Dr. O'Brien's field class working on their notes at the site
In the fall semester of 1990, Dr. O'Brien taught a Saturday archaeological field methods course that focused on a historical house foundation located on the present Konza Prairie Biological Station. As a historical archeology site, the Moffett house presented a unique opportunity to explore the roots of the Manhattan area as an agricultural community.
The house was originally built in the late 1800s and shown on the 1881 plat map for Ashland Township. The first Euro-American owner of the land was Henry M. Moffett, who bought the land in 1876 from the Missouri-Kansas and Texas Railroad Company. Moffett was a veteran of the Civil War and moved to Kansas from Pennsylvania, likely attracted by the availability of land for ranching. Moffett's time in this area is not fully recorded, but we know that his sister, Mary, and her children came to live with him. Moffett owned several pieces of land around Manhattan, including this site in Ashland Township, a couple of lots in Pottawatomie County, and a house in town. In 1888 he sold the property to C. P Dewey and the land was added to the adjacent Dewey Ranch. This sale came after a crippling winter in 1886-87 which led to a severe loss of livestock in most of the Manhattan area. The Dewey Ranch grew exponentially during this time and most of the ranch's land now serves as Konza Prairie. By the 1930s, the house was inhabited by Dewey Ranch Manager Red O'Neil and his family. Eventually, the house was removed from its foundation and relocated to what is now the Konza Prairie's headquarters.
The site chosen for this educational and research project consisted of a historic building foundation, a standing limestone structure, and an underground cellar built with limestone and concrete. The excavation focused on the foundation of the house, but remains of a corral, ice house, privy, and a nearby unknown building were also identified. O’Brien divided the area chosen for excavation inside the foundation into 24 squares (units) of 2 by 2 meters (roughly 2 yards). Nine units were excavated in three arbitrary levels of 20 centimeters (about 7.8 inches) each to a depth of 60 cm. Most of the archaeological finds were uncovered in the upper layer. The artifacts collected included glass fragments, animal bones, pieces of broken pottery (potsherds), metal nails, wires, and cans, among other objects.
The field methods class was unique in its structure and content. O'Brien walked students through every step of the archaeological process, from surveying the site pre-excavation to doing lab work and caring for the artifacts after collection. While in the field, they learned proper techniques for both excavation and recording their findings. Student notes are covered in daily reflections and diagrams of their findings in their section of the site. When the weather was good, the students dedicated their Saturdays to the site, starting work early in the morning and continuing until late afternoon. Thanks to student journals we know what they did each day and what they were finding in various parts of the excavation. Journals like this can provide key details for later work and research. A simple detail such as "Greg broke his trowel" can be a missing key to figuring out an unlabeled page's identity. One student described his experiences on October 27th, 1990:
“Nice day cool in morning fairly nice in afternoon. Everybody present (except for Pat) so I am in Charge. Oh boy! Lunch around 12:00-1:00 played hacky sac for the first time. It is fun. Let them listen to KU KSU football game didn't seem to slow us down at all. They were fairly excited listening to the game as they worked. Greg broke his trowel so I need to get it fixed or get a new one, think it could be welded.”
After the students finished their excavations, they learned how to clean, describe, and identify the objects they had collected. Each student researched one aspect of the collection, such as the glass, nails, ceramics, stone, animal bone, household metal, and other miscellaneous metal pieces. They consulted a wide range of sources about historic material culture and local experts including K-State Biological Anthropologist Dr. Michael Finnegan and a Manhattan blacksmith, Martin Roberts. Lab research is time-consuming, resulting in student reports produced between late 1990 and 1992.
In 1990, there was a stone structure standing near the house foundation. Dr. O'Brien referred to it as an icehouse. It consisted of a stone building leading into an underground cellar built into the adjacent hill slope. The roof and portions of the wall have since collapsed, but the stone-lined cellar remains in good condition.
In the Fall of 2023, K-State history and anthropology major, Brinna Wellington, rehabilitated the archaeological collection recovered in 1990. This was supported by an Undergraduate Research Award from K-State's College of Arts and Sciences. She began by officially registering the site with the Kansas State Historical Society under the unique site number 14RY231. After years of improper storage, many of the iron artifacts had experienced additional oxidation (rust) causing them to become increasingly fragile and to lose their associated catalog numbers. Much of Wellington's work focused on ensuring the artifacts were accounted for (inventory) and housed in museum-quality containers. The latter includes acid-free and chemically inert storage containers such as clear polyethylene reclosable bags and polypropylene boxes. These better protect the collection for future studies of early Euro-American settlement and ranching in the Manhattan area.
K-State Archaeology Through the Decades: 1990s
