This poster details the archaeological collections housed at the University of Wyoming Archaeolog... more This poster details the archaeological collections housed at the University of Wyoming Archaeological Repository (UWAR) located in Laramie. The repository houses approximately 3 million artifacts from 15,000 different Wyoming sites as well as comparative, replica, experimental, and educational materials. We highlight our extensive suite of artifacts from across the state, which includes artifacts from all time periods from the Paleoindian to the Historic. Many of these objects are submitted through private donations, academic research, or are curated by contractors through Section 106 projects. We also discuss our partnerships with state, federal, and local agencies to complete education and outreach programs. These programs increase awareness and use of our archaeological collections in a variety of ways including hosting visiting researchers, loans to museums and historical societies, exhibit preparation, school group tours and classroom activity development, and an archaeological collections management class for undergraduates and graduates at the university. Finally, we show how we have used information from our own research on older collections to enhance modern investigations.
This poster details the archaeological collections housed at the University of Wyoming Archaeolog... more This poster details the archaeological collections housed at the University of Wyoming Archaeological Repository (UWAR) located in Laramie. The repository houses approximately 3 million artifacts from 15,000 different Wyoming sites as well as comparative, replica, experimental, and educational materials. We highlight our extensive suite of artifacts from across the state, which includes artifacts from all time periods from the Paleoindian to the Historic. Many of these objects are submitted through private donations, academic research, or are curated by contractors through Section 106 projects. We also discuss our partnerships with state, federal, and local agencies to complete education and outreach programs. These programs increase awareness and use of our archaeological collections in a variety of ways including hosting visiting researchers, loans to museums and historical societies, exhibit preparation, school group tours and classroom activity development, and an archaeological collections management class for undergraduates and graduates at the university. Finally, we show how we have used information from our own research on older collections to enhance modern investigations.
In this article, chipped stone raw materials from the Garrett Allen site are discussed, with emph... more In this article, chipped stone raw materials from the Garrett Allen site are discussed, with emphasis on the stone tools. As indicated by Eckles (2013), who discussed the history of investigations and chronology, this is one of several articles to be presented on various aspects of the site’s artifacts. One of the remarkable aspects of the site is the variety of chipped stone raw materials. There are varieties of flint, chert, agate, jasper, chalcedony, petrified wood, orthoquartzite, metaquartzite, quartz, silicified shale, clinker, non-volcanic glass, obsidian, and basalt from many parts of Wyoming and surrounding states. The diversity of raw material types is present throughout the cultural deposits. There is no knappable tool stone on site; the only rocks are small fragments of drab, buff-gray sandstone. All culturally manipulated lithic materials were therefore brought into the site, many from considerable distances. The site is located on private land in southeastern Carbon County, Wyoming at the northern end of the Medicine Bow Mountains and southern edge of the Hanna-Carbon Basin. It is within a homoclinal valley near the perennial Quealy Spring. Deposits are primarily alluvial, derived from the surrounding geological formations (Hayter 1981:31).
Because hominins relied so heavily on stone tool use, our entire bodies and minds took particular... more Because hominins relied so heavily on stone tool use, our entire bodies and minds took particular evolutionary paths. The complexity of the human hand, including the length of the thumb and capability for precision, allowed for the use of stone tools among our ancestors. Higher cognitive decision making skills, motor skills, and cultural transmission of ideas have allowed for those ideas to grow in complexity and spread throughout the world. Cognition of the mind and morphology of the hand have co-evolved to coincide with tool use. I attempt to focus on why and how the modern human hand was selected for as an evolutionary advantage driven by the use of stone tools through the use of previous research. Multiple routes of investigation can best help serve to answer this question. Since nonhuman primates are our closest living relatives, I compare multiple studies involving their stone tool use, hand morphology, and cognitive capabilities. Additionally, I explore how bio-mechanics of the hand and cognitive processes of the mind co-evolved with stone tool use.
Collection-based research has often been overlooked as a means to pursue research questions and g... more Collection-based research has often been overlooked as a means to pursue research questions and goals designed by anthropologists and archaeologists. I provide an example of how using collection-based research conducted from The Garrett Allen Site archaeological collection, stored at the University of Wyoming Archaeological Repository, can be an effective means to provide insight to relevant archaeological questions. Excavations done by George Frison and Garrett Allen between 1968 and 1980 revealed hundreds of projectile points, several ceramic fragments, ground stone, bone tools, shell beads, faunal remains, and thousands of pieces of debitage. Preliminary macro-analysis studies of the debitage have shown extreme geomorphic and geological differences in the raw material assemblage (Eckles and Guinard 2014). Further research isolated a temporal setting of the site (510 +- 110 BP) and examined debitage, formal tools, and projectile points collected during previous field investigations in order to establish how specific raw materials were entering the site (Guinard 2013). I show that data obtained from collection-based research of this site could be used to not only examine single aspects of an assemblage, but also to facilitate several avenues of research. I also attempt to connect collection based research to the development of archaeological theory: how old data can help shed new light on current theoretical perspectives. Finally, I address the importance of collection-based research and the impact it could have on the fields of Anthropology and Archaeology as a whole.
This poster details the archaeological collections housed at the University of Wyoming Archaeolog... more This poster details the archaeological collections housed at the University of Wyoming Archaeological Repository (UWAR) located in Laramie. The repository houses approximately 3 million artifacts from 15,000 different Wyoming sites as well as comparative, replica, experimental, and educational materials. We highlight our extensive suite of artifacts from across the state, which includes artifacts from all time periods from the Paleoindian to the Historic. Many of these objects are submitted through private donations, academic research, or are curated by contractors through Section 106 projects. We also discuss our partnerships with state, federal, and local agencies to complete education and outreach programs. These programs increase awareness and use of our archaeological collections in a variety of ways including hosting visiting researchers, loans to museums and historical societies, exhibit preparation, school group tours and classroom activity development, and an archaeological collections management class for undergraduates and graduates at the university. Finally, we show how we have used information from our own research on older collections to enhance modern investigations.
This poster details the archaeological collections housed at the University of Wyoming Archaeolog... more This poster details the archaeological collections housed at the University of Wyoming Archaeological Repository (UWAR) located in Laramie. The repository houses approximately 3 million artifacts from 15,000 different Wyoming sites as well as comparative, replica, experimental, and educational materials. We highlight our extensive suite of artifacts from across the state, which includes artifacts from all time periods from the Paleoindian to the Historic. Many of these objects are submitted through private donations, academic research, or are curated by contractors through Section 106 projects. We also discuss our partnerships with state, federal, and local agencies to complete education and outreach programs. These programs increase awareness and use of our archaeological collections in a variety of ways including hosting visiting researchers, loans to museums and historical societies, exhibit preparation, school group tours and classroom activity development, and an archaeological collections management class for undergraduates and graduates at the university. Finally, we show how we have used information from our own research on older collections to enhance modern investigations.
In this article, chipped stone raw materials from the Garrett Allen site are discussed, with emph... more In this article, chipped stone raw materials from the Garrett Allen site are discussed, with emphasis on the stone tools. As indicated by Eckles (2013), who discussed the history of investigations and chronology, this is one of several articles to be presented on various aspects of the site’s artifacts. One of the remarkable aspects of the site is the variety of chipped stone raw materials. There are varieties of flint, chert, agate, jasper, chalcedony, petrified wood, orthoquartzite, metaquartzite, quartz, silicified shale, clinker, non-volcanic glass, obsidian, and basalt from many parts of Wyoming and surrounding states. The diversity of raw material types is present throughout the cultural deposits. There is no knappable tool stone on site; the only rocks are small fragments of drab, buff-gray sandstone. All culturally manipulated lithic materials were therefore brought into the site, many from considerable distances. The site is located on private land in southeastern Carbon County, Wyoming at the northern end of the Medicine Bow Mountains and southern edge of the Hanna-Carbon Basin. It is within a homoclinal valley near the perennial Quealy Spring. Deposits are primarily alluvial, derived from the surrounding geological formations (Hayter 1981:31).
Because hominins relied so heavily on stone tool use, our entire bodies and minds took particular... more Because hominins relied so heavily on stone tool use, our entire bodies and minds took particular evolutionary paths. The complexity of the human hand, including the length of the thumb and capability for precision, allowed for the use of stone tools among our ancestors. Higher cognitive decision making skills, motor skills, and cultural transmission of ideas have allowed for those ideas to grow in complexity and spread throughout the world. Cognition of the mind and morphology of the hand have co-evolved to coincide with tool use. I attempt to focus on why and how the modern human hand was selected for as an evolutionary advantage driven by the use of stone tools through the use of previous research. Multiple routes of investigation can best help serve to answer this question. Since nonhuman primates are our closest living relatives, I compare multiple studies involving their stone tool use, hand morphology, and cognitive capabilities. Additionally, I explore how bio-mechanics of the hand and cognitive processes of the mind co-evolved with stone tool use.
Collection-based research has often been overlooked as a means to pursue research questions and g... more Collection-based research has often been overlooked as a means to pursue research questions and goals designed by anthropologists and archaeologists. I provide an example of how using collection-based research conducted from The Garrett Allen Site archaeological collection, stored at the University of Wyoming Archaeological Repository, can be an effective means to provide insight to relevant archaeological questions. Excavations done by George Frison and Garrett Allen between 1968 and 1980 revealed hundreds of projectile points, several ceramic fragments, ground stone, bone tools, shell beads, faunal remains, and thousands of pieces of debitage. Preliminary macro-analysis studies of the debitage have shown extreme geomorphic and geological differences in the raw material assemblage (Eckles and Guinard 2014). Further research isolated a temporal setting of the site (510 +- 110 BP) and examined debitage, formal tools, and projectile points collected during previous field investigations in order to establish how specific raw materials were entering the site (Guinard 2013). I show that data obtained from collection-based research of this site could be used to not only examine single aspects of an assemblage, but also to facilitate several avenues of research. I also attempt to connect collection based research to the development of archaeological theory: how old data can help shed new light on current theoretical perspectives. Finally, I address the importance of collection-based research and the impact it could have on the fields of Anthropology and Archaeology as a whole.
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