Questions:
1) Who are you?
I was one of Chuck Cleland's many students in historical archaeology at
Michigan State and got interested in the 18th-century French fur trade
while pursuing three degrees in hole digging there. Did my dissertation on
the site of Ft Ouiateon in Indiana. I was on the faculty at Illinois State
in the early 1980s and from there went on to the National Park Service,
where I'll have been 20 years come April. Don't do much field archaeology
anymore, though I occasionally do small historic projects in some of our
Midwestern parks, frequently in advance of efforts to restore historic
19th-century structures. My primary duties now include providing technical
assistance to about 70 non-Federal National Historic Landmark
archaeological sites throughout the Midwest and developing new NHL
nominations. Attended my first SHA meeting in 1976 at Philadelphia and
haven't missed one since, which must be some sort of record.
2) Dirtiest moment in the field.
Perhaps not the "dirtiest" moment, but certainly the lowest, was back in my
giddy youth on a project surveying South Manitou Island in northern Lake
Michigan during the early Fall of 1974. Among our field provisions were
several gallons of grain alcohol that someone had appropriated from the MSU
Museum artifact conservation lab for beverage purposes. As I recall, we ran
out of cocktail mixers the second night, but while surveying the island we
were lucky to find an old plum orchard bearing ripe fruit. Crushed in a
bucket with a tent stake each evening, the plums yielded sufficient fresh
juice to cut and flavor the high-test booze. Now that I think back, we were
indeed rather dirty (to say nothing of sticky from the juice-making
operation), and we had no real bathing opportunities other than the
occasional quick dip in Lake Michigan. Only the most hardy among us
attempted that, however, as the waters can be very cold in late September
with surface temperatures typically around 40-45 degrees F.
P.S. I'm not the only one on this list who was there.
3) Your idea of the best dressed archaeologist, i.e. what practical
gear should they be wearing?
I'll stick to my standard tirade on footwear, which has always been a pet
peeve of mine. I frown on those who wear boots with Vibram lug soles or
running shoes with treads that leave deep impressions in the excavation
units. Also can't abide those who think that sandals are appropriate for
doing survey through heavy vegetation of the Eastern woodlands or the
snake-infested Great Plains. My recommendations are:
Boots: Red Wing used to offer a good line of flat-bottomed lace-up boots
with no tread. Today most of their so-called wedge soles, which have no
heel, have a subtle ridged tread, but they are not too bad. Only a couple
styles still have a smooth contact surface. As Jennifer Palmer noted,
Nebraska-based Cabela's also has some nice sturdy boots. Their hiking boots
are good for survey work, and the Hathorn Northwest work boot is roughly
equivalent to my Red Wings, but awful spendy.
Shoes: Thirty-odd years ago a lot of us wore Clark's Treks, which had
smooth flat bottoms with either black rubber or crepe soles. With almost
daily use I went through two or three pairs over the years. Clark's
apparently no longer makes classic Treks, which had low tops, but they now
offer a style called Desert Treks, which are about the same except that the
tops come up near the ankle, just a little lower than their Desert Boot,
and they only come with a crepe sole now. Very comfortable. I'm wearing a
pair right now, in fact. The classic Desert Boot, with crepe sole and very
low heel, isn't a bad shoe for the field, either, though they don't give
much instep support while bearing down on a shovel.
Sneakers: If one must wear tennis shoes on a site, I recommend Jack
Purcells (now marketed by Converse). Purcell actually was a star Canadian
badminton player in the 1920s and 30s, and the canvas shoes named after him
lack any tread or suction cups for added traction. There is a small cutout
on the bottom where the logo appears, but they are otherwise completely
flat and smooth. Pretty stylish, too, with a distinctive "smile" of blue
rubber on the toe cap.
Vergil
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Vergil E. Noble, PhD, RPA, Archeologist
Midwest Archeological Center, National Park Service
Robert V. Denney Federal Building, Room 474
100 Centennial Mall North, Lincoln, NE 68508-3873
Phone: 402.437.5392x108 Fax: 402.437.5098
office email address: [log in to unmask]
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