Field Course in Iroquois Archaeology
Location: New York, United States
Season dates: July 07, 2010 - August 04, 2010
Session dates: None given
Application Deadline: Contact for details - June 15, 2010

http://www.sce.cornell.edu/ss/programs.php?v=ARKNYS&s=Overview

Program Type
Field School

Affiliation
Cornell University

Project Director
Kurt A. Jordan, Cornell University

Description
Anthropology/Archaeology/American Indian Studies 2220 is a four-week field school that offers hands-on training in archaeological methods through survey and excavation at Postcolumbian Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) sites in New York State's Finger Lakes region. The majority of class time will be spent engaged in supervised fieldwork, supplemented by lectures introducing archaeological methods and Iroquois history and material culture. Excavations will gather data on Iroquois residential architecture and domestic activities. Students will master field procedures, record-keeping, and interpretation of field data; study Iroquois material culture; and write a short research paper (7-10 pages) that uses data generated by the project to evaluate a topic of anthropological interest.

This will be the fourth season of excavation at the Seneca White Springs site (occupied circa 1688-1715) in Geneva, New York. White Springs was a nucleated village that housed 1,000-2,000 people. Excavations in 2007-2009 found copious domestic artifacts and preserved traces of Seneca features below a plowzone. Excavations in 2010 will concentrate on expanding understanding of residential architecture, and confirming whether a palisade existed at the site. Research design and field methods have been developed in consultation with members of the Seneca Nation of Indians, and the project will be in contact with Seneca representatives throughout the excavation period.

Students should register for ANTHR/ARKEO/AIS 2220 (3 credits) with the Cornell Summer Session. The field school runs for eight hours per day, five days per week, for four weeks, followed by a two-day on-campus period for completion of the research paper. Lab work will take place on days when the weather does not permit excavation.

Full-tuition scholarships for Native American students are available through Cornell's American Indian Program. Please contact Kurt Jordan for additional information.

Period(s) of occupation
Iroquois/Haudenosaunee, 17th-18th century

Minimum age
18: High school graduates, college students, and post-graduates

Experience required
Course work in Archaeology or American Indian Studies is desirable, but not required.

Room and Board arrangements
Students should make their own arrangements for housing in the Ithaca area. Dorm-room lodging is available through the Cornell summer session; many summer sublets also are available in Ithaca. Details on both types of housing are available on the Summer Session website.

Students need to bring a bag lunch to eat on-site each day; breakfast and dinner are on your own.

Academic credit
Number of credits: 3
Offered by: Cornell University Summer Session
Tuition: See Cornell summer session website

Contact information
Kurt A. Jordan
Department of Anthropology, 210 McGraw Hall, Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853-4601
United States
607 255-3109
kj21@cornell.edu

Bibliography
Kurt A. Jordan, "Seneca Iroquois Settlement Pattern, Community Structure, and Housing, 1677-1779." Northeast Anthropology. 67: 23-60. 2004.

Kurt A. Jordan, "An Eighteenth Century Seneca Iroquois Short Longhouse from the Townley-Read Site." Archaeology of the Iroquois, edited by Jordan E. Kerber. 234-250. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2007 [article originally published 2003].

Kurt A. Jordan, The Seneca Restoration, 1715-1754: An Iroquois Local Political Economy. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2008.

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