Digging Up the Past and Building a Future in Archaeology | Appalachian Conservation Corps (original) (raw)

We are excited to share this Member Highlight from ACC alumni Samantha Melvin! At the time of writing, Sam was an ACC Cultural Resource Information Sharing Individual Placement with the National Capital Region in Washington, D.C. Thank you so much for sharing this piece with us, Sam!

ACC IP alum Sam assisting an excavation at the Travis Plantation Site on Jamestown Island in 2023.

By Samantha Melvin

August 9th, 2024 | Washington, D.C. – It's been a year and a half since I began my time working with the National Park Service through internships with the Appalachian Conservation Corps. I completed my first service term from January 2023 to July 2023 as an intern for Werowocomoco with the National Park Service where I worked as a steward to protect and develop the cultural resources of the site. Following my first service term, I accepted a second internship with the NPS – this time working with the National Capital Region as a Cultural Resource Information Sharing Individual Placement – where I have worked with parks for the last year to promote cultural resources through public-facing web content.

Throughout the last year and a half, I’ve made so many new personal and professional connections in the NPS and have found myself with a much more refined idea for what I want my future career to hold. In fact, while the work I completed in both my service terms expanded my experience with cultural resources beyond my previous work history and education, it is the network that I have cultivated in these positions that has had the most lasting impact on my future.

During my time as an intern for Werowocomoco with the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, I had the opportunity to participate in a few weeks' worth of archeology at the Travis site on Jamestown Island. As someone with prior work experience in the field and an interest in archeology as a career, this was a great opportunity to meet other archeologists and learn from them. After I left that internship for my second internship with the National Capital Region, I was invited back for four more weeks of excavation work as an independent contractor. The flexibility and encouragement of ACC staff and my supervisor made it so that I was able to accept this excellent opportunity to gain more work experience in my field, reconnect with and strengthen my network, and gain supervisory experience during fieldwork and excavation.

A little background: the Travis site is a 17th to 19th century plantation site on Jamestown Island and the project has been ongoing for 3 years, consisting of seasonal fieldwork a few weeks at a time. The Phase II excavation fieldwork began while I was an intern with the Captain John Smith trail in 2023. The crew consisted of assorted interns, volunteers, contractors, and project archeologists excavating meter by meter units to find archeological features related to the African American people who were enslaved at the site by the Travis family.

Fieldwork continued into 2024 and I was asked to come back as a contractor to help continue the excavations and supervise less experienced crew members. I spent a total of four weeks (two per month) at the site in April and June of 2024. Our goal was to expand on the features we found in the previous field sessions and continue to expand the interpretation of the plantation landscape at the site. I was fortunate to oversee the new group of ACC Cultural Steward (Werowocomoco) IPs and help to train them in archeological excavation methods, while participating in the ongoing work to uncover the untold stories about the enslaved people of the site.

As my current ACC service term comes to a close, I am increasingly appreciative of the connections I made and the opportunities working for the organization has afforded me. I will begin my graduate school education at the College of William and Mary for a Master of Arts in Historical Archeology this coming fall. My two service terms with ACC/NPS and the AmeriCorps Segal Education Awards I received aided me in this next step.