By Patricia Emerson @ Minn Historical Society
June 17th, 2019 – In our letter of 13 March 2019, you were informed that the Minnesota HistoricalSociety (MNHS) will be sponsoring archaeological investigations at Historic FortSnelling @ Bdote in the spring and early summer of 2019.
This work will be done in connection with the Section 106 review of the proposed Fort Snelling Revitalization Project and Lower Post PPU Amendment that is currently being conducted by the National Park Service (NPS). A Programmatic Agreement (PA) is in place among NPS, MNHS, the Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) and Consulting
Parties (11 of which are Native American groups) which dictates the steps to be followed in order to complete the Section 106 process.
Our letter included a map which showed the areas scheduled for archaeological investigations. As design work on the Revitalization Project has proceeded, additional areas have been identified that will require some archaeological work to ensure that significant resources are protected during construction.
This map shows the updated plan for archaeological work this summer.
Note that the Remembrance Area ( Wokiksuye ) is now included in the plan. This is the site of the Medicine Bottle and Sakpedan hanging in 1865. The intent of work in this area is to ensure that remnants of historic structures or other archaeological features will not be damaged by plantings.
The current plan is to have archaeological fieldwork in this location at Historic Fort Snelling @ Bdote start on July 18, 2019. That date may need to change slightly if weather conditions are not favorable, but under no circumstances will archaeological work begin prior to July 17, 2019. It is estimated that it will take approximately one week to complete this aspect of the planned work. All other conditions expressed in our previous letter still hold.
If you wish to observe the work in progress, you are welcome to do so. If you are a consulting party to the Programmatic Agreement, the process is outlined in the Level Of Effort document. If you are not a consulting party, you are asked to respond to this notice if you plan to be on site to observe. We invite anyone with questions or comments about the archaeology plan to communicate with either of the two individuals listed below.
Sincerely,
Pat Emerson: Director, Archaeology Director
Joe D. Horse Capture: Director, Native American Initiatives
This Newsletter was Originally published by the Historical Society
