New West Books & Writers

An Interview with Montana Archaeologist Larry Lahren

By Jenny Shank, 9-03-07

Larry Lahren is a Livingston, Montana-based archaeologist who founded Anthro Research, Inc., which his website describes as a “cultural resource consulting firm.” Recently Lahren compiled essays based on research that he has completed over his almost four decades as an archaeologist into the book Homeland: An Archaeologist’s view of Yellowstone Country’s Past.  Dr. Lahren briefly answered my questions about the book via email, discussing Montana’s earliest people and his favorite discoveries.

NewWest: What prompted you to collect the articles you have written over the course of your archaeology career into this book?

Larry Lahren: The articles reflect the sites and materials that I have worked on and I connect them through time with each example essay. Each essay can stand alone as a teaching, information or source reference.

NW: Why did you decide to include a personal family history at the beginning of Homeland?

LL: To develop a context about what “Home” is from my socialization, the cultural ethic of the time, and how it affected my perspective and career in archaeology and now as a county commissioner.

NW: You write about how the Rocky Mountains have traditionally been seen as a barrier between cultures rather than a homeland. How did people make their home in the mountains?

LL: The way is indicated in the Good Camp on the Big Bend of the Yellowstone and Dozer Rock and the Mummy Cave site in Wyoming.

NW: Is less material likely to be preserved or discovered in mountainous areas than in flatter places?

LL: No

NW: What is known about Montana’s earliest people from the Clovis burial site you mention and from other evidence?

LL: That since this time (11,000 years ago) people were living in Montana and considered it a Homeland, as demonstrated by tools left and as a burial.

NW: What have you and researchers such as Ray Alt (who studies bow hunting) learned about past societies from employing their hunting techniques?

LL: How efficient these people were with a very basic technology.

NW: Are hunting techniques a special focus of your research?

LL: Yes.

NW: Do all archaeologists study tools and weapons extensively because they are made of material that has a better chance of surviving?

LL: Part of this is true and many archaeologists “worship” stone artifacts such as projectile points - we try to get into the mind and technology of the past peoples.

NW: You note that a psychic visited the Anzick site and offered his reading of the people whose remains were found there.  Did you invite him?

LL: No I did not invite him, it was a suggestion of some New Age, crystal-alignment-for-harmonious-convergence people that thought it would be of value. 

NW: You write that the deer antlers you found in the Dozer Rock site seemed to have been placed in their respective positions. What do you speculate about this - was it part of a ceremony?

LL: Actually these mule deer skull caps and antlers were found at the Dead Indian site in Wyoming and suggest a mule deer hunting cult/ritual situation.

NW: The Bighorn Medicine Wheel is striking. What do you know about it?

LL: Note the tie in with other circular features that are illustrated in the same area, definitely a religious structure.

NW: How did the introduction of the horse change the lifestyle of Montana’s indigenous people?

LL: A revolution!

NW: How is being an independent consultant different from being an archaeologist for a museum or university?

LL: Totally different: no teaching and no treadmill and totally different politics.

NW: What is the most exciting or unusual discovery you’ve made over the course of your career?

LL: Definitely Myers-Hindman.  I didn’t discover, but documented Anzick, which still keeps me in awe.

NW: Have you ever had your prior notions challenged or changed by something you have found in the field?

LL: Again Myers-Hindman and Anzick . I work with an open mind and have never been totally stuck in a one-theory mode.

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