Castle Valley Archaeological Society to Present Research From Great Basin Anthropological Conference

The Castle Valley Archaeological Society will host a research presentation at 7 p.m. Nov. 16 at the Prehistoric Museum. The presentation, hosted in the Don L. Burge Room, will be led by Tim Riley, director and curator of archeology at the Utah State University Eastern Prehistoric Museum, located in Price.

During the presentation, Riley will be speaking about some of the interesting research presented at the recent Great Basin Anthropological Conference in Bend, Oregon. All community members are invited to attend the event.

The Great Basin Anthropological Conference began in 1954 and is the largest conference focused on the Indigenous cultures of the Great Basin and adjacent regions. Utah-related highlights from this year included sessions on the Ice Age landscape of the Old River Bed Delta in western Utah, fiber artifacts from across the region, and a diverse symposium about recent research on the Fremont archaeological culture. All are invited learn about the exciting discoveries and ongoing research.

Riley was trained as an archaeologist, paleo ethnobotanist, and palynologist (pollen scientist) under Vaughn M. Bryant. His primary research interests focus on how past human populations used the plant communities for food, medicine and materials.

One of his favorite artifact types is the lowly coprolite, or desiccated fecal material. These rare records of past diet provide a window into how one person combined different plant and animal components into a meal.

Riley enjoys walking an audience through the ways we can understand “paleocuisine” and then serving a tasting menu of dishes based on the ingredients and cooking techniques identified through coprolite research.