Video: Hopkins Park students team up with Field Museum to dig up ex-slaves’ past

Lorenzo R. Smith students taking a break during their summer excavation in Hopkins Park. Photo: Agatha Gilmore

Students at Lorenzo R. Smith Elementary School in tiny Hopkins Park, Ill., have unearthed more than 500 artifacts as part of a summer excavation led by Field Museum researchers. As Agatha Gilmore reports, the students are digging up remnants of an ex-slave's homestead as well as prehistoric bits of pottery. The dig is part of the new Kankakee County Historic Archeology program, now in its second year and sponsored by the Pembroke School District, SCORE and the No Child Left Behind Act.

"The purpose of our dig to really answer some of our questions about who lived out here, the first families that occupied this area and why they stopped in Kankakee and Pembroke Township."

-Dr. Scott Demel, Head of Anthropology Collections, Field Museum

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VIDEO: Kids dig up the trail to ex-slaves' past
Story: Past is present for Kankekee kids on archeological dig