Even during a quarantine, archaeology does not stop. While we have not been able to get out into the field until recently, we at CAP have been working hard to create historical background summaries of areas that will be impacted by construction (a critical part …
To celebrate world anthropology day, the current CAP graduate fellows wanted to share how they became interested in anthropology, and some current or favorite projects they are involved in! Grace: As a first-year PhD student moving to a new state and school, I initially came …
Last Tuesday, November 12, 2019, Campus Archaeology hosted
their first Open House. For two hours, Campus Archaeology opened our lab doors
to the public. Campus Archaeology strives to have a standing relationship with
the community through our numerous outreach events each year, as well as our
public service to Michigan State University. We frequently engage with the
public to educate people in all walks of life on what it means to be an
archaeologist. At these outreach events, people get to see examples of what we
do in the field and some of the artifacts that have been recovered from MSU’s
campus, but people never really get to see what we do on a daily basis.
The work that takes place in the Campus Archaeology
Laboratory represents a typical day as an archaeologist: artifact cataloguing
and analysis, research, and training students. Most people correlate
archaeologists with fieldwork, but the majority of our work is focused on
analyzing and interpreting the data collected from our fieldwork. Thus, Campus
Archaeology wanted to provide an opportunity for the public to see
behind-the-scenes of an archaeology lab through the Open House.
Our visitors ranged from MSU faculty and staff to high
school students interested in a career in archaeology. During the Open House,
guests were presented with a range of artifacts recovered from MSU’s campus,
posters from conferences demonstrating current research in our lab, examples of
our outreach activities to show how we engage with the public, digital and
printed 3D models of artifacts, and examples of how we catalogue and curate
artifacts. Guests were also able to directly interact with current CAP fellows
and interns to learn about their experiences with CAP as well as their personal
research projects.
Campus Archaeology would like to thank everyone who attended
the Open House event. We had a fantastic time talking with everyone and
appreciate your support.
Next week is the annual Midwest Archaeological Conference (October 10-12, 2019) in Mankato, MN. Below is a list of dates and times of all MSU presentations. This includes past, present, and retired MSU graduate students and faculty. Included is a poster on the Campus Archaeology …
Campus Archaeology had an exciting summer field season, from the archaeological field school to field crew work across campus. We also hosted a class for Grandparent’s University and painted the MSU Rock! Below you can read more about each project. Archaeological Field School This summer …
The MSU Science Festival Expo Day was filled with hundreds, if not thousands of visitors! This year we decided to switch up a few things to try some new ways of reach audiences of all ages. Continue reading to learn about the new additions and changes we made!
To celebrate Anthropology Day, we decided to share a little bit about what each of us typically does during a day or what a good day as an anthropologist looks like! Dr. Stacey Camp:As an academic, my work varies from day to day, month to …
Over the past couple of months, Campus Archaeology has been in communications with Girl Scout Regional Program and Event Specialist, Bethany Wilson, to develop an archaeology badge for girl scouts across Michigan. We are elated about our new partnership! These annual events will be a …
Dr. Amy Michael is a biological anthropologist whose research examines the microstructure of human bones and teeth in order to address questions ranging from health and social identity in the ancient Maya to the effect of lifestyle factors on skeletal age. She is currently a lecturer at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH and serves as a senior staff member on the Central Belize Archaeological Survey project. Dr. Michael was a Campus Archaeology fellow from 2011 to 2017.
As part of our ongoing series highlighting CAP alumni I (virtually) sat down with Dr. Michael to ask her about her time as a Campus Archaeology fellow. During our conversation we talked about how a biological anthropologist ended up spending six years working on projects in historical archaeology, and learned how that experience shaped who she is as an anthropologist.
Amy (right) surveying an abandoned greenhouse during her time as a CAP fellow. She remembers this survey as one of her favorite days with Campus Archaeology.
Q: You’re a biological anthropologist, so how and why did you get involved with CAP?
A: I
took a mortuary archaeology class with [Dr. Lynne Goldstein, former CAP
Director] and I just really admired her. I thought that she was an incredible
mentor and person. At that point in grad school I was still figuring things out
and exploring my options in the [anthropology] program. I met with Lynne and
she was very welcoming. She saw the value in bringing in different viewpoints
to the table. Right away she put me on a project researching sustainability on
campus, which got me working in the [MSU] archives. I realized I really liked
doing archival work and that led to me developing a gender and landscape
project that involved a lot of research in the archives.
Q: Can you tell me more about
that project?
A: The project focused on how early college women experienced landscape differently from men. I spent a lot of time in the archives reading through scrapbooks and journals and notes from women’s student council meetings. I was able to piece together that early women on campus were restricted in where they were allowed to be. They needed chaperones to go certain places. But within the journals and scrapbooks you also saw a lot of humor about their situation. The women would pull pranks and write about the rules they had to follow in this really tongue in cheek way. It became less a story of restriction and more about how these women worked to make that section of campus their own. They set up their own student council, they policed themselves, and they made that area of north campus work for them.
Amy excavating in a rock shelter in Belize.
Q: What was your favorite part
about working for CAP?
A: For me the best part was figuring out that I was interested in an area of anthropology that I previously had zero experience working in. Even though I’m someone whose primary interest is in biological anthropology, [Dr. Goldstein and CAP] helped me conceptualize that to be a good anthropologist you have to be interested in everything else. You don’t have to be excellent in everything, but all fields should inform what you do.
Q: How do you bring what you learned in CAP to what you do now?
A: I think working with CAP and historical archaeology made me a better anthropologist because I couldn’t rest on my expertise in bones. The projects I work on in the Maya world are very much osteology driven, they’re focused on extracting technical and methodological data from bones. [In CAP] I had to get more creative about how to get at things. It pushed me to learn new skills – what isa good, efficient way to search the archives? How can I look at these artifacts? How can I use every line of evidence available to me? Being pushed out of my comfort zone made me realize I’m not just interested in bones and teeth. It gave me a better idea of what I’m interested in and what I can do.
Every
job I’ve had I’ve been asked about CAP in the interview. They always want to
know, “You’re a bio person but you did six years of historical archaeology?”
There’s this assumption that you can’t have other interests, but that’s not
true. I think that because of my experience I can speak to a broader audience
of students.
Amy explains an artifact during a CAP outreach event.
CAP has
also given me access to something I can share with my students. When I worked
at LCC [Lansing Community College] and Albion [College], I was able to send
some of my students to CAP. The CAP field school is such an important
opportunity for students who can’t afford to spend the time or money to go
abroad to get field experience. It’s important to me because I couldn’t afford
it in undergrad.
Q: What do you miss most about CAP now that you’re an alumna?
A: Lynne Goldstein! I miss working closely with her and with the CAP fellows. Going to CAP meetings I really felt a sense of camaraderie. I miss being part of a project that was led by someone I really admired.
At UNH, [Dr. Meghan Howey, Professor of Anthropology] runs a campus archaeology project called “The Lost Campus.” It prioritizes freshmen to get them immediately interested in the history of UNH and making a connection to campus. CAP had a big influence on that program. It’s cool to me to be at a place where we’re paying homage to Lynne Goldstein and giving students these archaeology experiences early on.
For my CAP project this year, I decided to do something at which I feel I’m particularly good: creating 3D models of artifacts found during CAP excavations. I have been using digital technologies to render 3D models for about three years now and have created …