Earth Day Celebrations

Hello, everyone. It is a rainy morning here on St. John (what a relief!). Luckily, though, it did not rain when we had our Earth Day celebration last Friday. The surrounding schools took off the morning to come and see presentations by various local groups, such as the Animal Care Center, Dr. Ray, a botanist from UVI, and of course, the Virgin Islands Cultural Resources Management Team. Susanna and I set up two units for the students to “excavate.” We placed artifacts in the sand and instructed the students in the best way to excavate like an archaeologist. The students learned not to excavate without an archeologist present, and received a certificate for a job well done. I really think they left having enjoyed themselves, and hopefully they learned a little about archaeology as well. (We have no pictures this week because we were working our station at Earth Day, but check out the coverage in local papers.)
In addition to Earth Day, Susanna and I have been working on the collections quite a bit. Inventory is due, and we are attacking any problems that arise in the process. Ken has been writing papers for publication about St. John archeology/history as well as completing the park's annual report to Congress on archeological activities. There doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day to get everything done, which brings me to my next point. The Cultural Resources Management Team is looking for more interns this month. Live in the Caribbean, work for the National Park Service…who wouldn’t want this job? All those interested should contact Ken Wild, the Park archeologist, at ken_wild@nps.gov. You better hurry, though because when college classes let out we will have plenty of help. We use interns from many different backgrounds, i.e. archeology, history, conservation, curation and architecture. We also have interns from art and engineering for virtual modeling of ruins. We hope to see you on St. John soon!

P.S. Hi Cliff. Unfortunately, we don't disclose locations of plantations we find until a complete survey is done in order to protect their archeological integrity. But thanks for the question!