Archaeology is the study of the past through material culture, through all of the things that people leave behind. In describing what archaeology does, Larry Zimmerman, in an article in The Wyoming Archaeologist, writes:
“It takes the material remains people leave behind, along with their contexts the relationship of the objects to each other and builds a story about a culture’s life around them.”
In his chapter in Archaeological Theory Today, John Barrett writes:
“The archaeological study of human society is deemed to be possible because extinct societies have left a material trace.”
The Deschutes Historical Museum, located in the historic Reid School in Bend, Oregon, has a small archaeology display which includes material from the Lava Island Rock Shelter.
Lava Island Rock Shelter
The museum includes a display of artifacts uncovered by archaeologists during their dig at the Lava Island Rock Shelter in 1981.
Other Archaeology
Shown above are some obsidian arrow-point replicas.
According to the Museum display:
“Obsidian is natural glass that was originally molten magma associated with a volcano. It is only one of a variety of rock materials which were used by Native peoples for toolmaking. Obsidian was highly traded. Two local sources of high quality obsidian are Newberry Caldera and Glass Buttes.”
Shown above are some grinding tools used for converting seeds into flour.