International Field School in Interdisciplinary Archaeological Research:
Instruction and Educational Goals

The field course introduces students to the field techniques of archaeology and gives them practice identifying artifacts and recording field data that will contribute to an on-going research project. The course focuses on the range of techniques that archaeologists use to locate archaeological sites and assess their cultural significance. Unlike most field schools, which emphasize excavation at a single site, this project exposes students to several sites and a range of different work settings and techniques, including excavation, remote sensing, and soil analysis. Through participation in data collection, readings on Stone Age Europe, excursions, lectures, and discussion, students will gain insight into the methods archaeologists use to test hypotheses about past human behavior. Students will learn about the Stone Age prehistory and ancient environments of the region through site visits, lectures, and readings.

Participants will earn 4 hours of college credit through the University of Illinois - Springfield.

Before leaving for the field
Housing, meals and supplies
Work schedule while in Germany
Lecture, discussion, and excursion topics while in Germany
In the field
Rainy day, break, and optional Sunday excursions
Information about Blaubeuren and southern Germany
Contact

Before leaving for the field, students will have access to readings and orientation materials online. Course materials will be available through any internet connection.

Housing and meals

Accommodations will be comfortable small apartments with shared bedrooms. They will have basic kitchen equipment, bedding, and towels. Shared laundry facilities are available in the house. For your own convenience, come prepared to wash some clothes by hand. We will prepare our own lunches and breakfasts and have some dinners family-style at the Lamm restaurant/inn.

Required supplies

1) Work gloves, sunscreen, hat, and hard-soled work boots or work shoes.
2) Raincoat or poncho.
3) Water bottle.
4) A day pack to carry your gear to the field.
5) Any medications you need (please inform us in writing of any medical conditions we should be aware of).

Recommended items: camera and film (southern Germany is very photogenic!), bathing suit (Blaubeuren has a nice public pool), bug repellant, sunglasses.

Clothing and personal items

Summer weather in southern Germany is usually very pleasant, but we can expect anything from hot, sunny weather to cool rainy weather. You will need clothing for working in different kinds of weather, i.e., shorts as well as long pants for work, rain gear (poncho or rain coat), and warm layers for cool weather (at least a sweater and windbreaker). You will also want to bring some casual clothing for evenings and weekends.

Be sure to bring enough toiletries and personal necessities, including aspirin, and any medications or supplies (such as contact lens solution) you may need. You can buy all of these things in Blaubeuren, but they can be more expensive in Germany.

Work schedule while in Germany

The first several days will be spent in museum tours, site visits, and orientation to the region and its prehistory. Following this, teams will work Monday through Saturday in the field. Most time will be devoted to test excavations, but we will also spend time on surface survey, soil coring, and geomagnetic survey. Students will wash and label artifacts and participate in preliminary data recording. We will halt work for several excursions, and students will have Sundays free to explore Blaubeuren, hike, or visit the nearby city of Ulm.
	In the field, work will be intensive, involving physical work outdoors during the day and some time spent washing, labeling, and cataloguing artifacts in the evenings. We will work with several local avocational archaeologists who have extensive knowledge of site locations in the region around Blaubeuren. Training in field techniques, artifact identification, and data recording will be accompanied by lectures and discussions on archaeology in southern Germany, as well as excursions to nearby archaeological sites and museums.

Lecture, discussion, and excursion topics while in Germany

 1. Tour of Archaeology Museum, Blaubeuren (our home base). Overview of the area: geographic areas and changing landscapes. Introduction to regional prehistory, including 3 time periods of special significance for the local region: Early Upper Paleolithic, Late Upper Paleolithic / Mesolithic, and Early/Middle Neolithic. These three time periods will be the focus of a series of site visits intended to orient students to the region.

 2. Orientation to the region -- Archaeological site visits:

  a. Early Upper Paleolithic in Southern Germany. We will take a driving tour up the Lone valley to visit the famous cave site of Vogelherd / Stetten, about a 30 minute drive from Blaubeuren. Early archaeologists discovered a series of extraordinary ivory figurines here (replicas are in the Blaubeuren Museum). Visits to the on-going excavations of the University of Tübingen Institute of Prehistory at the cave sites of Geißenklösterle and Hohler Fels, minutes from Blaubeuren, will give us a glimpse of new finds from this early period.

  b. Last hunter-gatherers: late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic foragers faced rapid climate change. A tour of the Federsee Archaeological Museum, about 1 hour from Blaubeuren by car, and a visit to Felsställe, the location of an important late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic excavation, will introduce students to the long history of archaeology in the region while giving them a good view of the Danube river and the moraine lowlands to the south.

  c. First farmers: Museum and site visits will orient students to the landscapes settled by Neolithic people in southern Germany, and the range of Neolithic material culture we can expect to find.

3. Workshops in artifact identification will be offered by the project co-investigators, including a survey of ceramic styles produced from Neolithic through Roman times in the region.

4. Training in field techniques. Students will receive training and practice in excavation, site mapping, artifact and sample recovery, and documentation. After a one day orientation to project field methods, students will learn by doing, under faculty supervision.

Students will keep a journal while in the field. Journals will become part of the permanent record of the project. Students will receive a course grade based on the journal and the quality of their work in data collection and recording.

Optional Sunday excursions will be chosen from a wide range of options based on group preferences. Possibilities, and typical excursions in past seasons, include:

--Medieval cloister, Blaubeuren

--Ulm’s cathedral and art museum

--Canoe trip on the upper Danube

--Castle tours – Schloss Lichtenstein, Mochental

--Tübingen, University town

--Heuneburg, Iron Age hillfort

--Lake Constance

Blaubeuren and southwest Germany

The area we are working in is largely rural but there are villages and small to medium sized towns everywhere. Blaubeuren is a very charming small town with a medieval cloister and town center (see an aerial photo of the town). The town is located in the Blau river valley, sheltered by the dramatic limestone bluffs of the Swabian Alb. Blaubeuren-Asch, where we will live, is up on the plateau just above Blaubeuren.

The nearest large city is Ulm, and the nearest international airport is in Stuttgart.

For further information, contact:

Lynn Fisher
Associate Professor, Anthropology
Sociology/Anthropology Program
University of Illinois at Springfield
1 University Plaza, MS UHB 3010
Springfield, IL 62703
(217) 206-7938
fisher.lynn@uis.edu

University of Illinois at Springfield

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This page created by L. Fisher.
Last modified January 5, 2007.
fisher.lynn@uis.edu