挖掘过去，服务未来
Massey Award winner Steve 戴维斯 has dedicated his life to preserving the history of North Carolina’s Native American peoples for future generations.
即使我做了50年的考古学家, Steve 戴维斯 still considers a Native American cooking jar he unearthed as a Carolina undergraduate in 1973 the most important find of his career. The artifact is now one of millions that 戴维斯 is responsible for curating as the associate director of Carolina’s 研究 Laboratories of Archaeology.
The piece encapsulates “the focus of my life’s work — a Native American cooking jar typical of the time but decorated with a musket, 欧洲商人的武器,戴维斯说。. “I’ve been studying the first interactions between Native Americans and Europeans ever since.”
Widely regarded as the preeminent archaeological expert on North Carolina’s late pre-colonial and colonial native peoples, 戴维斯是大量出版物的作者和合著者, 包括《太阳城娱乐城》一书.在他37年的大学生涯中, 戴维斯 has overseen the digitization of thousands of artifacts and records to improve access to the University’s collection, 在卡罗莱纳大学校园里发掘出了以前丢失的历史遗迹, 他毕生的研究都致力于保存美国南方原住民的历史.
He’s also a great guy, say those who know him as mentor, instructor, boss, colleague and friend. 戴维斯, 一位梅西奖提名者写道, 一个人有“非凡的能力”吗, humility and joviality” who “will talk for hours about 考古 with a grin on his face.” He “has set a model for collegial, collaborative, engaged re太阳城娱乐城 and service,” wrote another.
由于所有这些以及更多的原因，史蒂夫·戴维斯是太阳城娱乐六名员工之一，赢得了 2020 C. 诺克斯·梅西杰出服务奖.
卡罗莱纳的开端
戴维斯很早就找到了自己的使命. “I remember back in third grade when the teacher asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up,戴维斯说。. “即使在那时，我就知道我想成为一名考古学家.”
1970年，为了追求儿时的梦想，他进入太阳城娱乐读本科, 但他不确定该专攻哪个领域. 1972年春天，我第一次有机会到野外工作, 戴维斯 jumped at the chance and helped uncover artifacts dating back to the first encounters between Native Americans and European traders in the Piedmont region of North Carolina.
It was during that early fieldwork that he discovered the cooking jar — an experience that helped define his lifelong re太阳城娱乐城 specialty: studying the impact of European colonization on native peoples in Virginia, 从17世纪到19世纪的北卡罗来纳州和南卡罗来纳州.
1974年从卡罗莱纳大学毕业并获得人类学学位后, 戴维斯 went on to obtain a master’s degree in 考古 from the University of Calgary in Alberta, 加拿大, 和他的博士学位.D. 来自田纳西大学. 但, 想在他太阳城娱乐第一件藏物的州继续他的研究, 戴维斯 returned to the University in 1983 as a re太阳城娱乐城 archaeologist in the lab he now manages.
挖掘的艺术
戴维斯 describes the process of excavating a historical site the way an artist might explain how to mix new color palettes: The steps are second nature to him but a revelation to anyone outside of his field.
通过在地面上喷洒少量的水, 戴维斯 can “read” the darker patches where the wooden posts of a structure once s太d or the striations in the earth that signal where untouched artifacts may lay hidden. “他的美丽, 注重细节、工整的挖掘风格闻名,一位提名戴维斯的学生写道.
但戴维斯说，考古学远不只是在泥土中寻找物体. It’s a service to those people whose history is documented in every pottery fragment and arrowhead.
“I think 考古 is a discipline that is at its best when it’s giving a voice to those who generally are underrepresented,他说.
戴维斯 cites as one example the Catawba people asking his re太阳城娱乐城 team to locate and excavate ancient burials that were in the path of a highway expansion near Charlotte. 他帮助卡托巴人将这些坟墓重新安置到一个更安全的地方, 这一切都是为他研究祖先的人服务.
揭秘卡罗莱纳的历史
为1993年的大学200周年校庆, faculty and staff were tasked with finding creative ways that their departments could celebrate Carolina’s history. 戴维斯已经有了一个想法:在校园本身进行挖掘.
戴维斯 and his colleagues launched a series of archaeological digs on campus that continued long after the bicentennial, first uncovering the Eagle Hotel that fed and lodged the first students to matriculate at Carolina, then a long brick building — affectionately called “the Poor House” — that once housed students and, 最近, Phi Delta Theta会馆, one of two early fraternity houses that survived a fire in 1919 but were demolished soon after.
戴维斯在这项工作中包括了考古学和人类学课程的学生. He believes that allowing students to uncover the past of their forebears is one way to celebrate the history of the University.
未来的编目
作为考古研究实验室的副主任, 戴维斯是数百万件文物的馆长, 成千上万的照片和成千上万的记录. 他还监督了这个长达十年的过程, 从20世纪90年代开始, of moving the collection from storage in a Durham warehouse to the current state-of-the-art facility in Hamilton Hall.
但 simply caring for the physical artifacts was not enough for 戴维斯; he has made it his mission to digitize every object in the North Carolina Archaeological Collection for the benefit of students, 全州的教师和研究人员, 更不用说未来几代北卡罗来纳人了. 现在任何人都可以访问3D图像的文物从 古代北卡罗莱纳人:北卡罗莱纳考古虚拟博物馆 网站.
为戴维斯的远见喝彩, 他的一位提名人写道:“作为考古学家, 我们总是在考虑如何最好地保护过去的资源. Steve [戴维斯] is always thinking of future generations of students and re太阳城娱乐城ers and how they will most easily and efficiently access these materials.”
卑微的仆人
戴维斯 reacted with surprise and characteristic humility after learning he won the Massey Award, 这是牛津大学教职员工最负盛名的荣誉之一.
“我惊呆了，”戴维斯说. “My impression was that an honor like this would go to someone with much broader reach on campus. 我为大学做贡献，创造了我的小领域, 考古, 这是最好的, 希望这能让大学变得更伟大, 太.”
