MSUM Faculty and Students Conduct Research at the Poverty Point World Heritage Site
Last week a group of students and faculty from Minnesota State University Moorhead traveled to the Poverty Point World Heritage Site in northeast Louisiana. The main focus of their efforts was to examine places of interest identified during a 3D Ground Penetrating Radar survey of the site in November 2019. This project, led by Rinita Dalan (Anthropology and Earth Science), is supported by a 2019 Preservation Technology and Training Grant from the United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service. MSUM students Jackson Carr, Emma Frauendienst, and Emma Graves got experience setting up and using a total station to flag targets and map core locations, removing soil cores with a probe, identifying soil horizons, and recording magnetic susceptibility measurements down the cored holes. On rainy days, students helped with other projects conducted by MSUM faculty, including an inventory of artifacts from 1973 excavations of William Haag under the supervision of George Holley (Anthropology and Earth Science) and experiments creating and firing Poverty Point Objects (PPOs), figurines, and other items led by Brad Bachmeier (School of Art).