UNG students help discover, preserve region's history
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[UNG: University of North Georgia]
[UNG students conduct archaeological digs around the region, including Healan's Mill in Hall County, a site under restoration.]
Dr. William Balco, Assistant Professor, Anthropology:This is the Head's and Healan's Mill site, the very last standing grist mill in Hall County. UNG has taken on a role in this restoration where we're going to do the archaeology.
Anthony Carrino, Senior from Gainesville, Georgia, anthropology minor: All the dirt that we collect while we're scraping it off we put into that bucket right there and then when that bucket gets about halfway full, dump about a quarter of the bucket into each one of these screens right here and then we shake it out and all of the stuff that's left behind I then run a magnet through it to see we can collect any metal left over.
The field work actually does give a lot more of the experience because it's first, uh, it's hands-on on instead of just instruction so you get to see really the whole process.
Balco: Here we have the head of the flume the flume being that channel that would take the water transport it to that mill wheel. So it went from being a ditch full of water to this box structure that we're not too sure how that works -- that's why we're excavating here -- then it flowed from there into the flume and onto the wheel. The waterwheel would be turned by the weight of the water would pull the wheel and spin it and that would turn the axles that had the mill wheels attached to those. And that's how they would grind the grain.
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[Copyright University of North Georgia November 2016]