We’ve already started excavations for the 2014 field season on the Quiet Green. After shooting in our new trenches last week, the fences are up and we started digging on Monday afternoon. Our 2014 students were enjoying the sunny September weather, and made a good start clearing the turf and topsoil. Early finds include lost pennies and lost dorm keys – perhaps if we return them now, we can get the $30 replacement fee back for some poor student?
Author: JIAAW (Page 4 of 8)
Last week, as we were finalizing preparations for The Archaeology of College Hill, a team of Joukowsky Institute volunteers gathered to do some text excavating on the Quiet Green. This was part of a larger soil testing project, designed to help us measure the levels of different particulates that sifting our dirt releases into the air, and to make sure that those of us digging during the class wouldn’t be exposed to anything undesirable.
The College Hill team is excited to get started with excavations for the Fall 2014 term. We’ll be digging again on the Quiet Green this year, exposing more of a path uncovered in 2013 and hoping to find further traces of the house of the first presidents of Brown University. Last year our excavations recovered Staffordshire slipware pottery embedded in this path, dating to the mid-18th century and possibly associated with the Presidents House.
In July of 1971 Brown and Pembroke officially merged, a result of decades of close partnership and cooperation. The dissolving of Pembroke College was not universally accepted, however, and the traditions and infrastructure of Brown quickly made Pembroke’s legacies a thing of the past. It is undoubtable, however, that the merger gave new life to campus and enhanced and gave much-needed diveristy to the Brown experience.
Blog posts by the students of Claudia Moser’s class ARCH 1764: 25 Things! 250 Years of Brown’s Material Past.
Pictured above is a course summary of Professor Sue Alcock’s class, “Archaeology’s Dirty Little Secrets”, now available as a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Coursera. As a MOOC, the online course mirrors the archaeology course offered at Brown through video lectures and as a result, “extends, shapes, reworks, or reproduces the structure [a Brown education] in ways that are more or less unpredictable” (Bijker and Law). MOOCs like Professor Alcock’s class provide educational opportunities to people of all ages all around the world, however also come with some flaws, including the loss of teacher and student interaction in classrooms and peer-to-peer communication.
Blog posts by the students of Claudia Moser’s class ARCH 1764: 25 Things! 250 Years of Brown’s Material Past.
I am writing about the Corliss-Brackett house, located at 45 Prospect Street. While many know it now as the home to the Philosophy and Economics Departments, it will always be the Admissions Department to me – a building that holds great sentimental value, as it was the origin of my first tour of Brown’s campus. However, it was once a residential home, which means the house meant something completely different to the past owners. Through my research on the Corliss-Brackett house, I will discuss object agency and the malleability of meaning throughout history.
Blog posts by the students of Claudia Moser’s class ARCH 1764: 25 Things! 250 Years of Brown’s Material Past.
A women’s college anatomy class from 1900 – one of a number of photos adorning the walls of the Sharpe Refectory.
Blog posts by the students of Claudia Moser’s class ARCH 1764: 25 Things! 250 Years of Brown’s Material Past.
This picture is of Circle Dance, a statue consisting of eleven life-sized human figures made out of aluminum turkey roasting pans that are holding hands and dancing in a circle. It is located on the south side of The Walk green space that connects Pembroke campus to the main campus of Brown University. The artist, Tom Friedman, based this sculpture of Henri Matisse’s painting, La Danse.
Blog posts by the students of Claudia Moser’s class ARCH 1764: 25 Things! 250 Years of Brown’s Material Past.
SPEAK TO THE PAST AND IT SHALL TEACH THEE.
The inscription is the self-proclaimed motto of the JCB Library and is a variation of a passage from the Book of Job, Chapter Twelve, Verse Eight. This statement influences our experience and recordings of historical events and artifacts. Furthermore, the statement demands that we engage in a dialogue with these artifacts, elevating the ideas of agency and material culture to the upmost importance.
Blog posts by the students of Claudia Moser’s class ARCH 1764: 25 Things! 250 Years of Brown’s Material Past.
The cars parked outside of Andrews Hall have changed drastically since this photograph was taken in 1947, but the facade has remained largely as it was when it was first built as part of Pembroke College. Now a revitalized focal point for social life at Brown, the residence hall has acted as a medium for political and social expression through the decades. Its biography reflects the social history of the students it houses every year.
Blog posts by the students of Claudia Moser’s class ARCH 1764: 25 Things! 250 Years of Brown’s Material Past.