The Hamline University Center for Anthropological Services (HUCAS) recently completed a Legacy grant-funded project on lands owned by the Archaeological Conservancy at "Wanhi Yukan" in southeast Minnesota. At the conservancy's request, HUCAS Archaeology Supervisor Erin Dinneen wrote up a brief synopsis of the project for the Field Notes column of the Fall issue of their magazine, American Archaeology.
From the article:
“Wanhi Yukan” means “there is chert here” in Dakota. The preserve, a 15-acre remnant of the original 175-acre open-pit chert mine, was purchased by The Archaeological Conservancy since the site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. Wanhi Yukan once contained an estimated 2,000 pits dug by Native Americans to obtain Grand Meadow chert to manufacture stone tools. Historic aerial imagery indicates that the site was once much larger than the 15 acres included in the preserve today, but farming of the surrounding area has led to filling of many quarry pits.
