All posts by lathamke

Day 11: Homeward Bound

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Group photo in front of the Alamo.Today we made our way from Texas back to Indiana.  We are all tired, sore and sick with head colds. But we decided to make a detour in San Antonio before going to the airport. We stopped briefly at the Alamo and had lunch nearby.  We arrived home just before a big ice storm is set to hit the area.  Just because we are home, doesn’t mean the blog will stop! We still have a lot to tell you about our trip and will be adding posts and reflections over the next week or so. Thank you for reading about our work in Texas!

~KEL

Collaborative Efforts

Human Rights, Migrant Death, Snapshots

We are not the only anthropologists volunteering our time and skills at the Sacred Heart Cemetery for the exhumations. There is a large group from Texas State University and a few other individuals that are volunteering in the migrant identification efforts as well. This is a huge collaborative effort with multiple university, governmental and non-governmental organizations coming together to work towards identification the migrants that died in Brooks County.  While this blog focuses mostly on the UIndy team, we wanted to recognize some of the others at the site with us.

Dr. Kate Spradley & Dr. Tim Gocha talking
Dr. Kate Spradley & Dr. Tim Gocha –  Texas State University
Dr. Nicholas Herrmann and students with a Total station.
Dr. Nicholas Herrmann -Texas State University
Katharine Chapman Pope and students working on a burial
Katharine Chapman Pope – Delaware Chief Medical Examiner & Forensic Science Laboratory
Texas State University team working
Texas State University Students & Alums
Group selfie of five people in a car.

Day 9: Trench Warfare

Human Rights, Migrant Death

Today the 5 of us moved approximately 21,000 pounds of dirt (or about 4200 pounds of dirt per person).  Let that sink in for a moment…. TODAY each of us moved about 4200 pounds of dirt! We calculated that from the measurements of the trenches we dug today. That doesn’t even include the fact that we had to move some of the dirt to a pile and then move it back to the trenches (making it closer to 6,000 pounds of dirt for each of us).  It got hot in the afternoon, so we had to enforce a dig for 5 minutes and rest for 5 minutes rule. Not only was this necessary for safety but it also kept the momentum going late into the afternoon.

UIndy team member digging a trench.
Leann digging test trenches
Team members digging trenches
Erica, Jessica and I digging test trenches
Team member using a t-probe.
Justin probing the test trenches
Sister Pam shoveling into a dirt pile.
Sister Pam helping to move the dirt pile

Tomorrow is our last day working at Sacred Heart for this field season.  We still have about 30% of the area that needs explored. Every excavation season we seem to be down to the wire and fighting time to finish. So this year will be no different.

~KEL