By Dana Hudspeth, Media Relations Specialist
Chickasaw Nation Media Relations Office
Fish hooks, thimbles, marbles, and rusted pop bottle caps.
Mundane objects.
Until you consider they predate your birth and you find them buried beneath the soil – then they are artifacts.
That's what a group of six students from Stonewall High School Alternative Education program discovered during a collaborative archaeologist project this month.
"The fact that you can go find these old objects in a modern part of town is so cool," said student Billy Caldwell.
The group focused on Daggs' Prairie, a century-old homestead located on West 6th Street in Ada.
The project, dubbed "Going Forward, Looking Back," paired University of Illinois professor Jim Wilson with Stonewall alternative education instructor Daryl Sawyer and six students.
Chickasaw Nation Division of Arts and Humanities and other tribal departments provided logistical assistance during the four-day project, which ran from Dec. 14 through Dec. 17.
"The purpose of the project is to teach young people how to empower their lives going forward by learning to look back, and enlarge their appreciation for the accomplishments of earlier generations," said Wilson.
Caldwell and the rest of the students were amazed to find objects used by early Oklahomans were still in use today, albeit in a different forms, such as the use of plastics instead of glass.
Akin to a treasure hunt, students methodically searched in one- meter squares in the home's yard on the cold December mornings.
They uncovered relics such as bullet casings, animal bones, brick fragments, checker pieces, assorted broken glass, rusted roofing nails and a 1944 penny.
Afternoons were spent in the classroom washing and cataloging the artifacts.
Time was also spent writing about their experience and findings and listening to guest speakers, who offered insight and advice during the project.
Students also learned about items such as legal descriptions and topographic maps, and more about the history of the Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory and Ada.
Longtime Ada resident Alberta Blackburn offered interpretation and historical insight during the excavation.
"There was a lot of cotton back then, cotton was king," she said.
When talking about the day's findings, she said, "He found the prettiest marble, it had all the different colors on it. I remember playing marbles."
Wilson said the project also seeks to join larger conversations regarding cultural resource management and the arts anywhere that the interests of tribal, local, and state communities intersect.
"For "Old Town" Ada, located in Pontotoc County, Chickasaw Nation, and in old Indian Territory of the State of Oklahoma—archaeological research can tell a story of how contemporary communities move forward with their pasts," Wilson explained.
