Outdoor Field Laboratory

 

We take students out of the classroom! Many of our courses include field components where we teach students to carry out data collection in natural or contrived settings. Our program is equipped to train students for a wide range of field methodologies from foot and aerial drone surveys to sub-surface excavation and soil core auguring.

Archaeology is a growth profession within the field of Cultural Resource Management (CRM). There are increasing employment opportunities as Archaeological Field Technicians with a two-year degree and field work experience. We train students using high tech equipment which is commonplace in CRM: GIS, GPS, GNSS/DGPS, Laser Transits, drone mapping and digital photography. We also get our gloves on and get old school with shovels, trowels, and dry screening for subsurface excavation. 

We are in our second year of creating an outdoor archaeology testing area. In Spring 2023, our ANTR 2L Outdoor Field Laboratory class excavated three 1x1 meter units to a shallow depth and backfilled them with contrived artifacts. Each group arranged the artifacts in a pattern which tells a story of what might have happened in the past and what type of site could it have been? Our challenge will be next year when we excavate these areas again to see if we can decipher the original narrative that the students had envisioned. This is experimental, interactive, and active archaeology.