Around S5 W11

 Hello Fort fans! 

    We have had a busy week so far preparing for the open house this weekend, August sixth and seventh. I wanted to take a moment and update everyone on some great finds from Mary and my unit, S5 W11. Today we powered through another five cm across our entire one-meter by two-meter unit. We found a variety of artifacts including teeth and bone from deer and beaver, seed beads, lead buckshot, a possible flint core rock, and a beautiful Jesuit ring! The ring itself is a very exciting find because it represents a possible piece of evidence that women lived in the fort when it was in use. It is so rewarding to look at our unit and think back to when we were struggling to dig through the roots at the surface and were hoping to find something interesting. Now it feels like we really have a good hold on what we are doing and are finding artifacts of historical value. I am very proud to be a part of this field school and to have the opportunity to contribute to the history of Fort St. Joseph. Everyone in the field school has been working very hard to put together events, tours, demonstrations, and a display case of our discoveries this year for the open house. I have heard that there will also be food provided by a local boy scout troop and live historical reenactors. As an Eagle Scout myself it is a great feeling to see young men of the community come out to events like this build memories that I know they will take with them for the rest of their lives. I hope I get to see a great turn out this weekend and get to share the joy of history with the greater Niles community. 

        Prost! 

               Matthew Runk

Updates from South 9 West 21

    Hello, Carson Manfred here again this last week on the dig site my Unit South 9 West 21 has made some interesting discoveries in our unit. We are currently at Level 7 40 cmbd and are moving onto Level 8 which is 45 cmbd. We are still in the plow zone and in our East half of our unit we have begun to unearth an unidentified bone currently. Some other interesting recent finds at our unit have been a lead musket ball and a pipe stem but overall Unit South 9 West 21 is still having less artifacts found than surrounding units. Now over these last two weeks at Fort St. Joseph, we have had Middle School and Highschool campers come on site with us to help us excavate. These students did excellent on site doing stuff such as excavating out units alone and with help from staff while also wet screening the dirt that was being excavated from these units. I think everyone could agree though that the students favorite thing was finding artifacts especially the middle school group they would get really excited when they found artifacts. Overall, I would have to say that being able to show and talk to the students about archaeology was very enjoyable for me and the rest of the FSJ Crew.

Can't wait to see everyone at the open house!

        Carson Manfred