IUP posted not 'neglected' by capital

For a few archeologists-in-training, a poster that began as a project for a class led to meeting with the state Senate in Harrisburg on Oct. 2.

Kathryn Gompers, Susan Lukowski, and Audrey Lilley - all senior anthropology students - traveled to the Capitol to present their project at an undergrad conference. Leland Geletka (senior, anthropology and sociology) also worked on the project.

Not that this was the first time they had presented the project in a conference. In fact, they were invited to be presenters at the Harrisburg conference as a result of their presentation at the IUP undergrad conference.

They had also presented in Texas at the Society for American Archeology conference, which featured more faculty than undergrad.

"(Texas) was nerve-wracking, because, when you're presenting at the SAAs, you know everyone there knows more than you," said Lukowski.

Gompers added that the Harrisburg event had more undergrads from the hard sciences than archeologists.

"It was good, though, because the people who did come up to us were genuinely interested," she said.

The poster is on display on the first floor of McElhaney Hall and is an effort of about a year's research and study. The four students began it for a course last fall.

From there, they decided to continue working on it and present it at IUP's undergraduate scholars' conference during the second semester and the Texas conference.

Over the summer, they were invited to present at the Harrisburg conference and revamped the poster just for the event.

"It's nice to see that the state is taking some interest in the research projects of undergraduates," said Lilley. "A lot of the time it feels like we're doing all of this work and nobody is recognizing any of it except our professors, so now it's nice to show off our hard work to another audience."

The project, "Neglected ceramics of the Crooked Creek watershed," examined pottery from two sites along Crooked Creek and compared the pottery to samples from three cultural areas in Pennsylvania.

The conclusion?

"There were some similarities, but nothing that could be good evidence," said Gompers. "There were a lot of differences." Professor Beverly Chiarulli was their advisor.