The Future of Minnesota Archaeology
Over the last 50 years, state and federal laws have brought about complex regulations aimed at preserving archaeological sites. They have also provided a massive influx of funds to do archaeological work. But the laws have also changed the practice of archaeology. Archaeology in Minnesota is no longer research driven, but project driven. Most archaeologists do not reside at educational institutions, but at private contracting firms. Minnesota archaeology has become part of “Cultural resource management” or CRM, a government sponsored approach that has saved hundreds of sites and employed hundreds of archaeologists, but arguably has resulted in limited focused archaeological rsearch, especially when one considered the amount of money spent. This is not to say, however, that considerable research has not been accomplished over the last 50 years. Nonetheless, unlike CRM archaeologists in neighboring states like Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan, Minnesota’s CRM archaeologists have yet to substantially contribute to our knowledge of the state’s prehistory through readily available site reports, articles in major journals, and period syntheses.
A contributing reason for the lack of substantial contributions by professional archaeologists to our understanding of prehistoric Minnesota is the weakness of the Council for Minnesota Archaeology (CMA). The CMA was incorporated in 1971 to “promote archaeological research and interpretation within the State of Minnesota.” The core of its initial membership was the professional, anthropologically-oriented archaeologists in the state, all 10 of them. The membership of the CMA more than doubled within a decade as the state universities added archaeology programs and CRM needs expanded institutional staffs and promoted private contracting. In the early 1970s, the CMA took over production of the Minnesota Archaeological Newsletter from the University of Minnesota and sponsored volunteer excavations at the development-threatened Silvernale site (21GD3) in red Wing. It also began a series of spring symposiums to explore topics in Minnesota archaeology. The first symposium in 1976 focused on prehistoric ceramics, and in 1977 the CMA issued survey standards for doing field archaeology in Minnesota. By the late 1970s, however, the research objectives of the CMA took second place to resolving conflicts over membership, bylaw changes, and amending the state’s archaeological legislation. Committees proliferated and factions developed. The organization struggled throughout the 1980s, but was invigorated by new members and new challenges in the 1990s. It is now once again focused on its original objective: promoting research.
The development of prehistoric archaeology in Minnesota roughly parallels its growth in neighboring states like Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan. Following a period of often fantastic speculation, self-trained natural history archaeologists systematically charted the distribution of prominent sites, especially burial mounds, and searched for the remains of the earliest Minnesotans, among other wide-ranging interests. Between the 1930s and late 1970s, state archaeology was centered at the University of Minnesota. During this period, Lloyd Wilford identified the state’s main prehistoric archaeological cultures and arranged them in space-time charts. Since the late 1970s, archaeology in the state has become increasingly CRM centered. Although several hundred CRM archaeologists have examined thousands of sites and spent millions of dollars of government money in the process, CRM’s contribution to the public understanding of Minnesota prehistory remains minimal. An achievable goal for CRM archaeology in the 21st-century is a major reworking of Wilford’s outline of state prehistory.
Regardless of their varying interests, all of Minnesota’s archaeologists – serious amateur, self-taught professional, and trained professional – have contributed to our understanding of the first 12,000 years of human life in the state. Agreed. Nonetheless, in Minnesota at least seemingly intractable problems persist, for in our view a systematic state-wide advance in our understanding of state archaeology has not been made since Wilford’s (1955, 1960b) final summarizing papers. On the one hand CRM archaeologists are so busy pursuing and completing contracts that they do not have the time to write a book on Minnesota archaeology, even if they have a book in mind and would like to write it. Furthermore, few CRM archaeologists have jobs that give them paid time to write a book. On the other hand academic archaeologists usually have the time to write a book (and get paid for it), but do not have the time to search the minutiae of the good gray literature of the CRM world for sufficient up-to-date relevant information to write a book on Minnesota archaeology.
Our resolution of the dilemma – and it is not the only option – is to develop an active on-line series of books that allow (and encourage) contributions from both CRM and academic archaeologists. Modeled after the Wikipedia free on-line encyclopedia, the books are on-line and updateable, though additions and corrections must be sent to the editor or editors of each volume. Four books of this kind were put on-line on the University of Minnesota’s Department of Anthropology Web site in late 2008. The volumes are Archaeology of Minnesota: The First Thirteen Thousand Years (Gibbon and Anfinson 2008a), Minnesota Archaeology: A Brief History (Gibbon and Anfinson 2008b), Prehistoric Pottery of Minnesota: A Guide (Gibbon 2008a), and Stone Weapon Points of Minnesota: A Guide (Gibbon 2008b). The notion is that, given regular contributions by the archaeological community, a rich source of up-to-date information about Minnesota archaeology will be available within these volumes in a few years. The archaeological community is encouraged to contribute other volumes to the series, with obvious examples being a volume on the historical archaeology of the state and a guide to the state’s historic ceramics.
The volumes put on-line in the University of Minnesota Publications in Anthropology series are only one step toward developing an expanded, more ethnographic-like and developmental understanding of the state’s archaeological record. Fuller participation in the process by the state’s Native American communities would be another welcome and overdue step. Nonetheless, at this writing the future of Minnesota archaeology looks more promising to us than it has for several decades.
Contributors to this chapter: Guy Gibbon
Date of lat contribution: December 2008