Oneida teens unearth layers of their history

The dig whets that cultural appetite. Ms. Beglen, who has shared with her two daughters native traditions like making maple syrup from tree sap and planting a "Three Sisters" garden of corn, beans, and squash, anticipates D's curiosity "opening the door for me to talk about something cultural."

That night in the kitchen, standing beneath native American baskets that fill the room with a smell of bark and reeds, D fingers the beadwork on her mother's collection of barrettes. She says she'd like to learn about different varieties of corn. Beglen smiles. "That would be a cool little project," D says.

Paula Eddy, Chris's mother, says the dig has brought her new knowledge, too. "I wasn't taught a lot about [Oneida] history," she says, "so it's exciting for me to hear about." The manager of Multigame Machines at Turning Stone, she also sees the dig's practical side - lessons in work ethics and pay from Youth Work Learn.

It's that fusion of skills for the future and a dawning awareness of the past that keeps the teens focused as they sift a settlement through sieves. "With every object that's found," Mr. Flay says, "they flock to it, their eyes light up. Just the look on their faces - that, I believe, is the basis of the program."

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Ancient Oneidas left no written records, so archaeologists rely on artifacts to tell their story, supplemented by accounts of European traders and missionaries. In their two weeks at this 17th-century settlement site, 10 Oneida teens unearth tiny fragments of the past - shards that help bring a village to life, after three centuries underground.

Anthony Wonderley, Oneida Nation historian, describes one ancestral village that migrated along a hilltop ridge, moving every 10 to 20 years as resources dwindled. Clans lived in bark "long houses" the length of a football field, often surrounded by log palisades for defense. With panoramic views, Oneidas could easily see smoke signals and get early notice of visitors - or enemies.

Like all Iroquois groups, the Oneidas are a matrilineal society, and women at the site controlled farming and distributed crops. From the hilltop, they made one-mile treks to the valley for fish and fresh water, and 10-mile trips to Oneida Lake.

Dr. Wonderley says that 17th-century Oneida men were known throughout the eastern US as "people on the go," traveling from New England to the Great Lakes, and from South Carolina to northern Canada. "It was guys doing guy stuff," he says. "Trading, hunting, traveling in war parties, seeking beaver pelts."

Wonderley speculates that the hilltop village of 100 to 200 people - well fed, densely settled, and fond of long, bombastic speeches - "must have been an incredible, noisy, lively place."

But it wasn't all oratory and celebration. In the first decades of European contact, native-American populations were decimated by Old World diseases, with a mortality rate of from 55 to 99 percent. Epidemics hit the Oneidas from 1630 to 1690, so occupants of the site were likely fighting for survival.

"They lived in a world of violent crisis," says Wonderley. "One challenge native people faced was how to survive such a thing."

It's a story that continues to unfold, as teenage crews dig for details in the dirt.

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