February 15, 2024

The Center for Anthropological Services has been awarded a contract by the Minnesota Historical Society to conduct a county-wide archaeological survey of Mower County. The goals of this project include locating previously unrecorded archaeological sites, assessing the condition and updating information about previously recorded sites, and helping public agencies and the general public to understand the human history of Mower County. This project is financed by the State of Minnesota with funding from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the Minnesota Historical Society.

February 2, 2024

Students in Professor David Davies’ Fall 2023 Museum Anthropology course (ANTH 3030 Topics in Sociocultural Anthropology) developed four exhibits exploring recent archaeological excavations at the 830 Simpson House site (1881–1945). The remains of the house are now located beneath the lawn east of Bush Library. 

Student exhibits provide insights into the history of the Hamline campus and the social and cultural dimensions of archaeological investigations. The exhibit cases are located on the second floor of Bush Library near the Dean’s Office (Bush Library 201).

Students interested in participating in future excavation at the 830 Simpson House site should contact Professor Brian Hoffman (bhoffman@hamline.edu) for additional information.

January 3, 2024

HUCAS has chosen our spring 2024 Museum Collections Management interns! Congratulations to Madyn DuPaul, Kayla Klinkenberg, and Ray Wilner on their selection. 

HUCAS offers paid internships working with our staff on cataloging and inventorying of archaeological collections held at Hamline University. This internship can meet the Hamline Plan LEAP requirement and is an excellent opportunity for students wishing to obtain hands-on experience relevant for careers in environmental education, museums, archaeology, public history or related fields. 

May 31, 2023

The Hamline University Center for Anthropological Services has been awarded a Minnesota Historical & Cultural Heritage Grant for a project at the Grand Meadow Chert Quarry in Mower County, Minnesota, titled "A Pilot Study Using Ground Penetrating Radar at the Grand Meadow Chert Quarry Preserve/Wanhi Yukan (21MW0008)." This grant is financed with funds provided by the State of Minnesota from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the Minnesota Historical Society. The project is also generously supported by a funding match from the Mower County Historical Society, and expert input from earlier researchers at the site.

For thousands of years Native people obtained chert, a special stone for making tools, at a location near the modern town of Grand Meadow, MN. This process involved digging the stone out of a shallow deposit, creating hundreds of pits across an area covering over 170 acres. Most of these pits have since been leveled by farming, but an 8-acre area with nearly 100 existing pits has been preserved on land purchased by The Archaeological Conservancy in 1994. 

The project supported by this grant will take place on The Archaeological Conservancy's preserve and will apply an Indigenous-centered archaeology approach to test the effectiveness of ground penetrating radar for exploring buried features at the site. The fieldwork will be carried out by HUCAS and the Hamline Archaeology Field School, with support from the Archaeology Department of the Minnesota Historical Society and the Mower County Historical Society, and with advisory oversight from the Dakota Communities at Lower Sioux and Prairie Island.

By Kelly Holm

February 18, 2019

The Oracle

An interview featuring Desiree Haggberg and Kyle Knapp about a historic human remains case from Faribault, MN.  

By Katie Gioloto

August 25, 2018

Star Tribune

An interview featuring Amanda Gronhovd, Dr. Susan Myster, Jeremy Jackson, and Kyle Knapp about the Historic Human Remains Project.