Digging through South Jersey for archaeological treasures

The steady clink of picks and shovels trickles from behind an abandoned, boarded-up Victorian house on a quiet South Jersey street. Then the rhythm is broken. A murmur of excitement echoes through the yard -- archaeologists have discovered a stash of historical artifacts hidden four feet below the surface.

Hidden in a trash pit, that is.

But to the Penn graduate students and undergraduates excavating the historical site in Vineland, N.J., it was a major find.

The students are all taking a class through the Anthropology Department that allows them to learn both history and methods of archaeology by participating in hands-on research as the group tries to reconstruct the history of the New Jersey neighborhood.

In the past, many students have found that the only way to become involved in actual digging was to travel to expensive summer programs at locations closer to the West Coast. The new class allows even those with no experience to undertake excavation since the very same types of sites are available practically in the University's backyard.

Anthropology Professor Robert Schuyler, who teaches the class, said that the project was possible because of the unique characteristics of the area, which was uninhabited until the mid-19th century.

"I was originally going to work in the far American West, but this area has everything that is out there," said Schuyler, who studies 19th and 20th century archaeology. "Because of that I decided to do the project locally, because then I could bring Penn undergraduates into the project."

So each Friday or Saturday for the past few months, 20 students have spent their days tunneling into two to three feet of "cultural deposits" -- coal ash and dirt, but mostly trash left by former residents of the house. But to archaeologists, the findings are artifacts that help them reconstruct local history from the turn of the century to the 1950s.

"A lot of times archaeology is actually the study of ancient trash," said School of Arts and Sciences graduate student Matt Johnson, Schuyler's teaching assistant.

Students said that history seemed more alive to them because they could interpret the objects they found in conjunction with what they learned about the time period.

"They didn't have a public sanitary system, so they just buried trash in the backyard, basically," College junior Katarina Johnson said. "It gives clues to daily life and their routines in general, and obviously it give clues to their sanitation systems."

Students also said that actually unearthing and interpreting artifacts was more personal and intimate than just reading a history text.

"You see what you're reading about, and it's more hands-on," College senior Kate Welch said. "You have a deeper connection to what you're finding. We get personal with our squares" of soil.

And since the excavation is part of a long-term project that will eventually include a study of the surrounding lots as well as outside research, a more complete history of the town will likely emerge from students' work. A second section of the class, listed as Anthropology 225 and slated for this spring, will allow students to analyze some of the materials found, and to take on related research.

"We'll be doing regular documentary research, oral research, archaeology and what is called above-ground archaeology -- looking at the buildings and houses and cemeteries and streets, and then also looking at the town today as a living community," Schuyler said.

The most important result of students' work may be that the histories of specific inhabitants can be fleshed out in greater detail, especially if the inhabitants or their relatives can be found.

"You have specific correlations of what individual families or individual people had, and then if you can find the families, and the historical documents, and learn who they are and their class and other characterizations, then you can combine that with their material culture and get a much bigger and richer picture," Schuyler said.

In addition, students are learning not only about the history of the town, which gained fame as a planned community in the late 19th century, but also about techniques of excavation from gridding a plot of land to "profiling" the layers of soil and deposits.

But for some, the most important lesson has been patience.

"I learned that you shouldn't have expectations, thinking you'll find this and that," Nursing senior Jessica Chao said. "It's when you least expect it that you discover it."

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