Archaeological society to meet Thursday

COLUMBIA — A presentation of a log cabin and farmstead existing from the early 1870s until the late 1920s will anchor the Boonslick Archaeological Society’s meeting Thursday.

The group will meet at 7 p.m. at the Walters-Boone County Historical Museum at 3801 Ponderosa St.

After less than a half hour of business matters, Jack Eastman of Columbia, an archaeologist with the Missouri Department of Transportation, will present his findings on the cabin. It was found on land near Route 124 and Pinnacles Park that since has been lowered about 20 feet because of U.S. 63 expansion, Eastman said.

“We knew that this whole hillside was to be taken out by construction,” said Eastman, who also serves on the Missouri Archaeological Society board of trustees. “We learned everything we could from it and documented it all before any of the construction work could start.”

The cabin only stuck out a couple inches from the ground when Eastman and others started their excavation, he said, providing a faint outline of the foundation.

The excavation showed that lower-income folks lived in the cabin, Eastman said.

“The only time they showed up was in the Census Bureaus,” Eastman said. “It enabled us to document the lives of some ordinary folks who did not leave much of an impact on a historical record. A lot of poor people and minorities,­ their stories really don’t get told in the history books. It’s always interesting to explore them through archaeology and deeper historical context.”

The Boonslick Archaeological Society held its first meeting last month after more than a year’s absence.

“This is the effort to revive it,” said Earl Lubensky of Columbia, the secretary of the society. “My main goal is to fill in the gaps in the undocumented record of historic record and prehistoric record. And when we have a talk, it’s designed to do that: fill in the gaps.”