Tori Sutera, AJ Humenik, Emily Papagiannis, and Lucas Gonzalez were awarded grants to participate in the 2024 Native American and Indigenous Studies field school run by MSU’s NAIS program. Natalia Orlovski used her Bigel award to be part of a Global Treks and Adventures internship program in Iceland where she researched and visited several amazing cultural and heritage sites. Ellie Paschalis was able to travel to the Basque country in Spain to participate in the Aditu Archaeological Field School which is focused on the recovery and study of human remains from a medieval-period ossuary. Khara Brown also traveled for an archeological field at James Madison’s Montpelier, the planation of America’s fourth president. Khara’s program studied and excavated at the site to better understand the enslaved community who labored and sustain the plantation in the 19th century.

The student reports were outstanding and clearly demonstrated the special opportunities available to Anthropology students thanks to their access to the Bigel scholarship fund.

Photo Gallery:

Slide Show:

Khara Brown’s paper is a comparison between three free African American settlements founded in the 1800s. Seneca Village was a black community established in Manhattan in the 1820s and then razed in 1857 due the construction of Central Park. The Closter Mountain Community (aka Skunk Hollow) was established in 1806 by formerly enslaved man named Jack Earnest. The community was located in what is now Palisades Park near the NY-NJ border. Finally, Dunkerhook, was a community founded by formerly enslaved men and woman in the 1830s in Paramus, NJ. Each site has been excavated and studied by archaeologists but a comparison of the findings have never been done before.

Emily Papagiannis’ paper was an analysis of data from the census and cemetery records for the Dunkerhook community. The purpose of her study was to determine if the burial sites of all of the Dunkerhook residents documented by the census were known and where they are located. This accounting will help to understand the community networks Dunkerook people would have developed but also to know the likelihood that any burials still remain in the community, perhaps associated with the site of the AME Zion church that once stood on Dunkerhook Road.

Both papers were very well-received and the students handled the Q&A like pros!

Bristol, from Wayne, New Jersey, decided to major in Anthropology, because it is the common denominator of everything human.

He aims to go on to graduate school for a Master’s degree in Agricultural Engineering and would eventually like to get a PhD in Anthropology. “One day, I would like to help with sustainable and ethical agricultural development around the world,” he said.

The Anthropology Department is very grateful to Prof. Bednarek for remembering his alma mater and providing an opportunity to support and honor our students.