Thursday, March 30, 2006

Saloon archaeology update Archaeologist shares the dirt on Virginia City

Kelly Dixon believes there's a lot more to western archaeology than digging up coins and old bones.

Dixon, an assistant anthropology professor at the University of Montana, and author of "Boomtown Saloons: Archaeology and History in Virginia City, Nevada," is excited about "discoveries that deepen the understanding of saloon diversity to include women and African Americans."

"African-American women are a double minority historically, so when you can find the DNA of a woman on a tobacco pipe stem from an African-American saloon, you're able to insert tidbits of the past back into history books," Dixon said.


See more on Dixon here.