Hi everyone! This is Lucy and I’m back again with a blog on our first few weeks back at Western! The work for Fort St. Joseph is never done, and this semester I get to do independent study with Cece, under the guidance of Dr. Nassaney and Cameron Youngs. Cece and I were both field school students during the 2019 field season, and we both decided to continue our work for Fort St. Joseph through independent study. We are just beginning to start the list of things we need to do this semester! Up to now, I have started working with Doctor Nassaney on an artifact inventory for the materials we collected from this past field season. Cece has started the process of recreating the Fort St. Joseph brochure, which we do every year after the field season. You will get to hear from Cece a little later in the semester!
Like I said, Dr. Nassaney and I have started to create an inventory of the artifacts from this field season. This is a meticulous process where we must take out every artifact we have, count them, weigh them, and categorize them by material and function, to create an inventory for the 2019 field season. So far, we have gotten through one of the four boxes of artifacts, and we now have around 50 accessions logged! This process appears to be a lot harder and tedious than it actually is, and up to this point I am really enjoying this work. It gives me more perspective and knowledge about the artifacts we find at Fort St. Joseph. For example, throughout the whole field season, I had a hard time differentiating calcined bone from mortar, because they can look a lot alike. But throughout the inventorying process, I have been able to learn how to differentiate them with ease! I have also been able to see more of the artifacts that I was not able to see, or didn’t know we had discovered during the field season.
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Lucy wet-screening for artifacts during the 2019 field season.
Photo by Hannah Rucinski
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Another task that I get to help with this semester is writing the annual report. The annual report is basically an overview of all the activities that have taken place pertaining to the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project. This includes all of our activities from the field school, our discoveries, the conferences that were attended, schools we have visited, the open house, our social media presence, and many other aspects of the project! I am excited that I get to help with this task, and learn more about some of the things we do and have done for this project.
Overall, I am happy that I decided to enroll in independent study this semester. It keeps me involved with Fort St. Joseph, and has/will give me more experience in archaeology. Not only do I get to work in a lab setting, but I also get to make more of a mark on the project!
