WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

Field schools are intense learning laboratories that engage students deeply in living, thinking, and talking archaeology, and provide students the opportunity to work closely with other students and with instructors.  Field schools also are essential to archaeological training, a necessary experience for students planning to work in the field of archaeology, or planning to go on to graduate training in archaeology.  It is a wonderfully exciting experience!

In any field situation, there are definite skills that students must learn. In the Jemez Mountains field school, students will learn all the following: 

Field skills:

Laboratory skills:

Other experience:

Field Trips and Other Activities

Prehistoric use of the area did not end with the advent of agriculture about 3500 years ago.  Students will be able to visit places in the VCNP where agriculturalists established fields and summer field houses to grow corn and other crops during the Coalition period.  We will also be able to visit historic structures related to logging, mining, ranching and other activities occurring in the VCNP before it became a Preserve.   Several other field trips are being planned, including a tour of Bandelier National Monument and a geologic tour of the VCNP and adjacent areas.

Although we won’t be taking field trips to these two locations, both Aztec Ruins National Monument and Chaco Culture National Historic Park are within an easy drive of the Jemez Mountains and could be visited on a weekend by students attending the field school who bring their own transportation.