March is not only Women’s History Month, it’s also Florida Archaeology Month. Were you to draw a Venn diagram, the middle section would be the the women archaeologists in Florida who are simultaneously making and uncovering history. Here is a sampling of those women from right here in St. Augustine. Move over, Indiana Jones.
Name: Kathleen Deagan
Years in the field: 48 years- 1968-1974 as a student, 1974 – present, practicing archaeologist and professor
Site where you learned the most: La Isabela, Dominican Republic – I had to learn about medieval archaeology, and it set the chronological comparative baseline for all of our work at post-1500 sites.
One thing you wish everyone knew about archaeology: It is all about the dirt – revealing and recording dirt stains is what we really do – artifacts are secondary.
Name: Mary K. Herron
Years in the field: 1974-2002 on and off
Site where you learned the most: I have to agree with Kathy Deagan on La Isabela, Dominican Republic for the same reasons.
One thing you wish everyone knew about archaeology: That artifacts have no meaning unless they are in context. Their primary worth is in providing dates for the features and surrounding matrix.
Name: Mischa Johns
Years in the field: Almost five years now
Site where you learned the most: Everything in the past few years I’ve spent here in St. Augustine with Carl Halbirt and Dr. Kathleen Deagan. I’ve learned so much about not only the unique history of St. Augustine and it’s place in the Spanish colonies, but also about archaeological technique. Dr. Deagan teaches me new tips and tricks for trowel excavation whenever I get a chance to dig with her and Mr. Halbirt is always teaching me about logistics, planning, lab organization and team management. While St. Augustine isn’t exactly ‘a site,’ the city itself is a unique place that has given me so much education and continues to do so every day.
One thing you wish everyone knew about archaeology: Archaeology is about the soil, and what it can teach us about those who came before us. When someone digs a hole to find a metal 16th century button, they’re finding something that is a neat thing to look at, but that ultimately tells us nothing. But if the site had been properly excavated, they may have found something extraordinary, like that button in a circular patch of dark soil that represents a post, which aligns with other posts in a circle to form a Native American house. Now instead of a random object to look at, we have an object that tells a story – a European object in a Native American house.
Name: Lori Lee
Years in the field: 22 years
Site where you learned the most: Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage, a nineteenth century plantation site. I worked on the location of two different slave quarters on the property. This was my first experience with historic archaeology and working in agricultural plow zone. I learned so much about methodology, archaeology techniques, nineteenth century material culture, and collaborative fieldwork on this project.
One thing you wish everyone knew about archaeology: I wish everyone truly understood the significance of context – why we excavate the way that we do and why it is so critical that things be left in place and recovered using appropriate methods to give meaning to people’s lives in the past.
Name: Sarah Miller
Years in the field: I attended field school at East Carolina University as I started my MA in 1999, so I guess 15-17 years depending how you interpret.
Site where you learned the most: It’s hard to pick because each site you learn something new, not just about the people who left the artifacts but about yourself and the archaeological process. I go back time and time again to the Frankfort Cemetery project in Kentucky where I learned so much about material culture of the 19th century, burial practices across different social and economic factors, empathy people of the past had for each other, and how quickly a site can be forgotten. For the first time in my experience as an archaeologists, you didn’t wonder who the artifacts belonged to, they were right in front of you. It was a privilege to be the advocate for each burial we excavated, to carefully exhume and study before respectfully being reburied at a memorial park.
One thing you wish everyone knew about archaeology: People think we do archaeology to explore and be adventurers. But in truth we do it because we want to make the world a better place. I truly believe archaeology helps end racism as we learn more about our pluralistic history, see how much we have in common with past cultures, and celebrate cultural differences. We want to change the world!
Name: Christine Newman
Years in the field: I have been working in the field of archaeology for more than 30 years.
Site where you learned the most: One of the more interesting projects was a prehistoric site in South Florida that was located on a former tree island at the edge of what had been the Everglades. However, I learn something new and provocative at every site!
One thing you wish everyone knew about archaeology: That archaeology is not about the discovery of artifacts, but rather what the artifacts call tell us about human behavior.
