Mainstreet Radio’s Leif Enger reports that archeologists have unearthed what's thought to be a 1,000-year-old sacred site on the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation. The site contains dozens of ancient bear skulls, and predates the arrival of Ojibwe Indians to the region.
The location is still being kept under wraps, with visitors practically sworn to secrecy, but the site making the archeologists swoon is a plot of sandy ground within sight of Lake Mille Lacs.
LEIF ENGER: The location is still being kept under wraps. Visitors are practically sworn to secrecy. But the site making archeologists swoon is a plot of sandy ground within sight of Lake Mille Lacs, the sun on this day flooding in through a thin cover of trees. The dig itself looks unimpressive at first, just a few meters across and inches, not feet, in depth. Tim Tumberg is on knees and elbows at the edge of the action.
TIM TUMBERG: I've never seen anything even close to this exciting on a prehistoric site. It's just amazing.
LEIF ENGER: Tumberg, a 10-year veteran of such digs, is spooning dirt from the hole. With a small paintbrush, he scrubs the surfaces of several long, unmistakable curved teeth. The teeth are deep brown, like the earth that holds them. Once you realize what you're looking at, you start seeing them all over the place. David Mather is lead archeologist on the project.
DAVID MATHER: We realized at one point that we had more than four canines. A bear only has four. So we knew we had more than one bear. And we hadn't found any bones other than the skull. There weren't even any vertebrae. So we knew that we were on to something really special.
LEIF ENGER: Something, Mather figured, like a site excavated in the early '70s at nearby Lake Onamia. That dig at what's now known as the Crace site revealed more than 30 shattered and jumbled bear skulls at the edge of a burial mound. But as members of Mather's crew widened the dig, they found not crushed remains but one of the clearest prehistoric ritual sites uncovered to date.
DAVID MATHER: Let's go over here. And let me get something to point with. These are teeth. And here's the fangs. And then here, here, maybe here, here, here, here, and here are bear skulls that are lined up and looking-- they're all looking into the feature, into the pit. So when the pit was dug out, they were lined up right there along the edge.
LEIF ENGER: You can't see the skulls in their entirety. The workers have cleared off only the top few inches. So what's visible are the sharply ridged crowns, all pointing inward. There's something in the site that makes a visitor glad for daylight.
As for the pit, what it was for, what might have been in it, Mather won't venture to guess. Neither will Dr. Guy Gibbon, the U of M archeology professor who excavated the Crace site back in the '70s. Gibbon says though such well-preserved sites are rare, caches of bear skulls have been found from Scandinavia to Siberia and across North America.
GUY GIBBON: Animals were intermediaries used by various groups to communicate with past ancestors and the spirits, et cetera. Beyond that, what the ceremony was like and what its purpose was for, unfortunately, we don't really know.
LEIF ENGER: Gibbon believes this site, estimated at 1,000 years old, was the work of people who eventually became the Dakota. In the 1700s, the Dakota were chased out of the region by the Ojibwe. But that antagonistic history didn't keep the Mille Lacs Ojibwe from contacting the Dakota immediately when the site was discovered. Mille Lacs cultural specialist Elisse Aune says, in fact, the Dakota will have the last word about what happens next at the site, whether there's any more digging, for example, or whether it's simply reburied and allowed to rest.
ELISSE AUNE: Of course, Mille Lacs Band is working with the Dakota people, Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, the Historic Preservation Office from the Historical Society. Working together to gain more knowledge of one specific site is a big, large achievement in itself.
LEIF ENGER: Archeologist David Mather says while he'd like to know more about the site, actually removing pieces would be difficult to do without destroying them. He says archeology often overlaps into other realms. And when that happens, it's best to go slowly, if you go at all.
DAVID MATHER: If I never find anything again, this is-- that's OK. This is amazing. It means more than I can say to be able to be here and to see it and learn something from it. But it's not the remains of somebody's meal. It's bigger than that. It's our responsibility to be respectful of it.
LEIF ENGER: Dakota tribal leaders are still consulting on how to treat the discovery. A decision is expected before the end of the year. Leif Enger, Minnesota Public Radio.
Digitization made possible by the State of Minnesota Legacy Amendment’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, approved by voters in 2008.
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