Exploring the Impacts of Dewatering a Colonial Fort

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Conservation and Preservation of Archaeological Materials", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

To 'preserve the past for the future,' it is necessary to examine the preservation methods employed on artifacts in collections as well as the methods used to excavate archaeological sites. Investigations at Fort St. Joseph, an eighteenth-century mission, garrison, and trading post, have led to the recovery of more than 325,000 artifacts over the past twenty-five years, providing insights on the Fur Trade and colonial interactions occurring in the western Great Lakes region. Situated along the banks of the St. Joseph River, the fort site requires the use of a dewatering system to conduct archaeological work due to the installation of twentieth-century dams that have left the area inundated. As the water table is continuously altered and lowered during the field season, it is important to consider the impacts that this process has on the material remains waiting to be unearthed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025   •
• The Conservation and Preservation of Archaeological Materials

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow