Field Schools and Scheduled Excavations in the Middle USA
Field schools listed below with dates older than the current year may indicate an ongoing project that has not yet established dates for this season.
Angel Mounds (Indiana)
May 11-June 22, 2011. Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI) and Glenn A. Black Laboratory Indiana University Bloomington. The Angel site (12Vg1) is a large (ca. 47 ha) palisaded Middle Mississippian agricultural town with 11 earthen mounds on the Ohio River near Evansville, Indiana. Professional research has been ongoing at the site for over 80 years, including the pioneering work of Glenn A. Black from 1939 until his untimely death in 1964. More recent excavations, geophysical survey, radiocarbon dating, and other specialized analyses have vastly increased our understanding of this site and its importance in Midwestern prehistory.
Forensic Anthropology (Ohio)
June 18-July 13, 2012. Past Foundation. he Ohio State University Forensic Anthropology Field School is an intensive, four-week short course with an emphasis on Forensic Anthropology. It is unlike any other Forensic Anthropology course currently available in that participants follow a mock murder case from crime scene discovery to courtroom testimony.
Bells Bend (Tennessee)
July 5-August 4, 2012. University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Locating and examining prehistoric and historic archaeological sites in and near the Bells Bend area immediately west of Nashville, Tennessee.
Crescent Bay Hunt Club (Wisconsin US)
June 1-July 10, 2010. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Excavations at this large Oneota village site have been running since 1998. The AD 1250-1350 palisaded site has yielded at least one house, hundreds of features, and unique ceramic, lithic, and copper tools. The director (Robert Jeske) will be assisted by three Ph.D. students as TAs.
Elbee and Karishta sites (North Dakota, USA)
May 24 - July 2, 2010. University of North Dakota. The 2010 summer field school will be held at the Elbee and Karishta sites, located within the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, Mercer County, ND (map). This National Historic Site was established in 1974 to preserve over 50 archeological sites located near the mouth of the Knife River in west-central North Dakota. The most notable of these sites are the large earthlodge villages which reflect the culture and hunter-agricultural lifestyle of Northern Plains Village Indians, primarily the Hidatsa and Mandan. Circular earthlodge depressions abound at the larger villages, where the largest earthlodge depressions reach up to 40 feet in diameter.
Field Methods in Rock Art (Texas)
March 18-22, 2013. Shumla School. Field Methods in Rock Art is a three-week field school in rock art recording offered through the Department of Extension Studies at Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas, in partnership with SHUMLA. This class, designed for both graduate and undergraduate credit, is held between the spring and summer semesters at the SHUMLA campus in southwest Texas.
Gault (Texas)
July-August 2012. Idaho State University and the Gault School for Archaeological Research at Texas State University at San Marcos. Deep testings of the Gault site have repeatedly found traces of what appears to be a pre-Clovis occupation, people who may have lived in central Texas before 13,500 years ago. The 2011 season will be focused on layers below the Clovis occupations, where excavators hope to find definitive proof of pre-Clovis.
Kampsville (Illinois, USA)
June 9–July 19, 2013. Arizona State University and Center for American Archaeology. Whether you are a beginning or an advanced student, you can earn credit through a wide variety of field and laboratory courses at Arizona State University's Kampsville Field School. Held at the Center for American Archeology’s research and education headquarters in Kampsville, Illinois, the program allows students to earn 9 credits of undergraduate or graduate coursework from one of three 6-week options.
Kincaid (Illinois)
May 20-July 12, 2013 (two sessions) Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.The current Archaeology Field School is held at Kincaid Mounds in far southern Illinois, a Mississippian mound center located in Massac County near Metropolis. The course is offered as two consecutive 4-week long, 3-credit-hour sections; you can take either or both. Students will live in Brookport, IL during the week, living, working, and eating together. They will be returned to Carbondale Friday evenings, with free time until early Monday morning, when they will be driven back to Brookport and Kincaid Mounds.
Michilimackinac (Michigan USA)
mid-June to late August, each summer. Mackinac State Historic Parks. Several ongoing excavations around the island to visit.
MSU Campus Archaeology Program
June 1-July 2, 2010. Michigan State. Ongoing excavations of historical structures on MSU's campus in East Lansing.
Straub Site (Missouri)
June 7-29, 2012. University of Missouri-Kansas City. We will be revisiting the Straub site, home of the Green family during the Border War, the Civil War, and the time of Reconstruction afterward. This field school is offered through the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Toltec Mounds (Arkansas)
TBA 2013. Arkansas Archeological Society. The Training Program in Archeology is a research project where individuals interested in archeology can gain experience in all phases of archeological excavation, site survey, and laboratory processing under professional supervision
Trempeleau (Wisconsin, USA)
TBA 2011. UW-Baraboo/Sauk County and the University of Illinois. The 2010 field school uncovered early Mississippian artifacts such as red-slipped pottery and stone tools made of exotic flints that were brought up river by ancient people from present-day Missouri. They also detected several Mississippian house basins with numerous hearths. Together with the effigy mound complex in the area, these remains represent the first town of Trempealeau.
Yankeetown (Illinois)
June 4-July 14, 2012. Indiana University. This Year’s Midwestern Archaeology Field School will be held in Lebanon, IL focusing on two Pre-Columbian mound centers in the uplands surrounding Cahokia. We are teaming up with University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Field School, led by Professor Timothy Pauketat, in order to investigate how and why these ancient people constructed their world, and to discover the secrets of religious practices in early Mississippian society. (scroll down)
Kelleys Island (Ohio)
June 18-June 23, 2012. The Past Foundation. Kelleys Island is rich in natural and cultural history, and PAST Foundation’s Cultural Landscapes summer STEM Bridge Program will guide students through establishing a new informatics system for presenting that heritage to visitors and residents. Participants will differentiate modern and historic uses of the island and map significant features and locations.