Community outreach, digital heritage and private collections: a case study from the North American Great Plains

ABSTRACT

Artifact collectors are commonplace the world over. They range from individuals with personal collections, to organized looting ventures which supply artifacts to market. In the United States, a strong tradition of artifact collecting exists in the North American Great Plains. In this region, artifact collections obtained from private lands are a common and potentially important source of information about the past. Here, we report on ‘Artifact Roadshows’ which are held to document lithic projectile points held in private collections. Through these events – which include the three-dimensional digitization and general artifact recording – we have expanded our understandings of collector motivations, created a platform to educate on best practices, and begun to appreciate the types of analyses which can be run on data accumulated in such contexts. These efforts seek to encourage collaboration between professional archaeologists and the public in documenting the heritage of the Great Plains.

KEYWORDS:

• Great Plains
• digital heritage
• artifact collections
• public archaeology
• projectile points

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matthew Douglass

Matthew Douglass is Program Coordinator for the Master of Applied Science, Science for Educators Specialization at the University of Nebraska. His research concerns primarily landscape archaeology and lithic analysis, in the Great Plains, Australia and Africa.

Dennis Kuhnel

Dennis Kuhnel was the Center Director for the USDA Forest Service National Grasslands Visitor Center in Wall, South Dakota from 2014-2017.  He is currently a District Ranger for the Middle Fork Ranger District on the Salmon-Challis National Forest in Challis, Idaho.

Matthew Magnani

Matthew Magnani is a doctoral student at Harvard University. His research interests include lithic technology, paleoanthropology and digital photogrammetry.

Luke Hittner

Luke R. Hittner is the Burley Field Office Archaeologist for the Idaho Bureau of Land Management. Luke received his M.A. in Professional Archaeology under Dr. Matthew Douglass at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His research interests include: Public Outreach and Interpretive Methods, Lithic Sourcing, and Cultural Resource Management.

Michael Chodoronek

Michael Chodoronek is an Archaeological Technician at the Black Hills National Forest, US Forest Service. His research interests includes: adapting digital technologies to field environments, public outreach, and lithic sourcing of the Northern Great Plains.

Samantha Porter

Samantha Porter is a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include digital photogrammetry, old world archaeology and lithic technology.