美国国家公共电台 NPR Migrant Workers Leave Behind Clues To Depression-Era Lifestyle（在线收听）

STEVE INSKEEP: In recent years in Delta, Pa., if you went just past the edge of town to a wooded area by an old railroad trestle, you'd find people digging - archaeologists excavating a bit of very modest history. They weren't sifting through the ruins of some old mansion but rather the remains of a migrant worker camp.

DANIEL SAYERS: What we focus on typically are the things that people often just aren't paying as much attention to.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Daniel Sayers of American University says the archaeologists were exploring what was once called a hobo jungle. During the Great Depression, men wandered by road or rail to where the jobs are like a quarry in Delta. In the place where they lived, scholars found pieces of a board game and a mandolin pick all hand-carved from slate.

SAYERS: It's the stuff that we leave behind. It's the garbage. It's the things of daily use. It's the places we create. And the places we make reflect ourselves.

INSKEEP: Humble as this camp was, archaeologists look at the remains and see a domestic community.

SAYERS: I think when we start looking at these marginalized communities, we see different ways of existing emerge, different forms of community organization, different ways that people help one another out. And it's not that basic relationship of, I work for you for X amount, and you take what I produce and sell it yourself to make more money than you're paying me.

GREENE: Yeah. Justin Uehlein of American University says he wanted to dig up signs of the workers' humanity.

JUSTIN UEHLEIN: Because these aren't animals. These aren't insects. These aren't demons. These are real people that have the same kinds of struggles in life that that we all have, arguably much, much harder struggles.

GREENE: And the researchers have already identified several other sites for excavation.