Finally Digging Under the Landfill

I’m Maddie Wallaker. I will graduate in December from Western Michigan University with a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Sustainability Studies and Spanish. I am coming to the field school with limited knowledge in archaeology, but more than enough excitement and passion for learning about the site and the Niles community.

This morning, after our team ate breakfast together, we piled into the vans and headed out to the field. After getting settled, we picked up where we left off yesterday and finished setting up what was still needed in the wet screening area, mainly hooking up the hoses, bringing them to each station, and turning on the water.

There were sediment samples already waiting for us that had been displaced from where water pipes had been recently inserted into the ground, so after a quick tutorial, we got started wet screening those samples. While screening, a number of students found artifacts such as seed beads, gunflint, and bone fragments (including some teeth!).

Once we finished screening the sediment samples, we were each assigned pit partners and units. First, we collected everything we needed from the trailer and brought it out to the trenches. We prepped our individual stations and paperwork, which included making some rudimentary stairs and placing boards down since the bottoms of the trenches are still mucky—we wouldn’t want anyone getting hurt! Then we triangulated and staked the 4 corner coordinates of our units, measured the elevation of each coordinate, and started using our trowels to carefully dig into the soil. We left a baulk around the edges of our 1x1 meter pits in order to prevent mistakes from happening and fix them if they occur while digging.

      Since we are currently digging under the landfill, we had to get through a thin layer of contemporary refuse—mainly glass, metal, and ceramic fragments—before we started to find artifacts from before the 20^th century, such as seed beads and bone fragments. We took note of any changes in soil color, any new material found, and anything else of significance that we noticed about our units.

      From 7:00 to 9:00 pm every day we get together for lab. Today we learned how to clean the artifacts found while wet screening. Half of our group filled small tubs with plain tap water while the rest went upstairs to bring drying racks down to the lab area. We set aside any iron and fragile artifacts, then got to work cleaning the rest of the artifacts in tap water with toothbrushes. Some students used magnets to identify metal artifacts, and dental picks to dry clean them. Since not many artifacts have yet been found, we concluded lab early to watch a documentary about Michigan history. In the future, we will have more than enough artifacts to each have our own cleaning station, but for now we will partner up and work together on what we have.