History in Your Own Backyard

Miro dry screening for artifacts. 

My name is Miro Dunham, and I am the only person in the 2018 Western Michigan University Archaeological Field School who is not from Western. My home school is Albion College. (Go Brits!)
The thought that archaeology could happen in your own backyard is a very exciting concept. For one family in Niles, that exciting concept became a very exciting truth. The Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project wanted to explore the lives of 18th century habitants of surrounding areas across the Saint Joseph River, and was offered to survey the backyard of a Niles family that likely had archaeological significance. Instead of helping our colleagues at the Fort site initially, we headed to the backyard site. It was a hot, sunny day, with really high humidity. Once at the site, we unpacked, and began to survey and create transects, which are series of points along a basis line. These points will soon all become shovel test pits, or STPs, which are designed for archaeologists to have a small testing area to see if the site has artifacts and integrity. (In this case, integrity refers to the site being untouched, as opposed to the soil having been disturbed.) Unfortunately for our first test site, we found some evidence that the site had been tampered with, which was some pieces of plastic that were buried relatively deep in the soil. As plastic has not been around very long, the appearance of plastic in soil with other artifacts from the 19th century means that the soil is only as old as the plastic. To determine the points, we measured to thirteen meters running north/south, and then created perpendicular lines with measuring tapes to determine the locations of the test sites. These test sites are located every 4 meters down the transects, and 4 meters away from one another, paralleling each other. This might not seem very interesting, and honestly, it wasn’t, but it’s very important to have consistency and accuracy in all archaeological excavations. Once we had marked all of our test pit sites, we began to dig the area around one of the points, and also screened our dirt for artifacts. Through our screening, we found a few nails, shards of glass, some small metal hoops, tinfoil, fool’s gold, and lots and lots of rocks. The most difficult part of archaeological work so far is finding really cool rocks that look like they might be artifacts, but are just rocks that get thrown back into the pile. Our team eventually dug down to over 70 centimeters deep; however, we hit undisturbed soil, and our discovery of artifacts ceased. We happily accepted this as our ending spot, as we were very dirty and sweaty, and began to assess our artifacts and pack up our equipment.

A screen next to a shovel test pit (STP). 

This new project site is very important to the Fort Saint Joseph Project. It gives us insight into the lives of people who were not living in the Fort, but also allows the members of the Project to branch out by reaching out to the community and inviting them to play a part in unearthing their history by sharing their lands and their experiences with us. The Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project is heavily focused on community outreach, and by involving community members in our search for the past and the stories behind the artifacts, we create a feeling of involvement and trust. I’m excited to see both what else we can find from these shovel test pits, but also see what other community sites there may be in the future.