Volunteer with HistoriCorps

Volunteer with HistoriCorps to rehabilitate the 1823 Clermont Farm Slave Quarters

Sponsored by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and The Clermont Foundation 

History

The Clermont property has been owned by only four families in its long history. The first owner, Thomas Fairfax, managed the 5.2 million acre land grant from 1719 to 1753. In 1819, the McCormicks bought the farm and in 1823 built the slave quarters. After the Civil War, they gave portions of the farm to their former slaves. These parcels became Josephine City, one of the largest African-American settlements in Virginia, and which is now part of Berryville. In 1980, Clermont Farm was donated to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources to be preserved and retained as an agricultural property. 

How You Can Help 

Volunteers will work and camp on-site. Participants will stabilize the 1823 Slave Quarters under the direction of preservation experts. Over the course of six, one-week sessions, volunteers will: Restore the original topography; Stabilize the dry-stone foundation; Install new cypress shingle roofing; Repair and replace chinking; Restore flooring. Stabilize and reinforce roof framing; Asses and repair log framing; Replace deteriorated clapboard siding; Rehabilitate windows and doors;

When

Volunteers should arrive Sunday evening at 6 pm to set up camp. Work begins Monday morning. Sessions end around 1 pm on Fridays. 

• Session 1: July 12-17 
• Session 2: July 19-24 
• Session 3: July 26-31 
• Session 4: August 9-14 
• Session 5: August 16-21 
• Session 6: August 23-28

Where

Clermont Farm is located in Berryville, VA, 30 minutes East of Winchester, VA. More specific directions will be sent to volunteers in a pre-arrival packet.

Details 

HistoriCorps provides free campsites, tools, safety equipment, and delicious meals. Volunteers are responsible for transportation to and from the site, appropriate work clothes and shoes, and personal camping gear. Participants can receive credit with Lamar Community College’s Historic Building Technology Program. Inquire for details.

About HistoriCorps

HistoriCorps saves and sustains historic places for public benefit through partnerships that foster public involvement, engage volunteers and provide training and education.

Read more about the project and register online here: historicorps.org/clermont-farm/

For more information, contact Rebecca Curry: rcurry@historicorps.org, (303) 893-4260 ext. 225

Archaeological Technicians Opportunity

ARCHAEOLOGICAL TECHNICIANS

The Cultural Resources Section of the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) seeks to hire two (2) archaeological technicians to work on the Belvoir/Scott’s Plantation project in Anne Arundel County. This work is being performed under a cooperative agreement with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Maryland. The applicant must be able to work both in lab and field environments. The position requires: an undergraduate degree and a field school. 

Duties: field excavation and artifact processing.

Location: Field work will be in Crownsville, Maryland and laboratory work will be carried out in the Baltimore office. Parking is reimbursable.

Duration: The position is 40 hours a week and begins in May and lasts through at least August 28. The position can be extended on either a part or full time basis.

Hourly Wage: $15/hr

Interested applicants should send their vitae and 3 references to Julie Schablitsky at jschablitsky@sha.state.md.us The position will close April 10, 2015.

Project Background: Belvoir is a colonial plantation that dates to the 1730s. It was the home of Francis Scott Key’s grandmother as well as other affluent Marylanders. During a transportation landscape study along General’s Highway in Anne Arundel County, archaeologists discovered a large stone slave quarters that dates to the 1780s. The slave barracks contains intact brick flooring and undisturbed subfloor pits. The project, led by Maryland State Highway archaeologists, is a public outreach project that includes descendents and other leaders in the African American community.

Left to Right: Tinglazed sherd, Belvoir manor house, and clay tobacco pipe with horse.

This summer, archaeologists will return for a second season of fieldwork that will include: excavation within the slave quarter, mapping with drones and LiDAR, tours to the public and school-aged children, and research to identify and locate living descendents from the last community of enslaved African Americans to reside at Belvoir.

Summer Courses and Field Schools 2014

Planning on taking a class or two over the summer? 
Don't miss out on these great anthropology opportunities!

ANTH222
Introduction to Ecological and Evolutionary Anthropology
An introduction to the evolution of human physiology and human behavior, the relationship between hominid and non-hominid primates, and the study of relationships between a population of humans and their biophysical environment.

ANTH240
Introduction to Archaeology
Exploration of the variety of past human societies and cultures through archaeology, from the emergence of anatomically modern humans to the more recent historical past.

ANTH260
Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology and Linguistics
Culture and social relationships in a wide variety of settings from small-scale to complex societies. An overview of how anthropology analyzes human behavior. Particular attention to the relationship between language and culture.

ANTH266
Changing Climate, Changing Cultures
Explore past, present, and future interactions between humans and climate. Discussions, methods-oriented activities, and case study analyses provide students a foundation for appreciating the role of anthropology in understanding, responding to, and preparing for climate change.

ANTH320
Method and Theory in Biological Anthropology
Theoretical and methodological overview of biological anthropology, including evolutionary anthropology, anthropological genetics, physiological anthropology, human biology, primatology, paleoanthropology, human biodiversity, and contemporary selective challenges to modern humanity. Emphasis on core concepts and their research applications.

ANTH428W
Primate Social Behavior
The social behavior of primates can assist us in understanding our own behavior and the behavior of our ancestors.  This course focuses on the social behavior of non-human primates.  The main course discussions will be on the closest relatives to human beings, the other great apes:  chimpanzees, bonobos, the two species of gorilla, and the two species of orangutan.

ANTH469C
Language and Culture
This course focuses on key issues in the study of language in its cultural context.  It highlights some contemporary ethnographic approaches in linguistic anthropology, by considering the phenomenon of bilingualism and multilingualism, focusing on linguistic diversity in the U.S. and internationally, through the study of the use and structure of such codes as African American speech, Spanish, Native American Languages, American Sign Language, and Pidgins and Creoles.

 

Field Schools:

The Department of Anthropology offers several field schools throughout the year in both Archaeology and Sociocultural Anthropology.  Field experience is important for any student who wishes to pursue these subjects academically or professionally after college or graduate school.

Archaeology in Annapolis
Dr. Leone’s field school in Annapolis is a unique and exciting opportunity to participate in a long term study of our nation’s history through uncovering the past.  Begun in 1981, the Archaeology in Annapolis project has been concerned with promoting better understandings of Annapolis’ diverse past through the interpretation of material culture to promote an inclusive form of Annapolis’ history. Over the past 20 years Archaeology in Annapolis has run an annual field school in urban archaeology and has excavated over forty sites throughout the city’s historic district.

Materiality of the Irish Immigrant Laborer: Field School in Historical Archaeology
Students can be a part of field school excavations at the site of a laboring settlement of Irish immigrant families and is one of the first to be excavated in Virginia. The work will provide much needed data to create a material history of the daily lives of the Irish men, women, and children laboring and living in the area. Students will be actively situated in learning how to do archaeology and conduct historical research that will provide an intimate understanding of the 19th century Irish immigrant presence outside of urban areas.

Brazil Anthropology: Environmental Conservation and Indigenous Peoples
Dr. Chernela's six-credit course will consider conservation and development from the standpoints of local communities and conservationists. The objectives of the field course are to gain an understanding of: socio-economic dynamics of the Amazonian frontier and drivers of deforestation; tropical forest biology with special attention to regeneration; forest-dependent indigenous and local cultures and their struggle to determine the future of the land and communities that depend upon it. This exciting course will be held in Brazil.

Lattimer Archaeology Project: The Archaeology of Labor Heritage in a Coal Mining Company Town
In the summer of 2012, Penn State Hazleton and the Department of Anthropology of the University of Maryland will collaborate on an archaeological project exploring life in a coal mining company patch town
near Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Lattimer, was founded in the mid-19th century by the Pardee Company and was the site of a tragic labor massacre in September of 1897. Please contact Michael Roller at mroller@umd.edu for info on the field school, or check our website as we update our logistics.
 

Finding Our Inner Neanderthal: Evolutionary Geneticist Svante Pääbo’s DNA Quest A special program complementing the National Museum of Natural History exhibition Genome: Unlocking Life's Code

Evening Lecture

Tuesday, March 25 

7:00 - 8:30 pm

Geneticist Svante Paabo will be speaking at the Smithsonian Tuesday, 25 March 2014 on Neandertal DNA.

In 2010, Svante Pääbo shook the scientific world with the results from a groundbreaking genetic study. Pääbo, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, headed a team whose 5-year investigation concluded that Neanderthals, who disappeared 30,000 years ago, mated with early members of our own species. The legacy of those Neanderthals survives in the DNA of many people today: “Neanderthals are not totally extinct,” says the scientist. “In some of us they live on, a little bit.”

Through extraction of ancient DNA from a variety of sources and geographic locations, Pääbo’s team studied genetic data across time and continents. Pääbo discusses the study’s methods and findings, and later is joined by Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins Program of the Museum of Natural History, for a conversation about how paleogenetics can deepen our understanding of the long history of our species.

More Information: http://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/reserve.aspx?utm_source=SI-Trumba-Calendar&utm_medium=SIWeb&utm_campaign=2012FY-Trumba-calend&tmssource=190358&performanceNumber=227687

2014 Chacmool Conference Call for Abstracts

University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada November 7-10, 2014
Call for Presentation Abstracts—Deadline is March 21, 2014

The 2014 Chacmool conference theme “Breaking Barriers” will address cutting edge research in the advancement of archaeological theory, the use of new technologies, and new approaches to indigenous archaeology and ethnoarchaeology. A diverse group of international scholars, professionals and students are invited to present research that is shaping new directions for our discipline and that will engage archaeologists, ethnoarchaeologists, anthropologists, and indigenous peoples in understanding and conserving the material past that continues to affect our present world. Some archaeologists lament the fragmentation of archaeological theory in the past decade. Researchers are asked to address new approaches to break down the barriers of theoretical fragmentation and to re-open dialogue and debate. New technologies open new possibilities for research. Featured in the conference is three-dimensional imaging, a technology that has opened up new methods to conserve archaeological heritage and a new means to engage the public in virtual archaeological sites made available on the worldwide web. Indigenous archaeology and community archaeology are of fundamental importance to the broader relevancy of archaeology in the contemporary world. Critical to this project is the scholarly, social and spiritual engagement of indigenous peoples in the interpretation, critical evaluation and research prioritization of these pasts.

Abstracts of approximately 150 words may be submitted online on our website: 

arky.ucalgary.ca/chacmool2014/ following the Abstract Submission form, 
or sent via email to: 2014chacmool@gmail.com

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any further questions. 

Temporary Position - Archaeologist

The Maryland State Highway Administration (MSHA) has a contract with the Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland, College Park. MSHA is looking to fill two, temporary archaeology positions at $15/hr. 

The duties will include metal detecting for an American Revolution Rochambeau encampment; excavation at Scott’s Plantation (Belvoir) in Anne Arundel County; and laboratory work in Baltimore. The lab work runs from the week of March 24 through April 18; the metal detector survey work runs between April 21-25, and the excavations at Scott’s plantation takes place between April 28-May 30. The start date and schedule is flexible, however, at least a 16 hour commitment per week is required for the position.  

To apply please send your vitae and schedule to Julie Schablitsky at jschablitsky@sha.state.md.us

2014 Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) Forensic Science Academy (FSA)

In 2008, JPAC’s Central Identification Laboratory (CIL) opened the Forensic Science Academy, an advanced forensic anthropology program consisting of five courses. Located on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, the CIL is one of the largest and most scientifically diverse laboratories in the world and, in 2008, became the 2nd federal laboratory to pass the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors'-Laboratory Accreditation Board's (ASCLD-LAB) International Standards Program.

Participants in the JPAC FSA will learn about the following topics: identification and reconstruction of fragmentary and complete human skeletons, minimum number of individuals (MNI), terrestrial and underwater archaeological methods, GIS and remote sensing, recovery scene processing, DNA extraction from bones and teeth, forensic entomology, laboratory quality assurance, and ASCLD/LAB-International (ISO) accreditation.  They will also receive specialized training on how to formulate a biological profile that includes age at death, ancestry, sex, height, trauma, and identity.  Each student is provided training in taphonomy, thin-sectioning bone for histological examination, cause and manner of death, metric and non-metric skeletal analysis, radiology, paleopathology and photography. 

After receiving classroom instruction in archaeological equipment and recovery techniques, participants spend four weeks on military search-and-recovery teams to Laos or Vietnam and assist in the archaeological excavation of a crash site or burial.  Students will also have the opportunity to spend a week examining an anatomical skeletal collection in Thailand.  The rigors of JPAC fieldwork require that participants be physically able to withstand harsh field environments for an extended period of time. Otherwise, the program is open to all qualified U.S. Citizens.

Eligibility Requirements:

Participants must have earned a B.A. or B.S. degree in physical anthropology, forensic anthropology, bioarchaeology, zooarchaeology (with experience in human osteology), or a related field and MUST BE ENROLLED in a relevant M.A. /M.S./Ph.D. program at the time of enrollment in the Academy. Please note, the JPAC FSA is requires U.S. Citizenship in order to be selected.

Application Deadline:  April 15, 2014

Project Id: JPAC-CIL-FSA-2014

2014 FSA Project Posting:

https://www.pcrecruiter.net/pcrbin/reg5.exe?r=2ps6%2fOYN0ew1ENJZDYYEAXOO6i5WkIanQSCBPil5n4TdZlQ930lbMsw6iNE3zgdtmawyeamVY4Ni%0d%0azLCEWXYEVuxVI7dWgjkEfw%3d%3d&rid=www%2Epcrecruiter%2Enet

More information about the JPAC FSA:

http://www.jpac.pacom.mil/index.php?page=fsa

All interested applicants are instructed to apply to our website: www.orau.org/maryland