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

Orientation Review

 Hello!

    I'm Mary and I'm a senior at Western Michigan University and this is my first year as a field school student! I'm studying Anthropology and Political Science. I enjoy all anthropology sub-fields, but I'm especially interested in evolution and archaeology. On Thursday June 30th, we kicked off our two-day orientation for this summer's field school! We've been able to have zoom meetings and exchange emails, but this was our first time meeting in person as a group. We started by going over the course packet and what to expect this summer. Then we learned about the history of Fort St. Joseph and look at maps of the site. This helped us see where we are going to be digging this year and where previous artifacts and features had been found. Next, Erika and Chloe taught us about how we excavate and story the artifacts that are taken from the site. On Friday, we were shown how to properly stake and measure our units, use compasses, how to use total stations, and other skills we'll need during our excavations this summer!

    I found orientation to be extremely helpful! We learned a lot about the site and the history of it, research design, tools we'll be using this summer during our excavations, how proper excavations work from start to finish, and of course- got to know our new field school classmates!

Stay tuned this summer for more updates on this year's WMU field school findings!

Mary