Today was probably the coolest day of work ever! In preparation for the installation of some geothermal wells in the Lincoln neighborhood, the National Park Service sent some archaeologists from the Midwest Archaeological Center in Nebraska to survey areas that will be affected by the wells. They are trying to determine where artifacts will most likely be found when another archaeological team comes back in November to do some actual excavations. So today I got to help the archaeologists!
Most of our work was focused on the vacant lot at the northwest end of the neighborhood. A widow named Ann Walters lived in a house on this lot when the Lincolns lived in the neighborhood. Our work today was especially exciting because no archaeological work has ever been done on the Walters lot. We could find anything--house foundations, a barn, a well, or . . . the outhouse! After establishing a very precisely measured grid, we got to use the ground-penetrating radar, which is an amazing piece of equipment. Here I am taking my turn with the radar.
The radar sends signals into the ground which then show up as squiggly lines on the screen when a disturbance in the soil is detected. Here is one rather big "blip" we encountered in the Walters lot. There were also quite a few squiggly lines in the back corner of the lot, which indicates that there may have been a barn or outhouse there. The archaeologists will be at the park all week. They will use some other radars and extremely high-tech metal detectors to try to pinpoint the appropriate locations to excavate. The ultimate goal is to hopefully find some building foundations, as well as some empty areas where the geothermal wells can be placed. I learned a lot today and had a great time working with the archaeologists. One of the neat things about archaeology is that it deals with the "unknown" component of history. It's kind of like researching papers that have been hidden in a library for hundreds of years. We know that the Walters lived in the lot, but we don't know what kind of food they ate, medicines they took, animals they had, or how big their house was--which is all information you can find by looking underground. The information is there--you just have to dig for it. Archaeology adds a whole new dimension to historical research. It's all quite fascinating!The local news station sent some reporters over to the park to find out about the project, and even though I wasn't actually interviewed, I did show up in the background when they featured the story on the 6:00 news this evening :-)
1 comment:
Tiffany, i am so jealous. When we were on our mission in Palmyra, New York, living just accross the street from the reconstructed log home we received a Publication of the Lewis H. Morgan Chapter, New York State Archelolgical Association. It is one of my favorite publications to look through and think about. It tells of the results of archaeological investigations on the Joseph Smith, Sr., farm in Palmyra, New York. It provides another perspective of the boyhood home-site of Joseph Smith, Jr., where he lived between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five. I find it very interesting. Maybe you would like to look through it sometime.
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