Pearl
Pearl Enbysk
I am an anthropology major who has been with CRAWL since August of 2015. I've been an avid lover of archaeology for many years. I was that weird kid in school; my favorite game was having my friends hide toys in the sandbox, so that I could "conduct an archaeological dig". Some of my favorite shows were on the History Channel, instead of Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network. I am passionate about historical archaeology, and I moonlight as a tour guide for the Underground Tours, run by the Sacramento History Museum in Old Sac. For more information, questions, or comments, feel free to email me at penbysk@gmail.com. For more information about the Underground Tours, you can visit the Sacramento History Museum's website.
CRAWL: Tools of the Trade
The first day of lab in a new semester is something constant. It's the same from semester, to semester, with little change. Typically, it's brushed over. It's the boring day, where you learn all the rules and what not to do. When you're new, of course, you're fresh-faced and eager, ready to learn new things. You're excited, and soak everything up so that you don't do something wrong. When it's your third, or even sixth semester, you can forget just how important these basics are. In honor of basics, I decided to write about the tools we use in our work.
The items shown in the first photograph form the basis of our work. Each artifact needs to have its own identification number, tag, and bag. We use a different pen depending on what we're writing on. We use Microns for writing the numbers on the artifacts, since they won't damage the artifacts. Sharpie pens are used for writing information on the paper tags, and regular Sharpies are for writing information on the bags.
In this second photo, you can see multiple bottles. The two clear bottles in the middle, the little jar and the nail polish bottle, are a clear sealant we use to protect the numbers on the artifact, so that they don't rub off. The jar on the left is a white, paint-like material. When we have very dark artifacts, dark green glass for example, we paint this on, then write the information on that. This way, we can actually see what was written. Another bottle is acetone. While acetone can damage some things (there may have been a small incident involving a Styrofoam cup and acetone), it's also very useful in our work. We can use a Q-tip dipped in acetone to wipe Sharpies off of bags, to fix mistakes or reuse a bag. Sometimes, we also use it to erase information written on an artifact; don't worry, we rewrite the information, just in a different place. We do this if the information has been written in an inconvenient place. For example, if we had a pretty piece of porcelain, but the information was written on the side that would be displayed if it was in a museum, we'll erase it and rewrite it in a more inconspicuous place.
This third photograph shows the kind of information we write regarding the artifacts. All the information that's written on the bag is also written on the tag. The top part, the accession number, is written on the artifact as well; no other information is written on the artifacts themselves. The other information recorded is north and west coordinates of where the artifact was found, the depth, and how many pieces are in the bag. Sometimes we put multiple fragments in the same bag, with the same number, if they're from the same artifact. For example, if one bag contains multiple fragments of a ceramic artifact, and all the pieces have the same pattern and colors, we can make the reasonable judgement that they're from the same artifact. For more information about how we categorize artifacts and the information we include, check out the post Welcome to CRAWL! by Alannah Chapman.
At the end of a long day of work, we record what we did in notebooks, such as the one in this last photo. These journals are kept with the collection. This is the one I've used since I started in August of 2015. Sometimes multiple students will use the same notebook, like this one; hence, why I crossed the names out. Many of us write in them throughout the day. The days are often so busy and packed with things we've done, that we have to. After all, it wouldn't do to forget something important; these journals will stay with the collection forever. We still have journals from the original students that we look back to. It makes me wonder, how will people in the future use our journals?
Musings on Archaeology and Tourism
CRAWL is an interesting opportunity for anyone lucky enough to be involved in it. For me, it is doubly interesting. Not only am I an anthropology student, I also work as a tour guide for a local museum, the Sacramento History Museum. This museum runs historical tours, and one stop on the tour is the site that CRAWL worked on. I’ve seen that tourism and archaeology have a somewhat love/hate relationship. One the one hand, tourism can bring awareness to historical sites, as well as providing funds to protect and investigate these sites further. On the other hand, tourists can damage sites, either knowingly or unknowingly; in Egypt, some tombs are no longer open to the public, because the moisture in the breath of visitors caused the paintings on the walls to crumble. Tour guides may also be tempted to come up with stories that may not be true. Tourists also want to learn exciting things, and not all of history is exciting.
The site that CRAWL excavated has plenty of interesting stories to tell, which makes it perfect for the tours. When I work as a tour guide, I’m expected to wear period clothing; the tours cover a period of time, from the 1840s to the 1880s. I dress closer to the late 1850s, early 1860s. A hoop skirt is a very difficult thing to walk in when it’s a windy day. Just getting that out there, in case you were curious. The goal of myself, as well as my fellow tour guides, is to educate the public. We research our facts and stories, trying to be as accurate as we can. We don’t wish to spread misinformation, but we also want it to be enjoyable. After all, if our tours are boring, few people would want to go on them.
Does this mean all tour guides everywhere share this passion for history? Maybe, maybe not. I have heard of, and unfortunately saw when I was younger, guides who place more importance on tall tales than facts. On the whole, though, the tour guides I’ve met, both at the museum I work at and at other historical places, are as passionate about history as my fellow archaeology students. Maybe we have more in common than we realize? Perhaps tour guides aren’t the bane of archaeologists, but compatriots in the search for the truth? And perhaps tour guides are an underutilized resource for drumming up interest in the field of historical archaeology? If only we could see into the future and find out.
The Public and Public Outreach
People. I like people, but there’s a reason I chose archaeology instead of cultural anthropology. I’m an introvert. I prefer to interact with as few people as possible- and yet, I work as a tour guide; how’s that for ironic? Now my being an introvert wasn’t the only reason I chose archaeology, but it was one of them. Public outreach, however, is becoming a larger part of our work in CRAWL. It’s greatly needed. Public outreach is how we gain new students, how we advertise our program, and a way we can share our discoveries. What is public outreach though, beyond all that?
Perhaps the most common form of public outreach is attending an event. CRAWL has done this many times in the past. We’ve hosted events on the Cosumnes River College (or CRC) campus for International Archaeology Day. We’ve set tabled at two different Los Rios Anthropology Expos, one at Sacramento City College and one at CRC. These old-fashioned, in-person routes require a lot of work. We have to decide on what we’re going to talk about (since there’s so much to talk about with CRAWL), get to the event, set up our table, figure out how to arrange everything, and then interact with the public. We’ve had all kinds of people come to these events. From fellow anthropology majors who are fascinated and thrilled, to bored students who just want that sweet, sweet extra credit for attending. Even drinking a lot of water (or tea with honey, as I like), your throat gets hoarse and scratchy at the end of the day.
A new way to do public outreach is online. From dry academic websites to blogs, like this one, the Internet is providing a new space for us to use. We can show pictures with ease, or even videos. We can link to other interesting articles (like the other posts on this blog). We have no more scratchy throats! Of course, unlike talking to a real person, you can be unsure whether or not people are actually listening. It can feel like shouting into the void. An online presence is relatively new for CRAWL; while there has been a page on the CRC website with information, not much has been done with it. This blog, and this website, are new frontiers for us.
Our continuing mission? To make more people aware of CRAWL, and historical archaeology in general. To share photos of our astounding finds. To rope more people into our web of archaeology. To boldly post where no one has posted before! And to still attend events, though hopefully we’ll figure out a way to not sound like we’re speaking through gravel at the end of the day.
Academic Presentations Are Hard Work
Academic presentations are important. You spread information about your discoveries. You learn about what other people have discovered. Perhaps most importantly, you share information. After all, what good is all our research if no one else uses it? However, as I’m finding out the hard way, they require a lot of work. Hard work. Luckily, I can share the burden with my fellow CRAWL students, as we’re doing a group presentation.
Our presentation is focused on CRAWL, though more I can’t say until we unveil it. We’re each tackling a different part of it to research and present. This helps us to not be swamped. While I’m still gathering research, it can lead to some problems. One such problem is how much personal experience, versus academic research, should be included. While our subject is very much a personal one, having academic research to support our assertions would be ideal. This, of course, leads to the problem of where to find that academic research. There’s printed academic journals, online academic articles, and the academic sources collected by an online research database. Finding the perfect article about the impact of- oops, almost spoiled the presentation. Sorry. As unlikely as finding the perfect article would be, I can dream, can’t I? From hard copies, to online sources, it’s going to be a long search. Speaking of which, I better get back to it. Here’s hoping I don’t drown in all this information!
Academic Presentations are Hard Work, Part Two
Yes, this is a part two on academic presentations. In my earlier post, I wasn’t able to go into much detail about what we were presenting. We were still ironing out all the details, and, well, I didn’t want to give any spoilers before we presented it. Now, however, we did it! And you can all hear about it! Or, actually, read about it. Our presentation was entitled Beyond the Display Case: Engaging Public Anthropology for a Changing World, a PowerPoint. We presented it at the Sacramento Anthropological Society (SAS) Symposium, which was held at California State University, Sacramento.
What was this presentation on, exactly? Well, we broke in down into some main points. We talked about what CRAWL is, what we do in CRAWL, as well as some of the challenges that face historical archaeology. Since I have the unusual position of being a tour guide on the site the artifacts are from, I presented a portion on my experiences. We also talked about conferences, academic presentations (like our own), the importance of public outreach and how it’s changing. Then, we ended with a discussion of why people should care about anthropology, as well as what they can do to get more involved in archaeology and anthropology. All of this was tied together with things CRAWL has done.
This won’t be our only presentation. We have a slot at the 117th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting later this year, in November, where we will once again present on CRAWL. Now, like my first post about academic presentations, I don’t want to spoil anything about this upcoming one. I will, however, say that it focuses more on our own personal experiences in CRAWL. If you want to know more- well, you’ll have to wait until November, won’t you?
What the Heck is an Annotated Bibliography, and How do I Find Academic Sources?
Beyond putting together our presentation for the Symposium, packing up re-cataloged artifacts, and working on cataloging new artifacts, we also had to write four annotated bibliographies. What is an annotated bibliography? That’s what I asked myself last semester, when they were introduced in CRAWL for the first time. I found out that it’s basically the bibliographic information of whatever you’re writing about, and a summary of the article, book, journal, or whatever that you’re writing about. Our annotated bibliographies, both last semester and this semester, were all on academic articles. Most of them were ones of our choosing, so we had to find the articles ourselves. How does one do that, in the great, wide Internet?
As a student of Cosumnes River College, I have it easier than some do. The CRC library maintains a number of online research databases. They’re like Google, but focused solely on academic articles, and less chance of encountering the dangers that are associated with Google Scholar. I can go on these databases, type in a search topic (say, california historical archaeology), and then peruse the dozens or hundreds of results that can come up. Refining these results, I can choose a specific date range, a specific type of publication (article, book, etc.), even whether the full text of the document is there or on another website.
Thanks to this, I was able to find two relevant articles. The first, Market Street Chinatown Project, by Barbara L. Voss et al, is about a project in San Jose that is similar to CRAWL; a historical archaeology site, where studying the artifacts took place years after the original excavation, by people not involved in the original excavation. The second, Inessential archaeologies by Laurie A. Wilkie, is a post-processual look at historical archaeology. So, if you’re a college student looking for academic sources, check your school’s library! They may have research databases to make things easier for you.
Special Visitors Appear in the Lab
On May 4, we received two very special visitors in CRAWL. They were two of the students on the original project; one of them is also the widow of the professor who was in charge of the original excavation. Diane Abrams and Mary Kell brought us a great deal of information we didn’t know. Personal anecdotes, as well as what it was like to excavate underneath a building in Old Sac, were some things they shared with us. I can’t imagine how they endured the heat in the summer months.
They also brought us photographs from the original dig. Many of these we’d never seen before! Hearing their stories of working on the dig was very interesting. It helped me realize how some things in archaeology don’t change (like sifting for artifacts, working in grids, and humor), and some things do (electronic mapping of a site, electronic catalogues, etc.)
The Archaeologist Tour Guide
April began the new season of tours on the Underground Tour. From late December, until April, the public tours are closed because of the winter weather, though school tours are still allowed on weekdays. I had done a private tour before this new season, but it was smaller than any of the public tours; this makes us guides use different ways to teach information, as some of the interactive methods are better for large groups. As I checked in at the front desk of museum that opening day, I wasn’t surprised to hear all tours that day were sold out (a sold out tour is 20 people). After all, this was the first day of the new season. The next day, Sunday, I was amazed to find out we were sold out that day as well! Sundays are usually slow days, but this one wasn’t.
As always, I’m amazed at the wide variety of people on these tours; parents with young children, couples on a date, families enjoying a reunion, friends on an outing, locals, distant visitors, and more. Getting the information out to the public is part of what archaeologists do; what good is gathering all this information, if we can’t share it with people? As we in CRAWL learn more, we share it with the museum, who then shares it with the public on the tours. The fact that the history we in CRAWL find out and share is being received by so many people, is amazing to me. To be part of it in not one but two roles, archaeology student and tour guide, is an honor.