Conference Agenda

On the banks of the Umatilla River there is a place called tk̓úpa in the Sahaptian language, historically used as a permanent camp by the Umatilla people and named for the tule bulrush reeds they gathered there. Euroamerican encroachment saw this area used as an Oregon Trail river crossing, the site of the Umatilla Indian Agency, briefly as Fort Henrietta during the Cayuse War, and now a town named Echo. Cultural resource work throughout the 1980s and later in 2023 has verified a multicomponent archaeological site associated with these activities. In response to riverbank restoration work in 2023, a Memorandum of Agreement was established which stipulated mitigation of adverse effects, including cataloging and curating the legacy collection from the 1980s, as well as creation of a curriculum and/or a traveling exhibit. This paper discusses valuable lessons learned in this ongoing project and their implications for meaningful community engagement.

Public archaeology emphasizes methods and interpretations which benefit those outside the academic sphere. However, "the public" is a broad and amorphous term, making it difficult for archaeologists to identify where to do a project, what form the project should take, and why they should participate in public archaeology. Within the general public, there are innumerable subsets with different focuses and interests, and when a project attempts to reach all of these publics at once, it seldom really connects with anyone. Using the creation of a mobile artifact display for the descendent community of Iosepa, Utah, as a case study, I will demonstrate the successfulness of narrowing the scope of public archaeology to specific publics. By customizing outreach to Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Latter-day Saint audiences, this project saw increased overall public interest in the archaeological process and resulted in an interpretive display that best meets community needs.

The Pon Yam House is a historic building in Idaho City, a former gold-rush town. The site is named after Chinese entrepreneur Pon Yam, who operated a successful mercantile on the premises for over two decades and provides a rich context for studying Chinese migrant and Chinese American history. This analysis focuses on thousands of glass fragments and vessels excavated by volunteers from the site, representing refuse from the 19th and early 20th centuries. These artifacts, including pharmaceutical and cosmetic containers, reflect some of the diverse activities at the Pon Yam House and the broader social and economic dynamics of Idaho City's community. This study uses material culture analysis and archival research to explore the everyday lives of Idaho City's residents, offering a unique glimpse into the multiethnic and transnational fabric of the American West during this period.

For over 40 years the University of Idaho has conducted archaeology on a myriad of sites occupied by the many Chinese and Chinese American citizens who lived in Idaho in the latter part of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Cumulatively, this work has generated a great deal of knowledge about their contributions to the development of the state. While some of the archaeological findings have been shared with contemporary communities the outreach has been somewhat sporadic. This work describes an initiative to create archaeology-focused teaching trunks for elementary students in Idaho in collaboration with a portion of Idaho’s contemporary Chinese American community, exploring how the trunks were conceived and produced as well as initial feedback on how the trunks were received by community members.

In 2023 the Idaho Public Archaeology project ran a publicly-oriented field school in Moscow, Idaho. The project was conducted on the grounds of the current high school and had two objectives. First, to create a program that could engage local students and community members and second, to explore the town’s history through archaeology as the high school was built upon the former location of numerous 19th century residences. One outcome of the field school was the recovery of a large assemblage of faunal remains associated with the town’s late 19th/early 20th century. Approximately 1,500 bones were recovered. This work summarizes the results of the faunal analysis and provides insight into the foodways of a small community in northern Idaho.

In 2023, the Idaho Public Archaeology project hosted a community-based field school in Moscow Idaho on the grounds of the current high school. An initial focus of the project was to engage the community and share archaeology with students. An additional outcome of the work was the recovery of a wide variety of materials associated with early Moscow history. This work uses a portion of the recovered artifacts to explore health and wellness and how it can be applied to Moscow residents at the turn of the century. Using both health related artifacts and the town’s archival history, the work examines the modernization of health care in a small western town as impacted by reforms of the Progressive Era.

In 2019 and 2023, Idaho Public Archaeology at the University of Idaho conducted a public archaeology field school on the grounds of Moscow High School in Moscow, Idaho. This presentation covers preliminary research conducted after the excavations through object-based interviews with Moscow community members and the construction of a public-oriented online exhibit about local archaeology, history, and education at Moscow High School. The presentation will include a demonstration of the preliminary online exhibit, illustrating how narratives derived from the interviews shaped the website and how archaeologists can use digital tools for public archaeological interpretation.