Hartwick, SUNY Partner on Archaeological Field School

By MONICA CALZOLARI
ONEONTA

Eleven students and one teaching assistant are gaining valuable Archaeological Field School experience at Hartwick College’s Pine Lake Environmental Campus for four weeks, May 29 through June 28.

This is a joint project between Hartwick College and SUNY Oneonta. Faculty from the anthropology departments from both schools offer a six-credit summer course in archaeological excavation methods.

Dr. Renee Whitman, a professor of archaeology at SUNY Oneonta, lives on-site at Pine Lake in a cabin for four weeks, as do most of the student participants.

Dr. Whitman said, “We have been doing this every other summer since 2003.”

Dr. Namita Sugandhi, a professor of anthropology at Hartwick College, joined the field school team in 2019.

She said, “We are training students in field techniques, artifact analysis, how to keep good records and how to work as a team.”

Dr. Elizabeth Cruzado Carranza, an adjunct assistant professor of archeology at SUNY Oneonta, also assists in the field and lab.

The summer field school is open to local as well as visiting students. In addition to four SUNY Oneonta students and two Hartwick students, students from Drew University, Catholic University, St. Lawrence University, and Adelphi University are also participating.

Dr. Sugandhi said, “We like to call it archeology boot camp. It tests you a bit.”

Students work outdoors five days a week from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and work in the laboratory two nights a week from 5-7 p.m., processing the objects they have discovered.

The excavation site is located on the flood plain of the Charlotte Creek. The field school at Pine Lake allows students and their professors to investigate prehistoric camp sites dating from the Late Archaic period, c. 3000-1000 BCE.

Dr. Whitman said, “We are studying why people were settling on this site in this area and what activities they were involved in.”

One theory is that the people were getting ready for winter by roasting nuts, drying meat and fish, and smoking hides.

The archeologists are finding stone artifacts, particularly little flakes called debitage, left over from making stone tools.

Whitman said, “There is evidence of large hearth features usually associated with places for processing foods and sharpening tools near a fire.”

Natalie Benenati, of Norwich, discovered several of these flakes on June 19 of this year.
She said, “I love being outside and excavating.”

She is a senior at SUNY Oneonta majoring in anthropology.

Benenati said, “I just love it. Teamwork is my biggest take-away.”

Kayla Kaufman, a rising senior at SUNY Oneonta, said, “I love it. I love the atmosphere, working with people, digging my hole and finding things.”

Kaufman is majoring in anthropology and minoring in history and classic studies.

Dr. Sugandhi said, “Ninety percent of today’s archeologists are employed in the field of cultural resource management. CRM is an industry. A federal law called the National Historic Preservation Act [Section 106] requires that before you disturb federal land, you must call in a team of archeologists and make sure nothing of historical significance will be disturbed.”

Students who complete the field school are prepared to enter a career in CRM or to pursue graduate school in archaeology.

Silas Moyer is a rising junior at Hartwick College. His mother, Rebecca Moyer, is a Hartwick alumna who majored in anthropology. His father, David Moyer, operates Birchwood Archeological Services in Gilbertsville.

Moyer said, “Ever since I was a little kid, I have been outside with my parents around dig sites. Reading a map and using a compass are important when doing statistical survey sampling.”

With all his exposure to CRM, Moyer is a teaching assistant at the field school at Pine Lake.

Katie Majka is a rising senior at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. Her extended family are from New York and her grandparents live close to Pine Lake. She said, “I’d like to do CRM work and earn a master’s in museum studies.”

She is considering SUNY Oneonta’s graduate program in museum studies.

Jose Perdomo is double majoring in environmental studies and anthropology at Adelphi University on Long Island. His professors encouraged him to get field experience.

He is in a Scholar Teacher Education Program, earning a bachelor’s and master’s in education in five years. He plans to teach earth science at the high-school level.

Perdomo said, “I really love Native American history before civilization began.”

He had the opportunity to use a spear thrower, called an atlatl, and practice what it would be like to be a hunter-gatherer responsible for killing deer with a spear.

On Monday, June 17, David Moyer brought a foam deer and replicas of an atlatl to the field school for a demonstration. Atlatls help propel spears farther and were used before the bow and arrow were invented about 1500 years ago.

Elwyn Hand attends St. Lawrence University. Her older sister went to Hartwick College and received an e-mail about the field school. She is double majoring in anthropology and history, with a minor in religious studies. She hopes to attend graduate school and work in a museum or in the archives of a library.

Dr. Sugandhi also travels to India to do research.

She said, “Pine Lake is an amazing place to dig and spend four weeks getting a digital detox. We have a very safe environment. Learning about the outdoors takes grit and resilience, which the field school helps develop in our students.”