Tag: mass grave

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Archaeology means globe-hopping for MN native

Archaeology.. the term makes me think of Indiana Jones. That shows my age, doesn’t it? Well, as hard as it may be to believe, that’s not real life. However, I know someone who’s living the adventure (without the bullwhip).

Chatfield native Paige Brevick is living what can only be called an adventurous life. She’s a recent graduate of the University of Memphis with a master’s degree in Egyptian Art and Archaeology. Brevick has worked in faraway places like India and Israel over the course of her studies and will continue globe-hopping when she studies for her doctorate at the University College London in England. How does a small-town girl from Chatfield get to travel the world as she studies to be an archaeologist?

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Paige Brevick of Chatfield, MN, is unearthing skeletons at Thornton Abbey in England. These bodies are part of a mass burial site for black plague victims. (Contributed photo)

“That’s a really good question,” she said with an infectious laugh. “A lot of people ask me that. I’ve always loved the stories that objects tell about people and the cultures that made those items. As a kid, I was interested in arts, museums, the outdoors, and that sense of adventure, so archaeology seemed like a natural career choice.”

Brevick said she had no idea that archaeology was a “real job you could have” until she got to college. While growing up as a youngster in Chatfield, her parents took her to a lot of different museums. She describes herself as “always excited” to turn the corner in a museum and find an Egyptian gallery or see some Asian art. “That’s where the curiosity got started,” she said.

Archaeology Studies Begin

Her secondary education started at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa. “My degree there was in Religion and I spent a lot of time studying the Hebrew Bible. It was in those early religion classes that I became interested in Near Eastern archaeology. Even though my degree was in religion, I got to study abroad quite a bit.

“I lived in India for a while,” she recalled. “After that, I studied public archaeology and what the community involvement was in museums across Maharashtra and South India. I saw people there who were passionate about their heritage and where they came from. It was a great place to It was a great place to study because India is full of ancient sites, temples, and history.”

A lack of what she called archaeological “site management” triggered an interest in protecting those sites and the antiquities that were being found. The trip to India was her first journey overseas and eye-opening in many different ways. What was it like for a Midwestern gal to step off the plane into a foreign country for the very first time?

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Paige is seen here while working at a dig site in Tigray Province, Ethiopia. (Contributed photo)

“It was exhilarating,” she said with a giggle. “It’s quite a country to jump into for my first overseas experience. It’s overwhelming because Mumbai is so loud. The city was so loud and packed with people. It’s not a surprise that it was more people than I’d seen in my entire life.”

The trip to India triggered her interest in a career in “heritage management,” which she’s currently working in. She says it’s all about the running of an archaeological site and how to go about involving the community in that preservation. Rather than having archaeologists come into the site and then leave, it’s about how to create something sustainable with the community. Brevick hopes to facilitate relationships between archaeologists, museums, and communities.

Masters degree in archaeology

She recently wrapped up a three-year stay at the University of Memphis, her second stop in secondary education. Brevick said it’s one of the few programs in the country that offer a master’s degree in Egyptian studies and archaeology. Egypt is a major part of her long-term interest in studying the near East. Brevick’s acquired some unique skills while studying for her master’s degree.

“I got to study hieroglyphs,” she said. “I can now read Middle Egyptian, which are the glyphs you may see on objects or in museums. It took a lot of time and practice to learn Middle Egyptian, but it’s really been rewarding. You really don’t meet a lot of people who can say they’ve learned hieroglyphs.”

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She also spent time working at a dig site in Lalibela, Ethiopia, where they found a church that had been completely carved in stone. (contributed photo)

Brevick has had a couple of opportunities to head to Egypt and see things firsthand. In a case of real life getting in the way, one of her trips was canceled because of safety concerns. Brevick found out firsthand that she’ll have to be “flexible” to succeed as an archaeologist. Funding issues can cause challenges, as can real-world dangers on the ground. Even after all the delays, she’s hopeful of getting to Egypt within the next year.

She’s lived for a short time in other places overseas, including Ethiopia. “I was there doing a study abroad class through Cornell,” she recalled. “We traveled all over the country and visited several sites, including the rock-hewn churches in Lalibela. I also lived in the Bahamas for a month and studied anthropology.”

Digging up plague victims

Personally, her most interesting experience to date took place in England. “I was just a student and only stayed there for a couple of weeks,” Brevick said. “I got to work on a black plague mass-burial site at Thornton Abbey. It’s so different from what I normally do but I wanted some bio-archaeology experience.

“The site was very unusual because we don’t normally find mass burial sites,” she added. “In this case, there were about 50 bodies buried there. It was a very humbling experience because you saw what the community had been through. They were hit so hard by the plague.”

The adventure will soon continue in London, where she’s off to study for her Ph.D. Brevick was there for a short time last year to interview with the faculty at the school and found the experience a little overwhelming because of the “hustle-and-bustle of the city.” She said this is her next step in a new adventure.

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Paige is standing outside the Ajanta Caves in India. (Contributed photo)

“I’ll be at University College London,” she explained. “They were just ranked third in the world when it comes to archaeological studies. I’ll be working on a heritage management project which will be launched in Egypt. My doctoral dissertation will identify and develop co-creative heritage management strategies. I’m really interested in the relationships between archaeologists, museums, and the local communities they are working in and for.

“Rather than only advocate for more community engagement,” she said, “I think museums have a responsibility to go into their communities and ask community leadership what it is they need from the museum.”

Career goals in archaeology?

After all the education is finally finished, what are her long-term career goals?

“I think I’d like to stick with museums,” Brevick said. “I think that’s perfect for my personality. Anything that would allow me to continue advocating for archaeology cultural heritage. I feel honored and grateful to be doing what I’m doing.”

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MN World War Two Veteran Finally Heading Home

A Rushford veteran who was among the first sailors killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, is finally returning home for burial. Thanks to advances in DNA testing and a two-year-old government agency, the remains of Joe Johnson of Rushford are finally heading back to Minnesota. Dennis Rislove, a Rushford native who lives in Minneapolis, said he never got to know his uncle Joe personally but is glad he’s finally returning home once and for all.

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Here’s a high school graduation picture of Rushford, Minnesota native Joe Johnson, who was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. His remains were recently identified and are finally coming home to Rushford in 2018. (Photo by Chad Smith)

“I’m absolutely amazed at the science that allowed this to happen,” Rislove said. “It’s almost unbelievable that they’re able to do something like this.

“The fact is, I’m 74 years old and he died two-and-a-half years before I was born,” he recalled. “I never had any personal contact and never knew him. It’s kind of a distant relationship but it is still a family member. The government is returning him to me because I’m the oldest living direct relative.”

Rislove, a former Rushford-Peterson school superintendent, first found out about the possible return of Johnson to Rushford two years ago. The government agency, known as the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which reached out to him was just created in 2016. They tracked Rislove down and asked him for a DNA sample, which he submitted at a meeting in Green Bay, Wisconsin. That’s where agency officials gave Rislove a rundown of the project they were undertaking to identify the remains of every veteran killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

“In November of 2017, I got a call from the Navy that said they’d identified him (Johnson) and they’d eventually be returning the remains to me,” he said. “They sent a team from the Navy after that and they gave me a ton of information in a book of about 120 pages, and it’s all about uncle Joe. It included everything statistic from the battle, what happened, where the remains were temporarily buried, and how they were disinterred.”

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Here’s a map of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The red arrow is pointing to the position of the U.S.S. Oklahoma, which was the first ship hit by torpedoes, killing Rushford, MN native Joe Johnson, who’s remains have been identified and are returning home this year. (Photo by Chad Smith)

The remains of the Rushford veteran were positively identified at a laboratory in Nebraska and the book walked Rislove through the process. The account in the book detailed the fact that the U.S.S. Oklahoma, which Johnson was serving on, was the first ship hit in the attack. It was hit by a total of six torpedoes, sinking the ship very quickly, which then rolled over and trapped 429 men.

“Some were killed in the explosions and fires,” he said, “and some of them drowned, of course. At the time, they didn’t have any way of identifying them. They ended up burying the dead in what amounted to mass graves. When the DNA science finally came along, they decided to try and identify and return the remains to each sailors’ family.

“In fact, they opened up the first casket and inside were the remains of 95 individuals,’ he said, “and that shows you the kind of challenge they faced in doing this project. The agency disinterred all the co-mingled caskets and separated the remains, such as the skulls in one place, the femurs in another, and so forth. They cleaned all the bones and began to DNA test every single one of them, with the goal of identifying every veteran possible.”

The agency informed each family’s of every veteran that they would help set up the burials, which would include full military honors. Joe Johnson’s remains will be back in Minnesota on Friday, July 6th, in Minneapolis, where the Navy will host a military ceremony. The remains will then be escorted down to Rushford for a memorial service on Saturday, July 7th, at 1:00 p.m. The remains will be buried in the Rushford Lutheran Cemetery with full military honors, in a plot that’s located next to his mother and father’s graves.

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Workers stand on top of the overturned U.S.S. Oklahoma after the attack on Pearl Harbor, looking for dozens of sailors who were trapped underneath and died. (Contributed photo)

“While there’s not a great deal of emotional attachment for me just because I never got to know my uncle Joe,” he said, “it’s emotional because it certainly makes you more appreciate all the Joe’s.”

There is some regret that Joe Johnson had plenty of family members that never had closure after his death because most of those relatives have passed away. Johnson had two younger sisters and a younger brother that are deceased. In fact, there’s just one living family member that new Joe Johnson personally, and his name is Norm Ebner.

“He’s another uncle of mine,” Rislove said. “He actually married one of Joe’s sisters. Norm (Ebner) was in the same class as uncle Joe and they both graduated in 1939. Norm is now 99 years old and in an assisted living home. He’s the only living family member that ever knew Joe.

“His mother and two sisters absolutely adored Joe,” Rislove said, “and they talked about him all the time after his death. They did get notified relatively quickly that he was missing in action. However, it took many months before Joe was finally declared killed in action. His family was told his body was unrecoverable, and that whatever remains they found would be put into mass graves because they simply couldn’t identify each and every veteran.”

One of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s employees is a historian who studied the battle at Pearl Harbor in incredible detail. Rislove said the historian knows exactly where the torpedoes hit the Oklahoma and the exact time that they hit the ship. Because the attack occurred on a Sunday morning, most of the sailors were actually off the ship. Joe Johnson was on duty in the radio room.

“They know exactly where he was when the torpedoes hit,” Rislove said. “The historian told me he’s very confident that, based on where the torpedoes hit, that Joe was killed almost instantly, very early in the battle. I think he was trying to comfort me and help me realize Joe wasn’t one of the sailors trapped underneath when the ship overturned, and those sailors were stuck there for 48 hours before they all died.“

Rislove added, “World War Two was very short for uncle Joe.

“He enlisted in the Navy a year after graduation, in April of 1940,” he recalled. “He did basic training around the Great Lakes Training Station in Illinois. His first assignment with the Navy was on the U.S.S. Oklahoma, in Hawaii. Joe died the following year on December 7th, 1941.”

The DNA science had come so far that they could now identify mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down through the females in every family tree. Because Rislove’s mother was Joe Johnson’s sister, they could take a sample from Dennis and use it to identify his uncle Joe’s remains.

“I have to admit that I was skeptical that this would really happen a couple years ago when I got the call,” Rislove recalled. “But I then read up on some of the things they can do with DNA. I also saw a story about the U.S.S. Oklahoma and how the government had decided to disinter the bodies, so I knew that part of the story. I do wish that his immediate family members could have gotten this kind of closure too.”