Five undergraduate students participated in the 2024 archaeological field school at the 700-year-old Native American village of Noble-Wieting, located north of Heyworth near the Kickapoo Creek.
Aidan Coyne, Heidi Kessler, Kaitlyn Kropp, Kyle Mulhern, and Maureena Terven spent one month investigating the subsurface remains of part of a building that Dr. Ed Jelks and Illinois State students started to excavate in 1976. As a result, this new group of students now has dozens of hours of hands-on experience with archaeological skills such as excavating, documentation, and artifact identification.
In addition to identifying the 1976 excavation trench, this field season provided an initial look at the unique architectural features of this structure while recovering thousands of objects including large pieces pottery, arrowheads, elk bones, and copper tools.
The thrill of being the first person to hold a tool in 700 years, or to stand on a floor that last felt human footsteps during the Middle Ages, never gets old. Work will continue in the lab through the school year in preparation for the inevitable Noble-Wieting themed senior thesis projects as well as the next archaeological field school.
