Engaging with the Hell Gap Digital Archives through the Lens of Ruthann Knudson's "The Early Expeditions"

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Paleo Lithics to Legacy Management: Ruthann Knudson—Inawa’sioskitsipaki" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Ruthann Knudson's chapter, "The Early Expeditions: University of Wyoming, Harvard University, and the Peabody Museum," in *Hell Gap: A Stratified Paleoindian Campsite at the Edge of the Rockies, pulls together a range of experiences from the earliest discovery of the site. The chapter unfolds like a road map through the turbulent, uncharted waters of the nascent archaeological expeditions. In her own words, "This is the story of the participation of all these people in what was largely a volunteer effort to unravel the secrets of the past." The chapter serves as a unifying theme for our work on the digital archives project. This paper weaves together Ruthann's chapter with descriptions of our efforts to bring the Hell Gap National Historic Landmark into the digital age. We are currently digitizing the expedition data from the 1960s while also designing a virtual-reality tour of the site that will incorporate many of those volunteer experiences into an interactive educational tool. Her landmark chapter provides us guidance as we navigate the history of archaeological discovery. Our goal, much like her chapter, is to tell a story that creates connections across the space of time so that others might experience Hell Gap archaeology for themselves.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paleo Lithics to Legacy Management: Ruthann Knudson—Inawa’sioskitsipaki   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33030