September marks the 16th annual Archaeology Month. As a celebration of the anniversary, the anthropology department will throw Missouri Archaeology Month’s Sweet 16 Party and several other events for MU.

As a kickoff to the month, professor Lee Lyman from the anthropology department presented a lecture titled “Paleo-Indian Livelihood in the Northwest” on Thursday at Swallow Hall. The lecture was about mysteries of America’s native people in the Northwest and how they lived during that era.

“Educating the public about the value of the archaeological record is important,” Lyman said. “It reveals the temporally deep history about American Indians but also black Americans during the Civil War, Asian-Americans and everyone else.”

The last site in Missouri dates back 3,000 years. Lyman said it is a finite record — once it is gone, there won’t be another.

The Museum Support Center will also be open to the public this month.

The Museum Support Center has the world’s most comprehensive archery collection, which includes more than 5,000 pieces of archery equipment and memorabilia spanning various time periods from six continents, according to the archaeology department’s website.

During the museum’s open house, visitors will be able to ask archaeologists about archeology and preservation.

“It is open in the evening, so people will get chances to come by and see where the artifacts go and where the researchers come to analyze them,” Museum of Anthropology associate curator Candace Sall said.

Retired archaeologists will be present to answer questions, Sall said.

“We are so excited,” Sall said. “We have never done this (open house) before.”

Ghost Dancing, a van driven by local author William Least Heat-Moon, will also be at the open house. Heat-Moon drove the van during his travels and wrote his best-selling novel, “Blue Highways,” on a trip in 1982.

Former Museum Support Center intern Chelsea Riley said people should attend this month’s events.

“The Museum Support Center has a lot of artifacts that don’t get to be on display,” Riley said. “So, you get a kind of ‘behind-the-scenes look’ at those artifacts.”