Press Coverage

At the end of the week, we spent time with reporters from the regional newspaper and TV stations.  The first article has appeared in The Spectrum, the regional paper that covers St. George, Cedar City, and southwest Utah.  The Spectrum also published a story about opening of Potters of the Gathering: Clay Work in Early Utah at the Iron Mission State Park Museum.  Nur Kausar wrote both stories and I have received emails that remark on how much people enjoyed her writing.

A reporter/camerawoman also came from KCSG, the regional NBC affiliate.  We don't have a TV in our field camp, so we don't know if they broadcast the story yet.  Stephanie told us to watch the website, so I'm keeping an eye on things and will post the link if they story appears.  The NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City might run that story, so I'm also keeping an eye on KSL.com.

If you are just visiting this blog for the first time, you can read about the excavations at the Davenport Pottery by clicking here.  This research is a public archaeology project and is entirely funded by tax-deductible donations.  Even small donations will help our work-- $20 buys one sample of clay or ceramic isotope fingerprinting, for example.  Please give by clicking here.  If you would like to see a list of needs and a summary of how the fieldwork was sponsored, please click here.

The press exposure and spreading with word of mouth in town has meant that we've had many more people coming out to visit the dig and see our discoveries for themselves.  I think everyone who visits the dig leaves impressed-- the tremendous detail in what we have discovered impresses them.  We welcome people to come to the site whenever we are present.  If you are planning a trip to the area and would like to see our dig, I published the work schedule here.

Several people in town have adopted my students, bringing them occasional treats during visits.  In the picture below, the students are all enjoying cold sodas brought over by our neighbor Mr. Denhalter.  We appreciate all the cookies, muffins, and other treats.  This may be the first dig on which I've gained weight while working!

Everyone on the project wants our readers to know what a warm and wonderful town Parowan is and how much we are enjoying our time here.  Yesterday was the town's classic car show.  The entire community is getting ready for a huge glider festival during June and July.  We are starting to see gliders arrive on trailers and are excited to entice the people who love the sky with the allure of what we find underground!

Please help support our research

After some conversations with visitors to the site over this holiday weekend, I realized that I needed to explain our project's funding and the urgent need for support.  This is a public archaeology project. The research is dependent upon tax-deducible gifts from private individuals who discover our work and decide that what we are doing is important and should continue.

Many people seem to be under the impression that a patron or foundation is sponsoring our work at the Davenport Pottery Site in Parowan, Utah.  To be blunt, people think we have a sugar daddy.  This is not true and it is important that people understand how this project came into being- archaeology research doesn't "just happen."

I have cobbled together enough support to run the field school.  Several partners or patrons are helping, mostly through in-kind donations of logistical support.  I thought I would give readers an idea of what it takes to make a field school happen:

The Iron Mission State Park Museum is making most of our photocopies and letting us bring the students there for lectures.  In addition Todd Prince, the park director, and Ryan Paul, the curator, have both given guest lectures or led field trips, teaching the students about Iron County prehistory and history.  Todd has extensive experience in Utah prehistory and stands ready to help us with the consultation process if we discover any prehistoric remains.

The City of Parowan and The Dixie National Forest worked together to get us a waiver so we could camp in the Five Mile Picnic Area at no cost.  The camp or hotel fees are a big part of field work expenses, so this support was critical.  Parowan City staff have also been very helpful because they found us a secure storage location, give us access to potable water, help with equipment for specific field needs, and are keeping up the campground.

The archaeology faculty and staff at Southern Utah University's Archaeological Repository lent us a bunch of equipment for our field camp, including some extra tents, cooking gear, and potable water tanks.  I am in debt to both Barbara Frank and Emily Dean for their help.

Utah State Parks will lend us some equipment and help with back filling and earth moving.

The Matheson family have given us permission to work on their land and promised to donate the artifact collection to the state.

Michigan Technological University awarded me a small grant that will cover about 1/2 of the vehicle costs from the motor pool.  The Department of Social Sciences is also supporting some of the students during their time here, through small scholarships or hourly pay, and helped cover some of Chuck Young's travel costs to come out and bring the geophysics equipment. Chuck paid the balance out of his pocket.  The department also let me teach the field school class, despite the fact that enrollment was well below the cut-off point that makes a class viable.

The Register of Professional Archaeologists also provided a scholarship award to the project. This helped students to enroll who might not have otherwise been able to afford to attend.

The Utah Humanities Council awarded State Parks a small grant to help us tie the exhibit and the excavation together in some public programs.

That is how we made the field school happen.

The analysis and write up of this excavation and the ongoing research are separate issues.  We will return to our lab at MTU with tens of thousands of artifacts to analyze and research to complete.  Without any donations or support, I will spend the next ten years studying the collection and writing a manuscript, working on occasional Sundays and during future months of August.  I will not return to the field in Utah again until that is finished.  It would be unethical for me to collect more excavation data without reporting on what we'd already gathered.

With your gifts of support, however, we could finish the analysis in a year, help the Iron Mission Museum design their replica exhibit of the Davenport Pottery for the Ironworks Homestead, and set up another study in Parowan or another pottery site.  The key to making this happen is gifts in support of student scholarships and analysis.  As you read in the list above, lots of organizations can give in-kind and logistical support. None of the organizations with which I've partnered can support students working in the lab.  We are looking for partners to join us in our research effort by supporting students and other direct costs.  The partners could be communities, businesses, or private patrons who wish to ensure that the archaeological study of Utah's historic-era pottery heritage continues before more of the sites are destroyed.

The way that the Industrial Heritage and Archaeology program at Michigan Tech operates, we find sponsors that support our students while the faculty donate our time to various research projects.  We collaborate in this way.  I don't get paid out of donations from the public-- the university already pays me to teach students and do research, so I don't need money for my salary.  We use your donations to support graduate and undergraduate students and direct research costs (gas for the truck and van, Neutron Activation Analysis and other archaeometry, etc.)

Here are some things for which I need immediate support:

If I can find support for Jessica Montcalm, she can work on this project full time as her MS thesis, instead of waiting on tables or holding another part time job while finishing her studies- M.S. student tuition waiver, 2009-10-  $12,000

To get the lab work going, we need funds to support undergraduates working in the lab.  They help Jessica and me with the cleaning, cataloging, refitting studies (pottery jigsaw puzzles), and other analyses-  Undergraduate student lab staff- $5,000

Vehicles cost us money when we take them from the Motor Pool.  Right now, I am on the hook for gas and rental costs- $1,500 

The science costs money.  Neutron Activation Analysis, analysis of animal bones, charcoal identification, LA-ICP-MS all cost about $20, $50, or $100 per sample- Scientific testing:- $2,000

Every little gift helps!  Your gift of $20 lets me buy one scientific test.  For example, I might be able to compare the chemistry of Thomas Davenport's raw clay and his finished products, or study the charcoal to determine what type of fuel burned to heat the kiln.  

Gifts at any level are tax deductible.

Donations can be made to a special account at the Michigan Tech Fund by clicking here. Individuals who wish to give money to organizations in Utah can make donations by sending checks to the Iron Mission Museum Foundation (Davenport Pottery Project), 585 North Main, Cedar City, Utah 84720-1079.

I offer my deepest thanks our past supporters, including the students who invested their time and finances in the research.

Camp Life, Day 6

We have all pretty much settled into our field camp.  Several parents have asked me to post the address where they can send mail:

Addressee Name

General Delivery

Michigan Tech Archaeology 

Parowan, UT 84761

The camp is beautiful and although I could see my breath this morning while I was making my coffee, I enjoy the early morning hours.  I wake up with a pair of woodpeckers who start searching for bugs at about 6 am.  

Some of the students have grouped their tents together, while others are spread further apart.  We also have a kitchen area with a large table and good fire ring.  After warm day on the dig, everybody has a hot shower and shares dinner.  About twice per week, we have discussions or lab time in the evenings.

I rigged up a shower for the students, using some gear borrowed from Southern Utah University's archaeology lab, a large tarp, and some ropes. The students realized that they need to add cold water to their solar shower bags before using them each evening, just as I had promised to Michigan undergraduates skeptical of the camp technology.  Two pictures of our shower are below. 
The sun breaks on the Vermillion Cliffs just as we come down in the morning on our way to the site!

We hope to finish excavating the plow zone tomorrow and begin working in nineteenth century deposits.  Stay tuned!

From the Copper Country to the Color Country

The field school students are all on the road!  

Two vehicles left from Michigan Technological University this week, carrying people and gear for the dig.  Our incoming graduate students have left from their home states in order to rendezvous in Parowan, Utah, this Sunday.  We also have some people arriving by plane at the Las Vegas airport.  We'll start work on Monday morning, bright and early.  The experience will be interesting for the MTU students, who are traveling from Michigan's Copper Country to Utah's Color Country.

Michigan Tech is on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, on the south shore of Lake Superior. The Keweenaw Peninsula juts out into the lake and includes the former grandeur of the copper mine and mill towns like Calumet, Houghton, and Hancock.  The copper deposits of the Keweenaw Peninsula were famous all over the world, as were the mines and immigrants came from all over the world to work in the mines, mills, and logging camps.  After decline during the twentieth century, the copper country is rural today and the economy relies upon tourism. 'Downstaters' visit during the winter for our 350 inches of annual snow and our Winter Carnival celebration.  People also visit during the summer and fall, when the big lake keeps us cool during the hot Midwestern July and August and when our leaves start to turn in the fall.

Of course, Iron County is part of Utah's Color Country.  The history of Iron County is similar in many ways to Michigan's Keweenaw.  The draw of iron mining and other related industries drew immigrants, in the context of the Latter-day Saint settlement.  The iron mines and furnaces cycled through boom and bust, leading to a decline in the mid-twentieth century.  Iron County is rural today, between larger cities and communities on the Wasatch Front to the north and St. George and Las Vegas to the south.  The economy is diversified, but tourism plays an important part.  Visitors come for the skiing in the winter and camping and hiking in the summer, enjoying the communities proximity to Cedar Breaks National Monument, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, and many other eco- and heritage tourism attractions amid southern Utah's stunning polychrome geology.  Cedar City's Utah Shakespeare Festival runs from summer into the fall, and like MTU's Winter Carnival, it attracts guests and encourages families to come year after year.

Another similarity is that both communities are small, with 10,000 to 15,000 people in the cities and good universities (Michigan Tech and Southern Utah University).  Despite the small size, the former industrial booms mean that lots and lots of people have family history tied to the area.  I am constantly meeting people when I travel who tell me, "Oh, Houghton!  My Grandfather worked there." or "I have an ancestor from Parowan who then moved to northern Arizona."  Houghton and Hancock share some of Parowan's famous claim to be a Mother Town from which individuals and groups of immigrants struck out to other places in the United States.  

As an afterthought, both regions also have great traditions of local music. Check out these musicians:
Houghton's Hanna Bethel just posted a video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8S5dSaz6cA&feature=player_embedded
and our own Eric Koskinen, although he now lives in Minneapolis:
http://www.erikkoskinen.com/

You can find great music in Cedar City at Groovacious Records:
http://www.groovacious.com/
and live at The Grind:
http://groovinatthegrind.com/

Camping Details are Official!

It is official!  The 2009 field camp will be in the beautiful mountains above Parowan and it will be free to students and project participants.

We will camp at the Five Mile Picnic Area up First Left Hand Canyon in the Dixie National Forest.  The camp is offered at no charge to students and project participants. Several people worked in support of the research effort to make his happen, including Todd Prince at the Iron Mission State Park; Joe Melling and the City Manager's staff the City of Parowan; and Steve Robinson, Marian Jacklin, and Gretchen Merrill from the Cedar City Ranger District of Dixie National Forest.  

I thought that the enrolled students would like to see some pictures, so I hiked up to the picnic area this weekend.  Here are some of the pictures of my hike up First Left Hand Canyon on the way to the site:

 

  

Next are some stitched panoramas of scenes from the campground.  The camp will be at the trailhead for two hikes, one up to Vermillion Castle (left in photo) and the other to Noah's Ark formation (right in photo):

This is a view from the campground itself:

I'll post some more images from around the campground in my next post.