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[source: Native News; Mon, 28 Feb 2000 22:25:26]

U of S archeologists get $2.4-million grant to dig into
Prairie past
By Gerry Klein
Saskatoon Star Phoenix  2/28/2000

University of Saskatchewan archeologists are part of an international team just awarded $2.4 million to go back in
time 9,000 years to study Prairie people. The grant, from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
(SSHRC) - a major national funding agency - will allow David Meyer, head of the U of S archeology department, to work on
three major sites in Saskatchewan, he said in an interview Thursday. "The project will provide significant funding for
myself and a number of graduate students for the next few years," Meyer said in an interview. "It will have a
significant impact on our department." The first stage of the project's Saskatchewan section will advance work on a
site just below the forks of the North Saskatchewan and South Saskatchewan rivers, he said.

Aboriginal people used that site at two points in time, 6,000 years ago and about 3,500 years ago, he said. The team will look at how those people
lived and will try to get a greater feeling for what the climate and environment was like back then. The latter part of this exploration has
gained increasing interest because the climate was much warmer then than it is now. With the prospect of global warming, scientists are interested to
know where the limit of the grassland was compared to today, Meyer said.

But the team also wants to learn about the cultural reasons people had for choosing particular sites to camp or settle in. Archeologists traditionally
look at how people interacted with their environment on an economic basis - that is, studying what adaptations were made in order to survive. Meyer
also wants to examine the spiritual interaction people had with their environment.

The attempt to identify the cultural or spiritual aspects of these sites is a difficult task but is something that archeologists are becoming
increasingly interested in, he said. For that part of the project Meyer said he hopes to have assistance from Native people now living in
Saskatchewan. [note: no kidding ...]

The team will also examine a site closer to Prince Albert that is about 1,500 years old and a third site near Birch
Hills that is about 500 years old - just a couple hundred years prior to European contact in this part of the world.
 

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