UM group set for last summer studying Yellowstone Lake's prehistoric campsites

Doug MacDonald, an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Montana, displays a 9,000-year-old projectile point recovered near Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park. University of Montana photo by Todd Goodrich.

Proteins found on ancient stone tools recovered from the shores of Yellowstone Lake tell of great bear, deer and rabbit hunts. But researchers have found no signs of boat making – no bone hooks to indicate that paleo-Indians came to the water to fish.

An archaeology team from the University of Montana will return to the shores of Yellowstone Lake again this summer to wrap up a five-year survey on the lake’s prehistoric shoreline campsites.

Native Americans have traveled to the site for thousands of years and researchers want to know what attracted them to Yellowstone Lake. Did fishing play a part in their summer visits? Or were they only passing through to collect obsidian from the park’s rich volcanic cliffs?

“The main goal of the project is to record and evaluate the importance of all the archaeological sites around the lake,” said Doug MacDonald. “I’m trying to figure out what Native American hunter-gatherers were doing there, why they were going up there so frequently and using the lake so much from all directions.”

MacDonald, an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, has identified 285 prehistoric campsites around Yellowstone Lake. Funded by the National Park Service and aided by students, he spent the first two years documenting paleo-sites south of Gardiner and the last five years at water’s edge. [...] missoulian.com/ via TheArchaeologyNewsNetwork