Program director and professor of anthropology at MSU, Stacey Camp, said that the process of excavation started months before the field school began in the last week of May.

Throughout the academic year preceding the field school, Camp said she worked with students using ground penetrating radar technology to determine how intact the observatory’s foundation was. 

Through data collection and archival research, Camp began to create research questions with both undergraduate and graduate students to pursue during excavation.

This technology isn’t always accurate, however, and things can look far different when the actual excavation starts, she said.

Beyond the goal of seeing if the observatory itself was intact, excavators were also searching for the pedestal and foundation of its telescope, she said. 

“We found the pedestal and its foundation the last couple of days of the dig, which always happens with archaeology,” Camp said.

An important aspect of excavation is the slow, methodical process of the digging itself, Camp said. Throughout the dig, every layer of soil is removed and screened for small artifacts. During this process, Camp said that tiny cell buttons as well as a small knob, which may be connected to some technology in the observatory, was discovered.

These objects will be examined in laboratory analysis this coming academic year, she said.

“We go very, very slowly because we document everything that we find,” Camp said. “As archaeologists, everything we do is inherently destructive, and because of that, we document everything we do.”

For many students, this program is an opportunity for them to see what it is like to be an archaeologist and determine if it is a career choice for them, Camp said.

“I’m used to almost every person on the dig not knowing how to actually do archaeology until they get out and learn by doing it by hand,” she said.

Students who worked in the program weren’t only spending time in the field digging, Camp said. Some gravitated more towards lab work and other aspects of the program. 

“Most of what we do as archaeologists is in the lab, it's not digging,” she said.

In the lab, objects found at the site can be identified and dated, confirming whether or not they were a part of the observatory, Camp said.

Looking towards some challenges every group faces during the excavation period, Camp said students learn just how slowly things progress during these digs. 

“Nothing goes quickly because we’re constantly writing what we see as we’re excavating,” she said. “Do we see a soil change? Do we see pockets of a certain kind of soil or ash in certain areas of the excavation unit? Do we need to stop and map something we found in place?” 

Working around tree roots and avoiding cutting into them is also another obstacle.

“Our trees are considered part of our cultural heritage and history here at MSU, so learning to work around those roots can be really challenging,” Camp said.

Benjamin Akey, a campus archaeologist and fifth-year doctoral student in anthropology, alongside their crew identified the observatory last year after receiving an email from a landscape architect. 

“They were trying to put in some hammock pads in an area just south of Wills House and kept hitting a concrete pad at a consistent depth,” Akey said.

Akey and their crew then spent several weeks shovel testing to identify if this site was the observatory, as it was located in the area on old campus maps, they said.

“Towards the end of our shovel testing, when we’re about ready to give up and move on to a different site, assuming that it was no longer there, we hit it, and then opened up larger excavation units to actually expose the foundation,” Akey said.

Akey said when digging at the site, they discovered materials were not very abundant with items that revealed information of the site that was not already known.

“Most of the materials we’re encountering were bricks and nails,” they said. “I think broadly the value of doing this project is it can help shed some light on how the early university functioned.” 

Akey said that the smaller objects found tied to the site, like knobs and buttons, will begin to show a larger picture once all of the evidence is gathered together through reports and analysis. 

“Ultimately, doing excavations out there this year I think opened up new questions more than anything,” they said.

For Hank Leversedge, a senior majoring in anthropology, this program was his first experience working in the field excavating. 

Leversedge plans to pursue archaeology after graduation. He said this program has helped provide him the skills he needs to pursue that career. 

He said he gravitated towards hands-on digging at the site.

“I like the idea of being the first person to see something,” Leversedge said. “It’s been buried for about a hundred years at this point. I thought it was pretty cool to be the first one seeing it come out of the ground.” 

Leversedge, before working on this site, said he used to believe archaeology was a more individualized field.

“There was a lot of teamwork going on, communication was necessary,” he said.

Camp said she plans on running another undergraduate field school next summer to expose more of the pedestal and its foundation, as well as tracing the rest of the observatory’s foundation.

Camp explains the importance of excavations like this program.

“History can be right below your feet, and if you don’t have archaeologists and historians working together to understand what has happened on a landscape, you could potentially destroy a very important part of history,” Camp said.