Digging up the past was the key goal of several ISU students who ventured to Dallas County.

Led by associate professor of anthropology Joseph Tiffany, students and alumni volunteered at an archaeological dig earlier this month.

For three weeks the group excavated the Maxwell Site, located near Redfield.

Tiffany said the site was inhabited by people from the Great Oasis era between the years A.D. 950 and A.D. 1100.

“The Great Oasis people were early village farmers in central and northwest Iowa,” Tiffany said.

Artifacts such as pottery, stone tools and well-preserved animal bones were salvaged.

The Maxwell Site was first discovered after the floods of 1993. The site lies along a bank of the South Raccoon River.

“The site is eroding into the river at an alarming rate,” Tiffany said. “Over 40 feet of the site has been washed away since 1994.”

Tiffany said by the time he and his crew got to the site this summer, only a third of the site remained. He also said many other prehistoric Iowa sites located in similar land form situations are being destroyed just as quickly.

“We know very little about the Great Oasis culture in Iowa,” Tiffany said. “Only a handful of sites have ever been tested or professionally examined.”

Tiffany said the excavation was a worthwhile experience.

“Salvage work at the Maxwell Site was an excellent opportunity for us to garner material culture and subsistence data in context to study the Great Oasis life ways,” Tiffany said.

The Office of the State Archaeologist at the University of Iowa signed a contract with Dallas County in order to begin the project. Lynn Alex, public archaeology coordinator for the office, coordinated public participation efforts and organized more than 50 volunteers for the dig.

“There were folks who came from all over Iowa who were just interested volunteers,” Alex said. Volunteers included members of the Iowa Archaeology Society and people from other states.

“They did all aspects of excavation,” Alex said. “They helped us keep records of what they were finding, and they also helped make the plans or drawings that we have to make while we’re doing excavations.”

A public presentation on the project will be held at the State Historical Society of Iowa Museum in Des Moines on Sept. 8 at 10 a.m.