Friday, January 21, 2000
Students remake part of history
BY MARK SCHMETZER
Enquirer Contributor
MARIEMONT — Folks involved with the Madisonville Preservation Foundation's education program like to talk with elementary school classes about the American Indian artifacts that were dug up at the Madisonville Site in the southwest corner of Mariemont.
Their problem was they didn't have actual arrowheads and clay pots from the site, where the Fort Ancient people lived more than 300 years ago, to show the students. Most had been carted off by archaeologists from Harvard University who workedthe site from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Those finds now are displayed or stored at Harvard and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. A few can be found locally at the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Museum of Natural History and Science at the Museum Center, but that requires a field trip.
“Kids that age are very visual,” says Mariemont High School art teacher Larry Austin. “They need to see things.”
Now, Mr. Austin's students have created something to see. Working from photographs downloaded from the Internet, 16 of Mr. Austin's students have teamed up to create replicas of several artifacts. They are on display at the high school on Pocahontas Avenue.
The students responded to a meeting with Jane McDonald, a foundation trustee.
“She was very excited,” Mr. Austin recalls. “It just got a life of its own and took off. Each year, we try to come up with something to make their education relevant, and I thought this was a great opportunity to do that and let them get some experience.”
The students created replicas of a variety of artifacts, including arrowheads, pots, paintings and a miniature version of a cache/pit, which was used to store grain and other food.
“She came in here and talked about the background and gave us some different ideas,” said Courtney Callaghan, 15, a sophomore.
“Mr. Austin gave us some ideas, and we just built on them,” added Emily Holmes, 15, also a sophomore.
Sophomore Nick Laumann, 16, focused on pots. He had to use scale measurements in order to approximate the size of the pots, he said.
“I think it looks really good,” he said of the display.
The students admitted they hadn't known about the Madisonville Site, which was in the area of the village swimming pool and Dogwood Park, until they started working on the replicas.
Besides not having actual artifacts to look at, the students also faced the challenge of making the replicas, such as the plaster arrowhead copies, look as old and used as the originals, Mr. Austin said.
He expects the replicas to remain on display at Mariemont for three months, and he hopes they can be displayed at other Greater Cincinnati locations before being turned over to the Preservation Foundation.
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