UWM Field School 2025

  Today was our last official day of the field school, and at least for me, it is a little bittersweet. Over the last six weeks, all twenty-four of you have become competent field archaeologists who can conduct both survey and excavation, accurately map an area using either pencil and paper or with a Total Station, and interpret past cultural activities based on the artifacts they left behind. I have been honored to be a part of your learning journeys, and as you all continue on into whatever adventure awaits, I can only hope that you've found this a valuable experience. Speaking of what you've found, we uncovered around a dozen storage/trash pits of various sizes, half of which were excavated. These pits contained a fair bit of charcoal and burnt sandstone, the occasional lithics, and some really impressive sherds of pottery, such as the one above from Feature 82. Other than pits, we have found 120 postholes (by my best count, anyway), comprising at least two distinct structur...

Apologies for the spotty blog coverage this week; so much has been going on, I can hardly keep track! Most people are either finished bisecting their features or veryyyyyy close! Since the photos above were taken, Features 25-47, -137, -140, -110, and -109 (left) have been completely dug, sketch of the profile drawn, and remaining Feature Fill partially removed for flotation. Features 25-40 and -142 (right) only have a few more centimeters of digging before they are ready to do the same. In addition to making incredible progress on our feature excavations, everyone is gaining experience with a variety of mapping and recording skills this week, including the setup and use of a Total Data Station to collect accurate spatial data in three dimensions, and the mapping of both large and small features/structures by hand with pencil and paper.