What is it? Research students gathered around as Prof. Kat Hayes used a brush to remove dirt from an object found in one of four test pits that U of M students have dug at Old Wadena. Teaching assistant Jenny Immich and volunteer John Crandall are kneeling down, while Carl Zachmann, left, and Gary Hsu are watching their professor carefully remove the object, which they eventually identified as vertebrae, probably from a deer. (Staples World photo by Tom Crawford)

Can you get excited over finding a bone fragment? How about a shard of a piece of pottery? Maybe charcoal or other evidence of a fire?

Hey, if you even considered answering yes to any of the above, you may want to take advantage of a chance to be an Archaeologist for a Day.

No, it is not a reality TV show coming to town. It's a team of students from the University of Minnesota who are currently working at Old Wadena, and local history enthusiasts are invited to stop out - brave the dive bombing mosquitoes, the wood ticks and a few other pests - and see how these researchers perform their research.

Dr. Katherine 'Kat ' Hayes and a team of graduate and undergraduate students from the university are conducting a four week long 'dig' at Old Wadena. They started work Monday, June 15 and by late last week they had four separate pits - each two meters square - down about 14 or 15 centimeters (about onefourth of their eventual depth). The team, whose members are staying in Wadena for this month, plans to complete their project by July 10.

The students are learning proper archaeological excavation techniques, artifact recovery and mapping during their nearly one month stay, Hayes said last week.

The students are digging at the Little Round Hill location in the Old Wadena park. Located just above the point where the Partridge River enters the Crow Wing, the Little Round Hill is believed to be the site of an 1783 skirmish between two competing groups of Dakotah (Sioux) and Chippewa (Ojibwe) Indian bands. The Ojibwe, who accompanied a white fur trader known only as the Blacksmith, had a number of muskets and were able to beat off a much larger group of Dakotah, or so the legend goes.

Dr. Hayes, an assistant professor of anthropology, specializes in the Euro- pean fur trade era in American settlement. She is new to Minnesota, having done previous work in New York and she hopes to find evidence that Old Wadena was indeed, an early fur trading post. If they can prove that it was, it will give credibility to the belief this Little Round Hill battle actually took place. Tales of the battle came down through native American oral history.

Digging for artifacts University of Minnesota Professor Katherine Hayes and two of her students discussed their progress on one of four research pits she and her students had started at the Old Wadena Park site. Gary Hsu and Carl Zachmann had been working for two days, first clearing off brush and vegetation from the site, then digging carefully, layer by layer, and recording their findings. (Staples World photo by Tom Crawford)

As of late last week, with only very preliminary work underway, the jury was still out.

In addition to their knowledge of archaeological techniques and history, the students will be learning to accommodate any visitors coming to observe their activities.

"Kat has assured me no one will be driven away. Anyone who comes out while they are working will be towed around the site by one of the students," Rich Paper, the chair of the Wadena County Historical Society told a gathering of Old Wadena Society members June 17 at the site.

Prior to the teams' arrival, Hayes and some of her students had surveyed the Little Round Hill site using an X-ray geo-chemical analyzer. This device helped her identify several chemical 'hotspots' that could be due to man's activities. The X-rays indicates various levels of phosphorus, potassium, manganese and other chemicals. "These could easily be signs of burn features, but that might be due to a lightning strike or to a trapper's fire," she said.

She's also trying to determine the chemical analyzer's reliability. "We're digging two test plots where we did not get a return to see if there is something there that was not indicated on the X-rays."

Old bones, heat-cracked rocks, and shards of pottery were items they had spotted in the first few inches of the dig. Oh, there were also a few .22 calibre rifle shell casings, 'historical period pieces,' as Prof. Hayes called the latter.

In one pit last Thursday, Jenny Immich from St. Paul and John Crandall, a WCHS member from Wadena, found an item that had them excited - briefly. It turned out to be two vertebrae, probably from a deer. Some chunks of charcoal and a corner of discolored soil indicated there could have been a fire there at some previous time. Immich, is Hayes' teaching assistant and may use her findings here as part of her master's degree thesis paper.

A short distance away, Laura Conger and Britnne Dordal were scraping away in their pit, using trowels and a sifting screen to carefully study their findings. Downhill, nearer the Crow

Dirty work John Crandall and Kat Hayes scratched away at what they thought was a piece of charcoal that Crandall had uncovered while the Wadena resident worked with U of M students in an archeological study at Old Wadena. (Staples World photo by Tom Crawford)

Wing River, Gary Hsu and Carl Zachmann had found " a whole lot of nothing" in their words. A fire-cracked rock was about the best they had to show after two days hard labor.

"Its a very clean park. We are not finding a lot of trash on the surface," Hayes had said. She noted they plan to work five days a week. They can work in most any weather. "Rain is good for farmers, but not for me," she said, under threatening skies.

"We need the break, this is back-breaking work," Zachmann observe d , hoping perhaps the occasional raindrop would increase enough to end work for the day.

Elliot Campbell, a U of M senior, and Manila Khounchaleun, of Laotian descent, were busy in a fourth pit."We've got lots of roots," Campbell said. That was to be expected, as the entire site is treecovered. Their pit, which features a good view of the Crow Wing River, was one of Hayes' test sites, where there had been little if any chemical feedback.

This general area had been studied in a 1992 dig conducted by Douglas Birk of the Institute for Minnesota Archaeology, with Hayes trying to dig in spots he was unable to work in.