Thrill of the find keeps Bubel digging

trevor.kenney — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 18:56:42 +0000

Dr. Shawn Bubel (BSc ’96) will readily admit she had an ulterior motive when she enrolled as a chemistry major for her undergraduate studies at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge.

It wasn’t as though Bubel didn’t enjoy chemistry; she was in fact very good at it, along with biology and physics. Most importantly, it had the ringing endorsement of her family and high school advisors. But Bubel knew that by coming to a liberal arts university such as the U of L, she could major in chemistry but also dabble in what she truly loved, archaeology.

Dr. Shawn Bubel revels in the opportunity to give her students the experience of uncovering the past.

“I always wanted to be an archaeologist but everyone told me that it wasn’t a real career and that I’d never get a job,” she says. “So, I started out as a chemistry major. At the end of my first year, I went to an archaeological field school in Israel and when I came back, I knew. As much as I think chemistry is very interesting, I love archaeology. Even though there wasn’t an archaeology major at the time, I did an individualized multidisciplinary major in archaeology, geography and anthropology.”

So began an academic career that has taken Bubel around the world. On Thursday, she presented the latest PUBlic Professor Series lecture at Lethbridge City Hall, Prehistoric Bison Hunters in Southern Alberta: Excavations at Fincastle Site.

Originally from Coronation, and then Fort Saskatchewan, AB, Bubel specifically chose the U of L for its liberal education focus but also because it offered the small campus experience that better suited her. Little did she know that after graduating with a BSc that she’d eventually find her way back as a faculty member following her masters and PhD studies.

“The faculty members at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge are wonderful. They are exceptionally supportive. When I was working on my PhD in Belgium, they gave me the opportunity to come back and teach here as a sessional,” she says, conducting her first summer classes in 1997 and eventually taking U of L students to Belgium on her field project in 1999 and 2000.

When a faculty spot opened up in the Department of Geography, she was hired on a term contract and before long, she applied for a tenure-track position and has been in the fold ever since.

There’s no denying Bubel’s love of archaeology and her unquenchable desire for discovery.

“When I was little, I dug up my entire backyard,” she says. “I just loved digging, anywhere, I didn’t care, just digging up the ground. I’d steal the spoons out of my mom’s cutlery drawer and I’d go outside and dig – all day long. Finally, I was cordoned off into one section of the yard and only allowed to dig there.”

Now, people call her to dig, as was the case at Fincastle. A noted kill site, the area was being looted by a local community member and the Government of Alberta was fearful that its treasures would be lost forever.

Bubel was brought in, and in 2003, her project began. Some 10 years later, more than 280,000 bone fragments were uncovered as well as one of the great oddities of her career – seven non-utilitarian upright bone features that would garner Bubel the second most viewed and shared story among Western Digs’ Top 5 Archaeology Discoveries in the American West of 2015.

She was excited to share some of that story with the PUBlic Professor crowd.

“It is really important to share our knowledge and information as broadly as we can and to include people in the community,” she says. “In archaeology, the more eyes and perspectives you have, the better the interpretation will be. I try to be as unbiased as possible, and to step away from my own preconceptions but you can’t do that completely. We are who we are. I always have First Nations students, community members and Elders on my Alberta projects because it is important to include their perspectives. We work together to try to figure out the story of the site. You can never do that completely, we don’t have a time machine, but you can certainly achieve a better interpretation of the past when more people study the information.”

She says there is great value in learning about the past.

“Archaeology reveals our stories; the things we’ve done, the challenges we’ve faced, the successes we’ve had,” she says. “If you do not understand where we’ve been, you cannot understand where we’re going. Choices are made based on who we are, and part of who we are is who we were. Archaeology offers insight into how we move forward.”

Bubel often thinks back to her first field experience and that initial opportunity as an undergraduate student to get her hands in the dirt. It helped shape her life and it is an experience she likes to pass along.

“I know how my first field experience changed my world, so I want to offer that to my students,” she says. “To be honest, there is nothing better than watching them find something for the first time. It is an incredible atmosphere and it takes me back to the thrill of uncovering something that was buried for hundreds of thousands of years. It reminds me how much I love my job. Seeing their worlds open up – not just because of the archaeology but also the cultural experiences – is very gratifying.”

While the thrill of her first great find might be in the past, the next great discovery is always out there, and if we know one thing about Bubel, she’ll keep digging.

Science website names Bubel archaeological find as second most interesting discovery of 2015

trevor.kenney — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 17:39:10 +0000

A decade’s worth of work from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Dr. Shawn Bubel (BSc ’96) on a 2,500-year-old bison kill site proved to be one of the most interesting discoveries of 2015, according to the scientific website Western Digs.

Bubel’s discovery of non-utilitarian upright features at the ancient Fincastle Bison Kill Site was the second most viewed and shared story among Western Digs' Top 5 Archaeology Discoveries in the American West of 2015.

Dr. Shawn Bubel's discovery of seven upright bone features at the Fincastle Bison Kill Site is an archaeological rarity.

“It is pretty exciting. I have been directing this project since 2003 but I didn’t publish our discoveries right away because there was so much material to go through,” says Bubel, an archaeologist and faculty member in the U of L’s Department of Geography. “I wanted to get a more comprehensive understanding of the site first. To be getting the publicity now seems strange because we uncovered many of these finds several years ago.”

The Fincastle site, located amongst the sand dunes of southeastern Alberta, is remarkable for the massive amount of cultural remains present, more than 200,000 fragments of bison bone, as well as for the stories it tells and the mysteries it still holds.

Unlike many other kill sites, this is not a bison-jump site but one where sheer cunning and stalking likely allowed hunters to ambush a bison herd as it watered in marshy land tucked between sand dunes, limiting escape routes. Its finds were many, including a host of projectile points that suggest ties to the Dakota region.

Where it really gets interesting though is what was found under the layer of bone debris – seven upright bone features that were clearly constructed for a reason still unknown.

This upright features a tibia surrounded by four bison mandibles, or jawbones, with the teeth fanning out.

“We found the first one in 2004 and it was beautiful, but we didn’t think too much of it as there was no clear cultural indication of its function,” says Bubel. “When we started to find more of them and saw how they were positioned, it was obvious that these features were different than anything we had seen before.”

The uprights are deliberately arranged bones embedded in the earth. One of the most striking examples features a tibia surrounded by four bison mandibles, or jawbones, with the teeth fanning out.

“There is one other site that has something similar to it, but all we know is that they are not utilitarian,” says Bubel. “It is likely something ceremonial, but what it is exactly, no one knows. There are no stories from our Elders about these features, so it is a mystery.”

Bubel will continue to study the artifacts from Fincastle in the hopes of one day unlocking its secrets, and is thrilled to have been a part of such a significant find.

“It is definitely a rarity and not your normal discovery at an archaeological site on the plains.”

Bubel will speak to her findings at the Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016 PUBlic Professor Series lecture at Lethbridge City Hall. Her presentation, Prehistoric Bison Hunters in Southern Alberta: Excavations at Fincastle Site, begins at 7 p.m. Appetizers and a cash bar are available.

The Western Digs article can be found at: http://westerndigs.org/2500-year-old-bison-kill-site-offers-new-clues-into-ancient-culture-of-northern-plains/.

UNews - archaeology

Thrill of the find keeps Bubel digging

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