Collaborative Archaeology Project Receives Tribal Heritage Grant
This fall, a community-based collaborative archaeology program, Geté Anishinaabeg Izichigéwin Community Archaeology Project (GAICAP) based in Red Cliff, Wisconsin, was awarded a multi-year Tribal Heritage Grant. Co-directors of GAICAP include Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO) of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Marvin Defoe, North Dakota State University Assistant Professor John Creese, and UW-La Crosse Lecturer Heather Walder. The $50K award will allow GAICAP to investigate several areas of land within the Red Cliff Reservation in 2021 and 2022, while training tribal monitors, community members, and undergraduate field school participants in professional survey and excavation methods.
Community outreach is a major part of this project, which has been working collaboratively in Red Cliff since 2017. Funding for the Tribal Heritage Grant program is made available by the Historic Preservation Fund and is administered by the Department of Interior National Park Service. Read the full press release from Red Cliff here.
Captions (TOP): THPO Staff and Interns, Red Cliff community members, and undergraduate students learned about flintknapping at a Traditional Foodways and Technology workshop in 2019. (BOTTOM): Undergraduate students in the GAICAP archaeological field school lead public outreach and youth programming, like this one at the Ginanda Gikendaasomin library in Red Cliff.