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Archaeology. Everyone makes different assumptions about what an archaeologists does and they’re rarely correct. An archaeologist does not dig up dinosaur bones; dinosaur bones are left to the paleontologists. Speaking of paleontologists, Ross Geller wasn’t an archaeologist either. But what about Indiana Jones? Wikipedia calls the classic character an archaeologist, but most people in the profession can’t say they’ve had to run from a rolling boulder. An archaeologist, put simply, studies cultures through their material remains. Sometimes that means studying human skeletons, but often the work entails sorting through what most people would consider trash.

Pictured is an example of my typical workspace during a day in the lab. Even the lab itself is simple, made up of tables and stacks of boxes scattered about. Our best tools? A pan of water, a toothbrush, some paper towel, a Sharpie, acid free bags and paper, patience, and not being afraid to ask questions take us a long way in the lab. Collections almost always need to be washed first. The goal is to make the artifact identifiable, not spotless. Artifacts are rarely going to be in mint condition in the way antique collectors seek out. Broken glass, lithic material, rusted nails, and ceramic sherds regularly cycle through the office. We begin by brushing off the excess soil with a dirt-stained toothbrush, dipping into the pan of water as necessary. We lay out each artifact onto sheets of paper towel to absorb the excess water, which we reuse to minimize waste. Then we place the artifact in a dry pan and use a complex drying system that involves placing the pan in the sunlight. In other words, the process doesn’t need to be high-tech or complicated to be effective. Once dry, the artifacts are sorted into bags, labeled on the outside of the bag and on a piece of paper inside designed not to disintegrate with time. Tom, our supervisor, writes up a report of the contents and the bags are placed into an acid free box to be sent off to Richmond for storage. And, yes, there’s always plenty of dirt to clean off the tables at the end of the day.

The work is time-consuming and relatively straightforward, but the simplicity of the process means ample opportunity to learn new things. Tom has been a brilliant supervisor, taking the time to show us different methods even if the artifacts don’t require it. A hot day spent working wasn’t so bad, for example, when he let us take out the float tank to learn how to separate charcoal from excess soil and organic material. I manage to leave the internship covered in dirt and sometimes water almost every time, whether we were in the field or not, because Tom encourages us to be hands-on. He takes the time to teach us about the history of the region and discuss what we want to do after we graduate. I don’t know if I’ll pursue archaeology career-wise, but the processes and people skills I have obtained will be advantageous regardless.

For many, archaeology is a hobby. The majority of the collections I’ve sorted in my time spent at the DHR have actually been donations of hobbyists that spend their free time looking for artifacts in Virginia. Some don’t have to look far at all, with their own farmlands having several sites untouched except for the occasional plowing. Pictured is the collection of a farmer we met not far from Lynchburg after he contacted us about having found some Native American artifacts on his farm. We had no idea just how expansive the collection would be.

We were floored when he presented to us a cabinet full of lithic tools, including axes, a range of projectile points still intact, and a few other relatively uncommon finds for the average collector. We were even more impressed to find out he kept them organized by location and had detailed, hand-drawn maps of their provenience. This level of organization isn’t always the case, as many people don’t realize any artifact becomes practically worthless without the provenience – especially when there’s a large black market for Native American artifacts, creating a lucrative business for people that know how to produce fakes.

Stone tool production isn’t nearly as hard as one would think, making creating fakes an attainable craft. Tom taught us to make our own projectile points, supplying us with deer bones and lithic material to practice on our own. I’ve discovered my stone tool production skills are not up to par but learning the process makes identifying artifacts in the field significantly simpler. A great deal of our time in the field often involves helping the landowner recognize what’s an artifact – whether it be the projectile point, shatter, or flakes – and what’s what Tom calls a “leave-it-right” … as in leave it right there because it’s just a rock. If you say “leave-it-right” fast and confidently enough, you can briefly trick someone into thinking they just found something spectacular. And, yes, he encourages us to make this joke with people as often as possible.

 

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More cemeteries. A drive out to Floyd County to drop off a flash drive to the Historical Society is incomplete without taking a detour to knock on stranger’s doors. As a northerner, I was taken aback when Tom first told us we’d be arriving unannounced to random people’s farms asking to see the cemeteries on their properties. Sometimes we’re met with people entirely weirded out by our request, while other times it leads to a jackpot of insight into Virginia’s history.

Pictured is a field of the Blackwell family farm. Below the lone tree on the hill is a cemetery of fewer than a dozen identifiable burials. This unannounced visit introduced us to an elderly woman and her husband, the former of which turned out to be a dedicated genealogist with a detailed record of the Blackwell family and their relatives. She didn’t invite us in, but I did manage to get a glimpse of her home office where she conducted and stored her family tree research by asking to use their bathroom. Again, the northerner in me felt like I was intruding but it turned out to be an effective way of getting a deeper insight into the woman’s hobby. Mrs. Blackwell gladly let us go examine the cemetery and, thankfully, no cows swarmed us this time. We identified more burials than were marked and were left with more questions than we had upon arrival. One unmarked grave, for example, we learned is actually an old family pet’s burial site. Two headstones with porcelain faces were defaced we found out because of past relatives attempts at hiding certain aspects of the family’s history.

Not everyone is as welcoming and enthusiastic about us looking at their sites though. Tom has made the decision to not use a state issued sticker on the truck to inform people a state employee has arrived because of the widespread distrust of the government in southwestern Virginia. In fact, Tom often introduces himself as merely Tom and doesn’t even acknowledge he’s a state archaeologist. The tension creates more challenges for me as an intern, having to explain I’m a college student using their site as a learning opportunity.

With a  state as rich in history as Virginia, it’s not surprising there is a state agency entirely dedicated to the preservation of the state’s history. Preservation, however, doesn’t necessarily mean protecting a site from destruction. It may mean collecting artifacts, taking photos, and writing up a report of the site data before sending it off to Richmond for storage while the site gets destroyed for development. The Virginia Department of Historic Resources has four archaeologists responsible for the entire state of Virginia. The Western Preservation Office, where I intern, has a massive jurisdiction – as the map indicates. My supervisor, Tom Klatka, has to drive hours some days just to see a site or potential site.

With our backpacks packed with snacks, water, a notebook, and pencil and dressed in worn clothing that will most likely be discolored to a brownish tint by the end of the day, we climb into the office truck equipped with even more various tools of the trade. Tom’s backpack will have even more than ours, never leaving without the GPS, compass, flag markers, and a tape measure. Though we’ll most likely never touch the tape measure, as we had to learn to measure with our walking pace. Ten of my own steps, for example, is equivalent to 25 feet. So if I’m surveying a site we found and count 40 steps, I know the length of the site is 100 feet. Sometimes we’ll drive 45 minutes away, other days it’s over two hours heading deeper and deeper into rural Virginia. Moreover, many days are in the lab cleaning artifacts with a toothbrush and tray of water, sorting them into labeled bags, and packing them into acid free boxes.

Whether I’m determining soil colors, cleaning off lithic and bone artifacts, or perusing through a historical society museum in a country I’ve never even heard of, the responsibilities of the staff at the DHR Western Preservation Office are both interesting and chalk full of opportunities to learn new things. When you’re responsible for the archaeological work of a third of the state of Virginia, no two days are alike. An archaeologist’s job, I’ve experienced firsthand, involves more than just digging for arrowheads. It requires vast working knowledge of Virginia and the willingness to constantly expand your knowledge.

The picture to the left doesn’t seem like it’s of much except maybe a few unmaintained grave sites, when it’s actually of an entire cemetery. We had driven over two hours from Salem to look at a couple mortuary sites on a farmhouse property a family had purchased, a common find on properties in the southwest Virginia region. As I’ve learned is usually the case, if a resident knows of one unrecorded archaeological site then they know of others. While the mortuary sites on the family’s property were interesting, the conversation the roadside cemetery pictured captured my attention the most that day. The cemetery would’ve been left unnoticed had a logging company not bought the land. When they found a few headstones, the logging company arbitrarily marked perimeters off with unmarked roadways but most likely destroyed or failed to notice that the cemetery extended further. The rural nature of southwest Virginia means archaeological sites regularly go unnoticed until new landowners come in – whether they may be a company or residents. Tom, my supervisor, explained to us the tell tale signs of a cemetery in the region that we quickly picked up to determine that the roadside cemetery was probably larger than the logging company presumed.

The most obvious indicator of a mortuary site is the presence of a headstone, and – in many cases – a foot stone. The foot stone is uncommon for slave burials since they were usually only marked with a found stone stuck into the ground at the head of the burial. The type of headstone and foot stone depends entirely on the period and individual family preferences. The second most obvious indicator for burials is a depression in the ground from where the soil settled over time. Sealing burials with a concrete casing that prevents the soil from settling unevenly with the undisturbed soil is a modern practice. Another indicator is the growth of periwinkle. Periwinkle is a ground cover that spreads quickly, especially in shady areas. Oak and cedar trees were usually planted around the perimeter to create that shade. Boxwood shrubs and decorative iron fences were popular during certain periods too.

We had made the drive though primarily to study two mortuary sites on the family’s new property. One of the mortuary sites was a small fenced off area deep into the woods from the family that once owned the farmhouse for generations, while the other was a pair of graves in by the stream not far from the house. Both were in wooded areas though. The latter pair would be unassuming to most people because their headstones lacked any markings or shape – they were just thinner rocks stuck vertically in the ground. They were slave burials and an excavation could have possibly revealed more where the headstones were no longer there. There were no depressions in the soil to indicate to us either way. The fenced in cemetery had less than a dozen graves and had the traditional indicators, including the periwinkle, boxwood shrubs, and Victorian iron fence despite having been unmaintained for decades. Interestingly, there was a depression on the outside of the fenced area but it was unclear why.

I must have pulled over twenty ticks off of me that day and the heat was miserable because we had to be covered head to toe since we were in the woods. But I learned that the internship is going to involve working with people of all walks of life and trusting them when they say follow me because they know their land better than any outsider archaeologist ever will.

 

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