Archaeologists unearthing life of early integrated town in Illinois
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Independence Day has taken on new layers of meaning for a team of archaeologists who've been digging in western Illinois this summer. In fact, nearly everything about the excavation in the rolling farmland near Barry speaks volumes about freedom and liberty, nearly everything adds a chapter to the American Dream.
Sponsored by a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation's Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program and led by staff from one museum and two universities, including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the dig in the pastureland formerly known as New Philadelphia is uncovering "the contours of the daily life of the first town incorporated by an African American before the Civil War."
So says project co-director Christopher Fennell, an archaeologist who specializes in 18th and 19th century archaeology and African-American history. His co-directors are Paul Shackel, an anthropologist at the University of Maryland, and Terrance Martin, an archaeologist and associate curator at the Illinois State Museum. Members of a local non-profit association and other scholars with whom those community members had first begun working recruited the leaders for their research expertise.
"As archaeologists, we're interested in the lifeways and social history of the dozens of families who lived in the town, but about whom very little is known," said Fennell, a U. of I. research associate who next month will join Illinois' anthropology department as a professor of archaeology.
This sounds like a great project.
Schoolhouse
To most people, the word archaeology conjures up images of Indiana Jones uncovering a lost city in Egypt. However, archaeology is broader than that and can really teach us something about our own history, said Deborah Rotman, assistant professor of anthropology and director of the field school.
Rotman and her class, Anthropology 428, along with teachers from around the state participating in Project Archaeology, are out in the field conducting an excavation of the Wea View Schoolhouse. The remnants of the schoolhouse are located at the corner of Newman and Sharon Chapel roads in Wabash Township. The schoolhouse dates back to at least 1866 and was closed in 1916 and later demolished, making it a perfect case study.
The Purdue Research Foundation, a private not-for-profit organization, now owns the land the schoolhouse was formerly located on, which made it an ideal place to excavate, said Rotman.
Errrr, please disregard that second sentence and continue thinking of archaeology in terms of Indiana Jones. It makes what we do here seem so much more dashing.
Trouble brewing. . . Indian leaders upset over archaeological finds
Some Indian leaders in Utah are upset they weren't told about a canyon filled with nearly untouched ancient settlements.
Archaeologists revealed part of the remote finds this week, although officials have known about the string of hundreds of sites for two years.
An official from the Northwest Shoshone tribe calls it a slight against all American Indians. She says if ancient remains are found, native people should be allowed to do ceremonies before the sites are disturbed because they consider them sacred.
The director of Utah's Indian Affairs division -- who's also a Ute Indian -- says some of the remains could be his ancestors.
A state archaeologist says he planned to notify Indian tribes once digging for artifacts or human remains begins. That hasn't been scheduled yet.
That's the whole thing. This is an update on the supposedly undisturbed Utah sites that have been all over the news recently.
Far more detail here.
Tron?
Plan for Tron restaurant put on back burner
A LONG-AWAITED plan to transform the Tron Kirk into a cafe and restaurant has been shelved due to a lack of cash for the project.
City chiefs confirmed today that there was not enough money to pay for a £1.5 million scheme drawn up by the Scottish Parliament architects to breathe new life into the historic church on the Royal Mile
The decision is a major blow to heritage watchdogs who have been campaigning for a revamp of the council-owned kirk for decades.
It was hoped that Edinburgh City Council would inject around £1m into the scheme with the remainder coming from a joint-venture private partner.
But city leaders have been forced to put the project on the back burner because there is not enough cash in the council’s recreation and leisure budget.
Antiquities Market update I Artifacts feared lost to looters
Archaeologists at eastern Utah's Range Creek collection of Fremont Indian sites believe that two stone blades and a pottery fragment were recently looted from the sites.
Duncan Metcalfe, curator of archaeology with the Utah Museum of Natural History, said Friday that items taken were not worth much money but were valuable in archaeological terms for the information they could have imparted about the Fremonts living in the area.
State and federal officials continue efforts to fast-track temporary security measures for the site.
Antiquities Market update II Vandals plunder ancient dig site
If the vandals who raided a Glen Carbon archaeological dig this week were looking for a lost ark, they were probably disappointed.
Archaeologists at the site, near Illinois Route 157 and Interstate 270, said Friday that they aren’t exactly sure what the looters got away with, but it probably included some 1,000-year-old trash.
"Whatever they got, it’s not like we have silver and gold out here," said Tim Pauketat, an anthropology professor from the University of Illinois. "It’s garbage -- 1,000-year-old garbage."
Pauketat is leading a group of students who are conducting fieldwork at the archaeological dig in Glen Carbon for college credit. The team of archaeologists is investigating the site in an area called Peters Station, where numerous prehistoric house basins and fire and storage pits remain.