| In the summer of 2005, the Department at Anthropology at Michigan State University conducted a public archaeology project focused on the excavation of Saints' Rest, the institution's first boarding hall. As part of the University's Sesquicentennial celebrations, the project was designed to investigate early student life through archaeological excavations while engaging members of the University community in the exploration of their shared past. The goal of this thesis is to present the Saints' Rest Archaeological Project as a case study in public archaeology by demonstrating the ways in which a university can engage a variety of community members in the shared history of the institution through archaeology. The results of archaeological and archival research will be presented along with a discussion of the ways in which the community was able to participate in the project and the subsequent benefits of this interaction. This discussion will contribute to the growing literature on public archaeology, a topic that continues to draw increasing interest within the discipline of historic archaeology. |
