Geoarchaeology on the Fort Davis Archaeology Project

Written by Erin Rodriguez, FODAAP co-director and geoarchaeologist

If you’ve ever stopped by FODAAP excavations, you may have seen something like this:

In this photo I am taking a micromorphology sample from a shovel test pit excavated during our 2014 season. As a geoarchaeologist, I use geological methods to study archaeological issues – understanding the human past through material remains. In this case those material remains are the actual sediments and soils that we as archaeologists excavate in order to recover artifacts, map architecture, and analyze the spatial contexts of archaeological materials. These sediments are fundamentally important as they allow us to understand the context of recovered materials which is the basis of scientific archaeological investigations. Further, human activity (as well as animal, plant, and environmental actions and processes) leaves traces on sediments and soils that can be reconstructed through detailed and careful analysis.

UCB FODAAP Micromorphology Sample

The primarily methods of geoarchaeological analysis that I use as part of the Fort Davis Archaeological Project are microscale analyses looking at microscopic physical relationships between sediment features as well as chemical aspects of soils such as organic matter content, pH, and phosphate and heavy metal concentrations. In the image at the beginning of this post I am taking a micromorphology sample – an undisturbed block of sediment which will be impregnated with resin and cut into ultrathin microscope slides so I can analyze the spatial relationships between sediment components. This allows me to better understand relationships between features observed in the field, to identify microscopic sediment components that provide new information about archaeological deposits, and to reconstruct the processes which create and effect archaeological sites.

The image above shows how a slide from a micromorphology sample relates to a profile from a unit excavated by FODAAP in 2014. This particular slide showed the presence of localized burning of a trash deposit which was not identified during excavation. The burning is only in one slide from part of this excavation unit, so it may have been an intentional burn as part of maintenance or cleaning of the dump.  This slide also contains microremains from artifacts found in the trash deposit (metal fragments, glass shards, eggshell) as well as evidence of insect activity.

UCB FODAAP Micromorphology

Micromorphology, as well as other microscale geoarchaeological analyses, has the potential to provide essential information about human activities, processes which create archaeological sites, and factors which can effect sites over time such as erosion, animal activity, and other factors. While as not commonly represented in archaeological explanations, geoarchaeological data enriches our interpretations of the past and enables us to better understand the lives and actions of past people.

---

Excavations at the Overland Trail Museum

Written by Richard Terk (2014 FODAAP Field School Student)

2014 Field School

Excavating at the Overland Trail Museum was a wonderful experience. Not only did I get the opportunity to peel back a few layers of Nick Mersfelder and Fort Davis history, I got the chance to meet a few members of the Fort Davis community and visitors to Jeff Davis County.

In recent years, a significant amount of soil movement took place in the backyard of the Overland Trail Museum which as you may know, was the home of Nick Mersfelder, one of Fort Davis’ more colorful characters during the late 1800s to mid 1900s. I excavated a 1×1 meter unit right behind what I was told was Mersfelder’s court room. The unit was right up against the building and just north of the courtroom’s back door. In the top layers of soil I found numerous nails of modern production, i.e. wire nails. The further down I dug, I saw the gradual transition from modern wire nails to the older cut nails.

An interesting layer of soil I came across was a one that appeared to have been a garden. Unlike most of the layers I was digging through which were compact layers of tan or light brown with a moderate amount of rocks, this one layer was extremely dark brown, almost black with no rocks and was not compact. The interesting bit about this layer was that right on top of it I found the remains of tubers, most likely potatoes. Was this Nick Mersfelder’s garden and if so, what else could he have been growing in that small patch of dirt? This brings to mind what his diet might have been like. Considering he was born in Germany, did Mersfelder hold on to some of the cuisine from his native homeland or did he fully adopt the culinary traditions of his chosen community?

Finally, I would like to thank the people who came out to speak with me at the museum. It was great to talk with people who have an interest in history and archaeology. Hearing your stories about Fort Davis and the history of Nick’s house made piecing together what I was seeing under the surface make a bit more sense.

A special thanks to Bobby for telling me about the old ditch.

A Multiplicity of Voices: Towards a Queer Field School Pedagogy

Presented by: Erin C. Rodriguez, Doctoral Candidate UC Berkeley at the Society for Historical Archaeology Conference, 2015 in Seattle, Washington

Also available as .pdf : Rodriguez_SHA15

Introduction

The need for more diversity in professional archaeology is increasingly prevalent in disciplinary discourse. Professional committees, such as GMAC which has sponsored this session, as well as scholarships and diversity initiatives in hiring, speak to awareness of the need to build a more inclusive archaeology. While these measures do have a positive impact and should be encouraged and expanded, they fail to challenge the pedagogical structure of archaeology which has marginalized underrepresented communities. As the study of the human past, archaeology must include voices and perspectives from professionals as diverse as the people we study. To accomplish this we need concrete, substantial methods to change the dialog about who can be an archaeologist at every level of training, but most especially at the undergraduate level where interest in archaeology as a profession often begins.

This paper is particularly concerned with undergraduate field education as one of the defining points in a new archaeologists’ career as well as a crucial time where lack of inclusiveness can drive potential future archaeologists away from the discipline. This paper discusses how a feminist and queer pedagogy applied to field education results in specific, concrete approaches in increasing inclusiveness. The focus of the paper is the Fort Davis Archaeological Project field school, run by myself and co-chair of this session, Katrina Eichner, under the mentorship of Professor Laurie Wilkie.

 

Fort Davis Archaeological Project

The Fort Davis Archaeological Project (FODAAP) was initiated by Laurie Wilkie and Katrina Eichner in 2011, I joined the project in 2013, which was also the first year in which undergraduate students participated. The project investigates relationships between civilian and military residents of the Fort Davis military post and surrounding towns during the late 1800s when African American Buffalo soldiers were stationed at the fort during reconstruction. In 2014 a second field season included five undergraduate students in addition to graduate student staff from UC Berkeley. Four sites in the surrounding town were investigated during this season. A third season is planned for 2015. For each field season, almost every student who applied was accepted. So far, ten undergraduate students have participated in the project, nine of which come from underrepresented groups in archaeological undergraduate education, whether by race, ethnicity, queer-identifying, or age. Several students also have differences in learning style and physical ability. Myself and Katrina also fall into these categories. However, in the interests of privacy, I will not discuss any of our students specifically, but instead some of the measures we have taken to create a safe, supportive environment for students from diverse backgrounds.

 

Feminist and Queer Theories of Pedagogy

I am going to briefly discuss how our project utilizes feminist and queer approaches to pedagogy in creating an inclusive field school environment through initiatives to deconstruct the power structures and hierarchy central to the student-instructor relationship, by redefining the construction of knowledge, power, and voice, and by redefining ‘difference’ as an opportunity for community rather than a source of tension and disruption. Using this background, FODAAP’s field school is not only creating spaces for students from underrepresented communities, but advocating for the restructuring of archaeological education to remove preconceived ideals of who can do archaeology. Additionally, as field schools include more than just education in field and laboratory techniques, a queer field pedagogy must also include the daily and social life of the project which constitute the pedagogical environment in which learning takes place.

Field school directors, in our roles as educators and through the process of selecting field school participants, directly control access to archaeological knowledge and training. When field schools determine who can participate in projects based on criteria other than archaeological ability, they reinforce the positionality of the directors and police the boundaries of who can be an archaeologist. Restructuring field education requires that this power hierarchy between instructors and students be reorganized. FODAAP approaches this by identifying what needs to be done archaeologically (excavation, mapping, note taking, survey, lab work, etc) and presenting those goals as our expectations to students. We then create dialog with the students to identify how we can best support them in completing these tasks to the necessary standards. In 2014 FODAAP investigated five sites in Fort Davis including two residences and a sawmill. Two students have expressed interest in returning for 2015, and four students are working on senior theses through the project.

Our discursive approach to field education relies upon an empowered student who knows their own educational needs and can articulate them to instructors. In this discursive student-instructor model, the instructor identifies expectations and requirements, but works with students in the production of knowledge rather than dictating how learning must be accomplished. This creates an inherent teamwork approach to field education, and specifically a teamwork approach that supports multivocality and treats difference as an opportunity for community, rather than teamwork which washes away differences for the surface appearance of unity.

 

FODAAP Field School Case Study

In the following section I am going to discuss several concrete ways in which FODAAP works to create an inclusive, supportive environment for our field school students. Underrepresented communities of students which FODAAP has worked with include: queer-identifying students, students of color, students older than 25, student from less affluent backgrounds, students with differences in physical ability, students with learning differences, non-neurotypical students, and students with dietary restrictions. This is not an exhaustive list of underrepresented communities in archaeology, or in field schools, but represents those communities with which FODAAP has the most experience. In the interest of time I am not going to discuss all of these topics, but rather those with which I have the most familiarity, both through FODAAP and through my own experiences as a field school student and staff on other projects. The focus for the remainder of this paper will be on students from less-affluent backgrounds, queer students, and students with dietary restrictions.

 

Affordability

The cost of field schools can be a major deterrent to students from less-affluent backgrounds, and due to the correlation between income and race/ethnicity this therefore also affects racial and ethnic diversity in archaeology. When field schools cost up to $4000 (or more) in addition to transportation costs and the loss of summer income, this can be prohibitive for many students who have a strong interest in the discipline and are promising scholars. While scholarships are available for many field programs, particularly those under an organizational umbrella, this only helps a few students and does not substantially affect the professional community. Rather than providing a few scholarships to meet diversity quotas, a more inclusive archaeology requires assessing how we fund projects and how we fund field schools. With granting sources also limited, this may mean a more modest approach to field projects or creative approaches to funding fieldwork.

As a project, FODAAP charges students the cost of their room and board, plus a contribution to the project costs, the total of which comes to between $1500 and $2000 for a six week field school. We do not require students to register for credits, which substantially lowers the cost of participation. Students have the option of registering for independent study credits with Professor Wilkie either over the summer or during the following semester. Regardless of credit load, all students receive a full field education with training in excavation, mapping, survey, lab procedures, as well as evening lectures and visits to local archaeological and historic sites.

FODAAP also keeps student costs low by procuring modest housing and affordable food choices. We live in comfortable two to four person cabins outside of Fort Davis, with easy access to the town and the sites. Students are responsible for their own breakfast and we provide a variety of sandwich options for lunches. Since we do not have cooking facilities in the cabins, dinners are eaten at restaurants in town where project members pick from a limited menu.

 

Housing and Gender

Housing and gender can be difficult topics in field projects where communal housing along male/female lines is typical. For students and professionals who do not fall into comfortable man/woman categories gendered housing can cause discomfort or a sense of being invisible by the act of being reduced into either ‘man’ or ‘woman’. FODAAP’s mission to create a safe environment for queer and gender non-conforming students is ongoing and relies primarily on dialog with students about their needs. We do not ask students their gender on our application and instead ask if students are comfortable in multi-gendered housing and, if not, what their preferences are. Our gender guidelines for working with students are 1) ask for students’ pronouns, not their gender; 2) ask students’ housing preferences instead of automatically assigning spaces based on gendered assumptions; 3) have gender neutral housing options; 4) enforce a policy of support, acceptance, and inclusion for all team members.

Our most important strategy in addressing concerns of our students is getting to know our students individually before the field season starts. This gives the students a space to raise their concerns and discuss how the project can address their needs both privately amongst the project team and in the community. This pertains not only to issues of gender but also to personal living preferences and roommate issues which inevitably are part of communal living. Housing decisions are made by the project staff and are usually based on age and temperament (how much social vs. private time a student says they need). All housing choices are approved by the students before they are finalized.

Our individual meetings with students prior to the start of the field school are important not only for discussing housing concerns, but also for establishing dialog with each individual student about their personal and educational needs regardless of background. We use this space to establish the professional nature of the project and to dispel any remaining ideas that field school is vacation. We discuss the project schedule, the season’s goals, and what we expect from our students both during field work and as representatives of the project in the community. The student has the chance to privately voice any concerns they may have, and we use the time to better understand how to support each individual student so that they can meet project expectations. In addition to housing, we discuss differences in learning style and physical ability and how the project can best support the student’s educational needs. We discuss homesickness and the isolation of living in a small rural community with limited phone and internet for two months, and any other concerns the students may have based on our description of the project. These dialogs create spaces not only for students from underrepresented populations, but for all students to know that they are heard and to know that the project is committed to their education.

 

Diet

I hesitated over including a section on dietary restrictions as it seems obvious to me that a student’s diet has nothing to do with whether they have the potential to be a successful professional archaeologist. However, it is something I have encountered repeatedly both in my own experience and in the experiences of others. Additionally, specific diets or dietary restrictions often correlate with other communities of identity, creating an additional barrier to inclusion in field projects. Examples of common dietary restrictions include: vegetarian and vegan diets, nut allergies, lactose intolerance, gluten intolerance, soy allergies, religious restrictions, shellfish allergies, diabetes, egg allergies, etc. To date, FODAAP has included students and staff with gluten-free, lactose intolerance, nut allergies, and vegan diets. Our policy on dietary restrictions is that the project staff must know about all dietary issues when applications are submitted and students need to have enough awareness of their dietary needs to tell us what is necessary.

Communal living and eating arrangements on field projects are the most common reasons I have encountered for restricting access to students (and staff) with dietary restrictions. However, excluding students on the basis of inconvenience or project staff’s unfamiliarity with dietary restrictions, is still exclusion and denies a critical education opportunity to potential future professionals without regard to their archaeological ability.

Rather than focusing on the problems related to accommodating dietary restrictions, FODAAP works with our students to find ways to keep them healthy while minimizing the effect on other students and the day to day functioning of the project. Project lunches include several options (usually peanut butter, tuna, and deli meats). Vegan bread is easy to find, and gluten-free bread alternatives can be provided. Each project participant makes their own lunch, which ensures that everyone has something they can eat and reduces worry about cross-contamination.

In seasons where the project has had cooking facilities, cooking duties are shared amongst project staff and students and meals must include options for each team member. In years where the project eats dinners at local restaurants, students pick their own meals. Additionally, when the project has had vegan students (to date the most difficult dietary restriction to accommodate in rural Texas), we give students the option of using the money that would go to their dinner to buy their own food in the grocery store and make their own meals.

 

Discussion

FODAAP’s approach to inclusive undergraduate field education relies on a student-instructor model in which the student is responsible for their own educational needs and can articulate those to the instructor. However, in reality, not all students can meet this challenge. Some students are unaccustomed to taking independent responsibility for their education, as well as unfamiliar with the intense living and working environment of the field. Additionally, many team members have not lived and worked with diverse groups and may be unsure how to comport themselves, creating internal tensions and discord. However, overall our approach has resulted in students with a strong sense of their own abilities and interests. Many students continue their relationship with the project after their field school is complete through senior theses, participation in UC Berkeley’s Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program, and by returning to the field as project staff.

In order to encourage our students to develop independence in their education we continue our dialog-focused interactions with students into the field. With a low student to staff ratio we are able to support our students’ professional development as well as their field education. However, the burden of empowerment and responsibility is still on the students – providing most with the space and support to develop their own professional voice.

Another challenge in promoting student empowerment is including diverse staff on the project to act as mentors to students from similar backgrounds. Part of this challenge is being met by having returning students serve as junior staff, and the project is also considering a broader search for additional staff to join the team.

 

Conclusion

Central to FODAAP’s approach to inclusive undergraduate field education is a focus on communication and dialog between project instructors and students. Rather than requiring students to conform to a model of how fieldwork must be done, the project works with students to accomplish project goals while recognizing differences in students’ living and learning requirements. Rather than creating a few spaces for students from underrepresented communities by promoting tolerance and relying on scholarships, FODAAP uses a queer pedagogy to restructure archaeological education so that students are not defined by the distinction between commonly represented and underrepresented communities, while still retaining awareness and the perspectives of diverse backgrounds. FODAAP advocates that rather than encouraging our students to fit a preconceived ideal of who can be an archaeologist, we must change our vision of who is an archaeologist.

 

References

Britzman, Deborah P. 1995. “Is there a Queer Pedagogy? Or, Stop Reading Straight.” Educational Theory 45.2: 151-165.

 

Lin, Huei-Hsuan. 2004. Cartography of (Un)Intelligibility: A Migrant Intellectual’s Tale of the Field. Interrupting Heteronormativity. Mary Queen, Kathleen Farrell, and Nisha Gupta, Editors. Syracuse.

 

Misawa Mitsunori. 2006. Queer Race Pedagogy in Adult Higher Education: Dealing with Power Dynamics and Positionality of Gay Students of Color. Adult Education Research Conference, 2006.

Shrewsbury, Carolyn M. 1987. What is Feminist Pedagogy? Women’s Studies Quarterly. 15(3/4):6 -14.

Sierra-Zarella, Elizabeth. 2004 Constant Queerying: Practicing Responsible Pedagogy at Syracuse University. Interrupting Heteronormativity. Mary Queen, Kathleen Farrell, and Nisha Gupta, Editors. Syracuse.

Tisdell, Elizabeth J. 1998. Poststructural Feminist Pedagogies: The Possibilities and Limitations of Emancipatory Adult Learning Theory and Practice. Adult Education Quarterly. 48:139.

1995. Creating Inclusive Adult Learning Environments: Insights from Multicultural Education and Feminist Pedagogy. Information Series no: 361.

Zacko-Smith, Jeffrey D. and G. Pritchy Smith. 2010. Recognizing and Utilizing Queer Pedagogy: A Call for Teacher Education to Reconsider the Knowledge Base on Sexual Orientation for Teacher Education Programs.

 

 

 

FODAAP at the Society for Historical Archaeology Conference!

from left to right: Annie Danis, Laurie Wilkie, Rosemary Joyce (Discussant), Katrina Eichner (Chair), Kirsten Vacca, Jaime Arjona, Annelise Morris, Megan Springate, David Hyde, Erin Rodriguez (Chair)

Exciting News! FODAAP placed second in the Society for Historical Archaeology’s (SHA) Diversity Field School Competition. Our team is very excited to receive this award as part of the SHA’s annual conference in Seattle, WA. For more information about the award please follow the link to the GMAC blog. Several members of the FODAAP team also presented papers as part of the conference (see titles below). We are very happy to be sharing our research with the archaeological community and to continue our commitment to inclusive archaeological education. Special thanks to Professor Rosemary Joyce who was the discussant for our session. Also, look forward to recorded video of Laurie Wilkie’s plenary session talk that focused on work at Fort Davis!

SHA 2015 presentations by FODAAP members:

Presentations with (*) included material from FODAAP. All presentations were part of the session: Queering Historical Archaeology: Methods, Theory, and Practice, organized by FODAAP co-directors Katrina C. L. Eichner and Erin C. Rodriguez. The session was sponsored by the SHA Gender and Minority Affairs Council.

*Katrina C. L. Eichner (FODAAP Director): Queering the Norm: Reinterpreting the Heterosexual Ideal

*Erin C. Rodriguez (FODAAP co-Director): A Multiplicity of Voices: Towards a Queer Field School Pedagogy

Laurie A. Wilkie (FODAAP Faculty Mentor): All The Single Ladies: Queering Race In The 19^th Century Through The Materiality of African-American Female-Headed Households (with Annelise Morris)

Ann E. Danis (FODAAP 2015 Staff): Feeling Queer(ed)

David G. Hyde (FODAAP 2015 Staff): Queering the Household Group: Challenging the Boundaries of an Archaeological Unit

Why Archival Research Matters

Written by Naphtalie Jeanty (2014 Field School student and HAAS Scholar)

Archival research is a mélange of finding nothing you need, crying over your papers, finally finding something, and catching leads. You have off days and good days. Sometimes I can come back to my cabin and really feel like I have acquired enough information to do half of my project and other days I ask myself why I’m doing it in the first place. On the bad days I have to remind myself that archival research is important. When it comes to archaeology looking at documents allows us to put together the missing pieces of the puzzle that we could not put together with artifacts. For instance, we surveying an area where there was supposed to be, it was archival research that allowed us to know where we should be looking. In my own research has helped me to be able to paint a more vivid picture of what individual Buffalo Soldier’s lives were like. I can piece lives together by looking at depositions, furnishing studies, letters, birth records…etc. These “primary documents” are imperative for me to be able to put artifacts that I find into context. I’ve been able to find out everything from which soldiers would hang out with each other to how their beds were arranged in relation to each other. I have found interesting back-stories to different soldiers. One of the saddest was a soldier who was 1/32 black (his mother was 1/16). He was able to pass as white but married a black woman. According to a deposition she wrote, he left her suddenly and she found out later that he got married to a white woman, had children, changed his name so no one could find him, and came back to her to tell her that she should have been the one to file for divorce so that the fact that he originally married a woman of color could stay under wraps in the white community. This paints a picture for me about what racial tensions where like and how marriages might have been used to move up the social hierarchy. They felt the need to marry “up” and we can see in the censuses from different years that gradually their races changed. A black man in 1870 could have been listed as black, but by 1900, he may be listed as “Mexican” or “Mulatto”. Archival research allows for me to be able to tell these soldiers’ full stories as best I can.

Shovel Testing – archaeology in the field

STP. The acronym looms large in archaeology lingo and stands for Shovel Test Pit. Not the most glamorous of archaeological methods, the STP is a tried and true way to test a site.

~What are they?~

Shovel Test Pits (STPs) and Shovel Test Units (STUs) are pretty much what they sound like: small pits or “units,” dug mostly with a shovel. Usually smaller than a normal excavation unit, the pits are quick, accurate ways to get a glimpse into the guts of a site. Hence the “test” in test pit.

~Why do we dig them?~

STPs and STUs are part of the testing or survey phase of an archaeological project. Usually done after preliminary research, and before and during large scale excavation, this phase includes a variety of methods for getting a sense of the big picture of a location, rather than the nitty gritty details. Alongside pedestrian survey (walking around and seeing what’s on the surface) and remote sensing (using high tech instruments to probe into the ground without digging), shovel test pits are windows into the site that allow us to decide where to dig and produce useful data across a large area that would be impossible to excavate completely.

STP/Us help locate not only interesting stuff for further investigation, they also help locate areas where there is *no* archaeology. That way, we know that we aren’t missing anything good! Even so, where there are no obvious artifacts or culturally deposited sediment, geoarchaeologists can learn a lot from “sterile” units. Knowing more about the geological characteristics of the site is invaluable for later excavation, and both sterile and artifact rich units can be analyzed for geological and soil analyses.

~How do we do it?~

STPs and STUs can be part of what archaeologists call “judgmental or purposive sampling” or “random sampling.” In the case of the first, “judgmental sampling” archaeologists decide where to place the pits based on what they already know about the site (what we can see on the ground, what historic records suggest about the location of interesting features, or what the geology indicates about deposition and preservation). In “random sampling,” pits will be placed across the site in a truly random manner to help support assumptions about where features are located and the density of artifacts. Most strategies are a combination of the two.

Once we’ve decided where to put the STPs, the general idea is to dig as deep as necessary to hit every cultural layer. This can be centimeters deep or meter deep depending on how long the site was used and the quality of preservation. Since part of the testing purpose of STPs is to be able to quickly gain a broad range of information, they are often excavated in arbitrary levels. These levels are a set number of centimeters deep, regardless of the contents. This provides a control across the STPs so they are easily compared later. A combination of arbitrary and “natural” levels (excavating along the changes in stratigraphy) can be used as well. This is what changes an STP into an STU, because natural levels require closer consideration, and even trowel excavation.

~What did we find?~

Our goal was to confirm the edges of the densest artifact scatters visible on the surface, and get a better sense of the stratigraphy (layers of different sediment and artifact deposits) and geology across the site. This gives us both horizontal data (information from across a wide area) and vertical information (glimpses into how deep deposits go) that can inform further excavation or testing. Each STP was 50cm wide by 50cm tall and at least 30 cm deep. Us lucky STP diggers got to start at the top and dig either until 30 cm below the surface or however long it took to stop seeing traces of human activity.

All of these rules produced some interesting results. In most of the STPs that showed any cultural material, the deposits were no more than 10-15 cm below the surface. They included the range of historic material we were expecting: metal artifacts like bullet casings, nails and bolts, small animal bone, pieces of ceramic dishware, and shards of glass, along with deposits of charcoal and ash.

One STP in the center of a large surface artifact scatter was placed explicitly to explore a heavy concentration of material associated with horseshoeing activities. The STP revealed that the scatter was only surface deep and not associated with any architecture or forge feature below. This information helped us explore the possibility of mobile farriers and reinforced our inklings about the use of the field for cavalry and civilian equestrian activity.

Most excitingly, an STP at the far edge of the test area yielded a metal helmet plume stand from an 1880s cavalry helmet. Complete with decoration of a shield with stars and stripes and an Eagle holding arrows, the plume stand adds evidence to the claim that this field was used in Military skirmish drills during the occupation of Fort Davis. The thin layer of cultural material also suggests that the entire area was used for occasional dumping of stove ash or other trash over the last 100 plus years.

Alongside surface collection and excavation, the STPs we dug this summer helped us understand that the site was used over a long period of time and for a variety of uses, a majority of which leave very shallow traces in the archaeological record. Most importantly, they helped us connect this area to both civilian populations and military populations during the Fort Period.

Back in the lab: The UC Berkeley URAPs begin processing artifacts

Written by Fall 2014 URAP student, Jennifer Reynolds

I am currently working in the Historical Archaeology lab with my supervisor, Katrina Eichner. Through my position as an Undergraduate Research Apprentice (URAP), I’m responsible for cleaning, sorting, and bagging artifacts as wells as transcribing field note books. URAP is a great program that I have been a part of the entire time I have been at Berkeley. The program is wonderful, because it allows students to explore multiple disciplines through research and earn class credits. This URAP is different from other ones I have had, because I am able to have more direction in my project, and I get to work with a wider range of artifact materials, including bone, metal, plastic, nails, ceramics, and glass. Each artifact material type is interesting and, I have been able to learn a lot more about ceramics and glass which I have not previously worked with.  However, my favorite material is animal bone. It’s enjoyable to work with the bones because we get to see which types of animals were both living around and being eaten in Fort Davis.

I signed up to work with Katrina, because I was interested in the findings from her dig this last summer, and I enjoy lab work. I am also interested in the research questions being addressed by the FODAAP project. Katrina is looking at aspects of sexual and gender identity expression at Fort Davis, and I am interested to see how archaeological artifacts can give insights into gendered and sexual performance practices. As a cultural anthropology major, this research is pertinent to my own research interests. After taking a course last spring, “The Archaeology of Sex and Gender,” I found it amazing that archaeologists could answer questions about gender and sex based on material remains. Before taking this class and working in the lab with Katrina it seemed laughable that an archaeologist could study gender issues without observing a women’s lifestyle first hand. However, now I realize that archaeologists can reconstruct past lives through material artifacts and see the traces of identity expression.

An artifact that I have commonly come across in my lab work that may display some idea of how gender was performed at Fort Davis are buttons. Buttons can help an archaeologist decipher what kind of garments were being worn, as well as the time period they are from in the archaeological record. This allows archaeologists to look at buttons and infer what women and men might have been wearing, in this case at the time of Fort Davis’ army occupation. Overall, my time in the lab with Katrina has allowed me to further my own research interests, and also learn more about artifact analysis in general. I’ve enjoyed cleaning, bagging, sorting and cataloging the artifacts that were brought back to Berkeley.

After the Field – archaeology continues in the lab

Written by 2014 field student Ambrose Davila

After moving buckets of dirt and carefully extracting garbage out of holes in the ground, the essential work of cleaning, identifying, and re-categorizing the artifacts begins at the lab. This process enables archaeologists to eventually analyze the clean artifacts and realize their greater context in the site.

An artifact is any artificially crafted object. This includes synthetic materials like plastics and natural objects which have been altered by humans. A carved piece of wood or bone would be considered an artifact. During excavation, we bag artifacts by material type and context. Contexts refer to different layers of dirt in a unit (hole in the ground) which were formed at different times. We retain this information at the lab while meticulously where we first clean each artifact one by one according to their type and context. For example, we could have a bag of artifacts labeled in the field as “unit 3, context 7, metal, July 27, 2014.” We would know which hole this came out of, which part of that hole, which day it was collected, and hopefully that it only contains metal artifacts. In the chaos of the field, we occasionally place an artifact in the wrong bag or collect useless items like naturally-formed glass and insect carapaces. Our time working in the lab gives us a chance to methodically examine each artifact and place it where it belongs, or alternatively reject items that are not actually artifacts.

As historical archaeologists, the sorts of artifacts we encounter are fairly modern. They tend to be within a couple of hundred years old. In the field we differentiate between metal, ceramic, glass, lithics (worked stone), plastic, and animal remains. Occasionally we find artifacts of different materials like leather and brick. For glass, lithics, ceramic, and more durable plastic artifacts, we clean each artifact individually in water with a toothbrush. The rest are gently brushed without water to avoid damaging them. After removing the dirt and plant material from the artifacts, we can then distinguish between subtypes of artifacts. A bag of glass can be sorted into window glass, glass bottles, and milk glass among other types based on shape and color. Cleaning also reveals valuable information such as designs painted on dishes and words embossed on a glass bottle. These sorts of details aid in identifying what an artifact is and when it was first made. This is essential for further analysis.

In one of our units, we uncovered a large section of a plastic rubber hose or pipe insulation against the foundation of a building. I ended up cleaning these artifacts at the lab. After scrubbing off the caked-on dirt, it became clear that there were three layers of plastic material with different colors and textures. One of them was a reddish leathery rubber, and another was a black plastic mesh. Later on, archaeologists can use these details of the artifact’s composition to potentially identify what it is. Determining exactly what this artifact is can dramatically shape our interpretation of its relation to the building foundation and tell us something about what the building was used for.

Excavations at the Smith-Carlton Casa Vieja

Post by FODAAP 2014 Student Elizabeth Flores

I have worked on two different units, one at the Francell property (next to the Post Office!) and another at the “Casa Vieja” house. While both have very interesting stories to tell I would like to focus my attention on the Casa Vieja site which had some features that were, in my experience, unusual to work with. I worked in Unit 3, next to one of the doorways.
To begin I first had to set up my unit which is generally a one by one meter square. In order to prevent any damage to the foundation and adobe wall of the house, about five centimeters of the unit included the wall. This way I could avoid scraping against the wall if it tapered into the unit unexpectedly. Another benefit to having the wall in the unit was being able to see how far down the foundation went. From there I could begin my surface collection which is basically scanning the area inside the square for any artifacts and clearing it of bothersome debris like loose roots and large rocks. Artifacts on the surface are generally the most recent and worn down from the weather. Many times artifacts are moved from where they were originally or moved by other natural forces.

From there I removed the first context layer of dirt. In this unit it was the extremely loose and sandy surface soil that can be found just about anywhere around the property. Usually any surface artifacts can be buried beneath this loose layer which would make sense to find similar kinds of artifacts like glass, ceramic or lithics. The second context was the same kind of dirt only more compact. In this context a giant cottonwood root went straight through the unit. It was really hard to work around it! Eventually, David helped me out and removed it after half a day’s time of hacking at it. Thanks! Roots can also cause some changes to the soil and artifact distribution. As the root grows and decomposes, the soil surrounding it can become soft and mulchy. Also, roots can grow through artifacts and drag them along. For my unit a large number of glass shards were found around the root.

Ending context two soon after the root was removed I quickly realized that there were two very different kinds of soils beneath context two. Context three and four were excavated at the same time as abutting, or “adjacent” layers. Context three was flush against the cement covered adobe wall and formed a loose trench like pit. Using a trowel, I was able to figure out the boundary between the two contexts. It was a very narrow context, only about fifteen centimeters from the wall. This trench probably existed because it was excavated at one point or another to cover the adobe with a layer of cement to protect it. After ten centimeters of the same dirt in the trench and no apparent change in sight I began a subcontext called context 3B which went on for several more centimeters.

As I had mentioned before context four was an extremely compact layer with light colored sand. It was extremely difficult to excavate and I had to resort to using a handpick to get through it. Though this may seem like a cumbersome and useless thing to note, even how heavily compacted an area is can tell us something. My unit was placed right next to a door and the compact area was probably associated to the traffic from the walkway. Below the hard layer was a slightly less compact version, context six with gray ash or cement patches scattered around. There was also degraded adobe probably from a time where the house was in need of repair.

The end of context five was really noticeable by the change of the previous dirt to a reddish brown colored sand with many more pebble and cobble inclusions. From this point on there were no more artifacts found, the last piece being part of the adobe wall. However, just to make sure that there really is nothing else in the context, I continued on for ten more centimeters. When the dirt does not change for a while and no more artifacts can be found we call this “sterile ground”. Reaching sterile ground marks the end of the unit.

To finish off I made the walls as neat as possible and proceeded to map the bottom of the unit and the four walls. I did this because after the final pictures are taken and the unit is filled the maps will be the best record to see what went on while excavating the unit. And then we’re done!

A Key in a Tree

As archaeologists we’re constantly staring down at the ground, looking for the smallest traces of past activities. But, this photo is a reminder that artifacts can be found anywhere, and that the processes of time can distort the original location of material remains- aspects of the archaeological record that archaeologists are always forced to consider.

This skeleton key, also called a lever or bit key, was found imbedded at a fork in the trunk of a bodark tree roughly six feet above the ground! How did this artifact get to this unusual place and what does this key in its unique location tell us about historic activities at the property? Thinking through this situation will provide a peculiar case study to illustrate how archaeologists view artifacts and the ways in which we use micro and macro scales of context along with other lines of evidence to think about the past.

If we step back from the location of the key and look at the larger context of the site we can see that the tree with the imbedded key is itself actually a product of past human activity. What is now a row of trees lining the front of the Smith-Carlton House (La Casa Vieja) actually began as a fencerow. We know from historical documents and oral history that the front of the property was fenced-in using hand-hewn posts made from the bodark tree (Maclura pomifera)- a close-grained and heavy wooded tree that has long been used by humans for windbreak, handles, and, as in this case, fence posts.

Surprisingly, it appears that the original fence posts were able to root and slowly began growing into new bodark trees. We know that they originated as cut fence posts rather than simply using young bodark trees as fence posts because in one of the trees the original hewn post is still visible in the trunk, although it is largely covered by growth.

So, how did this key come to be in the middle of the tree today? My hypothesis would be that the fencepost, in its earlier squarer shape, would have been a convenient spot to place a key. The key was found in the corner post/tree which would have likely served as the access area between the house/stable and the apple orchard to the southwest. When the fence wire or strands were cut, the orchard abandoned, or the activity associated with the use of the key stopped, the key was able to rest in place on the post long enough for the tree to grow around it, trapping it in the trunk. Alternatively, the key may have been hidden on the post when it was a smaller tree. The fork of the tree as it grew from the earlier post would have been a convenient hiding place; out of plain sight for non-family members, but easy to locate for people who would need access to the property. The features of the tree in its earlier form may have functioned much like the fake rock “hide-a-key” of today.

In either case, the activity associated with the key must have ceased at some point in the past, or the location of the key was forgotten for a long enough period that the tree could grow around the artifact. If we could cut the tree at the location of the key and count the tree rings, it could be possible to get a rough date for when the key was abandoned. Counting the rings from the from the bark inward to the key would tell us roughly how many years ago the key was left.

Beyond being an interesting artifact in an even more interesting location, the particularities of this case provide a great example to illustrate how archaeologists make sense of the things they find. The skeleton key itself is an interesting find, but what is really neat is where it was found, and its association to other features on the site. To talk about past human activities and practices- which is what archaeologists are really interested in doing- we have to look at where the key was found in the tree, the association of the tree to other trees on the property, and the association of the row of trees to the structures and the living and working spaces of the house. We also have to look at historical documents and photos and talk to living people who remember when the trees still served as a fence posts. We have to research the type of tree, the unique features of its wood, and its traditional uses by humans in the American West. Tracing back the human processes involved in cutting the posts and building a fence, along with the natural process of tree growth, we are able to incorporate these multiple lines of evidence to create multiple interpretations about how the key came to be where we found it, and what it may have been used for. These interpretations serve as ideas and working hypotheses that are constantly re-addressed as more evidence comes to the surface. As excavations and documentary research continue our ideas change and become more refined, continuously creating a more vivid and humanistic picture of the past.

Do any of you have different interpretations for how the key ended up in the tree trunk or what this unique location can tell us about the past residents of La Casa Vieja? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
-post by FODAAP Staff Member: David Hyde