Paper presented at the Society for Georgia Archaeology Fall Meeting Savannah, Georgia
November 20, 1993 Rita Folse Elliott LAMAR Institute
In September, 1993, LAMAR Institute assisted in a unique archaeological program conducted at Ellijay Middle School in the mountains of Gilmer County, Georgia. The project consisted of a six-week topical study unit on archaeology and the prehistory of Georgia, with the final two weeks consisting of survey and testing of an actual archaeological site on the school campus. Participants included two teachers, Linda Smith and Cindy Zager, who had attended a previous LAMAR Institute teachers' workshop on the subject, their sixty sixth-graders, and Dean Wood, Dan Elliott, and myself, of the LAMAR Institute. This paper examines the initiation of the program; the methodology employed before, during, and after the unit's presentation; and the implications for the archaeological site, the students, the archaeological community, and the public at large. It will answer the question, "Have we created a Frankenstein?"
It all began innocently enough. In June of this past year the LAMAR Institute gave another educators' workshop for teachers wishing to earn staff-development unit, or SDU, credits. This workshop was co-sponsored by Emory University's Michael C. Carlos Museum of Art and Archaeology, in Atlanta and conducted by Jackie Saindon and myself, of the LAMAR Institute, and Theresa Groover. The workshop consisted of guest lecturers, classroom activity ideas, resource materials, and a field trip to Ocmulgee National Monument, and was rated a success by teacher evaluations at the end of the program. Among the nineteen interested teachers in attendance, lurked Cindy Zager and Linda Smith, sixth grade teachers at Ellijay Middle School. Their pleasant demeanor belied a growing idea and subsequent mission feverishly building in their minds. Cindy and Linda knew through reports by collectors that a site existed on their school campus. They thought it would be a unique opportunity to employ the site in a curriculum on archaeology and Georgia prehistory and brought the subject up at the workshop. I gave them the typical archaeologist's response that it sounded like a neat site, but in most cases there are not enough resources (both financial and in the form of professional archaeologists) to investigate all the sites in Georgia, particularly with untrained school children. The teachers politely acquiesced and I thought the idea had been dropped. Obviously, I was unaware of the tenacity of two teachers attempting to construct a class curriculum. The two cornered Dean Wood, one of the speakers at the workshop and explained their idea. Dean was lured into the project by the chance to work in the mountains near Ellijay and almost immediately agreed to help with the project.
Two months later reality hit, as the thought of commandeering sixty sixth-graders into an archaeological crew was reflected in Dean's rapidly graying beard. Since misery loves company, he called me and convinced me to help. Dean devised a proposal outline for the project and we decided on several important issues. Paramount was the issue that the students would be required to have classroom exposure to Georgia history, prehistory, and archaeology prior to conducting any archaeological investigations. The students would have to have a real understanding of the prehistory of the area and an introduction to archaeology, its goals, field methods and the rationale behind each. They would have to learn about research designs and the scientific method, and actually brainstorm and create their own appropriate research design for their site. We decided that the students would be involved in all phases of the work, from initial research, to establishing a grid, to shovel testing, to preliminary analysis, to mapping and interpretations, to unit excavations and note taking, to interpretations and report writing. If they wanted to learn archaeology, they had to learn ALL about archaeology, and mostly that archaeology is not just digging.
In addition to these site related goals, we decided on several other issues during this stage. We felt it was very important to have as much participation on the part of the school and community as possible. While we loaned equipment to the project, we insisted that students who had shovels loan them for use during the project. Also we asked Linda and Cindy to have some of the parents and students make simple hand screens and excavation screens for the project. Volunteers scoured the town in search of large plastic buckets used mostly in the fast food industry, and gathered many to be used during unit excavations. This frenzy of equipment gathering produced an armada of implements and increasing curiosity and interest in the community. We also stipulated that we needed a place set aside for a field lab, where students could analyze the artifacts. The school board allowed the use of the "science bus", a renovated school bus equipped with satellite facilities, computers, scales, desks, counter space, and a host of other amenities. This became our on-site laboratory. Dean and I also decided that the school and students should know that archaeology costs money. While we did not expect to make our normal salaries, we did not want (and could not afford) to volunteer for weeks. We also wanted the project to be something everyone had to work at and participate for it to be successful, and realized that if some money had to be raised, then our work would undoubtedly be valued more than if it was just given away. In addition, we needed a place to stay while working away from our homes. Towards these ends Cindy and Linda directed their tireless energies. They approached three local banks, whose monetary donations reflect not only their desire for good public relations, but their recognition of a cause worthy of support and the need to help schools provide better learning experiences for tomorrow's adults. Perhaps one of Linda and Cindy's most appreciated coups, however, was in finding us a field house in the form of a cabin in the mountains with one of the most beautiful views in the southeast. The use of the cabin was generously donated by the school's secretary and her husband who used it as a vacation retreat. It is obvious from this list just how extensive the academic, parental, and community support was for this project, which was a major success in itself.
The six week project was designed to utilize the last two weeks mostly for field and lab work. Dean arrived during the fifth week of the unit expecting to use a large portion of classroom time to teach Georgia prehistory. He was amazed to find that the students already knew the periods of prehistory and were familiar with stone tools, soapstone, pottery and general archaeological concepts such as features and stratigraphy. Cindy and Linda did an excellent job in using the information they absorbed during the LAMAR Institute teachers' workshop to prepare the students during the initial four weeks of classroom study. Dean complemented their new knowledge with information about the Mississippian period and the Coosa chiefdom, which was also directly related to many of the sites in the Ellijay area. He used this new information to encourage them to brainstorm about research ideas and develop a research design. Their research design included determining whether their site was part of the Coosa chiefdom, and deciding that if they uncovered postholes from a palisade then it would indicate warfare and a fortified town. Such a town would likely be in the Coosa provenience. Their research design also examined questions of chronology, such as, "When does the site date to based on stone tools and/or pottery?" They addressed the question of agriculture, and knew that if they found charred corn cobs, then the site inhabitants were agriculturists.
We will now examine the actual methods employed during this project. Initial fieldwork involved establishing a north-south and an east-west baseline. The remainder of the site grid was laid out by pulling tapes and setting pinflags to mark grid intersection points. A few stakes were shot in with the transit on the edge of the gridded area. Pinflags were established at ten meter intervals across a portion of the site. Shovel test teams of five students each then began testing the area, with various students on the team being responsible for making notes, taking measurements, filling out the bag correctly, excavating the hole, collecting artifacts, screening the fill, and backfilling the hole. In this manner everyone participated in some activity and a total of 67 shovel tests were excavated. Many students tried to exert a great deal of self control in excavating vertical shovel tests, particularly when their shovel scraped something in the wall of their test hole. Not all overcame the urge to tunnel slightly sideways to get the tantalizing rock or artifact officially outside their shovel tests. Most learned to overcome this urge, however, which proved to be good practice in preparing them to excavate vertical walls in their future test units.
The shovel testing gave the students an opportunity to learn about graphs and grids. While many found the grid coordinates confusing (indeed, as many adults do!) the students were aided in learning how a graph or grid works, by actually participating in a three dimensional one instead of merely viewing it on paper. When the students completed shovel testing they washed the artifacts, and other students sorted and did preliminary analysis of them in the mobile lab. This raw data was then given to Cindy and Linda and the students learned why the shovel tests were important when they created their own hand-made dot-density maps. Each student had a separate grid page for different artifacts, including firecracked rock, pottery, stone tools, etc. The teachers called out the number of the various artifacts for each coordinate to the class and each student put the correct number of dots on his/her grid at that coordinate. Not only did this teach the students how to graph points on a grid, but they quickly learned the value in putting correct grid information on bags while in the field, and in keeping accurate paper work while doing analysis in the lab. They also learned the incredibly tedious nature of archaeology after plotting numerous artifacts for 207 grid points. (They also learned the value of computers, at that point!)
Laboratory work taught students a little about what goes on behind the scenes of an archaeological dig. Selected students were charged with preliminary sorting of artifacts, tabulating and recording amounts, and weighing firecracked rock. They learned to look for designs on pottery, to distinguish between quartz and chert, and to examine rocks for worked edges indicative of tools. While they were not capable of doing total analysis, particularly pottery identification on small to residual sized sherds, they learned the basic techniques involved in laboratory work and the importance of accurate analysis.
The second week of fieldwork was devoted to unit excavation, artifact washing, interpretation, and backfilling. I went up that week to assist Dean, and drafted Dan Elliott (LAMAR Institute) to volunteer for a major portion of that time. Information from the students' dot density maps were used to help determine locations of test units. Some locations were chosen based on total amounts of artifacts, while others investigated areas particularly dense in lithics, ceramics, or bifaces. Students excavated a total of four 2 m square units. Students were divided into four groups of fifteen, each. Ideally, the groups should have been slightly smaller, perhaps a maximum of ten students on a unit. This division, however, would have required more professional supervision which was unavailable at the time. We insisted that all students take turns on the various tasks associated with unit excavation, including shoveling, troweling, screening, artifact retrieval, bucket emptying, measurement readings with a line level, and note taking. They were left to their own resources when it came to deciding when it was time to change tasks and whose turn it was next to dig. They proved adept at creative problem solving, including delegating tasks among themselves and watching the time to ensure that everyone got to dig everyday and participate in other tasks when they were not digging. Each unit had one adult supervisor who ensured that the students did not dig too deep or compromise the excavations in other ways. In addition to watching a unit each, the archaeologists traveled around the field answering questions and directing work at the various units. Each team was required to take final measurements, fill out a Unit Level form, and fill out a new artifact bag before being allowed to begin excavating the next level. The only difficulty students had in using the metric system was remembering to say "centimeters" instead of "inches". When the students completed their unit excavation each group made scaled profile drawings of one wall of their unit. They learned how to photograph a unit wall and how to prepare a unit and graph paper for profiling. Each member of the group gathered around the unit and was taught how to execute a profile drawing. This concept of going from a three dimension surface to a scaled drawing proved on of the most difficult of the field activities. With continual explanation, demonstration, and assistance, however, every student drew a profile. Each student had the opportunity to take measurements and call out readings, in addition to drawing the profile. Students also honed their reading and writing skills by keeping daily journals of their activities
The end of the second week of fieldwork included finishing excavation and profile drawings, backfilling all the excavation units, and a discussion of the results. At this point the artifacts from the excavation units had not been analyzed, however, some basic interpretations could be discussed based on the observations made while excavating. The archaeologists and teachers led a discussion of what was learned from the excavation and how the research design was addressed through this work. The students learned through their excavations that the site was an Etowah site, based on the pottery designs, but there was also evidence of occupation from the Archaic, Woodland, other Mississippian, and Historic Cherokee periods. They learned that not all research questions can be answered from one seasons' work, or even from any amount of archaeology. They realized that their questions concerning warfare and a fortified village were still unanswered because only one feature was discovered and no rows of postholes, indicative of a palisade were located in their four excavation units. They also realized that they still did not know how big the site was. While the site was bounded by a sand quarry and river on one side, and disturbance from school playground equipment on another side, a third side was on inaccessible private land, and the fourth side was the remainder of the playground that could not be excavated at the same time as the other half of the students' play area. In essence, there are many questions that future archaeological investigations can answer. They also learned about the importance of site preservation, and saving some of the site for future students and archaeologists.
The question, then, is have we created a Frankenstein by teaching children about archaeology and by letting them do archaeology under controlled supervision? The only similarity this project bears to the Frankenstein project is that both were composites created from various parts. The Ellijay project was fabricated from the support of community, business, school administration, and parents. It used the brains of school teachers and archaeologists, the limbs and minds of sixty school children, and the enthusiasm of everyone to pump life into the Ellijay experiment. The results, likewise were a composite of teaching English, reading, writing, history, math, archaeology, geography, science, discipline, hard work, and teamwork that generated the final result of a large body of knowledge that was not only interesting, but fun to build. The Ellijay project has not created a Frankenstein because it emphasized both preservation and proper archaeological excavations throughout all stages of work under the supervision of professional archaeologists. The Frankenstein fear can only be held by those advancing the theory that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" and "ignorance is bliss". Archaeologists can no longer rest easily in their blissful ignorance, but must educate the public about the value of archaeological sites. The Ellijay project is one step towards this education, serving archaeologists, teachers, and the community equally well.
Afterthought--Those sixth graders of 1993 are now mostly graduated from undergraduate school, and some possibly have received advanced degrees. So, did we create any Frankensteins out there? Drop us a note if you participated in the Ellijay project.