FSJ Archaeologists in Baltimore!

Hey folks, Emily here! Just got back from the amazing city of Baltimore … As so many of you know archaeologists at Fort St Joseph understand the importance of sharing their findings with the public of southwest Michigan. Also essential is sharing information with other archaeologists in the field. To facilitate this undertaking, we must attend conferences every year so that the archaeology community at large can learn about the complex colonial history of our region. One such conference is the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA), the largest international meeting devoted to the material culture of the recent past. Held in Baltimore, Maryland this year, at the beautiful downtown Marriott Waterfront Hotel, the SHA welcomed over 1300 historical and underwater archaeologists from around the world to share their work, engage in current debates, and tour the sights and sounds of this thriving waterfront city. Fort St Joseph archaeologists were on hand, along with some of our alum, to take part in this annual event.

One of the sessions at the SHA was entitled “Archaeology of Michigan: Papers in Memoriam of Charles Rinehart” created by former FSJ archaeology graduate students Andrew Beaupré and Andrew Robinson. Graduate student, Ian Kerr, wrote a paper for this session, which I then presented, about the recent notable finds of this year’s FSJ field school. The conference attendees were just as excited about our newly discovered post hole and foundation wall as we were! This paper also concentrated on the new lead bale seal and triangle drop ear bob. Other French colonial archaeologists pay particular attention to what happens every year with the work conducted at Fort St Joseph to better understand what may be taking place at their own sites.

FSJ principal investigator and former secretary for SHA, Dr. Michael Nassaney, presented a poster this year discussing racial issues within the organization and the field itself. Always aware of how his work affects the greater public, Dr. Nassaney strives at teaching students and colleagues alike how to be culturally sensitive and more inclusive when conducting the history and archaeology of others. Dr. Terrance Martin, Chair of Anthropology at the Illinois State Museum and our FSJ zooarchaeologist was also present contributing multiple papers on the usage of animal bones including one entitled “Fur Trapping and its Zooarchaeological Signature: An Example from the Midwest.”

An SHA conference would not be complete without tours of the host city. Archaeologists, given a backstage pass with local researchers, visited numerous places around the state of Maryland. Some tours included the capitol of Annapolis, historic Mary’s City, the Monocacy National Civil War Battlefield, Frederick Douglas’ boyhood home, and the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum. We made sure to attend the Public Archaeology Expo at Fort McHenry, the birthplace of our national anthem and a critical site during the War of 1812. The Expo featured a variety of displays on local community service learning endeavors, including posters and interactive activities.

The SHA in Baltimore did more than inform the field of current programs and digs. There was much networking for students, new technology to sample, and books on hand for sale. Also for purchase was the newly printed ACUA/SHA calendar revealing award winning photos from last year. Gracing the month of March is a photo taken at FSJ by our previous photographer Jessica Hughes. And of course pub-crawling through local watering holes was a must, especially Max’s Taphouse in the historic Fell’s Point neighborhood, with 140 rotating drafts, 5 hand-pumped cask ales, and a collection of 1200 bottled beers in stock! Past and present FSJ Public Archaeology Coordinators LisaMarie Malischke and Kelley Walter could be seen dancing to Lady Gaga at the end-of-conference hotel party, and former FSJ archaeologist Andrew Robinson could be seen up and down everywhere with his camera given his role as official SHA photographer.

Overall, these conferences are an important effort in maintaining communication in the field of archaeology for students, professors, and professionals in this line of work. In the end, the SHA helps all of us at Fort St Joseph get motivated to jump back into the Niles community with fresh ideas. Next year the SHA conference will be held in Leister, England, and you can bet we will be there to represent Fort St Joseph, our little four flags post in the corner of southwest Michigan!

(Captions for photos top to bottom:

View of Baltimore from our hotel room at the Marriott. Photo by J. Godfrey

Archaeologists roaming the streets in the historic city of Annapolis, MD photo by E. Powell

FSJ archaeologists and alum in Baltimore (left to right): Sarah Hooker, Jayne Godfrey, Kelley Walter, Emily Powell, Dr. Michael Nassaney, Andrew Beaupré, Cathrine Davis, Lisamarie Malischke, Andrew Robinson .. missing Dr. Terrance Martin, Erica D’Elia … photo by A. Robinson)

J Emily Powell

Spring Semester Offers Speeches About FSJ

Well, it's a new semester, and the project is busy as ever. Lab work will continue this semester, and planning for the 2012 Field Season is well under way!

This semester will offer some new opportunities for people to learn about the public archaeology that goes on as FSJ through speeches given by Dr. Michael Nassaney. Just a preview of what you will hear at one of these talks, he writes,

During the 2011 field season, Western Michigan University archaeologists continued investigations at Fort St. Joseph, an 18th-century mission-garrison-trading post complex in southwest Michigan. Excavations are providing a better understanding of the activities in the area of the site that is accessible for study. In this presentation, I will discuss recent findings, their implications for understanding the fur trade, and the expanded effort to involve the community through public education and outreach.

We hope that you can attend one of these lectures, and have listed the dates and locations below:

February 15: 7 pm, Chippewa Nature Center in Midland

February 20: Noon, Department of History at WMU

March 14: 7pm, Meader Rare Book Room, Waldo Library at WMU

April 26: 7pm, Tri-Cities Historical Museum in Grand Haven

Dr. Nassaney Offers an Update

We’ve been busy with Fort St. Joseph-related activities since completing our fieldwork last August. As the semester winds down I thought I’d take the time to provide an update on what I’ve been doing and what we’ve accomplished over the past year. Of course, this is in addition to everything my students who are working on the projects have been writing about in their regular blogs.

(Picture Caption) Participants in the panel discussion at the conference of the Center for French Colonial Studies in Columbia, Illinois (l-r): Michael Nassaney,Suzanne Corbett, Jesse Laurentius, Robert Englebert, and Hans Baade.

In September I attended the annual conference of the Center for French Colonial Studies held in Columbia, IL where I moderated a panel focused on the women of New France. This was a very familiar topic, since it was the theme of our 2010 field season that culminated in our first publication in the popular booklet series. The conference was an opportunity to reconnect with other French colonial aficionados and meet some new ones. A new contact, David MacDonald (Illinois state University) has assisted us by correcting our initial misreading of the lead seal that we recently recovered from the fort. More will be published on this in Le Journal, the quarterly publication of the Center.

I was invited to a symposium in November at Purdue University for the Battle of Tippecanoe bicentennial commemoration. My presentation to a full house discussed the relationships between the French and Natives peoples in the eighteenth century fur trade from the perspective of the western Great Lakes and Fort St. Joseph to provide historical background for understanding later relations with the English and the Americans. The symposium was unique because it brought together historians, park managers, preservationists, archaeologists, and Native peoples descended from the many tribes who were present at the battle to discuss ways to interpret the site that take into account the horrific events than transpired in the American quest for manifest destiny. Many of us left the symposium with a new resolve to create a more inclusive history.

It’s that time of the year when I typically compile an annual report that summarizes all of our activities through the end of the field season. Once again, we have remained extremely busy and we have lots to show for it! The annual report will be posted to the web site in the next few weeks and will contain a complete listing of project outcomes. In the meantime, here are some of the highlights, some of which might be old news to those of you who keep a close watch on our activities:

· The project was the winner of the prestigious Archaeological Institute of America’s first Education Outreach Contest

· The third annual summer lecture series was devoted to the theme of the open house which focused on “The Archaeology and History of the Fur Trade”

· A grant of $10,175 was received from the Michigan Humanities Council to support our annual open house

· Students and staff were recruited from distant states, including Maryland, Massachusetts, and Missouri, testifying to the national visibility of the project

· Mayor McCauslin, Provost Greene, and Dean Enyedi visited the site during our annual media day

· The first Volunteer of the Year for service to the project was recognized.

· Summer camps were overenrolled with 35 students, teachers, and life-long learners participating over three weeks.

· The second annual issue of the Fort St. Joseph Post newsletter was distributed.

· We were awarded a grant for $9,605 from Digital Antiquity to upload, store, and make accessible digital documents associated with Fort St. Joseph

· We identified another stone fireplace in our excavation, likely representing a fourth domestic structure

· The open house again attracted nearly two thousand visitors, bringing the total number to over ten thousand since the event began in 2006.

· Over 50 volunteers contributed hundreds of hours promoting the goals of the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

In addition, we have begun serious discussions regarding a permanent building in Niles to facilitate the archaeological investigation and interpretation of Fort St. Joseph. We have also been meeting with area museums to plan a major exhibit that tells the story of Fort St. Joseph and what archaeology is teaching us about life in the eighteenth century. Finally, we are busy working on the second issue of our booklet series devoted to the North American fur trade. Written by Rachel Juen and me, with help from lots of other contributors, the booklet will meet the high standards we set in compiling the Women of New France by providing authoritative information and numerous high quality color images to convey the complexity and significance of the fur trade to a wide audience. Stay tuned to learn more about each of these new initiatives and let us know how you would like to be involved.

Michael Nassaney, Ph.D.

Professor of Anthropology

Principal Investigator

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Another Update on the Lead Seal found during the 2011 Field Season

Arguably the most talked about and debated artifact recovered during the 2011 field season was the small lead seal found in unit at N25 W9 reading “ORAINE DE LILLE”. The seal was first believed to have read “GRAINE DE LILLE”; however Dr. David MacDonald of Illinois State University has provided us with the likeliest interpretation. He has read it as:

B(ureau)

FORAINE

DE LILLE

The Bureau Foraine was a taxing authority in eighteenth-century France which issued lead seals and its form is typical of customs seals of the time. Dr. MacDonald also believes that the back of the seal will bear the arms of the city of Lille. We noticed a fleur de lis on the reverse of the seal; this may not be incompatible. We are looking forward to a closer examination of the seal for a decisive interpretation. Some quick searching brought up La Porte de Paris at the Place Simon Vallant. La Porte is an arch constructed between 1685 and 1692 and is decorated with the Coat of Arms of Lille (a single Lilly) as well as the Coat of Arms of France (which has three Lillies) The FSJ archaeologists thank Dr. McDonald for this information.

-Erica D'Elia

Bonjour!

Je m’appele Cathrine Davis. It’s been a while since I wrote a blog during the field season earlier this year. It’s been a pretty wild ride since then and I have continued to do a good deal of photo work for the project, even now after the transition to the academic year. If a picture is worth a thousand words, think of how many papers I have written with just a few clicks! I am including some photos of students working in WMU’s shiny new lab in this blog for those of you who would like to see what everyday life is like for some of the nerds I work with.

In addition to helping create the face of FSJ in the publications and brochures being put together for next year, I have been traveling here and there with a contingent from the Anthropology Department, to conferences, lectures, and most recently to Grand Valley State University to celebrate the first ever National Archaeology Day. Last weekend, on the 22^nd of October, GVSU hosted the celebrations for the West Michigan society of the AIA (The Archaeological Institute of America). There, several student presenters spoke about their current research and about experiences in archaeology. The topics presented ranged from excavating Mayan ruins in the jungles of Belize, to analyzing the mineral composition of ancient Turkish pottery and how it differs according to the ethnicity of the artisan, and even back to Southwest Michigan and the continuing work on Fort St. Joseph. Erica Stone (the project’s Museum Intern) and I gave a joint presentation entitled “Archaeology and Public Outreach at Fort St. Joseph.” We brought along a couple panels and display cases from this year’s open house, and overall, we were well received by the other archaeologists in attendance. As a token of appreciation, the other guest presenters, Erica, and I received line levels, key tools for archaeologists worldwide and something that always seems to be on the other side of the site when you need them. With luck, Erica and I will never need another line level again! This was a wonderful occasion to keep in touch with colleagues and even old friends from field school- Erica and I enjoyed cookies and cider with our FSJ buddy Amber Strick, who we hadn’t seen since we packed up our trowels this summer. These are the events that remind you that the future of Archaeology is getting brighter every day.

Au revoir!

-Cathrine

An Update from Amanda

So it has been months since I lasted posted on the FSJ blog and in that time much has happened. We finished up the field season and started on the lab work. Beside some set tasks we need to get done over the semester some of us have started our own research projects. I am working on a project taking the lead shot found at the fort and doing both qualitative and quantitative studies. I am looking at the weight of the lead shot to see if there is a trend in the size they were producing as well as I am using the size to compare it to modern day shot. Also I am looking at tell-tale signs on the shot it self that give away how the shot may have been made.

Along with this project this has to be a lot of back ground research done on lead shot. The most important thing is looking at the different processes in which lead shot was produced. By looking up the different processes find information on what to look for when studying individual shot pieces. This gives me tell-tale markings that I can used to figure out how the shot was produced. I also want to look at the distribution of weight of the lead shot. When looking at this I can get a better idea of if they are making a standard sized shot or not.

There is still a long way to before I am near done but the end product with give us another look into production on the site and if supplies like lead shot were produced there or if they were produced elsewhere and shipped in.

This week's blog comes from Ian Kerr, a graduate student who is very familiar with Fort St. Joseph:

A number of past and present Fort St. Joseph archaeologists made their way to East Lansing for the 7th annual Midwest Historical Archaeology Conference this past September 17th. Founded by our very own Dr. Nassaney and held initially at Western Michigan University this conference brings together archaeologists from all around the Midwest and beyond to share recent finds and present papers on varying subject matter.
This year Michigan State had the honor of hosting and highlighted their very unique and interesting campus archaeology program in which sites around campus are excavated by Michigan State archaeology students. A number of papers were also given on the future of digital archaeological databases. A representative from tDAR (the Digital Archaeological Record) gave a presentation on the utility and usefulness of using such digital repositories. Interestingly enough, the Fort St. Joseph has entered in a long term partnership with tDAR and as we speak information on Fort St. Joseph is being uploaded to this exciting online database.
A conference wouldn’t be a conference without some food and all attended were treated to unlimited access to the nation’s largest non-military cafeteria. A historic tour of Michigan State’s campus followed and areas where archaeology had been conducted were highlighted. Next year’s conference will be held at Illinois State’s campus in Normal/Bloomington. You can bet a contingent of Fort St. Josepharchaeologist will be there!