Collections work inevitably involves surprises – just ask any curator. Looking for an elk antler flesher to use in an exhibit? Surprise! There are some decorated stone gaming pieces in the same box that you didn’t know you had.

Stone gaming pieces (10199)

About to start your third tedious hour sorting through tiny bits of residue from a 16^th century village trash midden? Wait! There is the tiny, polished tip of a bone needle!

Conducting a federal random audit of your collections? The surprise here is that the way we stored fragile shell in plastic bags many years ago (instead of vials) did not work out very well (okay, so not every collections surprise is a good one…). Surprises can come with a lot of challenges sometimes, but most of the time they make for an especially exciting day at work.

2014 was a particularly good one for surprises in the archaeology collections. Here are just a few of my favorites…

A Hidden Archive

Doug Wurtz (one of our volunteers) is doing research on Fort Rice, a US military fort built in 1864. As he has become more interested in the fort and the men who served there, he has expertly spun us into what we affectionately call his “Fort Rice web.” Without our realizing it, many of us have become obsessed with finding out as much as we can about Fort Rice. One day last fall I was sorting through the SHSND curator’s correspondence files from 1906-1915, working on research completely unrelated to Fort Rice.

Then, I randomly came across this amazing archive!

Letter from Col. Daniel J. Dill, commander of the 30th Wisconsin Vol. Infantry, to SHSND Curator H.C. Fish. The letter, dated July 4th, 1915, reads, “My Dear Sir, I received your letter dated February 1st in due time, also blueprints of Fort Rice. I laid out and superintended the building of Fort Rice. Also was in command of the troops that relieved Capt. Fisk and Expedition and brought them back to Fort Rice. The fort was built by my regiment 30th Wis. Vol. Inft. I had the timber cut in the woods hauled into a portable sawmill we had taken up with us from St. Louis. I kept no diary and have no papers connected with the fort. I left the fort after bringing back Capt. Fisk Expedition. Yours very truly, Daniel J. Dill.” SHSND Series 30205, Curator’s correspondence, 1907-1923, Box 1, Folder 1915.

This was a letter written to our curator at the time, H.C. Fish, by Colonel Daniel J. Dill, who built Fort Rice. Yep, that’s right. One of Doug’s questions had been related to where the sawmill used at Fort Rice had come from. Now we know. I wish I could have seen Doug’s face when he opened my email attachment that day!

A Found Collection?

Last summer, some of the Museum Division’s interns were inventorying collections we stored at an off-site storage facility. They notified our staff that they had found some wooden posts wrapped in newspapers and stored in crates that appeared to be archaeological. We went to retrieve them in June, and they were in bad shape. What’s more, no one could say for certain where they were from. After putting them through a couple freeze-thaw cycles to ensure no insects would try to hitch a ride into our collections storage space, Collections Assistant Meagan Schoenfelder and I donned our masks and gloves and began documenting all nine of them.

One of nine earthlodge post fragments discovered unexpectedly at an off-site collections storage facility.

We noticed they were wrapped in newspapers that dated to June and July 1950. A couple of them had notes stating they were from Fort Berthold Village (also known as Like-A-Fishhook Village, the last traditional earthlodge village of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara people), but most of them had no attached information. I dug out an old report from my files, documenting the first excavation of this site.

On the first page it states, “On June 13, 1950, a party of five Bismarck Junior College Students -… under the direction of Glenn Kleinsasser, graduate student at the University of Michigan, began work on an archaeological project at the Fort Berthold Village site.”[i] The project dates correspond with the newspaper dates. Furthermore, the posts with notes attached only refer to Excavation Units #1, #2, and #3, which, according to the report, are the only numbered units that were tested during that summer. I can’t say for sure that these posts are from the 1950 Kleinsasser excavation, but this information is a pretty good start!

An Unexpected Donation

We occasionally have members of the public drop in with artifacts they have found on their land. Often they want to know what type of artifact they have and how old it is. Most frequently, people bring in something called a grooved maul, which is a type of stone hammer used for thousands of years. They are really neat, and common across North Dakota.

One afternoon I was called to the front desk to look at some artifacts that a gentleman had brought in. I headed to reception, expecting to discuss grooved mauls.

When I got there, there was not a grooved maul in sight. Instead, he had a complete, exhibit-quality stone atlatl weight (!!!!) (very rare – we only have about four in our entire collection), and diagnostic knives and projectile points from every major cultural period in North Dakota between the Paleoindian period (9500-5500 BC) and the Plains Woodland period (400 BC – 1200 AD)! He collected them from his land over many years. I was speechless. All were generously donated to our collections.

Left: A stone atlatl weight, which was fastened to an atlatl (or spearthrower) to increase velocity and accuracy of the spear when thrown.
Right: an Archaic-period knife, with evidence of heavy patination (chemical weathering) on the surface. Patination takes about 1500 years of exposure to the elements before it develops.

I don’t have the space to tell you about the surprise moose skeleton (!) that was donated to our faunal comparative collection, the surprise guests that came to the lab one afternoon (Governor Dalrymple and First Lady Betsy Dalrymple), or the surprise box of gorgeous LeBeau Ware (post-1500 AD) pottery rims from North Dakota that the Kansas Historical Society found in their collection and donated to us a few months ago – just in time to be included in our new ceramic comparative collection!

So there you have it. As an archaeologist who works with collections, organization, predictability, and efficiency make me unapologetically giddy. But this is also where the unexpected lives, and (most of the time) I like it that way!

I hope your 2015 is full of good surprises.

“What is your favorite part of the expansion?” As the manager of the archaeology collections, I know there is a right answer to this question. I should say, “Our new, state-of-the-art archaeology collections storage rooms!” (yes, rooms! The “s” is not a typo!). And I do love them, don’t get me wrong. They are large, bright, climate-controlled rooms with compact shelving units that have more than quadrupled our storage space. They allow us to organize our collections in ways that were not possible in our old space. In fact, we have an entire room filled only with artifacts from Plains Village sites – these are the sites that were built and occupied by North Dakota’s agricultural communities between the 12^th and 19^th centuries. Shouldn’t that be my favorite room? Yes! But it’s not. So what is wrong with me?

The problem is that I am obsessed with our new archaeology lab. Our old lab served many purposes, due mostly to a lack of space in our old office. It was a lab, but also included cubicles, a library, and miscellaneous storage. It was getting pretty crowded in there when we finally moved from this…

To this…

Here are some highlights…

The Dirty Room

As you may expect, archaeological work involves a lot of dirt. While most of it is left at the site, a lot of it does come in with the collection when it arrives to be processed. We try to keep the dirtiest jobs in this room, which has a large sink, a central vacuum, and some of our processing equipment. This is where we wash artifacts, do our size grading, and process flotation and soil samples (among other messy/dusty things).

The blue machine being used by Meagan (Collections Assistant) is a size grader. This contraption is actually an ingenious stack of nested screens that vibrates, shaking the artifacts into 5 different size groups (size-grading makes artifacts easier to sort, and is useful in many types of artifact analysis).

Lithic Comparative Collection

When you find a lithic (stone) tool at an archaeological site, the type of rock it is made from can tell you a lot about the people who used it and/or what was going on at the site. Because certain rocks form under unique geological conditions, we know they can only be found in particular places (called “source areas”).

Left - Comparing a flake with a piece of raw material (obsidian, which is a type of volcanic glass).
Right - One of our many drawers full of labeled lithic raw materials. This drawer contains cherts and quartzites from Wyoming and South Dakota.

Let’s say we find an arrowhead in North Dakota made of obsidian. We know that the closest source of obsidian is in Wyoming, near Yellowstone National Park. That tells us that either someone in North Dakota traveled that far to get it, or it was traded into North Dakota by other groups. Lithic material gives us clues about prehistoric economics and trade, mobility, and tool technology. Our lithic collection has over 250 samples of rock from all over the country. We use it to identify lithic materials that may be unfamiliar to us, and to figure out where it originated.

Work Tables

We have an amazing team of volunteers who help us with different lab projects every week. We are currently sorting artifacts from trash pits at an ancestral Mandan village that was partially excavated in 2010 prior to a road project. We are sorting different types of materials (stone, bone, pottery, etc.) that will be analyzed by specialists for the final report. This is when the lab is the most fun (and on our breaks from doing and learning about archaeology, we tend to eat a lot of sweets and look at each other’s vacation pictures!)

Lab volunteers sorting artifacts from Larson Village.

Cataloging Station

This is where we catalog everything from tiny seed beads to projectile points to leather shoes. The work we are doing ensures that we are able to track every object that we care for. We come across a lot of objects that fill our brains with maddening questions about who, why, when, and where…

Top Left - Cataloging broken beads from a historic fort, Morton Co.
Top Middle - Glass beads recovered from excavations at Like-A-Fishhook Village, 1845-1880s.
Top Right - This photo shows the decorative detail of a cord-impressed pot. Prior to firing, a twisted cord of grass was pressed into the pot at different angles. The impressions indicate that the cord used was twisted tightly and the impressions are close together - these are clues that the pot was made some time after 1500.
Bottom Left - A child’s shoe from Fort Rice, Morton Co.
Bottom Middle - Historic glass bottles, one of which claims to be a remedy for the “dandruff germ” (once believed to cause baldness in men!). http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SN19010420.2.107
Bottom Right - A Folsom projectile point (10,800-10,200 B.P) from Lake Ilo, Dunn Co.

See what I mean? I suppose the lab is where I see objects come to life – it’s where artifacts to be curated become histories to be contemplated. It’s where I think the most about the people who made and used them. It’s where a lot of my questions arise, and it’s where I know I can find at least some of the answers. It is where I can see history being preserved, one artifact at a time.

So, the archaeology lab is my favorite. Final answer.

Drawers of intricately beaded moccasins, illustrating traditional designs of the Dakota and Chippewa people. The original journals and letters of explorer Henry A. Boller, describing his time at Fort Atkinson during the mid-to late-19^th century. A volunteer sorting decorated ceramic rim sherds from animal bone and stone tools. A paleontologist who uses Legos to create molds of dinosaur bones (seriously!). An archivist converting audio reels of traditional Arikara songs to digital files. A research archaeologist measuring the molars of a Bison antiquus skull to assess its age at the time of its death. Were you given a “backstage pass” to the State Historical Society of North Dakota (SHSND), these are just a few of the things you might see on a typical day!

Have you ever wondered what goes on in the offices below the Heritage Center’s State Museum?

Wonder no more! This blog will take you behind the scenes at what is shaping up to be the most spectacular museum in the Northern Plains. You will also learn that we are much more than a museum – we house the State Archives, the State Historic Preservation Office, the State Paleontologist’s office (part of the ND Geological Survey), and more. Each week, a different staff member of the SHSND or one of its partners will give you a glimpse into his or her day. You will see pics of objects and records that are not usually on display, and be privy to thoughts and conversations that can only occur in a museum setting (i.e. “Who put these stone hide scrapers on my desk?” or “Do we know anyone who might be willing to donate a grain bin?” or “Sorry, but I can’t articulate this raven skeleton until after lunch.”)

If you had walked through our office in August, you may have passed by what looked like a crime investigation scene. Streams of yellow caution tape stretched across the room, creating a barrier between passers-by and staff. People wearing blue nitrile gloves were carefully inspecting and photo-documenting bones arranged in a bin of sand. In actuality, you would have been witnessing a standard condition assessment of a nearly complete wolf-dog skeleton that is on exhibit in the new Innovation Gallery: Early Peoples. This dog was discovered in a pit at a lithic quarry site near Halliday, North Dakota. It appears to have jumped into the pit after some bison meat, and was then unable to get back out after eating. It is about 2,300 years old.

Archaeology Collections Manager Wendi Field Murray (right) and Collections Assistant Meagan Schoenfelder (left) conduct a condition assessment of a 2,300 year-old dog skeleton (photo by D. Rogness).

We cataloged each element of the dog and thoroughly documented any visible damage to the skeleton. The bones tell many stories about the animal’s life. Two fused metatarsals indicate that a previous foot injury had healed during the dog’s life. There appears to be a cancerous lesion on the sixth thoracic vertebra, and the teeth are broken and worn. The skeleton shows signs of arthritis, indicating that the dog was at an advanced age when it died.

The nearly complete skeleton of the wolf-dog hybrid found in a quarry pit near Halliday, North Dakota (photo by W. Murray).

This is just a taste of the kinds of stories and experiences we are eager to include in our new blog. We at the SHSND feel fortunate to be able to do what we do, and we are so excited to be able to share it with you! Now if you will excuse me, I need to catalog some donated steamship wreckage…

Check back with us next week!

Wendi Field Murray
Archaeology Collections Manager