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It can be difficult for archaeologists to understand the individual person behind an artifact. Instead, archaeologists often study groups of people who share a common background – or community – to understand their values and ways of life. To learn about our community’s heritage, we invite you to put your archaeology hat on and look at people’s heritage stories as part of OKPAN’s community. In order to do this, we have gathered the information you shared and presented like archaeologists do: as data and graphs. Can you see yourself and other people in our community in the data?
This section contains data on submissions to the Oklahoma Community Heritage project. As you view each graph, consider the questions that follow. Here are some questions to get you started:
What are the most common materials used to make our community’s heritage objects? Why do you think this is the case?
If archaeologists were to examine our assemblage of artifacts 1,000 years in the future, would all these objects still be around? Why or why not? What do you think the most durable material type would be? Least durable?
When were most of our heritage objects made? Why do you think this is the case?
Where were most of our heritage objects made? What does that tell you about our global economy? Movement of people?
How does our community generally use their heritage objects? What does that tell you about what we tend to save about our past? What does that tell you about our community’s values?
Just how big is our community? This map represents each of the cities and towns connected through the Oklahoma Community Heritage Project.
