IU South Bend students “dig” into skills to help the community

Anthropology students at IU South Bend got their hands dirty – literally – as part of a field project that helped a non-profit organization in the community.

Cora Dale House provides rehabilitation, recovery, and reintegration into the community for people struggling with mental illness. The organization received a federal pass-through grant from the National Park Service and the Indiana Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology to add a wheelchair ramp and porch to their historic building and needed archaeologist to monitor the earth moving.

That’s where professors and students from IU South Bend came in.

“Because the site is historic, you need to make sure that nothing of historic value is going to be disturbed or destroyed accidentally by construction, especially when the construction is federally funded,” said Dr. Joshua Wells, professor of anthropology and social informatics.

Wells and Dr. Jay VanderVeen, a professor of sociology and anthropology, agreed to do the work at no cost, to maximize the infrastructural value of the grant, in exchange for creating a learning experience for students.

“It’s a whole different feeling to literally get your hands dirty than to read about in a book. It’s important to get the students out in the field. Archaeology can’t be done without teamwork, and we can’t do it just from the lab. We have to get outside and experience it ourselves,” VanderVeen said.

For student like junior Andrea Torres, the opportunity was too good to pass up.

“It’s one thing to learn about it in a classroom. It’s another thing to actually go out and get your hands dirty,” she said. “This can look hard to some people, but I think once you realize you can train your eye to find something, it becomes easier. We all need a little practice with things like this.”

Senior Josh Jurgensen agreed. He’s interested archaeology and said he was excited to take part in the dig.

“It’s a way to expose myself to some new stuff that I haven’t been exposed to, and it’s a lot different getting out and actually doing fieldwork versus sitting in a classroom. It’s fun to take those techniques and put them into practice,” he said.

The team took buckets of dirt from the holes being dug for foundation footings and sifted it through quarter inch mesh. The items that were left were preliminarily examined for immediate historical significance, then taken back to the IUSB Material Culture Laboratory for further analyses and final reporting to the Indiana Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology.

“It’s usually it’s just gravel, but then we’ll find two pieces of nail or small beds of broken glass or a big piece of pottery that we already found,” VanderVeen said. “We’re finding the domestic artifacts that we would expect both residential and architectural. The pottery is usually things from the kitchen, and it was just broken and they decided to toss it out.”

Wells said most of the finding on this project were domestic trash from the late 1800s or early 1900s that they would expect to find.

But the learning experience is something for the students they can’t experience anywhere but in the field.

“We’re showing them that historical research can be both super easy and super valuable for everybody out here,” he said. “We’re making sure that we put important resources in place for the community, like this wheelchair ramp for this community center. We’re also making sure that the past history of this place is being protected.”