New Interpretations of the Fort Clark State Historic Site Based on Aerial Color and Thermal Infrared Imagery


Fort Clark Marker

Publication: Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Author: Andrew Roland Heller

Date of Publication: 2007

PDF File: New_interpretations_of_the_For.pdf

Description


The Fort Clark State Historic Site (32ME2) is a well known site on the upper Missouri River, North Dakota. The site was the location of two Euroamerican trading posts and a large Mandan-Arikara earthlodge village. In 2004, Dr. Kenneth L. Kvamme and Dr. Tommy Hailey surveyed the site using aerial color and thermal infrared imagery collected from a powered parachute. Individual images were stitched together into large image mosaics and registered to Wood’s 1993 interpretive map of the site using Adobe Photoshop. The analysis of those image mosaics resulted in the identification of more than 1,500 archaeological features, including as many as 124 earthlodges.