Piecing together the past one fragment at a time

Dearborn Wolverines in an archaeology field study course sift rocks and dirt in the middle of a field. They note what they’ve found and discuss whether or not it should go back to the campus’ archaeology lab for analysis. Surrounding their dig site, there’s a peaceful river, a scenic gazebo and a variety of mature trees.

But the artifacts beneath the ground share a story that’s much less idyllic. More than 200 years earlier, in the same spot, nearly 400 people at the former French settlement were killed in the Battles of the River Raisin.  The houses were burned to the ground. It was the largest battle fought on Michigan soil. And the aftermath can still be felt today.

Associate Professor of Anthropology John Chenoweth’s archaeology class, ANTH 410, has focused on this site in Monroe for five years. They’ve found musket balls, buckshot, gun flints, chert arrowheads, broken glass panes from the 18th century and more. 

Chenoweth says the War of 1812, which was a conflict between the British and Americans over trade and Western expansion, solidified the position of the United States as a sovereign nation on the world stage. And the Battle of River Raisin, only 35 miles from UM-Dearborn’s campus, was particularly important.

It originated the American battle cry “Remember the Raisin.” The aftermath of the battle — where the British courted Native Americans to fight with them against the French and Americans — also paved the way for escalated discriminatory and genocide practices against native peoples, like forced displacement. “Nothing is perfect, of course, but prior to the battle, the French settlement and Native Americans had a sometimes uneasy truce. They traded and there are examples of marriages between the groups,” Chenoweth says. However, with concerns about European expansion and promises from the British to get land returned, many native peoples sided with England during the war. When the English didn’t win, the Native Americans were left in a vulnerable position.

To help explain the history of the site, the City of Monroe and the Department of Natural Resources want to turn the land into a historic park. However, only intermittent excavations had previously taken place, so they needed more information to better understand where landmarks were once located and what artifacts may still be undiscovered prior to moving forward.

Chenoweth, a historical archaeologist, serendipitously encountered Battlefield Park — he took a road trip detour after seeing a sign on I-75 and later approached the staff about an excavation project. The timing couldn’t have been better — it turned out that the River Raisin Battlefield National Park was planning an expansion and Chenoweth was looking for a long-term community service project he could do with his field school students.

“By August 1812, this site was basically the front line of the War of 1812. And the events of the January 1813 battles had implications for U.S. and Native relations over the next 100-plus years. This site played a role in the formation of our country,” Chenoweth says. “There are important things to learn here. This is science in action. By building up data from the field, analyzing the forms and doing lab work with equipment like our X-ray fluorescence analyzer, we will eventually get an interpretation of the site.”

Chenoweth’s work is essential to the past and future of the site, says Monroe-based historian Rusty Davis, who works as a researcher and docent at the River Raisin National Battlefield Park’s new visitor center, which features maps, dioramas and a movie explaining the events of the River Raisin settlement. “John is dispelling a myth we’d previously been told that everything was covered with fill and nothing is salvageable. He’s finding things that we will use to help us, and visitors, better visualize what happened here,” Davis says. “He’s very close to finding where a large fence once stood. We have that fence on a historic map, but we don’t know where it was on the land. Once that’s found, we can use it as our reference point to place where the dwellings once stood. That will open a door to interpretation that we’ve never had.”

To keep the work moving forward, Chenoweth was recently awarded a two-year $169,121 grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Services. Chenoweth says the grant pays for supplies, gas stipends for students, field school assistantships and more.

Field school graduate assistant Nick Trudeau, a UM-Ann Arbor Ph.D. student, says he learned about Chenoweth’s  "A More Complete Story of the River Raisin" project from his U-M faculty adviser. Trudeau, whose dissertation is on cultural contact and the impact it has on identity, says the site is a good place to study the impact of early meetings between Native Americans — like the Wyandotte and Potawatomi — and Europeans. At a recent dig, Trudeau evaluated a found flint projectile point tip fragment, which is an indigenous technology, at the site and identified it as dating to the 16th to 18th century.

“There are narratives in our history that conflict or assimilation goes in one direction. But in other places when you have two cultural groups interacting, that flow of technology and ideas goes both ways. So what’s really going on here? And how did what happened hundreds of years ago affect the local residents’ practices today?,” asks Trudeau, who grew up in San Diego and often saw people from different cultural groups interact and learn from each other. “People all around the world use knowledge that makes the most sense pragmatically and the tools that are the most convenient — it’s not a leader and follower situation. There’s a story to be told here and I’m grateful to John for his support to have me explore it.”

UM-Dearborn sophomore Calvin Hillman says he’s always been fascinated by what can be unearthed — dating back to watching Indiana Jones movies as a kid. He took the class to see if his passion would be dulled by the work involved. The verdict? The course is showing him that he’s on the right path.

“This class was a make or break point for me. It gave me an experience to see if this is really what I wanted to do with my future. It’s tedious, but fun tedious,” says Hillman, who — like Trudeau — is interested in cultural transition periods when people with different backgrounds and experiences begin interacting. “I’m a curious person and I like that we are working to better understand the people who once lived here. It might look like we’re just collecting broken things, but it’s really using what they left behind to get a sense of their community.”

And then there are students who have found their calling, but wanted a fuller picture of how pieces find their way into a museum. UM-Dearborn senior Julia Fahling works at the Henry Ford as a conservation specialist. “At a museum, you have so many cool artifacts around you all the time. But out here, you can dig super deep for months and not find anything ‘museum quality.’ But that doesn’t mean what you are finding isn’t important. You are still uncovering parts of a story,” she says. “This experience is also teaching me to better appreciate the efforts it takes to discover some of the items I have around me at work and how rare those objects actually are.”

Not only are students learning about their interests in the course, some are also continuing on to professional careers in archaeology. Alum Audra Abrams, who graduated in 2024 and is working as a field research assistant this semester, recently accepted a cultural resources management position at Mannik and Smith Group. In her new role, she will assist corporations in evaluating potential building sites to see if there is a need for cultural preservation prior to construction.

Abrams says that, as a student, she gained the experience needed for the archaeology-based position. She worked in Chenoweth’s lab and helped catalog previous class findings. Then she took the field study class her senior year. “When I first started at UM-Dearborn, I wanted to be a chemistry major — but then switched to anthropology after learning I could do chemical analysis in the lab to learn more about artifacts. My UM-Dearborn professors really helped me get where I wanted to go professionally and are still helping me,” Abrams says. “This field school position will look great on my application when I apply for graduate school, which I plan to do in a year or so.”

Walking to the new River Raisin Battlefield Park Visitor Center for lunch on a sunny October Friday, students talked about their finds of the day and how this experience is helping shape their future.

Davis says Chenoweth and his students are shaping the park’s future too. “This was a major war battle here with a lot of lives lost,  and everyone seems to have forgotten about it. We need to remember the events, good and bad, that built our country,” he says. “John’s work will help us piece together what happened here so people today can see and feel it, which will help the Battle of River Raisin stay in our collective memory.”

Story by Sarah Tuxbury