Protecting Michigan State's Material Culture
By Rylee LaLonde Got Milk? Students at the Island School certainly did, delivered fresh daily in glass bottles! During the summer of 2025, Michigan State University’s (MSU) Campus Archaeology Program (CAP) excavated what was once the Island School, now a farm field. Among the artifacts …
By Madelyn McKinney and Andrew Kracinski The Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory (MAC Lab) has, for many years now, explored the uses of radiography (the imaging technique that produces x-rays) in archaeological artifact curation, conservation, and research. Available online, Sarah Rivers Cofield and Nichole Doub’s An …
Well, it’s been a long summer, but we’re going to get in the spirit of Spooky Season with the follow-up everyone has been waiting for: what is the CAPacabra? If you missed Part 1, the CAPacabra is a mummified animal discovered in the ceiling of …
This past summer has been one of the busiest, if not the busiest, summers of my time as director of the MSU Campus Archaeology Program. While we did not have a field school as we generally run them every other year, a remarkable discovery was …
While cataloguing artifacts from Service Road, we stumbled across an intriguing piece of a milk glass jar featuring an applied color label with bright red and blue hues. I say it was intriguing because many of the artifacts we have left from Service Road are …
Greetings! This is Dr. Stacey Camp, Director of the MSU Campus Archaeology Program. This past year has been one of constant change for our program. We have a new Campus Archaeologist, Ben Akey, after saying goodbye to our last Campus Archaeology, Jeff Burnett. We have …
This past summer, the Campus Archaeology program had the opportunity to offer a field school to archaeology students from MSU and across the state—our first field school since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Directly taking part in ongoing CAP research into life in the …
During archaeological excavations, some of the most ubiquitous artifacts unearthed are ceramic sherds that were once part of bowls, plates, vases, or other decorative pieces. It is relatively easy to appreciate the skills and techniques that go into the creation of meticulously crafted ceramic vessels. …
Wow! Our summer season in 2021 was a complete turnaround from the 2020. The MSU graduate student archaeologists who joined CAP Crew this year worked on four major field and laboratory projects. From May to late-August members of the CAP Crew completed a federal compliance …
Photo by ©Nick Schrader, All Rights Reserved In September Michigan State’s Campus Archaeology Program (CAP) archaeologists wrap up our summer field work here on campus and return to the routine of classes, personal research, and teaching that each semester brings. The start of a new …