Thursday, July 01, 1999
Day camp lacks kids
Archaeology focus of program
BY CINDY SCHROEDER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON — For the first time in 19 years, a session of the Behringer-Crawford Museum's popular Junior Curator in Archaeology camp is in danger of being canceled.
Only seven students have reserved a spot in the day camp from July 12-16 and July 19-21, leaving 13 available spaces for youths ages 11 to 16, said Liz Knuppel, programs coordinator.
She said the museum must enroll at least 10 students to avoid canceling the camp, which runs from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Youths can be enrolled through July 10 by calling the museum at 491-4003.
Ms. Knuppel said the upcoming dig is significant because it will take place at Maplewood, the old Archibald Gaines farm in Boone County where slave Margaret Garner is thought to have worked some 150 years ago.
The site is part of a 19th-century plantation not unlike the setting that Toni Morrison used in her book, Beloved, which is a fictionalized account of Ms. Garner's story.
“In the past, the junior curator camp's been so popular that people may have thought there wasn't a chance of getting in,” Ms. Knuppel said.
Another factor in the low enrollment may be that the camp was moved back a week to avoid the Independence Day holiday, Ms. Knuppel said.
Jeannine Kreinbrink, the museum's archaeologist, said the dig is one of a few research projects to focus on slave life in 19th-century Northern Kentucky.
“(Margaret Garner) provides a focal point, a jumping-off place for questions,” Ms. Kreinbrink said. “She gets people interested. Then we can say, "How did all of (the slaves) live? What was their daily life like? And what made (Margaret Garner) so desperate?'”
Ms. Garner is known for crossing the frozen Ohio River in 1856 with her four children, and then killing her 4-year-old daughter, rather than return her to slavery.
As part of the camp, Professor Anne Butler, the director of the Center of Excellence for the Study of African-Americans at Kentucky State University, will give a presentation, Ms. Kreinbrink said.
“This is a real dig,” said Rose Pfaff, field director for the junior curator camp. “Nothing is staged or set up. These kids are doing the same thing that any archaeologist would.”
Ms. Pfaff said some participants have gone on to major in archaeology or related fields, at schools such as Dartmouth or William and Mary College.
Besides honing knowledge of metrics to logical thinking, the camp teaches participants social skills and teamwork, organizers said. The youths also get a smattering of history, anthropology and how people relate to others.
“It's wonderful to see a kid there digging in the dirt, then all of a sudden he finds something he's never seen before,” Ms. Pfaff said. “The light in their eyes is what keeps you coming back.”
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