The Summer With You All…

Many people may be enjoying their lives at the beach with the sun and the sand in the summer while we are at Phillip’s Academy summer session lower institute Dig This studying history, but nonetheless, we enjoyed our summer.

  Dig This is a course offered by Phillip’s Academy Andover focused on the study of history and archaeology. During the course, we covered the American history from the 1600s when the Europeans just arrived at to the early 1900s when Indian boarding schools were established. This course is rich and interesting but learning about almost 300 years in 35 days may cause confusion in minds but the benefit is always bigger than the detriment. 

  We all learned about this summer and there are three ideas that I think is presented to us through the history that we learned about. First, I found out that its never so simple as the English/White against the Indian/Native Americans. There are times when the Indians splits into groups and fight against each other and there are also times when the Indians or the Whites just fight among themselves! The causes of these conflicts are also complicated. Even though many people uses a specific event as the beginning of a conflict or war, but from all we learned, it is not so. There are always many causes that piles up that finally and then in the end starts the conflict. The short term triggers are important but the long term causes are what actually made the people angry. No conflict happens without a series of causes adding up. The last but not least idea is that all the conflict involves the word L-A-N-D land. The Indians were able to divide their land well because their land was divided according to the number of people they have which equals to their battling power. But as the Europeans come along, they grant themselves he ownership of all the land in which they find and give them Christian names as if they were the first to discover them ignoring the Indians’ rights over the land. As more and more Europeans come along, thy chase Indians out of their land with both threat and seduce the Indians into selling their land. The Southern Removal Act (trial of tears) is a very good example of a conflict over land.

  During the summer and especially the digs we had at Rebecca Nurse Homestead, we all learned many skills that we would probably have no chance to learn if we did not join the Summer Session. We learned the methods and the steps of an archaeological dig from the creation of a unit to the noting and picture taking of features and strata. For every hour we spend in the field digging, there will be ten hours spent in the laboratory studying these artifacts that we find. During the summer, we were also able to learn some basic ways to determine the date of artifacts like pipes by the diameter of the hole through the stem, pottery by design and decoration, bottles by shape and organism products by the amount of carbon left in a cell. There are also other skills we learned like how handle artifacts and that the acid on fingers will harm the artifacts. We can also determine a piece of artifact to be rock or ceramic by seeing if it sticks to your tongue. Ceramic does, rocks don’t.

  This summer session teaches us not just the history itself but also the experience of our ancestors which will hopefully help us in the future. Anyone who comes will say that it was worth it to spend your summer holiday and I hope more and more people can experience the courses provided by Phillips Academy Andover, enjoy and learn at the same time.

 

This is a picture of our whole class plus Mr. Newhall, Little Mr. Newhall (John), Ms. Tully and some of the other instructors who helped us at the dig. I find this picture meaningful because it shows what we’ve done during the summer and almost everyone involved. Even though it captures only a second of the 35 days of our summer session life, it reminds me of all my experience through the summer.

Rebecca Nurse Reflection 4

Today was our fourth and last visit to Rebecca Nurse Homestead. We were very eager to start knowing it will probably be the last chance for us to do real archaeological dig in a long time. Surprising, we did not continue to dig the pits we worked on before but we opened five test pits (50cm by 50cm) and “tested” the productive rate of these areas. Since we got to choose our own groups, I was-once again-in Danielle’s group along with Malina and JP. After the long and hard time removing the grass on the top, we started digging into the gravel. There was not much found at the beginning, but soon-after we were through the roots and gravel-we began to find a lot of things including bones and bricks. After plenty of careful measuring and digging, Danielle suddenly picked up a piece of ceramic-looking thing and told me to show it to Nate (Dr. Hamlton). I did not find this piece of “ceramic” different from any other pieces so I gave it to Nate. Nate then told me that it was a piece of Northern Italian Marble from 1580-1630! He mentioned that it was the oldest thing found on the Homestead and showed the marble to Mr. Newhall…

Time flied during the dig and soon, it was time for us to have our tour through the Homestead this time not on the outside but the inside. During the tour, I learned that the colonists expanded their house by adding a second half of house to the other side of the chimney (the chimney is always on the side when a building is first built) and then, they will add an extra room to the first floor to one side so the length of the sloped ceiling will increase. In the end, they might add another small piece to the side of the house as an extra entrance. Then we were able to visit the meeting house which the movie Three Sovereigns for Sarah was recorded. In the end, we left all tired but pleased (before I could take a picture of the Northern Italian Marble!!!!!!!!).

Rebecca Nurse Homestead Tour

We had been to Rebecca Nuse Homestead twice already for digging but this time, we went for a tour in which we learned a lot about both Rebecca Nurse Homestead and also the Salem Witch Trial. The Rebecca Nurse Homestead was originally possessed by Townsent Biship, who was a rich farmer, one of the first from Salem to receive private property in 1636. The area of the Homestead is actually still in its original landscape well preserved and taken care of. After the first payment for the land of 300 acres in 1678, the Nurse family and the Putnam family owned this piece of land until approximately 100 years ago when the Putnam family gave the land to the Rebecca Nurse Association when the size of the land has reduced o 27 acres.

Rich who owned large land usually had their own private family burial ground. The funny thing about the Rebecca Nurse Homested burial ground is that both the Nurse family and the Putnam family are buried in same ground but the families aren’t exactly good friends. It is very interesting that two familys who are not good friends shared one burial ground-where the bodies of your ancestors will lay forever. Rebecca Nurse was accused of practicing witchcraft by children in 1672 at the age of 71 and soon hung after she recited the Christian prayer without any mistake-something witches and wizards are thought unable to do. Before she was hung, she was excommunicated from the church which was a very harsh punishment on an old, innocent Christian woman. Even though she was excommunicated, her body was secretly brought back to the Homestead where she had a Christian burial. Because of her false label, she was likely to be not put into a coffin which means she might have disappeared into nothingness while many people around the world are extremely interested in her burying ground. Since we did not know where she was buried (certainly not on the family burial ground), we were given the chance to observe the gravestones of the others and also where her monument stands today. During the trip, we learned that the size of the gravestone is usually twice as big as the size of the stone standing above ground. Gravestones were often set on the coffin of the death to avoid the stone tipping to the side.

After the trip to the burial ground, we walked back. We had plenty of time before we were leaving for school so we dug deeper into our pits finding many things but mainly bones. When we finished the activity we had to complete before we leave, we all left dirtful and tired.

Rebecca Nurse Homestead Reflection 2

  Today, we had our second trip to Rebecca Nurse Homestead and our discoveries are a lot greater than last time. Since our group finished the test pit last time, we started a new unit adjacent to the unit one of the groups dug in last time as well as one dug sometime in the past that was extremely productive. It turned out that we’ve hit the mother load as well. We barely started digging before we found glass shards lying among the grass on top of our unit. As we got deeper, we found more and more glass and even some small pieces of ceramic. As we got deeper, the glass shards were “growing” bigger and even some whole bottles are discovered. Soon, we start to find bigger pieces of plates and some pieces even go together to form a bigger piece! Digging deeper into the artifacts, we suddenly noticed something unusual. When we finally got it out, we noticed it was a broken shoe! Soon we were able to uncover a metal pan that was used for cooking as well as paper and pencil.

  This trip we a lot more productive and more fun than the last (the last trip was fun too, but we just didn’t find much). It taught us a lot more about how to find and remove artifacts and we were able to discover a whole bucket of artifacts in the first strata. Time flied by and before long, we were asleep on the car.

 

 

Harvard Peabody Museum

Today we were given the privilege to go to Harvard University to visit the Peabody museum there. The Peabody museum in Harvard is built by the uncle of Robert Peabody who built the Peabody in Andover. We arrived at Harvard square around 9:15 this morning in our two minivans full of excited people. We had a long walk from the parking place to the Peabody museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and the second we stepped into the building, we were revived from our grumpiness that developed from the hot weather and the long walk. After a break with some information, we climbed three flights of stairs to a room where we are grouped into two groups. First our group received a card board box with bags of pipes that were dug up from the Harvard Yard along with many other things like beer bottles and food waste. Then, we learned how to date the pipes by how wide the hole in the pipe is, the wider the hole, the older the pipe. After we all had a turn with the pipe exercise, we were given beer bottle shards and pictures of whole beer bottles. After identifying all the shards into the three groups-oldest, middle, and youngest we went outside to take a tour inside Harvard Yard.

After the long walk we had in Harvard Yard, we found a shady spot in a park and had our “delicious” lunch (turkey sandwich, water, orange, chips, etc.). When we finished both our lunch and our long talk about our favorite food (which made the packed lunch seem nasty), we set out for the Peabody museum for a real tour. We went to the Lewis and Clark exhibit first. It was mainly about the affect of European-especially Lewis and Clark-on the Native Americans and vise versa. The main tradition that was performed between the Europeans and the Native Americans is the costume of gift giving. The gift most often given to others by Native Americans are robes made of animal skin. One of the most interesting artifacts I found in this exhibit is a huge robe made out of bison pelt with a picture of warfare going on on the pelt. Because of the time limit, we were soon forced to go to the next exhibit.

The next exhibit was on the North America Indians in general but I think its theme is the change of the Americans and how the modern culture and the Indian culture are mixed together. The main logo for this exhibit is a picture of an Indian in their traditional clothes and tools but with an I-pod in one hand and earphones in his ears. It’s a very interesting logo that shows how well the cultures have mixed together but it also means that we need to focus more on the Indian culture so it does not disappear over time. There were miniature models of Indian villages along the exhibit. The first one was more like the original village with the holes in the roof for smoke and the palisade around some areas of the village. Then when you walk more into the exhibit, the houses seems more European like. Even though it did not say it was later in the history, I think it was showing that the houses of the Indians are being affected by the European designs. We did not have much time before we had to go to the third floor to learn about the Latin Americans (Mesoamerican).

The Mesoamericans-also called Latin Americans-is a very interesting tribe. They lived mainly in the Central and Southern Americans in an area full of gold. The size of their civilization is also much larger than the ones in Northern America. With their huge mines, trading is a very big part of their economy. However, the big parts of their trading business is not metals but stone for tools, fine stones, shell and feather for costumes. With their rich land and plentiful resources, the Mesoamericans throve well during their times.

Passing the climate change exhibit, we arrived at the glass flowers. As we walked into the room, we were astounded by the many “flowers” that were sealed into the glass cabinets. All of the flowers in this room are made of glass, but they looked very real. After spending 10 minutes in this room, we were lead into the gift shop and before we noticed, we were on our car ride home.

Rebecca Nurse Homestead

On Saturday July 12, we had our first real experience of digging in Dig This. After arriving at the huge field of Rebecca Nurse Homestead, we jumped out of the cars with excitement. After hearing an introduction and learning that this are has been owned by a bishop that was one of the first from Salem that was given private property. This ground was later owned by a woman called Rebecca Nurse who was killed during the Witch Trial.

A Trip into the Life of the Pequot

I have visited many museums in my life but the Pequot museum is definitely the best and the one I enjoyed the most.