All that We Can Never Know

John and Theresa Branney gifted UW a collection of artifacts, as well as funding for their curation.

By Sunnie Lew

This story begins at its end.

Some clarity on facts and truth. A fact is an indisputable observation that can be verified by evidence. Facts are rigid, existing in actuality and cannot be convinced otherwise. Truth is a body made up of real things, including facts, and is dependent on a belief. Truth is amicable to your own experiences, to your gut reaction. While the truth harbors facts, it can’t outlive them. At the end of it all, truth dies with its messengers, and all that is left are the stones that time could not hide.

Archaeology is storytelling in reverse. It’s the collection of facts, used to map what we believe to be true. And that is why we start at the end, to bring us closer to what came before.

In the Colorado mountains under the outlook of Horsetooth Rock rests a significant piece of the archaeological record. It’s a massive collection, unlike any other, that’s available for study by University of Wyoming students. The collection is composed of prehistoric artifacts that have been procured throughout the high plains. The keepers of these artifacts are John and Theresa Branney, who gifted the collection to UW.

The gift has three parts: the artifacts themselves, the collection’s database and funding for the artifacts’ curation. For the remainder of John and Theresa’s lifetimes, the collection will stay in their home, a space open to aspiring archaeologists.

“We haven’t seen anything quite like John’s collection,” says Todd Surovell, a professor in UW’s Department of Anthropology and director of the George C. Frison Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology. “The locational information, along with the amount and quality of the materials, is rare. Artifacts are the primary insight to how people lived over the last 13,000 years. John’s collection is a wonderful example of this.”

The collection resides in John’s office. In the morning hours, a warm light floods through cases made of wood and glass, where he has stored almost all that he has found. The items are meticulously organized and labeled. The significance of John’s work is apparent, regardless of one’s archaeological knowledge.

“Do you want to hold one?” asks John, opening a display case containing Clovis points dated as far back as 11,300 years ago.

The facts: The age of an artifact is determined through a method called radiocarbon dating, which analyzes a radioactive isotope of carbon found in organic materials. Clovis points are described as wholly distinctive, chipped from jasper, chert, obsidian and other fine, brittle stone. They have a lance-shaped tip and are sometimes unexpectedly and wickedly sharp.

This is what we know to be true: When John places the Clovis in your palm, his face beams. The moment feels restorative. It will lead you to believe that the warmth of the room is more than a peering sun through French doors. It’s the space itself — a space where evidence of past civilizations has hived together, humming secrets in dead languages. To be here with John is finding a closeness with truth while accepting all that we can never know.

John and Theresa hold significant gratitude for the landowners who have granted John permission to collect from their properties. Over time, they’ve become great friends with many of them, sparking a community interested in the deep past of the high plains. Theresa shares her favorite stories of John’s adventures and the building of these relationships. Although she doesn’t hunt herself, she’s an integral part of the bestowed gift.

The Branneys are defined by their values. They inform that it’s important to always have permission before artifact hunting. Never trespass, never cut fences, never take anything without permission. In amassing the physical collection, the Branneys have also gained the trust of those who steward the land.

“We couldn’t have put this collection together without the landowners,” John says.

The collection is an extraordinary effort that has spanned nearly six decades. Currently, there are over 8,000 records in the database, each with a catalog number that includes information about the artifact type, date collected and even GPS coordinates, among other pertinent details. Since the beginning, John has hunted artifacts with noble intention.

“In the 1930s, my grandparents owned a homestead near Moneta, Wyo., and one of my grandfather’s passions was collecting artifacts,” John says. “When he died, my mother inherited his collection. Seeing that collection lit a fire that has shined bright ever since.”

John found his first perfect arrow point when he was 8 years old. At an early age, his mother bought him two artifact books that he still has — “Indian Artifacts” by Virgil Russell of Casper, Wyo., and “Stone Artifacts of the Northwestern Plains” by Warren Steege and Louis Welch. From those books, he learned the importance of documenting everything he found.

The value of John’s work is not lost on the Cowboy State.

Surovell says, “Archaeology is so rewarding because understanding the human past is a serious challenge but a fun one. Finding things and dreaming of finding things that haven’t been touched by another person in thousands of years is really the romance of the profession.”

Facts are the widow of truth. Each artifact looks somehow precious in the light of John’s office. However, when you imagine what each one must have endured to survive the passing millennia, it feels remarkable to be in their presence. While facts expose themselves openly through the symmetry of chipped obsidian and the smooth surface of a grinding stone, the truth is something we must listen for, like the gentle moaning of high plains ghosts.

Three Giants in Anthropology

Three UW anthropologists — William Mulloy, George Gill and Doug Owsley — have made significant contributions to the field of anthropology.

William Mulloy – UW has long had a research connection with Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, located in the Pacific Ocean approximately 2,300 miles west of its federal government in Chile — since 1955, when UW anthropologist William Mulloy accompanied Thor Heyerdahl on the Norwegian Archaeological Expedition. Mulloy devoted his life to extensive research and restoration of the island’s shrines and monuments — particularly the large stone statues (moai) for which Easter Island is best known. Mulloy’s early research was on North American Plains archaeology.

George Gill – After his service as a U.S. Army Combat Ranger, UW Anthropology Professor George Gill excavated and studied hundreds of human skeletal remains from Mexico, Easter Island and the Great Plains of North America. His travels have carried him to 45 countries and all 50 states, where he has developed osteological collections for national museum collections. He served as scientific leader of the National Geographic Society’s 1981 Easter Island Anthropological Expedition and has been active in skeletal identification for law enforcement agencies as a fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Doug Owsley – Doug Owsley is curator of physical anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. A UW alumnus who was born in Sheridan, Owsley is one of the foremost forensic anthropologists in the world, and his research focuses on skeletal biology, forensic anthropology and historic populations in North America and Polynesia. He helped identify the 9/11 Pentagon victims, victims of the Bosnian War and those killed in Waco, Texas, during the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound. He is among Smithsonian Magazine’s list of “35 Who Made a Difference,” stemming from his work on the 9,500-year-old remains of the Kennewick Man.