Archaeology2
Dozens of children spent one day this August conducting digs, mapping artifacts and surveying St. Cloud’s oldest buildings thanks, in part, to work done by two St. Cloud State graduate students.
Corey Yates, Rapid City, South Dakota, and Charlie Peliska, St. Cloud, are partnered with the Stearns History Museum to put on an Archaeology Camp for children Aug. 4 as part of their summer internships.
Both are Cultural Resources Management students who are conducting research this summer while interning at the museum.
Yates spent part of his graduate assistantship working with Professor Debra Gold speaking to third graders about archaeology during their history lessons. He worked with Sterns History Museum Program Curator Nichole Bach to incorporate those lessons and bolster the museum’s existing camp.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for us and for the campers as well,” she said. “Corey and Charlie have worked as archaeologists for the past 10 years. … They are able to share how exciting it is to be an archaeologist.”
In addition to leading the camp, Yates and Peliska are investigating the region’s history this summer.
Peliska is researching Fort Holes on the St. Cloud State campus, and Yates is researching pre-prohibition breweries in St. Cloud with plans to develop a walking brewery history tour around his findings later this summer.
He is researching the history of the breweries in newspaper clippings and oral history recordings.
Yates and Peliska are the museum’s first archaeology interns, though the museum has hosted several St. Cloud State history interns in the past.
In addition to Yates’ proposed brewery history tour, the pair will lead an Archaeology I.D. event in September where they help visitors to the museum identify artifacts they’ve found in their yards and showcase museum artifacts.
“It’s very exciting for us,” Bach said. “I think that it offers new opportunities.”
