Marquette Mission Site - St. Ignace, Michigan
Archaeology at the Marquette Mission Site
Buckle from the Marquette Mission Site: Pat. July 7 1901 (on back)
Archaeology at the Marquette Mission site has its beginnings in an amateur exploration by the Reverend Edward Jacker in 1877. At the request of a local farmer who had unearthed part of a foundation, Jacker attempted to verify the purported presence of the original mission and to recover Father Marquette’s remains. Modern archaeological investigation of the site began almost a hundred years later with Lyle Stone’s work. In 1971 Lyle Stone excavated to evaluate Jacker’s conclusions and determine the site’s significance. Stone’s findings are somewhat equivocal. He states “conclusive evidence was not provided to demonstrate the presence of Marquette’s mission at the site” however, it supports “an occupation which would have been approximately contemporary with this mission period”. James Fitting returned to the site the following two years and expanded the excavation into the area that would reveal Huron associations. Under the direction of Charles Cleland, Michigan State University operated field schools and a research program at Marquette Mission from 1983 through 1986. Susan Branstner, one of Dr. Cleland’s students, drew on the material culture from the site for her dissertation. Cleland again returned to Marquette Mission in 1997 and 1998 with field schools and worked toward assembling complete maps of all the archaeological excavations and used geophysical surveying to locate areas that may hold large archaeological features for future investigation.Cleland and his students have made great strides in elucidating the location and nature of the Huron village. To date, over 9600 square feet has been excavated in one area of the site. A myriad of postmolds, pit features, hearths, and other structural remains have been revealed and thousands of artifacts recovered. Following Cleland’s retirement, Jodie O’Gorman excavated at the site in 2001 with the Michigan State University Archaeological Field School. The research objective for 2001 was to better document one of the longhouses by evaluating the hypothesis that the eastern line of posts at the site was one wall of a longhouse. Using the ethnohistoric information on the size of these structures, an excavation block was placed to capture the opposite wall. If a wall was indeed encountered, the interior of a longhouse would also be sampled.
To learn more about the different excavation click on the links below: