揭露中国在爱达荷州的采矿历史

CLASS Undergraduate Catalogs Animal Bones from a Chinese Mining Camp Excavation in Idaho City

切尔西·柯德林(Chelsea Codling)在格拉茨度过了2016年的春天, 奥地利, practicing her German and taking linguistic and cultural classes. When she returned, she knew she wanted to dive into researching the cultures of the world.

“That experience helped me realize how important culture is 在 context of archaeology and for discovering what life was like for people before us,柯德林说。, 谁是大四学生 文学、艺术和社会科学学院.

Codling找到了教授 马克华纳 在 社会与人类学系 (now the Department of Culture, Society and Justice) to learn about potential research projects.

“I went to my professor and said, ‘I’m interested in archaeology, what can I do?’”22岁的Coding说. 安东尼,爱达荷州. “He showed me a few different projects and then he showed me the comparative bone lab. 骨头在我看来很突出. I was open to doing anything, but I decided I wanted to work with the bones.”

透过骨头讲故事

The comparative bone lab is a collection of animal bones that can be used to identify bone samples found in excavations. 例如, if Codling has determined that a bone was from a leg, she will compare that leg bone to leg bones from other animals 在 comparative collection. She can use the comparison to determine what animal the leg bone came from.

After completing an introductory project in spring 2017 with animal bones found at an excavation of Fort Boise, Codling jumped into cataloging animal bones found during an excavation of a Chinese mining camp in Idaho City, 1862年在哪里发现了黄金. By 1870, the region’s population was nearly half Chinese. Generally, the Chinese miners worked on mines that had been previously claimed but abandoned.

The bones tell Codling what kind of meat the miners ate. Using the comparative bone lab, Codling found pork to be the miners’ preference. This makes sense, she said, because pork is a traditional food in China.

“还有很多牛肉, and that’s probably an adaptation to their diet that occurred in America,柯德林说。. “因为这些都是在美国的中国人, we can try to draw conclusions between their culture and the adaptations they made while they we here.”

Codling also found bison bones 在 samples collected from the excavation. Because bison has not been previously documented as a source of food 在 mining camps, Codling said she has to find how that fits into the history of the mining camps.

一旦Codling辨认出所有的骨头, 她查看了肉类市场的分类账扫描, 都在爱达荷城存档了吗, 找出猪肉和牛肉的价格.

“It’s significant that we found primarily pork bones, 因为账簿上说猪肉更贵,”她说。. “They were making enough money to afford their preferred meat more often than not.”

保护历史

Codling said her initial lack of knowledge about the mining camp highlights the importance of the research into Chinese mining camps.

“I’ve lived in Idaho my whole life and I had never heard of these camps,”她说。. “It’s part of our state’s history and studying bones and artifacts gives us a better understanding of what life was like in Idaho.”

Codling’s project is just one study stemming from the excavation. 雷内·坎贝尔，一名在 历史系, is leading the sorting and analysis of items found 在 excavation of the mining site. 对她来说, Codling wrote an honors thesis and presented her research as a paper at a conference in March 2018.

Warner said Codling has grown as a researcher throughout the project.

“She doesn’t just finish a task and wait for what comes next. She is proactively conducting additional research based on what she has done,” he said. “She is now driving the research on her Chinese foodways project as much as I am.”

The research project helped Codling solidify her career choice. 2018年5月毕业后, Codling is going on an archaeological excavation in Nauvoo, 伊利诺斯州, a small town in western 伊利诺斯州 on the Mississippi River.

“And then it’s right back to working 在 comparative bone lab before starting grad school at U of I 在 fall,”她说。. “I like the idea of getting a job eventually in collections management for a museum, to help preserve the artifacts and history people find.”

文章和照片由苔丝福克斯, 一个来自东韦纳奇的大四学生, 华盛顿, majoring in journalism with minors in art and music.

2018年7月出版.

This project, “Cooperative Archaeological Activities”, was funded under USDA Forest Service grant No. 15-CS11040218-036. The total amount of federal funds for the project is $32,741.30, which amounts to 77% of the total cost of the project. The total amount of non-federal funds for the project is $9590, which amounts to 23% of the total cost of the project.