The Black Hills and Badlands of South Dakota are full of history — so much so, that remnants of that history have been unearthed over the years throughout the state.
Museums throughout the region highlight some of that archaeological research. Some attractions even offer limited opportunities to help dig up artifacts.
Parts of Deadwood’s Chinatown, once considered the largest minority population in the city, were unearthed a few years back. Excavation work continues today at the site on lower Main Street. To date, workers have uncovered thousands of artifacts, including bottles, opium-smoking paraphernalia, dishes and other household items.
The Vore Buffalo Jump near Beulah, Wyoming is much more than a hole full of bones. It’s a scientific treasure … a fascinating history book … a major economic development. The natural sinkhole was used by Plains Indian tribes between 1500 and 1800 A.D. as a trap to capture the large numbers of buffalo necessary to sustain them through the harsh Great Plains winters. The remains of 10,000 to 20,000 bison are likely to excavated at the site. Some bone layers at the site are nearly three feet thick.
One archaeo-mystery is the “Thoen Stone”, discovered near Spearfish. A haunting message scratched into a sandstone slab says, “Came to the hills in 1833, seven of us …. all of the gold we carry [on] our ponies. All dead but me, Ezra Kind, killed by Indians behind the high hill.” The message is followed by the names of the men who came to the Black Hills 40 years before the gold rush in the 1870s.
The stone was discovered 54 years later by Spearfish stone cutter Louis Thoen and is now housed in the Adams Museum in Deadwood.
Archaeology in South Dakota involves many discoveries, another big one for the state was finding Sue, with 90 percent original bone, she is the most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex ever discovered, found in 1990 in northwest South Dakota.