Fast Times at WMU Archaeology Lab

 Hi everyone, my name is Cameron and I am an anthropology undergrad here at Western Michigan University. This is my senior year and I will finally be graduating this spring. My plans after graduation is to work as a field technician, traveling around the country doing cultural resource management. This past summer I took the opportunity to attend the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Field School. This was very rewarding, as I learned excavation techniques, and gained some experience while working in the field. This was essentially on the job training that will allow me to be employed as a field technician, and I am very optimistic about my future career in archaeology. And this semester I took the opportunity to gain more experience, by working in the lab as an independent study student.

As an independent study student, I am working in a team with both of my pit partners from the field school, under the direction of both our lab manager and Dr. Nassaney. As a team we are all very comfortable working together, because we have all lived, worked, and sweated together in the summer heat for two months during the field school. Our goals are to organize the information and artifacts that we have acquired from this past field season at Fort St. Joseph. This includes doing artifact inventory, writing the annual report, and making brochures for next summer’s field school. I have been tasked with doing the artifact inventory for two projects, the artifacts from the Fort St. Joseph 2018 field season and artifacts from an excavation of the Ellen G. White residence in Battle Creek.

Artifact inventory consists of systematically cataloging and recording the artifacts we have recovered, so they can be researched further in the future. For the past three weeks I have been coming to the lab for two days each week, doing artifact inventory with Dr. Nassaney for the Fort St. Joseph artifacts, and with my pit partner Raegan for the Ellen White site artifacts. A typical day consists of opening a large bag, full off smaller bags, that are full of artifacts sorted by their type. The large bags hold all the artifacts from a specific provenience, in other words, the various types of artifacts are held in a bag from the exact depth that they were excavated from. The smaller bags contain artifacts of a specific type within that provenience. All of these small artifact bags are recorded together in the provenience bags in order to understand them in their context. Meaning, all these artifacts are associated with their depth below ground, and the spatial relationship they share with each other. This is all a part of systematic research. When I go through each provenience bag, I empty a small bag of artifacts and count them. After they are counted they are entered into a spreadsheet, where they are recorded by their accession number, unit number, level, depth, material, function, description, count, and weight. For example, 18-2-1, north 22 west 10, level 1, 0 to 10 centimeters, bone, food remains, fragments, 26, and 120 grams. This may sound tedious, but believe me it’s a blast and time really flies.

I am a month into the fall semester and I have been really busy, but making time for independent study has been both rewarding and a lot of fun. It has been teaching me the hands on skills I will need for my future in archaeology. But, all of this aside, handling artifacts is awesome! Holding onto each individual artifact feels special. I can’t really put this feeling into words, but holding onto something that someone had lost over three hundred years ago is as trip. When I hold an artifact it acts as a medium that transcends time, because in that moment of contact there is a connection between the person who it belonged to and myself. When I contemplate this thought, it can feel very surreal. And speaking of surreal, my time as an undergraduate is almost coming to an end. I look forward to working more in the lab this semester, and for what my future holds when I graduate.

Peace and Love,

Cameron