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July 2008
July 20, 2008
July 11, 2008
Summer 2008 Farmer's Market Preview
The Farmer’s Market is expanding operations to include a food-only Friday morning market from 7:30 until 10:00 a.m., according to Market Master Rob Bankston. A number of local businesses, including On the Rise Bread Company, Adagio, Chadz, and Hearthstone will be serving breakfast featuring local ingredients alongside market vendors selling fresh produce and prepared food including sticky buns, breakfast sandwiches, baked bread, and fresh-baked pies.
The food-only market on Friday mornings will supplement the regular market, which is currently held every Wednesday from 4:30 until 7:30 p.m. in front of the Miles Park Bandshell. The Wednesday market fare is varied and includes fresh produce, meat from local ranchers, shaved ice, fresh-cut flowers, plant starts, hot dogs and hamburgers, draft beer, jewelry, custom lawn chairs, pottery, massages, fresh bread, seafood, framed art-work, baked goods, and other wares. Many food vendors say they can demonstrate higher quality than is available in supermarket equivalents, and most offer samples and background information about their products.
Many market-goers describe the market as a community event rather than a simple shopping experience. There is a free raffle every half hour and local businesses donate items ranging from deep-fried Oreos to hot springs passes to gift certificates. Extra tickets are given to those who walk or bike to the market, and those who bring their own grocery bags. Every market features live music from 7 to 9 p.m., children and dogs are welcome, and local non-profits sponsor booths with information about their programs and volunteer opportunities.
The non-profit Corporation for the Northern Rockies (CNR) took over management of the weekly Farmers Market from the Livingston Depot Foundation in the early 2000s, and continues to manage the market. The market initially sprang from the efforts of five women: Ursula Neese, Dee Dee VanZyl, Betse Stuart, Hillary Roth, and Traci Isaly. Neese says they had no interest in managing the market, but saw a place for it in the community, and “did the legwork” to gauge interest and get vendors involved.
Big Brothers Big Sisters began managing the market in 1997, and the non-profit held the market at the fairgrounds for a short stretch before moving to Rotary Depot Park, where the Depot Foundation eventually assumed management. The Depot ran the market for about three years before CNR assumed management and moved the market to the Miles Park Bandshell, according to Lill Erickson, founder and executive director of CNR.
The upcoming Friday Farmer’s Market will reflect the growth the market has seen over the last seven years, says Erickson. Rob Bankston, Market Master, reports that when CNR began running the market a maximum of thirty-two vendors participated. The market eventually expanded to include as many as sixty-seven vendors, and over the 2007 season a total of 600 vendors participated, reporting $115,000 in sales.
Weekly attendance ranges from two to five hundred market-goers on average, says Bankston, who volunteers at the Farmer’s Market and six other local organizations. Bankston’s service in the community recently merited the Governor’s Civic Engagement Award. He says the market is a great community event and he is proud to be a part of it.
Erickson says a good reason to come to the Farmer’s Market is “it’s fun!” Also, the market “creates a sense of community” and “strengthens bonds among the people.” She calls the market a cycle of giving and receiving, and “a gentle kind of economic development that is very powerful.”
She also stresses the importance of “knowing your grower,” or establishing a relationship with a local farmer and being aware of where food comes from and how it is treated. Erickson says the Farmer’s Market is “an important component of a comprehensive marketing program that CNR has.” CNR promotes sustainable stewardship by focusing on economic incentives of sustainable practices and facilitating their employment, according to Erickson. Their marketing program includes the “Farm to Restaurant Campaign,” a state-wide campaign to facilitate the sale of regional meat and produce to local restaurants, which brought more than $150,000 to six regional producers last year from participating restaurants.
CNR encourages children to participate in the Farmer’s Market, offering “youth booths” for $2 each Wednesday. The booths were previously free to children, but CNR began charging a small fee in order to educate young entrepreneurs about business costs. Erickson says the children’s program is “one of the best economic development tools” as it teaches business skills and concepts like overhead and supply and demand. CNR donates the proceeds from youth booths to local non-profits, often with much ceremony, to teach children to give back to the community.
Some children are already doing well in the program. Hannah Gracey, 12-year-old jewelry maker, has benefitted from selling earrings from her booth “Hannah’s Creations.” Her success at the market selling earrings made from glass beads and clear string resulted in being offered a display at the Obsidian Collection, where she sells finer sterling silver pieces with some semi-precious stones. Gracey casually refers to her earring trade as “a side thing.” Other children sell everything from baked goods to painted rocks to spoon puppets.
July 16 will be Kids Day at the market, with a magician, a dunk tank, music by Jimmy Conley’s students, and other attractions.
Local businesses and organizations also work with CNR to make the market a success. Livingston Memorial Hospital, through the efforts of food and nutrition services manager Jessica Wilcox, works with CNR and market vendors to serve and sell local products at the hospital. Currently the hospital purchases all of its beef and lamb from vendors Wolfridge Lamb and Indreland Beef, and Wilcox is working with health inspector Doris Morgan to begin serving local produce as well. Wilcox says the hospital’s efforts to buy locally help the local economy, decrease the hospital’s carbon footprint, and provide food of a higher quality and nutrient content to patients and visitors at the hospital.
Many people involved with CNR and the Farmer’s Market express optimism about statewide success in efforts to buy local, natural food products. Programs like the Farm to Restaurant Campaign, the Farm to School program, and Livingston HealthCare’s budding “farm to hospital” program are meeting with success and garnering state-wide interest, according to Wilcox.
CNR’s Lill Erickson sees the new Friday morning Farmer’s Market as an important step in developing community participation in the Farmer’s Market. Many local businesses and institutions are beginning to buy local products, and many are finding the endeavor economically viable. The Farmer’s Market serves as a hub of local trade and community interaction, and recent growth of the market indicates growing community support of the burgeoning trend to buy local and sustainable products.
—Wes Venteicher
editor@livingstonweekly.com
A Bird in the Hand:Tracing Patterns in a Changing Climate
During one of the recent late-spring thunderstorms here in Livingston, a small group of dedicated wildlife enthusiasts gathered in a classroom at Washington School to increase their awareness about birds and learn about bird conservation through a special lecture by master bird bander Neil Travis, titled “A Bird in the Hand.”
In the prelude to the final lecture of a weekly series celebrating International Migratory Bird Day, bird bander Travis milled among the crowd answering questions and preparing for his presentation.
Even the steaming coffee offered on a side table was certified “bird friendly,” from farms in Latin America that provided “good forest-like habitat for birds” according literature from the Smithsonian National Zoological Park displayed alongside the carafe.
As the birders took their seats, Rachel Feigley, a bird biologist for the National Forest Service, introduced herself and the topic soon to be discussed: “Tundra to Tropics: Connecting Birds, Habitat and People,” the theme of the 2008 International Migratory Bird Day.
“I see many familiar faces,“ Feigley noted, indicating a number of individuals and couples who had previously been present at Migratory Day field trips and lectures held over the past month. She then turned the floor over to Travis, a naturalist who has held a master bird banding permit since 1964.
Travis traced a long history studying birds, from a youth in the midwest in Michigan to the Rocky Mountains and the American southwest. A seasonal summer resident of the Livingston Area, he maintains a mountain bluebird trail along Trail Creek Road and bands birds in the area. During the winters, he volunteers as an interpretive naturalist in Saguaro National Park near Phoenix, Arizona.
In his long bird banding history, Travis said he had experienced close encounters with “hawks, owls and big birds all the way down to the hummingbirds,” which he affectionately referred to as “hummers.”
Travis is one of only 2,000 master bird banders in the United States and Canada, and admitted that since otherwise it is a federal offense for any unlicensed person to handle or disturb migrating (not game) birds, he considered his volunteer position “a great privilege.”
From the Time of the Pharaohs
“Bird banding started originally with falconry, and was initially used to mark trained birds,” said Travis, introducing a short history of the banding of birds. He indicated te origins of falconry went all the way back to ancient Egypt, but the first record of a metal band (or “ring” in Europe) used to mark a bird could be traced to the reign of Henry IV in France in the late 1500s. According to the tale, one of the king’s peregrine falcons took off after a large swift-running bustard. The banded falcon was recovered 24 hours later 1,350 miles away on the island of Malta, meaning the falcon would have traveled at least 56 miles per hour in the overnight flight.
By 1710, bird banders were beginning to realize that birds were moving around quite a bit when a German bander captured a banded heron from Turkey. The first purely scientific banding ever noted can be traced to John J. Audubon who tied thin silver wires to the legs of a brood of eastern phoebes in new England and discovered the following year that many returned to nest in the same location. However, it was Hans Mortensen, Travis said, who set the current standard for present banding procedures. In 1899, Mortensen placed bands inscribed with his name and address around the legs of waterfowl, starlings and hawks in hopes the bands would be returned to him if found.
Throughout the early 1900s, more bird banders tested effective techniques for banding and identifying birds and began to get organized in conjunction with the 1916 Protection of Migratory Birds Convention. In 1918 the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was established between the United States and Canada insuring that all migrating birds (not game birds) were protected, making it a federal offense for any unlicensed person to handle or disturb birds.
Shifting Patterns
“Birds have fascinated man since the earliest dawn of time...because they can do something we all wish we could do,” said Travis, “They’re the only creature that, under their own power, can fly.”
Man has always wondered where birds go when they fly off, especially for a season, continued Travis. He explained that among many of man’s early theories as to where the birds might have been going included the idea that the birds in the winter and the summer were the same and just changed their appearance with the season or the once widely-accepted idea of spontaneous regeneration.
Many may have even thought the birds could have been hibernating, said Travis. But eventually as people traveled around the world and across continents they realized that birds migrated, or moved from one region or habitat to another each season. Then the question arose as to how some of the smaller birds such as the “hummers” were migrating; were they nestling in the feathers of larger birds?
Decades of work by dedicated bird banding volunteers has helped to dispel many myths and strengthen scientific evidence about bird migration patterns. Banders have tracked individual birds, looked at general species distribution patterns and determined how numerous any given species may have been in any particular area. And while bird banders continue this work, “We pretty well know where birds go and where they are concentrated now,” Travis said, indicating the major flyways of the Atlantic, Mississippi, Rocky Mountain and Pacific in the western hemisphere.
Now, banders are looking more at the condition of birds the capture and release. “Migratory birds are in trouble,” said Travis. Due to fragmented habitats and obstacles that make it difficult for birds to migrate, some bird species are in steep decline.
After studying bird populations for over 40 years, Travis said he has a clear indication that something in the climate is changing, “I don’t know why it’s changing, but I know that it is...Birds are coming north earlier and we are seeing species in places they have not been before.” Travis noted as examples the turkey vulture and the common crow in Park county, “30 years ago you never say a turkey vulture here, and never a common crow and now they’re all over the place...something is happening.” He also indicated the disappearance of once-plentiful species such as the nighthawk, but noted that the reason for the particular species scarcity may have nothing to do with the local climate, but perhaps changes to one of the other climates the nighthawks call home.
Some of the changes Travis noted have been ongoing and subtle for the last 30 years, but recently he said has seen changes “so rapid and accelerated things cannot adapt to them.” He also indicated weather patterns that appear to be changing, and since most birds migrate during the spring or the fall—two of the most violent seasons of the year—this could disrupt migratory patterns. He also stressed the importance of darkness for night migration patterns in a country that is becoming rapidly illuminated.
Presently, banders are still accumulating longevity records and endeavoring to establish averages to see if the averages are changing, said Travis, as well as accumulating nesting and breeding information with an emphasis on sexing and aging but the continuing data collection will provide scientists with a barometer of the change currently being experienced by migratory birds.
Catch and Release
Originally, bird banding started out with simple traps, said Travis as he displayed a number of traps he said he still sometimes uses. But the traps had many limitations, among them the ability to catch flying birds (as the traps were located on the ground), and the fact that the traps could only hold a few birds at a time.
Another option for catching birds in the wild would be to find a nest and weigh, examine and band hatchlings. Travis said that although the method could be successful for banding large colonies of birds like seagulls, it limited the age range of the birds dramatically.
With the advent of the Japanese-developed fine nylon net in the 1940s, bird banders finally had the perfect tool for humanely netting and releasing birds. “It changed bird banding in ways we never could have imagined,” said Travis.
The mesh-like net is stretched between two aluminum poles and suspended in the air where it may catch everything from snowbirds and turkey hawks to sparrows.
After netting a bird and getting it in the hand, Travis explained that banders record data of the weight and possible pollen cover on the bird before attempting to determine the age or sex, which can be a near-impossible challenge in some cases. Some breeding females have a “brood patch” on their chest, or a small featherless area where they nest close to their eggs to indicate their gender, but without such a patch some birds are difficult to sex.
“There are some birds you still cannot identify in the field,” said Travis, holding up a large and thick manual and flipping through it to display microscopic text. He explained that the manual in his hand described minute differences in feathers and beak measurements, among many other indicators, that made it possible to gain a good identification.
Banders also perform fat studies on the bird to determine health and age and sometimes collect blood samples or DNA data to aid in population studies. Some banders even track avian pathogens such as bird flu while gathering the regulation banding data. Once data is collected, the birds are set free to fly away
All data collected is entered into a computer program that feeds information to the USGS Bird Banding Laboratory. The government provides the computer software and the bird bands, but it is up to the banders to come up with their own nets, safety glasses, gloves and other tools of the trade. Regardless of the investment, Travis admitted, “Its just fun to handle birds; it’s every birder’s dream...warblers, terns, gulls, screech owls, long-eared owls...”
In order to gain a master bander’s permit Travis explained that a birder must not only know birds, but must be willing to learn much technical information. Interested banders must serve an apprenticeship before being endorsed by a licensed bander. The process can take up to two years, and is a completely volunteer effort.
The Migratory Mystery
Once Travis had prepared the group for the upcoming early morning trip to net, band and release birds on DePuy’s Spring Creek, he shared his deep affinity for the avian species with all assembled in the small classroom by telling the story of the bristle-thighed curlew, a bird that nested only in a small part of western Alaska, and its phenomenal journey from birth to follow a genetic migration route from the tundra to the tropics with no roadmap, fellow bird or parent to show it the way. How did they do it? He asked.
“We will never know how they do it, and it is that marvel that keeps me coming back,” said Travis, “Despite all of our human intelligence, birds do something we are unable to do,” or even understand, when they follow their natural migration routes. He then closed the lecture with a reading from “Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds” by Scott Weidensaul.
“In our lifetime, migration as we know it will fade away,” read Travis.
As he continued with the excerpt, the crowd was visibly moved by the rhythm of the Earth Travis described evident in observing the patterns of birds.
Regardless of the unknown future of migratory birds and the uncertain climate of the world, Travis said he still has great hope for bird populations, and stressed that education is key to a healthy future. “If people get an affinity for something,” he said,” they are inclined to preserve it.”
—Reilly Neill
news@livingstonweekly.com
Birding Experts Share theWorld's Greatest Destinations
You know those irresistible, “palpable” kinds of books that a reader yearns to touch? A book that’s ideal in size—eight by seven inches with a satisfying heft—which elicits delight when the perfect pages are turned, or by caressing the flawless dust cover or running a hand hand along the elegant spine? Such a book is “Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die” by Chris Santella.
Readers will recognize its high quality instantly when they open it to any page and see that it miraculously lies flat when opened. Absolute perfection. And by the way, the book’s editorial content is darn good, too, which is a bit surprising since author Chris Santella is not a hardcore birder. Instead, he’s the “Fifty Places” guy—writer of several other guides in Stewart, Tabori & Chang’s series, including “Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die”, “Fifty Places to Play Golf Before You Die”, “Fifty Places to Sail Before You Die”, and “Fifty Favorite Fly-Fishing Tales”.
Santella was well aware that he was less than qualified to select “top birding sites” all on his own, so he solicited input from a host of birders and ornithologists, biologists, tour leaders and science writers, and a different individual nominated each of the 50 places in this book.
The author interestingly showcases many of the greatest bird-watching venues in the world—both at home and abroad—with interviews from stellar birding notables like David Allen Sibley, author and illustrator of the “Sibley Guide to Birds”; John W. Fitzpatrick, director of the world-famous Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology; Rose Ann Rowlett, the mother of modern birding; and Steve McCormick, president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, among many others. Santella interviewed these birding world luminaries and elicited the most amazing places they’ve been to bird watch. Included among the fascinating destination descriptions are also travel tips and great-read stories about the fifty “faraway places with the strange-sounding names.”
It’s estimated that some 60 million Americans count birding among their hobbies, be it to hang bird feeders in their backyards or accumulate personal “yard lists,” or to participate in annual “Christmas counts.”
A lucky few have the means to travel to the ends of the earth to, literally, see every bird in the world. If you are one of those arcane individuals who actually do aspire to personally “see every bird in the world,” fellow birder Dan Koeppel’s wonderful yet sobering memoir, “To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifetime Obsession” may be an inspiration. Author Koeppel describes his father’s dogged pursuit of glimpsing every single species of the world’s 10,000+ birds, at enormous cost to his family, his own personal happiness, even his sanity.
No list of “Fifty Favorite Birding Places” is going to please everyone, and one’s top birding spot may not have made it onto Santella’s list. (No place in Montana did, except for Yellowstone National Park which was listed under Wyoming.)
But one of my favorite places did: the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge near Socorro, New Mexico. Yes, it’s about 1100 miles from Park County, but hey, it’s a straight shot south—an easy day-and-a-half drive. Yes, gas prices are criminal and getting worse all the time, but who knows what the state of affairs may be by late November—the best time to visit the Bosque? Perhaps the planets will realign themselves serendipitously, and lovely, long road trips may yet again be possible for us all. At any rate, birders looking for the ultimate experience have just got to visit the Bosque sometime, at dawn and dusk, and especially under the light of a full moon.
From late November through early January, visitors to the Bosque witness the spectacle and grandeur of migrating greater sandhill cranes (at times up to 20,000), white and blue phases of lesser snow geese, Ross’s geese, Canada geese (around 30,000 geese altogether), and an impressive array of ducks (up to 50,000), all coming to rest and feed for awhile in an oasis in the Chihuahuan Desert. Oh yes, and there are plenty of raptors, too: bald and golden eagle; prairie falcon; hawks including ferruginous, Swainson’s, and red-tailed, northern harrier; and the beautiful, feisty little American kestrel.
A visitor’s first sight of the 57,191-acre Bosque is of a sun-drenched flood-plain with more than 80 constructed water impoundments, rimmed by vegetation and graced by occasional, large and lovely cottonwoods. The remainder of the refuge is comprised of arid foothills and mesas, bounded by rugged, distant mountains to both west and east. The refuge straddles the Rio Grande about 20 miles south of Socorro, New Mexico, at the far northern edge of the Chihuahuan desert.
The ducks are the first to show up here, in early October. Then the greater sandhill cranes start coming in later in the month, then the geese start arriving in early November. Mid-November through mid-January are the best wildlife viewing times. By the first of March, most of the waterfowl have moved on—and (a word to the wise) mosquitoes start moving in. Choose your visiting time at the Bosque accordingly.
Be sure to check out what I call the “sandhill crane sneak.” About 30 minutes before sunrise, make sure to be in place along the water impoundments on the west side of the road between the refuge and the village of San Antonio. Get your binoculars ready—alas, it’s too early and dark for cameras. Observing from the dirt levee, you can dimly see the sleeping cranes in the middle of the pond: dark motionless lumps, heads tucked under wings. And then, the false light of pre-sunrise begins to gather. The cranes pop their heads up, almost in unison. First one, then two, then choruses of cranes begin their characteristic vocalization, a chittering silvery purr. But the growing light elicits no great flurry of crane wings to the sky—that frenzy is for the ducks and geese. Cranes are far more sedate and stately.
As the sunrise light grows and finally touches their bodies, the sandhill cranes gradually begin what I call their “sneak walk.” One at a time, the cranes begin walking very, very slowly—step by deliberate step—from the water onto land. Sometimes they appear to be moving in single file, other times not. As full sunshine paints the landscape, the cranes slowly and deliberately take wing, usually in small clusters of three to eight individuals. Their huge wings flash magnificently against the dawn. Fifteen minutes after sunrise when camera shutter-speeds are still too slow to catch action in the dim light all of the cranes have left the ponds. Show’s over, folks, now it’s time for feeding in nearby fields.
My favorite Bosque activity is walking out onto the refuge under a full moon, when the waterfowl and cranes fitfully attempt to sleep frequently “startling”themselves awake with a torrent of vocalization due to some danger, real or imagined.
Most folks come to the Bosque to see the daily “fly-out” just before dawn or the “fly-in” shortly before sunset—the wonderful sights and sounds of thousands of waterfowl moving to and from the relative safety of mid-pond where they cluster together for the night for safety. The silhouetted skeins of geese, ducks and cranes against the flaming skies are heart-stoppingly beautiful.
During the last two weeks in November, the world-famous “Festival of the Cranes” at the Bosque celebrates the annual spectacle of the southbound waterfowl and crane migration, typically drawing up to 10,000 visitors to the refuge and surrounding area. Someday—gas prices permitting—I hope to go back to the Bosque, and I hope local birders get a chance to see it too, sometime.
Inevitably, the experience of visiting these birding hot-spots will be changed (and quite possibly degraded after a time) by the increasing number of folks who will visit them… not to mention issues of habitat degradation, deforestation, and global warming. But you’d better go and see the birds anyway. Now, while they’re still here.
—Jane Susan MacCarter
Larry Lahren's "Homeland"
Archaeological evidence in Park County confirms a human presence 11,000 years ago, placing the region among the earliest in North America known to have been populated. Just after giant ice age glaciers receded, the area that is now Park County was covered in steppe-tundra vegetation similar to present-day Alaska. Natives hunted wooly mammoth along the Yellowstone River and roamed the country alongside beaver as big as grizzlies and Hummer-sized giant sloths.
When a present-day resident of Park County feels pangs of hunger, a cheeseburger or a sub sandwich might spring to mind. The modern hungry human does not need to rouse a group of spear-hurtling hunters to pursue lunch, but at the end of the quest he or she will experience the age-old satisfaction of a full belly. “Whether you’re killing a jackrabbit and eating it or whether you’re going to Albertson’s, you’re doing the same thing, you’re acquiring protein,” says Larry Lahren, local archaeologist and author of a collection of essays titled “Homeland: An Archaeologist’s View of Yellowstone Country’s Past”.
In the collection of essays Lahren attempts to make archaeology accessible by noting common elements in the lives of ancients and moderns. “There is no such thing as a primitive culture; culture adapts,” he says.
The book opens with an autobiographical essay where a young Lahren is introduced to the hunt by his father, grows to engage in “tribal warfare” with neighboring gangs of 1950s toughs, undergoes rites of passage in the world of academia, and later gains intimate knowledge of animal behavioral patterns as a hunting guide. Lahren spends time in Calgary, but is inevitably drawn back to Montana.
In the book Lahren identifies basic needs that have always driven humans. “There are certain anthropological mandates that go through all cultures; there are just variations in them in time,” says Lahren. Such necessities include food, the technology to get it from somebody else, social and family organization, division of labor, and a religious system.
By focusing his research on survival needs, Lahren says he avoids what he calls “the symbolic, spiritual, noble savage thing.” Instead he interprets artifacts in the context of their use for survival in the environment where they are found. He seeks evidence of a sustained and consistent relationship with the land over generations which could contribute to the identification of a homeland.
Lahren identifies a “Greater Yellowstone Homeland,” which includes the Northern and Middle Rocky Mountains of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho as well as the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. He approaches the region as “an environmental and cultural system that is first viewed in and of itself, and not as a marginal part of other ethnographically known culture areas.” Lahren’s method differs from the traditional approach to Rocky Mountain archaeology, which considers some cultures in the Continental Divide area to be “marginal” or “non-typical” branches of central core areas. Core areas were identified by anthropologists according to relatively recent written historical accounts, whereas Lahren’s method identifies cultural trends in much older archaeological records of hunter-gatherer cultures.
Lahren refers to a quote by newsman Tom Brokaw, who said “regions and eras influence those who come of age in them…I will always be a descendant of those who bent their backs against the soil and hard times and held true to their bearings.” Lahren expands upon Brokaw’s notion of a lifelong connection with a place, stating his intent to tie one life to “everybody else’s lifetime over 11,000 years, so everybody’s considering this a homeland.”
The essays also cover specific “digs” led by Lahren. The most significant dig site Lahren worked was the “Anzick” site near Wilsall, which Lahren calls the “Rosetta Stone” of the people of the new world. The discovery of the Anzick site in 1968 was particularly important with regard to the religious practices of the native inhabitants of 11,000 to 11,500 years ago, during what is called the Paleoindian period. Before the discovery of the Anzick burial site, the finds from the Paleoindian period in North America were limited to a few scattered kill sites and campsites. The Anzick site is the burial site of a 2-year-old child and a wide array of intact artifacts at a location where drainages come together and trail systems meet. The burial site indicates religious practices of the ancient inhabitants. Lahren writes that the child was buried at the geographically significant location with the artifacts because “it was possible to enter the underworld passage to the ‘otherside camp’ through the most distinctive land form in the valley floor.” Many of the artifacts were coated in red ochre, which Lahren identifies as an attempt to appease hunting spirits. The inclusion of heirloom tools and an intentionally broken antler tool likely indicate shamanistic rituals performed at the site.
The remains were dated by identification of projectile points found at the site. “Clovis” projectile points found at Anzick are of the same make as a distinctive point first dated in Clovis, New Mexico. There a point was found embedded in the remains of a wooly mammoth that became extinct 11,000 years ago. Radiocarbon dating also confirms the age of the artifacts.
Lahren calls his collection of essays a humanistic contribution, because he wrote the essays for the lay reader. The credo of Lahren’s consulting firm, Anthro Research, is “to sell science and contribute to humanity.” Lahren’s firm was contracted by federal and state agencies to oversee several major digs in Montana and nearby states. The firm currently conducts environmental impact surveys of locations slated to be altered by construction. Lahren also attempts to contribute to humanity outside the activities of Anthro Research, conducting educational outreaches and seminars as well as museum work to preserve and display artifacts of Park County’s past. He recently gave a slide-show presentation at Carnegie Library in Big Timber, where master flint-knapper Ray Alt demonstrated aspects of prehistoric hunting practices and the stone tool-making process.
One notable endeavor was a summer program to educate Indian youth of the Fort Peck tribes (Assiniboine/Sioux) about their cultural identity. Lahren worked with Don Petterson and Ernie Bighorn to teach youths how to craft stone tools, construct stone hearths, and to conduct “archaeological reconnaissance” to locate places where their ancestors may have resided. Lahren says it helped teach the kids to get away from “a savage image that they were different.” Some went on to pursue degrees in anthropology.
Lahren defines a homeland as a place where one was born and one’s ancestors were buried. He says the average person with an interest in people could look at the archaeological record and see patterns and parallels relevant to their day to day world. He says archaeology and anthropology develop a historical framework so that you can look at the past and at the present and project what the future might be.
–Wes Venteicher
editor@livingstonweekly.com
Yellowstone National Park
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