UNC Wilmington will offer a field school in the Wilmington area.
Our goal is to investigate the archaeological and historical heritage of the Cape Fear region, by excavating structures possibly associated with a mill at an antebellum/postbellum rice plantation along the Brunswick River near Wilmington.
Cape Fear region and Wilmington area field schools will not be offered in 2023.
Over the course of the session, students will learn surface surveying, excavation techniques, record-keeping, mapping, and basic lab techniques, including flotation. We will also go on field trips to some local archaeological sites of interest, depending on availability.
The class will be 6 credit hours and will be intensive. It will basically take place all day Monday-Thursday, and half-days on Friday. Actual hours of excavation will be decided by vote of the crew.
Depending on how much material we find, we will put aside at least one half-day a week for laboratory artifact processing and perhaps more. This will familiarize everyone with standard archaeological lab techniques—washing, inventorying, pottery analysis, etc. We will always have lab days or field trips on our Friday half-days, and will dig Monday-Thursday, weather permitting.
Each student will also have either a group or individual project that will include an oral and written report, to ensure that everyone is keeping their mind on the larger issues of archaeology, as well as the dirt. More information will be available at the scheduled time.
The site is about twenty minutes from downtown Wilmington and about forty minutes from UNCW, depending on traffic. Local students can live in their usual residences, and we will meet at the site (or a designated Wilmington meeting point, such as UNCW) every morning. We can arrange on campus lodging for out-of-town students, if necessary.
The Cape Fear region is archaeologically important in both the prehistoric and historic periods. Prehistoric occupations began in the Paleoindian period (13,000 BP) and extended up to European Contact. Following the Yamassee War (1715-1716) many indigenous groups were decimated or left the area, although the Waccamaw Siouxan people remain in the Cape Fear region.
The Lower Cape Fear is one of the earliest parts of North Carolina settled in the colonial period, with Brunswick Town formed in 1726. This town was abandoned as a habitation after it was burned by the British during the American Revolution.
Wilmington, upriver of Brunswick Town, became the largest city in North Carolina through the Civil War years and into 1898. Areas from the former Brunswick Town upstream to Wilmington were used as naval stores plantations, and later as rice plantations.
The Lower Cape Fear is the northernmost part of the Gullah-Geechee Heritage Corridor, an area where Black descendants of rice plantation slaves formed their own unique culture. The port of Wilmington was an important blockade runner port during the Confederacy, making the Wilmington area the focus of one of the last military campaigns in the Civil War, in December/January 1865.
Following the Civil War, Wilmington was a multiethnic, bustling port. The coup of 1898 suppressed the multiracial Fusionist coalition that had been elected to run the city and replaced it with a white supremacist city government. A majority of the Black population in Wilmington was forced out of town or left, permanently changing the ethnic makeup of the city.
Despite this complex history, relatively little archaeology has been performed in the area.
We will specifically be focusing on a series of structures built before the Civil War and initially maintained and operated by enslaved people. The area underwent regular renovations and rebuildings, reflecting the economic preoccupations and struggles of the area over time, and was still probably occupied after the Civil War, either by refugees following the war, and probably by freed Black people in the years after the Civil War.
We hope to investigate the ways that this area changed through time, and the way that it reflected changing ideas of farming, milling, and Black life during its period of use.
UNCW has not yet posted summer tuition costs. The field school will not charge fees for lodging or food, but each student will need to buy individual insurance from the university as part of registration, at a cost of about $18. A good estimate would be one 6-credit summer class, plus $18.
It is preferred that everyone have at least ANT 207 Archaeology or an equivalent, but this is negotiable. Please contact Dr. Eleanora Reber to discuss and/or negotiate this.
Cape Fear region and Wilmington area field schools will not be offered in 2023.
If you're interested in taking the field school, or even considering it, please send an email to Dr. Eleanora Reber, and she will give you more details. A Zoom or face-to-face meeting will also be arranged, whichever you prefer.
There is no formal application form. If you'd like to apply for the field school, please notify Dr. Eleanora Reber. You will hear from her about your acceptance into the field school. This should give you time to plan your summer schedule prior to the opening of summer preregistration. Following acceptance into the field school, a packet of information and other forms will be sent to you.
We may schedule one orientation meeting before the field season begins. This will depend on everyone's schedules.
Enrollment is limited to 15 students!
Cape Fear region and Wilmington area field schools will not be offered in 2023.
We are always interested in hosting non-UNCW students! For academic credit, you will need to register as a Visiting Summer Student at UNCW and then register for the class. You can then transfer it in to your home institution in whatever way is standard there.
Please apply to the Field School via email (and receive an acceptance) prior to registering as a Visiting Student! And you may want to check with your home institution on what forms are necessary to transfer in a domestic transient study credit.
For more information, please contact Dr. Eleanora Reber, or 910.962.7734.