Awl That and More!

 Hi there!

   

    My name is Matthew Runk. I'm a senior at Western Michigan University majoring in Hydrogeology with a minor in Anthropology. I have an associate degree in Sustainable Brewing from Kalamazoo Valley Community College and took a year off school to brew beer in Sacramento, California before coming back to WMU in 2021. The 2022 field school has just finished up our second week on site and we are all pretty excited to share what we have been finding so far. My unit is designated South 5 West 11 based on its location on the search grid that has been laid out for the site. So far, we have found a good amount of animal bone, glass fragments, nails, and white seed beads in S5W11, but a recent find from Thursday this week had everyone smiling. We found a leatherworking and sewing tool called an awl that was still sharp to the touch on one end and had very little oxidation that can be common with metal tools and nails in a wet area like our site. The awl is roughly fourteen centimeters long with a clearly intentional bend in the middle. There would have been a wooden or cloth handle on one side to protect the user from blisters and cuts from the metal. Awls are used for a variety of craft activities ranging from punching holes in leather, to scoring wood for further tooling, to etching designs into wood/metal/leather, and many finishing sewing stitches are made easier with the use of the awl. This is an exciting discovery because it lends evidence to craft production activities being done around our excavation area. To find tools, beads, and glass along with the awl is a good collection of evidence to draw from. There is the possibility of this being a residential location where fort residents engaged in home craft production for themselves and other members of the community. This falls directly in line with our research objective for this field school. We are trying to discern how large the footprint is for the fort so that a more systematic excavation can be designed for future field schools. Hopefully as we continue to dig deeper to out unites, we will be able to confirm the existence of residential habitations in this area or other evidence that will be able to help us better define our hypothesis. This course has been tremendous fun and I have enjoyed all the support and outreach from the community of Niles. Thank you for your interest in this project and for allowing me the opportunity to spend my summer with amazing people stepping through parts of history.

Have a great day!

Matt