Soapstone in Wyoming's High Country
A survey of archaeological sites in the Fitzpatrick Wilderness soapstone district was conducted by Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist and UW researchers with the goals of gaining information about the distribution of these sites, their chronology, and the nature of aboriginal soapstone artifacts. From the information gathered, it is hypothesized that prehistoric human groups followed migrating game animals across the Continental Divide. The high country of the Wind River Range was used from at least the Archaic and Late Prehistoric through the Protohistoric and into modern times. Three soapstone artifacts were collected because they had either been vandalized or were at a high risk of being looted. These pieces are represented in the three-dimensional objects that can be viewed below.

This website was created by Alison Hofbauer and edited by Richard Adams for the

Making Learning Real Project

MLR is funded by the Ellbogen Center for Teaching and Learning and the UW Anthropology Department

You must have Quicktime to view these objects: Download QuickTime Here

If you have problems with the browser looking at the objects in Explorer, try using Safari
Bowl Object
Pipe Object
Enigmatic Object
Funding for this project was provided by:

The Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist

The Wyoming Department of State Parks and Cultural Resource

The University of Wyoming Anthropology Department

The Shoshone National Forest

The Allbright Fellowship.
Please Direct Questions and Comments to jahern@uwyo.edu