Archaeology has changed a lot since the
1980s, where archaeologists, yes dig
carefully in the ground but we also
collaborate with communities and engage
in creating public presentations that
are engaging rather than just
presentations to other academics,
and we call that heritage archaeology.
This story is a story about generations
it's a story about his childhood which
for him was an important time because it
was happy. What we're out here doing
archaeologically is looking for the
history of this site itself a lot of the
material thousands and thousands of
artifacts come from what we call a
midden which is is either a trash pit or
in this case evidence of the destruction of the house
so the house itself,
extends from about where the chimney has
fallen down next to the platform and it
would have gone out along where we're
currently working it was marked with the
various colored flags. 
His maternal lines, maternal family the Burghardts were the
ones that own this property as early
possibly as 1790.
It's been at least from my experience, a very positive response from people, 
people seem very interested in who Du Bois was 
as well as the idea of African American heritage in Western Massachusetts. 
We know that there are people who admire 
follow who really are invested in the
story in the history of Du Bois 
He as a scholar he is an activist he
as a Panafricanist a leader a writer etc.
we're not just learning the
archaeological techniques of you
know troweling. We're also learning public interpretation; 
what does this site mean in that greater context.
There's a growing field of heritage studies. 
Also new heritage or critical heritage studies. Which
We are trying to train
students to be able to dig,
but be able to look at archives. 
To be able to understand what it means to engage with communities
I definitely thought about archaeology a lot differently after spending a week
in the archives. It makes you remember
how important it is to take into account
these types of documents when you're
trying to do research especially this
type of research on African Americans in this area. 
We had account books from the mid 18th century of merchants and business owners and
farmers in the town of Deerfield and we
are transcribing those looking for clues
of presence of captive Africans and
free African Americans. 
Really just rooting through these books to find those little references to
enslave people, like every one of those
references just builds a deeper
understanding of how slavery functioned
up here in the north.
so for us heritage archaeology is still sort of in formation
we're still trying to figure out how you
blend these concepts of history or more
archaeology and heritage and community engagement.
Archaeology will continue
because we have more to learn about 
Du Bois's family and about the Du Bois
himself and as those developments occur
we'll incorporate them in
the interpretation the home site.
