My favorite type of museum program to give is a demonstration. Over the years, I have learned to do all kinds of different crafts and activities in order to show the general public how people of the past did their work. Demonstrations are a great way to pull people in and get them excited about history. You can have a relaxed and informal discussion about how people at a particular site, or in a particular time period, lived. How is butter made, and what is the science behind it? How do you make a quilt and piece together a complicated pattern? Embroidery; wood carving; leather stamping; making rope, soap, and candles? I can do some of these projects better than others. Over the years I’ve picked up things here and there, learned from mentors, learned from friends, and learned from colleagues at living history sites. One of my favorite resources is YouTube video tutorials.

The author's drop spindle and wool roving

The newest thing I’m learning to do is spin wool to yarn by using a drop spindle. We have several talented staff here who know a lot about spinning, and they have been very nice to share some of their knowledge and expertise with me. This is very exciting to me as a museum educator. I am planning some programs to demonstrate how we go from sheep to mitten, and all the steps in between. This provides us with endless opportunities to interact with our visitors and teach them long forgotten skills that were once more commonly part of everyday life. After we have the yarn we can weave it, knit it, or crochet it—turning it into functional art like blankets, sweaters, and holiday ornaments. As our staff brainstorms all the different types of programs we can start doing, it is easy for us to get carried away. However, it is really fun to talk about everything from shearing a sheep; cleaning, carding, and dyeing wool; spinning it into yarn; and figuring out which of those programs would work best in our available space.

The author demonstrating how to use a drop spindle.

I enjoy this process of learning how to do a new activity, and working at it until I can talk to other people about what I’m doing. Earlier this spring I sat in the Inspiration Gallery for about an hour practicing with a drop spindle. I am by no means an expert. In fact, I’m really not very good yet. However, I probably talked to about forty school children and several adults about what a drop spindle is; how it works; how it is related to a spinning wheel; and why people did (and still do) this kind of work. There are so many places to go to learn how to do projects like this. There are many books available about using drop spindles and spinning wheels. The internet is full of detailed video tutorials. This is probably my favorite part of working in a museum—learning how to do new things and showing other people what I’ve learned.

Spinning wheel on display at the North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum

For the past year, I have been cataloging collections that we curate for the U.S. Forest Service. One of my favorite collections comprised a time capsule buried by a resident of Slope County in 1941 and discovered by archaeologists in 2005. So that has me thinking - if you made a time capsule, what would you put in it? Where would you put it? What would you want people in the future to know?

In 2005, a U.S. Forest Service employee inspecting Forest Service land in Slope County found historic objects stashed inside a rock shelter. The artifacts included a sealed J.R. Watkins bottle containing a note dated 1941.

The J.R. Watkins bottle that contained the map (2012A.94.3)

The employee notified a Forest Service archaeologist so the finds could be documented, mapped, photographed.¹

As an archaeologist myself, I can tell you that it is pretty unusual to find a map accompanying any artifacts you discover. But that is exactly what the Forest Service archaeologists found. The note inside the bottle included a hand-drawn map with instructions to a “grand burial” that “bears treasure.”²

Detail of the map (2012A.94.2)

And the map did lead archaeologist to the “treasure”. But this wasn’t Hollywood-style pirate treasure—no silver, no gold, no pieces-of-eight. It was treasure of a different kind—an informal time capsule. The “grand burial” consisted of several bottles, a jar, and a metal lunch box that had been buried in the ground by a local man.

The capsules (from left to right): a liquor bottle, an Atlas E-Z seal canning jar, a J.R. Watkins bottle, an unlabeled bottle, and a metal lunch box (left to right 2012A.76.54, 55, 53, 56, 59)

It included photos and negatives, magazine clippings, handwritten notes, and small objects including popcorn seeds, candy, cigarettes, matches, and election campaign pins.

Calvin Coolidge (left) and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (right) election campaign pins (2012A.76.90 & 91)

What would you want people who found your time capsule to know about you? Harold Foreman buried the time capsules between January and March, 1941.³ We know his personal details from the notes that he wrote and buried with the objects in the containers. Harold was twenty-seven years old when he buried the objects. He and his wife Pauline lived with his parents in Slope County, ND.⁴ Harold was the oldest of nine siblings.⁵

Would you write about current news? When Harold buried his capsules, the United States had not yet entered World War II. But the war was progressing elsewhere in the world, and Harold followed what was going on. He wrote about wondering who will win and hoped that the Lend-Lease bill proposed to send aid to Great Britain will pass U.S. Congress.⁶

Would you want people to know what technology is like? What transportation is like? Harold enclosed magazine clippings of cars, trucks, tractors, and trains.

Case tractors advertisement (2012A.76.21)

My favorite clipping is a glamorous full page color (complete with silver foil!) advertisement for a Streamliner railcar.

Advertisement for Pullman-Standard Streamliners (2012A.76.52)

Harold listed vehicles owned by family members. In 1941, Harold drove a 1927 Chrysler sedan that needed repair.⁷ His brothers Warren and Denver owned a motorcycle.⁸ Harold put two spark plugs in the metal lunch box capsule.

Champion spark plugs (2012A.76.111-112)

Would you write about your dreams for the future? Would you write about your life experiences and adventures? Harold wrote that he planned on going to California to take up detective work.⁹ Perhaps with this in mind, Harold decided to include a piece of paper containing his own fingerprints.

Harold Foreman’s fingerprints (2012A.76.29)

Another object is an “old pocket watch” that traveled with Harold “through the States”.¹⁰ On the back of the watch are visible fingerprints—do these belong to Harold?

Close-up of pocket watch with visible finger prints. Do these fingerprints belong to Harold? Did this watch go with Harold on his trip to visit his grandmother in Missouri? (2012A.76.89)

He described a trip he and his wife took through several states to visit his grandmother in Missouri.¹¹ He even included a letter written to him by his eighty two-year-old grandmother.¹²

Envelope containing letter from Harold’s grandmother in Missouri (2012A.76.37)

Would you include pictures? Harold included photo negatives with scenes from North Dakota including badlands near Waterford City, a wheat field, and a burning coal mine near Ranger.

Butte in badlands near Watford City (2012A.76.72)

Would you include a photo of yourself? Would it be serious? An action shot? Or maybe a funny photo? Harold included a photo of himself making muscle arms and a funny face.

Close-up of Harold Foreman posing (2012A.76.68)

Would you want to know who finds your capsule? Harold wanted to know. He even offered a reward if the finder contacted him.¹³ But Harold wasn’t sure how long it would take for someone to find it, so just in case he was no longer living in North Dakota, he left a list of friends and relatives to contact.¹⁴ U.S. Forest Service archaeologist Mervin Floodman did look for Harold.

Unfortunately, Harold died in a car accident in the Pacific Northwest in 1972.¹⁵ However, Floodman was able to contact his youngest brother, Howard, in 2006. Howard did not know about the time capsule that his older brother had buried.¹⁶ But on one of Harold’s notes, there is a doodle Howard made when he was only six.

Detail of house doodle by Howard, Harold’s youngest brother (2012A.76.5)

It is rare for an artifact collection to provide details about one individual’s life. That is what makes the Foreman time capsule so intriguing. What would you want someone in the future to know about you?

Special thanks to the U.S. Forest Service for permission to write about their collection. Special thanks as well to photo archivist Sharon Silengo and volunteer Robert Porter in Archives for their enthusiastic expertise in scanning the photos and negatives.

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¹Floodman, p. 1-3
²2012A.94.2
³2012A.76.8-9, 23-24, 31-34, .36, .40; 2012A.94.2
⁴2012A.76.2; 2012A.76.8; 2012A.76.36; 2012A.76.7; 2012A.76.8
⁵2012A.76.25
⁶2012A.76.8
⁷2012A.76.4
⁸2012A.76.4
⁹2012A.76.7
¹⁰2012A.76.36
¹¹2012A.76.2
¹²2012A.76.2
¹³2012A.76.26
¹⁴2012A.76.26
¹⁵Floodman p. 26
¹⁶Floodman p. 25, 26

Extensive bank erosion since the 2011 flood has seriously impacted an important state historical site managed by our agency (blog.statemuseum.nd.gov/blog/saving-double-ditch). After a long process to determine possible alternatives for funding and a stabilization plan, we’re relieved to have the engineering work begin.

Situated on the east bank of the Missouri River nine miles north of Bismarck, Double Ditch Indian Village State Historic Site is one of the best preserved examples of an earthlodge village on the northern plains. The site was a regional trading center occupied for nearly 300 years (AD 1490-1785) by the Mandan people. At its peak the population of Double Ditch has been estimated to have been 2,000 or more people, with a richly developed culture based upon agriculture and seasonal bison hunting. Due to its archaeological significance, the site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Bank Erosion at Double Ditch Indian Village State Historic Site, October 2016. Photo courtesy Tim Reed, SHSND.

The Missouri River is powerful, perhaps never more so than when it’s in flood stage. This stretch of the river lies between the Garrison and Oahe reservoirs. Those living along the Missouri know this firsthand, as we’ve seen rising floodwaters on more than one occasion impact lives, property, and cultural and natural resources.

Double Ditch Indian Village State Historic Site was unable to escape the effects of the Missouri River’s catastrophic flooding in 2011. Large sections of the river terrace edge shifted in a process called rotational erosion. Rotational erosion simply means that large blocks of sediment at the site were rotating and shifting as slumping occurred along the river bank. This erosional process destabilized the bank and threatened a portion of the site, including parts of the public walkway/bicycle path.

Geotechnical coring rig operating on rotational erosion area at Double Ditch Indian Village State Historic Site, October 2015. Photo courtesy Tim Reed, SHSND.

To make matters even worse, the active erosion at Double Ditch has continued in an area known to contain human burials. Since 2013, 18 burials have been disinterred at the site as a result of this erosion. Because Double Ditch village was occupied for 300 years by thousands of people, more burials would be disturbed if erosion continued.

During the 2015 Legislative session, the State Historical Society of North Dakota partnered with the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation to raise awareness about the immediate threat posed to Double Ditch by erosion. Project funding was allocated during the 2015 legislative session to stabilize the site.

Geotechnical coring rig operating on rotational erosion area at Double Ditch Indian Village State Historic Site , October 2015. Photo courtesy Tim Reed, SHSND.

A geotechnical study performed in October 2015 confirmed that the erosion was a result of the 2011 flood. The study further determined that the existing threat to the site was even more extensive than originally thought. A new crack was developing below the surface, with the potential to progress 400 feet into the heart of Double Ditch Village. Left unaddressed, this newly identified erosional fault could be catastrophic, causing twelve acres (half of the site) to be lost.

Geotechnical coring rig operating at Double Ditch Indian Village State Historic Site, October 2015. Photo courtesy Tim Reed, SHSND.

A geomorphological trench being excavated at Double Ditch Indian Village State Historic Site as part of the geotechnical study, October 2015. Photo courtesy Tim Reed, SHSND.

As the engineering plan was being developed in 2016, the project faced delays from a challenging permitting process. Thanks to the North Dakota Legislative Assembly, project funding not able to be used during the last legislative session was carried over into this biennium. We’re also grateful to tribal members from the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation and other groups and individuals who supported efforts to keep this critical project moving forward.

Double Ditch Indian Village State Historic Site bank stabilization diagram, March 2017. SHSND.

Various geotechnical studies and modeling were critical in developing plans for the bank stabilization. Ultimately the plan involved reshaping the bank by removing weight from the upslope and adding weight to the toe. The rock key/trench and pipe piles will provide mass and strength to stabilize the slope.

The riverbank will be revegetated with a variety of native grasses, forbs, shrubs, and trees. Interpretive signs will be installed along the bank highlighting natural resources. The stabilized and reshaped bank will protect the Mandan village and enhance fishing access to the river, bird/wildlife watching, and provide a non-motorized landing for kayaks and canoes. In addition, this will prove a safe walking/bicycle trail.

Construction fence at Double Ditch Indian Village State Historic Site, June 2017. Photo courtesy Tim Reed, SHSND.

As of the date of this blog, the bank stabilization at Double Ditch Indian Village State Historic Site is anticipated to begin in late June. Construction should be completed in about five months. We’ll keep readers informed in this blog as the project progresses.

 

*Fern Swenson, Director of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, and Kim Jondahl, Director of Communications and Education, were contributing authors to this post.

Advocates of Save Double Ditch, a grassroots organization, brave the cold in March 2017 to voice their support for bank stabilization funding. March- 2017. Courtesy Tom Stromme, Bismarck Tribune

Five 53- foot semitrailers. That’s what started arriving at 7a.m. on a recent Monday morning; five semis packed full of crates and carts and tools and equipment that, over the next week, our install team would assemble in the Governors Gallery of the State Museum into an impressive 5,000-square-foot exhibit on the history of chocolate. And despite the years of planning, the diagrams, the scribbled notes, the emails and conference calls, those semis were a daunting sight.

This project began over two years ago. Before the newly built Governors Gallery opened in fall 2014, we had begun looking for a large traveling exhibit to feature in this space, which had been designed for temporary exhibits. We considered a number of factors in our search. The exhibit had to fit the 5,000-square-foot space of our gallery. The exhibit topic and components had to be suitable– supporting our mission, following our code of ethics, and engaging our audience. We also looked at budget, optimal scheduling, and necessary staff.

After many meetings, our exhibits committee decided on Chocolate, an exhibit produced by the Field Museum of Chicago. It’s a topic that we believed could reach a wide audience (Who doesn’t like chocolate?), with a proven track record of success (It’s been constantly traveling for 10 years and multiple venues have hosted it twice), and developed by a respected museum.

Entrance to the new Chocolate exhibit.

Next came negotiating the contract, developing a unique floor plan, adding insurance, developing new public programming and marketing plans, bringing in new store inventory, and hiring temporary staff. And then, there we were, staring at a line of semis. We had seven days and 10 staff.

Installing a traveling exhibit is akin to putting together a really big Ikea product. Everything on the trucks had to be unloaded, moved to the Governors Gallery, staged, unpacked, and then assembled in a particular sequence.  The Field Museum provided a detailed instruction manual to guide us through the process. Every component was assigned a unique letter and number designation that corresponded to their order on the semis and their final placement in the galleries.

Semi load plan.

Install schematic.

We learned that installing exhibits of this size is physically demanding. The 54 carts that we pushed and pulled into place were 7 feet high and varied in length from 8 to 12 feet.  It took two to three people to move each fully loaded cart. A number of components took six people to unload and move into place.

Mark Sundlov and Geoff Woodcox of the Museum Division maneuver an empty cart on its ways to storage, while Genia Hesser contemplates unloading the next in line.

Over the next seven days it came together. More carts were in storage than were in the gallery. Twelve foot walls went up, dividing the gallery into intimate spaces. Media was installed, bringing the rainforest sounds of South America to our northern museum. Soon, we were down to the small final details, a little-touch up paint, wiping down the cases, focusing lights, and vacuuming.

Chocolate the exhibit will be open to the public through September 6, 2017. And then we start the whole process in reverse. I’m going to start my calisthenics program tomorrow.

The most interesting discoveries an archaeologist can make occasionally involve artifacts collected decades earlier. I happened upon such a discovery while preparing to carry out fieldwork on behalf of a federal agency. While conducting background research, I learned the State Historical Society houses a small ceramic assemblage originally collected in 1938. These 73 ceramic rims and body sherds represent the bulk of artifacts collected from site 32MO12, or the Jennie Graner site. My search for information about the pottery itself, as well as the history of previous research at the site, led me on a winding path through archival records and the handwritten notes of Thaddeus C. Hecker, a former archaeologist with the State Historical Society.

Hecker is probably most well-known to archaeologists who have read his and George Will’s inventory of Plains Village sites along the Missouri River in North Dakota¹. Previous to this 1944 publication, Hecker and other archaeologists working for the state identified a Plains Village site on the west bank of the Missouri River near the town of Huff. At that time, the site was on the property of Jennie Graner and was named after her. Although Hecker collected pottery in 1938, there is no indication that he conducted excavations at the site:

The first time I visited this site I found a lodge floor in the cut-bank where an unusual amount of pottery of various designs in decoration had weathered out. The rim-sherds were rather thick and all decorations were punch incised; also a number of designs in decoration were different than I had seen before…The pottery of this site is undoubtedly of Mandan Culture.²

Thaddeus C. Hecker, 1938. (State Historical Society of North Dakota C3717-00001)

Although Jennie Graner is considered an earthlodge village site, no remnants of earthlodges or middens are visible on the surface like they are at other Mandan sites such as Huff and Double Ditch villages. There is also no evidence of a palisade or ditch at Jennie Graner. Perhaps the Mandans who lived there did not need a protective wall around their village—or perhaps evidence of lodges and ditches have been obliterated by farming and construction activities. Even in 1944, Will and Hecker reported that the site was eroding into the river and was severely impacted by modern earthmoving activities.

Aerial view of Huff Village State Historic Site, located south of the Jennie Graner site. Note earthlodge depressions and fortification ditch. (State Historical Society of North Dakota 00630-04)

The age of the Jennie Graner site is unknown, but Will and Hecker referred to it as “Archaic Mandan,” or what archaeologists now call the Extended Middle Missouri. The latest regional chronology of village sites gives the Extended Middle Missouri an age range of AD 1200-1400³. Ceramic analysis suggests Jennie Graner would fall toward the end of this age range, possibly in the late 1300s or early 1400s. Pottery styles and designs changed through time, but these changes did not happen overnight. New styles were tested and incorporated slowly, resulting in many ceramic forms occurring contemporaneously. Four types of ceramic “ware” have been identified from this site. The earliest wares are Riggs ware and Fort Yates ware. These are followed chronologically by Stanton ware and Sanger ware, respectively⁴. Riggs and Stanton wares have straight rims, while Fort Yates and Sanger wares have S-rims. The presence of transitional forms between Riggs and Stanton, and between Fort Yates and Sanger, suggests potters at Jennie Graner may have been experimenting with vessel construction and decoration.

Left: (a) Riggs ware rim. Note the tall rim and location of tool impressions directly on the lip; (b) Transitional form between Riggs and Stanton wares. Rim height is shorter, and tool impressions appear lower on the rim; (c) Stanton ware rim. Addition of fillet with tool impressions well below the lip of the rim. (All specimens SHSND 7123)
Right: (a) Fort Yates ware rim. The juncture of the rim and neck is angular; (b) Transitional form between Fort Yates and Sanger wares. The juncture is less angular and becoming more curved; (c) Sanger ware rim. The juncture between the rim and neck is curved. (All specimens SHSND 7123)

Jennie Graner is on land managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Recent testing of the site by State Historical Society archaeologists will tell us more about the size, age, and occupation length of the village, as well as whether it qualifies to be nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. We also hope to learn its relationship to the nearby Huff Indian Village State Historic Site and other Missouri River Mandan villages.

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¹ Will, George F. and Thad C. Hecker. 1944. The Upper Missouri River Valley Aboriginal Culture in North Dakota. North Dakota Historical Quarterly, vol. 11 (1-2), pp. 5-126.
² Hecker, Thad C. 1938. Morton County Archeology. Manuscript on file at the State Historical Society of North Dakota, Archaeology & Historic Preservation Division.
³ Johnson, Craig M. 2007. A Chronology of Middle Missouri Plains Village Sites. Contributions to Anthropology 47. Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, Washington, D.C.
⁴ Ahler, Stanley A. 2001. Analysis of Curated Plains Village Artifact Collections from the Heart, Knife, and Cannonball Regions, North Dakota. Research Contribution No. 42, PaleoCultural Research Group, Flagstaff, AZ. Submitted to the State Historical Society of North Dakota.

When I completed my bachelor’s degree many decades ago, I thought that I was done with school, finished with learning. Whether that was the result of book fatigue or just the glossy idiocy of youth, I am not sure. However, I eventually returned to school and was pretty darn close to 50 when I finally received my Ph.D. in American History. This time, I did not even pause in the learning process but kept on thinking, reading, and writing history – a student with no homework.

I became very comfortable in the study of history and never suspected that I would someday hop back onto that steep learning curve to write a book in an entirely different field of study. Archaeology. I think I took one archaeology course in college (it was required), but I don’t remember much about it.

Now I am writing a book (available next fall) about the people who lived in North Dakota in ancient times. I mean really ancient times. The first people (that we know of) came here around 13,000 years ago. My training as a historian little prepared me to write about people who did not document their lives and beliefs on paper. Throughout this process, I have ranted about archaeologists’ fuzzy dates, my frustration with the limits of archaeological research (they have to go find stuff buried underground!), and their scholarly disagreements. Nevertheless, through study I have actually come to know quite a bit about North Dakota’s earliest peoples.

I find them likable, these people who braved North Dakota before Lake Agassiz had become the Red River, and who probably met some pretty unfriendly animals when they first looked around the northern Great Plains. The first arrivals needed to find resources quickly. They needed food – meat and berries or wild greens – and potable water. They required materials to construct shelter. They had to locate good quality stone to make into projectile points, knives, hide scrapers, and other useful items for their tool kits. These resourceful, hardworking people (like so many who followed them), found all of these things in abundance and returned again and again when they needed what North Dakota had to offer.

Around 500 BC, hardworking people organized villages near the resources they needed to raise their families in North Dakota. (Andrew Knutson, artist)

I have learned a lot from them. No, I can’t knap stone into a useful tool or to turn a bison hide into clothing, though there are people who enjoy doing that sort of thing. My lessons are quieter, more internal, like: Be curious. Eat new foods. Learn new skills. Adapt to the environment. Meet new people and try out new ideas. Don’t settle for what is right in front of you; something better is just over the horizon. Listen to the younger generation; they may have the right answer to the problems you face. And don’t stand still; a short-faced bear may find you delicious!