Fieldwork is one of the most exciting benefits of the Program. Depending on your schedule, you may be able to engage in field excavation projects for two or three summers before you graduate. You may be find a match between your interests and a project by a W. U. faculty member, or you may find that the particular culture and time period of your interest is best covered by another outside project.
Recent W. U. faculty excavation projects have included:
- Dr. Symeonoglou’s Ithaka project in Greece
- Dr. Kelly’s continuing excavations at Cahokia Mounds, Illinois
- Dr. Fritz’s work on Mississippian period mounds in Louisiana and in pueblos sites in New Mexico
- Dr. Marshall’s work with the Okiek hunter-gatherer sites in Kenya
- Dr. Rotroff’s work on both Greek and Roman sites around the Mediterranean
- Dr. Browman’s work on early American historical archaeology and on Bolivian South American sites
- Dr. Smith's work on the application of geology to archaeological interpretation
- Dr. Kidder's work on the geoarchaeology of Mississippian cultures
- Dr. Frachetti's work on prehistoric Central Asian pastoralists
- Dr. Freidel's five-year project at the Maya site of El Peru.
- Dr. Dale's work in neolithic Kenya sites.
Field Schools
There are two main on-line listings for field schools. All academic field schools from American universities and many from foreign institutions are included in the Archaeological Fieldwork Opportunities Bulletin, with a new composite version available after each January 15. Current listings can be viewed at the AFOB site.
In addition, you may wish to check out a more diverse listing of projects, some for credit, other not, which are included at shovelbums.org, which updates its list twice a month.
Internships
There are several internship opportunities in the St. Louis area. Examples of recent internships that students have participated in include working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Louis County Planning Department, Missouri Historical Society, and St. Louis Science Center, as well as working with local cultural resource management and contract archaeology firms. Students interested in internships should consult with Dr. David Browman, McM 118, dlbrowma@wustl.edu.