Field Schools and Scheduled Excavations in the Western USA

Chaco Stratigraphy Project (New Mexico)
Ongoing. University of New Mexico.Welcome to the Chaco Stratigraphy Project, an interdisciplinary research program at the University of New Mexico involving field investigations in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Chaco was the center of an unprecedented cultural development between ca. AD 800 and 1200 known as the "Chaco Phenomenon." During this period, people living in and around the canyon experienced an explosive episode of economic growth that culminated in the construction of large masonry buildings called "great houses."

Cooper's Ferry, Idaho
Summer, 2012. Oregon State University. Cooper's Ferry is an early Paleoindian site in the Salmon River valley of Idaho since 2009. The site has a long record of repeated human occupation, beginning with a Western Stemmed Tradition/Paleoarchaic artifact assemblage.

Crow Canyon Archaeology Adventures (Colorado)
June to September (annually). The Crow Canyon Archaeological Center continues its on-going research on ancient Pueblo Indian communities with weekly dig programs for adults, teens, families, and other groups.

El Presidio de Santa Barbara (California)
July 5-August 12, 2012. California Department of Parks and Recreation and the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation, California Polytechnic State University. Intensive 6-week course in both field and laboratory methods at historic Spanish colonial fort (1782-1846) in downtown Santa Barbara

Field Methods in Rock Art (Texas)
June 5-June 29, 2012. Shumla School and Texas State University. A three-week field school in rock art recording offered through the Department of Extension Studies, emphasis on the Lower Pecos rock art. Are you a looking for an amazing field school opportunity? Every summer SHUMLA offers its Field Methods in Rock Art field school course. This year, this unique experience will be held from 5-29 June 2012. Enroll to spend four intense weeks exploring desert canyons and recording world-class rock art while earning three graduate or six undergraduate college credit hours through Texas State University. You will learn: - How to establish a field research design and data collection protocols - Current theories regarding the meaning and function of rock art - Rock art recording methods, laboratory procedures, and data analysis - The archeology of the Lower Pecos, hunter-gatherer lifeways, and foraging adaptation For more details, visit our Web-site http://www.SHUMLA.org/, contact the office at programs@SHUMLA.org or call (432) 292-4847.

Fort Vancouver (Washington)
June 19-August 4, 2012. Portland State University, Washington State University Vancouver, the National Park Service, Northwest Cultural Resources Institute, and the Fort Vancouver National Trust. Historical archaeology at Fort Vancouver, the ca. 1825-1860 regional headquarters and supply depot for the Hudson's Bay Company, and Vancouver Barracks, the first (ca. 1849-2003) permanent U.S. Army post and command center in the Pacific Northwest. This year's field school will explore Fort Vancouver's multicultural Village (also known as "Kanaka Village"). This colonial village was the largest settlement in the Pacific Northwest in the 1830s and 1840s. It contained people from all over the world and the Pacific Northwest, including Native Hawaiians, African Americans, the Metis, and people of many different American Indian tribes. The field school will provide a means to recapture the early history of multiculturalism in the Pacific Northwest while engaging the modern Portland/Vancouver area in the unique history of their closest National Park site.

Greater Yellowstone (Montana)
May 16-June 29, 2012. Indiana University. Indiana University will be offering its eighth cooperative program in archaeological field methods for summer 2012, in the beautiful Bighorn and Absaroka Mountain ranges of Montana and Wyoming. This field school is a holistic, field-based program in the social history and human ecology of the Northwestern High Plains and Middle Rocky Mountains with a special emphasis on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. If you like camping, hiking, and archaeology, this field school is for you

Manson-Newell Farmstead (Oregon)
June 26-August 17, 2012. Oregon State University. The 2012 OSU Department of Anthropology Historical Archaeology Field School will be held at the site of the 1840s-1861 Manson-Newell farmstead located in Champoeg State Heritage Area.

Rancho de Taos (New Mexico)
June 4-July 16, 2013. Southern Methodist University. Students take between 12 and 18 hours for this four-field Anthropological approach to archaeological methodologies focused on ecological and cultural resources survey, Archaic through Historic period rock art recording, and historic excavations on the historic Ranchos de Taos plaza in Taos New Mexico.

Rock Art Ranch (Arizona)
June 3-July 5, 2013. University of Arizona. Rock Art Ranch contains some of the most spectacular rock art in the Southwest, dating from 6000 BC to AD 1400, all of which has been documented. The ranch lies in the high desert at 5100’ elevation, in an area used over the past eight thousand years by mobile hunting and gathering groups, early farmers, and later, after A.D. 500, by more sedentary farmers representing archaeological cultures of the adjacent Mogollon Rim and Colorado Plateau regions. Until the fieldschool began in 2011, no professional archaeological work has been conducted on the ranch or its nearest neighbors other than documentation of the petroglyphs.

Totah Archaeological Project (New Mexico, USA)
June 3-July 23, 2013. San Juan College and B-Square Ranch. The Totah Archaeological Project Field School is being offered and supported by San Juan College in partnership with Tommy Bolack and the B-Square Ranch. The goal of the project is to provide archaeological educational opportunities for San Juan College students, local community members, and visitors to the region, and to contribute to research on the Anasazi culture in the Totah area.