Whether you live in Raleigh, Roxboro, orRockingham, you can find pieces of historywhere you walk every day. Many objectsbecome buried over time. Imagine losing abutton in your backyard. Grass, dirt, leaves,or even a new driveway might eventuallycover it. The button may disappear down ahole and stay there for hundreds of yearsbefore someone finds it and asks questionssuch as: Who lost the button? What is itmade of? What kind of clothing was it on?What do the answers to all of these questionstell us about the past?

An artifact is any object made or used byhumans. An archaeologist is a scientist whodigs up, or excavates, objects and studiesthem to understand past cultures. Archaeologicalartifacts can be hundreds or thousandsof years old. But you don’t have to be anarchaeologist to search for artifacts in yourbackyard. And you can use what you find tohelp archaeologists learn about history.

Many people have uncovered artifacts in theiryards. You might find part of a ceramic bowlmade by an American Indian in the 1500s. Or youmay discover a piece of a plate made by a colonialpotter in the 1700s. These two objects showhow people have used the Piedmont’s plentifulclay to make pottery over the centuries.

Or you just may find a button. Could it havefallen off the uniform of a Civil War soldier? Ordid it come from a textile mill in the early 1900s?Maybe it was on a shirt that belonged to a boywho lived in your house before you did. Whereelse could it have come from? What can it revealabout the Piedmont’s history?

If you find an artifact in your backyard, you canusually keep it, sell it, or try to donate it to amuseum. There are laws thatprotect artifacts on public landssuch as parks and historic sites.Visitors to these areas cannotdig up or take away objects thatthey find. That way, importantrecords of the past will be preserved.It also helps archaeologistsstudy artifacts in the spotswhere they came from. If youdiscover an artifact on publicland, leave it in place, put a naturalobject such as a large rocknear it, and tell a park rangerwhat you found and where it is.

Keep your eyes open and you may uncover the past right in your own backyard!

Monarch mystique

Now is the time of year for North America’smost famous butterfly, the monarch, to beginits long journey south. Monarch butterflies flysouth for the winter because they cannot surviveextended periods of freezing temperatures.The monarch is the only butterfly thatmakes such a long, two-way migration, whichmay be almost 3,000 miles in the fall fromCanada to wintering sites in central Mexico.

Monarchs begin their life as an egg laid on a milkweedplant (their host plant). Within a few days, the egg hatchesand the tiny caterpillar eats the eggshell as its first meal.The developing larvae are voraciousfeeders and go through fivestages (called instars) as they eat,grow and molt. The last instarundergoes dramatic changes as itprepares to form a chrysalis. It firstcreates a silk pad under a leaf orother protected surface. It thenhangs upside down in a "J" shapedprepupa for about 24 hours. Thefinal molt results in the chrysalis,or pupal stage, of the butterfly.

It remains a chrysalis for 10 to 14 days. During thistime, the transformation from larva to adult is completed.Emerging monarchs frequently cling to theirspent chrysalis, pumping fluid from their swollenabdomens into the veins of the wings, gradually causingthe wings to expand. The freshly emerged butterflyoften sits quietly for the next hour or so as the expandedwings "harden" to enable flight.