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