More Press

I just mentioned the nice piece written by Nur Kausar for the Cedar City Daily News (TheSpectrum.com). A second story was in today's papers. Mark Havnes wrote a story for the Salt Lake Tribune. You can read the story here.

Mark's piece is interesting, but what draws my attention is the discussion and commentary that follows the article. These comments refer to the recent arrests, suicides, and protests in Blanding, Utah, following the indictment of about 20 people for looting archaeological sites on federal land. The arrests and deaths continue to make national news. In my opinion, the entire mess is unfortunate.

From the very first comment on Mr. Havnes's article, Tribune readers make assumptions about my interest in the Davenports and their pottery shop. One implies that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which I'm not. The Tribune's readers comments, like the thousands of vitriolic comments written after the main articles about the arrests, show how high emotions have risen over the events in Blanding. The entire event has become a scene where people can act out the Mormon/Anti-Mormon/non-Mormon, inside/outside, majority/minority social politics of the state.

I hope people reading about my research will discover it on their own terms, instead of the stage as set in Blanding. I find so much potential in what we are going here. With this project, I have tried to show the exciting opportunities for community-based, public archaeology in Utah. There are about 45 sites in almost 30 different cities and towns where we could continue joining communities to study the potters and clay workers of the nineteenth century. Such research is powerful because it creates empathy in society. If the e-commentary and the blogosphere are any indication of the role of archaeology and preservation in Utah's cultures and communities, then the people in this state need to draw upon all the empathy they can muster.

Davenport Dig Review

Last night Jessica and I presented a summary of the summer's discoveries in Parowan. The city staff booked us into the historic Aladdin Theater, the old movie house that they converted into a community theater. About 100 people came out to see our presentation! Nur Kausar wrote a nice summary for this morning's Cedar City Daily News.

I gave an overview of the Utah Pottery Project and then Jessica took the audience through the site, explaining the different buildings and activity areas we had uncovered. After the overview, I spoke about the experimental research we undertook before this summer and what directions our research may take us in the future.

I undertook this entire research dig as a kind of public archaeology. We opened the site and welcomed visitors all day and every day. I operated the dig in this manner because I believe strongly in community-based public archaeology. Public archaeology showcases archaeological research as a collaborative process, like a journey of discovery. I invited people from Parowan's different communities to join us as partners in the research, instead of subjects or consultants. We have been building relationships with the community and I hope that our partnerships continue to flourish in the future as we consider future research and public programming, such as imagining the operating replica of the Davenport Pottery site for the Iron Mission State Park Museum.

Of course, as a public archaeology program, we are seeking partners who want to facilitate the research and community partnerships by providing scholarships and support for students to work it the lab and field studies. If you are interested, please click here for more information on how you can help as an individual, a foundation, or an corporation.

Last night's public lecture and presentation was an opportunity to give a more formal summary of what we have accomplished thus far. I was also able to extend our deep thanks to the members of the community who have prepared treats for the research team - from delivering burritos or cookies to the dig, hosting picnic dinners for us, and inviting us to swim in their pools. I don't think I've ever felt so welcomed by a community.

I am very grateful to the Utah Humanities Council for their financial support of the public programming elements of this field project. The UHC also supported my early attempts to get the project going, which resulted in the current programmatic agreement between Michigan Tech and Utah State Parks. As I said last night, the UHC asks that each event sponsored by their organization include this statement:

"This program has received funding from the Utah Humanities Council. The Utah Humanities Council promotes understanding of diverse traditions, values, and ideas through informed public discussion."

Final Week's Big Push

We have started our final week at the dig.  This week will be so busy that things will get frantic at times.  All the bustle is caused by the two main activities during this period. 

First, Jessica will lead the students to finish all their excavation record-keeping.  This includes all the steps that they don't show on CSI- drafting profile and plan drawings of excavation units, making final photographs of each unit, writing draft reports about the stratigraphic layers and features in each excavation area, and finishing initial artifact processing, cataloging, and inventory so the bags can be packed and transported back to Michigan Tech's Industrial Archaeology Lab.

During all the recording and processing, we'll also have lots of visitors to the site and several public programming activities.  This is the best time to visit a dig, since we are at the maximum extent of excavation for the season.  People can now see all the architecture and features that we've been able to expose.  We kicked off our public programming last night with a talk in Parowan. I'll write more about that talk in a post soon.  We have lectures and site tours all this week, including Michigan Tech Alumni today, a brown bag and lecture in Cedar City on Monday, then the Sons of the Utah Pioneers, the Boy Scouts, some type of event with visitors in town for the glider festival.

We will try to get more blog posts up

 this weekend, and I am going to send students to the library so they can write.  We have many interesting details to report.  In the meantime, here are some photos of people and scenes from the dig and around Parowan:

Mark at the screen.

Jessica and Frank talking things over.
Andy brushing off masonry.
Mike starting his last unit.
Renée is now fearless with the mattock.

Me at the screen, helping with somebody's unit.

The desert has been in bloom for weeks now.  This has been such a cool and moist summer, any plants that can flower have been blooming for weeks.  I've been saving pictures of flowers and will post an entire blog entry with those pics!

The weather has given us some sublime scenes.  Here is one looking north from Parowan toward Beaver.
Parowan is full of farms and ranches.  We have become used to having our morning commute delayed by cattle or sheep drives.  The ranchers are moving their herds to summer pastures in the mountains, passing our camp on their trip.

 

 

Digging after the rain.

We are back at work after an evening of record-setting rain.  We had to quit a bit early yesterday as some thunderstorm cells moved over Parowan.  Most of the crew went up to camp at about 3:45 as the storm blew in.  Jessica, Guy and I stayed behind to wait out the rain with our volunteers.  Kirk, Ester, and India Henrichsen came down to work with us yesterday and their work went beyond the call of duty when they shoveled and screened through the rain.

This morning is beautiful, as shown by this picture of Frank at the screen.  The only camp problem brought on by the rain overnight concerned poor Renée, who cheerfully announced to the rest of us that she now has a waterbed in her tent.

Renée and Samantha are finishing their drawing of the kiln, now fully exposed and cleaned up in their unit:

Yesterday while everyone was digging, I spent some more time with Chuck Young's magnetometer maps.  I scaled his maps and plotted Renée and Sam's discovery on top of it. In my drawing, the black box represents their 2x2 meter excavation unit.  The white circle represents a general guess about the kiln size.  The point of my efforts was to try and figure out how well the geophysical map captured what we have found in the ground.  This type of effort is generally called "ground truthing" in remote sensing:

As you can see, I think we have a remarkable match between the image and the discoveries.  Keep in mind that the red and blue colors are the opposite poles of a magnetic field (the north and south).  If you were in school and even did the experiment where you shake iron filings onto a piece of paper with a magnet underneath, you can imagine the blue and red as the two different sides of the magnetic field that become visible in the filings.

Chuck Young is still working on the data, refining his initial map that I used above.  He has sent me a draft of the new map, which I rescaled and drew upon.  You can see the magnetic field of what is probably a second kiln just north (below) of the current kiln on the plot below:
So my current theory is that there are two kilns, side by side on the north-south axis here, each with blue-red poles.  In order to find out if the map really shows the location of another kiln, we put in units to the north of Renée and Samantha.  Pictured here:
The Henrichsens helped us shovel-scrape the plowzone yesterday during the rain.  Michael is working in these units now and he will start excavating 1/2 of these three 2/2 meter units.  We hope that he will come across the top of the second kiln.

I'll try to write more later today about the other excavation units.  

We enjoyed a BBQ last night as Parowan residents kicked off the holiday weekend.  Everyone back in the Midwest will be glad to know that the cook prepared some excellent brats along with lots of other delicious food.  The students were grateful to be graciously hosted for such a terrific dinner.  I hope that everyone from dinner comes out to the site soon so they can see what we are doing in the heart of their town!

We are in the process of signing up the students so that they can write entries for the blog.  Hopefully we'll have that set up before the holiday is over.

Grids and gear!

We are underway in Parowan! The students all arrived by Sunday and we set up camp at the Five Mile Picnic Area. On the site this week, we set up the grid that will allow us to collect X, Y, and Z coordinates on all the data we gather during the dig.

Chuck Young is visiting with us today. He is a retired geophysicist at Michigan Tech. The Social Science department helped send Dr Young out to survey the site with us and teach the students about the Magnetometer.

The reason I asked Dr. Young to bring the Magnetometer is that we hope to see below the ground surface before we start excavation. We only have six weeks to dig. We really need to focus on the pottery-related features like the kilns. The magnetometer reads localized variations in magnetic fields as things interfere with the pattern of the earth's general one. Things like campfires burned in clayey dirt develop very strong magnetic anomalies. Something like a pottery kiln foundation should show up very clearly like a bright spot on the mapped readings.

At least, we expect so.

We are talking data right now and I will post a map of the readings later today!






The team on one of our first field trips. This one was about Iron County history.  They are climbing on an electric shovel from one of the twentieth century iron mines on the west side of the valley.



One picture of field camp!


Mobile blog post

Schedule and Calendar, May and June 2009

We hope that lots of people will be able to come visit us this summer. Both the museum exhibit and the archaeological excavation will be open to the public in May and June of 2009. The archaeological excavations at the Davenport Pottery site are open to the public whenever the archaeologists are on the site. We welcome visitors between 10 AM and 3 PM each day. Visitors will be able to walk around the site, see the dig in progress, and talk with the excavators, students, and volunteers about what they have learned through their discoveries.

Planned excavation calendar, May 11 through June 26:
May 11-18 working days, visitors welcome 10-3.
     Holiday May 19-21.
May 22-31 working days, visitors welcome 10-3.
     Holiday June 1-4.
June 5-14 working days, visitors welcome 10-3.
     Holiday June 15-17.
June 18-26 working days, visitors welcome 10-3.

Potters of the Gathering: Clay Work in Early Utah will be open at the Iron Mission State Park Museum in Cedar City, Utah, between May 2 and July 31. The museum is open seven days a week, 9 AM to 5 PM. Note that the exhibit will be open for a month following the end of our season’s excavations in Parowan.

This is our planed schedule, but please be aware that these times can change depending upon weather conditions and class needs. If we get hard rain, we’ll work in the lab or lead the students on a field trip.

While you are welcome to come visit us during our first work period, May 11 to 18, please understand that the dig will just be getting started. That week, we’ll do mapping, remote sensing, and survey. It takes a couple of days to get the excavation units started. It would be better to wait until at least May 22 to make your first visit.

If we cancel work on a scheduled day, I will post an announcement on this blog. I will also post a note if we plan to be on the site at a later time of the day. Please don’t visit before 10 AM, because we dedicate our early morning hours to making sure that the science is running smoothly before guests arrive.

Archaeology is unpredictable and our interpretation will change as we make discoveries. If you come to visit us on May 23, we’ll tell you what we think we’ve learned from our digging. So if you return on June 20, we will probably tell you that we’ve changed our minds and revised our earlier interpretations. As my colleague Pat says, “If we knew what was there, we wouldn’t dig it up!”

Press Release

Michigan Technological University's media relations office has put a story out over the wires about the Utah Pottery Project. It is brief, but will perhaps point people to this blog where they can learn more about our research and discoveries!

This is the story:

http://www.admin.mtu.edu/urel/news/media_relations/845/

Besides the intellectual interests shared by researchers in the Utah Pottery Project (studying the works and lives of the nineteenth century potters), I am also trying to develop a community-based approach to archaeological scholarship. I want to link research, and the support for research, with local concerns and needs ranging from education to development. The Venn diagram below illustrates the point. Community-based archaeology has always been an important part of historical archaeology in the United States, where local research at local historical sites met local needs and interests. Recently many more archaeologists are coming around to this research style, which they call "socially-engaged" or "action archaeology."

If this is your first visit to the Utah Pottery Project Blog, you can read a bit about the research collaboration in these posts:

The first blog post is here

A Slideshow about what we hope to learn

The Davenports in England, 3/25 update