Month: November 2026

Zoe Trexel 27′

The process of excavation is sometimes uneventful. My teammates and I spent a long time in the recesses of our two sub-ops, F and Q, carving up the dirt carefully with our trowels in order to uncover the residuals of the 18th century. Perched on the edge of the square unit, we chat about our lives, our plans for Halloween, and other mundane things. At the same time, we slowly extract that which was once mundane to Philander Chase and other founding members of the college, who once inhabited this structure. The banality of some of these items is not lost on us, as numerous rusted nails, slate fragments, glass pieces appear out of the midden. Upon initial excavations, these pieces were at first exciting. As James Deetz calls them, these small things forgotten, no matter how commonplace underneath the ground, were still decidedly novel for those of us who had not excavated before.

In the past, I’ve done lab analysis before of ceramic sherds and faunal remains, or animal bones. Seeing these pieces emerge from cloth bags, but without being able to visualize their origin in the soil, their appearance felt almost mystical. After trodding home from excavation now every Monday, my dirt-layered jeans and fingernails tell a very different story. Despite this up close and personal experience with the dirt, the landscape, and the retention of objects in the soil, the mystic element still remains to a certain extent. For me, ceramic sherds feel the most rewarding to come across. Usually, a white line appears in the soil, but until you have extracted the sherd, the design is unknown. Most of the designs are plain white glaze or floral in nature.

Even more interesting to me are two unique ceramic sherds that I’ve uncovered throughout the process, each depicting “exotic” scenes. The first find in Unit F consisted of three sherds found in association which were refitted, showing a “savannah” scene with giraffes and palm trees abound. A few weeks later, in Unit Q, I rediscovered another sherd depicting two women carrying parcels under the arms under a background of low-lying shrubbery and huts. Neither of these scenes are of course common to Gambier or England, where these ceramics likely originated – however, they are nonetheless representative of the interests of those who purchased these ceramics. The designs are of an exotic, Othering nature, showing that the owners had some interest in places outside Gambier and even the West despite their isolation.

In the same way that the imagination of the Other in these two sherds seems absurd to me, I am equally abstracted from the objects that I remove in the excavation process. As I interrogate this interest in the exotic, I am also reproducing it in a way, privileging the objects that are the most “unique.” The creators of these ceramics and their purchasers were interested in the distant and far-away, much in the same way that we look upon these pieces now, entirely abstracted from their makers and owners.

Maya Mikkelsen 27′

A student archaeologist excavating at Kenyon’s Bishop’s Cabin site is often filled with excitement on Mondays before class: “Will we open a new unit today?” “I hope I find a tooth!” or most commonly heard, “I just can’t wait to discuss our readings!” After the first hour of digging, the student’s internal dialogue changes slightly. It sounds a bit like this: “glass…nail…ceramic…glass…bone…button…glass…nail…what is that?”

With our faces in the dirt, we can begin to forget that these artifacts aren’t just objects. We certainly label and identify them in our field journals simply so. These artifacts carry a history of existence along with them, which isn’t forgotten even after nearly 200 years in the ground. When we analyze the artifacts, it’s important to look beyond simply what the object is. Rather, it’s important to look at the lifespan of the object. Where was it made and how? Did it travel and if so, where and how, and even how much would it have cost? Where did we find it, and how was it used there? Specifically, how did the object change throughout its journey, from production to its taphonomy, and what can this tell us about its cultural significance? Chris Gosden & Yvonne Marshall define the answer to these questions as the “use-life” of an artifact. When excavating, it’s extremely important to identify simply what an object is, but the real answers are revealed when we understand how an object is the way it is when we find it. This is called an object biography.

When a student spots a white shine in the site, it’s normally a piece of ceramic, which is a common find. She picks up the sherd and sees that it is a large, curved rim piece. Seeing this, she assumes this is a bowl. Turning it over reveals an intricate gray leafed and flowered pattern on what would be the outside of the vessel. Now the student will surely yell out for the others to look, and wait for the ensuing oohs and ahhs. We make some assumptions in the field, though in the laboratory, we can hope to answer more. Maybe it is possible to identify the maker of this pottery. We can ask, why is this piece here? Was it broken and thrown outside the cabin, or was it still in the cabin when it was destroyed. I often ask myself how the first Kenyon students could break and leave behind so much pottery, which is everywhere for us to find.

The questions become more interesting with the more bizarre finds. You can’t help but wonder about the story of the giant horse tooth you almost missed in the dirt, or the three large-herbivore rib bones stacked right on top of each other, deep in the soil, or even the tiny and intricate buttons that part of you wishes you could put in your pocket and sew onto a piece of your clothing later. These items are compelling, but without a focus on object biography, we wouldn’t be able to answer questions beyond simply identifying what object we have found. Student archaeologists at Kenyon enrolled in Campus Archaeology with the aim of digging, but now it is just as important that we wonder and ask questions about what we find, even if questions begin as simple as “now what could that be?”

Chris Gosden & Yvonne Marshall (1999) The cultural biography of objects, World Archaeology, 31:2, 169-178, DOI: 10.1080/00438243.1999.9980439

Charlotte Ostenson 27′

It is week 10 and we are now more than halfway through the semester. This week is our last excavation week before we backfill the units and move our class to a more analytical and discussion based structure. It will be a shame to move class inside because spending all this time outside has made me understand why Philander Chase chose this plot of land for his college. As the weeks go by, we feel more and more at home on Kenyon’s campus, and at the same time, we still feel like Philander Chase’s life at the bishop’s cabin remains a mystery. 

When Chase first saw the hilltop, it was covered in trees and could not possibly seem like a proper college, but he saw something in the land. In an archival record called Bishop Chase’s Reminicences, Chase describes, “on the south end or promontory of this hill… grew some tall oak trees” and construction of the college was started “after the brush was with great difficulty cleared away”. The creation of Kenyon changed the landscape from unbridled forest to manicured campus. But this beautiful landscape is more than just a scenic destination. Just as Chase shaped the land, the land has shaped campus life since its founding in 1824. Our excavation efforts at the Bishop’s Cabin site help reveal the relationship between the inhabitants of Gambier and the natural land. Philander Chase’s first cabin was closer to where the Old Kenyon dormitory is today, but eventually, he moved to the spot that we are excavating now  because there was a well in that area and it would have provided better access to water. Kenyon’s campus was likely first built on today’s south campus because it is much closer to the Kokosing river, but soon enough irrigation technologies allowed for the north campus to be built. 

Through our excavation, I have been hoping to find some things that point towards a way of life in relation to the land. The closest thing we have found to that is a few animal bones that could potentially suggest a background in raising livestock, which would not have been unusual for the time period. Other than that, the nails, glass, and ceramic pieces that we continue to find tell us things about domestic life, but not necessarily the land. To quote our very own Professor Novotny, she said “We’re hoping that this will tell us a lot about what daily life was like, what student life was like, what people were eating”. While we have not found anything quite groundbreaking, it is still a valuable experience to learn about how everyday items of the past can tell us so much about Kenyon’s rich history.