Archaeologists to search Donner Party site

By The Associated Press

TRUCKEE -- Archaeologists will soon launch a major dig at the main Sierra campsite of the tragic Donner Party.

The project is expected to begin by mid-June at the site selected for a new $6 million museum in Donner Lake Memorial State Park.

A team of state parks archaeologists will search for artifacts near the museum on the east side of Donner Lake.

It will be only the second excavation of its scope at the lakeside location where dozens of the California-bound pioneers starved to death, said Susan Lindstrom, a local archaeologist.

"The excavations have been few and far between," Lindstrom told Truckee's Sierra Sun newspaper. "Who knows what could come up?"

The Donner Party became stranded by heavy snow in the winter of 1846-47 near present Truckee, and split up between camps at Donner Lake and nearby Alder Creek.

About half of the 89 pioneers died and some survivors ate the flesh of their dead companions to survive.

Another major dig at the Donner Lake campsite in the 1980s turned up musket balls, bones, earrings and broaches, and a religious medallion, Lindstrom said./AP

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