Grand Meadow Quarry Archeological District
Grand Meadow Quarry Archaeological District | |
| Nearest city | Grand Meadow, Minnesota |
|---|---|
| Area | 170 acres (69 ha) |
| NRHP reference No. | 94000345[1] |
| Added to NRHP | April 8, 1994 |
The Grand Meadow Quarry Archaeological District in Mower County, Minnesota is a 170-acre historic district which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.[1] The principal site within the District is The Grand Meadow Chert Quarry (21MW8). The original quarry was recorded as being 170 acres, now mostly under land plowed or developed, but a pristine 8-acre remnant of the original quarry still exists in a small woods, alongside 5 acres of restored prairie. That portion of the site, purchased by The Archaeological Conservancy as an archaeological preserve, is being developed for public access with a self-guided walking tour by the Prairie Island Indian Community and the Mower County Historical Society.[2]
The chert quarry, first identified by Grand Meadow resident Maynard Green, was an Indigenous open-pit mine with perhaps as many as two thousand pits that were dug using handheld tools. These pits were dug in order to extract nodules of "Grand Meadow Chert," a stone used by Native Americans to make many everyday tools, including spear points, arrowheads, drills, knives and hide scrapers. The earliest known use of Grand Meadow Chert is from a bison kill near Granite Falls (21YM47), in a context that was C-14 dated to 7700-8000 B.P.[3] This microcrystalline tool stone can range in color from olive gray to light yellow gray to very light gray.[4] This quarry is the only known culturally utilized source for Grand Meadow Chert, which has been found at archaeological sites in 52 counties in Minnesota.[5]
References
- ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. November 2, 2013.
- ^ "The Grand Meadow Chert Mine". Mower County Historical Society. Retrieved April 25, 2019.
- ^ Trow, Tom; Wendt, Dan (2020). "The Grand Meadow Chert Quarry" (PDF). The Minnesota Archaeologist. 77: 87 – via Mower County Historical Society.
- ^ Wendt, Dan; Trow, Tom (2020). "Grand Meadow Chert: A Distinctive and High-Quality Chert in Southeastern Minnesota" (PDF). The Minnesota Archaeologist. 77: 113 – via Mower County Historical Society.
- ^ "Mower County Historical Society receives large grant for archaeological site". My Austin Minnesota. 2020-12-10. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
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43°43′39″N 92°35′21″W / 43.72761°N 92.58927°W
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