Arkansas Archeology Month 2018 was celebrated throughout the month of March with a wide variety of presentations, activities, demonstrations and displays. Programs included talks on the history and archeology of Lake Dardanelle, Camp Halsey, Hollywood, southeast Arkansas, the Edgemont Bluff Shelter, Ozark bluff shelter studies, the Tillar site, early agriculture, and early pioneers.
Outdoor adventures, workshops and hands-on activities included canoeing, fishing, archery, bow making, trapping, mock excavations, stone tool making, basket weaving, a merit badge workshop, archeology themed Olympic style games, lab day, artifact ID, and excavations at Historic Washington State Park. Tours were held at Camp Monticello, the Walker Bluff Shelter, Old Independence Regional Museum, the University of Arkansas Museum Collections, and Crenshaw Mounds.
The Behind the Big House event explored extant slave dwellings and interpreted the experience of the enslaved people who inhabited them. It included live historical interpretations and lectures by historians and archeologists about the important contributions African Americans made to Arkansas’s history and foodways.
Aspects of Arkansas historic and prehistoric archeology were shared with some 1,700 individuals through 51 programs held at 28 venues around the state. Many of the programs were shared via Society, Survey and Chapter Facebook pages and other social media outlets, which included information on the activities as well as photos. Programs were also written about in newspapers and communicated to the public through television and radio. In addition, a Governor’s Proclamation was received from Governor Asa Hutchinson declaring March 2018 Archeology Month!
Besides the Research Stations of the Arkansas Archeological Survey, participants included:
State Parks: Historic Washington State Park, Hobbs State Park, Lake Dardanelle State Park, Parkin Archeological State Park, and Plum Bayou (Toltec) Mounds Archeological State Park.
Museums: Arkansas State University Museum, Delta Gateway Museum, Faulkner County Museum, Historic Arkansas Museum, Old Independence Regional Museum, Pine Bluff/Jefferson County Historical Museum, and University of Arkansas Museum Collections.
Libraries, Colleges & Others: Arkansas Tech University Anthropology Club, Ark-Homa Chapter of the Arkansas Archeological Society, Bella Vista Trails, Black History Commission of Arkansas, Clark County Historical Association, Community Education Center, City of Fairfield Bay, Drew County Historical Society, First Fellowship Group of the First United Presbyterian Church, Ko-ko-ci Chapter of the Arkansas Archeological Society, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Ouachita Chapter of the Arkansas Archeological Society, Preserve Arkansas, Red River Chapter of the Arkansas Archeological Society, Rick Evans Grandview Prairie Conservation Education Center, Tunican Chapter of the Arkansas Archeological Society, University of Arkansas Little Rock, and the University of Arkansas Press.
Special thanks go to the Bill Jordan Public Education Fund for funds offered in support of Archeology Month 2018.
The Archeology Month poster was sponsored by the Arkansas Archeological Society. It featured a photo of the landscape near the Mulberry River as viewed on an early morning at the Survey/Society Training Program June 2017 and was included in the national display of Archeology Month Posters at the 2018 Society for American Archaeology meeting in Washington DC.
Many thanks are given to all those who provided programs, donations, volunteer hours or participated in some way to make Archeology Month 2018 another great success!
Marilyn Knapp
Archeology Month Coordinator
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