Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Day of Archaeology 2014




"Day" of Archaeology
This annual, 24 hour international online event was inspired by the Day of Digital Humanities and presents an opportunity for archaeologists and those in related fields to write blog posts about their work.
This event, which was organized by a voluntary committee of archaeologists based in the UK, US, and Spain, has spurred archaeologists around the world to organize events for people of all ages to learn about what archaeologists really do.
In 2012, Dr. Alexandra Jones, of Archaeology in the Community, Inc. decided to host a Day of Archaeology festival at local D.C. parks where the public could meet archaeologists and participate in archaeological activities.

Tibia or not Tibia Zooarchaeologist
This year as part of my tenure as a District Leadership Program intern for the Historic Preservation Office in D.C. I was tasked with getting our activities together. My experiences as a zooarchaeologist and the constant barrage of questions about whether I studied dinosaurs inspired me to design a kid-family friendly activity to teach people about this unique sub-field.
The poster I designed for Day of Archaeology 2014



Designing an activity to teach young children about zooarchaeology was not easy. It took several days, several e-mails, and several conversations with the City Archaeologist, Dr. Ruth Trocolli, and the Asst. City Archaeologist, Charde Reid for me to be able to condense my knowledge into a workable activity. In the end, I came up with three stations: 1) What is this?: Can you Guess the Animal; 2) Bone Modifications; 3) What is my use? In each activity I laid out a variety of animal bones and  had the kids try to guess whether or not the animal was a mammal, bird, fish, etc. and if they were really good which species the bone could have came from; guess if they could identify human bone modifications and taphonomic processes; and whether the bone was used as a food, tool, or toy.  The first and third station seemed to be the most popular due to the presence of elk bones I had picked up off the side of the road in New Mexico in 2011 and their ability to touch reproduction Native American artifacts such as a hide scraper, deer bone rattle, and a ball and cup type game with a bone needle and sacrum. I also designed a "Meet Our Artifacts" display case with some of the bone artifacts recovered from various archaeological sites in the city.
Meet Our Artifacts: Top Left: Bone & Shell Buttons, Center Left: Ivory Needle Threader and Spool, Bottom Left: Bone Needle. Top Center: Bone Toothbrush handle, Bottom Center: Bone Handled Iron-Fork/Knife. Top Right: Bone & Wood Domino, Center Right: Bone Chess Piece, Bottom Right: Bone Fish Hook.


None of the other archaeologists had anything similar for their activities which was good. The turnout, compliments, and just excitement about the activity was amazing. I had a lot of people come up and want to talk to me about my research, doing outreach activities, or just to say thank you. All of the hard work I put in to making this activity something fun and enjoyable for people of all ages seemed to really pay off. I couldn't be more proud and I'm looking forward to speaking with all of the people who either took my business card or wrote down my information.

The War of 1812
In addition to the zooarch activity I also designed a display case and poster for the War of 1812 Bicentennial of the Battle of Bladensburg. The Virtual Curation Lab at Virginia Commonwealth University made replicas of artifacts discovered on the DC/Maryland border of the battle and we were able to display those.
This poster and display case may be used for an exhibit for the War of 1812 Bicentennial

Thoughts...
Designing this activity and the posters was an amazing opportunity for me to showcase my knowledge and love for history & archaeology. Being put on the spot about my research and to have little girls, including my sisters, enjoy playing with bones was the highlight of the whole experience. I'm hoping once I finish my thesis that I will be able to do outreach events similar to this, though on a much smaller scale. I do want to thank everyone who came out and supported me!! 

Until next time :)



1 comment: