Stephen Ferguson Bedwell, an archaeologist, was most well known for the excavation at and analysis of Fort Rock Cave. He was an active assistant professor in the anthropology-sociology department at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, and at the time of his death he was the vice president of the Wisconsin Archaeological Survey. He earned his bachelor's degree from Indiana University, and later earned his master's and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Oregon in 1970 while studying under Luther S. Cressman.
Fort Rock Cave is located approximately ½ mile from the Fort Rock volcanic crater in central Oregon. As part of a team of University of Oregon students, Bedwell and others resumed excavations at the site in 1967-1968. The most notable artifacts to emerge from the digs were sandals made of sagebrush bark (found in 1938) and turkey bones. The sandals were radiocarbon dated at 10,500- 9,200 years old, and became known as the world's oldest shoes. The great age of the turkey bones (possibly 11,000 years old) established turkeys as a native species in Oregon, not the exotic (introduced) species they were once thought to be. Bedwell's work focused on the climate effects and shifts in the Great Basin.
Bedwell, Stephen
1973
Fort Rock Basin Prehistory and Environment. The University of Arizona Press.
Bedwell, Stephen and L.S. Cressman
1971 Fort Rock Report: Prehistory and Environment of the
Pluvial Fort Rock Lake Area of South-Central Oregon.
In Anthropological Papers. Pp. 1-25. Anthropology Department, University of Oregon, Eugene.
Deaths
1972 Newsletter of the
American Anthropological Association, September 1972 13(7):3.
Freeman, Mark
2005 Bedwell's Evidence Pulls Oregon
Turkeys from Exotic Ranks. Oregon Mail Tribune, March 17:
http://archive.mailtribune.com/archive/2005/0317/sport/stories/01sport.htm .
Written By: Emily Hildebrant, 2008