My First Week in the Field

 Hello,

   

My name is Carson Manfred, I am 18 years old and live in Edwardsburg, Michigan. I am currently a sophomore at Western Michigan University where I major in Anthropology with a minor in Sociology. This is my first year and first time ever attending a field school. I had a very interesting and enjoyable week learning about the history of the site and meeting my fellow classmates, especially my dig partner Olivia Crandall. On our first day of excavating, Olivia and I chose our excavation unit at the location South 9 West 21. We began to remove the first layer of soil, the alluvium, which has been deposited from the St. Joseph River. This soil zone went down to about 14 centimeters below our unit's datum. In this layer, we didn't find any eighteenth-century artifacts since these deposits date after the fort's occupation, but we did uncover some older animal bones. We both thought that these animal bones were very cool and interesting first finds, serving as a good learning tool for future finds that could be from the fort's time period. Currently, we are now excavating in our Level 2 and have reached the top of the plow zone so we have begun wet screening for artifacts. All in all, I believe that this is going to be a very enjoyable six weeks and I can't wait to see what all we find. 

Sincerely, 

    Carson