NEW PHILADELPHIA ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH PROJECT:
FIELDSCHOOL IN ARCHAEOLOGY AND LABORATORY TECHNIQUES

May 27, 2008 to August 1, 2008.

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation's Research Experiences
for Undergraduates Program.
Field schhol co-directors: Anna Agbe-Davies (DePaul University),
Christopher Fennell (University of Illinois), and Terrance Martin
(Illinois State Museum)

* Application Deadline: for best consideration -- March 21, 2008.

Application forms and additional information are available by
following the links for the New Philadelphia project at the
University of Illinois at:
http://www.histarch.uiuc.edu/NSF/fieldschool.html

Additional background information is available at:
http://www.anthro.uiuc.edu/faculty/cfennell/NP
and
http://www.heritage.umd.edu/

* Field School Objectives:
The New Philadelphia story is both compelling and unique. Many
studies in historical archaeology that concentrate on African-
American issues have focused on plantation life and the pre-
emancipation era. The history of New Philadelphia is very different.
It is a chronicle of racial uplift and centering on the success of an
African-American family and their ability to survive and prosper in a
racist society. In 1836, Frank McWorter, an African American who was
born into slavery and later purchased his own freedom, acquired 42
acres of land in the sparsely populated area of Pike County,
Illinois, situated in the rolling hills bounded by the Illinois and
Mississippi rivers. He founded and platted a town, subdivided the
property, and sold lots. McWorter used the revenues from his
entrepreneurial efforts to purchase the freedom of sixteen family
members, with a total expenditure of $14,000 -- a remarkable
achievement. Families of African American and European American
heritage moved to the town and created a multi-racial community. New
Philadelphia likely served as a stopping place for the "Underground
railroad" as enslaved African Americans fled northward escaping the
oppression of southern plantations.

The history of New Philadelphia serves as a rare example of a multi-
racial early farming community on the nation's Midwestern frontier
(Walker 1983). The town's population reached its peak of about 160
people after the Civil War, a size comparable to many Pike County
communities today. However, by the end of the century racial and
corporate politics of America's gilded age resulted in the death
knell for the settlement: regional transportation investors routed a
new railroad line to pass north of the town. Many of New
Philadelphia's residents eventually moved away and, by the early 20th
century, only a few families remained (Walker 1983).

This NSF-REU sites program will help enhance undergraduate education
in scientific methods and analyses in an ongoing long-term project at
New Philadelphia. The primary goals of the project are to:
1) Understand the town's founding and development as a multi-racial
integrated town;
2) Explore and contrast dietary patterns between different households
of different ethnic backgrounds by examining faunal and botanical
remains;
3) Reconstruct the townscape and town lot uses of different
households from different ethnic backgrounds using botanical data and
archaeological landscape features;
4) Elucidate the different consumer choices residents of different
ethnic backgrounds made in a frontier situation and understand how
household choices changed with the increased connection to distant
markets and changing perceptions of racialization within the society.

The excavation and analysis of artifacts and archaeobiology data will
provide students with a hands-on learning experience and mentoring
process for students in an interdisciplinary setting. Ultimately,
these different data sets will be integrated and the students will
gain an understanding of the importance of scientific
interdisciplinary research as they examine the growth and development
of the town. This research will elucidate how individual members and
families of this integrated community made choices to create their
immediate environment, diet, agricultural practices, social
affiliation, and consumer choices.

* Archaeological and Research Setting:
New Philadelphia in Pike County, Illinois is situated between the
Illinois and Mississippi rivers. Today, most of the original 42 acres
have been returned to agricultural use. Only a few scattered house
foundations are visible in the plowed fields.

This archaeology project serves as an excellent opportunity for
students to participate in many aspects of a scientific research
program. Students will be divided into teams and they will work
collaboratively on an assigned town lot in New Philadelphia. Prior to
excavations, each student will draw from the broader research goals
of this project to create an individual and focused research design
to be addressed in the course of their field school experience. The
field school instructors will teach students about the different
archaeological theories used to formulate such research designs, and
the methods, sampling, and excavation strategies used in archeology
to explore those questions.

Each team will be responsible for helping to develop a research
design, retrieving archaeological data (material culture and
archaeobiology data), cleaning and cataloging the materials, data
entry, and analyzing artifacts and archaeobiological materials from
one town lot. Student teams will work closely in a mentorship
situation with Illinois State Museum, Research and Collection Center
(ISM-RCC), University of Illinois, and DePaul University staff in
order to acquire the necessary skills to perform scientific research.
Each student will "specialize" in one form of analysis and they will
report on their findings at the end of the summer session. This
information will allow students to work as a team to reconstruct the
landscape and lifeways of residents of this historic town.

Evening lectures will be presented and the group will take several
field trips to local historic sites and museums during the ten-week
course.

* Results:
At the end of the course student teams will make a presentation of
their results. Field school staff and members of the community
interested in this archaeology project will be invited to a half-day
symposium to listen to and discuss the results presented by each team
member. The presentation will allow for the dissemination of new
information as well as group assessment and constructive critique of
the work of each field school participant and the overall project.
With the help of field school instructors, this presentation will
introduce students to the skill of public speaking and it will help
provide them the techniques for communicating scientific results to a
public audience. After this presentation and discussion, student
teams will assess evaluations and create a strategy on how to best
present this work to other audiences. They can also provide their
assessments of the priorities that should be placed on the various
research goals to be pursued in ongoing historical and archaeological
investigations at the New Philadelphia site.

* Project Location, Facilities and Student Stipends:
All students are required to be in Pike County on May 27, 2008 and
the instructions will begin on May 28. New Philadelphia is about 75
miles west of Springfield, Illinois, and 25 miles east of Hannibal,
Missouri. There is no mass transportation to the immediate area. The
closest town is Barry, Illinois (population 1,400) where students
will stay at the Kinderhook Lodge. Lodging and meals will be provided
during weeks 1-5 while staying in Pike County and students will be
transported to the site every day. During the weekends students with
access to autos are free to travel and explore the region when
fieldtrips are not scheduled. (The Kinderhook Lodge is located
between the towns of Kinderhook and Barry on Rt. 106). During weeks 6-
10 field school participants will move to the student apartments with
kitchen facilities in Springfield, Illinois and work at the ISM-RCC.
Lodging (but not meals) is provided during weeks 6-10. The ISM-RCC
facility provides a state-of-the-art environment and it has vast
collections and high quality research laboratories and offices for
anthropology, botany, geology, and zoology. During the weekends
students are free to travel and explore the region.

Students receive a $450 per week stipend paid on a bi-weekly basis.

* Application Procedure:
Each student is required to submit an application form, transcripts
from all colleges attended, two letters of recommendation, and an
essay. For best consideration, the final date for receipt of all
applications materials is March 21, 2008. This field school is
sponsored by the National Science Foundation's Research Experiences
for Undergraduates sites program, and will select students based on
their scholarly ability as well as their motivation and ability to
perform scholarly and scientific research. Students from
underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply. Students will be
notified of acceptance no later than April 16, 2008.