By Lydia Cain

Even after you’ve learned a board game’s rules, stepping in for a friend in the middle of a game can be intimidating. After taking introductory Archaeology courses, however, Julian Heichelbech and Mason Gambrel were up for the challenge. Julian and Mason have both completed work in Dr. Mark Groover’s Historical Archaeology Laboratory in the Department of Anthropology between Spring 2024 and this semester, Spring 2025. They have tackled differing tasks and sites from each other and over the past calendar year, with a special focus on the Hyland Mill and Mansion House projects. A consistency, however, is the balance of expert guidance from Dr. Groover and the independence to complete processing, analysis, and interpretation for their respective projects. By jumping into these stages of the archaeological research projects, the two are not only practicing those stages but also getting glimpses into the contextual work that other archaeologists have completed. 

Julian’s Research

Julian Heichelbech checks an artifact tag from the Hyland Mill site’s inventory.

Julian Heichelbech, History and Finance major and Anthropology minor, began working for Dr. Mark Groover in Spring 2024 as a researcher in the Teacher-Scholar program. That semester, he focused on over a thousand ceramic sherds originating from the remains of The Mansion House in Centerville, Indiana. By analyzing aspects like the sherds’ estimated number of vessels, the vessels’ prices, and the dates the vessels occupied the site, he was able to reveal and confirm more of the house and its garden’s goings-on in the nineteenth century. 

Julian uses field notes to contribute to the Hyland Mill archaeological report.

In Fall 2024, Julian moved on to the Hyland Mill project, where Dr. Mark Groover conducted a field school in Fall 2021. The Hyland Mill Report also comes with a large amount of data in its artifact inventory to analyze and summarize, which Julian is familiar with from The Mansion House. What is newer to him is interpreting the student archaeologists’ field notes. He comments that interpreting field notes from a variety of researchers is a “more difficult” task than interpreting those from one researcher’s work with which he spends enough time being well-acquainted. He spends a lot of time with the notes as he scans, digitizes, and polishes the notes and drawings to create products that readers can easily comprehend in a published report. That, combined with this being his first large report writing experience, makes contributing to the overarching excavation unit report a couple of semesters of exercising new muscles. However, by learning about and replicating the smaller Shovel-Test-Pit unit reports first, Julian has gotten to ease into this larger report at a more natural pace. He is continuing this work under Dr. Groover’s guidance in Spring 2025.

Between expansive artifact databases, picking up a drawing tablet for field sketches, and unit reports, Julian doesn’t want to stop there as he continues building his archaeology skillset in the Department of Anthropology’s Historical Archaeology Lab.

Julian expressed that “Something a little scarier for me, but necessary, I would love to work on my presentation giving, perhaps going to conferences to present my work here.” 

Mason’s Research

Mason Gambrel measures a glass sherd’s thickness and overlooks the inventory he has labeled.

Mason Gambrel, an Anthropology major, was a Teacher-Scholar researcher for Dr. Mark Groover in Fall 2024. While at first, he got to try the drawing tablet with Julian for the Hyland Mill, he soon honed in on a collection of artifacts from a different site instead: glass sherds from Lashley’s Tavern, which once stood next to The Mansion House. Not yet fully sorted, Mason was able to label and classify them by color and maker marks. Nineteenth-century glass, of course, does not have barcode stickers to clearly determine its attributes. Rather, the organization required a mix of careful examination and archival research for markers. He also had to familiarize himself with the biographical information of the house’s occupants for the context of the glass’s uses. Such research yielded clues about the timeline of The Lashley’s Tavern’s uses as a tavern and residence. Mason explains that the site went through demolition and was built upon, and its history has some gaps in documentation. Broken glass doesn’t always fit together perfectly like a puzzle, so Mason used tools such as a digital caliper to measure the glass’s thickness. Shape and thickness further contributed clues about what kinds of vessels the sherds belonged to, chipping away more at the gaps. For instance, Mason knows that particular bottle types are more likely to have been in a private residence than a tavern. Mason’s work then not only resulted in a sorted glass inventory but also more pieces to The Mansion House’s puzzle. 

Mason’s experience in archaeology prior to his work in the Historical Archaeology Lab was a class, but he would like to develop his archaeology abilities further in opportunities like the field schools Dr. Groover conducts. 

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