Holiday Fun!

 Season's Greetings Fort Followers, 

 Hi everyone! It's Chloe again here with another Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project update on some research that I have been conducting. The upcoming holiday season has made me curious as to what was happening around this time in New France during the 18th century. Specifically, I was interested in some of the traditions that may have taken place at Fort St. Joseph. Here, I have tried to summarize some of the information I found. 

    To start, the holiday season for New France habitants would have been very long. Their celebrations started at the middle of December and went all the way through the first week of January. In the 1600s, Christmas was a religious holiday in New France. It was a time for reflection and prayer. On Christmas Eve, habitants living in Quebec would attend midnight mass, singing carols they brought from France. Popular carols include: Venez, mon Dieu, Te Deum, and Chantons Noé. A Nativity scene, the crèche, would also be displayed.

                                                           Photo by Restoring The Core

After mass, it was time for the Réveillon, the Christmas Eve meal. The French table consisted of turkey, la tourtiere, vegetables, and soup. The dining would be followed by dancing that would last well until dawn. The Réveillon is still observed today among French Canadians, and by many French families in Louisiana.

    On Christmas day, at least two more masses would be held for colonists to attend. Though this may have varied at the forts across New France, depending on whether a Catholic priest was present at the time. It was also a relatively quiet day, allowing families to rest and spend time together.

    A few days down the line there would be another Réveillon on New Year's Day. This feast would be like the one that took place after the Christmas Eve midnight mass. There would be singing and dancing and a lot of eating. I don't know about you, but that sounds delightful to me. In the Illinois country, a celebration called la Guiannee would occur that night. The tradition dates back to the early 1700s where male singers would go from door to door to entertain and ring in the new year. Hosts were expected to give them food and drink. This celebration may have begun as a way for the poor to be given gratuities by the rich, though it also became a community social event for young men to visit with the families of young women. La Guiannee still occurs in Prairie du Rocher, Illinois and Ste. Genevieve, Missouri today. 

                                            Photo by the Fort de Chartres Heritage Garden

    To finish off the holiday season, the people of New France would have celebrated Feast of the Kings or La fête des Rois on January 6th. This final holiday meal would have been shared by the family to end the holiday season. A galette des Rois, a puff pastry filled with a type of almond cream called frangipane, would be served for dessert. A small item would normally be hidden inside the galette and whoever found the “treasure” would receive a small gift. After the meal, friends, family and neighbors would gather to sing, dance and play music.

    Researching all of the seasonal fun that occurred throughout New France has me in the holiday spirit! This month, our partners, the Nile History Center, are hosting an evening open house! The special event will occur on December 11, 2021, from 4 to 7 pm. Visitors will have the opportunity to see the Fort St. Joseph Museum and Chapin Mansion all dressed up for the holidays decorated by various individuals and community groups in our theme for the year: "Winter Wonderland." You can also find some additional information about Christmas in New France. We hope to see you there!

Museums and More

 

Hi everyone !

My name is Chloe Trinka, and I am the newly appointed archaeology intern in association with the Niles History Center and the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project. I am a junior at Western Michigan University (WMU) continuing in my path of a BA in Anthropology. Some of you may have read my blogs from this past summer as I was a student in the WMU archaeological field school held Fort St. Joseph. I am so excited to be taking on this role as I continue to work alongside some amazing people both at the Niles History Center and at Fort St. Joseph.

As the fall semester kicks off, we at WMU are continuing our work with the artifacts found over the 2021 field school season. This includes sorting, categorizing, and archiving artifacts. Working in the lab might be considered the boring part of archaeology, but nonetheless it is very important and rewarding. At WMU we have a lab dedicated to the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project. The perk of having this space is that we have the ability to fully investigate each and every artifact. This is sometimes tedious work, but I assure you I thoroughly enjoy it.

In the beginning of October, field director Erika Hartley and I attended the MAC/MHAC conference in East Lansing, Michigan. There we presented a poster displaying our 2021 field school finds. This poster covers some of the most interesting finds of the season and the specific field work we did. With the help of Dr. Nassaney this poster was very much a success. I loved hearing all of the questions and comments the other conference attendees had. My first conference experience definitely taught me a different set of skills that I didn’t know were associated with this profession before.

I would also like to take a moment to talk about is Michigan Archaeology Day. A couple weekends ago Erika and I, along with a few past field school students attended this event in order to inform and engage with the public on the knowledge this project has to offer. It was a really wonderful opportunity to interact with the youth that we so dearly missed due to Covid-19. I think the field school students and I can both agree that this was a very rewarding experience. The other benefit of this incredible event hosted by the Michigan History Center is that we get to learn too. It can’t really get much better than that.

        That's all the information I have for you guys right now! I am so thankful to be a part of this Project and I cannot wait to continue posting more blogs updating you on all the exciting things the off-season has to offer. Until next time!

Stay healthy,

               Chloe

Off-Season Updates

 

Dear Fort Followers,

The much-anticipated field season has come and gone, providing time for laboratory analysis, organizational tasks of the collection, presentation of our results to various audiences, and outreach activities. But, before I discuss what the Project has been recently up to, I would like to take a moment to thank you for your ongoing support! It has been difficult for many of people and organizations across the globe since the COVID-19 pandemic began and our Project is no exception. However, your continued encouragement and engagement with our virtual and in-person activities have helped keep us motivated and made this past field season a huge success! …Thank you!

Now that we are heading deeper into the “off-season” as some archaeologists refer to the winter lab months, I wanted to check in with you and share some updates. If you are new to following the Project, I am the field director and curatorial fellow for the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project. During the past several years, I have worked closely with Dr. Michael Nassaney the Project’s principal investigator. Since his retirement last fall from WMU, I have maintained my current roles with the Project and Nassaney recommended me to become the instructor of the university’s archaeological field school.

Many people have often asked, “What do Project members and archaeologists do when they aren’t excavating?” The answer is: “lots of things!” A few of the current tasks that I am working on include performing an inventory of the items recovered from our excavations, taking pictures of artifacts, and writing a report on our findings. As the curatorial fellow, I have also been testing a new organizational scheme for the artifacts recovered from this field season and those from 2019. In the past, artifacts in the collection were organized and stored by raw material (bone, copper, iron, etc.). However, after careful consideration, it was decided to reorganize the items based on functional type (beads, buttons, nails, pipe fragments, rings, etc.). This new organization will help us better manage the collection and make it more accessible to staff, future researchers, and the public.

In addition, I have been sharing and discussing some of our recent findings in a few outreach initiatives. In early October, I attended and presented a paper at the Midwest Historical Archaeology Conference held jointly with the Midwest Archaeology Conference at Michigan State University. The paper, coauthored by Tim Bober and Michael Nassaney, discussed the Project and its outreach programs that have occurred since the beginning of the pandemic, focusing on the challenges and prospects that had to be overcome to conduct our fieldwork and host programming events. I also attended Michigan Archaeology Day last weekend in Lansing at the Michigan History Center. A few field school students from this past summer joined me at the Project’s table to engage with the visitors. Though it was chilly, we had a lot of fun!

To assist me in some of these endeavors, the Niles History Center offered to once again support an archaeology intern during the 2021/22 academic year. The internship was an opportunity that Nassaney first arranged with the Museum over 15 years ago. Chloe Trinka, an undergraduate at WMU and 2021 field school student, was selected from the pool of applicants for the position. Thus far, she has been helping me with our outreach efforts and reorganizing artifacts in the FSJ collection. She also participated in the MAC/MHAC meeting and presented her first poster on this past field season with Michael and I as coauthors (Returning to Fort St. Joseph: The 2021 Field Season). Chloe will share more about that experience in her upcoming blog post--stay tuned!

There are a few more outreach items that I am working on, but I can’t spill all of the tea in one blog post. You will have to wait in anticipation of more Project news and updates.

Stay warm, well, and curious,

Erika Hartley

The 2021 Fort St. Joseph Open House!

 Hello everyone, my name is Reid. I’m a senior anthropology major at Michigan State University, with a concentration in archaeology. I’m interested in historical archaeology in the United States between the 1850s and the 1950s, and I’m specifically interested in how the politics of memory affect the way our society does archaeology, conservation, and the presentation of information regarding sites that have experienced a genocide or other violent conflict. You might remember me from the garbology blog post from mid-July. Now I’m back with a second installment, this time focusing on the open house that was held on August 7th and 8th.As an archaeologist, living up to the image presented by Indiana Jones is an impossible task. The fact is that in real life archaeology there are no bullwhips, rampaging boulders, or booby traps. It’s just a lot of dirt, hard work, and tiny bone fragments. When you put it like that, why would anyone turn off Raiders of the Lost Ark in favor of driving out to an actual archaeological site?

Public archaeology and community service learning are two key components of the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project. The community involvement with the project has helped shape its research design and make the field school that runs alongside it unique. The open house that usually runs for a weekend towards the end of the field school is perhaps the best example of the public facing dimension of the project.

The open house has been carefully designed and improved over almost 20 years to provide an authentic and interesting archaeological experience. Students stand by open excavation units to explain what, why, and how the dig is being conducted, as well as answer questions about the history of the site and how the fort is incorporated into the history of Niles. We also have an incredible group of living history reenactors that come for the weekend. They provide a glimpse into the past, displaying crafts like blacksmithing and fiber arts, educating about French colonial food ways, and offering the opportunity to ride in an authentic birchbark canoe. This is where the open house really shines-- the blending of an education and entertainment. (And it’s free! Come visit us next year!)

Every iteration of the open house goes through little tweaks and changes from year to year. For 2021 one of the biggest changes that was made was site accessibility. Three volunteers (Gary, Lynn, and Niel), the field school lab coordinator (Lucy) and a field school student (Ashley) spent a Saturday clearing vegetation and creating gradients for the paths leading to and from the floodplain. This meant that for the first time there was a wheelchair and motorized accessible route around the whole site. These changes were a big step towards making Fort St. Joseph accessible not just to the general public, but to the whole public. We hope that you’ll come and visit us next year!

Students and staff enjoying a birchbark canoe ride
after the open house!

Students creating an artifact case for the open house!

Teaching kids about Archaeology at Fort St. Joseph

On August 3rd, we had the Summer My Way Kids that consisted of 4th and 5th graders come out to see Fort St. Joseph! They were broken off into two groups because there were so many kids that came to see us. While one group got to go a fantastic walking tour with Erika, the other group got to tour the units and try some hands-on wet screening with Lucy!

Lucy wet screening with some of the kids!

The students got to see Father Allouez's grave and check out the commemorative boulder, and the other half of the students got to experience wet screening and check out the units. At the wet screen station, Lucy, myself, and a couple other students got to teach the kids about the purpose of wet screening and some demonstrations. They stood around the stations and watched us as we sprayed the dirt away. Even some of the kids were willing to get soaked and muddy for the experience of finding something in the wet screen. Many of the kids asked some excellent questions during the whole process, such as "How do you know its bone" or "What is an artifact." We would explain that the color, texture, and weight are things we look for, and I had mentioned that once you start something new, you can become good from practice. I liked the kids who had the imagination to ask questions like, "do you find dinosaur bones or gold," or the ones who would get very involved in finding artifacts. A lot of the kids would look extensively into the screens and point to a possible artifact, and I even had one kid find a seed bead in mine! In addition, they got to check out all the units in the floodplain and trenches, as other students described their hard work and answered more questions.

Jim Clark explaining his unit to the students

One of the many great things about archaeology are that children are always curious and can carry that curiosity as they grow older. When I was a child, I did not have this particular experience, but these kids do and maybe this will spark their interest in the camp or field school. Curiosity keeps the passion and project alive for all ages to lead to discoveries and teaching moments. Overall, the kids had some fantastic experiences, and everyone enjoyed being a part of it at Fort St. Joseph.

Developing an Interest on Fort St. Joseph

Ever since I was young, my dad got me interested in local and world history. One of our interests was in the local history of the people living in the area during the 1700s-1800s. We would drive by the Fort St. Joseph commemorative rock and Father Allouez cross, visiting them every month when we would take trash to the Berrien County dump. Around 1965, we began stopping at the Fort St. Jospeh Museum in Niles after we unloaded our trash. My dad and the museum’s curator Mrs. Johnson at the time didn't know exactly where the location of the fort was, but we knew it was on the east side of the St. Joseph River, north of the rock.

Rex washing artifacts from the 2021 field school!

Four years later, while in Jr High School, I asked my history class teachers the question I had always wanted to know the answer to, “Who knew the exact locations of the Fort?” And I always got the same answer, “We don’t know.”

This made me more determined to know more about the fort and its location. At the time, you could look across from the rock monument to the west side of the river and see the high cliffs that would have kept enemies and harsh weather out. The cliffs stop as you approach downtown Niles where the Pawating crossing is. Native groups used this crossing to walk across the shallow part of the river. I thought the Pawating crossing would have been a good place for the fort because it could be accessed from all directions land or river. However, the actual location of the fort (just upstream) makes more sense to me now.

The Jesuits arrived in the area now known as Fort St. Joseph in 1680s when the French government allowed them there. Jesuit Priests traveled with trappers and traders from France. The Catholic Church authority in France wanted to convince the Native American Tribes in the entire territory that they didn't want war for land, but a trade policy. I learned later, from French documents, that missions and Jesuit priests were relocated to many French territories on every continent.

Some questions that remained in my head were: “Why was the Fort St. Joseph after so many years not built over, and at the same time, not important enough to seriously look for? Did the distance from lake Michigan and the affect of the seasons on the water have an answer to the location of the Fort? Did the amount of time it took to get from Lake Michigan to the Fort matter?” For 10 plus years, I have rowed on the local rivers and creeks and in the dark almost everything in the water or near it is more visible. Did this impact the fort’s location?

It was the Native Americans in the area, and throughout New France, that controlled the trade and who could live near them. The history of Fort St. Joseph and the occupants’ relationships with the Native Americans are what interested me the most first. Tribes in this region, like all others had truces and their own boundaries and borders all throughout the land. Local native tribes moved often, so did the French use this to establish the fort’s location? What changes happened to all the people involved?

I read a lot of books, articles and historical documents before this class even began. Pictorial pictures of the great lakes had images of the French king during the fort years and his copy of the map of this French territory. His map had drawn the fort on the east bank of river about 20 plus miles south of Lake Michigan, before the south bend. The river could be traveled north, where it empties into Lake Michigan or south in order to reach the Mississippi. So, who would desert a fort with that proximity and the routes even if the fur trade was declining? There was still a land trail to Detroit and all the portages going south after the Seven Years War. During almost 100 years of its use (1691-1781), I believe that someone would have recorded its correct location and the logic behind the decision made at that time.

Now, 330 plus years later, the Project is excavating the fort site in its original location.  At last, the city of Niles has a serious partner that cares about this history. I hope that one day it will become a National Historic site with an exhibition the shows the artifacts recovered from where it was constructed.

Work Cited

H. Hatcher, Eric Walter. Pictorial Pictures of the Great Lakes

Joseph Peyser. Letters from New France

A Lead Seal from S1.5 E12!

 Hello Fort Followers! 

It’s Rae Daun again, here with a little update from the field. There have been so many awesome artifacts recovered since I last checked in. In my unit specifically, S1.5 E12, at around 10 cmbd, we wet screened and found a very interesting piece of history. Jenny, my pit partner, recovered the artifact. When she came back to our unit, she delivered the news that we found a larger piece of lead, about 12 mm x 19.5 mm. Lead is not a unique metal on the site, but the size of this artifact was something to get excited about. Normally, we find pieces of lead shot (a rounded piece of lead that is small in diameter and about 1/8 of the size of a musket ball), but this artifact wasn’t cylindrical. At first, we classified the artifact as a piece of scrap lead, but upon closer inspection noticed there was an inscription on the surface. This meant that Jenny and I had found the first lead bale seal of the 2021 season!

Pictured: Lead seal fragment recovered from unit S1.5 E12

These bale seals are made of lead and were used to identify commercial goods. Each lead seal showed the manufacturer, cosigner, merchant, and usually when and where the good originated from (Hulse, 1977). These seals are essentially the 18^th century version of a shipping label.

The seals were two sided and were stamped onto packaged goods. In the final steps of the shipping process, the bale seal would be, as the name would suggest, sealed permanently. The design would be embossed one or both sides of the seal. One side was usually left blank so the merchant could indicate how valuable the object was with tallies or numerical values. (Stone, 1974). With the information on these seals, merchants would be able to move goods throughout the United States, as well as overseas!

Picture taken from  https://journals.openedition.org/rives/docannexe/image/1393/img-5.jpg 

(Buti, 2008)

The lead bale seal that we found in our unit was not very well preserved, unfortunately. It was only a fragment, and we can only make out that it was embossed but cannot tell what the label states or the design that is on it. Because of this, we have no idea who the manufacturer was, what the transported goods were, or when and where the artifact is from. It was an exciting find because it was the first of the season, but it was unfortunately in rough shape. This is likely due to the seal being found in what we call the plow zone, or the soil level where agricultural plows mixed 18^th century artifacts with their own soil. It’s possible that this disturbance lead to the seal being damaged, but this is just a theory and there are many other possibilities!

 Luckily for us, though, a couple of other lead seals have been discovered this field season. The embossment on one of these leas seals is particularly well preserved, but we have yet to identify the manufacturer from this inscription. If anybody has any ideas as to what this seal could indicate, leave us a comment below. 

Pictured: Well preserved lead seal fragment recovered from unit N5 E2

You can check this specimen out at our open house in our artifact case! The open house in this Saturday and Sunday, the 7^th and 8^th of August, from 10am-4pm. Come join us!

 References:

Buti, G. (2008). Des goûts et des couleurs. Draps du Languedoc pour clientèle levantine au XVIIIe siècle. Rives méditerranéennes, 29, 125–140. https://doi.org/10.4000/rives.1393

Davis, Cathrine, "Lead Seals from Colonial Fort St. Joseph (20BE23)" (2014). Honors Theses. 2408. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/honors_theses/2408

Hulse, C. (1977). Fort St. Joseph Artifacts [Master of Arts]. Western Michigan University.

Stone, L. M. (1974). Fort Michilimackinac 1715-1781; An Archaeological Perspective on the Revolutionary Frontier (Vol. 2). The Museum - Michigan State University.

Working on the 2021 Artifact Cases!

Hey Fort Followers!

Mady and Courtney here. We’ve been hard at work in the field this season on Unit S7E20 (Check out our other recent blog post to learn more about our progress so far!), but we’ve also been hard at work in the lab, too. As most of you know, our Open House is coming up soon. It takes place this weekend, August 7th and 8th, from 10 am to 4 pm both days. While we cannot believe the 2021 field season is already almost over, we are excited to see you all at the Open House and show you some of the interesting finds that we’ve made this year.

At the Open House, you’ll be greeted with many different things to see and do. And while we hope you take the time to check out everything, we also hope that you stop by our artifact case to see some of our top picks for artifacts found here at Fort St Joseph. The theme this year is “People of the Post” and we’ll be focusing on a few key groups of people who would have been present at the fort. Read on to learn more about how we’re setting up the artifact case, as well as some sneak peek pictures of what you may see this year.

When we initially thought about the “People of the Post” theme, we knew that we wanted to be inclusive. However, we do understand that our artifact case cannot possibly cover all of the people who visited the fort, as we don’t even know about everyone that visited. Historical documents and excavations can only give us so much information, but we did our best to include who we felt were some of the main groups. As of now, the groups are the local Indigenous populations, women, families and children, Jesuit missionaries, the garrison, fur traders, and the blacksmith.

The next issue to tackle was the organization of the case. We decided on placing artifacts around their assigned groups but also blending the groups together in an almost ‘venn diagram’ fashion. We did this because we understand that each artifact would not be strictly used by only one person. For example, the ceramics that we included would not only be used by women, but by all groups in the case and at the fort. And so, ceramics were placed near the center.

Last week, we dropped in at the Niles History Center to look at possible artifacts we’d like to include in the artifact case. While I won’t detail each one that we chose (I can’t ruin the surprise!), you can check out the photos in this article to get a sneak peek. And in case you’d like an extra hint, one of them was useful for entertainment purposes and would have been used primarily by children (as well as some adults).

Some of the many artifacts that might be featured in this years artifact cases!

This week we will also be working on a second artifact case that will showcase some of the interesting artifacts that we’ve found during the 2021 field season. I won’t spoil any surprises there, but I will say that there will be artifacts included from our unit, S7 E20!

If you want to read up on some of our other interesting finds from this season in preparation for the Open House, feel free to check out our other blogs. See you all real soon!

Mady & Courtney

Checking in at S1.5 E12!

Hi Fort Followers,

Jenny here again to tell you more about my unit (S1.5E12) in Trench 1. If you remember from my last post, I mentioned that we have a bit of a larger unit (1x1.5 meters instead of 1x1) because our unit was partly excavated by another student in 2019. We also had some difficulty with gravelly soil, which made it hard for us to get further down in our unit. My pit partner Rae Daun and I have found a really special structural stone that partially extends into the southwest wall of our unit. This stone is an awesome find because it’s so big. We have grown very attached to this stone, and have lovingly named it “Rocky.” Structural stones were used in French communities as the foundation of buildings, or used in their fireplaces.

There was a lot of stone readily available by the river, which was a great resource for finding the materials needed to form their buildings. It also was common for the bigger stones to be used for fireplaces, where smaller stones were used as building foundations

While this is a cool find, we still have a couple other things to uncover before we can figure out what this stone might have been used for. One important thing to note is that we’re still in the plow zone, which means that we’re still in the soil that has been greatly disturbed by a plow, or other agricultural activity. Basically, we aren’t far down enough in our soil to know if this stone was not disturbed by anything before we found it.

We found some limestone at the start of our excavation, which is a material that is also used for structural stones. However, the limestone was found above more landfill, so we think it might have been disturbed upwards by a plow. Now that we’ve dug deeper into our soil, (we’re now 10 centimeters down) we removed the limestone so we can get further down. 

There is definitely no way for us to remove this new stone once we get further down. It’s a lot larger than the limestone, and it is very deep into our wall. Removing that will certainly compromise the southwest wall of our unit. 

We are also slowly beginning to uncover another piece of stone, and it appears to be of the same material. However, we just found this, and the piece we found is much smaller than the other stone. This could mean that it extends further into the wall than the other one does.

 One really interesting aspect of this structural stone is that it has very straight cut edges. This is unusual for French structural stones- they usually just leave them natural and use mortar to keep the stones together for a foundation or fireplace. The cut edges on this stone, from what we can see, make it seem like a different kind of structure. There are records found about Fort St Joseph that discuss an order to make a jail in 1750. The stones used for jails were cut, unlike the stones used in other structures, and they also used iron for the doors to the jail cells. While there is no way to know if this is the case, having mostly uncovered one unusual stone, it does give us a unique look into the lives of these people.

 If nothing else, I love getting this opportunity to learn more about the people living at Fort St Joseph.

Thanks for reading!

-Jenny

References

Loveland, E. K., & Nassaney, M. S. (2017). Sheltering New France. Western Michigan University, Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project Booklet, (3).

Returning to Fort St. Joseph

 Hello everyone!

I have yet to introduce myself, my name is Ella Doppke and I am a rising high school senior working with the students at the field school this season. 2021 marks my fourth year with Fort St Joseph. I was a FSJ Archaeology Summer Camper for three years before being lucky enough to be invited to continue my experience with the field students. 

Working in 2019, on a unit on the floodplain, that was reopened for students in order to find the other half of an object first uncovered during my first dig.

History and archaeology have always been passions of mine, starting with my interest in Native Americans in second grade. I knew I wanted to continue learning and working in the area in some form or the other. I took every history and language class I could in an effort to learn more. I hadn’t heard about the Fort St Joseph Archaeological Project until we found their camp and work when I was in eighth grade. I finished my first week and knew that I had to come back. You can read and watch documentaries about it all you want, but nothing really compares to getting into the dirt with your trowel and finding artifacts that haven’t been uncovered for hundreds of years.

I still remember finding my first seed bead in the wetscreen on my first day at the dig three years ago. Being able to pick it up and know it was made and traded in the 1700s was kind of unbelievable. That is where it all began. I love coming back each year and talking with the staff and volunteers about recent discoveries and updates about the site and being able to see our understanding of the time period develop with every season. 

I was excited to be able to join the students for the whole month this year. Meeting everyone and learning what brought them to the site and what their individual specialties are has been so much fun. It is sort of crazy to see units that you helped excavate in the top alluvium layers two years ago reach the occupation zone and produce dozens of artifacts. 

My current unit, North 4, East 35 in Trench 2.

I am so grateful for my time at the site so far and hope to continue to learn and return to work with the project. Going into my senior year of high school, I have just started college applications and *fingers crossed* plan to pursue an anthropology degree with a focus on linguistics and museum studies. 

See you soon! Ella.

Wetscreening with Alec

Hi everyone! 

In this video blog, I am going to demonstrate how we wetscreen our dirt from the excavations at Fort St. Joseph. 

Thanks for watching and I hope to see you at the Archaeology Open House!

- Alec Kaminski

Good Times at S7E20

Courtney and Maddie next to their unit, S7E20

Hello everyone! 

It’s Courtney and Mady back to tell you about our unit. On the first day of orientation, we were thinking we may have been in over our heads, especially when we started the field exercises. Thankfully, we quickly realized once we started stringing up and excavating our unit that we love getting down in the dirt. There have been challenges, such as torrential downpour, scorching days, and bugs upon bugs, but we wouldn’t have it any other way!

We started our excavations in Trench 1 as the furthest unit to the east, behind a bone midden, known as Feature 29, where the people living at the Fort would have dumped their leftover animal bones in a sort of trash heap. We were hoping that our unit may have been part of the bone midden, but upon further investigation (deep in the notes of the field school's past), we realized that the bone midden extended to the west, in the opposite direction of our unit, and so we pondered about what else we could find. We had to get through a lot of 20th-century landfill, so broken glass, glass bottles, plastic, and rocks were abundant at first. Shortly after we really got digging in the first week, we noticed an orangey soil coming up in little patches here-and-there. We thought that it could be transition soil from the 20th-century landfill to the plowzone, so we kept going, hoping to find 18th-century artifacts. We started to find seed beads, a few pieces of lead shot, a lot of bone fragments, and we even found a straight pin which was used for pinning garments! The excitement was invigorating!

We recovered this straight pin in our unit!

After about two weeks, we noticed that the orangey soil change had overtaken most of our unit. We were then told that we had probably hit the B horizon, the level beneath the occupation zone, without actually hitting the occupation zone. At that point, we were stumped before Dr. Nassaney gave us some insight. He hypothesized that when the trenches were being dug with the backhoe, the elevation couldn’t be seen properly, so they may have dug a little too deep, taking off some of the plowzone. There were 18th-century artifacts found in the soil, so it all started to make sense. We were kind of disappointed, but, as students of archaeology, understood that this was still a great opportunity for learning.

At the moment, we are in the middle of mapping out our first level. We are still finding bone fragments and we even found more lead shot in our wet screening, so we are planning on digging a little deeper to make sure we are in the true B horizon. If we do find that we have no artifacts in the soil, we will close out our current unit and start a new one. The new one will be further down the trench, to the east. We think we might run into the same problem, but with how unpredictable archaeology can be, who knows what else we might find!

Glass at Fort St. Joseph

Hello, friends! I’m Hana, a senior Anthropology student here at Western Michigan University, and this field season I am excavating a unit at the very Southern end of Trench 2 to learn more about the boundaries of the site. I also have an interest in craft production with a focus in glass making, which makes the site a great place to find interesting glass artifacts!

Here at Fort Saint Joseph, we have a fairly extensive collection of excavated glass beads and shards of both curved and flat glass. In fact, we’ve uncovered a few in our units already this season!

Where did this glass come from? Glass working was not continually practiced in the United States until the mid-18th century. During the French colonization, when Fort Saint Joseph was established and occupied, almost all glass was imported from England and was made in either Italy (specifically the island of Murano off the coast of Italy which was the main producer of glass for several centuries) or in Amsterdam or France. These beads, small windows, and even vessels or tableware were transported with the French when they came to the Americas and were then used and traded with the Native populations.

Seed beads, and some of the larger beads that have been found at the site, were most often used by the Native Americans (in this case namely the Potawatomi) for embroidery onto clothing and for making into jewelry and other adornment. These beads would be traded for furs, bark, and fruits.

Some of this glass has also aged in interesting ways. One of the pieces found in our unit is patinated, which happens when a piece of glass has been buried for a long time and the soda or lime (which is added to silica to create stable glass) has started to leach out due to exposure to water. Our site here in the trench is fairly damp, so it’s no wonder this piece of glass is so highly deteriorated. Here’s a good comparison picture to see the difference between patinated (right) and unstained glass (left).

Thanks for reading!

Fresh Finds from Trench 1: A Musket Ball

 Hi friends! Chloe here to give you an update from Trench #1. My pit partner Ashley and I have been working very hard on our unit S5 E16. We have slowly made progress amidst the rain and mud that our unit loves to collect. These past weeks have proven to be challenging as we learned the ropes and techniques all while trying to do our best with public outreach through blogs and lunches. A massive part of what makes this program so special is the public involvement and our reciprocity to their generosity. It really is a team effort, us and you guys!

Mine and Ashley's Unit: S5E16

The biggest question all of us field school students are going to be asked is, “What did you find?”. Well, lucky for you guys that is what I’ll be talking about in this blog post. Our unit S5 E16 has proven to be busy. There have been many types of artifacts found like bone, calcine bone, 18^th century glass, seed beads, and lead shot. Two of the most exciting finds have been a large piece of lead, which we are currently discussing what it could be, and a musket ball!

Musket balls are super cool to find because you have to reflect on the fact that these are a massive part of the history of Fort St. Joseph. Fort St. Joseph was a garrison during most of its occupation. The French garrison was in operation from 1691-1761. Our current hypothesis is that this musket ball is from the French occupation because of the artifact's diameter, but there is also a possibility that it’s British. We believe that it is a .54 caliber and it may have been used in a trade gun. 

If you haven’t joined us for our lecture series, I would highly recommend it. We had a great lecture by Bob Myers on July 21^st where he talked about the military activity of Fort St. Joseph. Specifically, he talked about members of the garrison, musket balls and other military gear, and the political aspects of having a garrison in Fort St. Joseph. The relationships between the Europeans and Native Americans in the area were also discussed in regards to how they were affected by the military presence. The people of the post could have very easily picked up this musket ball and fired it out of their own weapon in hopes that it is a sufficient size. 

The musket ball found in our unit!

Out of all of the things we have found in S5 E16 this musket ball really reinforced the feeling of being an archaeologist for me. This opportunity to be a part of history and discover what life was like for people way back when is something I never thought I’d get to experience. At Fort St. Joseph we learn something new every single day. That kind of knowledge can’t be bought. If you’re interested in all the knowledge we have to share here at Fort St. Joseph, visit our open house August 7^th and 8^th which takes place from 10 am to 4 pm. We would love to share the incredible things we found and the hard work we have put in. 

Well, that’s all for this blog post. Hope to see you for our open house! Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Instagram so you can follow our journey here. Thanks for reading and stay safe everyone!

-Chloe Trinka

How COVID has Changed/Affected our Work

Hi Fort Followers,

I’ve introduced myself before and written some blogs in the past, but it’s been a while since I’ve written a one so I will reintroduce myself! My name is Lucy Clark, I took the field school in 2019 and then became an independent study student under Dr. Nassaney for the 2019-2020 academic year. I graduated from Western in the summer of 2020 with a degree in anthropology and was supposed to work at the 2020 field school as the lab coordinator, but due to COVID I had to wait another year. I’m back now working as the lab coordinator for the 2021 field school. 

Due to COVID, there have been a lot of changes in the field school and how we conduct lab and field work. While there are some major changes like not living together and having the lecture series virtually, there are also a lot of smaller aspects of field school that we have had to alter due to the restrictions put in place. In the field, we all have our own toolboxes this year that we have assigned numbers for, so we don’t run the risk of mixing up tools. 

There are also specific wet screen stations assigned to specific units, so only two people work at that specific wet screen station. 

Since we don’t have lab at the barn where we usually stay, we had to completely change where we conduct all of our lab work. This year, we have to transport all the artifacts to the lab at WMU, where we wash, dry and sort them. In the lab, we have specific buckets with all the tools you’d need to clean artifacts assigned to each student with their names on them. Much like the toolboxes, this is so we don’t mix up tools or have to sanitize them every time we use them.

It might seem like all these changes are a negative, but I think that it shows how adaptable we are and that we can still figure out a way to work throughout these hard times. It was a real bummer to not be able to work at the 2020 field school, so to be able to have the field school this year with only a few changes in place seems like a small price to pay!

Thanks for reading!

Identifying and Cleaning Animal Bones Found at Fort St. Joseph

Hey everyone!

I am Ashley Mlazgar and a field school student here at Fort St. Joseph. This fall I will start my fifth and final year at Northern Arizona University, where I am receiving a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology with an emphasis in Archaeology and a double minor in History and French. I am really excited to be working at this site because of my interest in historical archaeology and the colonial period. I hope to move on to grad school for a Master’s in Archaeology after I graduate next year.

As we have been excavating our first levels in the units, several of us have already found animal bone fragments. The bone fragments are generally quite well preserved because of the St. Joseph River and the relatively small amount of time they have been in the ground. Animal bones are usually discernable visually, however, they sometimes look like rocks or wood. Wood differs in that it is much softer and squishes between the fingertips while wet. Rocks have a different texture than bone, which has led to the age-old lick test, though we as archaeologists use other means for identification.

Identifying bone fragments by hand at the unit is an important and useful skill for archaeologists because of the time it saves and the prevention of potential damage to bones from wet screening. When we wet screen the bone fragments, they become soaked and can take several extra days drying, slowing down the entire process. Identifying them in the unit also helps preserve the context of the fragments, especially when we are able to spot the bones before disturbing them. If we do see animal bones still in the dirt matrix, we pedestal them for photos and mapping. To the left is a photo of a bone fragment currently being pedestalled in unit S5E16.

Bones that are not being pedestalled, but have been picked out before the wet screen, are cleaned by hand in the lab. We use a variety of tools including toothbrushes, dental picks, strainers, and sometimes, a little bit of water. Once the bones are all clean, they are placed on Styrofoam trays to dry. The image to the right shows a collection of animal bone fragments, and a couple 20th century artifacts, drying in the lab after being cleaned.

This is the process of how we find, excavate, clean and thoroughly dry the bones we find at Fort St. Joseph

Thanks for reading!

-Ashley

First Day in Lab: Cleaning Artifacts and Identifying Bones

Hi everybody! 

I’m Rae Daun and I’m a senior at Western Michigan University! My major is in Biology, and I have a minor in Psychology. After I graduate, I am hoping that my background in the aforementioned subjects and my field school experience will allow me to pursue a job in cultural resource management, and eventually return to obtain my master’s degree in anthropology! This is my first field experience in archaeology, and I’m excited to see where this opportunity will take me!

This week, we had our first day in the lab – how exciting! My classmates and I split into two groups. In my group, we began our day by learning how to clean artifacts. This is a huge part of learning to be an archaeologist. We do more than just dig and play in the dirt! Sure, that is what people traditionally think is our job, but there’s so much more to it. A dentist would be jealous of the tools we have, from picks to toothbrushes; we’re use these to clean the artifact to the best of our ability without destroying its integrity. It’s a finely tuned art that all of us had the privilege of learning and continue learning throughout the lab sessions we’ll have this semester!

After lunch, we switched with the other group and met with Dr. Terry Martin, a zooarchaeologist who is an expert in identifying animal bones from just fragments! He has worked on many different archaeological sites throughout the states, and we are lucky to have him on our team at Fort St. Joseph! After a brief lecture on how bones are identified, we got right to work! This wasn’t just any workshop with some bones that had already been identified, we were able to sort through bones collected at Fort St. Joseph and figure out what animal had left them behind.

Some of the fragments have grooves and margins that make them easier to identify, while others are just shards that can’t be identified without further analysis. Many of the bones we find at Fort St. Joseph are White-tailed deer, or Odocoileus virginianus, but there are some other cool species that we’ve identified like black bear or otter!

For this bone lab, my partner Reid and I were able to identify over 30 different bone fragments! It was an awesome experience and I know for sure that I will never forget what the distal end of a deer tibia looks like (we had a ton of these).

Llelo wasn’t much help in this lab, but he certainly was interested in the tasty looking bones.

Picture was taken by his handler!
He also did not consume any bones

Bonus points for anybody who can guess what this bone is!

Thanks for reading! 

Overcoming Challenges at Fort St. Joseph

Hi everyone, 

My name is Audriana Skonecki, and I am a field school student this year at Fort St. Joseph. I am a 4th-year student studying Biomedical Sciences with a minor in Chemistry and Anthropology. One of the things I have worked on since being at the site is overcoming the many challenges our team and myself have faced so far. These challenges included becoming a team, the weather, and issues on the unit my partner and I work on.

On the first day of orientation, we joined together at a table as a group of people who hadn't even learned each others names yet. That quickly did not become an issue anymore because we would soon form a bond through our experiences, knowledge, and passion. This bond is what makes us a team, such as being at the site, for example. On our first couple of days at Fort St. Joseph, most of us were very new to the experience and unsure how to go about it. We had to learn about the materials needed for each unit, how to set up a unit, and the steps/tool/techniques for excavating. Help from instructors like Erika, Lucy, Gary, and Dr. Nassaney gave us advice and insight on how to best move forward with our excavations. As we ended our days at the site, we all struggled to clean up, bring materials back, and packing up the trailer. Yet, over time with lots of practice, we all became familiar with the process and developed an excellent system to get it all done much more quickly.

Catching rain to try and keep everyone dry during lunch.   

However, the biggest challenge, as a team, we we have had to face thus far has been the weather. On July 13th, we experienced hefty rainstorms that challenged the guests we had on the site as well as our team. Thankfully, we were able to get the tents up, which allowed everyone to seek shelter and continue lunch when the heaviest of the rain came. During the storm, the field students and instructors worked hard to catch any rain falling through the cracks, while Erika came up with a plan on how to spend the rest of our day. When the rain became too much and it was clear we wouldn’t be able to work at the site anymore for the day, we decided to leave and head to the Niles Public library to dry off, work on notes and watch a canoe-making video. Even though the day was crazy, we were able to work together to keep everything (mostly) dry, so that our excavating and public archaeology experiences would not be hindered.

After leaving the field we dried off and started some
research at the Niles District Library.

Unit N18 E29: Cutting out the dozens of
wires coming from the 20th century landfill.

In addition to the other challenges, in our unit N18 E29, Reid and I struggled to prepare our unit on the first day at the site. We knew our unit would invade into the trench wall, along with a pipe, a large piece of metal, and endless wires in the way. It took us a day and a half to finally set up our unit because we had to widen the trench and take out a decent-sized chunk of wire. Once that challenge was completed, it was on to the next one, such as leveling our unit. Because our unit is located in the 20th-century landfill, there has been a substantial amount of trash found and enclosed. Our unit is at currently 20 cm BD, and we have been able to slowly dig pieces out and cut through a lot of Styrofoam, but hopefully, that will change as we dig deeper. We are both excited to see what we can discover from our unit as we continue our excavations.