Archaeology Pilot Project: UI Students to Unearth Buried Stories In Troy
Monday, June 9 2003
June 9, 2003^MOSCOW--The White Pines of Troy reveal as many as 400 years of this bedroom community’s history. But the Earth’s layers in the small rural town once known as “Huff's Gulch” are rife with remnants of settlers’ daily fare and lifestyles, the stage and railroad activity that hauled out bricks, cedar shakes, mica from nearby mines, lentils, peas, mustard and other farm products.^Armed with trowels, shovels, wheelbarrows, screen boxes and other such archeological tools, 14 students are unearthing stories about Troy’s past at a May 27-July 3 archaeological field school through the University of Idaho. The dig is approximately 1 ½ miles beyond Troy towards Deary on private property owned by a former UI professor. ^Mark Warner, assistant professor of anthropology, leads the archaeological project in Troy, teaching methods of excavation, and generating data for subsequent undergraduate and graduate student research. He also wants to use archaeology to contribute to the understanding of the community’s settlement.^ “We expect to find remnants of peoples’ everyday lives that typically aren’t recorded but are an equally important part of the history of a place,” said Warner. “In short, we are looking to construct the unwritten history of a place.” In his previous digs, the excitement centered on the discovery of unknown wrinkles of history that hadn’t been passed on -- either because they may have seemed too common to record or the earlier inhabitants may not have wanted them known.^The summer excavations will be processed in the field and analyzed in the laboratory of anthropology during the 2003-04 school year. The artifacts must be washed, labeled and catalogued prior to analysis. A portion of the lab work will be undertaken this summer in the field and the remainder will be accomplished in the Laboratory of Anthropology by a combination of student archaeologists. The final report will be produced in the summer and fall of 2004.^“A general rule of thumb for archaeologists is that it takes two to three hours of lab work for each hour of field work performed,” said Warner.^Other in-town Moscow sites were considered for the field school, but were ruled out because of risk, construction complications and inconvenience to homeowners. ^“We hope to cultivate Moscow and its environs as a social science teaching lab,” added Warner. “Not only would we like to further the historical consciousness here, but ultimately we’d like to provide a local field school, where our students can gain extensive hands-on learning, both about the principles of archaeological excavation and on the community in which they live.”^ Besides tuition for the 6-credit course, the project is funded by a grant from The John Calhoun Smith Memorial Fund and UI’s Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Justice Studies. If others are interested in volunteering or visiting the site they may contact Warner at, mwarner@uidaho.edu.^ Student participants are from:^IDAHO^Boise: David Swanson^Coeur d’Alene: Amanda Haught, Michael Haught^Kamiah: Rebecca Clapperton^Lewiston: Glenn Thompson^Middleton: Morgan Hall^Moscow: Ken Dennison^St. Maries: Kira Furman^Victor: Thomas Schiers^Weiser: John Baker^CALIFORNIA^Santa Cruz: Andrew Hoge^OREGON^Hood River: Kim Searcy^WASHINGTON^Colton: Kyle White^WEST VIRGINIA^Huntington: Jennie Ackley^CONTACT: Mark Warner, UI Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Justice Studies, (208) 885-5954, mwarner@uidaho.edu or Nancy Hilliard, University Communications, (208) 885-6567, hilliard@uidaho.edu^-30-^NH-6/9/03-CLASS^
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