Contact:  Office of Media Relations, Michelle Fryling, Director

January 14, 2008

The University Museum at Indiana University of Pennsylvania will present Indiana County Archaeology: Revealing the Native American Past as the opening show for 2008.

The exhibition will open with a reception, free and open to the community, on Jan. 19 from 6 to 9 p.m. Traditional Native American drumming and singing by the Muddy Creek Singers will be part of the opening reception.

The University Museum is located on the first floor of IUP’s Sutton Hall. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. and Thursdays from noon to 9 p.m. The exhibition will be on display through Feb. 9.

The exhibition is curated by Dr. Sarah W. Neusius, professor of anthropology.

Archaeologists from IUP’s Anthropology Department have been excavating ancient Native American sites, learning about the native inhabitants of Indiana County during the period between approximately AD 1000 and the area’s first contact with Europeans. This exhibit explores the culture of these inhabitants, revealed in fragments of tools, pottery, and other artifacts uncovered in Indiana County.

The exhibition includes a model village and a life-size segment of a circular house interior. The exhibit also demonstrates how archaeologists work and learn about the past through excavation and the study of artifacts.

This exhibition also will introduce the standard archaeological periods (Paleoindian, Archaic, and Woodland) for Eastern North America along with the artifacts that are representative of each time period; illustrate the painstaking nature of archaeological excavation and laboratory analysis; model what villages and structures built by the native inhabitants of Indiana County between AD 1000 and European contact appear to have been like; explain that native people of this era used cultivated corn, beans, squash as well as wild plants and animals; discuss the archaeologically defined Monongahela culture known from southwestern Pennsylvania at the end of Pre-Columbian times as well as the emerging probability that Indiana County marks a boundary between these people and other poorly known cultural groups to the north, and encourage responsible stewardship of Indiana County’s archaeological heritage so that we all can continue to learn about the native heritage in this area.

Dr. Neusius is the co-principal investigator for the IUP Late Prehistoric Project which is the focus of this exhibition.

In 2006 she published a new synthesis of North American archaeology (through Oxford University Press), co-authored with G. Timothy Gross, which is being used widely in undergraduate archaeology classes across the country. Dr. Neusius also is a member of the local Native American Awareness Council.

Concurrent with Revealing the Native American Past, the University Museum will exhibit Native American Arts, North and South, featuring Canadian Inuit carvings and prints and American Southwestern Pueblo pottery from the Museum’s own collection. This exhibition is curated by Donna Cashdollar and Alison Pate.

This exhibition from the University Museum’s permanent collection features works by artisans from cultures thousands of miles apart, whose ways of life are as distinct as the landscapes that define them. From the Canadian Arctic come prints and carved figures that illustrate myths and daily activities of the Inuit people. Decorations on pottery from the Acoma, Hopi, Zuni, and other pueblos of the southwestern United States are inspired by the animals, elements, and spirits of the desert.

Indiana County Archaeology: Revealing the Native American Past is supported in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Humanities Council. Additional support is provided by the College of Fine Arts, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Office of the President, and the Foundation for IUP at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

The University Museum is a program of the College of Fine Arts.
 

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