Essential Questions

• What is an archaeologist?

• What does a career in archaeology entail?

• How do people find connections with people of the past? 

• Why is land preservation important?

• How can math and science help tell the story of prehistoric people?

Learning Intentions– Upon completing this module, students will:

• Be able to describe the field of archaeology.

• Describe the importance of preserving our past.

• Appraise archaeology as a career choice.

• Apply research and writing to communicate past human experience.

• Employ art as an aesthetic tool to communicate messages about important historical and contemporary issues.

• Describe how art tells a complex story about human experience. 

• Apply math to analyze data and learn about past cultures. 

• Be able to articulate what a reciprocal relationship with nature can look like. 

• Be able to articulate the role of ceremony in enabling self-expression, building experiences and awareness, and sustaining landscape. 

Success Criteria

• I will meet nature halfway, giving something back each time I take to develop a reciprocal relationship with nature.

• I will hold homemade ceremonies to honor place and resources I receive from Earth.

• I will be a steward of the land with respect for those that walked it before me.

• I will help others adopt a mindset of reciprocity with our lands and all living things. 

Learning Outline

This 3-hour module is on Archaeology: Studying Artifacts and Artwork to Learn About People of the Past with videos by Elizabeth Hora. It can be taught as a whole learning experience, or in chosen sections as time allows:  

• 10 minutes: Launch Activity– Your Garbage is my Science!

• 10 minutes: While Viewing–  Video 1: Meet Public Archaeologist Elizabeth Hora

• 5 minutes: Post-Viewing– The Real Indiana Jones

• 15 minutes: Pre-Viewing– Video 2: What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

• 15 minutes: While Viewing– Video 2: Considering a Career in Archaeology

• 10 minutes: Post Viewing– Video 2: Digging Deeper in the Field

• 30 minutes: Pre Viewing– Video 3: The Fremont (Prehistoric Peoples of Utah)

• 10 minutes: While Viewing– Video 3: Using Math to Analyze Prehistoric Rock Art

• 10 minutes: Post Viewing– Video 3: Rock Art Messages

• 45 minutes: Demonstration–Using Math to Analyze Prehistoric Rock Art

• 30+ minutes: Art Integration-Making Connections– Meeting our Lands and Our Past Halfway

Handouts

New Vocabulary (Archaeology)

Supplies for Pre-Viewing, Viewing, & Post Viewing Activity

• Save the classroom garbage from the day before you teach this lesson.

Supplies for Demonstration (Analyzing Rock Art Using Math) Activity

• Fremont Rock Art Panel

• NURIRP (Northern Uinta Rock Imagery Recording Project) Full Data Sets:

  • NURIRP Student Copy

  • NURIRP Teacher Answer Key

Supplies for Art Integration Activity:

• Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer— bio

• Ceremony of Gratitude excerpt by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Launch Activity–Pre-Viewing Video 1: Your Garbage is my Science!

[10 min]

[Learning Objective 1]

Procedures:

• Ask Students: What does an archaeologist do? 

  1. Acknowledge Responses 

  2. Follow up by asking them what inspired their answer – Movies? National Geographic? Museum of Natural History? Have they ever met an archaeologist? 

  3. Tell Students: A broad definition of an archaeologist is a person who studies human history through the excavation(digging up) of sites and the analysis of artifacts(objects made by human beings) and other physical remains. 

• Hook: Tell Students: Archaeologists can learn a lot about past humans, whether it is one hundred or thousands of years ago, by looking at what they left behind. In other words, by studying their garbage! Let me show you how this can work.

• Pick up the garbage can in your classroom (or ideally the garbage you saved from the day before) and begin pulling things out one by one, commenting on your findings (e.g. “Oh I see we have a chocolate bar wrapper here!”) and making hypotheses on what each trash item might tell us about the humans in the classroom (e.g. “It appears someone in this group has a penchant for Twix.”). 

• Continue pulling items from the garbage and invite students to comment as if they were archaeologists studying the past. 

• Tell Students: Let’s meet Elizabeth Hora, Salt Lake City’s Public Archaeologist.  

While Viewing: Meet Public Archaeologist Elizabeth Hora

[10 min]

[Learning Objective 5]

Procedures:

• Read the unit and/or module introductions out loud to students.

• Pass the New Vocabulary (Archaeology) handout to students for reference throughout this module. Give them a few minutes to read through it. 

• Tell Students: Now we are going to watch Video 1: Introduction: Public Archaeologist Elizabeth Hora (6:32 min) 

• Feel free to take notes and be prepared to answer a few questions afterwards.

Post-Viewing: The Real Indiana Jones

[5 min]

[Learning Objectives 1,2,3]

Procedures

• Tell Students: We have talked about what an archaeologist does: they study material things, physical objects left behind to understand patterns in human behavior to learn more about ourselves as a species. 

• Ask Students: 

  1. How would you describe Elizbeth’s work as a public archaeologist? She is a scientist and does research often out in the field. Another aspect of her job is sharing archaeology with the public and educating them on the importance of preserving the past, and how we all need to play a part in preservation.

• How does Elizabeth describe how archaeologists are stereotyped? What is the common misconception of archaeologists?  They are ‘swashbuckling’ high adventure action-type men who use bullwhips. Indiana Jones types. Lots of testosterone and glamor. 

• What is a more accurate description of an archaeologist? In reality,  being an archaeologist is fun and full of adventure at times, but it is also tedious and requires diligent science. It involves gathering and manipulating a lot of data. It requires math, science, and communication skills. It is also interdisciplinary and archaeologists are increasingly becoming more diverse. For one, in a once male-dominated field, many women are now archaeologists.

• Why do you think Elizabeth’s work might be important? If we don’t preserve sites we will lose a window into the past. Archaeology sites contain non-renewable resources and shed light on what it means to be human. Studying the past can inform us on the present and even the future. Furthermore, Elizabeth’s work is important in that public archaeologists prioritize communication and engage people to respect our land, our cultural heritage, and descendants who have direct ties to this past.

Pre-Viewing Video 2: What do you Want to Be When You Grow Up?

[15 min]

[Learning Objective 3]

Procedures:

• Have each student search for a quote they like on the topic of archaeology and write it on the whiteboard or type it into the chat. Have students take turns reading the quotes out loud.

• Ask Students: 

  1. What career interests you once you finish school? 

  2. Elizabeth says there is a shortage of archaeologists. Would any of you consider this career? Why? Why Not?

• Tell Students: Let’s hear what Elizabeth says about a career in archaeology.

While Viewing: Considering a Career in Archaeology

[10 min]

[Learning Objectives 3,5]

Procedures:

1. Tell Students: While you listen, jot down anything you learn about a career in archaeology. 

2. Play Video 2: Considering a Career in Archaeology (9:47 min)

Post-Viewing: Digging Deeper in the Field

[30 min]

[Learning Objectives 1,2,3]

Procedures:

• Have students share what they jotted down.

• Tell Students: Let’s further expand our understanding of archaeology. 

  1. Not only do archaeologists study ancient people, but they also study people who lived close to our own times. Mining Camps, ghost towns, wagon trails and footpaths contain interesting clues about how people lived, what they used and what they valued. 

     1. (Optional) Think, Pair, Share. Have students discuss the following questions in pairs or discuss as a class

        1. What is the oldest tool you have ever seen? 

        2. Where did you see it?

        3. What was it used for?

        4. Do we still use something like it today? Why or Why not?

• Archaeologists find employment all over the world and through many different avenues including federal and state government agencies (Elizabeth works for the state of Utah), museums and historic sites, colleges and universities, engineering firms with cultural resource management divisions, etc. Some archaeologists work as consultants or form their own companies.

• To succeed as an archaeologist, you need to be able to adapt to change fairly rapidly, think on your feet, write well, and get along with lots of different people. You also need to complete some formal education, usually a bachelor of science in archaeology degree. In order to teach at a university you would need a PhD.

• Ask Students: 

  1. What have you learned about being an archaeologist? 

  2. Is there anything you learned about archaeology that either surprises or interests you? 

  3. What other questions do you have about this career? (median wage as of 2023 in US is $62,000 )

  4. Now that you know more about archaeology, what aspects of a career in archaeology would be interesting or rewarding to you?

Pre-Viewing Video 3:  The Fremont (Prehistoric Peoples of Utah)

[45 min]

[Learning Objective 4]

Procedures:

• Ask Students: Remember when I looked through the class garbage can and found a [Twix wrapper] Did that [Twix wrapper] mean that this whole group, everyone in this classroom, eats Twix? No. And the same goes for ancient garbage or artifacts. Though artifacts tell something about the culture, it is important to remember that these groups were comprised of individuals just as we are today. Not every artifact represents every individual and figuring out how to determine individual behaviors within a culture requires archaeologists to dig deeper (excuse the pun) and some math! 

• Before we watch the next video, in pairs research the Fremont Indians, native to the land that we now call Utah. Most of the Fremont migrated from this land by 1300 A.D. See if you can find out why. (Explain that A.D. is the abbreviation for Anno Domine, which is Latin for "Year of Our Lord." The term has long been used to indicate the number of years that have passed since the birth of Jesus Christ, just as a date with B.C. after it stands for ‘before Christ’ referring to dates before Christ was born. CE (Common Era) is sometimes used instead of A.D. and it means the exact same thing.

• Have student pairs write a 3-4 paragraph short story on the Fremonts. 

• Have a few volunteers share.

• Tell Students: A reminder that archaeologists like Elizabeth Hora are still working on learning more about the Fremonts, so all of your stories are stories to be continued. 

While Viewing: Using Math to Analyze Prehistoric Rock Art

[10 min]

[Learning Objectives 5,6]

Procedures:

• Tell Students: As Elizabeth mentioned in the previous videos, one of the ways she studies the Fremont Indians is through their rock art:

  1. Petroglyphs: Rock art designs made by carving into stone

  2. Pictographs: Rock art designs made by painting 

• Their art reveals things about them as a people such as what they valued, how they adorned themselves, the animals in their lives, the tools they used, etc. In this next video, Elizabeth describes how she and her team apply math and statistics models to analyze the rock art in an effort to learn more specifically about the Fremonts.

• Play Video 3: Using Math to Analyze Prehistoric Rock Art (9:08 min)

Post-Viewing: Fremont Rock Art

[5 min]

[Learning Objectives 1,2,3,6]

Procedures:

• Ask Students: Has anyone here ever seen a rock art panel? How did it make you feel? Explain. (Consider sharing any of your experiences.) 

•  Tell Students: One thing is for sure, it is often hard to determine what the message is or even what you are looking at. Partly, as Elizabeth describes, because often the paints they used have washed off, so part of the ‘picture’ is missing. Another reason rock art often looks confusing is superimposition (refer to ‘new vocabulary’ handout) where images are painted or layered on a rock art panel. And they weren’t all carved or painted at the same time, sometimes not even in the same century. Over the years people came along and put their images on top of others. Lastly, no one knew the Fremont Indians. We don’t know their language and the only thing we know about their culture is through what is left behind. This makes interpreting their art more difficult. 

• Elizabeth and her team are documenting and classifying about 500 Fremont rock art images. This includes types of jewelry, etched and painted headdresses, clothing such as belts and bottoms, and more. Her team gathers this data and tabulates it, running it through various statistical analysis models. Their math is somewhat complicated, but she adds that even doing smaller scale analyses, such as figuring out averages regarding the frequency each of the items show up in the rock art is a necessary baseline.

• Tell Students: That’s where we come in. We are going to be archaeologists for a day and help Elizabeth tabulate some of her data using a little math!

Demonstration: Using Math to Analyze Prehistoric Rock Art

[45 min]

[Learning Objective 7]

Procedures:

• Tell the students: Elizabeth taught us that rock art reveals things about the people who created them such as what they valued, what they wore, what animals were around, and more. However, often these interpretations tend to be shallow, misguiding, and even insulting to their descendants. 

• Trying to interpret the meaning behind rock art is difficult for a few reasons. (Project the Fremont Rock Art Panel) See how jumbled this rock art panel looks? It is littered with various shapes and figures one atop another making any attempt to understand the meaning behind the art hard to decipher.

• Another problem with many rock art interpretations is that it lumps a culture together and fails to acknowledge that humans are complex and have distinct individual traits. It is like we look at ancient peoples and think of them as a big ONE. 

• Tell Students: Elizabeth and her team have developed a scientific model that involves observation and categorization of over 500 Fremont rock art images from various rock art panels. Her goal is not to interpret the artists’ intentions but rather study the images for what they say about the Fremont people. The first step involves using a technique called pointillism, (Reference the New Vocabulary (Archaeology) handout) where they trace the rock art images using tiny dots. This helps the scientists see the images more clearly so they can analyze the details. You might recall seeing this in the last video but let’s revisit this technique:

  1. Play Rock Art Video Series 2 and Rock Art Video Series 3

  2. Point out the necklaces and have students share their observations.

• Tell students: Elizabeth and the team have already collected a lot of data. Let’s take a look:

  1. Put students into pairs and give them the NURIRP Student Copy spreadsheet. Use the NURIRP Teacher Answer Key for guidance.

• Have students click the Catalog tab. Explain that this is the full set of data Elizabeth and her team have collected so far from Fremont Rock panels in 5 different regions. Read through the column headings and discuss a few of the categories:

  1. Column A: Watershed ID - Represents the region where the rock art panel is located.

  2. Column C: Indicates whether the image was painted (pictograph) or carved (petroglyph).

  3. Column J-N: Details about the necklaces on the anthropomorphs in the rock images across regions. (Tell Students: We will be working with the data from Column N on bead count.)

  4. Columns 0-T include data on shirts, belts, kilts, leggings, footwear, etc. in rock art images.

• Ask Students: Can someone tell me what an inference is? 

  1. Acknowledge Answers

     1. A conclusion derived from observation.

  2. Tell Students: We will be doing a few calculations of this data to help Elizabeth and her team make inferences. 

• Have students click the second worksheet tab called Bead Count. 

Tell Students: 

• First notice the map of the 5 regions in Utah where Elizabeth and her team collected the data from the rock art panels:  McKee Springs, Dry Fork Creek, Cub Creek, Brush Creek, and Ashley Creek.

• This data set is pulled from ‘Column N’ on the Catalog tab we just looked at. This data set represents the number of beads on the necklaces represented on the Fremont rock art panels in these 5 different regions.

• Now we are going to do a few calculations to try to understand what the number of beads depicted in these necklaces can tell us about the Fremont people. 

• Tell Students: The hypothesis is that the different number of beads on necklaces in different regions will provide insight into either the differences in practices and culture between Fremont groups and/or time periods. 

• Tell Students: We are going to calculate bead number averages on necklaces from each region and compare. First we need a quick lesson in averages. Below are three different methods to find an average and each method produces different results. 

  1. Mean– A mean is the average of a set of numbers. You add the numbers and divide by the number count. Excel Formula: =AVERAGE(data_range)

  2. Median– A median is the middle number when numbers are placed in ascending or descending order. Excel Formula: =MEDIAN(data_range)

  3. Mode– A mode is the most common number. In other words, the number that repeats the most often in a number set. Excel Formula: =MODE(data_range)

• Have students work in pairs and tell them to click the third worksheet tab called Bead Count Worksheet. 

• Tell Students: Calculate the mean, median, and mode for the bead counts in each region and enter your calculations in the boxes provided. Explain that once they type the formulas into the mean, median, and mode cells for the first region (McKee Springs) they can copy and paste formulas into the other regions to calculate the bead count averages for the other regions. Refer the NURIRP Teacher Answer Key for the Excel formulas and calculation results.

• Tell Students: As you see, the mean, median, and mode produce different results. Each average calculation is valuable, depending on what we want to understand. Let’s discuss each:

  1. MEAN: The mean tells us the average number of beads the Fremonts used for their necklaces in each region.

     1. Ask Students: What could you infer based on the average (mean) number of beads in different regions? 

        1. Time Period: A different number of beads was used in different time periods.

        2. Fashion: A certain number of beads was preferred in different regions.

        3. Accessibility: Beads may have been more accessible in some regions.

        4. Wealth or Power: A higher number of beads might indicate a higher level of wealth.

  2. MEDIAN: The median is the middle number when numbers are placed in ascending or descending order. 

     1. Ask Students: How does the median differ from the mean? The median is less affected by the outliers (extreme low or high numbers) so could be more accurate.

     2. What could you infer based on the different median number of beads in the data? 

     3. Where does the data skew? The data is weighted toward the lower numbers.

  3. MODE: The mode is the most common number. In other words, the number that repeats the most often in a number set. 

     1. How do the results of the mode in each region compare to the other averages? People typically had fewer beads on their necklace than the average except in Ashley Creek. Discuss what this could imply.

     2. Can anyone explain why the formula produced an ‘N/A in cells C11 and I11? There were no repeating numbers in these data sets. 

     3. What can the mode tell us? The mode is a measure of popularity. The number of beads per necklace that was most popular in Dry Creek for instance was 3 beads even though there was a necklace with 80 beads

•  Tell Students: Create a ‘Box and Whiskers’ chart in Excel to visualize the data sets. Discuss what the chart reveals. Reference the worksheet called Box & Whiskers Chart in the NURIRP Teacher Answer Key. Point out how this chart shows us where the majority of the data lies and also shows us the outliers indicated by the dots outside of the boxes. E.g. In Dry Creek, the 90 and 80-bead necklaces are outliers, whereas the majority of the necklaces in this area have between 3-12 beads indicated in the box.

  • Note: If you and students are opening the spreadsheets in Google Sheets vs Excel you might need to choose a different chart type such as a clustered bar, clustered column, or scatter chart.) 

• Tell Students: These inferences derived from your average calculations would be the basis of more hypotheses, research, and analysis. We would proceed to test these data-based hypotheses using additional statistical analysis models, making more inferences, and deriving more conclusions. 

Meeting our Lands and Our Past Halfway

[30 min- Activity is done outside of class]

[Learning Objectives 8,9]

Procedures:

• Ask Students: What kinds of ceremonies have you participated in? 

  • Possible Answers: Attended a wedding; was baptized; confirmation; Quinceañera; graduation; powwow; sun dance, etc.

• Ask Students: What is the definition of a ceremony?

  • Acknowledge answers 

  • Read these two definitions out loud to the class.

    1. Oxford Dictionary: a formal religious or public occasion, typically one celebrating a particular event or anniversary.

    2. Wikipedia: a unified ritualistic event with a purpose, usually consisting of a number of artistic components, performed on a special occasion.

• Tell Students: Potawatomi Nation Native American Botanist/Plant Ecologist and Author, Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, is a big advocate of ceremony. Here is what she says about ceremony in her book Braiding Sweetgrass: “Ceremony focuses attention so that attention becomes intention. Ceremonies transcend the boundaries of the individual and resonate beyond the human realm. These acts of reverence are powerfully pragmatic. These are ceremonies that magnify life.”

• Tell Students: Kimmerer comes from a tradition of using ceremony as a way to connect with land. She says, “It marries the mundane to the sacred. The water turns to wine; the coffee to a prayer." The ‘coffee to prayer’ reference is the morning coffee her father offers the earth in a ritualistic act of gratitude. Read the Ceremony of Gratitude excerpt out loud to students. 

• Repeat the last line of the excerpt: “What else can you offer the earth, which has everything? What else can you give but something of yourself? A homemade ceremony, ceremony that makes a home.” 

  • Ask Students: How do you interpret this? Can you relate to this?

• Tell Students: Kimmerer decrees that in order for humans to continue to thrive on the planet, we must think of our relationship with nature as one of reciprocity. Kimmerer says, “Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.” 

• Ask Students: What can you imagine reciprocity looking like? 

  • Acknowledge Responses.

  • Add to Student Responses: If we take something from the earth, a tree to make houses or paper, fruit and vegetables to eat, fish from our lakes and seas, then we must always offer something back. Never take it all. Never take more than you need. Do what you can to help nature thrive. Respect ecosystems and don’t upset the balance. If you take a tree, plant a tree. Hold ceremony for what nature offers you.

• Tell Students: Kimmerer says, “To be native to a place we must learn to speak its language.” Robin Kimmerer talks about how to do this through ‘authentic ceremony,’ which is ceremony true to the roots of what ceremony means— to create intentional space to bring one’s whole being, through artistic, spiritual, emotional, mental, physical relationship with the land. The most important ceremonies are the ones that are genuine, that come from your heart and from your relationship with place. Being grateful for a clean drink of water, or for bird song in the morning is uniquely human. The best way to engage in a ceremonial relationship with place is to let it develop organically out of an intimate relationship with place. 

• Public Archaeologist Elizabeth Hora shares this same philosophy with regards to how to conduct yourself on indigenous lands, at archaeological sites, and with ancient remains. She suggests meeting the land, the site, and the past halfway: “Don’t wait for the site to do all the work, but create your own experience.” In other words, rather than visiting an archaeological site and waiting for the awe to strike while you trample through it, or even worse, taking something physical like an arrowhead from the site as a souvenir (this is illegal!), learn about the land and people of the past beforehand; engage in a homemade ceremony (that leaves no trace!) during your visit to connect, appreciate, ponder, and find ways to offer something from yourself to the land to honor the people who came before you. 

• Elizabeth tells us to become a part of history by not touching the history. She is working on shifting the publics’ mindset on how we engage with land and nature to one of reciprocity so we can continue to explore our cultural heritage and preserve it at the same time.

• Have students practice this outside of class time by finding a space they want to connect to and holding a homemade ceremony in it. Have them write about the experience, or record a story about it on their phone to be shared in class. 

• Have students share their homemade ceremony experiences in small groups.

• As a class, discuss the following questions: 

  • Did this make the experience more sacred and less mundane? Explain.

  • How can this experience replace the need for a physical souvenir?

“To be native to a place we must learn to speak its language.” Robin Wall Kimmerer

Invite students to “dig deeper” on these topics by providing additional options for research and reflection about the field of archaeology, the importance of preserving the past.

Try-it-Out: Elizabeth Hora said that in order to preserve our cultural resources and archaeological sites, we need a shift in mindset. This shift is to not to trample and take from the sites, and not to expect the site to do all the work, but rather to bring something of yourself to the site and create your own experience. This could be that you have read and studied the area prior, magnifying your connection to the land; or that you perform a homemade ceremony onsite, honoring the land and those that came before you. We invite you to try this anywhere you feel connected to the land. Did this make the experience more sacred and less mundane? Did you replace your need for a material souvenir with a mental one? Pass it on! 

Articles

• Is Archaeology Right For You? 

Books

• Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants   This non-fiction book by Potawatomi professor Robin Wall Kimmerer is about the role of Indigenous knowledge as an alternative or complementary approach to Western mainstream scientific methodologies. It explores reciprocal relationships between humans and the land, with a focus on the role of plants and botany in both Native American and Western traditions.
  

• Standing on the Walls of Time (U of Utah Press 2019).  See especially Ch 3, 11, 13. By former Utah State Archaeologist Kevin Jones. In western culture, rock art has traditionally been viewed as “primitive” and properly belonging in the purview of anthropologists rather than art scholars and critics. This volume, featuring previously unpublished photographs of Utah’s magnificent rock art by long-time rock art researcher Layne Miller and essays by former Utah state archaeologist Kevin Jones, views rock art through a different lens.

Lesson Plans

• Society for American Archaeology Teaching Resources

Websites

• How to Visit Rock Imagery Sites Like an Archaeologist

• Smith Family Archaeological Preserve Culture History