They might not
look like much, but the tiny fragments contain clues about life
on the island 1,500 years ago.
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Volunteer
Larry Macht and archaeologist Kelly Wolf cleaned and bagged
artifacts unearthed during trail construction on Coney Island
in Lake Waconia. (photo by Anthony Souffle)
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Larry Macht, a volunteer at the Carver County Historical Society,
scrubbed what looked to be pebbles with a toothbrush. Archaeologist
Lindsey Reiners slipped each of the stones into its own little plastic
bag, carefully labeled with the location it was found.
What appear to the untrained eye to be plain old rocks, unearthed
from an island in Lake Waconia, are actually valuable ancient artifacts.
"People are going to be disappointed when they see how little they
are," said Wendy Petersen Biorn, executive director of the historical
society in Waconia, storehouse for thousands of artifacts collected
from Coney Island of the West.
Nevertheless, the little pieces of stone, along with small shards
of pottery and bones, are fragments of history clues to the
lives of people who occupied the island 1,500 years ago.
"A lot of these artifacts don't look like something you would display
in a museum, but they hold a lot of information," said David Mather,
a National Register archaeologist at the State Historic Preservation
Office in St. Paul, who has been involved in the research.
Coney Island history
Artifacts unearthed during trail construction on Coney Island as
part of Waconia Regional Park have been analyzed and are now being
cleaned and organized. They tell a tale of more than 2,000 years
of life on the island.
The Carver County Historical Society will eventually open an exhibit
of artifacts from the island at its museum in Waconia, officials
said, though no dates have been set.
Last fall, the county began a long-planned project to develop land
on Lake Waconia, including the island, into a 135-acre park, part
of the metro area's 55,000-acre regional park system.
But before building paths and picnic areas, the county is required
to hire archaeologists to prevent destruction of valuable artifacts.
So archaeologists from Blondo Consulting, a Kettle River, Minn.-based
firm, began digging holes in 2016 throughout the woodsy site in
search of objects that hold evidence of the island's history.
They worked with the county to steer paths away from areas where
artifacts were concentrated and which offered opportunities for
more study.
"When we dig, we screen everything through a quarter-inch mesh,"
said Kelly Wolf, a Blondo archaeologist. "We see tiny pieces that
you wouldn't necessarily see in a shovel full of dirt. The more
you look at these different types of materials, the more features
you find, the more you recognize them."
They knew they'd find evidence of less-than-ancient civilizations
broken dishes, a flower pot, knives and forks, bottles
recognizable items remaining from the days in the early 1900s when
Coney Island was a tourist resort with a hotel and cabins.
The island is listed on the National Register of Historic Places
because of the decaying structures. In one place, the archaeologists
discovered yellow Chaska brick laid out as a sidewalk, "our very
own yellow brick road on the island," Wolf said.
As the dig continued, they spotted the tiny fragments that told
of life on the island long before vacationers arrived: a decorated
fragment of pottery, hearths used to cook food, specimens of Knife
River flint from North Dakota that point to either migration or
trade. They found a bone from a nonnative fish and microscopic traces
of corn from early agriculture, both likely carried to the island
from elsewhere.
"We think the island was just used for seasonal stays," Reiners
said.
They also have found numerous arrowheads, whose smaller size indicates
a transition from spears to bows and arrows thousands of years ago.
"The style of [arrowheads] evolved over time just like every other
technology evolves over time," Wolf said.
If these fragments hold so much information, why don't they just
dig up the entire island to see what else is there? Because in recent
decades, archaeologists have tried when possible to leave artifacts
in place. In fact, state law makes it illegal for citizens to remove
artifacts at all.
Their physical location provides information that future archaeologists
may have the technology to analyze without digging.
"If you start taking pieces out of it and putting them in boxes,
you can't put that whole puzzle back together again," Wolf said.
Though publicly owned property must go through this archaeological
research before being developed, private property owners are under
no such obligation. Throughout the state, countless pieces of history
lie under parking lots, highways, housing developments.
"We lose a lot all the time it's a reality of the world,
and it's unfortunate," Mather said.
"That's why places like this where the archaeology is significant
but also well preserved are so important. There aren't many places
that have both of those things going for them."
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