Archaeological Fieldwork on a Cayuga Iroquois Site, Central New York State
Preliminary Listing
Location: New York, United States
Season dates: June 01, 2010 - July 31, 2010
Session dates: Season Dates are preliminary and subject to change
Application Deadline: Contact for details - April 14, 2010

Program Type
Field School

Affiliation
Dept of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh

Project Director
Dr. Kathleen M. S. Allen, University of Pittsburgh

Description
This six week archaeological field school will take place in the Finger Lakes regions of New York State. Students will participate in an ongoing program of field research designed to investigate the development of the Cayuga Iroquois and the impact of European contact on this group. The program will include instruction in techniques of survey, surface collection, excavation, mapping, and preliminary artifact analysis, as well as lectures, demonstrations, and field trips. Students will assist in research at two Cayuga Iroquois sites occupied during the mid to late 1500s. Previous fieldwork on these late prehistoric sites has concentrated on obtaining information about site size as well as more detailed information on settlement pattern through the detailed investigation of several longhouse segments. Field work this summer is designed with two goals in mind. First, we seek to gain information about other structures at these sites in order to provide a comparative base for examining diversity within and between these communities. As these two sites have quite different patterns of artifact density, we hope to obtain larger samples of material in context both within the residential structures and at the site middens. Our investigations this summer will provide comparative material to examine changes in subsistence and economic activities associated with the arrival of Europeans. A second avenue of research continues our work investigating clay sources and pottery production associated with these sites. Clay outcrops in the streambed near both sites. We will do some experimental work using clay from these sources to make clay pots.

Period(s) of occupation
Late Woodland, ca. mid-1500s

Minimum age
18

Experience required
Introduction to archaeology course very useful

Room and Board arrangements
Students enrolled in the field school will live in two houses in the town of Ithaca, New York, (home to Cornell University and Ithaca College). These houses are in the college town area just two blocks from the waterfalls of Cascadilla Creek and from Cornell University. Many students have single rooms although some rooms must be shared. Student managers are selected weekly and organize chores. Meals are made cooperatively by student groups of two or three. This student housing is well kept and has a great landlord who deals with any problems quickly. Some evening lab hours are held in the houses. Weekends are generally free unless we have an abundance of rain during the week. Students generally enjoy the comraderie of living and working with a group of their peers interested in working outdoors doing archaeology.
Cost: ca $900 for six weeks

Academic credit
Number of credits: 6 credits
Offered by: University of Pittsburgh
Tuition: ca. $2,500

Contact information
Dr. Kathleen M. Allen
3123 Posvar Hall, Dept. of Anthropology, Univ. of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
USA
412-648-7511
412-648-7535
kmallen@pitt.edu

Bibliography
William Engelbrecht, Iroquoia. Syracuse, 2003.

Dean Snow, The Iroquois. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996.

Hester, T., Shafer, and Feder, Field Methods in Archaeology. Mountain View, California, 1997.

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