Updates for the New Philadelphia Project

Some updates on the New Philadelphia Archaeology Project.In early January, 2008, we received funding from the National Science Foundation's Research Experiences for Undergraduates program for another three years of field school research at New Philadelphia, which is planed to start in the summer of 2008. The daily archaeological work in this field school will be co-directed by Dr. Anna Agbe-Davies (DePaul University), Dr. Terry Martin (Illinois State Museum), and Chris Fennell (U. Illinois). Additional information and applications for this field school is available online at:http://www.histarch.uiuc.edu/NSF/fieldschool.html

Other planned projects in 2008 include continuing work towards nominating the New Philadelphia town site and nearby features of the cultural landscape for National Landmark status, an effort headed up by Ms. Charlotte King and Prof. Paul Shackel, Director for the Center of Heritage Studies at the University of Maryland. Ms. King has also authored an excellent lesson plan based on the history of New Philadelphia as part of the National Park Service's Teaching with Historic Places program, available online at:http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/130newphila/index.htm.

Graduate students at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign are working with Chris Fennell to enhance our mapping and landscape studies of the town site and surrounding area, and to expand our analysis of archival data from nineteenth century newspapers published in the region. Terry Martin and his colleagues at the Illinois State Museum continue their work of analyzing artifacts and faunal remains excavated at the town site.We are now working on publishing a collection of articles in a specially edited issue of a peer-review journal and are at work on other articles and books. Our findings and interpretations to date are currently scheduled to be published in an official monograph series reviewed and published by the Illinois State Museum. This publication series, entitled the "Illinois State Museum Reports of Investigations," utilizes ISM and external peer reviewers, and has previously published studies by distinguished scientists such as Patty Jo Watson, Melvin Fowler, Jane Buikstra, and George Milner. In addition, we have a specially edited, thematic issue of articles on New Philadelphia under review with "Historical Archaeology," the peer-reviewed journal of the Society for Historical Archaeology.In June, 2007, Chris Fennell, Tommy Hailey (Northwestern State University in Louisiana), and Bryan Haley (University of Mississippi), received approval of a grant from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training to conduct a low-altitude aerial survey of the New Philadelphia town site using a high resolution thermal camera to look for subsurface anomalies that may correlate with archaeological features. We plan to conduct the aerial survey during one week in the Spring of 2008, and to then process the data after completing the aerial survey. The timing for conducting the aerial survey depends upon a variety of logistical concerns and contingencies that include ground cover conditions and periodic rainfall conditions. Additional details about this survey are available online at:http://www.diaspora.uiuc.edu/news0907/news0907.html#12