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Summary of the 2002 EAAP Field School

The Early Acadian Archaeological Project held its first Archaeology Field School (Anth 490G) between December 9, 2002 and January 14, 2003 at historic sites in Iberia Parish, Louisiana. The field investigations began at the original location of the Amand Broussard house, now located at Vermilionville Heritage Park. Students learned scientific techniques of archaeological survey, excavation, and site documentation. The long-term goals of the project are to (1) document sites through survey and topographic mapping, (2) obtain representative samples of artifacts through systematic shovel testing, (3) identify and investigate potentially intact cultural features and (4) examine local Acadian culture and social history through the archaeological record.

Background

Amand (or Armand) Broussard was born in Chipody, Acadia around 1754, the youngest of ten children of Joseph "Beausoleil" Broussard and Agnes Thibodeaux. Forced into exile with his family following the Treaty of Paris, Amand arrived in Louisiana in 1765 at the age of 11. He survived the lethal epidemic of that year which claimed the lives of his father and uncle. Along with other displaced Acadian families, they had settled along the banks of the Bayou Teche. The Broussard estate became a prosperous cattle and cotton plantation by the time of Amand's death in 1818. The Broussard house is an excellent example of late eighteenth-century poteaux sur sol ("posts on sill"), bousillage, and hand-hewn cypress architecture. Besides the main house, the plantation included a separate kitchen, two barns, a potato shed, school house, cotton mill and press, stone mill, slave quarters, and blacksmith shop.

Field School

The systematic excavation of 25-by-25-cm test units at 10-meter intervals produced evidence of the distributions of different classes of artifacts, site stratigraphy, and the position of cultural features on the site. The relative positions of the house and out buildings were estimated by superimposing information from the aerial photographs on a contour map of the site. Site stratigraphy and cultural features were further investigated through the excavation of 1-by-1-meter test units.

Two cultural features were identified during the field investigations. Feature 1 was initially observed on the ground surface as a circular, water-filled depression. The prior location of a large tree, it was comprised of historic fill and refuse spanning two centuries of site occupation. Feature 2 was a narrow trench discovered within a 1-by-1-meter unit excavated in the area of highest artifact density as determined by systematic shovel testing. The trench-fill contained brick fragments and a few ceramic sherds. In addition, a dark, organic-rich midden was found to contain large amounts of brick, bone, and ceramic sherds potentially dating from the last decades of the eighteenth century.

More definitive observations concerning the artifacts and features await the completion of the cataloging, tabulation, and analysis. Much remains to be learned about the Amand Broussard site, including the purpose of the features and the locations of other out buildings. Like many other sites in the region, it represents an understudied and as yet, virtually untapped source of information on Acadian culture and social history.

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