The research territories of the 12 Arkansas Archeological Survey Research Stations.

I just returned today from my annual Board of Advisors meeting in Washington, Arkansas.  I think one of the interesting aspects of my job with the Arkansas Archeological Survey is that we actually have a mechanism that makes us responsible to our constituency—the Arkansas public…especially those interested in Arkansas archeology and state heritage.

Each of the AAS Research Stations has a “Board of Advisors”—a group of three people who review our performance every year and make recommendations on future work.  Sometimes these recommendations are suggesting something we should do for the Arkansas Archeological Society (the volunteer organization that lobbied us into existence in the 1960s), sometimes they suggest something that our host institution (in this case Southern Arkansas University) should do for us, sometimes they let our Coordinating Office in Fayetteville know what we need out here in the hinterlands…the BOA acts like a regulatory mechanism between the Survey, the Society and our host institutions…making us reflexive every year and reminding us if we neglect a portion of our mission.  All of the BOAs for the Research Stations also periodically get together and act in the same capacity on a state-wide scale…in short, we are accountable to the public on a very regular basis…

Who are the members of the BOAs?  Well, this year mine includes Bob Campbell, a retired mill-worker from DeQueen (Sevier County); Mia Brewer, a nurse from Ashdown (Little River County), and Peggy Lloyd, the Archival Manager at the Southwest Arkansas Regional Archivesin Washington (Hempstead County).  This year Mia will be rotating off and replaced (we hope…if he agrees to serve) by Don Hall, a heating & cooling guy from El Dorado (Union County).  These are folks are from all walks of life, and (hopefully) from all over my 11 county research territory.  What they have in common is that they interact with the Arkansas Archeological Survey on a regular basis…so they are in a good position to tell us what we are doing right and what we need to improve on.  Some of my BOA members are active field volunteers and members of the Arkansas Archeological Society (like Bob and Don), some are folks in other agencies and organizations that interact with my Research  Station regularly (like Peggy)…They are all members of the Arkansas public at large and stakeholders in what it is I do.

The 11 counties in the AAS-SAU Research Station territory–my stomping grounds.

Some people dread their yearly evaluation…I look forward to mine…and take pride that as a public institution (and a part of the University of Arkansas System), that the Arkansas Archeological Survey has a built-in mechanism that keeps us on track…

This year’s “Day of Archaeology” finds me attempting to reorder my life just following the 2012 Arkansas Archeological Society Summer Training Program.

The 1836 Hempstead County Courthouse is ever present during our work at Historic Washington State Park in Arkansas.

The Arkansas Archeological Society (AAS) was formed in 1960. It is open to anyone—from any walk of life—who is interested in archaeology.  This year I dug alongside retired school teachers, firemen, administrative assistants, college students, engineers, electricians, high school students, retired mill workers, social workers, research foresters, park interpreters (and park superintendents)  and college English instructors.  Many of these so-called avocationals have been doing archaeology for more years than me (some longer than I’ve been alive).  Two of our long time volunteers this year were 86 years old.  Anna Parks has been coming to the AAS “Summer Dig” since the 1970s, and Van Schmutz shoveled all day long in the hot sun despite his age.  Our youngest was 9 years old— Andy Colman who came with her mom, Carolyn, from Chicago, Illinois to learn about archaeology.

Way back in 1964, a series of weekend excavations began under the direction of University of Arkansas Museum archeologists and AAS members.  In the late 1960s the AAS was instrumental in lobbying my organization—the Arkansas Archeological Survey—into existence.  Thus the Survey and Society began partnering on digs by 1967.  By 1972, what had begun as a series of weekend events had expanded into a 16-day training program with excavations at various sites across the state.  Some have claimed that it’s the oldest and best program of its type in the country.

For the second year in a row I had the honor of directing the AAS Summer Dig at Historic Washington State Park in the southwestern portion of the state of Arkansas in the southern United States.  Between June 9 and June 24, 2012 over 100 volunteers and staff helped me investigate the site of an 1830s commercial district on what would have then been the edge of western expansion of the United States (Washington was a border town with first Mexico and then the Republic of Texas until Texas was annexed in the late 1840s).

Volunteers mapping a brick pier during the 2012 Arkansas Archeological Society Summer Training Program in Historic Washington State Park.

The AAS has been doing archaeology in Historic Washington State Park since 1980, but these last two years have focused on the merchant district for which we have very few historical documents.  There are no known photographs and only a single map from 1926—long after fires in the 1870s and 1880s put an end to this vibrant business area.  Over the last two field seasons we have recovered the remains of at least 6 different buildings,  4-6 cellars and/or trash pits and tens of thousands of artifacts that will help us tell the story of this once important regional hub on the edge of the “cotton frontier.”

The archaeology was great, but I am always amazed at the layers of public archaeology going on at these events.  On one level we are teaching the volunteers how to be archaeologists—not only through digging but also through a series of half-day seminars taught in two sessions throughout the dig.  This year we offered Basic Excavation (for first time attendees), Basic Laboratory Procedures, Site Survey, Mapping, Human Osteology, Indians of Arkansas, and Establishing Time (a class that helps volunteers understand dating techniques used by archaeologists).

On a second level of public archaeology, the volunteers and professionals on site then educate the general public about the value and methods of archaeology.  As we were excavating in an Arkansas State Park this year this was done constantly as we has many curious visitors every day.  Although I was “running the show” I rarely had to stop my work to help explain things to visitors as one of my colleagues and/or volunteers would quickly rush in to take over (and even demonstrate) what we were doing.

Of course, although the dig ended on June 24, there is still much to do.  In these days following the 2012 Summer Training Program I (and Carl Carlson-Drexler, my Research Station Assistant) have been moving equipment, organizing paperwork and field notes…Today I’m captioning the hundreds of digital photographs taken during the dig.  The two years of digging in the merchant district in Historic Washington State Park has produced more than twice the amount of artifacts than I recovered during my dissertation research (and I poked at that site for almost a decade!)…so I now have my work cut out for me…

More pictures from the 2012 AAS Summer Training Program can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcbrandon/sets/72157630003963231/

Pictures from last year’s dig (2011) can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcbrandon/sets/72157627004408646/

What?!?, you say…I know, I know…this was a foreign practice to me until I moved to Arkansas in the mid-1990s…all the other organizations across the southeast that I had worked with (and that included academic insitutions, government agencies and contract firms over 12 southeastern states) used either brown paper bags in the field (old school…just like the WPA archaeologists had done generations before us), or used 2-4 mil plastic ziplock bags in the field…

When I first moved to Arkansas and discovered that they used cloth bags for their artifacts in the field, I was shocked..and at first I did not like it one bit—the AAS uses a 2 tag/1 bag system…one tied to the exterior of the cloth bag and one stuffed inside a 4 mil ziplock inside the cloth bag with the artifacts…both with the same provenience information on them…The exterior tag makes sorting easy, the interior tag is a stop-gap in case the exterior tag is torn off…At first I thought this felt redundant and cumbersome, but over the last 2 decades I have come to LOVE the cloth bags.

Brown paper bags have a tendency to rip when overstuffed, and will fall apart if they get damp (and can mold in long-term curation)…the black sharpie label does not get wiped off of a paper bag, however, which is more than I can say for using plastic bags in the field…and if you use plastic in the field, odds are you are going to switch the artifacts to a fresh plastic bag after processing…meaning you’ve just wasted a bag (I’ve seen some folks wash 4 mil bags in the dishwasher…but these folks are rare…and on a tight budget).

Cloth artifact bags filled and waiting processing in the field lab at 2007 Jones Mill excavations

In Arkansas, after coming in from the field, the artifacts are processed and transferred to 4 mil plastic bags with both interior and exterior tags…but the cloth bag gets thrown in the washing machine and used again…some of these bags on my kitchen table have been in use since the 1970s (I know because one on them still has a inked label from the 1972 excavations at Ferguson Mound)…that’s a pretty environmental approach to artifact collection (although I mitigate the “green” approach by using plastic zip-ties to close my bags rather than the traditional cotton string).  The first time I have EVER saw new cloth bags ordered at the AAS was last year—after I had been working with the organization 15 years.  By the way, you can buy them from Forestry Suppliers.

These cloth artifact bags should be enough to get me through the summer dig (note they come in three sizes)…you know what…even if I moved to another state, I think I’d take this idea with me.

Do other folks out there use cloth bags?  or some other type of artifact bag in the field?

These days, Lydia has gotten me into listening to fiction during my long work-related road trips instead of music…This week I had a 8 hour journey up to the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute (and back) to give a talk about the Arkansas Archeological Society’s “Summer Dig.”  I had just finished The Paris Wife, a novel about Hadley Richardson–Ernest Hemmingway’s first wife–so I chose to listen to Hemmingway’s The Sun Also Rises…I chose this book 1) because it was about 7 hours long ; 2) I had not read this novel since high school and 3) I wanted to see what insights The Paris Wife might offer to a reading of the novel.

I got back to Magnolia about mid-day on Wed…I intended to go to the office after a quick lunch…but I made the mistake of laying down for a nap…As I drifted off to sleep, I fumbled with my iPod to find some music to listen to while I snoozed…to my surprise I chose–of all things–Phil Collin’s first solo album Face Value (1981).

As I listened to the infinitely overdubbed horns and drum machines, I began to realize, through the foggy haze of my road-weariness, that there were some obtuse resonances between a couple of the songs and some of the plot points in The Sun Also Rises…next came the realization that I had made these connections before…then came the shock–I knew why I had chosen Face Value…I had been listening to this album when I originally read The Sun Also Rises back in like 1986-87…my subconscious still linked these two works…crazy.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorite, random, surrealistic exchanges in The Sun Also Rises (presaging Henry Miller–one of my favorites):

“Here’s a taxidermist’s,” Bill said. “Want to buy anything? Nice stuffed dog?”
“Come on,” I said. “You’re pie-eyed.”
“Pretty nice stuffed dogs,” Bill said. “Certainly brighten up your flat.”
“Come on.”
“Just one stuffed dog. I can take ‘em or leave ‘em alone. But listen, Jake. Just one stuffed dog.”
“Come on.”
“Mean everything in the world to you after you bought it. Simple exchange of values. You give them money. They give you a stuffed dog.”
“We’ll get one on the way back.”
“All right. Have it your way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault.”

“Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault.”

The Oxford Handbook of Public Archaeology

According to the OUP website, the volume seeks to…

reappraise the place of archaeology in the contemporary world by providing a series of essays that critically engage with both old and current debates in the field of public archaeology.  Divided into four distinct sections and drawing across disciplines in this dynamic field, the volume aims to evaluate the range of research strategies and methods used in archaeological heritage and museum studies, identify and contribute to key contemporary debates, critically explore the history of archaeological resource management, and question the fundamental principles and practices through which the archaeological past is understood and used today.

The volume also includes many friends & colleagues such as Fred McGhee, Adrian Praetzellis, Barbara Little, Michael Nassaney, Margaret Purser, Kevin Bartoy, Patrice Jeppson, Cheryl LaRoche, Alice Kehoe, and David Gadsby…and many, many more (it’s a “cast of thousands”).  Check it out (probably, quite literally…”check it out” of the nearest research library that has the money to buy it).

This post is crossposted from The Society for Historical Archaeology Blog, Current Topics Section. Click here to see that post...

If there’s one thing that the controversies surrounding the Diggers and American Digger reality shows have taught us, it’s that the general American public still does not know how to tell the difference between historical archaeologists, and the treasure hunters who are currently on their TV screens.  Furthermore, this lack of public knowledge helps to make our protests sound like the “ivory tower elite” complaining because we are the only people who should be allowed to use the very resource of which we also claim to be guardians.  We talk a lot in archaeology, anthropology—and even academia in general— about being more “public” or becoming “public intellectuals,” the reality, however, is that we are still not doing enough.

Back in September, The Chronicle of Higher Education‘s ProfHaker blog posted an open question to its readers—“How do you make your work visible?”  The post was about the fact that we need to be able to engage people outside the academic world.  We should, at least, be able to explain 1) what we do and 2) why it is important.  According to the post, academia has a “self-induced opacity that makes it difficult for anyone outside colleges and universities to understand—or even care—what it is scholars and teachers do.”  I think this is further underscored for anthropology (a discipline of which very few Americans have general knowledge).  In fact, about the same time last fall, the American Anthropologist reprinted Jeremy Sabloff’s excellent 2010 AAA distinguished lecture “Where have you gone, Margret Mead? Anthropology and Public Intellectual” in which Dr. Sabloff states:

“Anthropologists have important, practical knowledge, but the mainstream, public and policy maker alike, generally does not understand or appreciate our insights. But we all are in a position to change this situation. I will try to tell you why and how in the pages that follow. The title of my article—with apologies to Paul Simon—is “Where Have You Gone, Margaret Mead?,” but perhaps in a more direct manner it could have been “We Urgently Need Anthropological Public Intellectuals.”

However, Sabloff seems to making a call for some sort of “anthropological superstar” to appear; someone who will be a pundit on all the chat shows and spar with Anderson Cooper about public policy.  It feels to me like waiting for such a charismatic superstar anthropologist (or historical archaeologist for that matter) to take the stage and capture America’s hearts and minds allows us to shirk our duty to become public intellectuals.  This doge is especially convenient for young scholars as the academy still does not value public outreach.  As Matt Thompson has pointed out in his “We Don’t Need Another Hero” blog post for Savage Minds: “You can’t make a career publishing in journals of history, American studies, or education. If you want to be an anthropologist you are expected to publish in anthropology journals. Interdisciplinarity [and public outreach] be damned.” Thompson goes on to say…

“What I’m trying to say is don’t sit around waiting for the next Margaret Mead…Find something where you are, some way to play a role however small and do it. It doesn’t have to be hard. You don’t have to write a grant. Just share what you know and what you do with the people around you.”

I am lucky in this regard.  My job as Research Station Archeologist with the Arkansas Archeological Survey has a sort of “built in” public outreach component—one that dovetails nicely with my own personality and desire to interact with (and educate) the outside world (yeah, I’m an egoist that way…In fact, “public intellectual” may be a fancy buzz word for someone who, for whatever deep psychological reason, feels he/she must perform in public).

Jamie Brandon gives a talk about the Arkansas Archeological Society's Summer Training Program in El Dorado, AR in 2011.

In addition to teaching, research and volunteer excavations, I have given over 100 public talks over the last 5 years (averaging a bit more than one a month).  Over the past two years, I have been a part of two documentaries produced by AETN (Arkansas Educational Television)—one about cemetery preservation in the state  (Silent Storytellers, released March 11, 2010) and one about why we should commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War in Arkansas (Arkansas CW150, released April 29, 2011).  Interestingly, although these are important outreach efforts (and efforts that are considered a part of my job), I personally feel that my use of digital and social media (listservs, blogs, Facebook and Twitter) have been a more important outreach tool for me.  I get as much feedback from my on-line presence as I do the documentary TV shows, and this underscores Thompson’s point above—“Just share what you know and what you do with the people around you.”

I understand that I am blessed with a job that values public outreach, but there are many, many, many great examples of individuals in the academy, government agencies and the private sector that mange to make public outreach their business despite the heavy demands from research, teaching, setting public policy or trying to make a profit.  I am grateful to these folks—from Judy Bense (President of the University of West Florida ) who hosts a very popular one-minute daily radio program “Unearthing Pensacola” on the local National Public Radio affiliate (WUWF 88.1 FM), to my friend Greg Vogel who (although an Assistant Professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville with a heavy teaching load) regularly writes newspaper columns and does a monthly interview on a morning news/talk show on WJBM 1480 AM, Jerseyville, Illinois, to our current SHA president Paul Mullins giving talks at places like Brownsburg High School in Brownsburg, Indiana.  This last event I only know about because Mullins posted it on Facebook last week.  If I may underscore my point above about social media, through the very simple and quick act of posting a phone picture, Mullins told almost 400 people who follow him on Facebook and Twitter about “what he does.”

On the larger scale, we need to change how we view public outreach in our discipline.  In 2009 when PBS aired Time Team America, some of my colleagues (and you know who you are) expressed condescending opinions about the show and what they thought of as “prostituting” science for public consumption.  I would urge them to rethink these views.  Time Team may not be Sabloff’s “anthropological superstar,” but wouldn’t you rather have a show that taught the general public what we do, how we do it and why it is important in place of the current crop of reality shows?

We should all participate on some level in the public arena…and we need to change the structural disciplinary biases against public outreach.  If we do not, others will fill that vacuum in American popular culture—others like Diggers and American Digger.

If we are unhappy with these shows (including Time Team America?), we need to ask ourselves “What should the public image of historical archaeology look like?” and “How do we get there?”  I believe the answer is not in a single pop culture icon (i.e., Mead) or show (i.e., Time Team), but in all of us doing small, daily acts of outreach.  So we all need to ask ourselves on a regular basis, “What have I done lately to tell people what I do, and why it is important?”…What are you doing to make historical archaeology visible?

References Cited

Sabloff, Jeremy A. (2011) “Where Have You Gone, Margaret Mead? Anthropology and Public Intellectuals,” AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 113, No. 3, pp. 408–416.

]]> http://fartheralong.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/making-academics-visible-community-outreach-and-education/feed/ 4 DSC_0126 fartheralong SHACurrentTopics1-300x110 jcbtalk http://fartheralong.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/more-digging-for-history/ http://fartheralong.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/more-digging-for-history/#comments Tue, 13 Mar 2012 21:35:09 +0000 fartheralong http://fartheralong.wordpress.com/?p=1118 Continue reading →]]> I am happy to announce that the Arkansas Archeological Society will be returning to the historic town of Washington, Arkansas for the 2012  Summer Training Program.  I personally had a great time last year, and hope that many of you who participated in the 2011 dig had half as much fun as I had excavating the remains of this incredible historic town.

We and our gracious hosts (Historic Washington State Park and the Pioneer Washington Restoration Foundation, Inc.) would also like to invite all of you who did not make it to the 2011 dig to come and participate this year as we continue to “dig for history.”  Washington is both picturesque and packed full of the past.  In the words of Mary Kwas (whose book title, Digging for History at Old Washington, we’ve cribbed here for my own uses)

“A visit to Historic Washington…provides a fascinating glimpse into Arkansas’s past.  Visitors can walk along the same unpaved streets that were laid out in the early nineteenth century, see houses that were built over 150 years ago, and enjoy the shade of large-grown catalpas, magnolias, and other ornamental trees planted by the town’s residents so long ago.” (Kwas 2009:1-2).

Moreover, Kwas points out that the vacant lots in Washington “hide clues buried in the soil that can tell us more about the lives of nineteenth-century people than what can be seen in the houses or found in history books” (Kwas 2009:2).  In fact, the Arkansas Archeological Survey and the Society have been conducting archeological excavations in Washington since 1980 (Brandon and Markus 2011:4; Stewart-Abernathy 1981)—including five Arkansas Archeological Society Summer Training Programs (1981-1984 and 2011).  Dr. Stewart-Abernathy, who lead most of the excavation efforts in Washington over the last thirty years, has often referred to the town as the best preserved historic site in the Old Southwest (remember that Washington was a border town until Texas was brought into the Union in 1845).

First session crew shot of the 2011 Arkansas Archeological Society Summer Training Program in Historic Washington. Taken in front of the Abraham Block House.

Washington, Arkansas

Those of you who attended the 2011 dig got a good feel for Washington and its place in history—we were given several guided tours of the historic buildings, danced period dances with Washington’s regular dance workshop and were even treated to ragtime jazz music one evening on the lawn of the 1874 Courthouse.

For those of you who have not been to Washington yet, you are in for a treat.  The town was founded in 1824 along what was known as the Old Southwest Trail (once a major trading route running from St. Louis to the Red River Valley in eastern Texas).  Since then, Washington has been witness to much of the historical changes that have affected the nation through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In the early and mid-nineteenth century Washington was major regional center of commerce and government that served the local “cotton frontier” as well as providing an important stop and resupply point for migrants heading into Texas and points west (Kwas 2009:3; Stewart-Abernathy 1981, 1990:8).  During the Civil War, after the fall of Little Rock in 1863, Washington served as the capital of Confederate Arkansas (Stewart-Abernathy 1981).  It escaped destruction during the war, and the post-war recovery was suggested by the construction of a new brick courthouse in 1874.  However, postbellum Washington was soon eclipsed by a new railroad town—Hope, Arkansas—which had been constructed just a few miles to the south on the Cairo and Fulton Railway (Stewart-Abernathy 1990:9) in 1872.  Through the remainder of the turn-of-the-century era, Washington struggled to keep its place as the commercial and governmental center of the region, but it continued to lose population, businesses and eventually the county seat to Hope (Stewart-Abernathy 1990:9).

However, this economic hardship was a boon in disguise for historic preservation—as many of the original antebellum buildings in Washington survive to this day.  Restoration and tourism have indeed been important aspects of the town in the twentieth century—from the Daughters of the Confederacy saving the 1836 Courthouse in 1929, to all of the work conducted by the Pioneer Washington Restoration Foundation from 1958 through to today, early preservationists laid the foundation for what we will see in Washington during the 2012 Summer Training Program.  Today the town also is home to what is now known as Historic Washington State Park (founded 1973).  Jointly, the park, the city government and the Pioneer Washington Restoration Foundation are dedicated to preserving and interpreting the history of the town and Arkansas to thousands of visitors every year.  This summer we will be happy to be a couple hundred of those thousands of visitors.

What Happened at the 2011 Training Program?

As I have pointed out in earlier articles (Brandon 2011: 3; Brandon and Markus 2011:4-5), the majority of the past archeological work in Washington has been associated with the homes of prominent individuals (e.g., Simon Sanders, Abraham Block, and Grandison Royston) or public spaces (e.g., the 1836 Courthouse).  Additionally, although these past excavations have sought to uncover lost landscapes (such as detached kitchens, slave quarters, and other ancillary structures), they have all taken place next to standing structures.  Our work last summer was different in various ways. The 2011 summer dig focused on Block 6—the now empty lot that was once the home of the earliest merchant district in the town (1830s through the 1880s).  Our remote sensing survey and excavations have shed much light on what this block might have looked like in the nineteenth century.  In total, we identified at least four new buildings (maybe more) none of which can be found on existing historical maps or photographs (how is that for demonstrating the usefulness of historical archeology).

Arkansas Archeological Society member Tony Caver contemplates a whole bottle in Feature A-5 before mapping and excavating it.

In Area A we uncovered the east wall of a large post-in-ground structure that we now believe to be a possible merchant warehouse used between the 1830s and 1870s.  Nearby, we also uncovered a cistern that I originally suspected to serve the warehouse—but we found that it dates to the 1850s (but was filled in the 1920s) and most likely served an entirely different structure in the northwest corner of Block 6.  In Area B (the north central portion of Block 6) the Basic Excavation seminar uncovered a large feature which is probably a cellar for a small structure that appears (along with what seems to be an as-yet-unexcavated outbuilding) on several of our geophysical technologies.  Finally, along the eastern margin of Block 6 (Area C), we uncovered relatively intact limestone and brick foundations of 1830s storefronts facing Franklin Street—along the Old Southwest Trail.  For a more detailed description of the preliminary interpretations of what we found in 2011 in Areas A, B, and C, be sure a check out my article in the November/December issue of Field Notes (Brandon 2011).

Plans for the 2012 Training Program

This summer we plan on both continuing excavations in some of the same areas that we worked on during the 2011 dig, and opening new excavations in new areas.  We do not plan on reopening excavations in Area A in 2012.  This area is where the vast majority of excavations were located during the 2011 summer dig (21 2×2 meter excavation units to be exact).  I feel that the 2011 work has given us enough data to hypothesize a date range and function for the structure (and even evidence of the fire that brought about its demise).  So we will be shifting our efforts this year to Area C and the new Area D.

First, the Basic Excavation seminar will continue to work on units in Area B—completing the units begun in 2011 and opening more units (perhaps locating the outbuilding hinted at in our geophysical data).  This year the Basic Excavation Seminars will be led by Drs. Mary Beth Trubitt and Elizabeth Horton…Under such great leadership, I have high hopes that much will be accomplished in Area B this year.

Excavation Areas on Block 6 mentioned in this article with the resistivity data from the geophysical survey of the block as a backdrop.

At Area C, we will be uncovering as much of the storefront brick scatter as possible.  However, instead of excavating each unit to subsoil on its own (as we did in 2011), we will be uncovering the entire shape of the brick scatter in as many units as we can.  After uncovering the dimensions of the feature, we will then “punch through” the scatter in all of the units recovering the material lodged within the brick rubble separately.  Following that, we can investigate the possibility that these store fronts may have had below-grade cellars (a notion suggested in the last profile of the last unit that we completed in 2011).

The other large task for the 2012 field season will be to begin work in what will call “Area D”—Block 6, lot 4, or the northwest quadrant of Block 6.  This is the vicinity of the mysterious structure that may be associated with Feature A-1—the 1850s cistern.  It is possible that this is either a domestic dwelling or storefront belonging to Augustus Crouch.  We simply need to gather basic information about this structure.  Does it, in fact, date to the 1850s?  Is it domestic as initial units suggest?  How long was it occupied?  All of these questions and more await our excavations.

Finally, if we can manage the time and logistics, we will tackle the excavation of half of the remainder of Feature A-1 (the 1850s cistern).  During the 2011 summer dig we excavated the south half of the cistern to a depth of 140 cm below the surface—as far as we were able to go safely without shoring up the excavation trench.  As the end of the field season we carefully backfilled the feature in hopes of returning to open up a wider trench that can be properly stepped or supported by scaffolding.  There could be as much a 7-9 more feet of fill in the cistern, so we have much more to discover.

Last year at the 2011 AAS Summer Training Program we had great archeology, sandy soils, few mosquitoes, and great facilities.  We hope to continue that tradition this year when we return to the historic town of Washington for another round of summer fun.  I hope to see you all in June!

 

References Cited

Brandon, Jamie C.  2011  Preliminary Results of the 2011 AAS Summer Training Program at Historic Washington, Arkansas.  Field Notes 363:3-9.

Brandon, Jamie C., and David Markus 2011  Digging for History:  The Arkansas Archeological Society Training Program Returns to the Town of Washington in Southwest Arkansas.  Field Notes 359:3-7.

Kwas, Mary L. 2009  Digging for History at Old Washington.  University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville.

Stewart-Abernathy, Leslie C. 1981  Historical Archeology at Old Washington: 1981.  Field Notes 179:4-51990   The Archeology of Antebellum Washington, Arkansas.  Unpublished grant proposal submitted to the National Endowment for the Humanities.

**this post was submitted as an article to Field Notes: the Newsletter of the Arkansas Archeological Society 02/28/2012**

]]> http://fartheralong.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/more-digging-for-history/feed/ 1 DSC_4256 fartheralong DSC_4002a DSC_4256 2012 AAS Dig Excavation Areas http://fartheralong.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/third-times-the-charm-or-new-yearnew-beginning/ http://fartheralong.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/third-times-the-charm-or-new-yearnew-beginning/#comments Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:31:10 +0000 fartheralong http://fartheralong.wordpress.com/?p=1109 ]]>

01/01/2012

]]> http://fartheralong.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/third-times-the-charm-or-new-yearnew-beginning/feed/ 0 BFRJ-BPNRX_2 fartheralong 01012012 http://fartheralong.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/bobby-joe-hand-antonio-gramsci-an-obituary/ http://fartheralong.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/bobby-joe-hand-antonio-gramsci-an-obituary/#comments Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:57:28 +0000 fartheralong http://fartheralong.wordpress.com/?p=1029 Continue reading →]]>

Bobby Joe Hand in the late 1980s.

My great-uncle Bobby Joe Hand, age 71, is being buried today at Flatwoods Methodist Church near Eva, Tennessee.  I am in Magnolia, Arkansas, and I wish I was there.

I am an academic, so I deal with things in academic ways…in this case writing.  This blog post is about mourning (or paying tribute to) a family member, and (more selfishly), about being away from your family in times of need.

Bob Hand was my mother’s mother’s brother.  This might not seem like a particularly close connection in some families.  However, as both of my parents are only children I have no uncles or aunts.  If you put this together with how young my parents were when they gave birth to me, you have a recipe for great-uncles feeling like uncles (in fact, some of my cousins feel like uncles, too).

Bobby was very dear  to my grandmother–Billie Jean (Hand) Deason.  He was her “little brother,” and, more importantly, he was a quick-witted joker.  You almost never left an encounter with Bob when you did not smirk, smile or chuckle a little. My grandmother always told me that his given name was “Bobby Joe”–not “Robert Joseph.”  As someone who is named “Jamie” (not  short for “James”), this is something I could appreciate.

Now that I sit down to write, I realize that I know surprisingly little about Bob’s early life.  I know that he was a part of a large family deeply rooted in south Georgia peanut farming.  I know that he served in the US Army, that he once lived in San Antonio and that he worked in the construction industry in the Atlanta area.  Bobby and his wife Madge really came into my life sometime in the 1980s when they bought some land and built a “cabin” near my grandparents in Eva, Tennessee.  Bob must have done well in the Atlanta construction business (they are always building in Atlanta, right?), because he and Madge soon came to Tennessee permanently… in a sort of “semi-retirement.”  I say “semi” because they immediately started farming (cows, corn and soybeans) and Bob soon ended up running the local Farmer’s Co-op. When my Grandfather Deason passed away, Bob and Madge came to not only farm their own land, but the 300 acres that my grandparents had farmed before (this is sounding less, and less like retirement, eh?).

Bob Hand was smart and resourceful.  He would challenge whatever platitude you put forth…he was a great debater.  He did not accept received truths.  He loved to hold forth on world affairs, politics, business, and ….well…anything.  We even had a conversation once about how some anthropologists thought that Leviticus was against pigs because they competed against people for food while other animals turned inedible stuff (grass) into edible stuff (meat and milk)…Bob quickly said: “well if that’s it, they’re fine to eat now…they all eat corn these days.”

This is why I want to talk about Bobby Joe Hand and Antonio Gramsci (an unlikely pairing in most regards).

Antonio Gramsci

Every good anthropology graduate student knows a little about Antonio Gramsci…unfortunately, they often know only a little.  Mostly, they read a couple snippets of his work and then attempt to talk with an air of great authority on the subject.  For those of you not chained up in the ivory tower, however, I will say that Gramsci was one of the most influential social theorists of the 20th century.  He was a founding member of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime (his “prison notebooks” are his most cited work).  Gramsci’s writings were heavily concerned with culture and the nature of political leadership.

What does an Italian Marxist convict have to do with a Georgia/Tennessee farmer?  Well…I’ll tell you (the anthropologists in the audience already have a clue where I am going…I hope).

Gramsci thought that we had been hoodwinked into thinking that intellectuals were only “men of letters,” professors, and learned clerics.  He thought that there were men who were “organic intellectuals”–folks who did not have “book learnin” but, nevertheless could be important critical thinkers.  “All men are intellectuals,” wrote Gramaci, “…each man..carries some form of intellectual activity, that is, he is a ‘philosopher, an artist, a man of taste, he participates in a particular conception of the world, has a conscious line of moral conduct, and therefore contributes to sustain a conception of the world or to modify it, that is to bring into being new modes of thought.” (Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, 1997, p.9).

In this light Booby Joe Hand was a real intellectual–an organic intellectual.  I have a Ph.D., but Uncle Bobby was one of the best critical thinkers I have ever met.  I wish I could bottle the way he thought and make my students drink it (but, then again, they would constantly argue with me after that….I’d better think about this).

I hope the folks at the funeral are making the occasional straight-faced, snarky comment…in honor of Bob.

A more recent photo of the Hand clan: Bobby Joe, his wife Madge & their daughter Leanne.

]]> http://fartheralong.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/bobby-joe-hand-antonio-gramsci-an-obituary/feed/ 2 BJD51 fartheralong bobby2 200px-Gramsci 295980_10150322168783550_628248549_8034191_745217180_n(1) http://fartheralong.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/preliminary-results-of-the-2011-aas-summer-training-program-at-historic-washington-arkansas/ http://fartheralong.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/preliminary-results-of-the-2011-aas-summer-training-program-at-historic-washington-arkansas/#comments Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:57:39 +0000 fartheralong http://fartheralong.wordpress.com/?p=982 Continue reading →]]> In other contexts I have said that historical archeology is often about what is no longer there—at least what is no longer visible on the surface of things. This is very much the case with our work this summer in historic Washington, Arkansas. The majority of the past work at Washington has been associated with domestic yards (e.g., Sanders House and the Abraham Block House) or public space (e.g., the 1836 Courthouse) next to standing structures. Little work has focused on vacant lots or the commercial spaces that made Washington the important regional service center it was in the early nineteenth century. We changed all of that this summer when the 2011 Arkansas Archeological Society’s Summer Training Program conducted excavations on Block 6. This area is currently a vacant lot (and has been for most of the twentieth century), but from the 1830s through the 1880s it was the heart of the town’s mercantile district.

From my perspective (as Dig Director) the Summer Training Program (AKA “The Society Dig”) was a success this year. We learned a great deal in all three (or four depending on how you count them) excavation areas. We recovered tens of thousands of artifacts—mostly from the mid- to late nineteenth century. Additionally, many of these artifacts pointed directly to merchant activity on the block: rolls of sheet copper to be cut and sold, a variety of types of scale weights, and, of course, coins to be used in these economic transactions.

We discovered that the large square anomaly in the remote sensing data looks to be a merchant warehouse in operation from the 1830s until the 1870s (Area A). We learned that there are intact foundations of 1830s brick merchant store fronts along Franklin Street—the old Southwest Trail (Area C). We discovered a 1850s cistern that served a building we did not even know was there (Area A prime), and we discovered a small cellar to a building with fill dating from the 1830s up through the 1930s in Area B. We had over 100 volunteers and staff out on the dig. Despite the hot, dry conditions, I think we had a good time and made some good discoveries. Below, I will briefly outline what we have learned so far about each excavation area.

Area A: Possible Merchant Warehouse 1830s-1870s

 Following Dr. Lockhart’s remote sensing survey in March, we had one very large and clear target for excavation—a 20 meter by 20 meter square anomaly that was discernible in multiple technologies. This target seemed to be either a big building or a fenced in area such as a wagon yard. Naturally, we had many questions about this anomaly—what does it date to? Was it commercial or domestic? Was it a warehouse? A hotel? A very affluent home? By the end of the summer, both historical documents and our excavations helped us formulate a hypothesis.

The overall remote sensing maps of Block 6 showing the results of 5 technologies (the last 2 are GPR). Notice the large square structure (showing with the arrow) that shows up in the resistance and GPR data, image courtesy of Dr. Jami Lockhart.

In total, we excavated over twenty-one 2m by 2m test units into Area A. Five of these were excavated during the Arkansas Archeology Month “Spring Break Dig” and the remainder during the Society Dig in the month of June. Our “Spring Break Dig” recovered cultural material dating to the 1830s-1870s. We also discovered that many of the strongest anomalies in this area were due to a hard, brick-red soil found near the surface in many, but not all, of our excavation units. I first thought this might be construction fill that had been used to level the lot. I hypothesized that the square-shape of the large remote sensing anomaly was due to the fact that this soil filled in the depressions of old building foundations. However, our summer excavations disproved this hypothesis and instead revealed that the red, hardened soil is the product of intense in situ burning—with the strongest burning occurring along the eastern wall of the large square anomaly. This looks to be direct evidence of the late nineteen century fires that devastated Block 6 and brought an end to the old Washington commercial district.

Even more unexpected is the fact that our excavations encountered neither continuous foundations (as might be suggested by the geophysics) nor the occasional brick piers (as we have encountered during other excavations in Washington). Instead we unearthed a 25cm wide wall trench underneath the burned zone complete with a series of posts (some of which showed evidence of burning themselves). As post-in-ground construction is not incredibly common in Washington, we briefly considered that this might be a fenced area (such as a wagon yard) after all. However, the discovery of relatively large concentrations of bricks (enough for a chimney fall), a concentration of flat glass along the eastern wall of the anomaly (indicating that the structure had windows), and, finally, the discovery of a large (over 50 m wide and 175cm deep) central support post all pointed toward a large, barn-like structure.

Combining what we know from our excavations with what limited historical documents we have, I currently suspect that our square anomaly could possibly be the “large white frame” structure built by merchant Matthew Gray by 1833 (mentioned in the deed records), but it is more likely the “warehouse” behind the storefront on Block 6, lot2 operated by David and Virginius Block by the 1860s. Although. Of course, these two buildings may be one in the same. In the interim, I can say that the artifacts recovered from the Area A excavations are consistent with a 1830s to 1880s building used as a merchant warehouse and a 1830s warehouse might, indeed, look very much like a barn. Further analysis and excavations may give us more clues.

Area A’: 1850s cistern filled in during the late 1920s

 A rather concentrated, circular anomaly on the western edge of Block 6 closely aligned with the north wall of the large, square Area A structure could be discerned in several remote sensing technologies. This anomaly was also readily visible on the ground due to a dramatic vegetation difference. Given its size and position, I initially suspected that it might be a well, or similar feature, serving the Area A structure. My interest was further peaked when I realized that it did not show up on the 1926 Sanborn Fire Insurance map of Block 6. As this map, the only extant historic map of Block 6, had been drafted for the purpose of fire insurance it would have most definitely noted the presence and usefulness of any water source on the block. The map shows the outline of a 1920s boardinghouse on lot 3 with a back ell extending toward the anomaly, but nothing in the actual location of the geophysical signature. If this anomaly was a well or cistern it would have had to have been filled prior to the drafting of the 1926 map. As I theorized that this possible well might have served the Area A structure, I elected to not consider this a separate excavation area, but to treat it as an “annex” to excavation Area A—calling it Area A “prime” (notated as Area A’).

Six 2m by 2m test units were excavated in Area A’ during the June Society Dig and the brick-lined rim of Feature 1 was encountered within the first 10cm level in Test Units 16 and 17. Feature 1 turned out to be a moderate-sized, brick-lined, bell-shaped cistern—complete with a charcoal-filled filter box. Although the top of the cistern had been sheared off (and bricks scattered along the surface of the opening), the cistern was, for the most part, intact and in excellent condition. A wide builder’s trench could be easily discerned around the exterior of the brick structure and the cistern had been backfilled with dark, organic midden probably scrapped from the surrounding block.

Interestingly, while expanding our excavations to uncover the cistern’s filter box, we discovered unforeseen foundations and rubble-filled trenches that could be contemporary—or even predate—our cistern. These foundations, along with the position of the filter box, have led me to conclude that the Feature 1 cistern did not serve the large Area A warehouse structure as I originally speculated. It most likely served a building on Block 6, lot 4 that did not show up on the remote sensing survey. Artifacts recovered from the rubble-filled trenches indicate that the building (and thus the cistern) dates to the 1850s, and excavation units on the back side of lot 4 suggest that it might be domestic, not commercial, in nature. This would mean that the cistern and associated buildings were built about the same time that Augustus Crouch—Washington jeweler and watchmaker—married his wife and purchased the property on lot 4. Although Crouch builds a Greek revival home on a farm just outside of town almost a decade later (which has since been moved into Washington and restored), this is possibly the site of a previous Crouch home. Again, this is a preliminary speculation and requires further investigation to be evaluated.

1850s cistern and associated features uncovered during the Arkansas Archeological Society Summer Training Program in Historic Washington, Arkansas. AAS-SAU-DI-2011-5108.

Over the course of the Society Dig, we were able to excavate about half of the cistern down to a depth of 140 cm below the surface—as far as we were able to go safely without shoring up the excavation trench. The artifacts recovered from the fill ranged from the 1830s through the late 1920s; indicating that the cistern had been filled shortly before the 1926 Sanborn map had been made. This, along with the material from the previously mentioned builder’s trenches, gives Feature 1 a use-life beginning sometime in the 1850s and ending in the latter half of the 1920s. Whatever its fill date, Feature 1 was certainly popular with Society members and with visitors alike. Although many people voiced their desire to see the cistern excavation left open for visors, the sandy, erosion prone soil of Washington makes this both destructive (from and archeological point of view) and dangerous (from any point of view). Therefore, at the end of the end of the field season, the cistern was carefully backfilled until we can return to open up a wider excavation trench that can be properly stepped or supported by scaffolding. There could be as much as 7-9 more feet of fill in the cistern, so we have much more to discover.

Area B: Possible cellar with material dating from the 1830s-1920s

 Dr. Lockhart’s geophysical data also indicated two small roughly square anomalies in north central portion of Block 6. These anomalies had the potential to be a small dwelling and a secondary outbuilding (perhaps a privy). During the 2011 Society Dig we placed four 2m by 2m text excavation units over the larger of these two anomalies. This was the area that our basic excavation class worked in during the first and second session of the dig. Although we did not get to the bottom of the deposits in this area, we can say that these units yielded a rich midden containing many artifacts dating widely from the 1830s through the 1930s. We can also say that the larger remote sensing anomaly in Area B appears to be a shallow trash pit or, more probably, root cellar. We were able to profile this feature in several units and estimate its diameter, but there is still a lot of work to do in Area B in order to understand the nature of these features.

Area C: Merchant Storefronts 1830s-1880s

 The biggest surprise of the 2011 field season was the excavations in Area C. Although Dr. Lockhart’s remote sensing data revealed anomalies that looked to be the footprints of storefronts along Franklin Street, the fact that there appeared to be very little intact midden on the eastern portion of the block made me skeptical of fruitful deposits being encountered during the summer excavations. I estimated that we would place three 2m by 2 m units in the area, prove that the remains of the storefronts were ephemeral at best, and then we would close down Area C excavations in order to concentrate on Area A. I could not have been more wrong.

Relatively intact 1830s limestone foundations were encountered just centimeters below the surface in Test Unit 19 and a substantial brick scatter was encountered around these foundations and spilling into Test Unit 18.

In total six 2m by 2m test units were excavated in Area C. We can say after the summer excavations that the shape of the remote sensing anomaly seems to roughly equate to the area of the brick scatter.  As there is far more brick than can be explained by a chimney fall or brick pier foundation, this leads me to conclude that these storefronts were brick structures. The material recovered from within the brick scatter attests to both the commercial nature of the buildings and to an early date. Hand blown apothecary bottles (like the ones found at Old Davidsonville), lead bail seals for marking bundles of goods for inventory purposes, and, most spectacularly, money.

Aside for the large brick cistern itself, our most popular discoveries this summer were two coins that were both recovered from within the Area C brick scatter. The first of these, discovered by AAS member Steve Jacober, was an 1827 silver half dollar (Figure 7). This would have been a relatively common coin in early America as they have the third highest mintage of the entire series, exceeded only by 1834 and 1836. Nevertheless, it would have been a substantial amount of money when the merchant (or consumer) lost it in the mid-nineteenth century. This coin could buy the equivalent of about $10 worth of goods and services today.

The second of these coins was a 1780s Spanish colonial 1 Real coin recovered by new AAS member Vanessa Salas. This silver coin was heavily corroded and had been pierced at the head, but when it was freshly minted it would have shown a bust of Charles III of Spain on the obverse and pair of pillars separated by a crowned simple shield with lions, castles, pomegranate and the centralized three fleurs-de-Lis. This coin was probably struck in Mexico, Lima, Bogotá, Guatemala, Potosi, Santiago, Popayan, or Cuzco—all of which had colonial mints working between 1771 and 1825.

Of course, this coin was not dropped on the site during the 1780s—it had been in circulation more than 70 years before it entered the archeological record. The appearance of an eighteenth-century Spanish coin on a nineteenth-century American frontier site might surprise some readers, but it is not uncommon. The reason that Spanish Reales are often found at historic sites in the US is that, due to the scarcity of US minted currency and the very real silver content of Spanish and French coins, foreign currency was just as much in use in early America as was domestic coins. Coins like the Spanish 8 Reales (or “eight bits”) were legal currency in the US until 1857. Thus you often find cut fractions of larger silver coins (i.e., “pieces of eight”), or smaller 1 Real coins (“one bit,” roughly equivalent to an American dime) such as the one recovered from Area C, on American sites before the 1850s. In our context, the fact that Washington was a town bordering Mexico (before the Texas Revolution of 1836), underscores the connections to Latin America and the appropriateness of uncovering Spanish colonial currency on the site.

The Next Step: Plans for Next Year

I am pleased to report that in late August the Arkansas Archeological Society’s Executive Board approved returning to historic Washington for the 2012 Society Dig. The staff at the AAS-SAU Research Station and the members of the Kadohadacho Chapter of the Arkansas Archeological Society are busy making plans and getting ready for the return to Block 6. At this point we can give you some idea of what our goals might be for the 2012 Society Dig.

First, I would like to uncover as much of the storefront brick scatter in Area C as we can. Instead of excavating each unit to subsoil on its own (as we did this summer), I would like to uncover the entire shape of the brick scatter in as many units as we can.  After uncovering the dimensions of the feature itself, we then could “punch through” the scatter in all of the units recovering the material lodged within the brick rubble separately. Following that, we can investigate the possibility that these store fronts may have had below-grade cellars (a notion suggested in the last profile of the last unit that we completed last summer in Area C).

The second large task for the 2012 field season may be to further investigate the mysterious structure on Block 6, lot 4—the possible 1850s home owned by Augustus Crouch. We would need to gather basic information about this structure.  Does it, in fact, date to the 1850s? Is it domestic as initial units might suggest?  How long is it occupied?  Al these questions and more await our excavations.

I hope to see many of you there.

Acknowledgements

In any project as big as a Society Dig, there are many, many people to thank. I owe an enormous debt to my supervisors that made everything run smoothly in the field—Paul and Marylin Knapp, Larry Porter, Jessica Howe, Elizabeth Horton, John House, Bob Scott, Jared Pebworth, Gary Knudsen, May Beth Trubitt.  Thanks are due to Mary Ann Goodman and Mary Farmer who supervised the lab and Barbara Scott and David Jeane who saw to general logistics.  Thanks to ALL of the volunteers and staff who helped out in many ways both large and small during the dig.  Last, but far from least, I owe a great deal to those who have done work on/in Washington before me—Leslie C. “Skip” Stewart-Abernathy, Randall Guendling and Mary Kwas. Of these I owe a special gratitude to Skip, my “supernumerary” during the 2011 Society dig, who was there every day providing information, bouncing ideas around, and generally being a great help.

Volunteers and staff from the 2011 AAS Summer dig: clockwise from left: Jane Kolmer, Steve Jacober, Paul Knapp, Gary Knudsen, Don Higgins, Jamie Brandon Melissa Sorrells, Joe Parks, Marylin Knapp, Alan Smith, Keith Kolmer, Molly Brown, Jessica Howe, Van Schmutz, Emily Haydel, Adam Smith, Sedona Kolmer, and Charles Surber. Photo courtesy of Molly Brown.

You can find lots of other pictures from the 2011 Arkansas Archeological Society’s Summer Training Program at Historic Washington by following the link below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcbrandon/sets/72157627004408646/

**this post was submitted as an article to Field Notes: the Newsletter of the Arkansas Archeological Society 09/14/2011**

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