Pottery fragments found at the edge of a bean field northwest of Cambria this summer show that Indians lived there about 1150 A.D. Michael Scullin, anthropology professor at Mankato State College, said he and some students discovered the fragments during a summer of excavation work there. Indian mounds across Highway 68 from the site had been identified by state archaeologists years ago, Scullin said, but the village which probably produced the mounds had not been known until now.

The Indians at Cambria were part of an occupation which came up from a large Indian town near where St. Louis, Mo, is now, he said. They came through Wisconsin across southern Minnesota to the Missouri River.

SCULLIN DOESN’T know ‘when the Indians arrived at the Cambria site or how long they stayed before moving on but said they typically built substantial 20×30-foot houses and stayed for many years. One way to tell the exact dates the Indians were at Cambria would be to carbon date the many pieces of charcoal found in storage-refuse pits, but this costs $160 per piece and the money is not presently available, Scullin said. Scullin’s group worked independently of the state historical society which also makes archaeological searches. The dates of 1100-1200 A. D. for the Indian occupation were set by the design on the pottery fragments found. Scullin said the designs changed over the years back then just as styles change now. The pottery had been made by the Cambria-area Indians from native clays found along the nearby Minnesota River. No dye was used but each piece found by Scullin’s group had its own design etched in by some ancient artisan. The design style dated the makers.

SCULLIN AND his students had started out last year to make an inventory of In-dian sites along the Blue Earth River, then expanded it to a check on what type of Indian artifact collections were being kept in area museums. On their way back from the historical museum at New Ulm the scholars stopped at Cambria to ask if there were any old Indian villages in the area. They were directed to David Price, who offered to show them his field north of Cambria.

120-year-old Indian village site at the other end of the field, he said.(When Price’s grandfather homesteaded the farm in 1856 an Indian village was right next to his field. Indian and settler lived side by side. The Indians would stay six or seven months each winter in the protected low spot there, then travel elsewhere in the summer.)Price told Scullin’s group of the many arrowheads found on the surface in his field over the years and as the group walked the plowed earth they found many pottery flakes.

PRICE GAVE permission for an investigation and the students made a grid on the field, marking off 30-foot squares with string and taking notes of artifacts found on the surface. Then a rectangle about 10-by-15-foot was marked off between the field and the gully and excavation of that rectangle began the first week of June. When the rectangular hole was completed the students had discovered grain storage pits, clam and mussel shells, pottery and bone tools such as a buffalo shoulder hoe. The storage pits had been used by the Indians for grain, then when the pits got mildewed or too wet they had been used for garbage – ashes, broken pottery, stone and bone tool fragments, animal and fishbones.

POST MOLDS- stains in the ground showing where wooden posts had formerly been-were also found by the students. The molds didn’t form a pattern, Scullin said, but a dark area with a 90-degree pattern showing was found which was possibly the corner of a house. Next summer Scullin would like to move the excavation over a few feet and dig another rectangle to try to find more definite signs of a house structure. He said students and non-students alike were welcome to help at next summer’s dig. Unsupervised amateur digging destroys evidence which, properly recorded and interpreted, might give important clues to our cultural past.

“Every site destroyed is another chapter in Indian history that won’t be known,” Scullin said.

New Ulm Daily Journal

Nov. 24 1974