"If It’s Broke, You Gotta Fix It: Conservation Efforts of an Excavation Trench"

Drs. Danielle Riebe, Attila Gyucha (Assistant Professors, University of Georgia), and William Ridge (Instructor, University of North Georgia-Gainesville) are colleagues who have worked together for the past 13 years on numerous projects throughout southeastern Hungary. This BRAG Nov. 2024 presentation pertains to the conservation effort in in a 38-Year-Old Excavation Trench in Hungary.

While directors of their own projects, Prehistoric Interactions on the Plain Project (PIPP – see pipproject.org ), Körös Regional Archaeological Project(KRAP), and Copper Age Settlement Project (CASP), in 2021, they started a joint project, the Vésztő-Mágor Conservation and Exhibition Program (VMCEP) focusing on the conservation and preservation of a large excavation trench on the largest prehistoric tell site (i.e., settlement mound) on the Great Hungarian Plain.

Exposed in 1986, the in-situ excavation trench was covered with a permanent structure and turned into an exhibition that is the heart of the Vésztő-Mágor National Historical Park. In the last nearly 40 years, sections of the trench have become unstable necessitating archaeological and conservation intervention. The assembled international team has developed and implemented a plan that relies on a unique combination of archaeological research, stabilization and conservation, environmental data collection, exhibition, as well as student training in conservation and archaeological fieldwork.

Riebe and Gyucha held several postdoctoral positions at SUNY Buffalo, the Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago, Illinois), and the University of Illinois at Chicago before moving to Athens, Georgia and joining the University of Georgia in 2020. From 2022-2024, Riebe was a lecturer at the University of North Georgia (Gainesville) and, in 2024, she began a tenure-track job at UGA. After completing his PhD in 2023, Ridge was offered a lectureship at the University of North Georgia (Gainesville). All three researchers have offered students at UGA and UNG new local and international archaeological field opportunities, including participation in the VMCEP and look forward to continuing to do so in the future.

The archaeology meetings are sponsored by the Blue Ridge Archaeology Guild and the University of North Georgia Anthropology Student Club. Meetings are generally held on the second Wednesday of every month at UNG’s Cottrell Center, room 272 at 7pm. The club’s meetings are free and open to the interested public.