How I Chose Archaeology, or rather, How Archaeology Chose Me.

 

 

The former Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Howard University


Story time...

On this particular day we were going hike to see thousand year old cave dwellings. As we started on our little trek we were able to see the birth place of Geronimo, see the devastation forest fires has caused, and the new life that grew out of the ashes. We stopped several times for photo opps and so that the path ahead could be checked for wild animals. As we hiked up the side of a mountain to reach the well hidden cave dwellings a odd feeling begins to bubble in your stomach. The places that an archaeologist can go are limitless and sometimes the sights that we see we cannot share with the public. It leaves you with a sense of purpose and of responsibility. A purpose to share the stories of past people and to tell a story that is not skewed by the author but is revealed as much as possible through the eyes of the people you are studying in the archaeological record. The sense of responsibility stems from the need to not only tell these stories but to protect the sites from which the stories are collected. Though much of the archaeological record gets destroyed in our attempts to study the past we can do our part in preserving the artifacts and ensuring that these sites remain  hidden from those with less honorable intentions....
 

Coming down the mountain from visiting the cave dwellings...

 

 

My journey as an archaeologist began about three years ago, in the Spring of 2010, on the second floor of Douglass Hall at Howard University. I came to Howard originally thinking that I was going to major in Business Management or Business Administration UNTIL I found out that I was required to wear stockings, heels, and a suit. I quickly changed my major to Sociology thinking that well I'd always loved cultures so  why not study them;  I'd written a research paper about taboos in high school inspired by the show on National Geographic which sparked my interest. Looking for electives, I followed the suggestion of a friend and registered for my first anthropology courses: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology taught by Dr. Flordeliz Bugarin and Introduction to Biological Anthropology taught by the late Professor Mack.  When I walked into those classrooms my life would be forever changed. From that point on I would go on to double major in Anthropology and Sociology, find one of my mentors, and to be truly challenged academically for the first time in my life.

 

My old lab at Howard University

 

By the end of that semester I learned to important things: 1) I was interested in how African Americans came to eat what they ate and why and 2) Professor Mack scared the shit out of me and my new mission was to prove to him that I could earn an A in one of his courses ( I got a B the first time.) In Cultural Anthropology I conducted a study on Food Taboos and what influenced Howard University students to consume certain foods. The paper itself isn't important but what inspired the paper is. If you have the misfortune (I'm joking) of knowing me on any level you'll already know that I'm a picky eater. I have an aversion to colors and textures. To continue with the story... So that spring semester I decided to double major. By the fall of 2010 I was taking Introduction to Archaeology taught by Dr. Eleanor King and Methods and Theory in Archaeology taught by Dr. Bugarin. It is here that archaeology captured my attention and heart. Also, this was the point at which I discovered that I couldn't be a Cultural Anthropologist because it required me to speak to large groups of people and interact on a daily basis. (I should clear things up here by stating that I am introverted and have a very low tolerance for other people's crap.) Archaeology seemed more fitting because it was like a mystery. You never know what you'll find beneath the earth or the story that it can tell you.

 

Nicodemus

 

I'll share more about these classes later but what I've been leading up to is the project that I worked on in the Methods and Theory class. We were required to pick a project, either the Gambia/ James Island or Nicodemus. I chose to study the fauna (animal remains from archaeological sites) from Nicodemus; I wanted to reconstruct the sustenance strategies of the community during their first winter in Kansas. History lesson:

 

Nicodemus was an African American community established in 1877 in the northwestern region Kansas in Graham County. These exodusters migrated from Kentucky and Tennessee to escape oppression and prejudice to settle in Kansas were advertisements had boasted of lush conditions and the opportunity to own land for five dollars a plot. Upon arriving on the plains many families turned around and went home. Those who stayed initially struggled and eventually the town began to blossom. At its height the community had a population of almost 700, included a bank, two hotels, several churches, two newspaper, a drug store, three general stores, a literary society, a law office, an ice cream parlor, a baseball teams, a band, and a benefit society. Despite a steady decline after the Union Pacific Railroad decided to bypass the township, Nicodemus remains the oldest surviving black town west of the Mississippi.

 

Conducting this research made me wonder how many other unwritten stories about the daily lives of African Americans post-Emancipation needed to be written. So in that way I didn't chose archaeology, it chose me. If you know anything about African American archaeology or African American history before the turn of the century you know that it is predominantly focused on plantation life and slavery. While learning more about the lives of slaves is important, it is also important to know about the lives of African Americans as they made the transition from enslavement to freedom. If you have ever experienced that  moment in your life where you knew you had to do something, this was it for me.

 

That's all for now but stay tuned!!!

 

For more information about Nicodemus and the research that I conducted on the faunal material please visit the USF's Heritage Lab website at http://heritagelab.org/?page_iud=1104.