Tag: field school

Week 3 – Unit C

Week 3 – Unit C

As the team continues to make progress in our work, I think it is safe to say that we have faced a few challenges along the way. This week in particular, the heat and humidity have intensified. I, personally, am not used to this kind 

CAP Field School: Week Two

CAP Field School: Week Two

After a week of digging around tree roots and finding nothing but nails, Cooper and I began to find some interesting things in Unit B. One of those things happened to be a lot more nails. Underneath a layer of clay, there was a layer 

The Closing of One Unit and the Opening of Another

The Closing of One Unit and the Opening of Another

Unit C is done!

…Well, mostly done, anyway.

After four ten-centimeter levels, a good ten or so probe tests, and our final two levels only producing about seven nails and two tiny glass shards its been determined that unit C is now sterile (that means we’ve gone through all the cultural material and it’s just undisturbed sand now). So now we’re going to be finishing up our final tasks for this last level and the things we need to do to close a unit before we’ll be switching to a new unit, unit D, on the far side of units A and B from where we are now.

Field crew clearing overburden over future unit D
Field crew clearing overburden over future unit D. Photo courtesy of MSU CAP Twitter

Some of our final tasks for closing the unit involve cleaning up the floor of any loose dirt one more time and giving our North and West walls a very thorough clean (trimming roots, making sure it is as smooth and vertical as possible, etc) so we can take pictures and make profile maps of the stratigraphy of the walls.

Closing a unit also often includes back-filling the opening but we won’t be doing that this time. IPF has been kind enough to offer to back-fill the entire site when we’re finished since there are so few of us on such a short project and such a large area needs to be backfilled. Since the placement of unit C is conveniently close to the other units we will screening into it instead once it’s finished. This means that the excess dirt that would just go to the back-fill piles for IPF to deal with (after we’ve carefully removed any artifacts) will fall into the unit itself instead which should make a little less work for the back-filling crew. It also means that we won’t be carrying buckets of dirt up and down the stairs around the edges of the excavations to the screens which should make screening the dirt a little faster (not to mention easier in this heat we’ve been having).

It’s only been about two weeks but closing unit C still seems a little bitter sweet. The new unit should be inside the actual Station Terrace building, based on what was found during last year’s excavations, and should hopefully have a greater wealth of information for us to find, after all, the field crew found a really cool cow scapula just while removing the three feet of overburden to bring it down to the same level as the rest of the site.

Our first large cut bone – found in new unit overburden- most likely cow scapula. Image courtesy of MSU Campus Archaeology Twitter

On the other hand, unit C has been Jerica and I’s primary focus since the beginning and to leave behind the very visible progress we’ve made for a whole, untouched (apart from when the field crew removed the majority of the overburden) unit seems like a bit of a set back but it should be fun nonetheless and with the amount of trouble we had getting to grips with the way the unit borders need to be laid out initially, I’m sure it will be helpful for us to get to go through the process of setting the unit up from start to finish again (hopefully in fewer than five tries this time).

Author: Alex

CAP 2017: Week 3

CAP 2017: Week 3

Hot Weather and New finds. This past week has had the most unbearable weather so far, but overall, the learning process at CAP 2017 Field School is still continuing! Although I probably differ from my peers, I find that the most difficult thing about this 

CAP Field School: Week One

CAP Field School: Week One

The first week of the 2017 field school has quickly passed and, although my unit hasn’t found much of anything yet, I have learned so much. I’ve learned how to shovel skim, measure elevation,and dig guide holes. I’ve learned that archaeology takes patience from the 

Finishing up Level 1

Finishing up Level 1

Cooper excavating in Unit B.
Cooper excavating in Unit B.

We began with setting up our units after clearing the top layer of the entire surface.  We had some big roots in the northwest and southwest corners that we had to dig around to get the guide corners to the correct depths.  There was a layer of clay that had to be worked through while shovel skimming to get our first level even with the guide holes.

We found many rusty nails, at first they seemed randomly spread out in our unit, but once we got down a little deeper with shovel skimming the nails seem to be concentrated on the western side of our unit.  The western side has darker soil than the east, which has a layer of clay that goes deeper than the other, with the difference running almost down the middle of our unit.  We also found some pieces of broken glass in the western side.

After having gone down the first 10 centimeters below the line level line, Dr. Goldstein decided that the first level was still too shallow due to the natural slope.  We needed to go down an extra 10 centimeters in our guide holes in order to make sure the first level was even.  After working through roots and clay, we have gotten our first level almost all the way down to the correct depth and kept it level, so tomorrow we should be able to finish it up.

Author: Cooper Duda

Campus Archaeology: Week One.

Campus Archaeology: Week One.

Week One: First Impressions, Dirty Digging, and Tired Bodies. Well, it’s Tuesday, June 6. After Completing week one and working towards defeating week two, I can safely say that working for the field school has been pretty great so far. We started off our excavation 

1882 Indian Head Penny

1882 Indian Head Penny

For the most part, Unit C of our excavations has mostly produced nails, glass and ceramic shards, and a few fragments of small animal bones but last Friday (06/02) we uncovered an 1882 Indian Head penny. This type of penny has been popular among coin 

Meet the 2017 Field School Students

Meet the 2017 Field School Students

This week kicked off our 2017 field school.  Students will be investigation an area in the Abbot median that contained Station Terrace.  Take a moment to meet this summer’s field school students.  They will be posting weekly blogs during the field school.

2017 CAP Field School Students

Desiree Quinn: Hi! My name is Desiree Quinn and I’m a junior studying anthropology at Michigan State University. Like many others, I first became interested in anthropology after watching the show Bones. (I know that most anthropologists are cringing at my mention of Bones, sorry!) Since then, I’ve grown to love everything about anthropology which has made it difficult for me to pinpoint an area of focus. I have many research interests including bioarchaeology, environmental anthropology, museum studies, and biological anthropology. I’m hoping that this field school, after having some hands-on experience, will help me to narrow down that list.

I’m really excited to see how archaeology can be used in ways that I hadn’t considered. In particular, I’m really looking forward to learning about public archaeology because I think it’s really important for science to be accessible to the public. I also like that this field school gives me the unique opportunity to learn more about my university and I can’t wait to be an archaeologist!

Jerica Aponte: Hello, my name is Jerica. This is my first semester at Michigan State University as a transfer student. I think that getting involved in this field school is the perfect way to get started on this new journey.

Why Anthropology? Is the question that everyone asks me. Well, let me tell you a little about myself. I was born in Puerto Rico, but at the age of seven, my parents became missionaries. This gave me the opportunity to live in countries such as Belize, Peru, and Costa Rica, and I also got to travel to other countries. Getting to see firsthand, not only how much diversity there is, but also compare the similarity between people, sparked my interest in cultures and people.

Even though I am not a student seeking an Archaeology degree, I have learned that Anthropology is a holistic field. All of its different areas, such as: Archaeology, Linguistics, Cultural, and Applied Anthropology, work hand in hand in order to better understand the whole. My interest is in the cultural aspect of anthropology, and one way of understanding the social culture (abstract concepts and ideas) is by studying the physical culture (concrete representation of ideas.) This is why I have decided to participate in the Campus Archaeology Research.

This hands-on experience will help me apply knowledge that I have previously gained in my classes and it will also be a learning experience for me. Something that I am looking forward to is learning more about the roots and foundation of MSU. Learning about the history of the school that I am attending will allow me to appreciate it more. So, even though I like the cultural aspect of anthropology, archaeology helps me visualize how our ancestors lived and functioned in their different spaces.

I am looking forward to this enriching experience and I hope to make many discoveries alongside my classmates. Stay tuned for more updates.

Kaleigh Perry: My name is Kaleigh, I am a junior at Michigan State University, and will be participating in the 2017 MSU Campus Archaeology Field School this summer. I entered MSU as a Chemistry major, but quickly switched my major to Anthropology since I discovered I am more interested in how past people lived than I am in chemical reactions. I am specifically interested in pursuing a career in Forensic Anthropology (dealing with contemporary human remains) or Bioarchaeology (examining archaeological or historically significant human remains) because I find that bones of the deceased can tell fascinating stories about how people lived and died, thereby increasing our knowledge about past ways of life, technology, and cultures that may have become extinct.

I applied for the MSU Field School for two main reasons. First, excavations can be an important part in the Anthropological research process, and for this reason, I want to learn how to properly partake in an excavation. Secondly, by participating in the Field School, I hope to learn something new about the beautiful campus I have been fortunate enough to call home for the past three years.

I am looking forward to seeing what the next month holds.

Cooper Duda: I’m Cooper Duda and am going into my junior year here at MSU.  I come from Commerce Township, Michigan; which is about an hour away.  I have a younger twin brother that is transferring to MSU in the fall.  My freshman year I lived in Wilson Hall and now I live off campus with some friends.

I became interested in Anthropology and Archaeology when I decided I no longer liked my first major, which was Chemical Engineering, and decided to change to something I would actually enjoy and like to do as a career.  I have always been interested by history and how things have been changed to become how they are now.  The more I learn about the more I am happy with the fact that I changed my major, but I am still unsure if I want to go into a sub-discipline of Archaeology or Physical Anthropology because both are really intriguing to me.

Josh Eads: Hello, folks. My name is Josh Eads. I’m currently an anthropology major at Michigan State University. After the Fall semester of 2017, I’ll graduate and head off to do Cultural Resource Management to start off my career in anthropology. For those of you who don’t know what cultural resource management is, basically it is the process of surveying an area for artifacts related to culture and history, such as American Indian burial grounds or arrow-heads, and saving them from total annihilation.

Initially, my major was physics, but after realizing that physics can be a complete nightmare, I decided to switch to anthropology and archaeology. For anyone who knows Kate Meyers Emery, she’s the one that I will always say “thanks” to for introducing me to the wonders of archaeology.

With CAP 2017, I’m looking forward to getting my hands dirty, literally, and engaging in some good old-fashioned excavation. I look forward to getting the chance to learn about the history of Michigan State University and East Lansing. GO GREEN!

Alex Samons: I’m Alex Samons. I’m a senior anthropology student at Michigan State University now but I’ll be starting to study at a school in England in the coming fall for my master’s degree in Osteoarchaeology.

Osteoarchaeology is, very simply, the study of very old human bones recovered from archaeological contexts. In the UK, osteoarchaeology is considered a field of its own within the larger field of archaeology (which is considered a separate field from anthropology) although here in the US it is considered a form of bioarcheology (an subset of anthropology that focuses on the biological remains of humans and their ancestors).

2017 Campus Archaeology Field School

2017 Campus Archaeology Field School

Announcing the 2017 Campus Archaeology Field School! We are pleased to once again offer our on-campus field school.  This five week field school will take place May 30th – June 30th, 2017.  The class takes places Monday through Friday from 9am – 4pm. Students enroll