Using bits and pieces of the past such as charred bits of wood from campfires, broken pieces of clay pots, stone spearpoints and arrowheads, and shell or copper ornaments, the archaeologist tries to put together the story of early Indian people in the Minnesota region. A short story, one of eight articles, re-creates the kill of an Itasca bison about 8,000 years ago. The second article elaborates how the archaeologist put together the story of the Itasca bison kill after 30 years of study. How petroglyphs and pictographs may or may not assist in understanding the people of the past is the topic of the third article. "Learning from Legends," the fourth article, includes three legends about the creation of the world, and origins of corn and wild rice. The remaining four articles tell of the first people in Minnesota as the Big Game hunters pursuing the woolly mammoth and the mastodon and how after the glaciers melted, their descendants learned to use new food and plant resources, moving with the seasons and discovering other skills and customs such as weaving, stone toolmaking, metalwork, pottery making, building earthen burial mounds, and eventually farming. (ERB)