Despite the rainy weather last week, about 20 students took the opportunity to get their hands dirty and learn about the Onondaga Nation at the annual F-M Archaeology Camp, which ran from June 29 to July 3 at the district owned excavation site off of Broadfield Road in Manlius.
“These kids are so energetic,” said Diana Green, retired F-M educator and organizer of the camp said. “It’s really nice to see a new generation being so excited to participate in this topic.”
Every year since 1996, a group of students Fayetteville-Manlius and surrounding districts have gotten the opportunity to be involved in this five-day long cross-cultural summer camp, learning more about the Onondaga Nation’s culture on a piece of land that was formerly the site of a village in the nation about 500 years ago.
The land was acquired in the mid 1990s as a possible site for a new elementary school, said Green, and an evaluation on the land had to be done, which is when it was found to have been the site of a former Onondaga nation village. Since then, archaeology has become a big subject in the school’s curriculum, with students of all levels using the site for educational purposes.
Green said students get a hands-on experience working with a wide array of experts on the subject — including members of the Onondaga Nation and educators in archaeology and anthropology from Colgate University.
Students get the opportunity to look for artifacts by sifting loose soil through a screening device and looking for things that may be remnants of the Onondaga village — which include pottery, charcoal and sometimes even stone tools.
“It’s really cool and fun to learn … I love making new discoveries,” said Carmen Iorio, a first time attendee at the camp. “It’s interesting to see how history touches so many parts of our lives.”
Over the course of the camp, students also learned about how the villages in the Onondaga Nation were set up, how to clean and document artifacts found in the excavation site and how people of the Onondaga Nation made pottery and traditional wooden lacrosse sticks.
This year, Alf Jacques of the Onondaga Nation gave students a lesson on the history of lacrosse and how to make traditional wooden lacrosse sticks — something he has been doing for decades and has become skilled at.
Green said these lessons offered over the course of the camp varies from year-to-year, but focus on teaching students how to preserve and protect the artifacts that are important to the Onondaga Nation’s history.
The camp is offered through the Fayetteville-Manlius School District, in partnership with the town of Manlius.
“This camp has made a big difference in many students’ lives,” said Green. “Some have gone on to do presentations about the subject and even have made preserving native culture part of their mission statements when they go to college.”
Hayleigh Gowans is a reporter for the Eagle Bulletin. She can be reached at [email protected].