ROCK CLIMAX: Graham at the medicine wheel, one important historical feature studied by Stanford anthropology students.

whether he's working as tech executive or rancher, Roger Lang has remained close to the Stanford anthropology department. Chair Bill Durham, whom Lang calls his mentor, offers advice about ecotourism, drawing parallels he has seen in South America and other parts of the world. And for the past three summers, Roger and Cindy Lang have allowed Stanford undergraduates, most of them anthropology majors, to conduct archaeological digs at Sun Ranch.

By exhaustively walking the property, and heeding stories from longtime Montanans, the students have located teepee rings, pictograph drawings and rock cairns believed to have been used to help direct bison during hunts. The marquee feature, however, is a medicine wheel—a rare circle of stones with radiating spokes that researchers believe was used for religious and healing ceremonies.

“There was constant human occupation almost undoubtedly there for 10,000 years,’’ says Bill Pack, 47, a retired vice president of Smith Barney who restarted an academic career three years ago and who is now supervising the work. “It’s not surprising. If you were on the Sun Ranch on any given year, there would have been thousands of elk there. It looks like an alpine Serengeti.’’