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Grand Meadow Chert Quarry Archaeological and Cultural Preserve / Wanhi Yukan
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Grand Meadow Chert Quarry Preserve
Location	Grand Meadow, Minnesota, United States
Coordinates	43.72761°N 92.58927°W / 43.72761; -92.58927
Area	15 acres (6.1 ha)
NRHP reference No.	94000345
Added to NRHP	April 8, 1994

The Grand Meadow Chert Quarry Archaeological and Cultural Preserve / Wanhi Yukan is the small remnant of an Indigenous open-pit chert quarry in southeastern Minnesota. Found within the larger Grand Meadow Quarry Archeological District, a 170-acre site on the National Register of Historic Places, the 15-acre Preserve contains nearly 100 intact pits that were dug using handheld tools of stone, bone, and wood, most likely between 1050CE and 1450CE.

Each pit was dug to reach a layer of nodules of Grand Meadow chert (GMC), a high-quality stone (ref below Gonsior 19xx) particularly favored during the Middle Mississippian era for the manufacture of scrapers, an essential tool for preparing hides. For at least 8,000 years prior to that, chert from this location was easily found exposed in stream beds. It was used for making all types of chipped stone tools, including spear points, darts, knives, awls, and later, arrowheads. Grand Meadow chert has been found at archaeological sites in 52 counties in Minnesota, and in Wisconsin, Iowa, and South Dakota.

It is the most extensively utilized Native American site in the state for providing stone for making tools, and the only example where there is visible evidence of where chert was extracted through digging. The Preserve is one of only a few such places regionally with visible quarry pits, and stands out for its remarkable condition: except for the trees and shrubs that have appeared since the prairie fires ended when farming started, it appears virtually unchanged from its last day of use.

Recent History: The Quarry Story

Although a distinctive gray chert was well known to archaeologists excavating at many Middle Mississippian villages in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa, its elusive origin was unknown prior to 1980. A team from the Statewide Archaeological Survey of the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) responded in that year to a report from a local rock collector and artifact enthusiast, Maynard Green. Mr. Green had written a letter in 1952 to Minnesota's leading archaeologist, Professor Lloyd Wilford of the University of Minnesota, saying that he believed the site to be an untouched, pre-contact indigenous quarry. Although the two men did spend the morning together, a surprise storm prevented them from visiting the quarry, and no subsequent visit occurred until 28 years later.

Tom Trow, the leader of the MNHS team, saw the letter in 1980 and along with his field partner, John Hunn, met with Mr. Green. Within a small 8-acre wooded plot, surrounded by heavily-worked agricultural fields, they encountered an extraordinary landscape of 88 deep pits surrounded by high spoil piles. Bits of chert visible on the ground supported Mr. Green’s interpretation of the pits, but it was the widely scattered debitage in the surrounding fields, left from hundreds of years of stone-working, that provided the confirmation. The archaeologists surveyed the area and identified the full chert quarry site as having once covered at least 170 acres. Much of that land has been filled in and covered over by agricultural activities going back to the 1860’s. The extraordinary landscape within the remaining 8 acres of quarry pits, unworked since they were abandoned and hidden within that small wooded area, is unique in Minnesota, and rare anywhere in the United States. The 1980 survey team placed the site into the Minnesota state archaeological record.

In 1994, the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places with support from the Science Museum of Minnesota. The small wooded plot and surrounding grassland was purchased by The Archaeological Conservancy for preservation and protection. In collaboration with the Prairie Island Indian Community and with the Mower County Historical Society, an interpretive program is being established to allow the public to visit the Preserve. A self-guided walking tour and interpretive program in Dakota and English is expected to be opened for the public in 2025.

END

Grand Meadow Chert

Grand Meadow Chert was formed during the Devonian period, a warm epoch when the sea levels were high enough that much of today's North America was under recurring and retreating shallow oceans. Because of its sedimentary past, Grand Meadow chert contains brachiopods and **these other things** making it uniquely identifiable by its distinctive fossil inclusions.

The stone is "a satiny to waxy chert, ranging in color from light gray to olive gray to dark gray. An olive gray patination is common, and the cortex typically consists of chalky cream-colored to brown limestone.[**footnote to link to paper "The Grand Meadow Chert Quarry by Tom Trow and Dan Wendt"**]

Once the chert layer was revealed by digging, the nodules of useful stone were simply picked up from the glacial till matrix. These nodules ranged in size from **four to 10 inches in length** and for this reason, larger tools made from this chert have not been found.

Knapping this stone

Uses of Grand Meadow Chert

Grand Meadow Chert is unique in its . It may be identified by

It is only found

Making tools from this chert

particularly useful in creating hide scrapers. These invaluable tools were used by Indigenous people in the pre-contact era, 1150-1450 AND SURELY EARLIER

Cultural Significance of the Grand Meadow Chert Quarry

The quarry preserve is located in southeastern Minnesota

with multiple archaeological sites of Indigenous villages found within ,

100s of years,

meeting place

Test Excavations and Interpretation

During the 1980 survey, excavations revealed

and this meant

leading to these hypotheses and assumptions

Visitor Experience

Opening the site to the public

Dates when open to the public:

Once opened to the public, visitors will take a signed, self-guided tour on the Wanhi Yukan Trail through the quarry site. Though the archaeological significance of the quarry makes it impossible to create a fully-accessible experience, a portion of the footpath will be accessible to those with mobility restrictions.

The self-guided tour will pass by a talking circle, where groups can pause and reflect on the thousands of years of human labor to create these pits by people digging for chert. This will be accessible. To the south of the wooded quarry area, a prairie restoration has been undertaken with locally harvested seeds and support from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. A path will take visitors of all mobility levels to an overlook **looking at what, actually?**

The plans for the site include off-road parking and a portable toilet facility. Due to the rural nature of the preserve, visitors will be asked to take away with them anything that they bring to the site.

A Visitors' Guide will be published, and available at (some? web sites?). The guide will expand on the trail-markers and signs within the quarry, and offer an expanded glimpse into the history of the quarry site.

public access visitor guide program developed by the Prairie Island Indian Community, in partnership with the Mower County Historical Society

ADD something about the prairie restoration. AND maybe the buckthorn? And Knapping

References

[https://mowercountyhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/MnArch_Vol77_MCHS_WendtTrow-Distinctive.pdf Trow, Tom and Dan Wendt

2020	The Grand Meadow Chert Quarry.  The Minnesota Archaeologist, Volume 77: 75-98.]

https://mowercountyhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/MnArch_Vol77_MCHS_Wendt.pdf

Anderson, J.A.

 2018	Macromorphological Analysis of End Scrapers for the Sites Associated with Two Phases of the Oneota Tradition, The Blue Earth and Spring Creek, in Southern Minnesota.  Unpublished Master's Thesis, Department of Anthropology, Mankato State University, Mankato.

Green, Maynard

 1952	Letter to Lloyd Wilford.  On file, Office of the State Archaeologist, St. Paul.

Gonsior, LeRoy

 1992	Lithics Materials of Southeastern Minnesota, Part III.  The Platform 4(3):5-6, Minnesota Knappers Guild.
 

[https://mowercountyhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/The-Grand-Meadow-Chert-QuarryCorrected-CopyArticle1.pdf Trow, Tom and Dan Wendt
2020	The Grand Meadow Chert Quarry.  The Minnesota Archaeologist, Volume 77: 75-98.]

MediaWiki

delete these notes eventually

notes and changes 43.72 86 98-92.58 92 80 43.72 72 47-92.58 92 74

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynch_Quarry_site

Adding pictures