I interned with the Texas Historical Commission’s lab in Austin. My main responsibility was working on the Fort St. Louis Project. After the discovery of several cannons on Keeran Ranch in 1996, the Historical Commission agreed that additional excavations should be done. After much work it was confirmed to be the site of Fort St. Louis, a fort founded by French explorer La Salle in the mid-1600s. The excavations started in in late 1999 and ended in early 2002. According to Jeff Durst it was the longest continuing excavation done in the state of Texas. Now the good thing about such a long excavation is that an abundance of information was uncovered but, along with an abundance of information comes an abundance of artifacts. My job was to re-bag, re-tag, re-box, and re-label all of the Fort St. Louis artifacts so they could be transferred to the Museum of the Coastal Bend in Victoria County.
I quickly settled into a routine of re-bagging, checking tags, and making new boxes to put artifacts in. While I can’t say the whole process was uninteresting, I do have to admit it quickly became monotonous. Even though I had participated in an excavation that summer and knew that most artifacts were not the amazing pieces of art seen in museums, I still imagined handling fascinating pieces of history. In reality it was mostly just box after box of burned daub and shell with a few scattered boxes of lithics, pottery, and badly conserved metal. Occasionally Jim, another volunteer, or I would come across a neat projectile point or shells with drilled holes in them for necklaces, but for the most part the Fort St. Louis work was mind-numbing.
After a couple of months re-bagging, I had the opportunity to witness a Ground Penetrating Radar survey in Guadalupe County. The site was just east of Seguin and was called the Wilson Pottery Site. This had to be the most fascinating part of my internship. A grid was set up over the site with markers to make sure we did not miss anything. When it was finally over to where the unearthed mounds were, we saw some interesting results. Tiffany said she couldn’t be sure but it looked like walls underneath the ground. Besides the GPR the site itself was very interesting. Mounds of broken original pottery can still be seen at the surface along with clay casts that were put in-between the pots when fired. The casts, which were thrown away with the broken pottery by the workers, have finger imprints on them from where the workers grabbed them before being fired. The family who owns the site is hoping to eventually set up a museum in Seguin that tells the story of the Wilson Pottery Site. Jeff is currently helping out with the grant writing, and they hope to get started on it next year.
I also assisted in another project. Carmel Shrirre, an archeologist from North Carolina, asked for help with some gunflints she excavated in the Cape of Good Hope in Southern Africa. She needed help with the gunflint attributes which included: length, width, thickness, material, origin, color, whether it was used or unused, and whether it was a spall or a blade. Shirre was interested in knowing which gunflints were brought to the area and by whom and which ones were made on site. She also wanted to compare the different techniques used in making the gunflints. This was very interesting. Gunflints are shaped like a thumbnail. They were used in pistols in the 1800s as a way to light gunpowder. I had to measure, color code, and study the gunflints shape to determine what it was made of and where it had come from. I also had to sort through several broken pieces of flint and chert and determine which were gunflints and which were just flakes from other artifacts. After figuring out all the attributes, I was taught how to properly write up the data using Excel and made a chart of the data which was then passed on to Carmel Shirre.
All in all I would have to say this internship had many positive effects on my career goals. I have a more of a plan about what to do with my degree once I graduate. Be prepared with a lot of questions and to always volunteer more of your time to learn new things.