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uwlmvac · 7 days
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These beer, wine, and liquor bottles from a late 19th- to early 20th-century logging camp in western Oneida County, Wisconsin, show a little variety in the beverages the occupants of the site consumed. The bottle on the far left has a slightly tapering top with a grooved ring, what is known as a brandy or wine finish. The second from the left has a straight top with a grooved ring, which is a straight brandy or wine finish, also known as a whiskey finish or a tapered collar with ring. These types of finishes were used on liquor bottles of various sizes and shapes in the latter half of the 19th century to the early 20th century (Lindsey 2021). Also among the liquor bottles was a clear base with “FULL PINT” embossed on the lower body (center left, bottom). The third bottle has a blob finish, which looks like a glob of glass had been applied to the top of the bottle. Such finishes were used on beer bottles from the 1870s to the 1910s (Lindsey 2021). The necks of these bottles have stopper closures, meaning a cork or other type of plug would have been inserted in the mouth to close the bottle. On the far right is the body and base of a dark olive green wine bottle.
Lindsey, Bill 2021    Bottle Finishes & Closures Part II: Types or Styles of Finishes. Electronic document, https://sha.org/bottle/finishes.htm, accessed March 21, 2023.
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uwlmvac · 14 days
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Wild rice can be recovered from light fraction flotation samples.  Wild rice was a popular food with precontact peoples across northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, including the La Crosse region. Harvested by canoe, it provided an excellent source of food, especially in places where maize agriculture was not feasible.  Wild rice has been found starting in the Middle Woodland Period in the Prairie du Chien area and is common at Oneota sites in the La Crosse area, where it complements the use of maize. The grains have a distinctive groove down the middle that allows archaeologists to identify even charred fragments. (left - Oneota, La Crosse County; right – modern) (drawing by Meg Rivers)
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uwlmvac · 21 days
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UWL Archaeology Alumni Podcast Series – Megan Kasten
Dr. Megan Kasten, who graduated from UW-La Crosse (UWL) in May 2012 with a BS in Archaeological Studies, talks about how a trip to Stonehenge sparked her interest in archaeology and her time at UWL inspired her to specialize in digital applications to the discipline. She also expounds on what took her to Scotland for graduate work in archaeology and the research on ogham stones that she now performs as part of the OG(H)AM project.
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uwlmvac · 27 days
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Bill Gresens’ Archaeology Book Review for March 2024
Trempealeau by John T. Umhoefer (3/4 trowels)
Mysterious things are happening in Trempealeau County, Wisconsin—in fact, the end of the world may be at hand!  Can a disgraced NASA official and a retired UW-La Crosse professor save the world? Read the entire review at:   https://www.uwlax.edu/mvac/book-reviews/?review=291124
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uwlmvac · 28 days
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These are remains from a fish called the freshwater drum (sheepshead). They were found in a refuse pit at an Oneota site in Onalaska. At the left is a pharyngeal arch—part of two matched pairs of plates in the fish’s throat, used for crushing mussels. The other four are otoliths, or “ear stones.” An otolith in each ear helps the fish with balance and movement. Two of the otoliths are burned. The three otoliths in the center are all lefts, and the one at the right is a right, from smaller fish. These right and left otoliths came from four different fish, and the pharyngeal arch represents another, smaller fish, bringing the total to five. Different sides and sizes of fish bones help us figure out how many fish are represented—the Minimum Number of Individuals, or MNI.
Freshwater drum have the largest otoliths of our freshwater fishes. The shape of drum otoliths makes them easy to identify, and their composition allows for exceptional preservation at archaeological sites. Comparing measurements of archaeological otoliths to modern specimens from fish of known weights provides a way for biologists and archaeologists to estimate size- and the contribution of drum fish to the diet. Otoliths from drum weighing 40 pounds or more have been found at La Crosse area Oneota sites.
In addition to mussels, drum eat snails and a variety of crustaceans.
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uwlmvac · 1 month
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Today, we commonly see trucks and semis haul loads over local roads and interstate highways, but people used to rely on wagons pulled by draft animals to move raw materials and finished goods. This axle and set of wheels from a historic site in Portage County, Wisconsin, are all that remain of one such wagon. The axle and wheels are encased in iron, which has rusted to a brownish gray to bright orange color. Historical research suggests that the wagon could have been used to haul wood to and from a nearby lumberyard associated with the S. H. Karner sawmill in the mid- to late 1800s. An 1884 Sanborn fire insurance map depicts a lumberyard, as well as other buildings that were part of the mill complex.
References
Nash, G.N., and F. R. Morgan 1876    Map of Portage County, Wisconsin. Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Sanborn Map Company 1884    Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Sanborn Map and Publishing Company, New York.
Stevens Point Daily Journal 1873    Stevens Point and Its Boom. 28 May. Stevens Point, Wisconsin.
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uwlmvac · 1 month
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Woodland tradition pottery features a variety of designs incorporating stamps. These grit-tempered rims from a site in La Crosse County, Wisconsin, fall into a Middle Woodland type archaeologists call Naples Dentate Stamped. A notched tool, such as a carved stick, was pushed into the clay to create a pattern of shallow impressions. Because the tool had tooth-like notches, the stamp is called “dentate” (think “dental” or “dentist”). The sherd on the left has a row of stamp impressions near the rim made by a tool with one or more columns of notches. Below that is a row of circular punctates (holes from pushing a tool into but not completely through the clay) and then another row of stamps. The smaller sherd on the right shows similar stamping on the rim. This pottery was made about two thousand years ago.
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uwlmvac · 2 months
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Throwback Thursday – 1985 Coon Valley Survey T-Shirt
This vintage MVAC t-shirt from 1985 highlights a systematic archaeological survey conducted in the Coon Creek drainage in Vernon, La Crosse, and Monroe Counties. Headed by Robert Sasso, the project surveyed almost 2,400 acres and documented 41 private artifact collections. Before the survey, only 28 sites were recorded in the drainage; this ambitious survey added 328 more. Archaeological surveys in MVAC’s early years contributed greatly to our knowledge of the region’s past. Bob Sasso completed his doctoral dissertation based on this research at Northwestern University in 1989, and is now an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
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uwlmvac · 2 months
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Bill Gresens’ Archaeology Book Review for February 2024
Diablo Mesa by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child (4/4)
Archaeologist Nora Kelly and FBI agent Corrie Swanson face grave danger in the wilderness associated with Area 51, Roswell, New Mexico and alien abductions! Read the entire review at:   https://www.uwlax.edu/mvac/book-reviews/?review=285037
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uwlmvac · 2 months
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youtube
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A new feature for 2024 is MVAC’s Video Glossary with short videos explaining archaeological terms.  For our first entries we’ll be looking at -
Flakes - A flake is a piece of stone that was chipped off of a rock. Flakes are the most common artifact we find at archaeological sites in the La Crosse region.
and
Temper - Temper is a material mixed with clay to change its characteristics, usually to prevent vessels from cracking as they dry and are fired.
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uwlmvac · 2 months
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Limestone might not be the first thing one associates with a kiln. Perhaps clay pots, plates, and mugs come to mind more readily. Yet, lime kilns were important for converting limestone to powdered lime for making mortar and plaster in the 1800s. This kiln, with the interior (top left), entrance (bottom left), and a diagram of its dimensions (right) shown here, was dug into an Iowa hillside. It is a periodic kiln, which would have cycled with a firing time of 72 hours followed by 12 hours of cooling (Mansberger and Straton n.d.). The upper third of the kiln was constructed of cut limestone blocks, and the lower two-thirds were cut out of bedrock (boundary marked by red arrow). The limestone blocks were either dry-laid, or if mortar was used to cement them together, it has decayed. Historical sources point to the kiln’s operation prior to 1870 (Andreas 1873; United States Department of the Interior, Census 1870; United States Department of the Interior, Census 1880).
Andreas, A.T. 1873    Illustrated Historical Atlas of Des Moines County, Iowa. Andreas Publishing Co. Lakeside Building, Chicago, Illinois.
Mansberger, Floyd, and Christopher Straton n.d.      The Griggsville Landing Lime Kiln at Ray Norbut State Fish and Wildlife Area, Pike County, Illinois. Brochure based on a report prepared for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
United States Department of the Interior, Census Office 1870    Ninth Census of the United States. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office. 1880    Tenth Census of the United States. Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office.
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uwlmvac · 2 months
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Mammoths and mastodons are both extinct ice-age megafauna, distantly related to today's elephants. The mammoth eats grass, and its teeth are flat to allow crushing the vegetation. The mastodon has a series of high bumps on the teeth to allow it to eat browse such as twigs. Mammoth remains are found predominantly on the plains, and mastodon predominantly in the eastern woodlands. However, the La Crosse area has remains of both species, suggesting that the vegetation here at the end of the ice age was a mosaic of both grassland and woodland that could support both species. 
Photo: Single tooth from: Left-mammoth, right-mastodon. The mammoth tooth is fragile and some of the tooth is broken, exposing the deep tooth enamel. Mammoth lose their teeth as they are worn down, and new ones emerge to replace them.
For more information about mammoths and mastodons visit MVAC’s video at: https://www.uwlax.edu/mvac/educators/archaeology-terms/?letter=m&term=164813
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uwlmvac · 3 months
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Though archaeologists analyze individual artifacts, they want to understand how they relate to other artifacts, from the scale of an excavation unit or feature up to the entire site and even the wider region. A group of related artifacts is called an assemblage. The artifacts might be from the same site, or part of a site, or made from the same material, such as lithics or ceramics. These lithic artifacts made of silicified sandstone all came from the same unit during investigations at a site in west-central Wisconsin. The top left is a projectile point tip and midsection that seems to have been beveled from resharpening. It could date to the Archaic tradition. The top center is a drill. The top right and whole bottom row are Madison Triangular points, which likely date to the Late Woodland tradition. They were part of the lithic assemblage, which also included debitage (waste flakes and tiny chunks or shatter from flintknapping), microdebitage (smaller flakes and shatter, typically less than ¼ inch), modified flakes, and cores in the same unit and other units at the site. Taken together, the artifacts in the lithic assemblage suggest people at the site were making stone tools from the early stages of production, as shown by cores, flakes, and modified flakes, to finished implements, indicated by flakes and microdebitage from fine work to finish the edges of tools.
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uwlmvac · 3 months
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UWL Archaeology Alumni Podcast Series – Kassie Haines
In this episode, we talk to Kassie Haines, who graduated from University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (UWL) in May 2011 with a BS in Archaeological Studies. She shares her perspective on UWL’s undergraduate Archaeology program, fun and challenging experiences in the field while working at MVAC as a student and beyond, and where life has led her—and the skills honed while earning her archaeology degree—since graduation.
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uwlmvac · 3 months
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Bill Gresens’ Archaeology Book Review for January 2024
The Romanov Conspiracy by Glenn Meade (4/4 trowels)
An American archaeologist leads an international team of experts to investigate the site of the mass execution of the Romanov family at the outset of the Russian Revolution. Read the entire review at:   https://www.uwlax.edu/mvac/book-reviews/?review=278550
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uwlmvac · 3 months
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This brass sleigh bell, or rumbler bell as they are sometimes called, was excavated in 2006 from an early 1830s to 1840s privy in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. The bell is missing a portion of one side as well as the loose iron ball from the inside. Bells were one of the most common sights and sounds in colonial and nineteenth-century America and were used for various purposes (Noel Hume 1970:59).
Noel Hume, Ivor 1970 Artifacts of Colonial America. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.
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uwlmvac · 3 months
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Petroglyph (rock carving) of a deer from Gullickson’s Glenn in Jackson County, Wisconsin.  Findings suggest that Native Americans were occupying the rockshelter as long as 2,000 years ago, although the petroglyphs probably do not date farther back than 800 years ago.  Excavations at the site have uncovered remnants of Middle Woodland and Oneota occupancy.
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