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Lynn M. Alex
Lynn M. Alex, director of education and outreach at the Office of the State Archaeologist, heads an education committee that plans and directs outreach efforts on Iowa archaeology statewide. Recent projects include a field school in archaeology and history centered on Ft. Atkinson in northeast Iowa. Ft. Atkinson was established in the 1840s to oversee Winnebago tribal members forcibly moved into Iowa from their Wisconsin homelands. Field school participants engaged in archaeological research of the fort buildings and cemetery, test excavations of a potential Catholic mission site, and archival research. They were also introduced to native perspectives from current Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) tribal members.
Ms. Alex facilitates volunteer-assisted research into early Iowa agriculture at two O’Brien County locations in northwest Iowa. The results have demonstrated the existence of prehistoric raised garden beds in Iowa, a site type unknown on the eastern Plains. Ms. Alex is assisting the Museum of Natural History in the development of a new exhibit that will feature the results of this research. She also plans to aid the Archaeological Conservancy in its efforts to purchase and preserve an Iowa site.
Ms. Alex has designed and developed twelve traveling resource trunks that tell the story of Iowa’s past from Ice Age times to the pioneer period. These trunks are borrowed regularly by schools, museums, county conservation centers, and other organizations throughout the state. She is also adapting Project Archaeology, a national archaeological heritage curriculum for 3-8th grades, for use in Iowa. Ms. Alex has published two books on Iowa archaeology: Exploring Iowa’s Past (University of Iowa Press 1980) and Iowa’s Archaeological Past (University of Iowa Press 2000).
Finally, Ms. Alex annually coordinates the Office of the State Archaeologist’s premier outreach event called Iowa Archaeology Month, now in its fourteenth year. This event offers programs and opportunities that foster appreciation and stewardship of Iowa’s archaeological past to communities statewide. In 2005, audiences of 20,000 took part in the event.
