Michigan Archaeology Day

Hi Friends,

On October 7th, we traveled to the Michigan History Center in Lansing for Michigan Archeology Day! In fact, October is considered Michigan Archeology Month and there are several archaeology related events that are scheduled throughout it. If you are interested, be sure to check out miplace.org for more information. I had never been to the History Center before and will have to be sure to go back sometime. I was delighted to find out that it is built around a large white pine tree--how neat is that?

This year, the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project was selected to be featured on the Michigan Archaeology Poster. How cool is that? The Michigan State Historic Preservation Office also launched a special webpage, "Bringing Fort St. Joseph to Life," which expanded on the content featured on the poster. Make sure to check it out if you haven't already!

At our Fort St. Joseph event table, we displayed the artifact case to highlight our finds from the recent field season. This included faience ceramic sherds, glass beads, clay pipe stems, a deer ankle bone, and far more! There was also a map showing the areas that have been excavated from the site--and of course the usual handouts. We took turns being stationed in our area, talking to people about what we had found and doing our best to answer any questions they had. Through this I learned that I must get better at engaging with people--a smile and a “hello” are not always enough for someone to stop! Thanks so much to the people I got to talk and interact with, it was lovely to share some of what we experienced in the field with you!

When not on duty at our tables, we also got to see what was going on at the other booths and explore some of the exhibits. There was even a little workshop where you could make a pinch pot! It was super cool to see what everyone else in the state was doing--for example, I found out that Michigan Tech will be having an archaeology field school next year that will be based at the Delaware Mine historic site. There were also plenty of brochures and info packets to be picked up--anywhere from ones about shipwreck sites to native plants of Michigan.

On a wider scale, it was super cool to see everyone gathered for this event. Before this past summer, I had not known about all the neat things happening right here in Michigan relating to Archaeology. But now that I am tuned in, I keep being pleasantly surprised. Like with the Archaeology Open House this past August, it was also nice to have a chance to interact with the public! Again, I am grateful for everyone who made it out. I was genuinely so happy to talk about how stinky the gun frizzen was when we first uncovered it, which artifact was uncovered first in the recent field season, the incredible amount of seed beads that exist in the collection… All of it.

See you soon,

Abbey