Class of 2007
Brandon Righi
Cater Society of Junior Fellows Research
My name is Brandon Righi, and I am a History major with a Political Science minor.
I had the opportunity, thanks to the Cater Society of Junior Fellows, to participate in the Washington College Archaeology Field School, administered by John Seidel and the Anthropology department. The goal of this annual field school is to give students a chance to do real archaeology and field survey, and to explore and expand the archaeological record of the Kent County and Delmarva region. This year, as in summers past, the Field School was looking for physical evidence of Native American settlement in northern Kent County; specifically, we hoped to find traces of the village of the Tockwogh Indians. We know the rough location of this village thanks to John Smith, who explored the Chesapeake Bay region in his famous expedition of 1608-09.
The Field School was my first exposure to archaeology, and I learned quite a bit about its proper practice and technique. We worked at a dig in Anne Arundel County for two days, and visited locations of past large-scale excavations. The majority of our activity, however, was field survey, literally walking through cultivated fields looking for surface artifacts. Much to my surprise, this technique proved successful, as we found well over twenty discernable sites of past Native American habitation, as well as some colonial European sites. While the contact-era village of Tockwogh was not located, the experience proved to be enlightening, increasing my awareness of the local historical and archaeological record, and how accessible the field of archaeology can be to even a novice.
I could go on about the intellectual rewards of the Field School, but I will finish with once again thanking the Society of Junior Fellows for the generous grant I was awarded.