The last major adventure I experienced was during my last summer at Camp Mondamin. I had just turned 15 a few months before and was as excited as ever to return to that mountain getaway. Little did I know that this final summer would turn out to have a crowning jewel.
The camp owner turned out to be friends with the lead archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at nearby Chapel Hill. That summer, he led a team of university students excavating an Indian mound in a field on a farm in nearby Canton, NC.
The arrangement they came to was for a crew of older campers to work on the dig for a week at the time, and I was lucky enough to be tapped to be one of those chosen.
What an experience that was!
We were basically unpaid labor. The archaeology folks had laid out a grid pattern that was slowly dug up, the contents then put in a wooden “shaker tray” with fencing wire on the bottom. Shaking the tray slowly would cause the dirt particles to fall into a wheelbarrow underneath, while hard pieces would remain in the tray. It was a slow process. But thrilling when an arrowhead or piece of pottery or bone would show up.
They were careful to excavate the site by grid and by layers, slowly working their way deeper into the ground. That was where we were more likely to find the “buried treasure” that awaited.
And that way they were able to document what they found, and where they found it.
We mostly worked shirtless and in shorts, under that hot summer sun. Even though I was naturally blond, I remember being surprised when I got home, later that summer and the neighbor next door asked if I had “put peroxide on my hair” to make it lighter in color. I had no idea what she was talking about.
Apparently, I got enough sun that week in the cornfield that it lightened my hair, naturally! I did not know that would happen.
Our camper crew stayed in an old wooden house in nearby Canton, that had no furniture, just our sleeping bags on the bare wooden floors.
I seem to remember the only lighting we had was from single bulbs hanging from the ceilings, and a minimal bathroom, but no hot water. We were used to that, by now, so that was no problem.
What did surprise me, though, was the house had a “spring house” in the basement, with a cold stream running through it! There was an old “ice box” refrigerator in the kitchen, of a type I had never seen before, but we did not use it. It had a large space on the bottom, underneath the shelving, with a pull-out pan underneath.
The counselor told us that this was what folks used for “cold storage” before electricity came to these parts. An “ice man” literally delivered a large block of dry ice, once a week, and put it under the shelving, and that was what kept the food on the shelves reasonably cold for maybe a week. But the ice would eventually melt, which was the purpose of the “drip pan” underneath, which would have to be emptied out every morning.
Amazing! I had never seen one of those before.
And have never forgotten it.
We take so much for granted.
My memory is that we brought limited foodstuffs with us for that week: milk, butter, bread, eggs, cheese, maybe bacon, pancake mix, and blueberries. Everything but the bread was put on a flat rock in the springhouse in the basement and kept cold by the gently-running spring water.
We had pancakes with blueberries for breakfast, along with milk, eggs, and bacon; and took sandwiches to the dig for lunch. I don’t remember what we had for dinner when we got back to the house in the evening, probably just basic hamburgers, but it would have been similarly simple fare. We didn’t care, it was just a thrill to be there!
No radio or TV then, either, just sitting outside in the rockers on the porch, after dinner, watching the few cars going by, or playing cards and conversing about the day’s activities. A simple life, just like the folks who lived there then.
The two really exciting things that did happen that week were the discovery of a bear vertebrae, buried upright in a fire pit of some kind, thus presumed to be some sort of religious sacrifice; and a piece of a small copper bell, which indicated interaction with Westerners, as natives at that time had not yet discovered metallurgy. That part was really exciting to the archaeologists!
That one-week experience in a cornfield somewhere in eastern North Carolina ignited a life-long interest in archaeology. I wound up taking a class in college, years later, “North American Pre-History, 1500 – 1900,” which was fascinating, and taught by the chair of the department. It was one of the few classes I signed up for at the early hour of 8 AM, and crammed full of facts and studies I’d never heard of, but well worth it.
I later had a subscription to “Archaeology Today” magazine for several years and was enthralled by the stories of those who uncovered ancient civilizations and tried to surmise from their artifacts how they lived and interacted with others.
Quite the experience for a 15-year-old boy from coastal Georgia!
For those of you who may be interested, I heartily recommend James Michener’s monumental volume, “The Source,” which explores 1,000 years of history in the Middle East, from a dig of a well in that area.
I was invited to come back the next summer as a counselor’s “aide,” which would have led to being a “counselor- in-training” the following summer, and then a counselor the year after that. But the pay was small, mostly room and board, so my parents decided I would do better going to work in the family business when I turned 16, to save money for college. I was disappointed at first, but that opened the door to other adventures, which I have already written about.
Life is full of surprises!
Rafe Semmes is a proud graduate of (“the original”) Savannah High School and the University of Georgia. He and his wife live in eastern Liberty County, and are long-time Rotarians. He writes on a variety of topics and may be reached at rafe_semmes@yahoo.com.