Crow Components at Medicine Lodge Creek

Campbell County Public Library, in partnership with The Pumpkin Buttes Chapter of the Wyoming Archaeological Society, is pleased to welcome Michael Page, Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist.

Learn about the findings of the 2021 public excavation at Medicine Lodge Creek that produced over 5,000 artifacts dated to circa cal AD 1300-1450 and connect the Crow and Kiowa people.

In 1973, the University of Wyoming excavated a shallowly buried component at the Medicine Lodge Creek site that was thought to have been affiliated with the Crow people. This “postulated” Crow Component produced a large, chipped stone assemblage and the remains of a distinctive check-stamped pot. In 2021, The Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist in partnership with State Parks, hosted a public excavation at Medicine Lodge Creek. The research goals for the project were to find, excavate, and date the “postulated Crow component” identified in 1973. Results of the investigation far exceeded our expectations when at least three stratified, cultural levels were uncovered. These deposits produced over 5,000 artifacts including a small assemblage of Crow and Promontory or Fremont pottery, dated to circa cal AD 1300-1450. The data show that the Medicine Lodge Creek site was occupied repeatedly by the Mountain Crow, where they may have been joined by their close allies the Kiowa and Kiowa Apache. These findings directly undermine the commonly held assumption that the Crow were recent arrivals to the Northwestern Plains and Central Rockies.

Michael Page graduated with a B.S. in Archaeological Studies from the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse in 2000. In 2003 Michael came to Wyoming to attend Graduate School and later Law School where he earned a JD in May 2009 followed shortly thereafter with an M.A. in Anthropology. Michael has worked on a wide range of archaeological and cultural resource management projects throughout Wyoming as well as in the upper Midwest, the Southeast, and the Great Plains. Since 2010, Michael has worked for the Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist-Archaeological Survey Division where he provides cultural resource management services for a range of clients primarily in the public sector. Michael’s personal research interests include prehistoric pottery production, anthropology of learning, sourcing of pottery and stone, and geoarchaeology.