Learning excavation techniques

    When you think about archaeology, what is the first thing that comes to mind? For many of us it might be Indiana Jones or people hunched over pits they've dug up with shovels. While these ideas can help to bring the work of archaeologists into the sphere of common knowledge, they often leave people with misconceptions about how that work is done. Students like myself at the FSJ field school learn several techniques used by professional archaeologists to carefully search for, remove, and study historical artifacts without causing damage to the items or the environment. We also learn how to organize our physical and mental workspaces so that every piece of history we rediscover from the earth is kept as close to its reality as we can get. Every object has a story to tell us, and ensuring we handle every archaeological site with the proper techniques and organizational skills required allows us to learn and grow the collective tale of humanity.

A student practicing hand excavating in the field. 

    Two important skills we use at Fort St. Joseph are hand  excavation and wet screening. Hand excavation is the primary method used by students and staff at the site to search for artifacts in the soil. It is often done using tools such as hand trowels, brushes and measuring tapes. Hand excavation is meticulous, removing only a few centimeters of soil at a time so that the dig can be constantly examined by the excavator for clues. To help us keep track of a particular unit's findings we map it's floor in detail after every 5 centimeters excavated. Every rock, bioturbation, and soil change is measured and hand drawn to scale in a grid. We then take a picture of the unit with a photo plaque inside of it to document its depth, the unit number, and more. While troweling our units we carefully remove each layer of soil and place it into a bucket marked with the unit's number, our names, and any additional information important for retaining the site's provenience. Similar tags are used for bagging up any artifacts we find along the way. 

A student practicing wet screening.

    Why do we collect the dirt? So that we can check it for any artifacts we may have missed! We do this by using the second technique I mentioned earlier: wet screening. Wet screening uses a series of wire mesh screens and water from the river to wash away the soil while trapping any artifacts too small to find during hand excavation. Placing the soil inside the screens, we spray and push it around until the soil is cleared. Any artifacts we find  are then bottled up and stored in artifact bags to be sorted later on. 

    While popular media ideas of archeology may seem like glorified treasure hunting, the reality is that archeology is never about just finding cool artifacts to look at (though they are really cool to look at). Instead, archeology and its field practices teach us to slow down, to enjoy the dig, and to learn from both the high of finding an artifact, and more importantly from the lows of finding absolutely nothing. Because at the end of the day, its not about what you find at a site: its what you find out!

- Everett