Medicine Lodge State Archaeological Site
is located northeast of Hyattville, Wyoming.

In 1969, a state archaeology team (under Dr. George Frison)
dug through 26 feet of deposits and found evidence of more than 60 cultural levels covering over 10,000 years.

The original excavations were filled back in to preserve them. They are being re-excavated now. The is part of one of the original trenches as it is being reopened.

More "Circle people"

Modern, and ancient, graffiti

Bracing in one of the reopened trenches...

One of the archaeologists I talked to told me that the second man from the right was Dr. George Frison, the original excavator. He was helping them retrace his original diggings.

Some of the archaeologists inspecting the new work...

This final picture of Medicine Lodge shows much of the site (and my rental car)... From here I used the -Red Gulch/Alkali National Back Country Byway to explore some of the, well, back country byways, to coin a phrase. I saw one other car on this 35 mile trek. Just before this dirt/gravel road gets back to a paved road, it comes across a place where some locals discovered some dinosaur tracks.

The Red Gulch/Alkali National Back Country Byway
runs from Hyattville to near Shell, Wyoming.

Yup, it really is "Big Sky Country."

To the right are the Big Horn Mountains...

On the north end of the Byway is the Red Gulch Dinosaur Tracksite. They were "officially" discovered in 1997.

You can easily see two large footprints. However, there are about a dozen less obvious tracks in this picture.

Click here to see an excellent website about the tracks.

A set of tracks run straight up the middle of this picture. To date, over 600 individual dinosaur tracks have been located, measured, and mapped in, the Ballroom, an area about half the size of a football field.

More tracks, one set goes from about six o'clock to 12 o'clock, another starts at 3 o'clock and heads toward 10 o'clock. There are probably 50 tracks in this picture. Most of them are very hard to see, even in person.

This shows the largest part of the tracksite. Over 500 tracks have been found.

I love these colorful layers of strata. During my entire drive along the 32 mile Byway, I only saw two other vehicles.