Between 1993 and 1995, a team of archeologists
undertook an excavation of prehistoric animal bones in the Deerfield area of
the Black Hills. They found bison, mountain lion, deer, elk and a range of
smaller animal bones. Work on the age of the specimens is still underway, but researchers
estimate some of the bones date as far back as 8,000 years.
After excavation, the bones were taken to the
Illinois State Museum in Springfield, where they stayed for more than 20 years. In
2017, the US Forest Service moved these back to South Dakota, and students in
the paleontological resource management class at SD Mines stepped up to help.
The students took part in an effort between the US Forest Service, the
South Dakota State Historical Society Archaeological Research Center, and the Museum of Geology at the South Dakota School
of Mines & Technology to curate
these specimens.
“A lot of times, in different repositories,
this material will just sit and sit for years,” says Mike Hilton, the heritage resources
program manager for the Black Hills National Forest. Hilton gives praise to
Sally Shelton, the associate director of the Museum of Geology at Mines, and
the students in her paleontology resource management class. The students
undertook the bulk of the work in the project to unpack, assess, catalog and
prepare the animal bones for storage at the Museum of Geology. Other parts of
the collection were curated at the Archaeological Research Center (ARC) in
Rapid City.
“The collections will now be accessible and
available to local experts. We have a vested interest in taking care of this
collection and learning more from it,” says Katie Lamie, the repository manager
at ARC.
The project also helped students explore the
intersection between archeology and paleontology. “We really need each other in research like
this,” says Shelton. Paleontology is the study of life in the distant past long
before humans, while archeology more often involves specimens from the more
recent past during the evolution of humans. “This is the youngest collection
that any of these students have ever done,” says Shelton.
“We married this school with a different
branch of science we’re not used to working with,” says Julie Driebergen, who
finished her master’s degree in paleontology at SD Mines this spring.
“We’re super appreciative that they thought of
us for this project. Tt was a great opportunity for us,” adds Shannon Harrel, a
master’s student in paleontology at Mines.
The American public and local communities also
benefit from this effort. “This is still federal property, and we have a
responsibility to properly curate this for public use and knowledge,” says
Hilton. “This is part of the history of the Black Hills and this resource is
now available for future generations to learn more about our past.”