Doug Jones

Recent Research on the Underground Railroad in Cedar County, Iowa.

Abolitionist activities, Underground Railroad conductors, and Underground Railroad routes have historically been well-known and documented in Cedar, Johnson, and Clinton counties. This situation distinctly contrasts with the lack of information about these types of activities occurring in other surrounding counties. This presentation will primarily focus on further exploring and examining the Cedar County underground railroad activities and abolitionists. This presentation will also include a brief discussion of the archaeological research conducted in 2008 at the North Liberty Cemetery by the State Historical Society of Iowa, the Cedar County Historical Society, and the Midwest Archeological Center, National Park Service in support of the Iowa Freedom Trail Project.

Doug Jones is the Archaeologist and Review and Compliance Program Manager with the State Historic Preservation Office, part of the State Historical Society of Iowa in Des Moines. Doug has been involved with archaeological and historical research in Iowa for over two decades. Protecting Non-Renewable Resources: Excavating the truth about heritage theft"

William

Whittaker

Pre-Historic Earthworks in Iowa.

Bill Whittaker, Ph.D., R.P.A., is a project archaeologist at the General Contracts Program at the Office of the State Archaeologist at the University of Iowa. He received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. He has published in several journals, including Historical Archaeology, Plains Anthropologist, Geoarchaeology, Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, Journal of the Iowa Archaeological Society, Archéolozoologia, and North American Archaeologist. He is the editor of a book on the frontier forts of Iowa recently published by the University of Iowa Press. Mythology Written in Stone: Connecting Traditional Meskwaki Beliefs to Woodland Period Cosmos using Adena Tablets” Presented by George Horton and Sarah Horgen. Using the Adena Tablets and Fox Nation stories collected by Dr. William Jones and Folklorist Mary L. Owens in the late nineteenth century, overlapping mythologies extending from the Dorset Arctic region through the midcontinent of North America may be illustrated by taking a new look at these intriguing images carved in stone. The seemingly simple print blocks may have expressed intertribal stories on hide panels, and may show how peace and distant trade was ushered into the Hopewellian period with imagery of extinct sloths, the Earthmother, and the Great Hare among others.

Sarah Trabert

Glenwood Locality Ceramics: Testing Former Models and Introducing New Techniques

Utilizing ceramic assemblages collected from two Glenwood (mid-thirteenth to fifteenth century) sites in western Iowa, 13ML79 and 13ML235, a descriptive analysis was completed to help understand the enigmatic form and function of the eastern most Nebraska phase sites vessels. This new data was also compared to spatial models detailing the variations between northern versus southern portions of this region as proposed by William Billeck in his 1993 PhD dissertation “Time and Space in the Glenwood Locality: The Nebraska Phase in Western Iowa.” This new ceramic data largely supports Billeck’s conclusions regarding geographic variability and shows that the assemblages reflect typical Nebraska phase ceramics except for a few sherds which may represent contact with neighboring groups.

Sarah Trabert is a second year graduate student with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Iowa. The focus of her master’s thesis work is Glenwood ceramics, Nebraska phase of the Central Plains Tradition. Following the completion of this research she plans to continue studying ceramics. Her dissertation work will focus on the re-analysis of Dismal River (proto-historic Apache) ceramic assemblages from Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado. She hopes to contribute to Central Plains studies in early Apachean ceramic vessel forms, culinary practices, and the extent of contact between Apache cultures and other groups of people in the Southwest