Rumschlag works alongside colleagues in the “devil’s trench,” the only area on site with no shade.
Rumschlag, alongside colleagues from Cornell University and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, excavates a satellite feature outside a small khirigsuur overlooking the Taravagtai Valley.
Rumschlag with fellow team members after wrapping up an excavation of one of the largest khirigsuurs in the valley.
Rumschlag with entire Apolline Project team in Naples.
Lee University senior Sam Rumschlag is a few months shy of obtaining his bachelor’s degree in anthropology, yet he spent his summer brushing the dirt from ancient artifacts in Mongolia and Italy alongside world-class archaeologists from premier universities.
“The anthropology faculty at Lee University feels that Sam has had excellent preparation to go to the next level of archaeology since working with archaeologists from Yale, Cornell, and European universities,” said Dr. Murl Dirksen, professor of anthropology and sociology at Lee. “He not only is a skilled archaeologist but is also a brilliant scholar. We are very proud of Sam.”
In June, Mr. Rumschlag worked in Mongolia on Yale University’s archaeology research team. The Taravagtai Valley Project, located in the Bulgan Aimag Province of north-central Mongolia, has been running for five years and is the first work ever done in the region by an American university with published results in English. The project represents the first work done in the region since the Cold War when Russian research ceased.
The importance of the project rests in the long-term goal of establishing a definitive chronology of the north-central Mongolian region. The project would like to document all cultural sites within the valley to aid in the development of a timeline for the region. The team’s work will help to form an understanding of the religious practices in the region, which will serve to construct context for future research in the area. In addition, the project will make it feasible for other smaller teams to continue the excavations in the area and further add to the knowledge of the area’s history.
“I operate under the belief that every human culture on earth represents just one facet of the rich, vibrant mosaic that is the human narrative," said Mr. Rumschlag. "When a culture dissolves, assimilates, or is destroyed, a piece of the human mosaic is lost. As an archaeologist, my job is to put the mosaic back together. In order to recover and reassemble the lost pieces, we have to be willing to step outside our own cultural contexts and try to think about life in the way that our predecessors would have. On the Taravagtai Valley Project, that is what we are trying to do.”
During this season, Mr. Rumschlag and the rest of the team specifically investigated Bronze Age ritual and religious sites in the hope of increasing understanding of pre-Mongol religious beliefs and activities. The team excavated five “khirigsuurs,” a specific type of stone structural complex, which typically consist of a central stone mound surrounded by a rectangular fence of surface stones. Most khirigsuurs feature satellite mounds, which vary in size from 1-1.5 meters in diameter, on the south, north, and west sides just outside the stone surface fence.
The excavation team specifically focused on satellite features containing horse sacrifices. Carbon-14 dating is being done on the remains to determine age, and tests are being run to determine if anything organic was placed in the pit along with the horses. There are hundreds of khirigsuurs in the Taravagtai Valley alone, so it is suspected that they were built specifically for the highly-ritualized sacrifices.
Many of the khirigsuurs have religious significance to the locals, particularly the Buddhists, so the team was not permitted to dig in some sites.
During the field season, the crew lived in tents in the valley bottom, collecting and filtering water from a local river. They primarily subsisted on sheep, root vegetables, and dairy products, all purchased locally.
In July, after the Taravagtai Valley Project, Mr. Rumschlag participated in the Apolline Project investigating the understudied countryside surrounding Mt. Vesuvius. The project is run by St. John’s College of Oxford University.
The investigation is focused on the window between major eruptions of Mt. Vesuvius, from 79-472 A.D. Before 79, small rural farms were the rule in the rich agricultural lands of Campania, a region in southern Italy, but after 79 and until the next major eruption in 472, there was a shift from small, independent farms to massive agricultural estates owned by patricians and members of the Senatorial class in Rome.
“Although it is popularly believed that the ruins around Pompeii have been thoroughly investigated, there are an astonishing amount of unanswered questions surrounding them,” said Mr. Rumschlag. “The Campanian countryside, in particular, represents an archaeological gold mine, and the Apolline Project is hoping to use these uninvestigated ruins to answer nagging questions about the recovery period following the 79 A.D. eruption and the subsequent reconstruction of the Roman cultural landscape that the recovery entailed.”
The site where Mr. Rumschlag and the rest of the team worked was an estate featuring a luxurious villa and bath complex. Just outside the bath, the team discovered three infants buried in amphorae, which are clay wine jars. It is currently unknown why the infants were buried in this particular location, but samples have been sent for Carbon-14 dating to determine when exactly they were buried. It is suspected that two of the infants were twins, and DNA tests will confirm or refute the hypothesis.
“The experiences with the Taravagtai and Apolline project teams were significant in that they afforded me the chance to put all my previous work (in North America) in perspective and allowed me to gain an even better appreciation for the human condition in regions outside my own,” said Mr. Rumschlag. “The most meaningful part for me was the interaction with people from vastly different cultural backgrounds. One learns to appreciate the diversity of viewpoints encountered while abroad and to consider ideas to which they would have otherwise never been exposed.”
Mr. Rumschlag, a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, has previously worked sites including the Unicoi Turnpike site in Tellico Plains, Tenn., the Eagle Rock Shelter site in Delta, Colo., and the U.S. Forest Service Fort Armistead site near Coker Creek, Tenn. He has also worked locally at the Green Shadow Lake site and the Fort Hill Historic Cemetery site.
On Lee’s campus Mr. Rumschlag works as a tutor, is involved in the archaeological cataloguing and curation facilities, and has been a teaching assistant in the Cultural Anthropology class with Dirksen. In addition, Mr. Rumschlag works in the archives at the Five Points Museum in downtown Cleveland.
Mr. Rumschlag is particularly interested in the archaeology of Inner Asian cultures as well as Classical Archaeology, though he usually works on pre-contact and contact period Eastern Woodlands sites when working closer to home. He is currently applying to graduate schools and intends to become a professional field archaeologist.
“Archaeology is a unifying force in our increasingly chaotic and divided world,” said Mr. Rumschlag. “Even on the most basic excavation, people who are necessarily from vastly different backgrounds come together and have no choice but to overcome their differences, establish common ground, and work together towards a common objective.”