Sarah Trabert is helping lead several research projects.
Wichita Landscapes and Histories Project
Dr. Trabert has been collaborating with Mr. Gary McAdams and the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes along with Dr. Brandi Bethke (Oklahoma Archeological Survey) on several projects that utilize Wichita oral histories, ethnographic interviews, archaeological survey, and excavations to document and investigate ancestral Wichita sites. This collaborative projects takes a community-centered focus to investigate the long history of ancestral Wichita occupation of the southern Plains from their earliest sites through their forced relocation to Anadarko, Oklahoma in the 19th century and their responses to settler colonialism in the 20th and 21st centuries, particularly during allotment.
More information on this project will be posted after we present our work to the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes Community and in publications.
Interested in learning more about Wichita history and culture?
- Consider visiting the Wichita Tribal History Center north of Anadarko, Oklahoma off of Highway 281. https://wichitatribe.com/culture/wichita-tribal-history-center.aspx
- More information can also be found on the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes’ website: https://wichitatribe.com/history/historical-resources.aspx
Horses and Human Societies in the North American West
The Horses and Human Societies in the North American West project is integrating data collected from archaeological horse remains using zooarchaeological and biomolecular techniques (radiocarbon dating, ancient DNA, stable isotopes, and ZooMS) with ethnohistorical sources, Geographic Information Systems, and Indigenous knowledge, to develop a multi-scalar interpretative framework for understanding when and how domestic horses dispersed into the continent. In doing so, this project establishes a framework for understanding the complex interaction between species dispersals, environmental changes, ecological factors, and cultural transformations that will rewrite our understanding of human-horse relations in North America.
Dr. Trabert plays a small role in this project, please check out the project website for more information on the other project directors.
The Dismal River Archaeology Project
This work involves faculty and students from both the University of Oklahoma and the University of Iowa. Our research involves the analysis of museum collections, ceramic compositional studies, chronometric dating of materials from Dismal River sites, and the excavation of Dismal River sites in Kansas and Nebraska. See faculty pages of Dr. Matthew E. Hill (University of Iowa) and Dr. Margaret Beck (University of Iowa) for more information.
The Dismal River Aspect is an archaeological culture representing sites dating between A.D. 1600 and AD 1750 on the Central Plains of western Kansas, western Nebraska, eastern Colorado, and southeastern Wyoming. These groups likely moved around the Plains according to the seasons and lived in wickiups and rockshelters. They practiced small scale farming, raising corn, beans, squash and other crops. Dismal River people also focused on bison hunting and likely traded bison meat, bone, and/or hides to the pueblos of northern New Mexico. Through this exchange, Dismal River peoples were connected to other the northern Rio Grande pueblos in New Mexico and with Native American groups living throughout the Plains.
Lake Scott State Park Sites: Some Dismal River groups lived in what is now the Lake Scott State Park in Scott County, Kansas. Most of our research has been focused on two sites: 14SC1 or the Scott County Pueblo site and 14SC409.
The Scott County Pueblo, also known as El Cuartelejo, is the remains of a seven room masonry pueblo. It is located in Scott County, Kansas. The Lake Scott area has been occupied for thousands of years and perennial streams, natural springs, rich wildlife, and unique topography have made it an attractive place to live through the present. The site has been investigated on several occasions, first by University of Kansas paleontologists Samuel W. Williston and Handel T. Martin in the late 1890s. Waldo Wedel investigated the site in the summer of 1939, James Gunnerson in the 1950s, and the Kansas Historical Society and Kansas Archaeology Training Program (KATP) led excavations at the site in 1970, 1975, and 1976.
Faculty and students from the University of Iowa and University of Oklahoma have continued working with the collections from 14SC1 and have submitted a number of specimens for dating. This recent work indicates that Dismal River people lived in the area before the pueblo was constructed (likely between AD 1450 and AD 1640) and that the pueblo itself was built before the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. The 14SC1 pueblo was likely constructed and occupied between AD 1620 and 1690 and then burned and abandoned. Puebloan women living in the pueblo also continued their culinary traditions even after leaving their homes in the Southwest and made locally made copies of northern Rio Grande-style pottery in Kansas (see Beck and Trabert 2014).
Located south of the Scott County Pueblo14SC1, 14SC409 was first seriously investigated by a KATP crew in 2009. Dismal River pottery, red-slipped Southwestern pottery, lithics, faunal remains, and Olivella dama shell beads were recovered from the site but no hearths, roasting pits, or post holes were identified. Only a small portion of the site was tested, leading us to return to the site.
In 2013 and 2014, faculty and students from the University of Iowa and University of Oklahoma excavated a 2 x 3 meter excavation block and we found several post holes, Dismal River pottery, red slipped pottery, animal bone, charcoal, and lithic tools. Animal bone collected during these excavations was AMS dated to between AD 1680 and 1730, which is supported by recovery of a French gunflint during the KATP excavations (dates to 1675 CE to 1800 CE, Hoard 2009). These new dates indicate that 14SC409 was likely occupied just during or after the abandonment of the pueblo at 14SC1.
By examining the mineral and chemical composition of these ceramics, we determined that the “southwestern” ceramics were actually made in Kansas and represent locally made copies of Northern Rio Grande wares. This is especially exciting because this means that Puebloan women, likely living at the 14SC1 pueblo, taught their children how to make pottery using Puebloan styles and traditions. These descendants might have abandoned the pueblo and then moved to other sites like 14SC409, where they continued these traditions.
Interested in reading more? Check out these references:
Wedel, Waldo R. 1959. An Introduction to Kansas Archaeology. Bureau of American Bulletin 174. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Beck, Margaret E. and Sarah Trabert. 2014. Puebloan Occupation of the Scott County Pueblo, Western Kansas. American Antiquity, 79(2):314-336.
Hoard, Robert J. 2009. Archaeological Survey of Scott State Park: 2009 Kansas Archaeology Training Program Field School. The Kansas Anthropologist 30:41-133.
Williston, Samuel W. 1899. Some Prehistoric Ruins in Scott County, Kansas. Kansas University Quarterly 7(4):109-114.
Williston, Samuel W. and H.T. Martin. 1900. Some Pueblo Ruins in Scott County, Kansas. Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society, 1897-1900, 6:124-130.
Witty, Thomas A., Jr. 1983. An Archaeological Review of the Scott County Pueblo, Bulletin of the Oklahoma Anthropological Society 32: 99-106.