New Legacy Amendment Documents
Posted by Date: 24 Jan 2012
The Minnesota Office of the State Archaeologist has posted three additional archaeological research reports to their website. These projects were funded with monies from the Clean Water, Land, and Legacy Amendment. These are edited versions of the original reports but are still fairly large files. Clicking on the titles will take you to the documents.
The 2010 Archaeological Reconnaissance Survey of Olmsted County, Minnesotawas completed by the Mississippi Valley archaeology Center and Strata Morph Geoexploration. The project entailed an examination of the recorded archaeological sites in Olmsted County as well as archaeological and geomorphological survey to locate additional previously undocumented sites. The study concludes that the low number of recorded sites in the county is the result of the limited use of the area by the early occupants and not the result of site destruction during modern times or lack of archaeological survey.
Investigating the Earliest Human 
Occupation of Minnesota: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Modeling Landform Suitability & Site Distribution Probability for the State’s Early Paleoindian Resources completed by the Archaeology Laboratory, Augustana College. The purpose was to determine if intact sites dating prior to 10,000 BC can be found in Minnesota. This was done through an extensive analysis of environmental and archaeological records. A small field component was also included. A lake sediment core from Fish Lake in Cottonwood County was analyzed to reconstruct the post-glacial environment of southwestern Minnesota. The report includes photographs of most of the projectile points they inventoried as part of the study.
An Investigation of Unrecorded Historical Cemeteries in Minnesota compiled by the Two Pines Resource Group, LLC. This study summarized what is known about unrecorded historic cemeteries in the state of Minnesota. Two Pines built the first comprehensive electronic database of historic period cemeteries in Minnesota. The list was garnered from an extensive literature search. Field investigations in three counties helped to determine the accuracy of the available data. The search identified 5,876 historic period cemeteries, of these 3,333 were classified as recorded and 2,543 as unrecorded. The study provides a foundation to help determine the scope of the unrecorded cemeteries issue in the state.
