2008 Kansas Archeology Training Program Field School

Registration Packet

Registration Forms
(need both)

KATP FIELD SCHOOL WILL UNCOVER NEW INFORMATION
AT PAWNEE INDIAN MUSEUM STATE HISTORIC SITE

The interpretive center was built in 1967 over House 5, one of the larger lodge depressions. Inside the museum walls, the excavated floor remains exposed so that visitors can see the burned timbers from the collapsed walls and the postholes in which roof and wall supports once stood. Ashes still remain in the hearth, and on the floor are stone, bone, and metal tools that were left behind when the lodge was abandoned. Surrounding the museum are surface features, including 21 lodges, numerous storage pits and borrow areas, and partial remains of a fortification wall around the village. A walkway winds among these features, and they are marked with informational signs. In 1901, when people still thought that this village was the one visited by Pike in 1806, a large granite monument to the event was unveiled. This marker was damaged by a tornado in 2004, but it now is historically significant in itself and has been reset.

Few reports of the previous excavations have been written. Smith (1949, 1950a,1950b) and Witty (1968) provided brief reports of their work. Roger Grange (1968) included 14RP1 sherds in his extensive study of Pawnee pottery, and Ricky Roberts (1978) dealt with all classes of artifacts from Houses 1 and 2 but with only the pottery from Houses 3-7 and 24-25 in his 1978 KU Master’s thesis. New investigations will focus on contemporary and innovative research topics. Applications of new recovery and documentation methods will enable re-evaluation and enhancement of existing interpretations of the site without disturbing the parts of the site that are currently interpreted for the public. A team of professional archeologists and graduate and undergraduate students will analyze the artifact assemblages and will collectively provide a comprehensive report on the existing collections and those recovered by the 2008 excavations.

The 2008 KATP field school will address five research themes:

1. Houses and other features. No house depressions are visible in the southern end of the state-owned portion of the site. According to oral history, this area was being plowed when, in an effort to protect the site, local resident Elizabeth Johnson made the farmer stop (see sidebar). A geophysical survey, conducted in August 2007, detected the presence of at least one house. Probing revealed a hearth in the center of this anomaly, further suggesting that a previously unknown house once stood here. Two other anomalies may be houses, but their geophysical signatures are not clear. The field school will excavate part of the newly discovered house.
2. Subsistence. Pawnee subsistence is not well studied. Ethnographic records for the Pawnee and other village tribes provide numerous descriptions of seasonally alternating bison hunting and maize-based agriculture. Recovery methods from early archeological projects were unsystematic, leading to biased recovery of both animal bone and plant remains. Further, much of the bone and botanical materials that were collected remain unanalyzed. While masses of maize have been recovered, seeds of smaller native domesticates might not have been collected in numbers that represent their relative contribution to the diet. The 2008 fieldwork will use fine scale data recovery techniques, including soil flotation and water screening, that will ensure retrieval of significant small objects (small faunal remains, seeds, and other plant parts) and thus enhance understanding of Pawnee economy.
3. Trade and Interaction. The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were a dynamic period in Pawnee history. Direct contact with Euroamericans was becoming more regular and changing in character and intensity. Botanical remains, faunal remains, stone artifacts, ceramic artifacts, metal artifacts, beads and other Euroamerican materials from 14RP1 will yield insights into the nature and overall character of cultural change during this period of Pawnee history. The findings of the 2008 field investigations will be compared to earlier investigations at the site.
4. Chronology. Dates between 1750 and 1833 have been proposed for the occupation of 14RP1, and some researchers see evidence of two discrete occupations within the general time period. Documentary evidence shows that the Kitkahahki were in the Republican River valley from an undetermined and undocumented time prior to 1777 to about 1800, then again from about 1806 to 1810, and finally from about 1823 to 1833. It is highly likely that 14RP1 was occupied for all or part of the 1777-1800 period, but a goal of the 2008 fieldwork is to determine if it also was occupied later. Microstratigraphy will be assessed for insights into use or reuse of living areas. Archaeomagnetic dating, dendrochronology, trade goods, and native ceramics, individually and together, should produce a better site chronology than presently exits.
5. Structure of Pawnee society. Pawnee sites are much more common in Nebraska than in Kansas. Study of 14RP1, located on the southern edge of the Pawnee territory, has the potential to establish a baseline that can be compared with other cultures, such as the Little River focus of the Great Bend aspect, the eighteenth-century Wichita villages in north-central Oklahoma, and the Pawnee villages in Nebraska.

The Pike Valley Junior High School in Courtland, a community about 10 miles south of Pawnee Indian Museum, will be the project headquarters for registration, classes, artifact-processing lab, indoor and outdoor camping, and perhaps some evening programs. Details will be included in the registration packet, which will be available in hard copy and posted on the KSHS web site at kshs.org/resource/katpcurrent around March 1. The packet will contain forms for KAA and/or KHS, Inc. membership; registration, scheduling, and medical information forms; options for lodging, camping, and food; a map of pertinent project locations; a list of recommended equipment; instructions for enrollment in formal classes; details about the KAA certification program; and a schedule of accompanying activities.

Registration forms submitted by May 2 qualify for a participation fee of $20 for KAA and KSHS members and $80 for nonmembers. After May 2, the participation fee increases to $30 for members and $90 for nonmembers.

Although field and laboratory activities continue without stopping for the 16-day period, volunteers may participate for a single day or the entire time. Participants must be at least 10 years of age, and those younger than 14 must plan to work with a parent or other sponsoring adult at all times. A legally responsible adult must accompany participants between 14 and 18 years of age.

The sponsoring organizations do not discriminate on the basis of disability in admission to, access to, or operation of their programs; please make prior arrangements to accommodate individuals with disabilities or special needs with the KSHS Public Archeologist at 785-272-8681, ext. 266.

The field school will offer a number of formal classes that can be taken to earn college credit through Emporia State University or simply to learn more about a particular topic. The line up of classes is given below.

Archeological Fieldwork
Instructor: KSHS Archeological Staff
Description: In this field/laboratory course students receive on-the-job training by direct participation in site survey/excavation and artifact processing. Instruction will be given concerning the survey techniques, excavation methods (including use of hand tools, removal and preservation of archeological materials, and record keeping), and laboratory procedures. A total of 40 hours of work is necessary to complete the course; up to 20 of these hours can be spent in the field laboratory. To allow for possible rain days, students would be wise to start work on the first day of the project and continue until they have completed 40 hours.

Basic Laboratory Techniques
Dates: June 2-6, 8 AM-12 noon
Instructors: Chris Garst, Lab Archeologist, KSHS, and Mary Conrad, KAA
Description:  This class will combine lecture and hands-on experience to teach the basic procedures for processing archeological specimens.  Cleaning and sorting artifacts, preserving fragile materials, labeling specimens, preparing a descriptive catalog, and determining proper collections storage and maintenance will be covered.  If circumstances allow, the proper cleaning, sorting, and cataloging of flotation materials will also be undertaken.  Class size is limited to 16.

Archeological Site Survey
Dates: June 2-6, 1-5 PM
Instructor: Don Rowlison, Site Director, Cottonwood Ranch State Historic Site, KSHS
Description: The survey class provides an introduction to the methods used in the finding and recording of archeological sites. Instruction pertaining to the identification of cultural materials, basic map reading, topographic interpretation, and filling out KHS site forms will be combined with field activities.

Paleoethnobotany
Dates: June 7-11, 8 AM-12 noon
Instructor: Dr. Mary Adair, Associate Curator of Archaeology, Archaeological Research Center, KU
Description: The paleoethnobotany class will provide an introduction to the methods and theories of this specialized study in archeology. Field techniques for data recovery will be reviewed with a focus on flotation. Students will follow samples from the site, through the flotation process, to the laboratory for sorting and identification, and will consider the use of these materials in interpretation. Students will be introduced to terminology used in the identification and description of plants and their archeological remains.

Surveying Historic Buildings
Dates: June 7-11, 1-5 PM
Instructor: SHPO staff, KSHS
Description: Conducting survey to identify historic buildings in a local area is a process not unlike that of surveying for archeological sites.  Using Republic County as an example, the instructor from the Kansas Historic Preservation Office will lead the class through the process of identifying the study area and problem, recognizing and identifying historic buildings, and documenting structures.

Geoarcheology
Dates: June 12-13, 8 AM-5 PM
Instructor: Dr. Rolfe Mandel, Director of Odyssey Archaeological Research Program, Department of Anthropology and Geological Survey, KU
Description: This will be an intensive, two-day presentation of the theory and methods of geoarcheological research. Geoarcheologists study the evolution of the landscape and the effects of geologic processes on archeological deposits. Dr. Mandel has done extensive work in Kansas, developing an understanding of how the landscape has evolved in order to predict where deeply buried archeological deposits are to be found. Much of his research has focused on Paleoindian geoarcheology and the peopling of the Americas.

Ricky L. Roberts (1978) The Archaeology of the Kansas Monument Site: A Study in Historical Archaeology on the Great Plains. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas, Lawrence.

Carlyle Smith (1949) Fieldwork in Kansas, 1949. Plains Archaeological Conference News Letter 2(4):38-40; (1950a) European Trade Material from the Kansas Monument Site. Plains Archaeological Conference News Letter 3(2):2-9 and (1950b) The Pottery from the Kansas Monument Site. Plains Archaeological Conference News Letter 3(4):7-9.

Waldo M. Wedel ( 1936) An Introduction to Pawnee Archeology. Bulletin No. 112. Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Thomas A. Witty (1968) The Pawnee Indian Village Museum Project. Kansas Anthropological Association Newsletter 13(5):1-6.

2008 KATP Associated Programs