Dating a High Plains Medicine Wheel by the Use of Comparative Lichen Growth and Optically Stimulated Luminescence

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

On the outskirts of the city of Laramie, Wyoming sits a circular stone feature known as a medicine wheel. Despite being near the University of Wyoming (UW), it remained unknown until a UW archaeologist encountered it while hiking. Those who know about this medicine wheel have assumed that it was built after the 1960s as part of the new age spiritual movements started by Hyemeyohsts Storm and Vincent LaDuke. To test the veracity of this claim, I employed two methods: 1) A comparative study of lichen on the stones of the Laramie Basin medicine wheel (LBMW); 2) optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) of sediment directly underneath the stones themselves. By comparing the presence or absence of lichen on the LBMW with surfaces of a known date, I will show that the lichen colonies on the medicine wheel were established prior to the 1960s. Using OSL I will be able to suggest when the stones were placed on the ground during the wheel’s construction. By using these two methods I will show that the LBMW was not only constructed prior to new age movements of the 1960s, but was built prior to the arrival of Europeans on the high plains of Wyoming.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53065