SUNY Oneonta students began their summer digging into the past during the Pine Lake Archaeological Field School, now in its 12th biennial season.
According to a SUNY Oneonta news release, the collaborative effort between SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College introduces students to the basic methods archaeologists use to identify, excavate, record and interpret the history of Native American artifacts found at Pine Lake. Hartwick hosts the field school at its Pine Lake Environment Campus in West Davenport. SUNY Oneonta provides most of the equipment.
Field school students learn skills that can be applied to all kinds of disciplines. Many are anthropology majors, but the program is open to all and often attracts students studying history, geoscience, biology, geography, chemistry and other fields. Even if a student isn’t interested in going into archeology, they leave with basic skills applicable for many careers.
Students worked for eight hours a day in a field between Pine Lake and Charlotte Creek, sifting through excavated dirt and searching for evidence of ancient hunter-gatherer communities in an area believed to have been a gathering place for Native American people thousands of years ago, the release stated. Two nights per week, they completed laboratory analysis of their findings. The school ran from May 27 through June 26.
It is the only prehistoric field school in the region, according to SUNY Oneonta Anthropology Professor Renee Whitman, who started the field school in 2003 and co-directs it now. It’s also one of the few field schools where students spend time in the field and in the lab, processing found artifacts, analyzing and completing data entry. Students use the same database system as the New York State Museum to gain an understanding of the curation process.
“Our students get a lot of things out of the experience, even if they’re not going to become professional archaeologists,” Whitman said. “Whatever field they go into, we can speak to how well they work in a group as well as how well they learn excavation strategies, artifact identification, artifact processing and database entry. It’s physically and mentally draining to keep track of all that while you’re hot, tired, wet, there’s bugs on you. It speaks to their perseverance.”
Over the years, students have found hundreds of artifacts that provide a glimpse into the past, from 4,000-year-old cooking hearths to fire pits, with some artifacts dating back to about 8,000 years ago, according to the release. Students have found hundreds of flakes of chert (a type of rock used to make tools and weapons), pieces of pottery, nutting stones, a full projectile point (known to most as an arrowhead) and quartz that was not local to the region, indicating that it was traded.
“You learn very practical stuff that’s not necessarily only applicable to archaeology” said Samuel Feldman, a junior and Anthropology major. “You can also take this experience and go into paleontology and other fields that incorporate field and lab work.”
“If you want to learn how to dig, you know, this is definitely the place to do it,” said Wealthy Robinson, a junior majoring in history and anthropology.
Oneonta World of Learning children have visited the archaeological site almost every season since the field school began in 2003, according to the release. OWL students get to see firsthand how archaeology works and get a glimpse of a career that few children are exposed to. During their visit this year, OWL students toured the site, examined artifacts and took part in hands-on activities inspired by those practiced in the past, the release stated.
“Site visits introduce them to the field as a possible future path while also teaching them about the people who lived here long ago,” Whitman said. “A key part of that education is helping students understand that Native American communities are not beings of the past—they are very active groups today. Connecting the past to the present is a lot of what we do when we’re educating kids.”