Our last days of Field School

            Hello readers, Claire again! On my drive to Western's campus this past Monday morning, I reflected back on how perfectly evenly we students had spaced ourselves around the classroom during orientation in early July before we left for Niles. It wasn’t surprising, it’s just what students do at the beginning of a new semester when you don’t know anyone. We went through the motions of awkwardly introducing ourselves with only vague ideas of what was to come, but by the end of orientation, there was a feeling of excitement and anticipation to get to the field.

As you can see we have really opened up since the first
time we all met

Now, six weeks later, I tried to imagine how we would disperse ourselves in the classroom back at Western, almost certain that it wouldn’t be exactly the same as during orientation. I thought surely we would be seated at least a little more densely considering the circumstances we had just endured together: Every meal, every lab, every lecture, day and night.

            Arriving on monday I found that I was right; many of us had shifted closer to the sunny south side of the room where the window is. It wasn’t as quiet as before either, with students filtering in and sharing details of their weekends just like we did when we had returned to Niles every monday morning before heading to the field. I believe many of us were still tired from the final two-week stay that included the Open House and preparing for it, completing our units, and moving out of our temporary home. Nevertheless, we came prepared monday morning to do what needed to be done to say with integrity that we completed this field school.

            So here we are on the very last day, but keeping busy to the last minute. We’re in the lab, we’re cleaning, sorting, taking final notes, and discussing opportunities for what comes next. Even this afternoon I had the chance to see another process of archaeology, working with Dr. Nassaney on taking a full inventory of artifacts found this season. He took notes on his laptop regarding accession numbers and artifact descriptions, and we meticulously counted and weighed every artifact, including every seed bead and individual piece of calcine bone (of which there are hundreds). We worked for three and a half hours, and are not even a quarter of the way through everything we found this year!

Through thick and thin we all made it through the 7 weeks
 in the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

             Being back on campus for the last three days has felt almost surreal knowing that we’re having the last meals and laughs together as a whole group that we will for the foreseeable future (but probably not forever). Still the finality of this time cannot negate the value of what we’ve experienced in the last six weeks; There has been curiosity and sharing of knowledge, as well as new levels of exhaustion. There has been a great deal of strain and stress  but there has also been beauty, joy, supporting, and bonding. For myself, although I suspect I speak for others as well, I learned lessons not only in archaeology but for life that I may never have otherwise, and that makes field school worth more than the money it cost and the credits we earned.