I plan to publish electronic catalog records for the Historic Fort Snelling archaeology collections held by the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) to Open Context to make them available for scholarly research, specifically for use by University of Minnesota research partner Dr. Kathryn Hayes and her students. Using the Open Context API, I also plan to include selected records in a proof-of-concept mobile website designed to enhance public interpretation of the historic site.
Collection Overview
MNHS curates over 600 cubic feet of collections generated during excavations conducted at the site between the mid 1960s and the early 1980s. Because this work took place in a largely pre-digital era, the documentation consisted of paper records only. The volume of material (and paper!) has resulted in limited access to and use of this valuable collection.
The Archaeology Department at MNHS received state grant funding in 2013 to inventory the Fort Snelling collections and make them more available for research. A Heritage Collaborative Partnership with the University of Minnesota brought Dr. Katherine Hayes and her students into the lab to assist with the inventory over the last year. Approximately 85,000 electronic records have been created to date as a result of this project.
Project Context
The timing for the inventory and the Institute for Digital Archaeology Method and Practice project couldn’t be better. MNHS is currently working to expand the interpretation of the historic fort to tell stories of different eras in the fort’s history and of the various communities associated with it, particularly the American Indian and African American people. The research Dr. Hayes conducts over the next year and the mobile website will demonstrate how the results of archaeological research can serve as another primary source with the power to provide new insights and to enhance or contradict the other lines of evidence currently used for telling the stories of the site.
Fort Snelling History
The United States government established Fort Snelling at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers in 1820 to protect American fur trade interests in the region and to gain a foothold in the western territory that would become Minnesota. The fort served various military functions until 1945 when the army discontinued use of the site. (History of Fort Snelling).
In 1956, proposed construction of a highway through the middle of the historic fort created a public outcry. Although only four original structures remained standing, interest in the site prompted MNHS to hire an archaeologist to determine if significant deposits remained below ground. The answer was an unequivocal yes. The highway was rerouted and MNHS acquired the property to serve as a living history museum by restoring the fort to its 1820s appearance.
Research History
The archaeological research at Historic Fort Snelling necessarily focused on documentation of the structural remnants to inform reconstruction and most of the collections generated during the project received only cursory examination before being placed in storage.
For the current inventory project, Archaeology Department staff and UMn volunteers are in the process of recording catalog numbers for every artifact in a given box along with controlled vocabulary terms for material types and object names. We also wanted to capture the artifact descriptions created by the original catalogers and the provenience data they recorded. The paper catalogs were scanned as PDFs and added to a shared folder in Google Drive so that volunteers and staff could transcribe them into a matching Google sheet whenever they had time.
Both the inventory and original catalog data are being added to the MNHS collections management database. While we are now creating electronic records for the Fort Snelling collections, the results are only available to MNHS staff with access to the collections database. Sharing data proved challenging, for example, during Dr. Hayes Spring semester Historic Archaeology class when she hoped to give class members a chance to analyze materials from one of the enlisted men’s barracks.
Open Context Publishing Plan
Publishing the Fort Snelling collections data in Open Context will solve our current file sharing problem at the same time that it makes the data available to anyone interested in research at the site. We plan to start by publishing the data from the one of the enlisted men’s barracks – the one that Dr. Hayes class examined – and we will add records from other buildings as they are completed.
Interpretation at Fort Snelling
Initially, interpretation at the fort was based upon the 1820s military experience. Over the years, MNHS has presented more diverse and difficult stories to visitors. I would like to show how the archaeological research can enhance interpretation by creating a mobile website that uses data from Open Context. Next week I will begin consulting with a program specialist who works at the fort to determine the best approach. I want to create something that meets the needs of the MNHS Historic Sites & Museums programs while spotlighting archaeology as a primary source for connecting with the past.
Nancy Hoffman
Archaeology Department, Minnesota Historical Society