We are beginning Week
15 of telecommuting from home and remain quarantined. Access to our lab and
offices has been restricted for safety reasons but plans are in the works for
this to change. The following is a reflective description of the past more than
three months, of how we are functioning and some predictions for the future. A
date for returning to work in the Archaeology lab has not been set, but plans
are being made for how we will return to the lab and museum. The overriding
philosophy is to continue practicing social distancing and keep interactions with
people to a minimum while still fulfilling our responsibilities. The tentative
plan is that telecommuting will be encouraged for those employees who are able.
To avoid crowds in the building (especially the Keystone building where the
Archaeology labs are located), the staff going into the lab may be divided into
teams working alternate days. Some staff are anxious to return to working in
the lab (their work assignments, such as cataloging artifacts require this),
while other staff can work from home with periodic visits to the lab to
retrieve necessary materials. In addition, to avoid crowds while entering the
building and crowds in the parking garage, we may even alter start and finish
times. However, for the foreseeable future, telecommuting may be the norm rather
than the exception.
As you have read in several
of our previous blogs, the staff of the Section of Archaeology have been busy
at home and actually have learned new ways of using our collections for the
benefit of the public and researchers. Just before we left the lab on March 13th
(it seems like years ago), we moved commonly used and necessary data to a
platform that was accessible from our home computers. This allowed us to
continue to process collections so that they were readily available to the interested
public and researchers. Andrea Carr has continued working with the Veigh
collection, adding or updating 132 sites from this collection to
the Pennsylvania Archaeological Site Survey files (PASS). This involves over
136,000 artifacts. Prior to the quarantine, Calli Holmes had finished cataloging the artifacts from the 2019 excavation season at Fort Hunter and while at home,
finished creating maps of the features and artifacts from different time
periods. As she explained in our blog of June 6, this allows us and others to
better analyze how the site was used during different time periods. Currently,
she is plotting the distribution of fire-cracked rock reflecting Pre-Contact Native
American activities.
As was described in our blog on May 11, the Argus project is one of the top priorities for the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC). There are two components or goals of this initiative. First, it is a collections management program. It will bring all the collections (history, science, fine arts etc...) into one database so we will know exactly what we have and where it is located. This will greatly facilitate loans, exhibit development, outreach and, obviously, research. For archaeology, loading all nine million artifacts (actually, we don’t know the exact number) into this electronic database will be a huge task requiring years of work. Melanie Mayhew has spent several years converting the various electronic spread sheets and databases into a single data platform. She has made significant progress with those conversions. As of this date, more than four million artifacts from over a thousand separate sites have been converted to a single database platform. This has been a heroic accomplishment. Archaeologists have been using electronic spread sheets for decades, so we are ahead of the game compared to other collections. However, the time-consuming task is just beginning. Processing the old collections that were created prior to the use of electronic databases will take years. These consist of typed or handwritten lists of artifact inventories that need to be manually entered into Excel spread sheets. The lists were previously typed up by our volunteers and many staff (notably Kim Sebestyen), have worked on this project but currently, Dave Burke is the primary person typing thousands of artifacts into Excel spread sheets so they can eventually be moved to the Argus platform.
A second goal of Argus
is to place artifacts online to offer the public a sample of what can seen in
our galleries. Janet Johnson, Liz Wagner and Kim Sebestyen have been focusing
on developing short descriptions including a photograph of all of the artifacts
in our gallery creating a virtual museum gallery. They have finished the
Susquehannock case and most of the pipe case and they are starting on the 18th
Century case. The images can be found on our PHMC website under Explore
PHMC’s Museum Collection. We
have added well over a hundred new artifacts to this page from our gallery and
hundreds more will be added in the coming months.
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The artifacts in the
Susquehannock Exhibit are now on-line.
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As for
our normal day to day activities, we are still receiving requests to identify
artifacts. People from all over Pennsylvania and beyond send us pictures of
items they have found and request help in getting them identified. In many
cases they are just rocks that fit perfectly in one’s hand but other times,
they are real Native American artifacts and result in significant new data. We
welcome these inquiries. We also continue to advise archaeologists around the
state on how to best curate in-coming collections.
We have been in contact with our
colleagues around the Commonwealth concerning archaeological research. There are small pockets of field work taking
place and some of it is very interesting – a stratified Archaic and Woodland
site, a stratified Paleoindian through Contact period site and a quarry site. We
are anxious to visit these sites in the near future and will report their
progress. Several staff members were fortunate to have their articles and a
book published and other research projects and publications are in the works.
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A few of the
publications authored by staff over the past 15 weeks.
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The
coronavirus caused the cancellation of several state and regional conferences.
Initially, these were postponed until the summer and then to the fall and now
some have been moved until the spring of 2021. The consequences of hundreds of
people in one room are just too dangerous. There are discussions of doing these
conferences online. We have all learned how to Skype or Zoom and we would like
to learn Microsoft Teams, but teleconferencing will require something more
sophisticated and comprehensive. Archaeologists are a gregarious bunch and
seeing old friends is part of the function of these meetings. In addition, it
is simply easier to share research issues with colleagues in person, meeting
face to face, in a friendlier atmosphere holding a beer in one hand than on a
computer screen. However, the discipline needs to develop a convenient mechanism
to exchange new research quickly, and I am sure we will figure a way.
We do
not have a date for when the State Museum galleries will be open to visitors,
but detailed plans are being developed. Masks will be required along with social
distancing throughout the galleries. The number of visitors at any one time
will be monitored, and reservations will be encouraged. A variety of programs
are being planned for the Nature Lab and Curators Choice as videos, but these have
not been finalized.
For
the immediate future, our plans for field work at Fort Hunter, outreach at
Kipona, the Workshops in Archaeology, the Eastern States Archaeological
Conference, and the Pennsylvania Farm Show are problematic. These activities are dependent on how the
virus continues. Pennsylvania’s response to Covid-19 has been reasonably
successful. We closed early, stayed quarantined and practiced social
distancing. Predictions vary widely, but one scenario assumes social distancing
will continue this summer and the number of cases will decrease slowly until at
least October when the virus may return with a vengeance. With this window of
opportunity, we may be able to carefully work at Fort Hunter in September, but
our other public programs are in jeopardy.
Finally,
our dear friend and colleague, Steve Warfel passed this spring after a long
illness. We summarized his career and contributions to Pennsylvania archaeology
in our blog of May 24. This week, his wife, Barb, graciously donated his “dig
bag” containing field tools that he used for decades in the investigation of
numerous Pennsylvania archaeological sites. This will be on display in our
excavation area in the gallery. We sincerely appreciate this donation and it
will be a constant reminder of his contributions.
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Steve Warfel’s dig bag on display in the Excavation
Exhibit in our gallery at the State Museum
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In
summary, we have done well in the Section of Archaeology in terms of managing
our collections, public outreach, and research. The staff will be able to
return to the archaeology lab sometime, but many will continue to work from
home; it is the new normal. At times, it is awkward and un-natural and makes us
feel anxious (a new term has been introduced into our lexicon - re-entry
panic syndrome) but I am sure we will adapt and in the long run, be more
successful. Teleworking has been discussed for years; there are a variety of
advantages to the employer and the employee, especially in this hectic world we
live in, but we were afraid and intimidated to make the change. A deadly virus
has been the motivating factor. There are many issues that need to be resolved
but having an office at home is going to be the new normal, at least until we
develop a successful vaccine and probably longer.
Adaptation and change are difficult, but our research of
past cultures demonstrates it is necessary for survival. We hope our followers
will continue to practice the CDC Guidelines and stay safe and healthy- it's
important for all of us and necessary for survival. We’ll keep in touch; be sure to check out our
collections on-line and be safe.
For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .
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