Archaeology, No Bones About It! Well, actually…

Tuesday is upon us, ye followers of the Fort! Alex reporting back to you this week on a unique and interesting opportunity, wherein field school students got to acquaint themselves with faunal (animal bone) remains. Likewise, I am also pleased to announce that longtime colleague of the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project and Curator Emeritus of the Illinois State Museum Dr. Terry Martin is officially back in Niles, and will be sure to make an appearance at our annual Open House this weekend! Following a shortened day in the field due to inclement weather, students filed back into the house for some afternoon lab work, headed personally by Dr. Terry Martin.

Dr. Terry Martin giving a faunal workshop.
Photo by Hannah Rucinski

Terry is as well-versed as anyone in the zooarchaeology business (the study of animal remains as it relates to archaeological finds), and the students were more than happy to glean whatever expertise that they could from his instruction in identifying specimens belonging to the FSJ Collection. To begin the workshop, Terry introduced us to the most common animal types found within the context of Fort St. Joseph, such as whitetail deer, bear, pigs, beaver, and turkey, to name a few. It is highly imperative for we as archaeologists to understand the presence of various animal groups at the Fort, so that we can begin to construct the nature of the relationships the Fort inhabitants had with their surrounding resources. Oftentimes, harvesting food from these animals was just skimming the surface of the various uses that were available.

Photo of Heidi using Dr. Terry Martin's comparative collection
to identify a bone from Fort St. Joseph.
Photo by Hannah Rucinski

The majority of our time was spent working through faunal remains from the FSJ Collection that had yet to be correctly identified. One of the manners in which we successfully completed these tasks was by utilizing Terry’s comparative collection, which is a collection of animal bones that essentially acts as the benchmark of specimens found at Fort St. Joseph, for instance, the aforementioned whitetail deer, bear, pig, and turkey. Under Terry’s guidance, students worked through some bags and created identification catalogues from a majority of the bone fragments in accessions (groups of artifacts from certain units or unit levels) from the 2013 field season (lab work is always in need of being done, folks). For instance, one catalogue for a whitetail deer tibia would include:

Refit of three bone fragments to form the distal
end of a Whitetail Deer tibia.
Photo by Hannah Rucinski

While conducting faunal analysis, it is also important to list the Latin taxonomical name (i.e. Odocoileus virginianus for Whitetail Deer) for the bone fragments, so that the consistency of identification will endure in the long-term, instead of using generic terms such as “deer,” or “wildcat,” (the latter being the term the French called raccoons in the Eighteenth-century, according to Terry) in order to avoid confusion. In addition, it is also relevant to list exactly what the provenience of the bone is in the overall anatomy of the species being dealt with. For instance, on the catalog above, you will see that this three-piece tibia fragment is from the right side of the deer, and it is from the distal (bottom portion) of the tibial shaft. Now, deer do in fact have four legs, and regrettably, it is tough to discern which leg it is from given the small bone fragment.

Keeping with the 2019 theme (Curation: Preserving the Past for the Future), the processes of faunal analysis are also an indispensable piece of our curation methods at Fort St. Joseph. One might wonder, "why on earth do we save literal mounds of bone splinters, fragments, and completely intact specimens?" The fact remains that every bone has a story of the past, moreover, a story from the history of Fort St. Joseph, to tell. To comprehend why cut marks exist on whitetail deer femurs, or why tropical parakeet remains are found in southwest Michigan at the site of the Fort, is to demonstrate that we can learn as much about the past of the Fort’s inhabitants as we can in conjunction with the various animals themselves.

To learn more about zooarchaeology and the faunal remains present at Fort St. Joseph, please join us this tomorrow night on Wednesday, at 7pm for a lecture by Terry Martin, the culminating piece of our annual Summer Lecture Series! He will be able to answer any questions that you have about the faunal remains in the collection. We look forward as well to seeing you at our annual Open House this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, 10:00AM-4:00PM both days.

Have a most excellent week, friends!

Au revoir!

Alex Michnick