RSU to Host Archaeology Open House for Oklahoma Archaeology Month

Dr. Brian Andrews discusses artifacts found in northeastern Oklahoma.

Dr. Brian Andrews, Assistant Professor of Social Science at RSU, discusses artifacts found in northeastern Oklahoma during the 2014 Archaeology Open House on the Claremore campus.

Rogers State University will host an Archaeology Open House on Sunday, Oct. 11 to celebrate Oklahoma Archaeology Month. The event will be held outside on the west side of Preparatory Hall on the Claremore campus from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. All activities are free and open to the public.

The open house will feature displays of artifacts from recent excavations in both Rogers and Craig counties in addition to archaeological information about northeastern Oklahoma. Master knappers will provide flintknapping, or stone tool making, demonstrations. Participants will also have the opportunity to create their own stone tools as part of the event’s activities.

Dr. Brian Andrews, Assistant Professor of Social Science at RSU, will be on hand to help identify artifacts that people have found and would like to bring to the event.  Andrews is an anthropological archaeologist interested in prehistoric hunter-gatherer adaptation, and has worked on archaeological sites and assemblages from throughout North America.

Andrews recently oversaw excavations of the Goodson Shelter archaeological site near Chelsea. The site is one of only a few Clovis rock shelters in North America and has artifacts dating from as much as 10,000 years ago through 2,000 years ago.

The excavation was filmed in 2014 by a crew from PBS for part of a five-hour documentary titled “First Peoples” that focused on the initial spread of humans throughout the world. Goodson Shelter was the only site in North America that was filmed by PBS for this documentary, which aired during the summer of 2015.

For more information, contact Andrews at [email protected] or 918-343-7684.