Archaeology of Idaho

Coloring and Activity Book Come join archaeologists

Strata and Datum

as they uncover mysteries of the past!

Strata Datum

Archaeologists Strata and Datum are looking for their lost field notes and they need your help to find them!

Look for the tools shown below as you

go through the book, especially the

field notes! They are the most

important tool an archaeologist uses!

C B M B W C Z S C M

O O T U E L U H O U

M A A C F I T O W G

P S R K G P R V Y B

A H P E Z B O E I O

S L S T K O W L N A

S M G S H A E S Z R

M Z I C W R L C A D

R H M R J D W A K W

W Y I E Z K I L B E

A S L E C A M E R A

T I Z N I K W Q F R

E G A D U S T P A N

R R J W L G H J I H

P A I N T B R U S H

Word Search!

Word Bank Compass Buckets Shovel Trowel Screen Scale

Whiskbroom Water Paintbrush Clipboard Dustpan

Keep looking though—there are a lot more!

Idaho Archaeology

Crossword Puzzle! 1. 2. 3.

4.

5. 6.

7. 8.

9.

10.

Word Bank

Fish

Bottles

Mortar

Camas

Mussels

Artifacts

Mammoth

Cultures

Nez Perce

Point

Elk

Across

1. Native American tribe that lives nearby.

4. Major food in the Nez Perce diet.

5. Relative of the elephant that roamed Idaho in ancient times.

7. What archaeologists seek.

9. Root crop commonly used by tribes in Idaho.

10. Artifact from recent times that historical archaeologists study.

Down

2. Another name for arrowhead.

3. Large animal the Nez Perce used for food.

5. The Nez Perce used this fresh water mollusc for food.

6. Stone used for grinding food.

8. Archaeologists study _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ .

4. Autumn foods include salmon, and

5. During the cold winter, dried and

meat is an important food staple.

6. Many different and gathered or hunted at the right time of year, are part of the

Nez Perce food system.

1. H

un

ters; 2. G

atherers; 3

. Season

s; 4. C

amas; 5

Ch

ino

ok; 6

. Hu

ckleberries; 7

. Elk; 8. D

eer; 9. A

nim

als; 10. P

lants; 1

1. Trad

itio

nal.

Solve this Puzzle! 1. The Nez Perce are skilled

and

2. They use these skills to collect food

that is available during certain

3. In the spring, they gather

a root food.

A B C

D E G

H I J

K L M

N O P

R S

T

U V

Replace these basic shapes with letters to decode these sentences!

Coloring page!

If you don’t see the field notes in this picture look on the next page!

Find your way to the center of this maze to recover the lost field notes!

How Flaked Stone Tools are Made!

It all starts with a cobble or large roundish rock. Usually people use

glassy rocks, like obsidian.

Safety comes first!

Safety goggles are a must.

Back view

To remove flakes from the cobble, a flinknapper will use a hammerstone or billet (a hammer made from antler, bone, or wood) to knock off a flake.

Once a flake is removed from the cobble, it can be made into a blank by removing more material. Even smaller flakes are taken off both sides to make the tool thinner (just like whittling a stick). Flakes need to be taken off both sides to keep the piece in balance.

Front view

By working both sides, a flintknapper will make a biface. The term biface means that the stone has been worked on its front and back sides, or both faces. When the biface gets too thin for percussion, a technique called pressure flaking is used to take off small, thin flakes.

The end result is a beautiful projectile point!

Much of the information presented here was adapted from work done by Idaho native Don E. Crabtree. Over decades of examining stone tool technologies, Crabtree was able to learn how to replicate methods used in the distant past. Today, Crabtree is recognized as a world renowned stone tool scholar. To learn more about Don Crabtree, please visit: http://www.uidaho.edu/class/anthrolab/signaturecollections/crabtreecollection.

Flintknapping , or working stone to create a tool, creates a lot of waste. The waste flakes are called debitage.

Removing flakes from the biface leaves flake scars. These often help

archaeologists determine if something is really a tool made by human hands.

What kind of archaeologist do you want to be?

The first is called pre-contact archaeology. This involves looking for the archaeological

record of people who lived in an area of North America before European contact and settlement. Professor Lee Sappington

does pre-contact archaeology in Idaho.

The second is called historic archaeology. This kind of archaeology looks at the archaeological record

after Europeans settled North America.

At UI, Professors Stacey Camp and Mark Warner are both historic archaeologists.

At the University of Idaho,

we specialize in two types of archaeology.

Archaeology is such a wide field of study, that you can choose to study a specific period of time, place, or culture. Today, archaeologists work in every corner of the world studying the many ways humans have behaved through time. Here are some examples:

But there are a lot more kinds of archaeology around the world...

...like Egyptology! Egyptologists study the ancient history of the

Nile Valley in Egypt. This was one of the first established

fields of archaeology.

...or underwater archaeology. Underwater archaeologists use

SCUBA and other diving gear to examine shipwrecks or sites that have been inundated with water.

...or zooarchaeology, if you like animals! Zooarchaeologists analyze bones and other animal remains to

draw conclusions about how humans interacted with animals in the past.

To learn more about the different fields of archaeology, please visit the Alfred W. Bowers Laboratory website: www.uidaho.edu/

class/anthrolab. You can also ask us questions on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/BowersLaboratoryof Anthropology.

Other helpful resources include the Society of Historical Archaeology (www.sha.org), or the Society for American Archaeology

(www.saa.org), or the Idaho Archaeological Society (www.idahoarchaeology.org).

Booklet created by Leah Evans-Janke, Ariana Burns, and Amber Ziegler

with contributions by:

Olivia Guthrie, Alyssa Schoeffler Griffith, Michelle Sing, and Mallory Triplett

Come and join Strata and Datum again next year for all new

archaeological adventures!