This year marks Ames Plantation’s 16th annual Heritage Festival which will take place Oct. 12 in Grand Junction, TN. Rhodes professors Milton Moreland, Kimberly Kasper, and Jeanne Lopiparo will present recent archaeological findings and give an excavation demonstration.
Ames Plantation, located in Fayette and Hardeman Counties of Tennessee, is home to a wealth of 19th century history pertaining to the heritage and material culture of southwestern Tennessee. Rhodes has had a strong relationship with Ames for the past seven years with students participating in digs on the site.
Katie Reinhart ’14, archaeology lab student associate, is one of those students. Her first encounter with Ames occurred two years ago on her first dig there, and she returned as a supervisor last May, giving her the opportunity to help other students interpret artifacts and learn the intricacies of an archeological dig.
An anthropology/sociology major with an archaeology minor, Reinhart credits her plans to pursue a Ph.D. in archaeology largely to the experience she has had at Ames. Further, she has found the experience to be relevant in many aspects of her other studies and plans to use her findings from digs for her senior seminar project.
Part of her job as the student associate in the archaeology lab is to catalogue the artifacts discovered at Ames Plantation, making her exposure to the site all the more useful. She further attests that her experience has “opened her eyes to many different parts of the archaeological field,” which she was previously unaware of.
Reinhart adds Ames Plantation has something to offer to any student whether or not they are interested in archaeology.
Rhodes’ connection to the Ames also has given students and faculty the opportunity to work closely with The University of Memphis archaeology team, thus establishing connections to other professionals in the field. Furthermore, Reinhart says, “It connects the college to the public at large by informing the community of the past, something that is relevant and inescapable to us all.”
The 16th annual Ames Plantation Heritage Festival will be held 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For directions and more information, visit here.
(information compiled by Rhodes Student Associate Sophie Anderson ’15)