Employee Spotlight: Mike Jackson

Meet April’s Employee Spotlight, Mike Jackson! Mike is a new employee owner at Metcalf and became part of the team in March 2023. Dierdre Bostyan, an assistant regional project coordinator, recently interviewed Mike.

Dierdre: What made you interested in CRM/archaeology?

Mike: What initially made me interested in archaeology were National Geographic magazines about Ancient Egypt, the Maya, and Inca. When I went to UND I took an archaeology intro course from Dr. Larry Loendorf, about their archaeological field school. My ears perked up, I soon was enrolled, and was shortly out in the boondocks digging 1-x-1-m squares. I have mostly worked in the northern plains, but have also worked in the Northern Rockies (Grad school crew leader), as well as in the Southwest on a three room Sinagua pueblo house, Minnesota, spent one summer in Michigan, and worked in Texas where I did survey, testing, sweating, while chopping down all manner of vegetation and avoiding all manner of deadly creatures, just to do some archaeology. The pueblo excavation project just outside of Sedona, Arizona has been my favorite thus far. I had worked in North Dakota for about four years prior, and had no idea what a beautiful spot I had signed up to go work in. While there, I learned about field sorting and that all the fire-cracked rock (FCR) and lots of other items were being tossed aside. I started wondering why FCR was being disregarded, and that eventually led me to do a thesis study of experimental FCR at Texas A&M University, under the direction of my thesis chair, friend, and mentor Dr. Alston V. Thoms.

My favorite project in ND involved a pair of Metcalf scoundrels, Bill and Signe. In 1998 BOR had UND (University of North Dakota) do a resurvey inventory at Heart Butte Reservoir (L. Tschida). I noticed that prior researchers had found dozens of lithic procurement sites and workshops along the valley rim, but had found one ONE site down in the valley bottoms. That made no sense, so I recommended a new valley bottoms survey was needed. Signe, then the BOR Dakotas Area Archaeologist, agreed and ordered that work for the following year. We did so the following year, and on the very first day and the very first survey parcel, Bill Bluemle found an awesome site exposed in a Heart River floodplain cutbank directly next to the river channel. With Signe’s encouragement, UND went straight into test excavations at what would become known as the Beadmaker Site. Among several hearths and a large amount of bison bone, we discovered a number of stone beads representing virtually all stages in a production continuum from raw material blank up through finished beads. They were made from a sandstone material that was locally available on a small, prominent butte next to the river. Similar beads have been found at many major villages along the Missouri River. We hypothesized that Beadmaker was a summer field camp of the Mandan where they were hunting bison, and also gathering material to make stone beads.

D: What do you like to do outside work?

M: I like to go camping, hiking, do outdoor photography, go to my kids sporting events (hockey, volleyball, softball, etc.), bicycling, and curling. My favorite place of all time to go hiking was in Sedona, AZ.

D: What is a fun fact about you?

M: I’m Michael Jackson (Hehe ♫). Try and see if you can tell me a joke that I haven’t heard. Fun fact about my name: my dad wanted to name me Andrew after President Andrew Jackson, but my mom said that I would get picked on for it. Instead they named me Michael.

I have a cute mutt dog named Millie that helps keep me sane. She is my most photographed child by far.

If you are interested in joining the Metcalf team, please visit our careers page for a list of current job openings.

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