithic or Paleoindian to Early Woodland took place. eographically, the Lake Agassiz area is highly strategic for it is precisely the northernmost ecological dividing line between western plains and eastern prairie-forest area. Archaeological sites associated with Lake Agassiz II then cover a time period containing Early Lithic, Archaic, and Early Woodland complexes in the eastern United States. Excavation of these sites in a localized area, where they may be dated by correlation with extinct beach lines, promises significant results.
The analysis of Agassiz archaeological sequences in relation to ecological and climatic changes is equally important. During the period covered by Agassiz II, the postglacial climatic conditions altered drastically. An understanding of human adaptation to these climatic and concurrent ecological changes, as seen in the archaeological record, is basic to an understanding of the preceramic occupation of eastern North America.
Bibliography:
Elson, J.A., 1957, Lake Agassiz and the Mankato-Valders Problem, Science, n.s., v. 126, pp. 99-1002.
Hough, Jack L., 1958, Geology of the Great Lakes, Univ. of Ill. Press.
Jenks, A.E., 1936, Pleistocene Man in Minnesota, Univ. of Minn. Press.
Johnson, Elden and G.E. Evans, An Archaeological Survey of the Glacial Lake Agassiz Basin, mss.
Johnson, Elden and L.H. Powell, 1957, Indians before History in the Upper Mississippi Valley, Guide Pamphlet No. 3, The Science Museum.
MacNeish, Richard, 1956, Summary of Archaeological Investigations in Southeastern Manitoba, Annual Report of the National Museum of Canada, Bulletin 142.
Mason, Ronald J., 1958, Late Pleistocene Geochronology and the Paleo Indian Penetration into the Lower Michigan Peninsula, Anthropological Papers, Museum of Anthropology.
Quimby, George, 1958, Fluted Points and the Geochronology of the Lake Michigan Basin, American Antiquity, v. 23, p. 247-254.
Spaulding, Albert C., 1946, "Northeastern Archaeology and General Trends in the Northern Forest Zone," in F. Johnson, ed., Man in Northeastern North America. Papers of the Robert S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology, Vol. 3, pp. 143-167.
Upham, Warren, 1898, Glacial Lake Agassiz, U.S. Geological Survey, Monograph No. 25.
Wilford, Lloyd A., 1955, A Revised Classification of the Prehistoric Cultures of Minnesota, American Antiquity, v. 21, pp. 130-142.
Wright, Herbert E., Jr., 1955, Valders Drift in Minnesota, Journal of Geology, v. 63, pp. 403411.
Books and Journals
American Antiquity is the official journal of the Society for American Archaeology. The journal is published quarterly and contains original articles, shorter comments, news, and book reviews. Most of the contributions concern American archaeology, and although the journal is a technical publication, you will find it very interesting. Those of you with a serious interest in archaeology will find it indispensable. Subscription to the journal is by membership in the Society. Join the Society or ask your local library to obtain a subscription. Request [sic] for membership should be addressed to: David A. Baerris, Department of Anthropology, Sterling Hall, University of Wisconsin, Madison 6, Wisconsin.
Minnesota History is known to many of you. It is the official journal of the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul and is published quarterly. This journal, too, will be of interest to all, and is a publication which should be in your personal library. Membership in the Historical Society costs $4.00 per year and brings to journal to you.
[Figure: Map] Glacial Lake Agassiz / Adapted from W. Upham / U.S. Geological Survey / August, 1939 J.E. Adams