Protecting Michigan State's Material Culture
This last summer, I had the amazing opportunity to be a part of CAP Crew, the group of MSU Archaeology (or archaeology-curious) students that conduct the compliance archaeology during the summer. Although, there is significantly more paperwork and lab work than there is fieldwork – …
In CAP this year, we’ve been brainstorming about public outreach activities. We’ve been focusing on activities for kids – who sometimes need a little extra help engaging with archaeological materials. This is my first year as a graduate student at MSU, and my first year …
As we near the end of the semester, I want to reflect on one of my favorite experiences of fall 2022: the Midwest Historical Archaeology Conference! This year’s conference was organized by: Dr. Michael S. Nassaney, Professor Emeritus of Western Michigan University; our own Director of the Michigan State University Campus Archaeology Program, Dr. Stacey Camp; Dr. Stacy Tchorzynski, Michigan State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) and Department Natural Resources (DNR) archaeologist; and Dr. Krysta Ryzewski, Associate Professor at Wayne State University. I attended this conference as a volunteer, but had the opportunity to sit and listen to many researchers speak about their ongoing research in the midwest.
Dr. Nassaney gave the introduction and explained that the theme of the 2022 program was Archaeology, Communities, and Civil Rights. He further explained historical archaeology is relevant to the present, especially regarding civil rights issues. The following talks and posters reiterated the importance of historical archaeology in conversations about civil rights.
The first half of the day included two podium presentations from Dr. Ryzewski and Floyd Mansberger. Dr. Ryzewski’s presentation focused on their work in Inkster, Michigan, and was titled “Updates from the Field: The Archaeology of Malcolm X.” The house excavated is where Malcolm X converted to Islam, where ritual bathing and daily prayers were practiced. The house was originally going to be demolished, but due to the work of Aaron Sims, the house is now undergoing a four-phase process that has seen the house added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2022, archaeological investigations that have seen a lot of community engagement, and in the future will involve restoration and the creation of a community center.
Floyd Mansberger, Director of Fever River Research, presented “The Archaeology of the 1908 Springfield Riot.” There were five houses that were found in an area that was not under protection, so Mansberger and his team conducted an archaeological mitigation on these houses. Many artifacts were found, including some burnt items. Some of the artifacts found suggested that a family of color may have been living in one of the houses. Some of these artifacts include items from the Eighth Illinois Regiment, the first all Black and POC regiment. There were also Civil War artifacts associated with the households.
During lunch, Julia DiLaura, a student from Wayne State University, presented her poster titled “Taking the Plunge: Archaeology of a 20th Century Jewish-Owned Bath House and Mikveh in Detroit.” She showcased the artifacts found at the site.
After the poster presentation, two additional speakers presented their research and updates. First was Dr. Laura Ng, Assistant Professor at Grinnell College. In her talk, “Towards Community-Engaged Chinese Diaspora Archaeologies in the Midwest,” she discussed the history of how people and goods moved, along with the issues and racism that contemporary Asian-American communities face. While Dr. Ng has previously worked on the west coast and in China, she shared how transnational and anti-racist frameworks should be used more in midwestern settings and how to implement those frameworks. Some archaeological literature reinforces biased language and stereotypes, and archaeologists need to step in and work toward changing this language and stereotyping. In addition, she spoke on her community-engaged work with findagrave.com, where people can find the location of graves of passed friends and loved ones.
The last podium presentation of the day was given by Sarah Surface-Evans, Senior Archaeologist for SHPO. Her presentation was titled “Asinii-Waakaa’igan (Stone House): The Cornerstone of Sanctuary and Community.” She and her team have been working with the Pelcher family to learn more about how the Pelcher family farmstead played a role in the lives of children who ran away from the Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School (MIIBS). Two Peltcher family members perished at MIIBS, leaving the family as one of many who lost their children to the school. Oral history has indicated that the farmstead was a safe haven for children, where hand-me-down clothes were left for children to change into. A joint field school with students from Central Michigan University (CMU) and Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College (SCTC) was held, where units were dug in the areas where the old granary, barn, and cabin once stood. Many different types of artifacts were found, along with faunal remains. An analysis of the faunal remains was conducted, and they found that there were many cattle bones present. Following all of the talks, a break-out discussion was held about participants’ interests.
Needless to say, MHAC presented an incredible learning experience for those present. As a non-midwesterner myself, I really enjoyed having the opportunity to learn more about the ongoing archaeological work in the region.
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 mid-century MSU campus, 18 students spent five weeks gaining exposure to a variety of archaeological research techniques including pedestrian survey, shovel-testing, unit excavation, archival research and laboratory work. This blogpost recounts the activities of the field school and provides a brief summary of the results of the fieldwork and research projects undertaken by our students.
Choosing the Research Area
The on-campus component of this year’s field school focused on Cherry Lane Park, an open space on the western edge of campus slated for development of a athletics facility. The Campus Archaeology Program’s interest in this area of campus was two-fold. On one hand, an upcoming construction project in this area of campus prompted CAP to assess what archaeological materials might be disturbed by future development. Secondly, this area of campus fit into CAP’s emergent research interest in the material culture of campus in the mid-twentieth century and postwar era—a period of rapid change for the institution.
Specifically, MSU’s post-war era was marked by rapidly changing demographics—with increasing numbers of women students, greater numbers of children living in campus residences—and concurrent leaps in enrollment and programming as the institution moved from a relatively specialized agricultural college to the university we know today. Many of these changes can be at least partially attributed to the impact of the G.I. Bill, which provided financial support to returning veterans and their families enrolled in higher education.
In the years following the end of World War Two, campus infrastructure was dramatically expanded to accommodate the influx of veteran students, including a massive ‘temporary housing area’—a patchwork of trailers, pre-furbished structures, and barracks-style apartments—stretching across much of west campus. As many students came to the college with families, this era also marked the beginning of substantial campus investment in family-student housing options that would later become permanent in spaces like Spartan Village and University Village over the coming decades.
Fieldwork at Cherry Lane Park
Today, a substantial part of this former temporary housing area for veteran students and their families overlaps with Cherry Lane Park, including barrack’s style family apartments and the ‘Faculty Bricks’. CAP’s selection of this area as the site of our 2022 field school thus sought to assess whether deposits from this era would be impacted by upcoming construction and to recover material culture related to this transitional moment in the development of Michigan State University.
The summer’s fieldwork began with a pedestrian survey across Cherry Lane Park, through which students learned to systematically comb through the campus landscape looking for surface artifacts and landform features associated with the temporary housing area. While artifacts that could be confidently dated to this period were few and far between, student’s attention to landforms and vegetative changes allowed us to identify the location of structural footprints and former road grades associated with mid-century student and faculty residences, and in turn improved our geo-referencing of historical imagery. This exercise also provided a chance to students to familiarize themselves with the spatiality of temporary housing area and—combined with historical aerial photography and maps—orient themselves within the site.
Following the pedestrian survey, students participated in shovel-testing in a few strategically chosen areas of Cherry Lane Park believed to have been minimally disturbed since their usage as part of the temporary housing area. Despite the importance of within the world of professional archaeology, it is rarely emphasized in field school settings in favor of a focus on unit excavations. Given that we had no knowledge of how intact artifact deposits and features from the temporary housing area would be, this was a necessary step in research but–importantly–also provided us the means to train students in an important field method they would encounter regularly if they choose to pursue archaeology.
While some material culture from the era we were interested in investigating was recovered, the results of our shovel-testing efforts largely indicated a dirth of intact deposits related to the temporary housing area within the tested areas. Though not particularly exciting results, students were thus exposed to one of the inconvenient realities of fieldwork— archaeology is almost just as much about ‘negative’ data and where things are not as it is about where (and what) things are.
Back in McDonel Hall, students were introduced to methods within historical archaeology laboratory work, including the identification and dating of glass containers and ceramic vessels. Specifically, students worked with artifacts from the Service Road landfill, a 1950s-early 1960s campus landfill along Service Road which CAP staff recovered in the summer of 2020 (see more about the Service Road collection here or here). This collection includes a diversity of refuse from various spaces on campus, including residential, academic, and dining related items. After gaining some experience in the cataloging process, students worked on groups research projects that combined artifact analysis and archival research to elucidate specific aspects of life on the mid-century campus. We hope to integrate the insights of these projects into some of CAP’s digital outreach platforms in the coming months.
Collaborations & Off-Campus Fieldwork
Outside of our research on the mid-century campus, students also participated in fieldwork off-campus in the vicinity of the Rose Lake USDA-NRCS Field Office. Guided by two professional archaeologists (and Michigan State alumni) Duane Quates and Christopher Valvano, as well as recent MSU graduate Gabrielle Moran, students participated in various phases of research at two sites associated with pre-contact occupations including unit excavations, geophysical survey, and shovel testing. This collaboration allowed us to broaden the scope of our field school and introduce students to additional professional skillsets that we may not have had the capacity to offer in our on-campus research. Multiple field school students have continued to work with Duane and Christopher after the end of the field school to gain further experience and guidance as they explore the possibility of working within professional archaeology—an outcome we view as an abundantly clear sign of an effective collaborative undertaking.
Our field school was also fortunate to have two representatives of the Gun Lake Tribe Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO), Cultural Resources Specialist Kaila Akina and THPO intern Onyleen Zapata join us to participate and observe our summer fieldwork. We were incredibly fortunate to have their help and perspectives during their visit, and look forward to other avenues of future collaboration and capacity building between the Campus Archaeology Program and the Gun Lake THPO.
Out of the field, the CAP was also fortunate to feature guest lectures from a variety of professionals in the world of archaeology and associated fields, including Michigan State Historic Preservation Officer Dr. Sarah Surface-Evans, Gun Lake Tribal Historic Preservation Officer Lakota Hobia (Gun Lake THPO) and colleagues, MSU NAGPRA Program Manager Dr. Jessica Yann, our collaborators at Rose Lake (Dr. Duane Quates and Dr. Christopher Valvano), UM-Flint Professor Dr. Bev Smith, and then-current MSU Campus Archaeologist Jeff Burnett. Topics of lectures comprised a broad swath of topics, including discussion of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), working as an archaeologist for state/federal agencies, zooarchaeology, and the history of race, racism, ethnicity and gender at Michigan State University.
The Campus Archaeology Program would like to extend our sincere gratitude to everyone who helped make this field school possible and an engaging learning experience for our students, including (but absolutely not limited to) everyone mentioned in this blog post. On a personal level, I’d like to also thank all the field school students who collectively made my first official teaching assistant position at the university a pleasant and rewarding experience, and extend a special thanks to my two fellow TAs Alex Kelley and Reid Ellefson-Frank (note: do not forget to refrigerate your unit stakes).
First things first — Thanking our former Campus Archaeologist As we move into the new academic year and welcome a new set of CAP Fellows, we also say our farewells to Jeff Burnett, our outgoing Campus Archaeologist. Jeff oversaw the program in a challenging era, …
Summer in Michigan brings warm weather, thunderstorms, beach days and, for Campus Archaeology at least, shovel testing, construction monitoring, and CAP’s on campus field school. As we head into a new summer of Campus Archaeology we recap some of the great projects our impressive CAP …
We knew it was a hard quiz when our director, Dr. Stacey Camp, asked us for the answers. Of course, we couldn’t tell her what the artifacts were–that’s the point of a quiz!
This year we were back in person for SciFest, one of our favorite outreach events hosted here on MSU’s campus. We were thrilled to engage with our East Lansing community with hands-on activities. This year the line-up of CAP projects included excavation boxes, coloring pages, our fresh and fun Geocaching Tour, and … the 2022 Artifact Mystery Quiz! Like last year’s Guess That Artifact, the quiz features materials from our 2020 Service Road project and is designed to trick and teach.
Don’t worry if you missed the event, you can still take the 2022 Mystery Artifact Quiz. If you’ve already done so and–like Dr. Camp–need some answers, scroll down to learn more. Check out the ‘People’s Choice’ to see the most popular educated guess.
Correct Answer: King’s Men Cologne
People’s Choice: Crown Royal Whiskey
Know More: We can certainly understand where people were coming from with this one, there are some similarities between this bottle shape and Crown Royal Whiskey. One hint here is the near lack of a neck below the mouth of the bottle, a feature that is often used to make liquids pour more easily, and is present on most liquor bottles (though the length of the neck on such is sometimes fairly minimal). On cologne bottles, which often feature narrow closures called “sprinkler top” finishes–used to dab the liquid in small quantities–a neck isn’t needed.
The artifact was identified as King’s Men cologne, a product manufactured by 42 Products Ltd., thanks to a maker’s mark (“KINGS MEN/8”) on the base of the container. While no firm end date for this container shape or product line was found, the ‘first-use’ date for the King’s Men trademark suggests that it was in production by 1941. Perhaps predictably, advertising for King’s Men Cologne’s “virile scents” often featured images that drew associations between the product and British nobility, and a refined masculine gentility more broadly.
Correct Answer: Avon ‘Topaze’ Fragranced Cream Sachet
People’s Choice: Neutrogena ‘Topaze’ Face Cream
Know More: This ‘cream sachet’ was part of a wider set of fragrance products under the name ‘Topaze,’ manufactured by Avon Products. According to searches of newspaper ads, the ‘Topaze’ fragrance line was launched in 1959, and no definitive date was found for when this product was discontinued. The plastic gem embedded in the lid of the vessel was a tie-in to the product’s name and advertising campaign, which proclaimed it to be the “jewel of a fragrance”.
Correct Answer: Liquid Medicine Injection Vial
Know More: Container form is helpful in determining vessel function. The short, narrow neck of the bottle–impractical for pouring liquids–indicates that the vessel’s contents would have likely been accessed in some other way. The thin rubber cap, unlike screw-threading caps, permits needles to pass through and access the contents without opening the container and risking contamination.
In this case, we were also aided by partial and faint text printed on the bottle that helped us identify the container’s original contents. The vial contained the hormone oxytocin, a naturally occurring mammalian hormone that helps to regulate a variety of psychological and physiological processes including sociality, memory, pain, intimacy, childbirth, and lactation (Leng & Leng 2021). In medical contexts oxytocin injections are primarily associated with inducing and augmenting childbirth, treating postpartum bleeding, and inducing lactation.
These uses of oxytocin in childbirth have been known in some capacity since Henry Dale experimented with extracts from the pituitary gland in 1906, but it took until 1955 for the hormone to be sequenced and synthesized–becoming the first polypeptide hormone to be successfully manufactured artificially (Magon & Kalra 2011). A marking on the base of the object, “Neutraglas,” was present on glass containers produced by the Kimble Glass Company –a laboratory and scientific glassware venture– between 1941 and 1956, giving us a preliminary date range for the artifact (Harvard University n.d.).
Further research into the manufacturer indicated by the partial label of “Jen Sal” (short for Jensen-Salsbury), a veterinary pharmaceutical company, reveals that the injection vial was not produced for use in human health. This, combined with the context of this artifact’s recovery, may indicate that it was used in veterinary research and/or treatment at MSU.
Correct Answer: Oil/Vinegar Vial
Know More: Unfortunately, we do not know a lot about this bottle, and our identification is primarily informed speculation. The bottle was manufactured by the Knox Glass Company. The unique stylization of the container is meant to simulate the style of Italian wine wicker-covered bottles often called demigiana (Ciappi n.d.), which often contain wine or oil. An additional context clue that we didn’t provide in the photo is the ‘dripper insert’ –similar to what you might find at the top of a hot sauce or soy sauce bottle to control the flow of liquids– that is inserted into the mouth of the bottle. This all seems to suggest that the bottle is likely food-related and contained an ingredient for which controlling the flow of the liquid contents was a helpful feature. Combined with the wicker demigiana-esque vessel form, and the culinary association of Italy with Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar, we infer that the bottle likely held some form of oil or vinegar.
Correct Answer: Calamine Lotion in Pharmaceutical Bottle
Know More: Several clues help us determine the function of this container. Considering vessel shape in isolation, the relatively small and rectangular form is largely consistent with bottles used for medical/pharmaceutical substances. More definite clues come from several embossed features, including a pharmacist symbol that looks like ‘3iii,’ where the character that looks like a ‘3’ is actually “℥,” a now rarely used symbol for ounces, and is followed by three ‘i’s to represent the number of ounces the container holds. The sides of the container also feature volumetric gradations, a common feature of pharmaceutical bottles used to easily measure doses. The base of the vessel contains the manufacturer’s maker’s mark (“Brockway” in cursive) alongside the term ‘Sani-Glas’ and a circled cross, trademarks of the Brockway Glass company used on pharmaceutical/medicinal containers. CAP fellow Rhian Dunn has dated the artifact between 1940 and 1964 based on the simultaneous presence of the cursive “Brockway” and circled cross symbol, which archaeologist Bill Lockhart suggests coexisted on the company’s pharmaceutical/medicinal bottles between these years (Lockhart et al. 2013).
The identification of the contents within the bottle is admittedly somewhat speculative and is primarily based on its hue. A possible alternative is that the bottle contained bismuth subsalicylate / Pepto-Bismol.
Correct Answer: Glue Bottles
People’s Choice: Ink Bottles
Know More: These artifacts were initially pretty confusing, and I’m not sure we would have identified them quickly without the input of Campus Archaeologist, Jeff Burnett, who had used similar containers in school as a re-usable container for glue. This seems to fit with the rather unusual rubber applicator attached to one of the bottles, which allows for the even application of glue along a flat surface. Due to the propensity of American consumers for single-use containers like your typical plastic Elmer’s glue bottle –and perhaps in part the unfortunate reality that school supplies are often purchased directly by teachers out of their own pocket rather than in bulk by underfunded school districts– other CAP fellows had never used a glass glue bottle. The bottle was manufactured by the Hazel-Atlas Glass Company and has been dated between 1920 and 1964.
Correct Answer: Lustre Creme Shampoo with Lanolin
Know More: While it may look like an unusual type of container for shampoo by contemporary standards, the squat-glass shampoo jar made of ‘milk-glass’ (a term for opaque-white glass) was common for much of the 20th century, and this container style was similar many other cosmetic products like cold-creams and balms. This type of container may not be practical for the prevailing liquid formulations of shampoo most people use today but made sense in the context of ‘cream-style’ shampoos which dominated the market in the early decades of the 20th century, competed alongside liquid shampoos in the post-war and mid-century, and declined by the 1960s and 70s.
A similar and contemporaneous transition can be seen in deodorant styles, which transformed from primarily cream-based formulations in squat milk-glass containers to elongated colorless glass and plastic containers with the increasing popularity of liquid roll-on and solid-stick deodorants (Bennett 2022b). The wider assemblage of materials from the Service Road Landfill (~1958-1963) contains a mixture of both cream-style and liquid shampoos, though liquid formulations are notably more common. CAP fellow, Benjamin Akey, has elsewhere explored the possibility that the mixture of older and newer styles of such products on campus could represent the increasing age diversity of campus residents in the post-war era, following the increasing provision of family housing options at the university.
Lustre-Creme shampoo was first produced by the Kay Daumit company starting in 1944, and purchased by the Colgate-Palmolive-Peet company in 1947 (Bennett 2022a). While no firm end date of distribution for the product has been found, it ceases to appear in newspaper advertisements in the early 1970s, giving us an approximate date range of 1944-1973 for the artifact.
Correct Answer: Glass Syringe
Know More: Identifying this artifact came down solely to its form–the interlocking pieces (‘plunger’ and ‘barrel’) were a pretty clear indication that this was a syringe. We have a little less to explain here, as we could not find any diagnostic features on this artifact to help us date or identify the manufacturer of the item.
Correct Answer: Wishbone Salad Dressing
Know More: Depending on which salad dressing you reach for at the grocery store, this one may have been one of the easier questions on the quiz–Wishbone dressing continues to use this woven-diamond motif on the sides of their (now plastic) salad dressing bottles. Aside from that continuity, the vessel form does provide some clues. We can assume it is a liquid from the elongated form and neck of the vessel, which both help to maintain a consistent flow while pouring. The long, relatively wide neck of the bottle is ideal for pouring viscous liquids, whereas an elongated narrow neck might suggest a thinner liquid, such as a beverage.
Embossed marks on the base of the bottle (3 [circled-B] 62) indicate that it was produced by the Brockway Glass Company in 1962. While we don’t often get firm one-year dates for artifacts, many glass container companies, including Brockway, employed two-digit date codes on certain kinds of bottles throughout the twentieth century–rendering dating many of the glass containers in the Service Road collection fairly simple. The embossed marks also include the patent number for the proprietary bottle, “Des. Pat. 169344”. You can see the drawing included in the patent record here.
Credits: Emily Milton designed the blog, made the quiz, and photographed artifacts; Ben Akey conducted the research and wrote the artifact Know Mores; Jack Biggs fixed Emily’s photography and made the images look nice.
References:
While looking through the artifacts recovered from the 2020 Service Road project, the CAP crew found an interesting green glass bottle fragment. After further investigation, I found that this fragment was the remaining portion of a Sprite bottle made by the Chattanooga Glass Company (as …