Wyoming Archaeological Society

DOCUMENT Full-Text Dr. Mavis Greer. John W. Greer.

A small petroglyph boulder is in the open prairie country of northeastern Wyoming. On the upper flat surface are incised dim lines appearing to interact with an alignment of three animal tracks. The rock is believed to relate to a Late Prehistoric or early Historic Period of Native American rock art iil the Powder River Basin.

DOCUMENT Full-Text A. Dudley Gardner. David E. Johnson.

Between 1891 and 1899 Japanese immigrants began to arrive in Alberta, Montana, and Wyoming. Little is provided in the historic documentation about where these immigrants came from in Japan. The archaeological record, however, provides reliable information about the origins of these "sojourners." Using Japanese tombstones, rock art, and inscriptions on stone we have been able to piece together where the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Japanese immigrants came from within...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Dave F. McKee.

The historic logging industry began operations in the Sierra Madre Mountains of southern Wyoming in the late 1800s. Logging companies supplied timbers for the booming copper and gold mines in the area, and hand hewn railroad ties for the Union Pacific Railroad Company (Bruce 1959; Grasso et al. 1981; Thybony et al. 1985). Today remains of historic logging camps can be found throughout the Sierra Madre Mountains in the Medicine Bow National Forest. These camps are remnants of historic landscapes...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Russel L. Tanner.

On June 16, and July 14-15, 2004 Lynn Harrell and Ed Jess of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Kemmerer Field Office, and Russel Tanner of the BLM Wyoming State Office, conducted field recording, mapping and assessment of relevant portions of the historic Spring Valley Oil Well Field in Uinta County, Wyoming. The project included about 20 acres of new inventory, and assessment of resources covering about 165 acres (Figure 1). Intermittently throughout the following year historical records...

DOCUMENT Full-Text James J. Stewart.

Big game, large bird, and canid (dog/wolf/coyote) figures are the most obvious zoomorph petroglyph motifs in the Bighorn and Wind River Basins. Canid petroglyph motifs, with many apparently dating 2000-6000 B.P., or possibly older, tend to prevail in specific areas of the southern Bighorn and northeastern Wind River Basins. The geographic distribution of these canid motifs appears to be more than coincidental. Examination of known/recorded Wind River and Bighorn Basin canid motif petroglyph...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Summer Moore.

This paper makes use of an in-depth analysis of cultural remains at the Hogsback site (48UT2516), an Archaic housepit site in southwestern Wyoming (see Figure 1), to explore a set of issues relating to hunter-gatherer mobility in the Archaic era. This site, which was reoccupied successively and almost continuously over a period of at least 4,000 years, provides an ample data set against which to discuss such topics as changing settlement patterns and subsistence strategies. In this paper, it is...

DOCUMENT Full-Text James D. Keyser.

Coup counting is a central theme of Plains Biographic art in all media, occurring both as scenes of personal combat and as tallies of unfortunate enemies on whom coup has been counted. While combat scenes are undoubtedly the most common Biographic art depiction (Figure 1), tallies proclaiming a career’s worth of accomplishments resulting from a series of such combat episodes are more frequent than has been portrayed in the Biographic art literature. [...] One such Biographic coup count tally and...

DOCUMENT Full-Text William R. Latady. Lucy Hinze. Robert F. Scott.

The Inman Buffalo site, 48SW3604, was exposed during trenching operations for a 12" Cities Services pipeline (Latady 1984). The site is located on the eastern side of a stabilized barchan dune. It was initially covered by sand, as much as two m thick on the southwestern side of the excavated area. Archeological excavations revealed 18 sq m of burned rock, bison bone fragments, one hearth and lithic artifacts (Figure 1). Approximately eight m2 of the main bone and fire-cracked rock scatter were...

DOCUMENT Full-Text David Eckles.

The Garret Allen site contains a diverse assemblage of chipped stone, ground stone, ceramic, shell, and bone artifacts spanning at least 3,100 years of Wyoming prehistory. These remarkably diverse artifacts include a large number of projectile points from the Protohistoric to Middle Archaic periods, a great variety of chipped stone raw materials, a diverse assemblage of chipped stone tools, bone and antler tools, some ground stone artifacts, multiple ceramic types, and items often associated...

DOCUMENT Full-Text David Eckles.

During the spring of 1995, the Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist located an area containing bison (Bison bison) bone and chipped stone artifacts eroding from several locations in a colluvial deposit at the base of a high ridge (Figures 1-3). This site was found during a class III survey for a Wyoming Department of Transportation borrow area, which was subsequently not developed. It is on federal land administered by the Bureau of Land Management, Newcastle Field Office.

DOCUMENT Full-Text Kelly J. Pool.

In the summer of 2001, Metcalf Archaeological Consultants, Inc. (MAC) excavated a deeply buried campsite (48C02672) along LaPrele Creek in Converse County, Wyoming. Charcoal from two hearths produced conventional radiocarbon ages of 1200 ± 60 BP and 1100 ± 60 BP. The cultural level dates to the Late Prehistoric period (Frison 1991), and results suggest at least two and as many as four use episodes may be represented. During these use episodes, there appears to have been an emphasis on plant...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Larry Loendorf. Bonnie Lawrence.

In 2015, a document titled BBHC Rock Art Project Phase I: Technicians Report was discovered in the McCracken Research Library at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. This document, never published, describes the making of latex molds at Wyoming petroglyphs sites. In the present article, we identify the individual petroglyphs molded during the project to alert others who might be studying the sites.

DOCUMENT Full-Text William Eckerle. Jeanne M. Moe.

This article describes the methodology and application of latex peel technology for documenting natural and cultural stratigraphy. The techniques discussed are for mounting a cleaned profile surface layer, several millimeters thick, upon a permanent flexible backing. Latex peels are rapid and inexpensive to construct, portable and compact. Their use permanently and accurately documents details of depositional strata, soil horizons, micro-stratigraphy, and fabric of unconsolidated sediments. They...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Danny N. Walker. Meegan Sanderson. Rick Weathermon.

Extensive lithic collections have been made from the surface of two archaeological sites (48NA312 and 48NA2516) near Martin’s Cove, Natrona County, Wyoming. Contrary to the original archaeological assessment of the two sites (Griffiths and Talbot 1996), these two sites now appear to contain significant archaeological data concerning the prehistory of the central Wyoming area (NRHP Criterion D). Additional archaeological evaluation of the sites has become necessary to properly evaluate these two...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Patrick M. Lubinski. Lowell T. Evans. Michael D. Metcalf.

Despite the central role of the Firehole Basin site in the conception of the Firehole phase in the Wyoming Basin, the lithic assemblage has never been reported. Excavated in 1976 and 1977, the site yielded chipped and ground stone, pottery, abundant faunal remains dominated by pronghorn, and two radiocarbon dates (625 ± 50 and 645 ± 45 RCYBP). Identifiable projectile points from the excavations consist of two tri-notched, two side-notched, and three unnotched arrow points. A Rose Spring point...

DOCUMENT Full-Text A. Dudley Gardner. Martin Lammers.

Beginning in 1983, an ambitious research project was initiated at Fort Bridger. From 1983 to 1989, test excavations and archival research identified the possibility Bridger's Trading Post underlay the enlisted men's barracks constructed in 1888 at the Fort. As a result of the test excavations, a team of archaeologists from Western Wyoming College initiated a long-term research project beginning in 1990. The excavations led by this team focused on the area south of the enlisted men's barracks,...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Raymond C. Bentzen.

In 1945, while surface-hunting for artifacts in the high country of the Big Horn Mountains, I discovered what appeared to be an ancient village site and buffalo-killing area situated in a saddle on the main divide immediately south of Little Bald Mountain at an elevation of 9,000 feet. Two small drainage ditches for the then little-used Wyoming Highway #14 had exposed arrowheads and bison bones, and an itinerant sheepherder informed me that in past years his daughter had gathered many buffalo...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Christopher T. Hall.

More than thirty years have passed since the ideas of New Archaeology swept through the discipline. Since then, archaeologists have made many advances in archaeological methods and theory. Reviewing the present literature, however, I question if the current trends in North American archaeology are still a part of the New Archaeology’s research program. In this paper I first review the developmental stages that New Archaeology has gone through, and then suggest where American archaeology stands...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Dr. Mavis Greer. John W. Greer.

A large single-component Paleoindian site was found on a short tributary to the Powder River during a recent energy survey. The intact site occupies a sand-covered bench bordered by intermittent drainages and a semipermanent seepage area. Surface artifacts include a variety of chipped stone tools, retouched pieces, debitage, and hearth remains. The site contains buried cultural deposits, with a good potential for future contributions to regional Paleoindian studies. No subsurface testing or...

DOCUMENT Full-Text David Eckles. David Reiss.

Site 48AB396 was located in 1982 during a class III cultural resource survey of the Rob Roy Reservoir project in Albany County, Wyoming (Eckles and Scott 1983). The site is located on the eastern side of Douglas Creek at 9240 ft in the Snowy Range Mountains of southeastern Wyoming. Archaeological excavations (Figure 1) were conducted at the site in 1983 by the Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist (Reiss 1985). Seventy one meter square units were excavated with three sediment horizons being...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Mark E. Miller. James Buff.

The Hog Park knife joins a growing list of interesting artifacts from Wyoming that defy precise chronological or cultural identification. Isolated artifacts like these are important to our understanding of human adaptations in the area, but their lack of context and association with other objects makes it difficult for identification. Nonetheless, this piece needed to be described in case similar finds are known, and more detailed knowledge of their form and function is available.

DOCUMENT Full-Text Dewey Baars. Janice Baars. George M. Zeimens.

During recent excavations at the Maneater Cave site (Zeimens and Baars 1996) a number of slab-lined pit features were encountered (Figure 1). All appear to have been used as fire hearths. Three of these yielded corrected radiocarbon dates of BC 4080 (Beta 84881), BC 4340 (Beta 86401), and BC 4320 (Beta 85550). Located adjacent to some of the slab-lined features were shallow basin-shaped depressions. The hardened floor and blackened zone on the inside surface of these depressions indicate that...

DOCUMENT Full-Text James A. Truesdale. George W. Gill.

Salvage excavations of a Late Prehistoric burial found in a small overhang of a sandstone outcrop in southeastern Wyoming produced remains of an older-aged female Native American Indian of unknown biological affinities. Previous excavations by collectors recovered 86 tubular bone beads, eight corner-notched projectile points and one fresh water bivalve shell pendant. The Late Prehistoric age is suggested by the projectile points found in association with the human remains and their similarity to...

DOCUMENT Full-Text James D. Keyser.

Until quite recently the Bighorn Basin has not been known for its Biographic rock art imagery. In fact, in their excellent overview of the region, Francis and Loendorf (2002:179-183) note only two sites in the Bighorn Basin proper—Military Creek and Mahogany Buttes—that contain horses and riders, and both of those are in the Bighorn Mountain foothills on the basin’s extreme eastern edge.1 They also note (Francis and Loendorf 2002:181) that “illustrations of Historic period weaponry are less...

DOCUMENT Full-Text James D. Keyser.

Until quite recently the Bighorn Basin has not been known for its Biographic rock art imagery. In fact, in their excellent overview of the region, Francis and Loendorf (2002:179-183) note only two sites in the Bighorn Basin proper—Military Creek and Mahogany Buttes—that contain horses and riders, and both of those are in the Bighorn Mountain foothills on the basin’s extreme eastern edge.1 They also note (Francis and Loendorf 2002:181) that “illustrations of Historic period weaponry are less...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Rick Weathermon.

Reexamination of the Fort Caspar Burial #3 collection, including a nearly complete human skeleton and associated artifacts, has provided additional information regarding the life and death of this early frontier white male. Subsequent analyses indicate the individual was younger than originally estimated and had been buried in a coffin constructed of painted wood and fittings from a wagon. Reevaluation of the skeletal trauma strongly suggests the cause of death was a result of bludgeoning rather...

DOCUMENT Full-Text George M. Zeimens. Harry Earl. Geri McIver. Dewey Baars. R. Clayton Housh.

This artifact, probably a hafted knife, was discovered at the Hell Gap site on November 2, 1994, by George Zeimens while on a field trip with a group of third and fourth grade students from Lingle Elementary School. The tool was found on a talus pile in front of an animal burrow. The burrow had been dug into the perpendicular stream bank approximately 25 m southwest of the western edge of the Harvard Area I excavations, and about 0.95 m below the present ground surface. It is presumed that the...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Carmen Clayton. Raymond Kunselman.

X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy was used to study obsidian artifacts collected from the Trappers Point Site, a multicomponent Early Archaic pronghorn processing site, located west of Pinedale, Wyoming in Sublette County. The trace element concentrations for artifacts were compared to trace element concentrations from known sources. The majority (80%) of the identified materials were from the closest sources in Jackson Hole. The rest came from Obsidian Cliff in Yellowstone National Park and...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Melissa Connor. Raymond Kunselman.

We used X-Ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy to identify nine obsidian sources used by the prehistoric inhabitants of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This paper examines this prehistoric use of obsidian and obsidian sources. Variation in utilization patterns is suggested through study of temporally diagnostic obsidian artifacts. The diachronic pattern of sources used allows consideration of the influences in acquisition, distribution, and use of obsidian.

DOCUMENT Full-Text David Darlington. Josh Bodyfelt.

Investigations of a juniper fence located at Powder Springs, in southwest Wyoming, suggest it was constructed in the late 19th century and used as a horse pasture. It was initially speculated the fence was the remains of a late prehistoric or proto-historic big game procurement complex. However, tree-ring dating provided late 19th Century dates for construction of the fence. Historical research indicates that during the late 19th century, Powder Springs was occupied by an outlaw element which...

DOCUMENT Full-Text James J. Stewart.

In the Wind River and southern portion of the Big Horn Basins there are ancient Native American drawings of super-humanoids, animals, and geometric figures. Exactitude in understanding or deciphering these ancient religious/artistic endeavors is not available, however, a general understanding and expanded appreciation can be obtained. And, hopefully with that understanding, a desire to see they are protected from both intentional and unintentional vandalism.

DOCUMENT Full-Text James J. Stewart.

Several white, cream, tan, red, brown, gray, and black clay [terra cotta) elbow pipes or pipe fragments representative of the exploratory, fur trading, westward immigration, and pioneer homesteading periods have been found in Wyoming. Information to identify the origins, models, and dates of those 19th Century clay trade pipes is relatively unavailable. However, Raymond C. Dickerson, owner of the Pamplin Pipe Factory, Pamplin, Virginia, has shared a great deal of information about elbow clay...

DOCUMENT Full-Text James D. Keyser. Angelo Eugenio Fossati.

A recent discovery of Archaic period pecked petroglyphs at the Gateway site (48LN348) is the first occurrence of Uncompahgre style imagery in the northern Green River Basin. Badly impacted by superimposed Late Prehistoric period incised petroglyphs, the Uncompahgre style images are a panel of abstract lines and circular forms whose overall form is similar to other Uncompahgre style petroglyphs at a site further south along the Green River. We document these newly discovered Gateway site...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Christopher C. Kinneer.

Excavations for the Ur-Energy Lost Creek Project at the Battle Spring West site yielded remains from multiple occupations extending from the Opal phase through Uinta phase. The excavation data did not reveal evidence of longterm occupation, such as structural elements or semi-permanent, immovable processing tools such as large ground stone implements. Taken as a whole, the site assemblage suggests the archaeological remains are the result of hunting-related activities including camping, tool...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Raymond Kunselman. Wilfred M. Husted.

X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy was used to determine the source of 107 obsidian projectile points in surface collections from the Beartooth Mountains of south-central Montana and northwest Wyoming. Seventy-two percent of the points were from Obsidian Cliff in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Evidence was found for change of source usage when the artifacts were grouped into cultural affiliation periods.

DOCUMENT Full-Text Raymond Kunselman.

XRF (x-ray fluorescence) spectroscopy was used to study obsidian artifacts collected from the Helen Lookingbill site (48FR308). The site is located in the southern Absaroka Mountains, a part of the Central Rocky Mountains of Wyoming. Using XRF, the trace element proportions for artifacts were compared to trace element proportions for known sources to identify the sources of the artifacts. The artifacts were produced from four obsidian sources west and northwest of the site. The pattern of...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Dan Eakin.

The Two Dot Flats site (48PA1068) was discovered in 1989 during cultural resource investigations of the Dead Indian Pass area by the Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist for road construction activities by the Wyoming Department of Transportation (Eakin 1990). The Two Dot Flats site consists of over 400 stone cairns presumed to be parts of a prehistoric bison drive line complex, and around 40 stone circles believed to both predate the drive system and be a part of it.

DOCUMENT Full-Text Adam S. Wiewel.

The media provide a great opportunity to communicate archaeology to a broad audience, and newspapers are the primary means for receiving news for millions of Americans. I examine the archaeological content of newspaper articles in the New York Times from June and December of 1995, 2000, and 2005 to document geographical, chronological, and topical emphases as well as the portrayal of archaeology in the media. This study suggests that the public has a vague and unclear understanding of...

DOCUMENT Full-Text George M. Zeimens. Geri McIver. Dewey Baars. Alan and Terry Korell. Sandra Hansen. Harry Earl. R. Clayton Housh.

During the winter of 1984-85 (before Hell Gap was acquired by the Wyoming Archeological Foundation) we observed an unusually large firepit eroding out of the left bank of the arroyo just below the Harvard Locality I excavation area. Numerous flakes, bones, firecracked rocks, and a few pot sherds were also eroding from the matrix surrounding the partially exposed feature. It was obvious that the pit would soon either erode entirely away or be looted by collectors that frequent the site. Much of...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Michael A. Pfeiffer. Richard T. Gartley. J. Byron Sudbury.

Anthropomorphic terra cotta tobacco pipe fragments have been found in historical archaeological sites across the United States. This paper will discuss the subset of these known widely as “President Pipes”. This is actually a misnomer since some of these pipes are dedicated to presidential contenders. Several new points of origin for these pipes manufacture have been discovered. In addition to the anthropomorphic clay pipes, there are also anthropomorphic Meerschaum pipes and non anthropomorphic...

DOCUMENT Full-Text James J. Stewart.

The intent of this paper is to assist others with the objective of insights concerning the flora, food choices, and life styles of Native American hunter-gatherers of 2,000-12,000 years ago -particularly concerning the Wind River and Bighorn Basins of western Wyoming. The reason for full listings, rather than the shortened version found in archaeological reports, is to aid the student who would not have access to an extensive bibliography. Although it may appear to be redundant to state much the...

DOCUMENT Full-Text David Eckles. Mark Miller.

The Garrett Allen (Elk Mountain) archaeological site is located in southeastern Carbon County, Wyoming at the northern end of the Medicine Bow Mountains and southern edge of the Hanna-Carbon Basin. It is within a homoclinal valley adjacent to the perennial Quealy Spring which forms an ephemeral drainage flowing north-northwest. The site is surrounded by Upper Cretaceous sedimentary rocks, primarily of the Pine Ridge Sandstone (Hayter 1983:5). Previously published articles on the site have...

DOCUMENT Full-Text David Eckles.

The Bear River Site (48GO22) was located in 1979 during a class III cultural resource survey for a Wyoming Department of Transportation project along the LaGrange Road in Goshen County, Wyoming near the town of LaGrange (Sanders and Francis 1979). The site is in extreme southeastern Wyoming, near the Nebraska border. Artifacts and bone were first identified eroding from an apparent natural (erosional) cut in the third alluvial terrace above the river. This included flakes and a possible large...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Richard Adams. Mary Jane Daniels.

Wyoming’s steatite industry is at least 5500 years old, but steatite vessels are considerably more recent. Just how recent was determined by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating of the organic residue adhering to the inside of a fragmentary steatite vessel. The date of 101.7 ± 6 yrs BP is the first direct date on a steatite vessel in Wyoming. The surprisingly recent date raises questions about who used steatite vessels. Clearly, Shoshoni (and maybe even Euroamericans) used steatite in the...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Jamie Schoen. Merry Haydon.

Wyoming's wide open spaces and lush grasses attracted both cattle and sheep ranchers, but cattlemen assumed primacy since they arrived first. Federal law disagreed. Sheep raids had happened since the late 1890's, but reached a peak in 1902 with the Raid Lake sheep massacre in which an estimated 1000-2000 sheep were killed. The Raid Lake Sheep Massacre site has been well documented through the years with site revisits by the Forest Service in 1911, 1914, 1916, and the 1960's. Presented here are...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Robert Ferris. Gary Anderson. William Payne. Gil Bollinger.

A Gatchell Museum Field Team conducted reconnaissance surveys of a Bison Jump-and-Kill site in Big Horn County, Montana, on May 15 and July 1, 1999. The Jump is over sandstone cliffs some 3.0 to 4.3 meters in height. That height may have been reduced somewhat by erosion of the past few millennia. Test holes and a two meter long trench yielded numerous bison bone pieces. Many were burned and charred and some showed cut and impact marks interpreted to be of human origin. Evidence of a probable...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Roger Echo.

A dynamic landscape of relations exists between Native Americans and the American academic community, and as the final days of the 20th century approach, it is important for us to contemplate the legacy of relationships we will pass along to our successors. The topic of repatriation has played a prominent role in shaping this legacy in recent years particularly for archaeologists. Repatriation presents us with an enormously complex issue rooted in historical circumstances that have often been...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Wyoming Archaeological Society.

The archaeological investigation of the famed Medicine Wheel was undertaken with some trepidation because of two conditions imposed upon the operation. First, the excavation permit from the Forest Service contained the express restriction that no stones of the structure were to be disturbed. Second, the site had been badly disturbed by souvenir hunters since its discovery in the late 1880s. The extent of this disturbance was crucial in interpreting the results of the investigation, and a...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Kristen Lamberson. Derek T. Anderson. Mia Lyren. Lisa Tromley.

Hell Gap (48G0305) is located in the Hell Gap Valley in Goshen County, Wyoming (Figure 1 ). The site contains at least five discrete localities (Figure 2) including remnants of a complete Paleoindian cultural sequence, from more than 11,000BP to 7 ,500 BP (IrwinWilliams et al. 1973). Initially investigated in 1959 by George Agogino of the University of Wyoming, the site was excavated by Agogino along with Henry Irwin, Cynthia Irwin, and J. O. Brew of Harvard University from 1961-1966. In...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Julie Francis.

Review of A Field Guide to Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest

DOCUMENT Full-Text David Vlcek.

Review of Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America's Clovis Culture

DOCUMENT Full-Text David Vlcek.

Review of Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America's Clovis Culture

DOCUMENT Full-Text Dr. James D. Keyser.

Review of Ancient Visions: Petroglyphs and Pictographs from the Wind River and Bighorn Country, Wyoming and Montana

DOCUMENT Full-Text Timothy R. Nowak.

Review of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Omaha Indians - The Big Village Site

DOCUMENT Full-Text Wilfred M. Husted.

Review of Archaeology on the Great Plains

DOCUMENT Full-Text Mark E. Miller.

Review of Archaeology, History, and Custer's Last Battle

DOCUMENT Full-Text Russel L. Tanner.

Review of Changing Perspectives of the Archaic on the Northwest Plains and Rocky Mountains

DOCUMENT Full-Text Barry W. Shelley.

Review of Hard Places: Reading the Landscape of America's Historic Mining Districts

DOCUMENT Full-Text Jerry Clark.

Review of Hell Gap; A Stratified Paleoindian Campsite at the Edge of the Rockies

DOCUMENT Full-Text Jim Heid.

Review of Logging the Rockies

DOCUMENT Full-Text Brian Waitkus.

Review of Photography in Archaeology and Conservation

DOCUMENT Full-Text Mark S. Becker. Russell L. Kaldenberg. Judyth E. Reed.

Review of Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers of the High Plains and Rockies

DOCUMENT Full-Text Dr. Julie Francis.

Review of Red Desert: History of a Place

DOCUMENT Full-Text Laura L. Scheiber.

Review of Skeletal Biology in the Great Plains: Migration Warfare, Health, and Subsistence

DOCUMENT Full-Text Ardeth Hahn.

Review of Storied Stone: Indian Rock Art of the Black Hills Country

DOCUMENT Full-Text Michael T. Bies.

Review of Supplying Custer: The Powder River Supply Depot, 1876

DOCUMENT Full-Text David Eckles.

Review of The Cheyenne in Plains Indian Trade Relations 1795-1840

DOCUMENT Full-Text James D. Keyser.

Review of The Cheyenne/Arapaho Ledger Book from the Pamplin Collection

DOCUMENT Full-Text Mark E. Miller.

Review of The U.S. Army in the West, 1870-1880: Uniforms, Weapons, and Equipment

DOCUMENT Full-Text David J. Rapson.

Review of Vertebrate Taphonomy

DOCUMENT Full-Text Carolyn M. Buff.

Review of Window In Time: The Story of the Discovery of the Casper Site

DOCUMENT Full-Text Dr. Mavis Greer. John W. Greer.

A small petroglyph panel is in the scoria uplands of northeastern Wyoming. A set of vertical parallel lines and individual horse tracks represent two motif classes typical of equestrian period Native American biographic rock art in the Powder River Basin. The lack of associated human (including faces only), horse, and weapon figures seems unusual. Modern inscriptions on an adjacent panel display stylistic trends of Euroamerican rock art and contrast in technology, content, and message from...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Russell Richard.

Testing and data recovery excavations were conducted at Oven Town (48FR5928) in northeastern Fremont County, Wyoming. Two components (Components I and II) were identified at Oven Town. Component I consisted of five basins and localized stains in two excavation blocks and one isolated unit and eight features on the disturbed surface. Component I dates to the Middle Archaic Period based on 13 radiocarbon age estimates ranging from 4,330 ± 60 to 3,680 ± 40 years before present. Component II...

DOCUMENT Full-Text L. C. Steege.

The State of Wyoming is located in a region known to archaeologists as the northern Plains. Through the medium of archaeology much information has been gathered and compiled which has given us a rather complex picture of the area’s first inhabitants. Although much of the evidence has come from outside our borders, many of the characteristic artifacts are displayed from surface collections which proves the existence of these people in Wyoming also. The exact date of man’s entry into the New World...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Leniegh Schrinar.

Here is your ‘Don’t leave home without it’ list of highly important personal field gear.

DOCUMENT Full-Text Don Grey.

The 48JO303 site is located in the southern Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. This was the first occurrence of the Pryor stemmed projectile point in an acceptable stratified sequence. A carbon date of 5850 +/- 110 B.C. was obtained for the Pryor stemmed level.

DOCUMENT Full-Text James D. Keyser.

Two warrior artists documented coups at the Red Canyon site by illustrating capture hands reaching out to take enemy women. The capture of these women has an obvious sexual symbolism, with the capture hands reaching out toward the vulva in one instance and the breast in the other. This symbolism is identical to that which occurs at other Northwestern Plains rock art sites scattered from Writing-On-Stone, Alberta to Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin (Greer and Keyser 2008:95, 98; Keyser and Poetschat...

DOCUMENT Full-Text L. C. Steege.

The second series of descriptions of Stone Artifacts brings to us category “B”, the “Grinding Artifacts.”

DOCUMENT Full-Text L. C. Steege.

With exception of projectile points, the chopping artifacts were probably the most widely used implements of all the Tribes and Cultures in the United States.

DOCUMENT Full-Text L. C. Steege.

Artifacts in this category include Pendants, Gorgets, Amulets, Effigies, Pipes, Discoidals and Perforated Disks.

DOCUMENT Full-Text L. C. Steege.

In determining just what classification should be given a certain artifact, let us consider first of all how it was used by the ancient man who made it. He obviously manufactured his artifacts to fulfill certain needs such as a type for scraping, another for grinding, still another for cutting, etc.

DOCUMENT Full-Text L. C. Steege.

At the beginning, any sharp edge of a thin flake was considered sufficient for a good cutting edge. When the edge became dulled and chipped from use, the flake was discarded and another picked up either as found in nature or struck off from some suitable material. There was no standard for size or shape; the main requirements were that it be large enough to be held in a hand and sufficiently thin, sharp and strong enough to cut skin, flesh and wood. This type of cutting artifact undoubtedly...

DOCUMENT Full-Text L. C. Steege.

War clubs of some description were used during historic and prehistoric times by nearly all of the tribes of the Northwest Plains. These may be classified as two types.

DOCUMENT Full-Text L. C. Steege.

One of the most controversial of all the stone artifacts to be classified are the drilling types. Collectors will readily agree as to the identification of these artifacts, but, how many of these stone tools actually show any use as a drill?

DOCUMENT Full-Text L. C. Steege.

Scrapers are the most abundant of all the stone artifacts used by the Plains Indians. Since the skins of wild animals were used extensively for clothing, robes, moccasins and shelters, the preparation of these skins necessitated the use of great quantities of scrapers; hence their common occurrence throughout the Plains regions.

DOCUMENT Full-Text Jacquelin E. St. Clair.

Archaeological data show acts which may at first appear to involve merely the acquisition of food are, indeed, interwoven with spiritual beliefs and emotions. Bison kill sites have been investigated to gain information regarding hunting strategies and food appropriation. However, some of the sites have yielded additional information taking us beyond the procurement of food, widening our view to include religion, rituals and ceremonialism. The Cooper site (Bement 1999) offers early evidence of...

DOCUMENT Full-Text A. Dudley Gardner. David Johnson. Martin Lammers.

Test excavations were conducted November 31 and December 1, 1989 along the south side of the Mormon Wall to determine whether intact historic deposits were present in the area. Since the 1989 excavations, much has been learned about the Mormon Occupation at Fort Bridger and we have gained a better comprehension of the nature and activities of the Mormon Colonies in the area. What follows is the original report in total with new sections of: 1) a historic overview, 2) a discussion of the...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Piper Taylor Grandjean.

In A.D. 79, early one afternoon in August, a volcano to the north of the Roman city of Pompeii began an eruption that continued through the night. When the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius was finished, more than 20,000 people had been killed, and entire cities were lost (Time-Life Books 1992:10). Although this tragedy cost the lives of many people, through the archaeological record we can recover valuable information about the civilization and appreciate how these people lived. In this essay, I am...

DOCUMENT Full-Text John W. Greer. Mavis Greer.

A finely made bifacial skinning knife was left on a small natural pointed hill apparently as a non-utilitarian offering placed on a high promontory, a common prehistoric practice across much of western North America. Age is unknown, but the tool is believed to date from the Late Prehistoric Period or terminal Archaic, or about A.D. 200-1200.

DOCUMENT Full-Text Dr. Nina A. Kononenko. Dr. Aleksander A. Kryp. Dr. Andrei V. Tabarev.

In 1993 and 1994, archaeologists from the Institute of History , Archaeology and Ethnography of the People of the Far East (Vladivostok, Russia), Far Eastern State University (Vladivostok, Russia), and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography (Novosibirsk, Russia) investigated a new pre-ceramic (12-11,000 years B.P.) site, Ustinovka-VI, in the Maritime Region (Primorie), of the Russian Far East. Even the preliminary results of the excavations permit an interpretation of the assemblage of the...

DOCUMENT Full-Text David Eckles.

An examination of corner-notched arrow points in Wyoming is presented. Emphasis will be on points commonly included in the Rose Spring/ Rosegate series with an analysis of other cornernotch arrow points which are probably not part of the Rose Spring/Rosegate series. Data were gathered from both excavated and dated components as well as from surface recorded sites in Wyoming. These data were searched in the Wyoming SHPO Cultural Records Office databases from the early 1970s through 2014 (the 2014...

DOCUMENT Full-Text A. Dudley Gardner. Martin Lammers. Laura Pasacreta. Seth Panter.

In the later part of the nineteenth century, Chinese communities in the northern Rocky Mountains and Plains could be characterized by one basic generalization: few Chinese women and children lived in these communities. Alberta, Canada, in 1891, had one Chinese woman living in the Province and by 1901, when the next census was taken; she had moved away (Alberta Census 1891, 1901). More typical of the interior west were places like Silver Bow County, Montana, or Rock Springs, Wyoming, where one or...

DOCUMENT Full-Text James A. Truesdale.

Archaeological excavations and research at 48CR4001 have been conducted from 1983 to 1993. The site, located approximately 16 miles south of Rawlins, Wyoming, is situated on the east face of a north-south trending exposure of Lance Formation sandstone. It is at an elevation of 2195 meters (7200 feet) above mean sea level (AMSL). Vegetation on the site is characteristic of a low sagebrush-grassland community. In 1990, the archaeological investigations and subsequent research was generously funded...