Archaeologists hope to find traces of original fort at Boonesborough

[Lt-Col A. Tack]

Published: June 20, 2012
By Jim Warren

FORT BOONESBOROUGH STATE PARK — Archaeologists here are sweating out the early summer heat this week, digging down through layers of soil and back through 234 years of time to learn more about one of Kentucky's most historic sites.

University of Kentucky archaeologist Nancy O'Malley, who is heading the project, says the main goal is to uncover previously unknown details about the Revolutionary War siege in September 1778, when Native Americans and French-Canadian militiamen tried to overrun Fort Boonesborough.

More: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/06/20/2...nd-traces.html

[commanding]

Very interesting. Of course the writer of the article makes it sound like "poor archaeologists" sweating outdoors digging up this site.....I believe the archaeologists know they will be outdoors digging in both hot summer and cold winters, when they sign up for archaeology in college. Although I am truly interested in military archaeology, and in forts in particular....much of the results of arch. digs such as this never get published in ways that allow the public to benefit from the knowledge in any way. Generally at best, there is a small-run publication without photos, that lists a lot of gobble-de-gook, charts and archaeology double-talk (archaeologists are famous for never using common names for anything...they call a coyote a Canis latrans and a freshwater mussel a Fusconaia askewi.
40 to 50 years ago, archaeologists in the USA were doing more, publishing more and earning respect and admiration. Now they mostly are a bunch of intellectual snobs, who constantly complain about low pay, and work at what they call "CRM" or cultural resource management.....which is mostly locating prehistoric sites, GPSing and recording the locations but not digging.

[stonecutter]

Very interesting. Of course the writer of the article makes it sound like "poor archaeologists" sweating outdoors digging up this site.....I believe the archaeologists know they will be outdoors digging in both hot summer and cold winters, when they sign up for archaeology in college. Although I am truly interested in military archaeology, and in forts in particular....much of the results of arch. digs such as this never get published in ways that allow the public to benefit from the knowledge in any way. Generally at best, there is a small-run publication without photos, that lists a lot of gobble-de-gook, charts and archaeology double-talk (archaeologists are famous for never using common names for anything...they call a coyote a Canis latrans and a freshwater mussel a Fusconaia askewi.
40 to 50 years ago, archaeologists in the USA were doing more, publishing more and earning respect and admiration. Now they mostly are a bunch of intellectual snobs, who constantly complain about low pay, and work at what they call "CRM" or cultural resource management.....which is mostly locating prehistoric sites, GPSing and recording the locations but not digging.

I honestly think that 40 to 50 years ago there was a lot left to discover, there was a lot more big-ticket publish-worthy material to catch the public's attention. Most of today's publications and new data consist of dotting i's and crossing t's. That's why I ended up leaving Egyptology; as interesting as the field is, I felt there was limited opportunity to contribute much to our knowledge base anymore.
CRM is contract archaeology, and consists of doing survey work in advance of construction developments to make sure that archaeological sites don't get whacked by the development (oil pipelines, housing subdivisions, etc). There isn't much intellectual snobbery in CRM -- these guys are like the blue collar workers of the archaeology world. When sites can't be avoided by changing the proposed development plan then an excavation usually occurs, and if anything interesting comes from that the public usually hears about it (through the local paper, tv news channel, etc.).

[BigWillyG]

Cool, wish I could be part of the dig. I helped with the research for some field surveys of the Newtown battlefield from 1779 off and on from 2009 to 2011.