Category: Student Blog

Breanna Caruana

Ever since I was a kid, I always knew that I had a strong love for history and archaeology. It was movies such as “The Road to El Dorado” and “Night at the Museum” that sparked the interest for me early on. As I got older, I started becoming more and more intrigued by the idea of studying archaeology. I remember attending my high school open house at the end of 8th grade and finding out that there was a 12th-grade archaeology class and a need for lab work volunteers. It was the first time that I was actually excited about starting high school. Before 12th grade rolled around, I was taking every history class that I could, until finally in 2021, I could take the archaeology class. This class only confirmed my love for archaeology, and without it, I may not have pursued a career in this field (thank you Mr. Carter).

This spring, I got the chance to put my love and interest for archaeology into action via the Trent University archaeology field school; all thanks to my parents, who have supported my education and helped me pay for my field school tuition and my equipment (safety boots, safety vest, trowel, etc).

The hardest day on the dig was definitely the first, I felt like I was very obviously much less physically capable than others. I couldn’t dig as fast or lift as much compared to most of my peers. I remembered though, that Kate had said by the end of the dig, everyone would have improved. I kept this in mind and tried not to compare myself to others. That day, I came home from the field school completely exhausted. I crashed on the couch almost immediately. Although the first day was quite difficult and exhausting for me, I was excited for all of the things we were going to find and learn.

As time went on, I improved more and more; it eventually became less exhausting and I never did stop enjoying all of the things that I was learning. Kate taught us so much about material culture, as well as how to lay out a unit, and how to excavate effectively. James taught us about profile drawing, surveying, and mapping, which was something that I was initially less interested in but grew to love. In the lab, we learned the difference between a pit and a unit – as James says, “a pit is for trapping baby elephants”. This left Kyra and I wanting to challenge ourselves by getting our unit to be deep enough to fit a baby elephant, we unfortunately never did reach our goal. Instead of baby elephants, our unit housed giant spiders.

It wasn’t until we moved on to our 2×2 units at BcGn-15 that I found my first exciting find, a bullet casing that was about the length of the palm of my hand. I was so overjoyed that I immediately snapped a picture and sent it to my mom, my partner, and my best friend, who were all just as excited as I was. The time I spent excavating at BcGn-15 will always be memorable, I would love the opportunity to go back and do some more work there again in the future. OA-5 will be missed by myself and my group members. By the end of the field school, I became an expert at wall profiles and definitely developed some strength. I hope to get in more field work practice again in the future.

I owe a final thank you to James and Kate, who have both taught us so much. Together, they have given me the skills, resources, and knowledge that will allow me to pursue a career in archaeology.

Greg Mills

When I signed up for the archaeological field school, I was not entirely sure archaeology was the right path for me. I have always loved history and have been fascinated by the idea of uncovering the past, but I still had some doubts. Would I enjoy the work? Would I feel confident cleaning and processing artifacts or interpreting stratigraphic layers? I hoped this experience would help me find clarity, and in the end, it did.

Over the course of several weeks, I had the opportunity to work at two different excavation sites (BcGn-17 and BcGn-15). Each offered its own challenges and insights, but it was BcGn-15 that left the biggest impression on me. The goal of this site this year was to focus on the house and determine the extent and character of the site. There, my partner Jordan and I were assigned our 2X2 metre unit to excavate (OA2) and began to work, taking the unit down in 10 cms intervals while documenting the changes, screening for artifacts, and interpreting the stratigraphy as we went.

My days at BcGn-15 were spent shovelling, sifting soil, trowelling, taking measurements and drawing maps, which made me quickly begin to understand truly how detailed and careful work archaeology is. Throughout the field school, I learned more than just field methods and technical skills. Working alongside other students and with Kate and James, I realized how collaborative archaeological fieldwork is. Everyone celebrated finds together, problem-solved together, and overall supported each other through the days. It felt like a community of people working towards a shared goal, and that made learning easier and more meaningful. Being a part of a team like this helped me grow more confident in my abilities.

                One of the highlights for me was while sifting soil from OA2 at BcGn-15 was uncovering a .22 caliber bullet. It was a small find, but it brings up many questions, such as what it was going to be used for and by whom? Holding it and knowing it had been buried for a very long time was a strong reminder of why this work matters. Artifacts are more than just objects, they are traces of real people that came before us.

This experience confirmed what I had only hoped to be true, and that is that I can see myself in this field. I found true excitement in uncovering artifacts, interpreting stratigraphy and features, as well as overall understanding how each artifact can fit into a larger historical narrative. It gave me confidence in my abilities and made me want to keep learning and growing in this field. I’m leaving this experience with muddy boots, a full clipboard, and a strong sense of knowing my future field of work. And for anyone unsure if archaeology is right for them, I believe this field school is the best opportunity to find out, as it helped me realize I belong here.

Syd Lloyd

This site used to be someone’s home, and everyone knows the best thing to do in one’s home (other than sleep) is eat good food with family. As such, evidence of these meals can sometimes be found on site. This evidence can come in many forms: organic residues on cookware, (rarely) preserved organic remains, and processed or burnt bone fragments. On this site, in came in the form of a processed bone piece.

The bone pictured above is a slice of long bone (likely the tibia). This slice of bone was clearly not made by erosion, so why does it look like this, and what does it tell us?

                Well, right off the bat, we can tell that this cut was caused by human processing of meat. The hind quarters of an animal (likely pig, cow, or sheep) would have been sliced up with a saw, bone and all, and served up as a steak.

The distinct hole in the center of the bone slice is pretty clear evidence of marrow consumption, so it is fairly safe to assume that these steaks may have been served bone-in, similar to the picture above.

Jacob Bigg

Prior to my participation in this field school I was blissfully ignorant of the role that rocks played while excavating an archaeological site. Upon finishing the school, I can wholeheartedly say that the only thing I disliked about digging is the feeling when you forcefully push your shovel into the ground and it pings off of a rock. This slightly annoying occurrence was somewhat prevalent during the 4 weeks here, although hardly irritating to the point of making fieldwork un-enjoyable. Out of the 4 different units I spent time working on over the course of my 4 weeks, 2 of them (OA6 and the Well) had extremely heavy amounts of rock. Despite this challenge, my team and I did everything possible to persevere and not let this slow down the progress we made. This did mean that the physical demands were increased however this was offset by the satisfaction in seeing our rock pile beside the unit growing. In the well we even had to use a mattock at one point, so that we could loosen the rocks to enable their removal.

Generally speaking, archaeology is known to be a delicate and slow moving discipline, all my previous classes reinforced this idea. So when we were told to grab a mattock out of the trailer I must say I was a bit surprised. However, through this school I know now that the reality of excavations can be much different, with digging conditions depending greatly on location (the Canadian Shield and other areas in Ontario can be very rocky for example). When digging gets rough the use of these other tools (besides shovels) can be a great asset, especially when used in conjunction with sound archaeological thought so as not to impact the cultural material. In the case of the well, our goal was to open an area around it for a section. We knew that the soil contained no artefacts because the first layers removed yielded none, therefore the use of a mattock did not risk destroying any material further down. These kinds of thought processes are part of what make archaeology so appealing to me personally as each situation is its own puzzle which can be solved through creative and strategic thinking to reveal a detailed and unique story of our history.

Romy Stark

While getting elbow deep into a dig site doesn’t give you the most personal understanding of a time period, or the people who lived there, the landscape and finds do paint a good picture of what life may have been like during the period around our dig site. The discovery of these artifacts is always exciting, each one a dirty and somewhat unrecognizable puzzle piece of an incomprehensible and incompletable history. However interesting an item may be, they still do need to be treated delicately, not only for the artifact’s safety, as I’ve come to realize over the course of the field school, but also your own.

The more dangerous selection of items found in one of our dig units, outside of rocks, blunt and heavy shovels, and sharp-edged trowels, include not only many pieces of potentially sharp and rusty metal, or tiny shards of glass, but also many types of house construction/demolition debris. Some of this included insulation.

Now I have been raised to not touch insulation, the main reasoning nowadays being the billions of miniscule fiberglass shards I’d be subjecting myself to, but its hard to avoid touching it when you can’t identify it, which led to me picking up a handful of little soft tufts of something I recognized as manmade, directly onto my bare hand, and across the site to see what Kate might think they could be, only to be told its insulation, and that I probably shouldn’t touch my face at all until I can properly wash my hands. Some very exciting news to hear while its sitting on your bare hand, especially considering that given the time period the house existed during, it was more likely to have been made with asbestos than fiberglass.

Of course, as far as I am aware, the only exposure I’ve had to asbestos has only been by hearing about it through movies and tv shows, but I and many others are still very aware of the risks of asbestos inhalation, including asbestosis, mesothelioma, and lung cancers. According to the hazard alert for asbestos on the Government of Canada website, someone is at potential risk of exposure in any house constructed before 1990, making it a larger risk than many, including myself, may have perceived, something which is of course elevated with long term exposure. Thankfully being exposed to 50–100-year-old insulation for about two to three minutes isn’t fatal, so I had no reason to stress as long as I washed my hands, but it still did get me thinking about previous finds.

The day before this, I had made a mental note of a particularly interesting fragment of green glass, the vintage soda bottle green glass itself being very common in the finds we had been digging up to this point, but this piece was much brighter than I had remembered seeing previously. After our run in with [potentially] asbestos insulation, I had started thinking about other sorts of more dangerous materials that may have been more popular throughout the late 1800’s to the 1950’s, the more vibrant green glass bringing to mind the uranium glass popular during the Victorian period, also something I’ve passively learned about through various pieces of media. The radiation of the uranium glass typically is not enough to cause any sort of harm just by having a piece in your home, but like the use of asbestos, has its harmful aspect being through direct ingestion. Though harmful or not, with the horror stories of radiation poisoning I’ve heard I would still rather keep my distance.

Of course, the brighter green glass pieces we unearthed were actually pieces of pop bottles, the ‘7-up green’ of these bottles definitely not matching the translucent light yellow green hue of uranium glass, but between the glass and the insulation, as well as the many rusty metal pieces, working with the artifacts of BcGn-15 during this field school had not only given me a better appreciation for our everyday trash, and how what I throw away today may be archaeologically valuable in 60-100 years time, but also for construction and food-grade safety standards we have in place today, and what many people may be risking when dealing with historical items.