Alcamo Archaeological Project, Italy - Institute for Field Research


Location: Alcamo , Italy

Season: 
May 26, 2019 to June 22, 2019

Application Deadline: 
Friday, April 5, 2019

Deadline Type: 
Rolling

Website: 
http://ifrglobal.org/program/italy-alcamo/

Flyer: PDF icon syllabus-italy-alcamo-2019.pdf

Program Type

Field school

RPA certified

no

Affiliation:

Institute for Field Research, Connecticut College, University of North Georgia, Metropolitan State University Denver

Project Director:

Dr. William M. Balco, Dr. Michael J. Kolb

Project Description

The Alcamo Archaeological Project is a multidisciplinary research project investigating Iron Age to medieval (c. 9th c. BCE to 15th c. CE) occupation and land use around the city of Alcamo in western Sicily. This area was home to temporally and culturally diverse populations for more than two millennia. The archaeological survey and excavation project explores the development and growth of the Iron Age and medieval settlements around Alcamo, focusing on sites at Monte Bonifato and Calatubo. This project uses hands-on experiential learning methods, combining regional and site-specific surveys with stratigraphic excavation and laboratory analysis to understand Sicily’s ancient past and train future archaeologists. The 2019 field season will focus on excavating tombs and exploratory trenches in the territory of Alcamo. Come join the Alcamo Archaeological Project and contribute to better understanding western Sicily’s complex archaeological record!

Period(s) of Occupation: Bronze-Iron Age

Project size: 
1-24 participants

Minimum Length of Stay for Volunteers: Participants are required to stay for the full duration of the field school.

Minimum age: 
18

Experience required: 
No prior experience is required to participate in this program.

Room and Board Arrangements

Students will be housed in an apartment complex in the city of Balestrate. Students will complete assigned, daily chores in order to keep the apartments clean. The project will transport all students to and from the site daily, as well as to local grocery stores and shops. Breakfast and lunch will be provided Monday through Saturday. Students will make and pack their lunch Monday through Friday. Dinners will be provided Monday through Friday at Ristorante Corallo, located on the ground level of the apartment building. Dinner on Saturday, and all Sunday meals are not provided. Vegetarian, gluten-free, or any other special dietary requests will be accommodated. The water in the apartment is potable; however, bottled water will be provided to all project participants. All students are expected to be respectful to apartment and restaurant staff at all times.

Cost: 
Room and Board are included in the cost of the program.

Academic Credit

Name of institution offering credit: 
Connecticut College
Number of credits offered 8 Semester Credits
Tuition: 
$4,310

Location

Contact Information
Institute for Field Research
2999 Overland Ave. Suite 103
Los Angeles
CA
USA
90064
info@ifrglobal.org
Telephone: 
424-209-1173
Recommended Bibliography: 

REQUIRED READINGS

Balco, W.M.

2012  Chapter II: Physical, Historical, and Social Settings. In Material Expressions of Social          Change: Indigenous Sicilian Responses to External Influences in the First Millennium B.C., pp. 20-          85. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Dillon, Brian D.

1985. Student’s Guide to Archaeological Illustration.  Archaeological Research Tools  1. Los Angeles: Institute of Archaeology, University of California.

King, Thomas F.

1978 The Archaeology Survey: Methods and Uses. Reformatted and posted at:

 http://calfire.ca.gov/resource_mgt/archaeology/downloads/archsurveymetho...

Kolb, M. J. and R. J. Speakman

2005 Elymian regional interaction in Iron Age western Sicily: a preliminary neutron activation                 study of incised/impressed tablewares. Journal of Archaeological Science 32:795-804.

Kolb, M. J., P. Vecchio and C. Tyers

2007 The lost settlement of Halikyai and excavations at Cappasanta, Salemi, Sicily. In Uplands of         Ancient Sicily and Calabria: the archaeology of landscape revisited, edited by M. Fitzjohn, pp.   197-208. vol. Volume 13, Accordia Specialist Studies on Italy. Accordia Research Institute,       University of London, London.

Leighton, R.

2005. Later prehistoric settlement patterns in Sicily: Old paradigms and new surveys. European            Journal of Archaeology, 8(3), pp.261-287.

RECOMMENDED READINGS

Antonaccio, C.

2003 Hybridity and the cultures within Greek culture. In The Cultures Within Ancient Greek        Culture: contact, conflict, collaboration, edited by C. Dougherty, and L. Kurke, pp. 57-74.         Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

2005 Excavating colonization. In Ancient Colonizations: analogy, similarity, and difference, edited by H. Hurst, and S. Owen, pp. 97-113. Duckworth, London.

Ayla, G. and M. Fitzjohn

2002  Seeing is Believing: Questions of Archaeological Visibility in the Mediterranean. Antiquity            76(292):337-338.

Leighton, R.

1999  Sicily Before History. Cornell University Press.

Smith, C. and J. Serrati

2000  Sicily from Aeneas to Augustus. Edinburgh University Press.

Stika, H.P., Heiss, A.G. and Zach, B.

2008  Plant remains from the early Iron Age in western Sicily: differences in subsistence            strategies of Greek and Elymian sites. Vegetation history and archaeobotany, 17(1), pp.139-148.