'To the Lab': Life Outside of the Field

 Hi Fort Friends,

Today, Michigan's Archaeology Month begins! To jump start this celebration, I wanted to let you know a little bit about what myself and the students that I have been working with on campus have been up to this past month. I will also share some information on our current research and upcoming outreach programs.

The final crew photo after we backfilled
our excavation units.

After the field school students, volunteers, and staff closed up the Fort St. Joseph site for the season, many of us headed to the archaeology lab in Moore Hall on WMU's main campus. We unpacked the lab items we took to Niles, digitized our field notes, finished washing artifacts unearthed from our excavations, and began to discuss what we hoped to accomplish this fall semester for those enrolled in the archaeological analysis course and in independent study. A few of our main goals are to process the flotation samples we collected and complete an inventory of the items we recovered over the summer. Both tasks can take some time as I encourage students working with me to research artifacts with identifiable attributes (ceramics, glass beads, knife blade fragments, etc.). 

Float time!

This hands-on experience allows them to become familiar with the process of researching and interpreting artifacts and at the same time adds to our knowledge and understanding of Fort St. Joseph. An additional benefit to this approach has been that many of the students start to develop an interest in examining a specific artifact type and/or research question related to our work. Over the course of the year, our team will share more details on what each person is interested in and how they are approaching their research. As always, we are happy to take questions and appreciate any positive feedback.

Outside of the lab, we are also participating in public events and programs. In September, members of our Project participated in Canadiana Fest (Kalamazoo), WMU Day at the Capitol (Lansing), and the Sauk Trail Festival (Edwardsburg). We had such a fun time at each because they allowed us to engage with people of all ages and share information about archaeology and the Fort. 

Next, Christina Arseneau, director of the Niles History Center, and I will be hosting a webinar on October 16th at 6pm for K-12 students competing in the First Lego, Tech, and Robotics competition. This year, the competition theme is "archaeology" and we have had many teams reach out to us looking for assistance. During this online program, we will 

discuss the field of archaeology, collection management, and the research occurring at Fort St. Joseph. But, a large portion of the time will be devoted to answering questions that participants may have as they dive further into the competition. To offer further help, we are working on compiling a list of resources that teams may want to utilize. Once completed we will have them listed on the Niles History Center's webpage.

Following the webinar, our team will once again participate in Michigan Archaeology Day held at the Michigan History Center in Lansing on October 18th. This is one of my favorite events because archaeologists from around the state gather to share their findings and the new technologies they might be using with each other and the public. If you haven't been, you should definitely consider it! Also, make sure to stop by and see us on the 2nd floor.

Since this blog post can't cover all of the tasks and research our team is involved in, we will provide more updates as we can on this site and our social media platforms. 

Stay tuned and all the best, Erika