A Word From Our Principal Investigator on the Open House

Greetings Fort followers,

Michael Nassaney, then, at the Orendorf Lab, Canton, IL (1978).

I’m writing to invite you to the 2018 Fort St. Joseph Archaeology Open House! As always, the staff and students of Western Michigan University’s 43rd annual archaeological field school have been hard at work investigating material traces of Fort St. Joseph. Since this year’s theme is “Technology Then and Now,” we are focusing on technology in the eighteenth century and the ways archaeologists use technology today to decipher the meaning of the past.

As you probably know, the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project is one of the nation’s premier long-term, multidisciplinary, community-based research program. Our aims are to investigate and interpret the history and archaeology of the fur trade and colonialism in the St. Joseph River valley. Public participation in the Project has been central since 1998 when community members asked WMU archaeologists to help them find their long lost fort. The public remains involved through our summer camp program, lecture series, community meals, and, of course, the Open House where visitors can witness life in the eighteenth century and learn how archaeologists work to reconstruct the past.

When we think of technology, we may think of telecommunication devices like our phones and computers. However, technology has always been important to humans who employ tools, knowledge, and techniques to manipulate the material world around them from stone tools to ceramics, organic materials, metals and glass. This year we are highlighting how goods were made and used at the Fort and how archaeologists decode the past using sophisticated equipment like magnetic surveys and compositional analyses to determine what objects were made of.  What would you do without technology? Think of how frustrated we become when we lose electricity for only a few hours.

This year’s open house is an opportunity to think about and experience the technologies that people used to survive on the frontier of New France.  Listen to public scholars, witness living history reenactors, and interact with archaeology students in real time as they piece together the past from the detritus of the Fort. Some of our 2018 finds will also be on display to the public for the very first time. We will have several surprise artifacts for your viewing pleasure as well as new discoveries in the field. You’ll have to visit to see what we’ve found!

Dr. Michael Nassaney, now, at Fort St. Joseph (2018).

Please introduce yourself to a student archaeologist, reenactor, public scholar, staff member, or visitor and join in the conversation about technology, Fort St. Joseph, and archaeology in the past, the present, and the future. At the end of the day, our Project is a vehicle to bring people together. Be one of the hundreds of people who I hope to see at this special event this weekend (Aug. 4-5). I know you will enjoy the history and archaeology of Fort St. Joseph and hope you seize the opportunity to learn about the ingenuity of the inhabitants of this special place.

 Cordially,

Michael S. Nassaney, Principal Investigator

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project