Students study Tunisian bones for archaeological excavation

Olivia Reed ’16 carefully removed a handful of 1,300 year-old human bones from a dusty plastic bag. Sifting through them one by one, she analyzed and identified them. Reed knew the names of some bones almost immediately, but she consulted a nearby skeleton to identify others.

One bone fragment puzzled her, so she asked Igor Bayder ’14 to give his thoughts. “I wonder if it goes with my skull,” said Bayder, who had started assembling a cranium nearby.

Reed and Bayder are among a group of students helping to piece together life from an a Roman-era church in Carthage, Tunisia. Susan Stevens, a Randolph classics professor and the Catherine E. and William E. Thoresen Chair in Humanities, has led the excavation and study of that site since the early 1990s.

Stevens began working on the church because of her interest in burial practices during the time when Christianity grew in the Roman Empire. “It’s one way of looking at a transformation from the ancient period to the medieval period,” she said.

Many of Stevens’ students have gained hands-on experience with archaeology and anthropology while helping study artifacts from the site. Earlier this year, she solicited the assistance of a group of students who help with Randolph’s Natural History Collection.

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Analyzing Tunisian bones is one of several opportunities for students on the Randolph College Natural History Collections team.

Read a Randolph magazine story about a behind-the-scenes tour they got at the Smithsonian earlier this year.

Reed, Bayder, and others are classifying and measuring the bones excavated from the crypt. Their data will help determine the minimum number of people who were buried there, which will help Stevens gauge the size of the community that worshipped there.

“It’s kind of a detective story,” said Stevens.

The students also are looking at the bones for signs of disease and injuries that will reveal what the community’s health was like, Stevens said. For example, Bayder pointed out a bone that had deformed areas that could signal cancer.

The students have enjoyed getting to work with real archeological material that also relates to their other academic interests. “I can basically identify the entire skeleton now,” said Reed, who plans to practice medicine someday.

Next spring, the team will work on extracting DNA from the bones for analysis that would provide further insight into the number of people there.

Emily Patton Smith ’12, Randolph’s Natural History Collections manager, said Stevens’ project is helping students set themselves apart from those they will compete against for jobs or graduate school admissions. “There’s a lot of crossover between the archeological disciplines and the sciences that I think is underutilized,” she said. “It’s something that not every biology major is going to have on their resumes.”

Sociology student explores archaeology at Civil War site in Lynchburg

Paula Addai ’14 combed her fingers through a large pile of dirt. She pushed smaller pieces of sand and gravel through a mesh screen that was laid across the top of a wheelbarrow and carefully scanned the material for anything that might be interesting. The day before, she found a button and a piece of ceramic.

Another student worker on the archaeological dig shouted, “I found another one!” Everyone gathered to see him pull a minie ball—a Civil War bullet—from the grounds where a historic battle took placesite.

Paula Addai ’14 scrapes through dirt in search of 

These types of discoveries make the tedious excavation, scraping, and sifting worthwhile, Addai said. “I love digging and finding stuff. That satisfaction is really rewarding.”

Addai is participating in an archaeology field school led by Lori Lee, Randolph’s Ainsworth Visiting Professor of American Culture. They are digging to discover artifacts and buried walls at Sandusky, a plantation that Union forces took control of and used as their headquarters while attacking Lynchburg in 1864. Although the Union army had ravaged much of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, they were repulsed by Confederate forces in Lynchburg.

Lee, an anthropologist who specializes in antebellum Virginia plantations, is leading the excavation at Sandusky to help find the footprint of the Civil War-era kitchen that once stood on the property so an accurate reconstruction can take place. Also, the crew is searching for historical artifacts that would otherwise be lost or damaged if the kitchen is rebuilt. They have found minie balls, a pocket watch fob from the early 1900s, harmonica plates, and other items.

Lee is especially interested in finding connections between Sandusky and Poplar Forest, a home built by Thomas Jefferson, because the two plantations were owned by relatives during the Civil War period.

Lori Lee takes a picture of a minie ball uncovered at Sandusky, a house
that served as Union headquarters during the Battle of Lynchburg.

In the first few days of work, the group found a buried brick walkway and also discovered where they think the walls of the kitchen were. They are currently trying to find the foundation. “It was really nice to be able to start to make sense of what has happened out here,” Lee said.

Most of the students on the project are history students from Lynchburg College, which has a partnership with the Historic Sandusky Foundation. Addai, a sociology major at Randolph, also got involved because she wanted to work on an archaeological project and learn about research methods.

Lee said that this internship is a perfect educational opportunity for Addai. “By doing this project, we do historical research, archaeological research, anthropological interpretation, and we use theoretical frameworks,” she said. “Those are research skills that she can carry on through sociology, and you learn them really well when you apply them in a research setting.”

Addai hopes the experience continues to yield artifacts that will allow her to piece together more information and stories about the culture of the people who lived and worked at Sandusky. “Sociology is all about learning about people’s way of life and society,” she said. “I want to find out what society was like here many years ago, especially about the slaves and how they related to the plantation owners.”

Apply for summer program in archeology and art conservation

What if you could spend your summer restoring ancient art and architecture in Italy—while enjoying the country’s beautiful scenery and fantastic cuisine?

That is the opportunity available through the Archaeological Conservation Institute (ACI), a unique month-long program offered by Randolph College’s classics department. For the past two summers, Randolph students interested in archaeology, art history, and classics have had hands-on experience with projects such as resetting ancient Roman mosaics.

This year’s program, from May 14 to June 12, will include the opportunity to excavate Sant’Imbenia, an ancient Phoenician port village on the Italian island of Sardinia. Applications are due Feb. 1, and you can download an application here.

Claire Sumner ’15 is excited to attend ACI for the second year in a row. “I think that if students have any interest in conservation or archaeology it is a great introduction to both fields. Plus, you get to explore Italy. What could be better?”

Randolph launched ACI in partnership with the Centro di Conservazione Archeologica (Center for Archaeological Conservation) and the renowned conservationist Roberto Nardi in 2011. Sumner, an art history and museum studies major from Bainbridge Island, Washington, decided to participate in ACI last summer after hearing a speech by Nardi.

Sumner said last year’s program included lectures as well as “lab work” that included excavation and restoration efforts. “From the lab work, I learned some of the more simple techniques for the conservation and restoration of art works,” Sumner said. “From the lectures, I learned Dottore Nardi’s philosophy on conservation and what a new generation of conservators could do to improve the field.”

The experience caused Sumner to consider making a career out of conservation and art restoration. She decided to apply to ACI again so she can talk more with Nardi and his staff about what how to reach that goal.

Susan Stevens, a classics professor at Randolph, said the program will allow students to gain experience with a wide variety of conservation principles, ranging from broadly applicable practices, such as video documentation, to techniques for specific restoration projects. “With the top-notch team of Italian conservators, archaeologists, trainees and their lab and field projects, ACI students participate in a fascinating profession,” she said.

Randolph students restore Roman artifacts in Italy

A group of Randolph students is currently in Italy restoring ancient Roman artifacts with the Centro di Conservazione Archeologica (CCA).

What exactly do students DO on this trip? Watch and find out in this video from Roberto Nardi of the CCA.

In its second year, the two week Archaeological Conservation Institute is a collaboration between the CCA and Randolph College. Conservator Roberto Nardi and his staff lead the students on a series of lectures, discussions and site visits, emphasizing hands-on experience in conservation and methods of Roman painting, opus sectile and stucco.

Classics professor Susan Stevens organized the program with Nardi after he visited Randolph two years ago. In addition to working in CCA’s laboratories, participants get to experience a bit of Italian culture including wine tasting, pasta making, and olive oil production.

• Read more about the 2011 trip in Randolph Magazine...
• VIDEO: 2011 Italy Trip (above)

2012 Participants

• Stormy Clowdis '13
• Catherine DeSilvey '13
• Meredith Dougherty '15
• Melissa Halka '14
• Claire Sumner '15
• Kathleen Taylor '15
• Monica Varner '14

2011 Participants

• Catherine DeSilvey '13
• Tierney Dickinson '14
• Rhiannon Knol '11
• Gage Stuntz '13
• Monica Varner '14
• Lindsay Wood '11