Connecting People, Past and Present:

Collaborative Archaeology in Red Cliff, WI

Speakers: Heather Walder, PhD & Marvin DeFoe, THPO
March 28, 2021 • 3:30pm • Zoom!

Dr. Heather Walder and THPO Marvin DeFoe will be the March 28 virtual lecturers.

In northern Wisconsin is a recently developed and ongoing collaborative program, Gete Anishinaabeg Izhichigewin [Ancient Anishinaabeg Lifeways] Community Archaeology Project (GAICAP). It is a shared effort between the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO) and academic archaeologists.

Dr. Walder relates: “Our project began in 2018 with the return and reanalysis of pre-contact and historic artifact collections from a Beloit College 1979 field school for curation at THPO, followed by excavations in Frog Bay Tribal National Park. Work focused on a parcel of the park repatriated to Red Cliff through a purchase from a private landowner in 2017.”

Driven by shared interest in protecting and understanding the multicomponent Archaic through Late Woodland period occupations at the Frog Bay Site (47BA60) and others nearby, this project involves Red Cliff community members, students, and additional stakeholders in all stages of planning, research design, excavation, and interpretation. Young people and adults are involved in excavating, flintknapping and in cooking, for example.

Distinctive aspects of the site – such as a lithic industry based on the reduction of locally available quartz cobbles – link its inhabitants with those of other nearshore sites in the Apostle Islands and wider western Lake Superior region, while non-local lithic materials speak of more distant social and economic connections in the midcontinent.

This presentation will focus on the results of the 2018 and 2019 excavations and community-based events and outreach related to the Frog Bay site, sharing evidence of the long-term continuity of Native people going back at least 5,000 years at the site. In 2021, they hope to return for more fieldwork and public programming, as long as they can do so safely. For the upcoming season, work will be on a much more recent historic site; plans include an archaeological survey of an area known as the “Old Pageant Grounds,” which was the location of an early 20th century tourist pageant in 1924 and 1925.

Heather Walder is an anthropological archaeologist (PhD 2015, UW-Madison) interested in interregional interaction and diaspora communities of the Upper Great Lakes during the 17th century and long-term cultural continuities in the region.  She is a Lecturer at UW-La Crosse and also a Field Museum Research Associate specializing in elemental analyses of glass trade beads and other artifacts to learn about colonial-era interactions and exchange networks.  In 2018 and 2019, she co-directed GAICAP, along with Dr. John Creese of North Dakota State University, and THPO Marvin DeFoe. Collaborative, community-based research and lab-based analytical methods inform her scholarship and teaching. 

Marvin DeFoe (Anishinabe name Shingway Benase which means sounds coming from Thunderbirds’ wings) is of the Namay (Sturgeon) Clan. His current work is THPO Tribal Historical Preservation Officer for the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, protecting sacred, archeological, and burial sites past, present and future. 

He writes “Our community in which I live is located on the south shore of Lake Superior, which we call Red Cliff.  I am one of 1,500 tribal members that reside here. My education is primarily attending Anishinabe school, lifelong learning of our traditions, stories and knowledge. I have been taught by private professors that we call Elders.”

Join us on Zoom (or Facebook Live) on Sunday, March 28, as we explore the fascinating work of these collaborators.  Members sign on early at 3:15pm for an informal period before we open to the public at 3:30pm.

Topic: Dr. Heather Walder & Marvin Defoe,THPO -
“Connecting People, Past and Present:  Collaborative Archaeology in Red Cliff, WI”
Time: Mar 28, 2021 03:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
 
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