By Lotte Govaerts and J. Daniel Rogers
(This post was originally published on the Rogers Archaeology Lab blog on February 14, 2019. You can see the original post archived here.)
Although we haven’t been very active on our blog or our Twitter, we have been pretty busy these past few months, both in and out of the lab (mostly out of the lab during the month of January, because the government shutdown closed our lab for most of that month, along with the rest of the Smithsonian). In this post we’ll discuss some of the things we’ve been working on recently.
The cataloging work on the 39BF2 (Medicine Crow) collection continues, though the project was unavoidably on hold during the shutdown. Since our last update on that work, Lotte has finished numbering the Archaic components and moved on to other Plains Village components of the collection, which include a variety of ceramic, lithic, and bone artifact types as well as some metal. We will be posting more updates on the 39BF2 project as the work progresses.
Aside from cataloging, Lotte has been working on her dissertation, as well as several manuscripts which are in various stages of publication. So far only one of those has been published: a short review of Michael M. Casler and W. Raymond Wood’s “Fort Tecumseh and Fort Pierre Chouteau: Journal and Letter Books 1830–1850, which appeared in North Dakota History Vol. 83, issue 2. We will share information on the other publications once they are in print as well.
Additionally, she presented on her thesis research at two conferences. Most recently at the Society for Historical Archaeology’s annual meeting, which was held in St. Charles, Missouri in early January. A few months before that, she spoke at the 2018 National Fur Trade Symposium. This meeting, hosted by the Northern Plains Heritage Foundation, the Lewis and Clark Fort Mandan Foundation, and the State Historical Society of North Dakota, took place in late September in Bismarck, North Dakota. The National Fur Trade Symposium is a triennial event where fur trade historians, archaeologists, and other scholars gather. The event is held at various locations across the West. It includes research presentations, field trips to fur trade-related sites, and living history demonstrations.
Dan, meanwhile, has been busy writing his book. The book’s working title is In the Age of Empires. Over the last three months he has drafted sections on the Natchez, Arikara (Sanish), and Pecos Pueblo. While on an extended stay in Santa Fe (Dan is retired now) he was able to consult with experts on the archaeology and history of Pecos Pueblo.
The three newly drafted sections of the book are part of a larger case study about European expansion into North America. Next up for the book project is the fascinating story of the Aztec Empire’s encounter with Cortez and his expedition. Dan directed excavations at Aztec-era sites in the Toluca Valley back in the 1990s. He has plenty of material to draw on for this chapter of the book.
Stay tuned for more updates on the book project.
References
Casler, Michael M., and W. Raymond Wood, eds. Fort Tecumseh and Fort Pierre Chouteau: Journal and Letter Books, 1830 – 1850. South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2017
Govaerts, Lotte E., “REVIEW: Fort Tecumseh and Fort Pierre Chouteau: Journal and Letter Books 1830–1850. Michael Casler and W. Raymond Wood, eds.” North Dakota History 83, 2, 37–38. (pdf)
National Park Service, Pecos National Historical Park, New Mexico, https://www.nps.gov/peco/index.htm
Northern Plains Heritage Foundation, 2018 National Fur Trade Symposium – “Old Forts Never Die” The Middle Missouri Fur Trade, 1738-1850, http://www.northernplainsheritage.org/2018-national-fur-trade-symposium.html
