Hello HISTARCHers,

I would like to invite everyone to check out the student-run Facebook page for the Little Elk River Mission Site Project, currently underway near modern-day Little Falls MN.  The investigations are being conducted as part of St. Cloud State University's 2014 summer archaeological field school.

https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1428897947372456

The Little Elk River Mission site is is a 19th-century Episcopal-Methodist mission established among the Ojibwe, who lived in a village at the confluence of the Little Elk River and the Mississippi River.  The village was led by Chief Hole-in-the-Day, who invited the missionaries to establish a mission there in 1839.  Tensions between the Dakota and the Ojibwe forced the mission to be abandoned a few years later in 1841.  The site is part of what was formerly called  the Little Elk Heritage Preserve and is now an annex to Lindbergh State Park.  The site of the mission has been located but never excavated. We are conducting test excavations across the site in order to locate structures, features, and activity areas associated with the mission.

We are also working with Mr. Jim Cummings, a Park Naturalist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.  Jim is an archaeologist as well and is helping us to coordinate our public outreach efforts for the project this summer. There are two more public archaeology days at the site scheduled for Saturday June 7 and Saturday June 14.  For more information on how to register for a tour please see: http://www.sctimes.com/story/news/local/2014/05/27/public-invited-watch-dig-lindbergh-state-park/9616495/.  If you happen to be in the Central Minnesota area over the next couple of weeks, please stop by and see us!

Best,
Rob Mann


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Rob Mann, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Department of Sociology and Anthropology

St. Cloud State University

252 Stewart Hall

720 4th Avenue South

St. Cloud, Minnesota 56301

phone: 320-308-4181