Friday, January 27, 2006

Welcome to Archeology

Ken Wild is aided in his research by a stream of interns and volunteers. He also has yearly field schools from the Anthropology Departments of the University of Syracuse, the University of Southern Maine, and the Maritime Studies Department from East Carolina University's underwater archeology program. This March, the Engineering Department of Maine University is returning again to help us map threatened historic structures in 3D. His current interns are Susanna Pershern, who is a graduate of St. Olaf College and has worked with Ken for three years, Mick Wigal who graduated from Centre College, and Ian Kaminski-Coughlin, an architectural intern from the University of Minnesota who is being sponsored by Barefoot Architects, Inc. The newest addition to the team is Andrew Connor, who is a student at Augsburg College. Susanna is currently working to organize the park archives and the cultural and biological collections. Ian is designing a 3D computer CAD model of the layout for the new museum exhibits and our working space at the Cinnamon Bay lab. Mick and Andrew are conducting mitigative archeology at Caneel Bay to gain insight into the significant prehistoric site and, possibly, one of the island's first European settlements dating to the late 1600s.


Susanna Pershern at the lab cataloging.

Computer 3-D Modeling of threatened ruins. This is a preservation method that we hope will provide a model for all to visit on their computer. It contains enough architectural information that if they collapse, the knowledge is preserved.