Darren Ivy/DN
KATRINA NGUYEN-KILSH and Ian Samsom, both volunteers from the Missouri River Ecology
Institution, sift through dirt Tuesday afternoon. The grates separate out the artifacts.
ERIC KALDAHL SHOWS Fontanelle Forest Ranger Mark Dietz some artifacts
he recently removed from the trench he’s standing in. The group began
excavating the current mound last week.
Dig helps
students
uncover
education
By Tom Foster
Staff Reporter
Deep in the Fontenelle Forest, just
south of Omaha in Bellevue, a group of
young men and women sit in a circle
around a depression in the earth.
Shovels, trowels and assorted hand
tools Utter the soil around them. Above,
a patchwork of plastic tarps provides
shade. Hanging from a nearby tree, a
radio hums in the background.
These University of Nebraska
Lincoln students are taking a break
from excavating one of 54 similar sites
in the forest, home to the Nebraska
phase people who lived in the Missouri
River valley from 1000-1400.
The students are part of the UNL
Summer Field School in Archaeology,
an eight week session that gives them
nine credit hours and invaluable experi
ence for future studies.
Field School
“Field school is where we teach you
all the basic methods of the trade,” said
Eric Kaldahl, director of the program.
Kaldahl, who is finishing his doctorate
in anthropology at the University of
Arizona, is a Bellevue native and gradu
ate of UNL.
“Eve always wanted to come back
here,” he said. “This is where my
research interests he.”
This year, eight undergraduate stu
dents are joining Kaldahl in Bellevue.
Two graduate assistants help him run
the field school.
Michael Chidley, one of the assis
tants, said the group begins work at 7:00
every morning. For the next eight hours,
students dig in carefully measured
squares, sift through the dirt for arti
facts, sort the artifacts and periodically
map the area.
From 3:00 to 5:00 in the afternoon,
the group heads back to the lab to wash
artifacts and check them in. And several
nights a week, they have lectures or
class in the evening. They sleep in near
by cabins and rise early again to contin
ue working.
The busy schedule doesn’t seem to
bother these students, though.
“They’re real troopers,” Kahldahl
said. “They’ve been working through
the rain and the mud and the heat.”
“Some of the work is tedious, and
sometimes when it’s hot, you just want
to lay down and stop,” said Melissa
Kruse, a sophomore anthropology
major. “But mostly this is fun.”
“Every little thing you find is excit
ing,” she said. “It all ties together and
fits into the bigger picture. We’re trying
to understand what (the Nebraska
phase) did day to day, how they lived.”
Kruse said she hoped the project
would educate the community about the
area’s significance and spark an interest
in archaeology.
One of the two sites being excavated
this summer is close enough to the main
park entrance that visitors can watch the
process and learn. Many children’s
groups visit the site.
And student volunteers from the
Missouri River Ecology Institute also
learn about the dig while lending a hand
with the work.
Ian Sansom of Omaha, 14, is one of
those volunteers. He spent the day sift
ing through buckets of mud. Hunched
over a wooden box with a one-fourth
inch wire mesh bottom, Sansom said
one bucket took 30 minutes to sift.
Nearby, Katie Cooksley dug a
trench by evenly clearing several cen
timeters of dirt at a time. Occasionally,
she hefted several buckets of dirt over to
Sansom to be sifted through.
Cooksley, who will be a UNL fresh
man this fall, said she had long been
interested in this kind of work.
“I’ve wanted to be an archaeologist
since I was 8 years old,” she said.
Early Nebraskans
While digging, Cooksley explained
that her trench would uncover the
boundaries of a lodge. A change in the
soil color indicates where the building
materials decomposed, thus outlining
the 1,000-year-old home, she said.
Kaldahl said the lodges typically
housed six or more people, probably
members of a single family. The homes
were partially underground, with large
beams supporting a roof of smaller
branches, grass and mud.
He said one house would be occu
pied for 10-15 years before decompos
ing, ripe with vermin. The family then
built a new home, usually very near the
old one.
Kaldahl said it was unclear how
many of the homes in Fontenelle Forest
were rebuilt from the same family or
how many existed at the same time. He
said the excavation could shed light on
the family and community life of the
Nebraska phase.
Because each home was abandoned
for a newer model, the excavation rarely
uncovers whole artifacts, Kaldahl said
The people took their belongings with
them when they moved.
Holding a six-inch triangular
Please see DIGGERS on 3
