Hannah Dunn-Helton, ‘27

On the morning of Saturday, October 17th, Kenyon students, their families, community members, and elementary schoolers braved the cold weather to pick up their trowels and search for a piece of Kenyon’s history as part of Community Archaeology Day at the Bishop’s Cabin site. I spent the day with a group of elementary school students in a shallow unit known as sub op L, all of whom were quite enthusiastic about getting dirty, searching for treasure, and
discovering history. We worked diligently to excavate as much as we could. Several of the boys took the opportunity to mine for gold like they would in the video game Minecraft, turning ordinary rocks into valuable finds. One young girl explained to me her theory that zombies lived underneath the ground at the college and we were unearthing a portion of their city.

As I excavated with the kids, the rest of the site filled up with people. There were, of course, the kids’ parents, some of whom were Kenyon professors and others of whom lived in Gambier and Mount Vernon. Community Archaeology Day aligned with Kenyon’s Family Weekend, so visiting families poured in to find out what was behind the fence. Curious students also stopped by to discover what they passed on their way to class every day. Throughout the
site, campus archaeology students guided visiting community members through basic archaeological procedures and discussed the history of the site and the artifacts discovered there. Visitors then began excavating themselves. They were excited to see pieces of history emerge from the ground in front of them, dusting the artifacts off and handing them around so everyone could see the treasure that had been discovered.

Seeing so many people participate in the excavation helped me to appreciate the diversity of Kenyon’s community. It makes sense that the faculty, students, and staff at Kenyon are considered part of the community. Yet the village of Gambier, Mount Vernon, parents and families, and alumni are all part of Kenyon’s community as well. Community is not always an easy concept for archaeologists to define. There are some situations, such as when working
with Indigenous groups, when identifying specific communities becomes very important. On a project like this, however, community is much more expansive. Kenyon has meant a great deal of things to a great many people over the years. Archaeologists learn from the perspectives of the local community on the site. The community learns their place in and relationship to the history the excavation reveals. The Kenyon Archaeological Project is working to include as
many members of the community as possible in our project through as many methods as possible. As we dug for the buried treasure of the Kenyon community’s past, a fifth grader told me that he couldn’t believe there was so much history in his hometown. He was excited to discover more. Such little moments of connection between the community and the history that makes the community is truly what archaeology is all about.