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 Historical documents and excavations can only give us so much information, but we did our best to include who we felt were some of the main groups.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).
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| Some of the many artifacts that might be featured in this years artifact cases! |
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
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