The field of historical archaeology can be
predominantly white and male.
Coming into this field if you actually don't see
yourself in it, don't see your research
questions as valued--why would you
why would you even attempt it?
Justin and I really wanted to create a space where
we valued our experiences in this field
We valued the knowledge backgrounds that
we come with to this practice.
The Slave Wrecks project really provided the seed
funding, not just for the scuba diving training
but also for the terrestrial archaeological work
that we do here at the Estate Little Princes.
So what began as a sort of one-week youth training
program, has spun out into a one-week youth training
program, there's four weeks of archaeology,
and now we're up to seven HBCU students all doing
archaeology together at this site.
The undergraduates that are with us this year--
we have folks from Morgan State,
we have folks from Spellman,
we have folks from Howard University, and
it's a lot of energy. There's a lot of excitement.
There's a lot of curiosity.
These are students who are coming from
institutions that don't have archaeology
as a core class that they could take,
so for a lot of them it's their first experience in this field,
and they have gotten a crash course on
archaeological theory, method and now they're out here
in the field really digging with us.
And in the mix of all of that we're also asking them,
"What are you curious about?"
And often times it's that thought,
and that point of curiosity
that'll lead to greater research questions
and a desire to have those questions answered.
Since we have five PhDs leading this initiative,
that means that we can literally open a pipeline
that's never been attempted before,
where we can have Dr. Alexandra Jones working with
our middle school and high school students
getting training.
We can have Dr. Flewellen and Dr. Dunnavant
working with HBCU students from across the country
at the undergraduate level getting training,
and then I am now working with graduate students
that are coming into the University of Tulsa
to get additional artifact analysis training in artifacts
that are coming out of Estate Little Princess.
So really from middle school to graduate school,
we have this open pipeline to where we're seeing
students get access to archaeological training,
artifact analysis training, and underwater training as well,
all in one program, for free.
So when we all came together one of the first questions
that we asked each other were
"Alright what did you love about your field school
experiences, and what was challenging about them?
And how can we address that?"
And that goes from like the logistics of like what
paperwork we have, but also thinking
about, "Alright what sort of experiences
do we want to make sure that these students have while
down here?"
And we don't want to work them into the ground,
We understand that yes this is a field site,
and we have our research questions,
and this is a space to educate people.
So this really has become a training site for many of us,
and not just for the students as well it's also for the
researchers. So anytime we talk about setting up a unit
to do excavations, we have to make sure that all
five of us are on board.
Anytime we talk about how we're gonna classify
artifacts, we need to make sure that all of us on board.
So it's very much a slow-moving process,
but I think it makes us all better as researchers.
And then when we go split off and do other projects,
maybe around the island or in other sites,
we know that we have a foundation
by which we can build upon.
Archaeology really needs to be more community-based,
and my colleague Dr. Ayana Flewellen and I have
been talking about sustainable archaeology,
and sustainability in the sense that the projects and the
history, and the work can continue to go on well after we
leave, but also sustainability in recognizing that the
archaeological work that we do is destructive,
and if we're going to destructive work,
we need to also do some sort of restitution
to the environment that we're destroying.
And so having students and having ourselves trained
in a way where we're actually able to do both
the conservation work and the archaeological work,
really makes it that much more important,
and that much more impactful when we enter a space
and begin to think about doing research there.
So now we're trying to make archaeology in St. Croix
more visible, but also bring the community in,
so we can actually have them be part of the discovery.
So that's why we're training local youth
starting in middle school, to be the ones making
the discovery with us, and help us ask questions
in this space.
As I'm building my lab guide for the field,
they're asking questions like,
"Okay what's the difference between Afrocrucian ware
and a rock? What's the difference between
this glass bottle and this glass bottle?
Okay one's historic, one's modern.
How are you making that distinction?"
And then they're asking larger questions about
the site, "Why did they live here and not over here?"
As they're asking those questions, it's causing us to stop
and think about, "Okay why would they settle here
instead of over here?"
So we're looking back at the maps, we're looking
back at our understanding of the space
and how it's changing through time, and
trying to communicate to the students
while the students are now, you know,
pressing us— the community is pressing us
to think about, "What's the next step?
What can we do more of?
What can we think about in a new way?"
So many people from the community have been involved
before we even dug the first shovel.
So many people have come out in support,
and shared their stories, and their photographs,
and their experiences with us,
that the least we can do is share the information we
get from archaeology, with the community.
The students who live on St. Croix that are getting a chance
to do archaeology as middle school students
as high school students, you know that's very unique.
First of all, they're meeting their first archaeologists
and getting their first taste of archaeology,
but they're doing so from a team of all black scholars.
who are all working at different institutions across the
country, with a diverse background.
There's not really an opportunity
like that for most individuals.