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| Archaeological researchers from the Mississippi Valley Archealogical Center hard at work uncovering hundreds of Oneota cultural features and artifacts at the Highway 35 reconstruction area in downtown Onalaska [Credit: Jo Anne Killeen] |
"We went into the project knowing that there was a possibility of finding material there," said Stevenson. "But we really didn't know for sure whether anything would be intact and we certainly didn't expect there would be as much as there was."
Artifacts from this excavation date as far back as1300 AD, and is only one of several Oneota sites in the Onalaska area. Roughly 1500 bags of material were collected from ancient refuse pits at this location, as well as many animal bones, tools and pottery shards.
"It's a challenging project because we've recovered so much so fast," said Stevenson. "But we were already preparing for that while we were out in the field we were thinking how we were going to deal with all the material when it was back in the lab."
And the excavation is only the beginning of the process. Paper work has to be filled out, and the artifacts have to be cleaned, sorted, analyzed and cataloged.
"There's basic housekeeping to do," said Stevenson. "We have to make sure all of our paperwork is in order because everything that we've brought in we have detailed documentation on exactly where we found it. And then we have to makes sure that everything is clean and dry and stable. And so that's what we've been working on as out highest priority for right now."
"It's actually a little overwhelming right now with all the materials that we have," said Wendy Holtz-Leith, research archaeologist with the Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center. "But, we have a lot of students from UW L who are archaeology majors who are hired to help us do all that. It's going to take a couple years to get everything processed. I mean, it's a lot more than you see out in the field."