Hi, My name is Maggie Dammann and for my Beyond the Classroom Experience, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend an archaeological field school, run through the University of Minnesota-Duluth. As an anthropology major, focusing on archaeology this was the perfect opportunity to not only fulfill my BTC requirements, but it also gave me a baseline of knowledge to help me move forward in my schooling and career.

During the field school, my classmates and I spent one week in the classroom learning about laws, ethics, and cultural history, five weeks in the woods digging holes and filling out paperwork, and one week in the lab, cleaning rocks, combining data and trying to mentally reconstruct the human activity at our site over the last few thousand years. Despite the fact that it was a field school, my classmates and I were doing actual archaeology, collecting real data, and adding to the archaeological record. In my unit (a methodically-dug square hole) alone we found flakes and shatter that resulted from the making of stone tools, cobbles with evidence of human use, and even some fire-cracked rock.

My Unit at ~10cm depth. Our ending depth was 57.5cm.

The global theme I chose was culture and politics and the global challenge I decided to focus on was the issues of exploring culture history in a meaningful and scientific way while also adhering not only to our national and state laws but also to the ethical standards set forth by archaeologists, individuals, and those whose past and culture we are studying. Our field school took place on both state and private land in an area that is abundant in artifacts. The thing that I took home the most from this is the fact that not only did I have to show proper respect for the land I was digging on and the things I was removing from the dirt, but also the landowners’ wishes and the specialness of the site. We did all of our excavations not only to the letter of the law but also to the ethical standards that archaeologists are beholden to.

Despite the rainstorms, wildfire smoke, and enough biting bugs to last me a lifetime, field school was an experience I will never forget. Not only did I learn a lot, I also had a lot of fun and was able to do it with a fantastic group of people.