Off to Niles!

Hi everyone! My name is Mallory Moore and I am the new Public Outreach Coordinator for this season of the Fort St. Joseph Archaeology Project! I am currently an M.A. student of Anthropology at Wayne State University and this is my first year working with the project. I am helping to coordinate our effort with the local community and promote the project throughout the town of Niles, Michigan. We are very excited to get things moving forward this year! Our theme for this season is “Community Partnerships: Building Meaningful Connections Through Archaeology” which will be very apparent through our efforts in the Lecture Series and the Open House! This season has already come underway with our 13 brilliant students! This past week we began by practicing theirs field skills during our orientation. The students worked on perfecting their skills in Total Station, 1 x 1m and 2 x 2m unit plotting, and Right-Angle mapping so they will be good to go when we reach Fort St. Joseph. We are very excited to get things underway this season as we head to Niles on July 5th!

(Student Practicing Right-Angle Mapping at Orientation Photo Credit: Anne Volpe)

This year we have 4 new speakers coming to participate in the Lecture Series, which takes place every Wednesday from July 12th to August 2nd. The first one is Dr. Jonathan Bush, a Professor of English at Western Michigan University. His lecture is titled “Conversations and Collaborations; Objectives, and Obligations: Building and Sustaining Meaningful University-Community Partnerships in Context” and will take place on July 12th. The next lecture takes place on July 19th by Dr. Sonya Atalay, an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst! Her lecture is titled "Braiding Knowledge: Community-Based Archaeology with Turkish and Native American Communities". The third lecture is by Dr. Beverley Smith, an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan-Flint. Her lecture takes place on July 26th and is titled “Negotiating Multiple Communities Surrounding(Literally and Figuratively) the Stone Street Recovery and Repatriation Project in Downtown Flint, MI”. Last but not least, our final lecture takes place on August 2nd by Dr. Dean Anderson, the Michigan State Archaeologist. His lecture discusses “Archaeology and Communities, Past and Present”. We are all very excited for what these amazing lecturers have to say!

Finally, our biggest event of the season is our annual Open House weekend, which takes place August 5th and 6th!  This is an event you will not want to miss! With a Living History experience, an Outdoor Museum exhibit, and the opportunity to interact with the students conducting our current excavations and observe some recently discovered artifacts, there is surely enough going on to interest the whole family! We look forward to seeing all of our old friends this season as well as making some new ones on our journey to learn more about the past! Make sure to keep an eye out for future blogs throughout our season!