Digging up a passion for archeology
Anthony Gambardella, a flintknapper, shapes a rock into a tool during the archeology fair on Saturday, April 25. Photos by Abby Van Selous
Eric Lott shows visitors an artifact.
Layan Salameh, left, Nadeen Elsamra, Hadiya Nooman and Maryam Ahmed created a prototype water filtration system.
Al Smith shows a visitor how corn was ground into cornmeal.
Anthony Gambardella shows a visitor a tool he was working on carving.
Eric Lott speaks with archeology fair visitors
Dean Lauzon demonstrates how pottery can be repaired, in this case with Play-Doh.
Three of the tools Anthony Gambardella carved during the fair.
Layan Salameh and Nadeen Elsamra learn about pottery repair.
The prototype of the water filtration system the girls from Al-Hamra Academy designed.
Vistors could use putty to repair pottery during the event.
Al Smith handed out coloring sheets to kids.
Anthony Gambardella, a flintknapper, shapes a rock into a tool during the archeology fair on Saturday, April 25. Photos by Abby Van Selous
Eric Lott shows visitors an artifact.
Layan Salameh, left, Nadeen Elsamra, Hadiya Nooman and Maryam Ahmed created a prototype water filtration system.
Al Smith shows a visitor how corn was ground into cornmeal.
Anthony Gambardella shows a visitor a tool he was working on carving.
Eric Lott speaks with archeology fair visitors
Dean Lauzon demonstrates how pottery can be repaired, in this case with Play-Doh.
Three of the tools Anthony Gambardella carved during the fair.
Layan Salameh and Nadeen Elsamra learn about pottery repair.
The prototype of the water filtration system the girls from Al-Hamra Academy designed.
Vistors could use putty to repair pottery during the event.
Al Smith handed out coloring sheets to kids.
MIDDLEBORO — Between the cases of arrow heads, stone tools and artifacts, visitors to the Robbins Museum of Archeology got an inside look to the world of archaeology.
On Saturday, April 25, the museum opened up to the public for its first archeology fair, which the museum is looking to become an annual event.
“We wanted to provide an avenue to introduce people to archeology, especially more so toward children to let them know and to see what archaeology is all about,” said museum president John Campbell.
As part of the fair, visitors could partake in a scavenger hunt to find specific artifacts on display, watch a flint knapping presentation, learn how to make corn meal and learn how to identify artifacts.
Besides educating people about the field of archaeology, the event was designed to show visitors that history “surrounds them on a daily basis,” Campbell said, noting that the history is important both to Massachusetts and the Commonwealth’s identity.
He said that while the country is celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States, the museum is celebrating “11,000 plus years of people in what we now call Massachusetts, in the history that’s underneath our feet and along our walks every day.”
Vice President Kate Roderick said they chose to schedule the fair during spring break to give parents and caregivers an opportunity to bring their children to the event.
“We wanted to get the information out about that so that people can come check out all the great things we have here,” she said.
Campbell noted that today’s children are going to be the next generation to “pick up that mantle in preservation.”
This effort was already on display at the archeology fair as eighth grade girls from Al-Hamra Academy in Shrewsbury displayed a water filtration system they designed in a robotics class to help archaeologists clean through dirt quickly.
The robotics team first met archaeologists at the Boston Archeology Lab in Roxbury where they learned that archaeologists tend to have leftover dirt from dig sites that can take a while to sift through.
“We wanted to make it easier for them, so this hydro sense can help them with that, because they can just go through one bag of dirt in maybe one to two minutes,” said Maryam Ahmed, 13.
Layan Salameh, 13, explained the group had been in a zoom meeting with an archeologist to show them their presentation when they learned about the Robbins Museum’s archeology fair.
“We asked, ‘What if we could show our prototype?’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah, sure,’” she recounted.
Roderick said that having the girls show their project also served as a way to “show everybody what archeology is doing within the academic sphere for children.”
About two hours into the fair, Nadeen Elsamras, 13, said that she’s been having “a real fun time.”
“The scavenger hunt was really fun, and it was fun to show the prototype to people,” she said.
