The Saskatchewan Archaeological Society's travelling caravan will be visiting the Fred Light Museum in Battleford July 9. Children and adults are welcome to attend from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The purpose of the ArchaeoCaravan program is primarily to assist community museums with the identification and interpretation of their archaeological collections.
Time will be set aside for the collection at the Fred Light Museum. Manager Bernadette Leslie says she is looking forward to having the archeologists inspect the arrowheads, obsidian tools and leather items in the museum's aboriginal artifacts collection. She expects they will be able to provide more information on when they were made and by which native groups.
The second component of the ArchaeoCaravan is public education. Executive director of the Saskatchewan Archeological Society, Tomasin Playford, says there will be several hands-on activities offered so peopletoday can better understand how people in the past lived. They may include hide or rock art painting, pottery making (with plasticene), ceramic reconstruction and bison hunting with the atlatl, a spear thrower.
There will be also be a display on Saskatchewan archaeology and master’s archaeology students Tasha Hodgson and Kayleigh Spiers will be on hand to answer questions. The public is invited to bring any artifacts they want identified.
The ArchaeoCaravan program started in 2012 and is a five-year program. It targets different geographical areas of the province every summer and works with the Museum Association of Saskatchewan network museums. So far it has visited museums in central, southeastern and southwestern Saskatchewan.
This year the ArchaeoCaravan is travelling throughout the Northwest and next year it will be travelling in northeastern Saskatchewan.
The program is organized by SAS staff but is completely funded through external grants. The SAS hires two archaeology master’s students to deliver the programming and since its inception it has reached almost 8,000 people.
