OSA Publication Series

The OSA, in a cooperative partnership with the Iowa Archeological Society, offers two archaeological publication series for purchase online: Reports and Special Publications. Through these publications, the OSA strives to further educate and inform the public in the preservation, protection, and interpretation of the archaeological resources of Iowa.

OSA Report Series cover art for the Phipps Site Ceramics and Oneota Historical Connections books

OSA Report Series

The OSA Report Series consists of scientific monographs on archaeological topics dealing with Iowa, the Midwest, and the Great Plains, and occasionally more regionally diverse archaeological monographs by Iowa scholars.

See the Report Series
Special Publications cover art examples showing Iowa Projectile Points and the Iowa River Greenbelt books

OSA Special Publications

Special Publications are popularized books dealing with archaeological topics of interest to educators, naturalists, and the general public.

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Cover Art for Iowa's Archaeological Past

Iowa's Archaeological Past

Lynn Alex's Iowa's Archaeological Past, published in 2000, is still the most comprehensive volume on Iowa archaeology written for the public, professionals, and avocational archaeologists. 

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cover art for the book The Archaeological Guide to Iowa

The Archaeological Guide to Iowa

William Whittaker, Lynn Alex, and Mary De La Garza feature sixty-eight prominent Iowa archaeological sites from all across the state. Many of these sites are open to the public. For other stops, the authors guide you to the site's original location or nearby museum exhibits.

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Cover art for Dubuque's Forgotten Cemetery

Dubuque's Forgotten Cemetery: Excavating a Nineteenth-century Burial Ground in a Twenty-first-century City

Robin Lillie and Jennifer Mack were awarded the prestigious 2017 Deetz Award by The Society for Historical Archaeology for their book, Dubuque's Forgotten Cemetery

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Cover art for Frontier Forts of Iowa

Frontier Forts of Iowa: Indians, Traders, and Soldiers, 1682-1862

Edited by William Whittaker, Frontier Forts of Iowa is a collection of essays that draws extensively upon archaeological and historical records to document this era of transformation from the seventeenth-century fur trade until almost all Indians had been removed from the region.

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Cover art for Household Economy at Wall Ridge

Household Economy at Wall Ridge: A Fourteenth-Century Central Plains Farmstead in the Missouri Valley

Edited by Stephen Lensink, Joseph Tiffany, and Shirley Schermer, Household Economy at Wall Ridge tells the story of a Native American household that occupied a lodge on the eastern Plains border during the early 1300s AD. This work represents the first comprehensive study of a prehistoric Central Plains household in over half a century.

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Journal of the Iowa Archeological Society

Cover art from JIAS issues 1 and 66

Journal of the IAS

Back issues of the JIAS from Volume 1 (1951) through a rolling date of two years ago are available for purchase as PDF downloads. Purchase a single issue, a decade bundle, or the entire collection. All sales support the IAS.

See the JIAS Issues

OSA Grey Literature

Icon of an open book

Technical Reports

OSA's annual reports contain a table of all technical reports completed by OSA during that fiscal year. Researchers can find this index, organized by report number, as Appendix F in each annual report beginning in 2010. These are available at the University of Iowa Digital Library.

View Annual Reports