Montana Paleoindian Artifact Recording Project: A Call For Data

Please help us to systematically record information about Montana Paleoindian artifacts, to contribute to a continent-wide database. Such projects are underway in many states, provinces, and parishes throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico (Anderson 1990a, Anderson et al. 2009), and are an extremely important source of information about the early human settlement
of the Americas. We need to get Montana on the map! 

For further information please click here.           Point Form

Montana Site Stewardship Program

The Bureau of Land Management and Montana State University have formed a partnership to develop a Montana Site Stewardship Program. The program will promote public awareness of both pre-contact and historic cultural resources in Montana. The program will begin monitoring sites in the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument (UMRBNM) lands. Over the next five years, the program will expand to additional lands throughout Montana.

What: Montana Site Stewardship Training
Where: Lewistown, MT
When: July 23-24, 2010
Cost: Free, lunch will be provided both days

What: Montana Site Stewardship Training
Where: Helena, MT
When: October 8-9, 2010
Cost: Free, lunch will be provided both days

• Prevent destruction of cultural resources due to the acts of nature, theft or vandalism.
• Preserve pre-contact and historic cultural resources for the purpose of conservation, scientific study, interpretation, and for their significance to American Indian people.
• Raise public awareness of the value of cultural resources through education and outreach.
• Support and encourage high standards of cultural resource investigation throughout the state.
• Promote stewardship of irreplaceable resources in perpetuity.
• Enhance communication, understanding, and collaboration among organizations, agencies, tribes, and individuals concerned with the protection of cultural resources.

• Site Stewards monitor archaeological sites in danger of vandalism or natural deterioration.
• Report any changes in a site to the professional archaeologist with jurisdiction over the site and working closely with Federal and State agency archaeologists.
• Use observations, field notes, drawings, and photography to record changes over time.
• Community education and outreach concerning the Site Stewardship program and the importance of preserving archaeological sites.

To become a Montana Site Stewardship volunteer, you must fill out an application and attend a two-day training workshop. To download the application please visit the MSSP website at http://www.projectarchaeology.org/MT_Stewards.htm

Volunteer training includes classroom instruction and fieldwork. To register for the upcoming workshop please contact Crystal Alegria at (406) 994-6925 or calegria@montana.edu. The program seeks volunteers with a strong interest in cultural resource conservation.