Bringing the Past to the Present, For the Future: Constructing a Database for the Archaeological Collections and Records of Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary

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By Jug Bay Intern Julia Ribblett. This blog post was originally published in Marsh Notes, the newsletter of Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary, and is cross-posted here.

Hidden among the freshwater tidal marshes and forests on the Anne Arundel County side of Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary are 26 documented archaeological sites, encompassing nearly 13,000 years of human activity along the banks of the Patuxent River. Since the county began buying Jug Bay’s current properties in the late 20th century, the Lost Towns Project and the archaeological team under Anne Arundel’s Cultural Resources Section has accumulated thousands of artifacts from the area. Amidst the county’s ongoing project to re-access all the boxes in their storage facilities, Lost Towns and Jug Bay identified a shared need to organize the information on the Sanctuary’s archaeological collections and records in one place.

Working on the Jug Bay collections database at the Anne Arundel County Archaeology Lab in Edgewater, Maryland. Photo credit: Kennedy Wiggins, Lost Towns Project Intern.

For my research, I used Google Sheets to construct a database, an accessible digital tool that stores and retrieves detailed information on all of Anne Arundel County’s artifact collections and records from Jug Bay-area sites. My database opens first to an overview page with links that researchers can use to navigate to a Jug Bay site’s individual page. After gathering feedback through a survey to the Jug Bay community, I divided each site’s page into separate archaeological projects by rows. Each project received a summary, citations for all existing literature and reports, updated information on the number of artifact boxes, and the storage locations of those boxes. I also created an artifact table summarizing the number of diagnostic artifacts in each project’s collection for future researchers who may be interested in certain types of prehistoric or historic objects.

Overall, I realized how much effort is required to maintain an archaeological collection as well as the seriousness of the universal issues of information backlogs and lack of standardization that plague the archaeological profession. Fortunately, protecting and preserving the information about Jug Bay’s archaeological record for the Maryland community through a database is helping to resolve those issues in Anne Arundel County. I hope that future professional and non- professional researchers who are interested in Jug Bay’s archaeological past will find my database accessible and helpful for their work. I also hope that both Jug Bay and the Lost Towns Project will be able to add new data to my research and use my database as a guide for organizing the collections and records of other sites in a similar format.

The county is currently working to publish a link for the public to access the database. You can contact the Cultural Resources Section for more information.

Screenshot of the “overview” page in the Jug Bay collections database. Photo credit: Julia Ribblett.

Summer 2024 Internship Information

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Summer 2024 Internship Information

Introduction:

Anne Arundel County’s Cultural Resources Section in conjunction with The Lost Towns Project is offering two internship positions in Archaeology with a focus on laboratory methods and collections management. The internship will be based in Edgewater, MD with some travel required.

This internship is designed to be educational in nature and is best for undergraduate students seeking hands-on experience in a wide variety of archaeological topics in a local government/non-profit setting. Graduate students may still apply but are invited to contact the internship coordinator in advance. 

Internship Description:

Interns will learn the basics of archaeological labwork and collections management by participating alongside professional archaeologists and volunteers in the lab and at curation facilities. There may be limited opportunities for fieldwork, but there is no definite fieldwork planned at this time.

With training, the intern will be required to:

  • Participate in artifact processing (washing, labeling, cataloging, and curation preparation) at the Anne Arundel County Archaeology Laboratory at 839 Londontown Road in  Edgewater, MD (60% of time);
  • Conduct collections assessment of existing archaeological collections in Edgewater and Glen Burnie, MD, and record them in a collections management database (30% of time);
  • Attend field trips to regional archaeological sites, labs, and curation facilities (10% of time);
  • (Optional) Assist with public programs on weekends;
  • (Dependant on availability) Participate in Phase I and Phase II excavations at one or more archaeological sites across Anne Arundel County;
  • Work with other interns and volunteers as needed;
  • Contribute to blog, social media, and/or webpage posts; and
  • Write a final report on their activities. 

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the internship, the intern should be able to:

1. Conduct laboratory processing of artifacts (washing, labeling, cataloging, and curation preparation) to Maryland State Archaeological Standards;
2. Assess curated archaeological collections (artifacts and paper/digital records) as part of a management plan; and
3. (Dependant on availability) Perform archaeological fieldwork techniques, including excavation, artifact identification, and record keeping.

Qualifications:

  • Students who can pursue academic credit through their institution are strongly preferred. Students unable to pursue credit or recent graduates will be considered.
  • Students who are pursuing a major or minor in Anthropology, Archaeology, Historic Preservation, or Museum Studies are preferred.  
  • Applicants should have some familiarity with archaeology and/or local history, either through coursework or extracurricular activities. 
  • Interns should be self-motivated and able to work both independently and in small teams with intermittent supervision.
  • Interns should possess basic computer skills, organization skills, record keeping, and attention to detail. They should be comfortable working in office, laboratory, and outdoor environments.
  • Interns will need independent transportation; work sites are not accessible via public transit.

Duration:

Interns will be expected to work three days a week for a total of 150 hours. A schedule will be coordinated between the student and internship coordinator. Lab days are generally 6 hours long; field days can be 7 hours long. Most interns complete the internship in 9-10 weeks. The internship will start in late May or early June and must be completed by August 31, 2024.

Compensation:

College interns will receive a stipend of $1,000 upon completion of 150 hours.

For More Information or To Apply:

To apply, email a cover letter and a resume or CV to Drew Webster at [email protected]. Applications are due April 21, 2024. Candidates will be chosen and notified by May 3.

The Ogle Collection and the Maryland State Standards for Archaeological Collections

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By Gabriella Gonzalez. Gabriella is a Senior at the University of Maryland, College Park Anthropology Department and a current fall intern with the Lost Towns Project and the Anne Arundel County Archaeology Lab.

In 2009, Anne Arundel County received a donation of 176 boxes of artifacts from Robert Ogle. In the collection the staff has found 154 different archaeological sites. This collection took 50 years to collect and the staff, volunteers, and interns have been working to process the 160,000 artifacts to state standards. 

Shawn Sharpe intaking the Ogle Collection in 2009

Robert Ogle was a professional land surveyor and over the course of 50 years he collected artifacts in central and southern Maryland. Many sites he collected from were destroyed in the 1960s and 1970s so his collection of artifacts, maps, notebooks, and pictures are the last record of these sites. He stored these artifacts in coffee cans and cigar boxes. However, the team had to work to organize and remove them from the deteriorating containers and bring them up to state standards. This collection is important because even though 80 sites were known archaeological sites, 30 were unknown and unreported in central and southern Maryland.

Bag tags with Swann site numbers

To bring this collection to state standards the team had to start by giving the sites site numbers. For example, the site numbers for the Swann sites in Calvert County are 18CV4, 18CV40, 18CV41, 18CV42, 18CV43, and 18CV472. 18 stands for Maryland, because it was the 18th state alphabetically* CV stands for Calvert County. The numbers following CV are the different archaeological sites found on Swann Farm. To obtain site number the team had to contact the MAC lab. Once the artifacts were removed from the original containers they were organized by where they were found and what they were. 

Labeled artifacts from the Swann sites

After obtaining the lot numbers the team had to work to properly clean and repackage the artifacts. According to state standards stable artifacts can be cleaned unless they have to be kept to perform residue analysis. Ceramics, glass, tobacco pipes, lithics, and bine may be wet-washed individually. Shell, brick, FCR, flag, and coal may be wet-washed in bulk. All metals, wood, leather, textiles, and fragile objects may be cleaned with a dry-brush. Stone-tools, ceramics, tobacco pipe stems, and tobacco pipe bowls may be left unwashed for specialized residue analysis. In some cases certain artifacts were washed with equal parts water and alcohol. 

All artifacts have to be cataloged with site number, lot number, artifact number, provenience information, artifact count, and artifact description. These must then be used in the labeling process. If the object is too small it does not have to be labeled. Ferrous metals, mortar/daub/plaster, wood, leather, textiles, fragile bone/shell, fragile non-ferrous metals are not to be labeled. Diagnostic ceramics/glass, lithic tools/cores, tobacco pipes, stable non-ferrous metals, and small finds may be labeled individually. Plain ceramic body sherds, plain glass body sherds, window glass, brick, lithic debitage (flake, shatter, etc.), FCR, and stable bone/shell are to be labeled, but only 10% of the lot. Labels must not cover any important markings or wrap around the artifact, or be placed on broken edges. Acid-free tags with the site, lot, and artifact number may be tied to beads, buttons or pierced coins. 

A completed bag

When bagging the artifacts they must be bagged in perforated polyethylene ziplock bags with acid-free tags. The bags must be labeled with site number, lot number, and the full provenience information. Once artifacts have been bagged they must go into boxes in numerical order. These boxes must then be labeled with a temporary label which includes the box number, the types of artifacts, lot numbers, and site numbers.

After these processes have been completed the artifacts from the Ogle collection may be sent to the MAC lab for curation. The team at the Lost Towns Project and the Anne Arundel County Archaeology Lab have been working intensely to make the collection meet state standards. The Ogle collection is very important to shed light on the archaeological sites that have never been reported and because many of the sites have been lost. 

Gabriella labeling buttons from the Swann sites

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*before the addition of Alaska and Hawaii. More information.

Summer 2023 Internships Announced

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Anne Arundel County Division of Cultural Resources in conjunction with The Lost Towns Project is offering two (2) unpaid internship positions in Laboratory Methods and Collections Management. Undergraduate and Graduate students are invited to apply, and must pursue academic credit through their institution. The internship will be based in Edgewater, MD with some travel required. Applications are due by April 17th, 2023.

For full information, view our internships page.

Two Graduate-Level Internships with Anne Arundel County

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The Anne Arundel County Office of Planning and Zoning seeks a Historic Resources Management Intern to support the Cultural Resources section. The Cultural Resources section protects Anne Arundel County’s historic sites, buildings, archaeological sites and landscapes.

The Historic Resources Management Intern will support the Cultural Resources section by updating and modernizing documentation of the County Inventory of Historic Places. This position is primarily remote with requirements to access extensive local and State archival records. More information here.
The Anne Arundel County Office of Planning and Zoning also seeks a Community Outreach and Research Intern to support the Long Range Planning section. The Long Range Planning section is the lead in preparing the County’s General Development Plan, Small Area Plans, and other functional plans as needed.

The intern will develop communications materials and engage directly with community members to understand their concerns and aspirations for their neighborhoods. The intern will also gather information on the history and attributes of the community that make these places unique. This is a hybrid position based out of the Annapolis headquarters. More information here.