Field schools are an important and necessary part of a degree and/or career in archaeology, and a valuable addition to a resume. Offered during the first UC Davis summer session (June 25th-August 3rd) the UC Davis field school will provide students with a demanding, extensive, six week course of hands-on training in archaeological field and lab techniques.

Prehistoric California was home to one of the most diverse arrays of human cultural adaptation in North America. This field school is unique in that students will get a taste for two vastly different archaeological assemblages created almost simultaneously 600 miles from one another. The program will allow students to get experience in both coastal and interior settings.

House excavation, Owens Valley

Profile at Punta Gorda Rockshelter

During the course, students will receive practical training in the following areas:

· data recording methods
· excavation and surveying methods
· identification of cultural materials
· field cataloging and analysis
· laboratory techniques
· mapping
· global positioning systems (GPS)

In addition, we will supplement this training with informal lectures given by instructors and guest speakers on topics such as the culture history and ethnography of California. Students will be enrolled through UC Davis in Anthropology 181 for 9 summer session units.

Big Pine Sweat House (photo by Julian Steward)

Owens Valley Reserach

For the first four weeks of the program, we will be implementing a household archaeological approach in order to shed light on how people lived in the area as well as on other theoretical issues about social complexity and sharing. To do so, we will devote four weeks to the excavation of a community of dwelling units at the CA-INYO-30 site in Owens Valley. In addition, we will also focus one week on survey work, providing students with an important aspect of archaeological work. Survey work will be focused around identifying distributions of artifacts and sites around the shores of Owens Lake. Students will also be exposed to lab activities during the six week field school. The field project will contribute to the doctoral research of Nicole Reich.

Punta Gorda Rockshelter Research

For the final two weeks of the field school we will be excavating the Punta Gorda Rockshelter (PGRS). The site has amazingly well preserved stratigraphy with over 35 varve-like depositional events. Even more interesting, the site appears to have been occupied for less than 100 years between approximately AD 1200-1300. The majority of the deposit is shell from California mussel (Mytilus californianus) and bone from marine mammals, birds and some terrestrial mammals.

Shell data from the site will be used in Adie's dissertation as well as a master's thesis by Arran Bell at California State University, Chico. These projects will examine the sustainability of mussel harvest by the site's occupants using shell size as a proxy for mussel age to determine the demographic profile of the mussels exploited. Arran Bell will also test seasonality of use through stable isotope analysis of shells from the site.

Working in Punta Gorda Rockshelter

This project will be made possible thanks to the Lone Pine Paiute Shoshone, the Bear River Band of Rohnerville Rancheria, the Bureau of Land Management Bishop and Arcata Field Offices and UC Davis Anthropology.

Owens Valley: A Mono Home (photo by Edward Curtis)

For more information, please contact:
Adie Whitaker/Nicole Reich
Department of Anthropology
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616
arwhitaker@ucdavis.edu