Cultural Material Analysis

The Archaeological Laboratory at Heidelberg (located in Gillmor Science Hall) houses collections from several nationally significant historic sites. These include the Johnson’s Island Civil War Prison Site (1861-1866), the Fallen Timbers Battlefield site (1794) and the Buffington Island Battlefield site (1863). The Johnson’s Island Civil War Prison site also contains extensive collections of prehistoric Native American materials representing occupations from the late Paleo through Late Prehistoric eras. All of these materials are available to Heidelberg students for directed research. The three major collections of historic archaeological materials are all very tightly provenienced and provide very narrow chronological windows in which to examine research questions related to cultural materials. For instance, at the Johnson’s Island Civil War Prison site, the latrines that have been excavated can be identified to specific years within the prison’s use. This allows, for instance, very specific technological studies of cultural materials found within these tightly dated latrines.