Hello,
my name is Garrett Mohney, and I am a senior at Mattawan High School. As a
senior, I was tasked with finding a field of interest, and completing a project
on it. One of the requirements included meeting with a mentor in the field for
around 10 hours, where I can learn and experience the subject first hand. Now I
found myself with a challenging dilemma: what on earth could I do a project on?
After years of intense love for history, an enjoyment of the beautiful Michigan
wilderness, and endlessly watching everyone's favorite whip brandishing
collector of rare artifacts on the TV, I knew that archaeology would be the
perfect fit for a senior project.
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| One of the artifact bags I helped sort during inventory with Dr. Nassaney and Kaylee |
I was very interested in finding out what real Archaeologists
do, contrary to running through South American temples. In meeting with my
mentor, Dr. Michael Nassaney of Western Michigan University and the Fort St.
Joseph Archeology Project, and working with other great students of
archaeology, I found that archaeology exists as much in the library and lab as
in the field. One of the first things I learned from my project is the concept
of careful artifact inventory and preservation. The careful process of
identifying calcined bones, lead shot, and trade beads and carefully bagging
them with proper labels soon came natural.
Additionally, I wanted to know more about what
we can learn from archaeology. Through excavation and inventory, we can learn
where people lived, how they lived, and what their lives consisted of. Finding
a plethora of nails and tools might indicate a blacksmith was around. Finding pieces
of building materials, a door hinge, and a foundation feature can indicate a
possible location for a house. Other times, archaeology leads to more questions
than answers. For instance, finding little to no fishing supplies from a
riverside trading post, while another post just north is full of fishing items,
leads to confusion and more research.
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| Lead shot, calcined and unburned bone that were sorted and bagged |
Archaeology is a fun, educational, and thought
provoking field that can really benefit all aspects of our lives today. We
learn how to be careful, how to think critically, and most importantly, we
learn how to better our future by considering the past. Archaeology isn’t just
about studying the past, it’s about learning from it. Even as I continue my
education beyond high school, the information that I have learned from archaeology
has certainly helped shape my interests for the future. After all, who doesn’t
want to be Indiana Jones?
