[Drawing: Ceramic vessel]
Minnesota Archaeological Newsletter
The Science Museum of Minnesota
30 East 10th Street
St. Paul, Minnesota 55101
No. 19 Winter, 1974 Tim Fiske, Editor
[7 pages, no figures]
At this writing, plans for our annual spring field meeting are being formulated; and this year's meeting should be an excellent one. Dr. Elden Johnson, Minnesota State Archaeologist, has been in touch with Mrs. Frank Chesley of The Goodhue County Historical Society, and they have cheerfully volunteered to co-sponsor the meetings with the CMA.
Present plans are for the spring field meeting to be held in the Red Wing area on the weekend of May 10 to 12. These dates will avoid conflict with the meetings of the Minnesota Academy of Science and the Society for American Archaeology, so we hope for a good turnout.
Mrs. Chesley and Doug Birk from the Minnesota Historical Society will be handling the final arrangements. The meetings will probably be scheduled from Friday evening through early afternoon on Sunday. The Red Wing area is one of the richest archaeological areas of our State, and there should be many interesting sites and collections to see.
When the final details have been worked out, you will be notified about specific times, registration, and accommodations. However, save this weekend now for an exciting meeting.
The Science Museum of Minnesota: The Pedersen Site
From June 1 to July 20, 1973, The Science Museum of Minnesota excavated the Pedersen site, which is located near Lake Benton in southwestern Minnesota. The Project Director was Timothy Fiske, Assistant Director and Curator of Anthropology for the Museum. The excavation, laboratory analysis, and report preparation have been the responsibility of Field Director Gary Joseph Hudak. William Hunt, Jr. (University of Nebraska), and Janice Roney (University of Minnesota), served as field assistants during June and July; and Timothy Ready, Charlotte Sigford, Martha King, and Nancy Merhar, all students from the University of Minnesota, made up the remainder of the crew.
The Pedersen site contains archaeological manifestations from three cultural periods: Mississippian, Woodland, and the Archaic. The major occupation was designated by Wilford (1955) as Fox Lake, a presumed Middle Woodland culture.
The site displays immense amounts of bison bones throughout the entire deposit of cultural strata, suggesting a long dependence on hunting of the buffalo. Aquatic and bog-swamp animal remains also suggest not only hunting on the prairie grasslands but on the water and wetlands that existed near the site. The lack of articulated bison skeletons, along with the large number of butchering and hide-working tools, infers its use as a maintenance and food preparation area.
The major archaeological features at the site (rock-lined fire hearths which contained Woodland ceramics, lithics, and bone debris) support the conclusion that the Pedersen site was primarily the camp or seasonal habitation site of the Fox Lake peoples. The Museum is presently analyzing the Pedersen artifact assemblage.
The field work, field director, and preliminary laboratory analysis, were funded by a grant from The McKnight Foundation. The two field assistants were on internships supplied by the Elmer L. and Eleanor J. Anderson Foundation, and The Saint Paul Council of Arts and Sciences. Laboratory analysis and report preparation were financed by the Minnesota Resources Commission through the University of Minnesota.
Bemidji State College: The Preece Site - 21-BL-26
The Bemidji State College Summer Field Session in Archaeology conducted a second season of excavation at the Preece Site (21-BL-26) during the summer of 1973. The site, located on the western shore of Lake Marquette near Bemidji in Beltrami County, was a seasonal hunting camp utilized during the Middle and Late Woodland periods. Seven students participated in the program under the direction of Alan Brew, Assistant Professor of Anthropology.
The western shore of Lake Marquette has a high, steep bank except at the site area where a point extends into the lake. Low, flat-lying shoreline occurs at the end of this point and along its southern side. The 1971 excavations showed that cultural material was restricted to the low areas. This year's work was designed to serve two purposes: (1) to determine the areal extent of occupation; and (2) to collect a large sample of faunal materials. Both of these objectives were achieved.
During the two field seasons, a total of 34 square meters have been excavated. In 1971, five 2-meter squares were dug along a baseline from the top f o the point down-slope to near the lake level. In 1973, a trench, consisting of three adjacent 2-meter
squares, was placed on the south side of the point. This trench was extended by a 1- by 2-meter excavation to uncover a burial encountered in the earlier work. Although most of the squares were excavated to a depth of one meter or more, the cultural material was concentrated in the upper 30 to 40 centimeters.
The cultural inventory of the Preece Site, as yet only partially analyzed, indicates a mixture of Middle and Late Woodland elements. Ceramic elements represented include "Laurel," Brainerd Net Impressed, Blackduck (several varieties), and a few possible Sandy Lake sherds. Projectile points exhibit the following gross morphological breakdown: side-notched, 2; corner-notched, 3; small, unnotched triangular, 7. Other items recovered include 10 scrapers and 6 bone awls.
Based on the preliminary analysis, the major occupation of the Preece Site occurred in the late Middle Woodland and early Late Woodland periods. There is no stratigraphic evidence to indicate that this occupation was discontinuous nor to permit the separation of components.
The economic data recovered to date consists primarily of bones from large mammalian fauna. The 13 pounds of animal bones excavated in 1973 will provide an excellent sample for detailed analysis. Bulk samples were collected for the recovery of fish and small mammal bones. It is of interest that, in contrast to the Schocker Site (21-BL-1) on Blackduck Lake where fish bones were abundant in screened material, very few were recovered at the Preece Site. No archaeological indications of ricing activities have been found.
Preliminary analysis of economic data indicates that the Preece Site was a seasonal hunting camp. The major game animal was a large herbivore, probably the deer. Apparently, the site was selected for its sheltered location near a major body of water; however, only small-scale exploitation of lacustrine resources, such as fish and mollusks, was conducted here. To date, very few structural features have been excavated, although several concentrations of five-cracked [sic] rocks, animal bones, and a single hearth were located.
Excavation of the Preece Site will continue in the summer of 1974. Research objectives are twofold: (1) to located evidence of structures of "living floor" activities; (2) to determine if the various cultural components at the site can be isolated in situ. Both of these objectives will require the exposure of large portions of the site by stripping or scraping techniques.
In summary, the Preece Site is a multiple-component Woodland hunting camp. The duration of occupation both annually and by cultural period, has not yet been determined. The continued use of the site for at least several centuries indicates that the locale was a favored or planned stop in the scheduling of exploitative activities by the Woodland peoples.
Bemidji Sate College wishes to acknowledge publicly our debt to Judge James Preece of Bemidji and his family. Their willingness to allow our excavation on their property, their interest in our work, and their many kindnesses to the project director have contributed greatly to the field school's success. Without such cooperation, efforts to interpret the culture history of the region would be hampered severely.
Minnesota Historical Society: The Excavation of the Lower Sioux Agency
The survey and excavation of the Lower Sioux Agency by the Minnesota Historical Society and Normandale Community College was undertaken during the summer of 1973. Students from Normandale Community College under the able direction of John Azer, an instructor at Normandale, and Douglas George, an archaeologist for the Minnesota Historical Society, partially excavated two historic structures at the site: The Agency Building and the Agency Building Latrine. Ably assisted by two Indian students from the Morton Indian community, the excavators uncovered a large portion of the Agency Building, in addition to surveying two of the five functional areas located at the site. The objectives of the project were threefold: (1) to obtain distributional and settlement pattern data relevant to the placement of the various buildings constructed at the site between 1853 and 1862; (2) to obtain a good stratigraphic sample from one of the building locations so as to identify the particular structure, determine its function and measure its size and important architectural features; and (3) to train students from Normandale Community College in the basic fundamentals of archaeological excavation and archaeological data recording. The first and last segments of this three-part program were nearly completed during this field season but the second has only just begun. Preparations are now underway to field a crew of 30 students for a period of 10 weeks at the site during the 1974 season. Hopefully we will be able to complete the objectives begun by the students from Normandale and the Morton Indian community. (Inquiries about the 1974 field school should be directed to Mr. Alan R. Woolworth, Chief Archaeologist, Minnesota Historical Society, Building 27, Fort Snelling, 55111.)
Minnesota Historical Society: Underwater Research Project
In June of 1973, volunteer divers and archaeologists working with the Minnesota Historical Society's Quetico-Superior Underwater Research Project spent 2 weeks at the North West Company's old rendezvous-depot site of Fort Charlotte on the west end of the Grand Portage trail (now a U.S. National Monument). Two previous trips to the site in 1972 proved highly successful in terms of distributional artifact studies and in locating and defining the partially submerged remains of a pre-1800 dock structure.
This year's efforts were directed toward recovering artifacts from a shallow underwater terrace that surrounds the off-shore portions of the dock. Limited testing last season indicated that his shallow mud- and weed-covered area contained a significant quantity of trade period items including unique organic objects in a good state of preservation. To effectively control the operation, the terrace and dock were gridded into 5-foot squares and a 3-inch diaphragm pump was used to remove all the "overburden" from each grid unit. This material was flushed through a specially designed sluice box-screen device where a quarter-inch mesh and a window screen subsequently collected any artifactual items that inadvertently passed through the pump. Once the mud layer was removed, a diver checked each grid square with a metal detector and continued exploring in the zero-visibility water for deeper clay-entrapped artifacts. The results were highly successful - a large sample of glass trade beads, a variety of broken china (including a whole ceramic inkwell), several keg and birch bark canoe parts, leather shoe fragments, a sizeable collection of clay pipes, and numerous other trade period objects were recovered. Immediate future plans are to stabilize and preserve the organic materials and to continue a program of interpretation and publication.
Minnesota Historical Society: Highway Archaeology Program
The Highway Program continued under the direction of Leslie Peterson with the emphasis on testing and evaluation of those sites report in surveys over the past several years. New survey projects results in the recording of several new sites as well. The main
thrust of this work has been in the direction of inclusion of the highway archaeological survey within the initial planning stages of highway construction so that site destruction and last-minute salvage operations can be avoided whenever possible.
Minnesota Historical Society: Survey
Douglas George has been involved in several survey projects. He worked on the evaluation of historical and archaeological sites for nomination to the National Register. This operation will be continuing in the future in conjunction with the historic archaeological survey of Minnesota.
In addition, George performed an emergency survey of the Knife Lake area in Kanabec County in response to areas threatened by new dam construction at that lake. Later in the year he worked on a survey on the western portion of the Voyageur's National Park for the National Park Service.
University of Minnesota
During the 1973 field season, James Rhodes of the University of Minnesota and Richard Lane of St. Cloud State College surveyed the Big Stone-Whetstone reservoir area located on the extreme upper Minnesota River. The reservoir is being constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers for the Fish and Wildlife Service who will operate it as a water fowl refuge. No significant sites were located within the reservoir area so that there will be no necessity for salvage excavations.
The United States Corps of Engineers in the spring of 1973 asked Jan Streiff and Jan Roney of the University of Minnesota to examine an area along the Red Lake River in northwestern Minnesota (Polk and Red Lake Counties) to determine if archaeological sites existed and if so, if such sites would be destroyed by a proposed impoundment of the river or by construction activities.
The area surveyed and tested extended along both sides of the Red Lake River from Polk County Road 11 north to the town of Red Lake Falls and the Black River south from Red Lake County Road 13 to its juncture with Red Lake River.
The survey team determined that there were no prehistoric archaeological sites of significance within the reservoir area. Although local collectors were able to produce material picked up from fields within the area, tests made by the survey team proved negative. Local collections consisted predominantly of grooved mauls and bison bones. This perhaps suggests, with the lack of habitation sites, that the area may have been used for hunting, with the animals killed, butchered, and the meat prepared on the spot and then hauled back to more permanent camps outside the area.
The only site within the project area was an historic one, the Old Crossing Treaty Site, near the village of Huot. The site, location of the 1863 signing of a treaty between the United States and the Ojibwa permitting white settlement in the Red River Valley, would be inundated if the reservoir were built.
Two prehistoric archaeological sites immediately outside the project area were reported to the Corps--the Wilford excavated Red Lake Rive site, 21 RL 1, and a newly found site, 21 RL 3, within the town of Red Lake Falls. The Corps was notified that these sites could be destroyed by borrow activity if the project proceeds.
A survey of the Little Cottonwood River which flows into the Minnesota River adjacent to the Cambria site was undertaken for NSP by Guy Gibbon, Department of Anthropology, University of Minnesota, during the fall of 1973. The only site of any kind found in this drainage system was an historic cemetery.
On September 18, 1973, The American Association for State and Local History awarded Dr. Leland Cooper a special Certificate of commendation for "Long and unusual interest in local history and for many contributions to Minnesota Historical Society projects, particularly the saving of the Connor Fur Post site."
At the Fall Business meeting of the Council for Minnesota Archaeology held at the University of Minnesota, the following new members were voted to the council:
| Daniel Bowman Department of Anthropology Hamline University St. Paul, Minnesota 55104
| Douglas George Minnesota Historical Society Building 27, Fort Snelling St. Paul, Minnesota 55111
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| Christy A.H. Caine Department of Anthropology University of Minnesota Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
| Guy Gibbon Department of Anthropology University of Minnesota Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
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| Carole L. Crumley Department of Anthropology Carleton College 117 College Street Northfield, Minnesota 55057
| G. Joseph Hudak The Science Museum of Minnesota 30 East 10th Street St. Paul, Minnesota 55101
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| Dennis Dickinson 1936 Ford Parkway, Apt. 204 St. Paul, Minnesota 55116
| Janet Spector Department of Anthropology University of Minnesota Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
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| Douglas A. Birk Minnesota Historical Society Building 27, Fort Snelling St. Paul, Minnesota 55111
| Leslie Peterson Minnesota Historical Society Building 27, Fort Snelling St. Paul, Minnesota 55111
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| Gordon Lothson Minnesota Historical Society Building 27, Fort Snelling St. Paul, Minnesota 55111
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| President | Richard Lane, St. Cloud State College |
| Vice President | Alan Brew, Bemidji State College |
| Secretary-Treasurer | Douglas Birk, Minnesota Historical Society |
| Past President | Elden Johnson, University of Minnesota |
| Editor | Timothy Fiske, The Science Museum of Minnesota |
A new Newsletter [sic] has been started by The St. Cloud Museum of Man. Although it is too late to become a "Founding Member," you may still be interested in becoming a "Charter Member." Inquiries may be directed to the Museum, Room 324, Stewart Hall, St. Cloud State College, St. Cloud, Minnesota 56301.
| Gibbon, Guy | "The Sheffield Site," Minnesota Prehistoric Archaeology Series, No. 10. Minnesota Historical Society, 1973.
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| Hudak, G. Joseph | "Boulder Outlines in Southwestern Minnesota," Plains Anthropologist, Vol. 17, No. 58, Pt. 1, 345-346, 1972.
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| Johnson, Elden | "The Arvilla Complex," Minnesota Prehistoric Archaeology Series, No. 9. Minnesota Historical Society, 1973.
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| "The Northern Margin of the Prairie Peninsula," in "The Prairie Peninsula and its Relationship to the Middle Missouri," Richard B. Johnston (ed.), Journal of the Iowa Archaeological Society, Vol. 18, 13-21, 1971.
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| "Professional Responsibilities and the American Indian," American Antiquity, Vol. 38, No. 2, 129-130, 1973.
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| "Interesting Archaeological Reading," Minnesota Archaeologist, Vol 31, No's. 1 and 2, 113-114, 1973.
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| Stoltman, James B. | "The Laurel Culture in Minnesota," Minnesota Prehistoric Archaeology Series, No. 8. Minnesota Historical Society, 1973.
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| Wilford, Lloyd A., and Brink, John | "The Hogback Site." In press, Minnesota Archaeologist, Vol. 33
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