Field School Review: James Madison's Montpelier

Field School: James Madison's Montpelier Archaeology Field School
Location: Orange, Virginia
Staff: Montpelier Archaeology Staff headed by Montpelier's Director of Archaeology, Matthew Reeves, and Senior Research Archaeologist, Terry Brock
2015 Season Focus: South Yard Smokehouses
Length: 4 weeks

Overview:

I attended the Montpelier Field School at the beginning of the 2015 season, where we participated in the multi-year project to excavate and reconstruct the South Yard of the mansion property (thanks to funding from David Rubenstein). The South Yard was the location of the domestic slave quarters and living space, and as such, it included two smokehouses, which were the focus of the 2015 season.

We spent roughly three of the four weeks in the field, and three days in the lab. Field excavation consisted of learning how to open and close a unit, excavate and label artifacts, navigate the copious amounts of paperwork, screen dirt, take soil and pollen samples, set up for photos, refine troweling techniques, and keep a field journal among other tasks. Working in the lab consisted of flotation, water screening, gradient sorting, and "picking" and cleaning artifacts. There was a public archaeology aspect to both the field and the lab: we were each responsible for maintaining the Instagram account for a day and interacting with visitors.

We worked Monday through Friday, with weekends off, and a normal work day lasted from about 7:30am to 4:00pm, with two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch break. Typically, we had one tour and one lecture each week. Tours included the mansion and the property, and lectures were given on the history of Montpelier; on ceramics, nails, and bottles; on stratigraphy; on public archaeology; and on a career in archaeology. We were each supposed to work one-on-one with the staff metal detector technicians, but only ended up getting a collective demonstration due to bad weather. There was a field trip to Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest, where we received a tour from the Director of Archaeology, Jack Gary, and learned about the archaeology they're doing there.

Pros & Cons:

• There were two to three students for each staff member, which allowed staff to quickly give guidance and feedback.
• Since Arlington House (where students and interns stay) was on the property, it was a quick and convenient drive to and from the site/lab everyday.
• There were opportunities to get some extra hands-on experience on the weekends, which included volunteering in the lab and digging shovel test pits (STPs). These were optional, and I'm glad I took advantage of both of these opportunities.
• Nearby Charlottesville and Shenandoah made for fun group excursions on the weekends.
• The public archaeology aspect ended up being one of my favorite parts of excavating. I loved explaining the archaeology to visitors, which in turn, helped me to process what we were doing. I had never used Instagram prior to then, and found it a fun and useful way to focus on a particular unit or artifact on the site and to interact with Montpelier's followers.

• Field school students were not only allowed, but also encouraged, to have a car. This made running errands and doing fun things on the weekends much easier, though many people who didn't have their own cars were able to carpool with others. (This is also a "con" because I didn't realize that having my car would make me obligated to transport others for four weeks. It worked out fine, and we all got into a routine where the same people carpooled together, but it would have been nice to know that ahead of time.) I did have to buy towels at the local dollar store to protect my seats and floor from getting stained with dirt - a piece of advice if you find yourself in a similar situation!
• Housing was provided! Again, this was a pro and a con: I didn't have to worry about arranging my own accommodations, but living in a 1850's house with twenty other people was, well, as you might imagine it would be.

Recommend?

Yes! Montpelier's field school was not perfect and there are some additional things that I would have liked to get out of it, but overall, it was a great experience and I learned a great deal.

Advice:

Do your research before applying to field schools. When I began searching for a field school, my criteria was mainly focused on cost and accommodations. I chose Montpelier not only because it satisfied my criteria, but also because they have a good reputation, and information regarding its field school is easily accessible from the website. Additionally, different field schools have different focuses; if you know that you're interested in osteology or zooarchaeology, there are field schools with those focuses that may be better tailored to your specific interests. A great place to start your search is AIA's Archaeological Fieldwork Opportunities Bulletin. I also recently came across ArchaeoDirt, which dedicates an entire tab to submitted field school reviews (on which I've loosely based my review).

Take advantage of your field school! Similar to an internship, field school is a practical learning experience. So ask questions, read all the readings and reports assigned, attend the lectures and tours, participate in optional activities, etc. If you're fully engaged with the experience, you'll take much more away from it, which can only benefit you.

Say thank you. Even if you weren't buddy-buddy with your supervisors, be sure to thank them for their time and expertise. Field school is a great place to network. Your supervisors have been in your shoes, and are valuable resources. At Montpelier, many of the staff were either between their Bachelor's and Master's or between their Master's and Doctorate, had backgrounds ranging from lab technicians to CRM, and were focused on different areas of study such as marine archaeology and GIS. Ask staff about their experiences, their plans, and ask them for advice - and remember that a sincere thank you can go a long way.


* Please note that a field school differs from season to season, with changes in staff, students, research goals, and sites among other aspects. This review is based solely and subjectively on my experience, and is only meant to help you in your own field school search.

Nat Geo's "Indiana Jones and the Adventure of Archaeology" gets thumbs up

A meme I came across previously - NOT from the exhibit.

If you've checked out my interactive image "What is Archaeology?" under the Archaeology tab, then you've already gotten a sense of my "Indiana Jones is more a treasure hunter than an archaeologist" viewpoint. So, naturally, I was a little wary going into the exhibition Indiana Jones and the Adventure of Archaeology. But I really should have had more faith that National Geographic would get it right - and NG did just that.

I was impressed to come across sections of the exhibit dedicated to explaining different archaeological methods and how archaeology has developed over the years - it even addresses key issues that archaeologists often face, such as whether an excavation is necessary. Movie props are used to explain some of the real archaeology behind Indiana Jones' reasoning: for example, the Ark of the Covenant is used to explain how archaeologists use historical documents (e.g. religious texts) to infer information, including locations. Additionally, Jones' selection of the correct Holy Grail exemplifies how artifacts reflect the culture, status, and means of an individual.

For this archaeology student, it was an epic experience to walk through an exhibit balanced with Indiana Jones props (I stood inches from several of Harrison Ford's costumes!) and artifacts from the Penn Museum and the NG archives (such as the world's first map written in Akkadian cuneiform [a language that I've studied] and Hiram Bingham's photo album from his exploration of Machu Picchu [I researched the archaeology of Machu Picchu for a class last fall, and was in awe at seeing the originals of pictures that I'd come across in more recent publications]). Overall, this interactive exhibit was excellent, and receives two thumbs up from me.

Hiram Bingham III, featured in the exhibition, is credited
with the discovery of Machu Picchu - which was
originally reported on by NG Magazine.

The cuneiform map that I mentioned above - how cool!

Indiana Jones and the Adventure of Archaeology will be in Washington, D.C. until January 3, 2016. For more information, check out this link. 

Learning "super dead" languages

A few months ago, while talking with a friend about the ancient languages I'm studying, my friend made a humorous comment (I'm paraphrasing from memory): "Latin is a 'dead' language, right? But people still know it even though it doesn't have native speakers anymore. So if that's a 'dead' language, then is that [pointing to my textbook, A Grammar of Akkadian] a 'super dead' language?"

Fast forward to yesterday: While conducting research for my departmental honors thesis, I skimmed through Jeremy A. Black's Reading Sumerian Poetry, in which he states that much of our understanding of Sumerian is derived from our understanding of Akkadian - our understanding of which is derived from its relationship to other Semitic languages (21). In this way, I can see how my friend thought of these languages as "super dead;" compared to a language such as Latin, which is still prevalent in modern languages and possesses a historical context that is much better preserved, Sumerian and Akkadian are much more removed from society.

Additionally, Black addresses the difficulties of reading ancient languages. (I'd like to preface my commentary by stating that there are, in my opinion, two parts to "reading": (1) recognition [of the words], and (2) comprehension [of what the words mean, as well as what significance they carry within their context]. For example, in order to read the sentence Hannah went to the store, I must first recognize these words, and then comprehend their meanings - such as that Hannah is a proper noun referring to an individual [who she is and what she does may also signify additional meaning]; went is a verb that implies movement from one point to another; to indicates how this movement is working; and the store could refer to several different places and concepts [i.e. the grocery store; the shopping mall; specifically, local]. This concept of reading is just as prevalent in a modern language as it is in an ancient language.) Black acknowledges that our "knowledge of the Sumerian language" is "incomplete" and, thus, causes a lack of satisfaction in understanding and interpreting Sumerian poetry (20). He goes on to discuss the difficulties of interpretation that ensue from this lack of knowledge, such as "ignorance of the precise meaning of a word" (21) and a lack of "historical framework" (23) - both of which concern how external cultural context (whether implicit in the language itself or as part of the greater historical context of the text) affect our reading of a text.

Don't take modern languages for granted - their contexts are much more readily available! Despite the difficulties, learning a "super dead" language is super rewarding. This is just another example of how interconnected culture and language are - and another example of how much we can learn about ancient peoples through their languages!



Black, Jeremy A. Reading Sumerian Poetry. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998. Print.

Gender neutral pronouns?

I came across this article today while scrolling through Twitter, and it is interesting timing as I recently attended a literary performance with Ivan Coyote. Interesting timing, I say, because Ivan openly writes (beautiful, beautiful stories) about their life experiences - including that Ivan is a trans-gendered male.

Going into the event, I had a limited basic understanding of "trans-people" and was confused by the use of pronouns: If an individual is born one gender, but identifies with the other, and accordingly, takes steps up to and including surgery to transform into the gender with which they identify, then why may such an individual employ gender neutral plural pronouns (i.e. they and their)? Is it that some trans-gendered individuals, such as Ivan, have had "top surgery," but not - for lack of better terminology - "bottom surgery," and therefore, are technically both genders?

I am still unclear on this issue of pronouns; regardless, I thought of this matter while reading the above-linked article when it stated that "the need for a gender neutral pronoun is evident." Indeed, Ivan stated, "We've been here," and so, then, has this need for "non-binary" gender pronouns. In order for such additions to be made to the English language, I think our societal gender constructs must (obviously) be disassembled in the process... How long before individuals like Ivan stop being "they" and start being the one person they are meant to be? This is an intriguing issue that appears to be gaining more traction, and I am interested to see how it - and our pronouns - develop.

Hello, and come again

I'm in the process of getting ArchLing up and running, so check back to see what I've added! Things on the docket: resources I swear by as an undergraduate student, a field school review, ruminations on linguistic anthropology, and much more!