Dewatering the Past

            There are a lot of obstacles that archaeologists can encounter when trying to excavate or begin excavating. One common obstacle we can face is water creating an unworkable environment. Whether a site is underwater or extremely muddy, archaeologist find it hard if not impossible to excavate under these conditions. To remedy this problem, archaeologist have had to use dewatering systems. The main purpose of a dewatering system is to pull the water from the ground so it dries faster than it would naturally.  There are different types of dewatering systems, but the main type used in excavations is a well point dewatering system. In this type of dewatering system there are a number of tubes inserted into the ground that have slits cut into each side of the tube. These slits are only big enough to allow water through and nothing else. The water is pulled through the slits by a water pump and allows the ground to become dry. This is the type of dewatering system we use a Fort Saint Joseph.

Fort Saint Joseph is an amazing archaeological project that I get to work and excavate in, but we do face the problem of water creating an unworkable environment because we work on the edge of the Fort Saint Joseph river. I get to work in trench 2 where we have been finding bone, lead shot, seeds beads and more, but I would not be able to do this work if it weren’t for our dewatering system that was installed on site. Our dewatering system was created and installed by Neil who is a local volunteer that is highly involved and helpful to the Fort Saint Joseph archaeological project. We would not be able to do our excavations without the time and effort put in by Neil and other volunteers to get the dewatering system up and running. Not only did Neil install this dewatering system, he also engineered it. He put about 126 hours into this project and installed it in less than 2 weeks. He did face some problems when engineering the dewatering system because he was not able to buy some of the specific parts that he needed to make it work for our site. To fix this problem he had to engineer custom fittings to the tubes that would allow all the soil and sediment to be shot through the tubes and allow the water to enter the tubes. After making these custom fittings and some trial and error, he was able to create the whole dewatering system for Fort Saint Joseph archaeological project. If you visit our site, you will be able to see our dewatering system and the work that it does for us to be able to do the work that we do. We are very grateful for all the work that was put in by Neil and the other volunteers who helped dewater our site so we can continue to work there.

Happy Friday Ye Followers of the Fort!

Alex reporting again today to review and give a shoutout to our very own Erika Hartley, Field Director extraordinaire and St. Joseph Curatorial Fellow on her lecture this past Wednesday at the Niles Public Library- the first of our four-part annual lecture series of the field season.

The evening was christened with a brief speech by Dr. Michael Nassaney, the Principal Investigator of the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project for 21 years. Dr. Nassaney gave a warm welcome to the audience of the lecture and introduced the theme of the 2019 field season, "Curation: Preserving the Past for the Future", emphasizing the importance and cruciality of taking care of recovered artifacts and the recorded information of cultural heritage sites.

This provided a segue into Erika's lecture on The Fort St. Joseph Curatorial Fellowship, a look into the specific aspects of the artifact repository situated in the Henry A. Chapin House, affiliated with the Niles History Center.

Erika began her lecture defining curation as indefinite management of artifacts, documents, and other material. This cements a perpetual commitment to what we have excavated and preserved, for not only the current generation of researchers and community members, but for the many more to come.

Further discussion included the exhibition of many problem that the curatorial felloship is face with, such as a lack of dedicated full-time staff to maintain the collection, lack of resources to better serve the needs to the collection, and the presence of other more pressing priorities needed to be met by the Niles History Center. To be sure, the curation process is undergoing a major renovation.

This renovation was outlined in Erika's commentary on a three-phase initiative intended to fully encapsulate both the needs of the collection and the overall goals of the fellowship.

Beginning with Phase I, measures are taken to conduct research into similar collections and to identify the current stat of the Fort St. Joseph collection in order to discover the standard of curation specific to the type of collection present at Fort St. Joseph.

Subsequently, Phase II involves the development of a long-term plan for curation, calling oftentimes for complete re-inventory in the form of digitization entries (photographs and data entry onto computers) and creating a supply list in accordance with a necessary budget.

Phase III involves taking action and implementing objectives outlined in Phase II, in hopes that increased accessibility will occur for future purposes.

Erika closed her lecture with commentary on access to the public and how friends and interested parties of the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project can help by donating gifts to the Fellowship, Support the Fort, Inc., the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project, and by increasing awareness about the project itself within one's community.

Following the close of the lecture, Erika was met with outstanding applause from the audience. They then engaged her with many questions regarding the project and the process of curation.

In essence, the opening lecture of the 2019 summer lecture series should be a fine setting of tone to the attendance and awareness in Niles and surrounding communities of the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project. Join us next week at 7pm on Wednesday, July 17th for a lecture given by Cincinnati Art Museum Conservator Kelly Rectenwald! We look forward to seeing you all there!

Survey Szn: Tools of the Trade

Hello all! My name is Alex Michnick, and I am joining the FSJ Project as an intern this summer to hone my field techniques and gain experience in Historical Archaeology. I am a guest student of the field school, as I currently attend Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan where I will graduate with degrees in Anthropology and History. I have some prior field experience with colleagues at GVSU studying Middle-Late Woodland period native sites. This is also my second time in the field at Fort St. Joseph, having participated in the middle school camp in 2011, so I am truly coming full circle in life! Following my undergraduate studies, my aspiration is to study Historical Archaeology in the College of William and Mary's sequential M.A./Ph.D program.

(Photo not taken at WMU affiliated site, but rather my first field school experience!)

One of my favorite parts of conducting archaeology is definitely survey. Survey is a preliminary practice designed in essence to procure exact metric points on a grid layout. We as archaeologists can use these in our favor to navigate site parameters, distinguish existing excavation units, and find desired points for new units.

One of the foremost techniques we use to conduct surveys is by using the combination of a total station and a prism, which involves one person on each piece of equipment. The total station essentially shoots a laser into the center of the prism and the exact coordinates of the prism are reflected back to the total station no matter the distance- one meter to one kilometer, the duo is quite handy.

So far, this summer, we have done some heavy survey at Dark Lake in Sturgis, Michigan while searching for evidence of Freedom Seekers travelling on the Underground Railroad, and another survey of the site of Fort St. Joseph in Niles. The Dark Lake survey was interesting, as shown in the crude map shown below.

We were being guided into the general vicinity of a homestead on a map dating to 1858. It was very fun, I walked almost half a kilometer with the prism while our field director, Erika Hartley, shot points off of the prism.

At Fort St. Joseph this week, I assisted in setting up five new 1x1 meter units on the site to start the excavation off! However, this is easier said than done. Much of survey involves close communication between prism and total station, so that the prism is getting close enough to the desired points on the grid. One example of this was during the Dark Lake survey, when erika and I were separated by about 200 meters of field and needed to communicate over the phone to achieve data down to the very centimeter.

As the season expands and continues, I hope to get more involved with the excavation processes that I have set up with the survey methods. It will certainly be an excellent change of pace, as surveying can be a bit of walking!

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.

Putting in the Work: Day Two at Fort St. Joseph

Good Morning, Afternoon, and Evening!

My name is Shailee Kurowski, and I’m a senior at Western Michigan University studying Anthropology and Biology, with the hopes of becoming a Forensic Anthropologist. Forensic Anthropologists examine bones and other tissue remains to offer insight and contributions to criminal investigations. I’ve taken and studied several subjects, such as human figure drawing, anatomy, chemistry, biology- and many others, to help me in this pursuit. Working on Fort St. Joseph, I’m most excited to contribute to recording the archaeological record, and fill in the gaps where history might be missing them. Today’s blog details and recounts the happenings of Monday, July 8, 2019, as well as personal thoughts and interjections made throughout the day.

As a group, we started the day with reflections over orientation and our first three days in the field. These reflections included personal insights we took away and how we believed they would apply later in our careers. Looking around the room, I saw sixteen people, sixteen increasingly familiar faces, and sixteen different points of view. It was Heidi who reflected on a play on words remarked by Dr. Nassaney, “archaeology is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna find.” In her reflection, she added, “sometimes, you find nothing. And you have to be prepared for that possibility.” It was through comments and notes like this that it became wonderfully apparent how we may all be living within the same 24-hours, but the way that we experience them- and how it affects us, will vary from person to person.

Continuing with the morning, we began our first day back on site by examining it with refreshed, new eyes. These new eyes were able to better evaluate the ground beneath our feet, and what they found is that it was muddy at best, and swampy at worst. This led us to our first task, which was to unpack the trailer, and go over our trails with gloves and buckets, picking up potentially harmful debris along our way. As this was done, I personally took the time to preach the wonders of Cut Gloves (and look at me, doing it again!) which are gloves made from cotton and sprayed with a special protective coating that makes it nearly impervious to any sharp objects cutting, tearing, or nicking the fabric. Let me add, that I have found these perfect for people who either have tiny hands, or are comically clumsy! I just happen to be both. This cleaning aided us by making it safer not only for those working the site, but for the community that we’re so excited to bring on board with us!

Our workplace banter turned playful as we regrouped for lunch at noon, happy to be in each other’s presence- and becoming even moreso when this presence was superseded by long time Fort St. Joseph friend Mary Ellen Drowlet. She was kind enough to grace us with not only her presence, but cookies as well! And they were beyond delicious, I must add. We were delighted, for those of us new to the site, to finally put a face to the name that we’d heard so proudly used by our Fort St. Joseph veterans. She took her leave at the tail end of lunch, and conversations resumed, turning to the topic of our goals post-lunch. These goals included continued extensive weeding, set up of the wet screens, and utilization of our total station to accurately plot and measure out sites for later excavation. Headed by the lovely Raegan and rugged Cameron, we began to set up our five wet screens. These are used to separate the muck from the objects, which allows us a clearer look at said objects. To do this, we needed to not only clear out the shoulder high weeds, but re-dig and align the trench that runs under our screens. This allowed us to get up close and personal with nature, where we spotted a crawdad, two frogs, a pair of turtles, and spiders so large I wouldn’t want to meet them in a back alley… or anywhere if I’m being honest. I don’t like bugs.

To set up the screens entails a contraption comprised of four posts that attach together at the top, which tents out the legs for stability. From this attachment hangs four metal chains that connect to the metal screws on the hanging screen which contains 1/4inch mesh to catch objects. The smaller, mobile screen that gets set on top of it has an even finer, 1/8inch mesh to hold onto artifacts and other objects. A pallet system bridges over our manmade trench, giving us stable places to stand and utilize our screens. To increase the stability of said screening units, we employ a technique called “mucking” to take river mud and build up areas and corners that may have been previously unstable. To play off that instability, we turned back to our smaller, mucky, weed ridden paths and took some time to fell, pile, and move the weeds back into the muckier areas. This was done to create a stable structure that dried out the mud and gave us stiffer areas to walk and stand on- thus giving us new, quicker paths to our trenches.

Meanwhile, Erika, with the help of Heidi and Maddie, began to lay out the flags for our excavation units by using the total station, which was no easy feat. To create a thorough line of visibility, trees and branches needed to be felled and removed so that accurate readings could be taken, and retaken. It was during these final times, that it began to wind down, and we regrouped to clean the area, and get our tools pre-set for the next day.

Mundane as it is, I enjoyed this time, and the car ride that follows, more than anything else. It is this time that often gets used for reflection, as well as learning when it comes to the history of Niles, and commenting on the days happenings. We reconnect individually instead of working as multiple pieces in a singular cell.

Personally, I’ve noticed the days starting to go by more easily, the aches in my feet lessening as I grow accustomed to being on them all day, and the faces around me growing more kind, and familiar. All in all, I don’t think I would train these experiences, or people, for the world. I find myself fortunate to be in good company. There’s so much to learn in the coming weeks, and even more so as time progresses. I look forward to not only what we do here now, but to what those do in the years that follows.

I thank you for your time, and continued support of the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project, and hope to see you at our public outreach programs throughout the summer!

From the trenches to the trees, this is Shailee K. signing off!

Fireworks, Pizza Transit, and Community!

Hey everybody! It's Miro Dunham, back again this year as the Public Outreach Coordinator! (I was a student in the field school last year.)

So far, being back in Niles has been wonderful. As always, the people are great, the community is welcoming, and the digging is, well, dirty. We were contacted this year by the Niles Chamber of Commerce with a community outreach volunteering opportunity, which was to help with parking vehicles for the fireworks show on the 3rd of July. Myself, Cameron, and Maddie, all of whom you will meet through blogs later, participated in the event, and we raised a lot of money in donations for the fireworks show for next year! We were also graciously offered a Pizza Transit picnic by the Chamber for compensation, which was obviously amazing! (Pizza Transit is the BEST!) It was really awesome to help out the wonderful city of Niles, as well as promoting the Project and the Fort by having our presence and talking to people about our work. We would love to be contacted with more volunteering opportunities, so please feel free to reach out to us at fsjarchaeology@gmail.com!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend, and we hope to see you all at our first lecture series, which will be held this Wednesday, July 10th, at 7PM in the Niles library! We will be having a total of 4 lectures every week at the same time, so if you can't make this weeks, try again next week!

That's all from me!

Miro