This field school will provide training in the techniques of excavation, mapping, controlled surface surveys, artifact classification and contextual interpretation. Students will work in supervised teams, learning to function as members of a field crew, with all of the skills necessary for becoming professional archaeologists. Several students from past University of Illinois field schools have gone on to graduate study and professional field-archaeology positions. Fieldwork in Illinois is often labor-intensive and performed under hot, humid, and occasionally rainy and muddy conditions. Laboratory processing and analysis will be ongoing during the latter portion of the field season. Evening lectures by project staff, visiting archaeologists, and historians will focus on providing background on how field data are used to answer archaeological and historical research questions.

The first six weeks of this field school will focus on the past town site of New Philadelphia, located in Pike County, Illinois, just 20 miles east of Hannibal, Missouri and the Mississippi River. The New Philadelphia story is both compelling and unique. Many studies in historical archaeology that concentrate on African-American heritage 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 the success of African-American families and their ability to survive and prosper in a racialized 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 (over $300,000 in today's currency) – 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. The town's population reached its peak of about 170 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 likely resulted in the death knell for the settlement: regional transportation investors routed a new railroad line to pass to the north of the town. Many of New Philadelphia's residents eventually moved away and, by the early 20th century, only a few families remained (see Walker 1983).

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 affiliations, and consumer choices.

The field school at the New Philadelphia site will be taught by Prof. Christopher Fennell, an historical archaeologist with the Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Our field crew will work in collaboration with a nine-student National Science Foundation field school conducted at the same site during the summer, under the supervision of Dr. Fennell, Dr. Paul Shackel (U. Maryland), and Dr. Terry Martin (Curator, Illinois State Museum).

The last two weeks of this eight-week University of Illinois field school will be spent working under the supervision of Prof. Tim Pauketat of the University of Illinois in excavating a Mississippian period site in the American Bottom region surrounding the famous site of Cahokia, just east of St. Louis. Thus, students will be presented with an extraordinary educational and training opportunity -- to work in and experience the process of both historical archaeology and prehistoric archaeology in an eight-week field school.

For additional information about this field school opportunity, please contact Chris Fennell by email at cfennell@uiuc.edu, by phone at 244-7309, or check his faculty web page for background information on the multi-year archaeology project at New Philadelphia.

To apply for participation in this fieldschool, please download and complete a short application form and submit it to Dr. Fennell by March 31, 2005. Students will be notified of acceptance no later than April 15, 2005. Accepted students should register for the related course numbers (listed above) for the summer session. Please note that all students must register for both courses (a total of 6 credit hours).