Despite the summer being over, work
for the Project hasn’t ended. This past semester, four students from this
summer’s field school along with the staff have been working on things in the
lab back at WMU. We have cataloged our artifacts from this past summer,
entering them into a digital database, as well as updated the Project’s fliers,
brochures and public outreach opportunities.
We also have had several opportunities to attend public outreach events.
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| Rebecca Stoddard works with Michael Nassaney in the lab. |
Starting in September, Dr. Nassaney
worked with students to catalog new artifacts. We learned more about the
characteristics of our artifacts, helping us to identify each one. Once the
artifacts are initially cataloged we then entered them into an online database,
called PastPerfect. This program allows
us to look back and easily locate each of our artifacts, rather than digging
through a box to find them. Along with working with the artifacts we have
updated the Project’s summer camp and teacher fliers. The Project was present
at multiple public events this fall. In October a group of us went to Michigan
Archaeology Day in Lansing, as well as MHAC in Minneapolis. These were great
opportunities to engage with the public and promote the Project. In January we
are also sending a group to attend the SHA conference Washington D.C.
As we wrap up our projects for this
semester and start thinking of our projects for next semester we will be
working more towards public outreach. We will be doing this so that we can
hopefully get the word out to more people and a younger group of people on what
archaeology is and what the Fort St. Joseph project is. One of the projects
will be a teaching program which we will be visiting different middle school
and elementary school locations in Kalamazoo county to spend the day sharing
information about archaeology with students and teachers. The project is still
in its draft stages but we hope to include details on how archaeologists
conduct their field work and to include information about the coming 2016 Fort St. Joseph Archaeological field season.
