Unit 5 Work Sheet

Teacher Page

Not Just Underground
Or
"Tripping Over History"

Create cooperative groups of children in your classroom. The jobs for the groups of four will be Recorder – records all information for the group; Discussion director – asks to the group and makes sure that everyone provides input for the answers; Reporter – reports groups inferences and is the only person in the group that you will speak to; Task manager – keeps the group on task and settles any differences that may come up in the discussion.

Did you know? You hear the word artifact a lot when people talk about history and archeology. We are shown artifacts from the pyramids in Egypt and places like Poverty Point or other Native American sites. But artifacts can be found anywhere, even above the ground. An artifact is something that has been left behind by hu­mans that helps tell a story about those humans. Even a candy wrapper left on the ground can give us information about someone or some place.

This activity will allow students to categorize and analyze actual artifacts from Oakland Plantation. They will then draw conclusions based on their investiga­tion. Working with this data will bring them closer to understanding the work of an archeologist. This activity is based on data reported in Oakland Plantation: A comprehensive Subsurface Investigation (Miller & Wood, 2000) and research and photographs by Dr. Linda Easley Roach (2002)

The artifacts were grouped by Miller and Wood into nine categories: Structures, food, personal, clothing, agriculture, industrial, Native American, unidentified, and fauna. This activity focuses on five groups: agriculture, industrial, food, personal, and clothing. Data reported for all categories can be found in the full report.

Name _____________________________________ Date ___________

Discover It: What can we learn about a site (place) from the artifacts?

Do It: You have just received a "box" of artifacts from Oakland Plantation. Some of these artifacts were found as a result of the auger tests, and some were found lying on the ground.

Your team must make some sense of these findings. Look at each artifact, write a description of it, classify it, and draw some conclusions about how it was used and what the structure was with which it is associated.

Look carefully at the artifacts and see if there are any similarities among them. Classify them into groups and complete the Data Table.

From where do you think your box of artifacts came? Use the map to help you decided.

ANSWERS WILL VARY, BUT SHOULD BE EVIDENCED BASED AND A LOGICAL EXPLANATION OF WHY THEY CHOSE THE STRUCTURE.

State your Conclusion: Based on the artifacts that you have categorized and analyzed, where were they found on Oakland Plantation? If a structure remains, there, what do you infer its use was? Why? If there is no struc­ture there now, what structure(s) do you predict (using hard data to “pre­dict” something in the past) would have been there? Why?

ANSWERS WILL VARY, BUT SHOULD BE EVIDENCED BASED AND A LOGICAL EXPLANATION OF WHY THEY CHOSE THE STRUCTURE.

Prepare Your Presentation: You are to attend a meeting with other ar­cheologists studying Oakland Plantation. You must share the information that you have learned about Oakland with the other archeologists so that a more complete picture of the site can be determined. Design a presenta­tion of your data for this archeological summit. We don’t think other ar­cheologists would like to hear you read your conclusions, so create a visu­ally interesting presentation. You may use posters, power point, overheads, or another idea you have.

Home learning: Carefully observe your yard tonight and describe 10 things that tell something about your family. Think of five things that might be underground or lost in your yard that would tell something about you and your family. Make a list of these artifacts and write a story about the family that left these artifacts behind.

ANSWERS WILL VARY, BUT SHOULD BE EVIDENCED BASED AND A LOGICAL EXPLANATION OF HOW EVIDENCE SUPPORTS THEIR ANSWERS.