Katelyn Kim
When listening to Jessica Maclean’s lecture, I was really fascinated by how much information you can get just based on the material and design of an object. It seems like a simple question to ask, “What is it made of?” but this information may not be known, and if it is known, you can move onto other questions, like “What was it used for?” or “What has disappeared as the material has decayed?” For instance, Jessica mentioned that as metal decays, it can erase part of an object’s original appearance. What is being forgotten, and if the original patterns or design were still on the object, how much more would we know? Details such as an object’s color, material and/or design also reveal where it was from and what kind of person owned it. Other times, these details can show where an object is trying to seem like it’s from–for instance, a medicine bottle was said to be from India but was really made here. One question that was brought up that I thought was really interesting was, “What other parts are we missing from the life of this object and other objects that belonged to one person or family?” In the case of Seneca Village, people were forced to move out of their homes, and it is likely that they took some objects with them. Where are those objects now? What story do they have to tell?
Sam Fischer Murphy
It is really fascinating to see how much we can learn from people just through artifacts found while excavating. This leads me to wonder, what if our perceptions of societies are completely false because archaeologists did not properly understand the significance of certain objects? I also wonder how the objects we use now will be interpreted by future societies. How will the abundance of digital data in our modern world change how archaeologists in the future learn about us?