By Aubree Marshall and Benjamin Akey Sometimes, when archaeologists are lucky, we run into botanical remains. In my personal research, I look at microbotanicals (like pollen, starches, and phytoliths) from dental calculus (the stuff your dental hygienist scrapes off of your teeth!) to understand diet. …
Happy October y’all! We are happy to announce that we will be once again hosting our Haunted Tour event following last year’s hiatus. While we may have missed last year, 2024 represents the tenth anniversary of Apparitions & Archaeology, a long lasting collaboration between the …
One of the most exciting things about archaeology is that you never know what you’ll find until you start digging, and sometimes you don’t know what you find when you find it, and that is exactly the case with this discovery. While digging the shovel test affectionately named “M-4”, my groupmates (Madison Brown and Josephine Cowles) and I came across a small, shiny circular artifact that I thought may be a coin. Upon closer inspection and a light dusting off, it clearly wasn’t a coin, as it lacked any sign of relief marks, felt too light and thin, and had a gaping hole in the center of it. My groupmates and I bounced ideas back and forth on what it might be, even enlisting the help of our professor, Dr. Camp, and PhD student Gabrielle Moran eventually settling on a washer as being most likely. The image below is shovel test “M-4.”
There was only one problem with this theory in my mind: that this washer didn’t appear to be made of metal, plastic, or rubber like all the other washers I had previously encountered. We determined that the washer was made of mica, which was interesting to me as I had never heard of washers being made of mica. So, the first thing I did was look up if mica washers even existed, and low and behold, they did, being a preferred washer for electrical work as it has “excellent electrical properties and high heat resistance” (Medium). So, it’s a super cool find, but unfortunately, it seems unlikely that it would be connected to the observatory site or any building in that area. The image below is our mica washer.
So why would I choose to blog about this find if it isn’t directly connected to the observatory? I found the process of identifying this artifact fascinating. From the first moment of finding the washer and thinking it may be a coin to learning about the special qualities of mica, it was an extremely exciting process. The most surprising part about the process to me was how important communicating and bouncing ideas off multiple people was to identify artifacts. Witnessing and engaging in this process alleviated one of the big concerns that I had entering this field school and archaeology in general, that I wouldn’t be able to identify the artifacts that we were discovering. It also showed me in real time how important it is to have people from different backgrounds and perspectives involved in the archaeological process, as you never know when an experience, hobby, or special interest is going to come in handy.
This process of consensus building was used with every unique artifact or feature we found at the observatory site. For example, one of the projects’ first big finds, a lead pipe in the east wall of the observatory, was weighed in on by students, faculty, professional archaeologists, MSU IPF workers, utility locators, and others. While we are still yet to discover exactly what the pipe was used for, it was interesting to see the process of communication and cooperation extended to anyone who could potentially share insight into the artifact, not just those of us working at the site. This field school has taught me that you don’t need to be an expert in every kind of artifact to be successful in archaeology, but you do need to be willing to reach out to people who may know more about something than you. Below is an image of the lead pipe in the eastern wall of the observatory.
References
Mixa, Axim. “Mica Washers: A Brief Introduction and Their Applications.” Medium, Medium, 14 Nov. 2022, medium.com/@aximmicaus/mica-washers-a-brief-introduction-and-their-applications-fcba4b9b48b0.
Hello, my name is Josie Cowles and I am a junior here at MSU currently working with the MSU Campus Archaeology Program (CAP) to excavate the old MSU observatory. The foundation was found by the CAP crew in May of 2023, and has been the …
Hi, my name is Katie Simonson and I am one of the students taking part in the 2024 field school, where we are working on the site of the original observatory here on MSU’s campus. Part of the foundations were found earlier in May of …
The importance of archaeological excavations revolve around the drive to uncover forgotten, and missing pieces of history; my time with Michigan State’s Campus Archaeology Program aided in doing just that. I worked alongside Dr. Stacey Camp and 12 other CAP crew members to dig up the remains of MSU’s original observatory that was built in the 1800s. Walking into this field study I had an insignificant amount of knowledge on how a field study runs. However, as the field study comes to an end, I’m able to speak about and explain thoroughly the steps I took to perform patient surveys, shovel tests, dig excavation units, sift soil, and how to bag, clean, and catalog artifacts. The bit of information I find most important and will be expanding on is the importance of recording the details of an excavation from start to finish.
Taking field notes is a way to record the work you’re doing in order to avoid forgetting details, as well as being able to revisit the information in the future. Field notes should be written in a fashion that is detailed enough so that if someone was not working on the excavation site, they would be able to accurately imagine or recreate the site. The process of writing down notes can be drudgery, because the real fun part is digging and uncovering history! However, without any documentation of the process, the information can be lost once again. The act of digging up a site is essentially destroying any provenience and therefore eliminating the option of replicating information collected during an excavation. This means that taking careful notes makes it possible for people to refer back to the steps taken, choices made, and history discovered.
Information worth noting in field notebooks include: observations, soil changes, artifacts found, depth, dimensions, stratum levels, and drawings. A few examples of how I would typically organize daily information in my notebook can be seen below:
It’s extremely vital to write down the date and time when recording field notes. This makes it easier to share and compare notes with other crew members, as well as being able to efficiently refer back to these notebooks in the future.
Some notes require more detail than others. For example, the process of laying out a grid requires you to record many intricate details, in comparison to recording the soil type you came across while shovel testing, which can be conveyed with a bullet point.
Field notes should be legible for the very reason that other people will be referring back to it. Having a messy and unorganized notebook can prevent the information you recorded from being shared with the public accurately.
All in all, the multitudes of newfound knowledge is far more important than how many buckets of dirt were dug from the ground. The hand-written notes we recorded, from the start of the field study, to the end, is what will aid in giving MSU’s observatory and its artifacts credibility. I’m so grateful to have been part of this incredible opportunity and for the widened skill set I will take with me.
This academic year has allowed me to explore several digital methods I had little to no knowledge about. This is partially due to my teaching position at MSU in the Lab for the Education and Advancement in Digital Research (LEADR). While in this position, I …
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 …
Michigan State University (MSU) CAP “is a program that works to mitigate and protect the archaeological resources on Michigan State University’s beautiful and historic campus.”[1] CAP is also an initiative that contributes to the public understanding of MSU’s history, enabling more profound and meaningful connections between this public university, its students, and the international community that populates it. Outreach is the primary way CAP has communicated MSU’s cultural-material history to the public. New fellows won’t take long before sitting behind tables filled with cultural objects, ready to answer questions from curious people interested in the relationship between material culture and the past and the spirit(s)[2] of MSU. In short, CAP prices itself to protect MSU’s cultural heritage while engaging with outreach to socialize MSU’s history rooted in archaeological findings and analysis.
In my short experience as a CAP fellow, I can say CAP identity is not self-promotion; it is an accurate description but also a modest one. CAP has a richer meaning for me because CAP is not only defined by the services it provides to the MSU community but also by the possibilities it offers to the people who work under its wing. I am inclined to say CAP is a strategic site to connect the many sub-disciplines of American anthropology’s complex and exciting world with archaeological practice. This is profoundly important if we acknowledge archaeology as a vital expression of anthropology as a whole and recognize that anthropology at the graduate level is not exclusively pursued by anthropology majors. In other words, through my eyes, MSU CAP is also a facilitator of encounters between different subfields in anthropology, an excuse for graduates with no archaeological background to discover what it is like to work as an archaeologist and to appreciate the contributions that the subfield makes to our overall understanding of the human experience. It is also an opportunity for archaeologists in the program to see themselves in a mirror of otherness, fascination, and even stupefaction.
The lab as a site of encounter
To say that a lab is a site of knowledge production is obvious, but for many anthropologists that statement never transcends the frontier of a cultural consensus. While writing this post, I cannot stop thinking that if I had not been accepted to the CAP program, I would have never had the opportunity to work in a laboratory. A socio-cultural anthropologist has little to do with one, especially in a post-positivist climate where standardized data collection and analysis methods are under suspicion[3]. In addition, anthropology is a very plural discipline that unfortunately only stays together by documents and administrative rationales suggesting that archaeology, linguistics, physical anthropology, and cultural anthropology are one and the same. In MSU, the four-field divide is so stark that almost every major field sits at different buildings.
The first time I entered the CAP laboratory, I was very nervous. Laboratories have always been foreign to me. A laboratory in English is twice as foreign. In that opportunity, fellows collected materials to exhibit at the Michigan Archaeology Day[4]. Everyone was working with haste. With a list in their hand, an apparent sound understanding of the lab’s geography, and swift and precise movements, returning fellows collected the objects they needed. In my case, I did not even know where to stand. Like everyone else, I had a list in my hand, but I did not know where to find the things listed there. The list that I hoped would be a comforting map to navigate the lab and demonstrate my value as a fellow proved to me very quickly that I had some things to learn first. The list was demanding me to find a trowel. I immediately realized I did not know what that was. When I could get a hold of myself, my work was no longer needed. The objects for the presentation were ready and packed. Now, I always carry a pin in the shape of a trowel on my jacket for academic presentations. It reminds me of my encounter with archaeology, and it is my way of communicating I believe in the value of well-rounded anthropologists and a bridged discipline.
After my first visit to the CAP lab, I have been there many other times. Campus archaeologist Ben Akey has been leading an attempt to catalog the many objects the CAP has collected in recent years. They have also generously mentored me in historical archaeology and the cataloging process. After cataloging with Ben, I cannot overstate how impressed I am with archaeology as a field. Every nail, glass fragment, bottle, and bone are like pieces of an exciting jigsaw puzzle, probably the most challenging I have ever encountered. The catalog of artifacts systematizes each jigsaw puzzle piece to facilitate the analytical work of researchers interested in composing an empirically informed image of our shared past. Working with artifacts, brushes, catalogs, and databases has been novel for me in more ways than one. The most striking of those is reconciling an obvious part of human life we usually take for granted: the importance of objects, their qualities, and trajectories in defining the human experience. The importance of objects is not a mystery for cultural anthropologists, but before entering the CAP lab, I had never worked around them; I never thought about their provenance or classification, and I am profoundly happy by the opportunity CAP provides to do it.
Stupefaction: hoarding vs. faith in science and resources
Encountering archaeology in a lab for the first time also brought a cultural shock. I found myself cataloging and saving tens of nails that, to my neophyte criteria, were the same thing. Those nails were distributed in different places, and registering their presence was important, but should we keep them? I also found myself cataloging hundreds of indefinite glass fragments, meaning it was impossible to assume, at least in the cataloging phase, what they were a part of (bottles, windows, portraits, etc.). Coal fragments, envelopes, plastic pieces, and all sorts of unintelligible things were in my tray, waiting to be classified, packed, and saved. Is somebody going to make sense of all those things that, for most mortals, are just rubble? Are we really going to learn something worth the effort and the resources we invest in, or are we just committing to a scientifically informed hoarding practice? I have received a passionate answer: yes, rubble can tell many things under the appropriate gaze and methods.
I believe faith in science and funding that could seduce a scholar to systematically look into the MSU campus archaeological record are the main drivers of what I privately call “rubble cataloging.” I am willing to join the faith, especially after learning with Ben about historical archaeologists’ efforts to build virtual catalogs to facilitate comparison and sense-making. It is also important to think about how cataloging “everything possible” could be a measure to fight selection bias. Still, I am not convinced about how sustainable or useful that practice is. The faith that transforms rubble into meaningful windows to the past must fight against the same random sample techniques used in archaeological excavations? I don’t think so, but I have yet to witness what the proper funding and an expert scholar can do with all the small things I have cataloged.
But while science and enough funding happen, rubble cataloging has an important role to play. Should we think about rubble cataloging in a way that is not solely related to knowledge production? What about rubble cataloging for teaching and outreach? Regarding outreach, it is possible to circle back to knowledge production. Could we think of citizen rubble cataloging? I am convinced rubble cataloging can be productive because I have found it productive. The discipline of systematizing information has already invited me to think in a different way about my archive of ethnographic data. Now, I am constantly thinking of how to make it comparable and public in a safe, ethical, and productive way for the anthropological understanding of what makes us human. The constant work with objects in the lab has also enabled me to understand in a new way what archaeology is, why it is important, and the challenges it faces. It is possible citizen rubble cataloging may help the public better understand archaeology and why it is important to support it, just as I have.
[2] The Campus Archaeology Program has partnered with student organizations like the MSU Paranormal Society to explore MSU’s cultural heritage in a way that connects with the interests, concerns and hobbies of MSU students.
[3] It is important to acknowledge the most radical critiques to the scientific endeavor are not as influential today as they were during the nineties and the first decade of the twenty first century. I believe that is a positive development since science, as a social endeavor with social consequences, is only as good or as bad as the values that inform the overall scientific process and the outcomes its practice produces.
[4] Michigan Archaeology Day is a time in the year (in October) in which professionals and archaeology afficionados meet to discuss recent findings in Michigan and to keep the archaeological community alive through meaningful engagement between experts and citizens.
Holly Long I love tea; I drink it every single day. It is warm, hydrating, and is known for healing properties. But the tea leaves most drink today are imported and are not indigenous to North America and are rarely grown here. Tea leaves, not …