Tribal Liaison of Montana Native American Tribe

DiggingDenver, LLC is working with Native American tribal members to obtain land-in-trust through proposals and grants supporting spatial analysis of social data, proposal writing, and archaeological fieldwork. Owing to conflicts with federal authorities in the 19th and 20th centuries, many Native peoples have struggled to obtain reservation land for most of their histories of engagement with the federal government. DiggingDenver, LLC is working with tribal entities on multiple projects including the identification of Native archaeological sites through spatial analysis, elder interviews, field survey, and excavation and interpretation of these sites. The following summarizes each project:

 

Elder Interviews, Montana

 

DiggingDenver, LLC is assisting Native American tribal authorities with the transcription of interviews of elder members of the Tribe to record their memories of employment at copper smelters in Montana during the early 20th century. Smelters employed Tribal members during World War I, when Euroamericans went to serve in the military. Employment at the smelter provided high-paying jobs to poverty-stricken Natives who had been eking out an existence on the margins of cities. Information from the interviews will be utilized to establish the location of historic settlements for the purpose of evaluating these sites for preservation and potential land purchases.

 

Historic Settlement Spatial Analysis, Montana

 

DiggingDenver, LLC is partnering with Native American Tribal entities to identify historic archaeological sites utilizing Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping and United States Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Explorer historic aerial images. The mapping, conducted in ArcGIS and QGIS softwares, simultaneously allows the Tribe to visualize location data and to generate a spatially-linked database for sites of interest. Ultimately, data obtained from this project, will be combined with already curated spatial data of historic archaeological sites to establish the potential for excavation as well as for the purchase of land.

 

Archival Research and Data Scraping, Montana

 

DiggingDenver, LLC is conducting online and in-person archival research on Native American interactions with local copper smelters in Montana during the early 20th century, particularly focusing on events with named locations mappable in GIS. The project includes data scraping of online resources for instances of Tribal surnames mentioned in relation to copper smelters.

 

Proposal writing for Field Survey, Archival Research, and Data Scraping, Montana and North Dakota

 

In partnership with tribal entities and in government-to-government consultation between the tribe and the federal government, DiggingDenver, LLC is developing a project proposal and plan to conduct archival research and field surveys to identify potential for Tribe-associated archaeological and historic sites in Montana and North Dakota. The project includes review and data scraping of newspaper archives and museum collections. Any data with spatial dimension will be mapped in GIS and combined with existing GIS databases of Tribe-associated locations. Ultimately, this information will be used to inform field surveys of areas in Montana and North Dakota to mark areas for preservation and possible land purchase by the Tribe.

 

Ground Suurvey Consultation Services for Native American Tribes, Bismarck, ND

 

DiggingDenver, LLC assisted the tribal entities representing their interests on an archaeological field survey within Tribal homelands to establish a cross-state transmission line. DiggingDenver, LLC participated in consultation meetings as well as in the identification of archaeological and historic materials in North Dakota.