Anthropology Field Studies

NMU Archaeological Field School – Summer 2012 Beaver Island

Anthropology Faculty Fieldwork Update

Beaver Island - Mormon Print Shop & île de Castor Site. Test excavations occurred behind the old Mormon Print Shop (current home of the Beaver Island Historical Society) during the summer archaeology field school (2012); artifact analysis is underway from this multi-component site. Beneath the historic layers was an occupation zone from the Late Woodland Period (ca. A.D. 900-1100), complete with pottery, stone tools, cultural features filled with fish bones, and butchered beaver and muskrats. This may have been a beaver hide processing station.

Beaver Island - Cable's Bay Fishing Village. Survey and test excavations took place at this coastal site during the NMU summer 2010 archaeology field school and during the summer of 2011; artifact analysis continues. Research and results of analyses will be part of the exhibit "Scattered To The Winds - The Vanished Community of Cable's Bay" which will open in late April of this year at the Beaumier UP Heritage Center on NMU's campus.

Beaver Island - Burke Farm. Survey and test excavations took place at the Mormon and Irish farmstead during the NMU summer 2010 archaeology field school; artifact analysis continues.

Chicago Lakefront Archaeology Project – historic artifact analysis from excavations along the lakefront (ca. 1904-1921); analysis and preparation of publication continues.

Traditional Cultural Use Study - Blackfeet and Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park and National Elk Reserve

Mormon Mountains Cultural Landscape Study - Recently, Professor Alex Carroll was awarded a two-year grant to study linkages between the oral histories of Southern Paiute, Western Shoshone and Goshute communities with rock art of the Great Basin. The fieldwork component of this study will be conducted during summer and outstanding students may be selected to participate in this research.