- Archeology is an important field that blends science and the humanities.

We're here at the state archeological fair in Laramie, speaking with Gwendolyn Kristy, one of the leading archeologists in Wyoming.

I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS.

This is "Wyoming Chronicle."

(light music) You are an archeologist, right?

- Yes, I'm an archeologist.

I work for the State Historic Preservation Office.

- What is archeology?

What's your definition?

- Archeology is the study of humans past through their material culture.

So the physical things left behind from humans throughout human history.

- From humans.

So you're not looking for dinosaur bones.

- Nope, that's paleontologists.

- If you found one, you'd be interested, but you'd call the right person for that.

- Yeah, I don't know anything about dinosaurs.

- And the Wyoming Territorial Prison is used as the site for the archeology fair today.

We're in the middle of Archeology Awareness Month across Wyoming.

What's the link between the Territorial Prison and this event and archeology in general?

- [Gwendolyn] It's a good example of a partnership within a state agency.

So this is a State Historic Site.

The SHPO is a state agency.

- [Steve] SHPO?

- [Gwendolyn] State Historic Preservation Office.

- [Steve] And as I recall, that's a federal- - Federally-mandated.

- Construct, but states that actually do it.

- Yes, it's mandated by a federal law, the National Historic Preservation Act.

They also mandate tribal historic preservation offices.

And then our other state partner are the State Museum and the Office of the Wyoming State Archeologist.

So we're lucky enough that most of us live in southeast Wyoming, and that Jessica Lira, the Superintendent, allows us to use this space for this event for free.

And then she allows free admission on this day as well.

So it's an example of a partnership within state parks and cultural resources.

- And I think people when they think of archeology might be thinking of ancient cave dwellings or dig sites, or Indiana Jones perhaps.

But archeology can include much more recent contemporary work as well.

This in fact would be an example of something that isn't, it's old, but it's not, by all means, it's prehistoric, for example.

- Right, so in the United States, we use the definition, something becomes old once it's 50 years or older.

So that changes every year.

That's something that's mandated through the National Park Service and the National Register System.

So if it's 51 years old, we are obligated to document it often.

- It's archeology at age 51.

- Yes, or historic preservation.

So if it's a building and it's 50 years or older, we would also document that.

- So when I'm looking through my dumpster for something I accidentally threw away yesterday, I'm not an archeologist quite yet.

- But you're getting there because that's what we do is trash.

- That's, I again, I just, I'm not trying to belittle it in any way, but honestly, in your field, finding a trash pit, a trash dump is a equivalent of a gold mine a lot of times, isn't it?

- Yeah, you can learn a lot from it, whether it's, you know, historic bottle dump out on the national forest or something much older like a shell midden is just an ancient trash dump.

- And reflecting the thrust, the angle of the science, which is we're trying to understand how people lived.

- Yes.

- The State Historic Site here, the Territorial Prison, it dates to, the word territorial makes me believe it's before Wyoming statehood, which was 1890.

- Not everything on this State Historic Site campus is old.

Some of it's reproductions, if you walk through the old town in the back of the museum, some of that is newer reproduction style to kind of give it like a main street feeling from the territorial days.

And much of the prison has been rehabilitated to the extent that there's not a lot of original parts of it left.

It was used as the University's Extension Center, Agricultural Extension Center- - I remember that.

- For a long time.

So they had to do a lot of work when the state acquired it in the '90s to turn it into a historic site to make it safe, handicap accessible.

- And worthy I suppose, of the historic site designation.

- But it is on the National Register.

So there's a National Register listing that's publicly available if anyone wants to read about the prison.

- A lot of things that have the historic designation, especially in this part of the state, sort of follow the railroad as it came across.

And that would've been- - Around the same time.

- 1869 is when it was completed.

So late '60s into the early '70s.

If you were coming in here as the site archeologist or a site archeologist, where do you start in something like this?

- I would start with archival research.

I would try to find original maps and plans of the property so that I could determine what's no longer standing.

In places where a map might indicate there was a blacksmith shop or a garage of some sort or dormitories for people working here, I would use those maps to target where I'd be interested in conducting subsurface research.

So excavation.

- Yeah, you're laying the groundwork ahead of time so you're not going in and just randomly start digging.

- No.

Archeologists almost always are using archival materials to determine where they should be digging.

So we're usually not just guessing.

If you don't have things like archival materials, for example, you know, a Paleoindian site, something that's 10,000 or more years old, you could use other noninvasive methods like ground penetrating radar.

It kind of looks like a lawnmower almost, and you run it across the site and you get these signatures back that may indicate that something is buried there.

And you would use that to target your testing.

- And this is all work that you have done?

- Yes.

- Yes.

You get training as an archeologist in archeology.

You've got degrees in it, correct?

- Yes.

- Just brag about your credentials for a minute.

Where'd you go to college?

- So I got my undergraduate from Colorado State, and I got my degrees there in anthropology, archeology as a subfield of anthropology as well as in international studies and Arabic.

My original intent was to be a Near Eastern archeologist.

I then got my master's degree at the University of Chicago in Middle Eastern archeology.

- And that's about as good as you can get from what I know of American colleges and universities.

And look it up if you don't believe me.

I mean, really a fantastic bit of training there.

Are you a Wyoming person by heritage?

- Yeah, so my grandparents are from Wyoming.

They live in Casper.

My mother was born in Torrington.

They don't, my mom and dad live in North Dakota now, but my grandparents still live in Casper.

- They still do.

I'm very interested to hear of your ambitions for Middle Eastern archeology.

What changed?

- It's a incredibly difficult place to work.

I wanted stability in my life.

I did not want to live far away from my family long term.

I wanted healthcare.

- Sure.

- Those kinds of things.

I wanted a dog.

And so I've done some work in the Near East.

But ultimately I thought it would just be, I wanted a more normal life, I guess.

- I think I said Middle East.

You said Near East, my apologies for that.

- Interchangeable really, yeah.

- To me, probably not to you.

How's Wyoming as a archeology state, if that's a term that we could apply to it?

What do you think?

- I would say the general public is incredibly interested in archeology more than in most places I've ever lived.

- Really?

- Yes, yes.

And I think it's likely to do with the amount of public land we have.

So people can see these places and spaces where archeology is happening or where archeology simply exists.

It's not so separated from their lives because of our access to public land.

And then we also have high numbers of archeologists, even though, you know, we're the least populated state.

There are a lot of archeologists in Wyoming and we have a pretty tight-knit community.

So I mean, I have almost 100 professional archeologists volunteering today.

- Is that so?

- From around the state.

- So again, I am trying to distinguish and understand I guess between someone who has your credentials and does what you do with someone who you might have just referred to as a volunteer archeologist.

Where does the distinction lie or is there much of one?

- The distinction changes state from state, but we have the Wyoming Archeological Society, which is, we have a statewide organization, and then there are local chapters, and we're always looking for members.

But that is an organization that's open to what we call avocational archeologists.

So archeologists that don't have formal university training or people who are interested in archeology, would like to dig, would like to look for arrowheads, that kind of thing.

But don't have any professional qualifications from a university.

So we refer to that group of interested people as avocational.

- [Steve] Well, on a day like today, the more the merrier, right?

They are here.

- [Gwendolyn] Absolutely.

We have the avocationals and the professionals here volunteering, getting people engaged with archeology.

- We might be able to hear in the background, there's some music playing, and the event going on today, the archeology fair, is that something you've had a big role in through the years, right?

- [Gwendolyn] The program was designed by Judy Wolf, who is now a retired state employee, and Greg Pierce, the previous state archeologist.

They started this program in 2015 to start getting people more engaged with archeology in the community as what we call public archeology.

- 2015, this is 2025, so.

- 10th anniversary.

- [Steve] We're having 10th anniversary here today.

- Yep, yep, it's a big year for us.

- What goes on at the archeology fair?

- The different booths we have, we try to kind of rotate who's here to keep it fresh and exciting for repeat visitors.

You know, funding has also changed over the years.

So the entire fair, we fundraise for that.

There are no state funds dedicated to putting on this event.

So all of it is fundraised, whether that's from private archeological firms, federal agencies contribute some money.

But we do a big fundraising campaign every October to get enough money to put this on.

And that's why everyone's volunteering today.

- Each year you try to freshen the lineup, so to speak, of what people can see so that they don't automatically think, "Well, I've been there once" and you've been there once, you don't have to go again.

You've tried to change it.

What are some things that are new, for example, this year?

- Some of the new things that we either haven't had in several years or that we've never had before, we have Robert Martinez, an artist from Riverton, who is teaching hands-on workshops on ledger art, a style of artwork that Native Americans have utilized over the decades.

You know, using existing maps or ledgers and then painted over them.

We also have a hand spraying booth this year.

And so we've used natural pigments in a spray bottle, pre-historically people would've used a reed or something to blow the pigment out.

But to get that nice hand print style rock art.

So we have a canvas that everyone can contribute to and put their hand print on it.

And then we also have craft paper that folks can, you know, take home their hand print if they want.

Fort Laramie Living History is here this year.

They used to come, but I think post-COVID, they had not come back, so we got working with Fort Laramie again and they'll be doing things like making cowboy coffee and cooking salt pork in the back of the prison yard.

So those are some of our new booths this year.

We also have Dan and Lapita Frewin are teaching folks how to make petroglyphs.

So how to peck in a rock and make a petroglyph.

And Dan and Lupita work at the Rendezvous up in Sublet County each year and do Native American crafts there.

- So it's a combination of some old favorites and of course some things are popular every year, the site itself, the buildings, the ground, and then a little bit of new stuff to keep it interesting.

- And the most popular stations that we will never get rid of, I mean they're a total hit are the atlatl throwing and learning how to make a projectile point or an arrowhead.

We have young children who have come every year to make an arrowhead and improve each year.

And, you know, and they bring the one they made last year with them to show their teachers and yeah, it brings them back every year.

- And it goes back to the old, we talk about technology, technology, technology all the time and it is fantastic.

But boy, some of the things that people who didn't have the technology that we have now did with their own, pretty fantastic.

And you don't have to, there's no better illustration of how fantastic it was than trying to do it yourself.

- Yes, I'm a terrible flint knapper.

So yeah, I've learned that lesson firsthand, just how difficult they are to make.

- Some states, some federal funding.

We happen to be speaking during a time where there's lots of discussion, let's just put it that way, about the availability, the continuing availability of federal funding, perhaps state funding for things very generally like this.

How are you feeling about that at the moment?

- This year was challenging in terms of working with our federal partners.

I know they are dealing with their own challenges.

and don't necessarily have the flexibility they might once have had.

So we received very little federal funding this year.

The US Forest Service was still supportive financially, and they're also here representing today.

But I did have to rely much more on private partners.

So places like the Frison Institute for Archeology and Anthropology donated when they do not typically donate to this, they donate for research.

- Frison, that's F-R-I-S-O-N, that's a big name with the University of Wyoming.

- Yes.

So named after Dr.

George Frison, probably the most famous archeologist to come out of Wyoming.

And I found funding through other places like Rocky Mountain Power Foundation supported us this year to improve our spear throwing, our atlatl throwing station.

Wyoming Humanities supported us through a sponsorship this year.

So we get funding from a variety of contributors for the year.

- [Speaker] Hey, nice shot!

- You mentioned a couple of participation and entertainment style booths involving throwing things.

How does throwing something relate to archeology?

- So the participants will be throwing atlatls, and it's an ancient spear throwing technology that's like a chuck it for your dog, but instead of a ball, it's a spear that you're projecting at a target.

And that is the hunting technology that Indigenous people to North America used for thousands of years.

So if you hear of something, you know, that's why we try to call arrowheads projectile points because it's a broader term.

Because something that's older, like a four or 5,000 year old arrowhead that you're finding was actually a spear point that was being thrown using an atlatl.

- And it's, I understood, you talked about a thousands of years, they were really good at it, right?

- Yeah.

- The accuracy it's just astounding.

- They were killing, you know, bison, mammoth, large game animals were being killed with atlatls.

- So this is an object and that's sort of the foundation, the basis of archeology.

But what you're trying to do then is here's an object, what was it?

How was it used?

When was it made?

Who used it?

How long?

All those things enter into it.

So it's a nice blend of the science and I guess what I'd call the humanities.

- Yeah, we call it experimental archeology.

And it provides the context for that projectile point.

Right?

The projectile point was hafted onto a spear and they use this technology as a lever essentially to throw it.

- It is technology.

- Yes, yes.

- Of course, it is.

Is anyone any good at it anymore these days?

- Yeah, some people, I like to think I'm pretty good at it.

- Okay, so you've done it.

- Oh yeah.

- You can hurl that thing.

- Yeah, it's really fun.

- It's a great way to get young people interested not just in the activity, but maybe in the field.

I mean, when you were a kid, you were interested in this and you got interested somehow.

Do you remember how?

- Yes, I do.

It's a pretty clear memory.

My parents, I was fortunate enough that my parents took me to Pompeii when I was 11-years-old.

- Wow!

- And that pretty well solidified it.

My dad also, you know, took us on Paleontological digs.

I grew up in Southwestern North Dakota, so very near to where Sue, the T-Rex was found.

So I learned about, you know, that type of field work as a pretty young kid.

And then we did other things, like with the Historical Society, we would use the pioneer entries from our county.

They keep track of all the pioneer and homestead entries in our county.

And we used the information in that entry to go try to find the corner of a homestead.

You know, drive around the country, and look for those kinds of things.

So my parents really, whether they meant to or not, sort of fostered my appreciation for archeology and history.

- Well, I've been around some little kids and my wife career, elementary school teacher and archeologists almost strikes me as a sort of a fantastical kind of a career objective for a kid who might say fireman, or ballerina, or big league baseball player.

But what I often said, and what she always said was, "People do have, they do these jobs and maybe you'll be somewhere and you'll see someone there and that's someone who does this work."

And most of the time they'd be glad to tell you about how they got started in it.

- Yeah, that's one of the goals kind of of doing Wyoming Archeology Awareness Month not only to encourage people to protect Wyoming's cultural heritage and have respect for it, but also to inspire the youth to pursue history, or archeology, or anthropology as a career.

Because there are a lot of jobs in archeology, believe it or not, if you don't want to be a professor.

There's quite a number of jobs.

- An observation I've had, which maybe was not entirely fair, but I think it's sort of human nature, I guess to say that are forced to believe or assume or exist in our minds, nothing really happened before I got here.

And yet almost everything happened before we got here.

And it's worth knowing about figuring out, learning about, just for the enrichment of it, because this is what we've got that the other animals don't.

And also there's, we'd hope there's some value in it, I guess, and knowing things as we go forward.

- Yeah, yeah.

We preserve the past to inform the future.

- There we go.

- Yeah.

- Good line.

Is that on, I think that's on a T-shirt at the Visitor Center or it ought to be.

It strikes me as something that requires mental patience.

You're just not gonna get instant gratification, I guess you are if you pick up a nice spear point or something.

But in terms of preservation and recognition and documentation, all that sort of thing, do you take the long view?

- Yeah, I mean, you have to start with the background research, write, and then you get to do your field work, and then you have to digitize all of that field work, make sure everything's cleaned up.

And then you analyze what you found out from your field work and then you have to synthesize it.

And so things like a National Register nomination can take up to a year to prepare.

And you have, you know, all these different parties who are interested and provide feedback.

And so, it's always a real coordinated effort.

- Needs to be because the people making these designations, ruling on them, judging them, they demand a lot of documentation.

- Yes.

- And you're just not gonna go in there, "Hey, I found this last week, let's name it, put it on some historic register."

They wanna make sure it's authentic and this is where you come in.

- Yeah.

And the National Park Service has what we call bulletins that essentially are, you know, 60, 70, 80 page manuals on how to prepare these.

So it's pretty strict, I would say.

And you know, you really have to execute an argument that is convincing while also including all the historic information you need to.

- Do you like that part of the work?

- Yes.

- You do?

- Yes, yeah, I think probably most archeologists enjoy writing, and conducting research and then synthesizing their research.

- What are some things that, do you have a typical work day?

I mean, the archeology fair's today, what were you doing a month ago today?

- Probably already preparing for the archeology fair.

So that's, I mean, it kind of never stops the preparation for the archeology fair.

Today we'll decide when we're gonna have it next year.

I'm also working on preparing the next statewide historic preservation plan, which is a document that's required of our office to prepare through the National Historic Preservation Act.

That's something we have to do.

We run on a 10-year cycle, so we need a new one by 2027.

And that is my job to prepare that.

So I am synthesizing, I did a public survey and I got over 1,000 responses.

So synthesizing those results, you know, turning them into what the people think about historic preservation and what is important to them in Wyoming, and getting that plan in order.

- What's an example of something in the state preservation plan that the average person might be interested in or might not have thought about?

- So one of the things I'm including in this plan is how to get a brown sign.

So how do you work with the Department of Transportation?

You just got your downtown listed on the National Register, for example, and you want people to visit it.

How do you get a sign on the interstate that encourages people to pull off and go check out your historic downtown?

So that's a practical item that will be in the preservation plan.

- So from that, I infer that that itself is quite a process.

- It is a process, yes.

- And the term you used was brown sign.

- Brown sign.

- So, okay, I see what you mean.

I've been out there on the interstate earlier today, and there's the speed limits, and the directions, and the don't pass.

But the brown colored signs are the things that tell you turn here for- - State historic site.

- Historic site, the Territorial Prison.

How to get a brown sign.

- Yeah, that's one of the practical things in there.

We give advice and marketing tools in it for local preservation groups who maybe don't have the kinds of resources that I, as a state agency would.

- And I'm sure you know Trey Sherwood of the- - [Gwendolyn] Yes.

- Who did, spearheaded this great downtown redevelopment here.

And I think that she said when we interviewed her a couple of years ago for "Wyoming Chronicle," that's always stuck with me.

I said, "What is it that you want from a downtown business person that you're trying to work with?"

And I honestly thought she'd say, "Well, we want everyone to paint the mailbox red."

Or, but what she said was, "Well, I need, what I want, I have to have people telling me what they need from me."

So we were welcoming someone who's trying to get something started in a preservation aspect, you want 'em to come to you.

You're an expert, not just in the science and the field, but in the administration, implementation of things.

- Yep.

We don't know what people want if they don't tell us.

And that's why we did that public input survey, and it was incredibly valuable to know what the public sees as our shortcomings, where we could improve as a state.

And, you know, what people are doing really well.

And I distill that information into a set of themes that says, "This is what the people have said, this is what we need to work on for the next 10 years."

- Say someone wants to become involved and help you volunteer.

What's step one?

Contact you?

- Contact me.

Yep, I do all the volunteer and booth coordinating.

So if someone would like to get interested, even if they just wanna volunteer, you know, an hour or two to see how it goes, they should reach out to me about that.

- Well, this has really been good.

I'm glad to talk to you about it.

Gwendolyn Kristy, thanks for being with us.

- Thank you so much, Steve.

(lively music)