Left: Expansion phase pictured here is of the Treehouse children’s exhibit, now fully finished and ready to go. Each phase seemed like a new gift to unwrap. (Photo by Brian Austin)

Right: This photo is of my supervisor and me at the Legislative Reception, where we were allowed into the construction areas. I had to wear a hard hat and a vest. Other staff here (Becky Barnes) decorated my hard hat so I could feel more myself.

When the State Historical Society’s expansion occurred, a lot of planning went into the exhibits that would populate the new and existing spaces. While I was uninvolved with that process in my role here, I really was eager to see what would be used. Staff who were not part of the installation process were not given ready access to the areas (understandably, or they may have had a few of us—okay, me—underfoot). So whenever we were given permission to sneak over and watch construction going on, or see a hint of what was going to be installed, it was exciting.

But I admit, as excited as I was for everything else, I really was looking to see what audio resources might be used from the State Archives.

I’ve talked about audio and video resources several times before; I wrote about conducting oral history interviews in my second blog post, and discussed the idea of transcripts of these interviews (or lack thereof), in my third blog post. I often group audio and video resources together, because there are some similarities between the two, and because they do go together in many ways. However, I primarily work with the audio files of these types of collections.While both are very important, the audio files are a little more dear to my heart.

We have various types of audio formats housed at the State Historical Society. Reel-to-reel, audio cassettes, microcassettes, records, and CDs are typical items in our collections. We also have some files that are formed or created as digital files. Just as is the case with any other collection, all of these must be stored specifically and properly in cooler conditions, and monitored for breakdown of materials.

Unlike some other items, however, the intrinsic historic value of the item has little to do with the structure of the format (which does admittedly still provide us with history and a timeline, showing the technology at the time). The value comes from accessing what is on the cassette, or record, or CD. Which means, we really need to find ways to preserve it so we can continue to use it.

When I was a very little girl, cassettes were all the rage. (It was the 1980s and 1990s, after all.) I loved listening to all sorts of things, including music, and books on tape. I had one book on tape (A Sesame Street Christmas) that I listened to so many times, I wore the tape out. My mother actually purchased several more copies for me, because I kept wearing them out. I had other cassettes that I listened to so frequently that the tape pulled off of the reels, or wrinkled, or just jammed up in the tape player.

Obviously, the act of playing something so you can listen to it can cause wear or damage. But historic interviews and moments captured in time—those can’t be repurchased or reproduced. People want to interact with their past, and as archivists, we also want people to interact with their past. If we have an item here, we want to keep it here for the future—but we also want you to be able to hear the voice of your great-grandmother who settled in Minto in 1900.

Since around 2009, I have been increasingly working with these various audio components, transferring them to digital audio files. We did these only on request before I began working with these collections, and we did not store the files, or even have procedures set to name the files. In the years since, I have learned a ton about how to work with these formats.

Today, I have a set-up that allows me to plug different types of audio equipment into my computers and run the content through the software we use, the free program Audacity, transferring old audio to the very new digital formats. I save each file as an MP3, which is more compressed and easily accessed, as well as WAV, which is a more standardized, uncompressed file.

Fast forward to the opening of the exhibits of the State Historical Society’s expanded museum.

Our museum space is a treasure trove of items from all across the agency. I am pleased to say that both video and audio files from the Archives did appear in the exhibits, along with maps, photos, and other documents. But nothing quite made me feel the same as when I found one of the hubs that had on it, among other things, oral interviews of a few veterans that I had both interviewed and digitized.

Occasionally, I hear other bits of interviews that I have digitized, or recognize names from interviews I have worked with. Some of them are from interviews I have done myself, but many more are ones that I simply worked with years after the fact. For me, it has become a point of personal pride. You start to become protective of these files. You want to make them their best and help them find their way into the world. You have made these items ready for the future. It’s the coolest thing.

This is the second blog in a series on the Beadmaker archaeological site, a Mandan campsite dating to AD 1600-1650 near the Heart River. I previously wrote a brief background on Beadmaker, which you can find here (blog.statemuseum.nd.gov/blog/beadmaker).

Ornamental stone bead production is a fascinating aspect of life at Beadmaker. More than 120 beads in various stages of manufacture have been recovered from the site. Like other types of technology, beads were manufactured in a set of successive stages: (1) obtaining raw material, (2) initial shaping, (3) preparation for drilling and actual drilling, (4) shaping/smoothing after drilling, and (5) final shaping/rounding of bead. Mandan people might not have recognized these as distinct phases, but this type of classification helps archaeologists understand how beads were produced and the thought process behind their manufacture. At Beadmaker, stone beads come in both disc and cylindrical forms.

Stage 1: Obtaining raw material. These are pieces of soft siltstone or mudstone.

Beads were made on soft siltstones found locally in a variety of colors. It was fairly easy to carve or grind these stones. Think about scratching a piece of scoria road rock with your fingernail, and you’ll get a sense of how “soft” these rocks are.

Stage 2: Initial shaping to create a bead blank. Notice the trimmed edges and placement of “pilot holes.”

After choosing pieces of siltstone for raw material, the stoneworkers would shape the rock to create a “blank,” or a piece that begins to resemble the eventual shape of the bead. Two of these rocks show the beginning of drill marks, suggesting the initial blank shape may have been achieved or a type of pilot hole was started to give the beadmaker a sense of the center. A beadmaker had to be careful during grinding and plan ahead to the final product, because once material was removed, it could not be put back again. The softness of the material probably allowed people to modify their plans as they worked, in case they made a mistake.

Left - Stage 3: Preparation for drilling. These bead blanks have been rounded and smoothed.
Right - A very small (~1 inch) flake tool used to drill beads. This could be held between the thumb and forefinger and twisted repeatedly.

After a beadmaker attained the desired shape, beads were prepared for drilling and drilled using a small flake tool. If the bead blank broke during this process, it was either reshaped or discarded. Drilling was probably the most difficult step of manufacture; even if a blank was successfully drilled, the bead itself became more fragile with the addition of a hole. This could make further shaping after drilling risky, as the bead could snap in half. This is seen fairly regularly in the next stage of production.

Left - Stage 4: Shaping and smoothing after drilling. These beads broke either during or shortly after drilling. Note the ridged drill marks on the specimen in the top row, second from left.
Right - Two pieces of a tubular bead that refit. The center and outside are very smooth, suggesting this bead may have been finished but then accidentally stepped on or broken.

Most of these beads show drill holes that pass all the way through the center, but the beads then snapped or cracked. The two tubular pieces in the image above actually fit together, and may represent a finished bead that was accidentally trampled or crushed when people walked around their camp.

Stage 5: Finished beads. These are only about 1 cm (0.4 inches) in diameter.

Finished beads were probably prized objects used for personal adornment and unlikely to be purposefully left behind at a site. Three complete, finished beads were recovered from Beadmaker, along with broken finished beads They were probably shaped using sandstone or clinker abraders.

So why are there so many stone beads at Beadmaker? If the interpretation of a hunting camp is correct, it’s plausible that the men had downtime while waiting for scouts to return with a report on bison location and movement. Perhaps older men used this time to teach younger men how to craft these ornamental objects. With a seemingly endless supply of raw material on hand, the novice beadmakers could try their hand at bead manufacture without worrying about wasting stone.

Stone beads from On-A-Slant Village, Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park.

Stone beads appear at other Mandan sites, including Huff, Bagnell, and On-a-Slant Villages, indicating these were probably an important feature of decoration and group identification prior to the arrival of glass trade beads.