17th Annual Native American Artifact Show

The Campbell County Rockpile Museum and the Pumpkin Buttes Chapter of the Wyoming Archaeological Society invite the public to attend their 17th Annual Native American Artifact Show on November 10th, 2012. The show will be from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. and admission is free.   Come enjoy these fine collections of artifacts and listen to a great presentation by Dr. Charles A. Reher at 12:00 noon.

Charles A. Reher is a Faculty Archaeologist and Director of the Anthropology Museum at the University of Wyoming Department of Anthropology.  His presentation “High Plains Panorama ... Stone Circle Landscapes, Large Lithic Quarries, Human Effigies, Buffalo Jumps, and Interpretive Centers” highlights several interesting archaeological areas across eastern Wyoming, including for example the 2,500 stone circles (“tipi rings”) that have been recorded along a few miles of the Pine Bluffs escarpment, the Hartville Uplift “Spanish Diggings Quarries,” and the Vore Buffalo Jump.  Reher will also discuss a large human effigy rock alignment mentioned by early visitors to Spanish Diggings more than a hundred years ago and how after years of informal searching, this figure was finally relocated and mapping and documentation is underway.

Special attention will be given to the Vore Buffalo Jump where the butchered remains of more than 10,000 bison are sealed in levels extending down almost 20 feet in the bottom of a large round sinkhole.   Located right next to I-90, the Vore Site is the focus of a major ongoing interpretive center development by the Vore Buffalo Jump Foundation (vorebuffalojump.org).  The Windows on the Past Interpretive Center, a long-term cooperative research and public education project between the University and the Town of Pine Bluffs will also be discussed.

Dr. Reher tends to specialize in the archaeology of more recent Late Prehistoric and Early Historic Wyoming, but “likes it all,” from early historic glass bottles back to Late Pleistocene PaleoIndian spear points.  Other interests include prehistoric ceramics, butchered bison bones, tree-dating at high altitude bighorn sheep traps, and more.  Current research projects involve collections as diverse as early historic photographs from Eskimo villages, spear and arrow points from Argentina, and cartridges from early historic western Plains battlefields.