The Exploring Joara Foundation...”unearthing the forgotten past”

Washing artifacts at the Berry Site Field School.

Rachel Briggs examines the stories of people in the past to provide insight into how food impacted their daily lives and culture and how it shaped their world.

As a teaching associate professor of anthropology and archaeology, she specializes in foodways archaeology, thinking of historical diets as choices rather than a biological imperative. Students in her classes often enjoy samplings of foods such as pimento cheese, “pot likker” and cacao nibs.

“Foodways research asks: What if people have been thriving for millennia? What if they were eating certain foods in the past not because they didn’t have any other options, but because they wanted to eat those foods?” Briggs said.

Outside the classroom, Briggs is also helping to tell the stories of North Carolina’s Native peoples through her work as a director of the Berry site, a significant archaeological site in Morganton, North Carolina. Moore is executive archaeologist of the Exploring Joara Foundation, which manages The Berry Site Field School.

Learn more: https://go.unc.edu/No8t6
The Exploring Joara Foundation...”unearthing the forgotten past”

A group from the Asheville Museum of History visited the Berry Site today.

Great day at Field School at the Berry Site today - even with some light rain. Lots of interesting finds as we washed artifacts. Very cool pipe - at the end of the photos.

2026 Field School is underway!

Today was the last public Dig Day this Spring. Beautiful day, but hot☀️. Eight guests were first time visitors and two guests drove 5.5 hours (from Richmond, VA) to join us.

After a site tour, the team worked over a native structure and excavated pottery sherds, projectile points, daub, soap stone, debitage, possible pipe fragments, etc.

Field School students will take over the site until the end of June.

Public Dig Days will return this Fall.

Tech Titans (a Lego robotics team that worked with EJF) competed at the First World championship in Houston last weekend.

From Coach Atul Mene ======

How young minds (5th to 8th Graders) turned FLL Innovation project into Real‑World Change

Last Father’s Day, as a proud father and proud coach, I shared the success story of my son Aarush and his team Tech Titans at the WPI International Event in Boston.

This season, their journey reached an even greater milestone. The team advanced to the FIRST World Championship in Houston—the largest K‑12 robotics event in the world, witnessed by nearly 50,000+ people across the FLL, FTC, and FRC communities in George R Brown Convention Center, Houston, Texas.

This year, 10,000+ FLL Challenge teams participated globally, with only the top 160 teams qualifying for the FIRST Championship in Houston.

Representing North Carolina as the Champions Team, Tech Titans competed on the world stage against these elite teams and finished in the top 50%, a truly notable achievement considering the scale and caliber of the competition.

Along the way, the team earned the 1st Place Core Values Award at Regionals and the 2nd Place Champions Award at the North Carolina State Competition.

While they couldn’t bring home a trophy from the World Championship, what they gained was far more meaningful. They learned, innovated, iterated, and relentlessly troubleshot, navigating many challenges and “hops” to deliver a real‑world solution for archaeologists.

Their project, ArchePal, helps archaeologists excavate mountains of paperwork and addresses a real industry challenge. This impactful work was featured by Smithsonian Magazine, and ArchePal now lives on as an archaeologist’s digital friend:
🌐 www.archepal.com
📱 Available on both the App Store and Google Play Store

Of course, as parents and coaches, we all love trophies and podium moments. But as a coach guiding these young innovators, seeing them transform an idea into a real, impactful solution matters far more than any trophy.

The students put in both the homework and the hard work to deeply understand archaeologists’ challenges, and they were fortunate to learn from and collaborate with incredible experts, including:

Dr. Jim Gibb, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
Dr. John Millhauser, NC State University
Mr. Wesley Parrish, Site Registrar, NC Office of State Archaeology
Mr. Mike Carpenter, Exploring Joara Foundation, NC

And Archaeology staff from Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, North Carolina and Maryland State Archaeology departments.

Beyond ArchePal, PermzPlus came to life, a 2KB reusable access‑control library, optimized to operate in under 10 nanoseconds, and open‑sourced it on GitHub, giving back to the broader developer and research community.

Immensely proud of Aarush & Tech Titans team (Aarush, Anish, Arjun, Atharv, Prakhar, Sachin, Shreyan & Yogi) with support from dedicated parents, this is what learning, purpose, perseverance, and real‑world impact truly look like. 🚀
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EJF Dig Day today. We finished just before the rain started. We found pottery sherds, flakes, rocks and (maybe) a gaming piece.

A public Lab Night was held tonight in Morganton.

Participants washed, examined and sorted artifacts from plow zone 1, over structure 10 at the Berry site (excavated at the public Dig Day last Saturday). Flakes, point, drilled (?) stone, pottery sherds and a metal fragment.

Thanks to the volunteer workers and docent staff - Linda Jencson and Larry Beane.

Another fun Dig Day today! Weather was great and a fun group of folks helped excavate at the Berry Site. One attendee celebrated her birthday with us.