US - Kentucky - University of Kentucky Archaeological Field School at Fox Farm

Single session, but there are multiple sign-up deadlines. Please check the University of Kentucky Registrar web site for details and sign-up dates. Email contact person for more information.

Fox Farm, Mason County, Kentucky

University of Kentucky Department of Anthropology

6

Kentucky in-state undergraduate: $1992
Kentucky in-state graduate: $2754
Out-of-state undergraduate: $4134
Out-of-state graduate: $5862

Field school will provide housing in the form of a communal house with kitchen, bathroom, and 3-4 bedrooms, rooms shared with other students.
Board is a fee of $25/week/person, which provides breakfast+lunch+dinner. With a planned seven weeks in the field, total food fee is $175 per student (staff also contributes to collective food pool)
Cooking and dish washing shared among students, with rotation of duties.

Supplemental laboratory fee: $75/student

Fox Farm is situated on a broad, gently rolling ridgetop about 60 miles north of Lexington, near Maysville, Kentucky. This very large (40 acres) Fort Ancient village was occupied from A.D. 1100 to 1650. Fox Farm was initially investigated in 1895 by Harlan I. Smith of the American Museum of Natural History. During the 1920s, William Funkhouser and William Webb of the University of Kentucky worked at Fox Farm, and in the 1940s James B. Griffin of the University of Michigan used materials from Fox Farm to define seven Fort Ancient ceramic types. Professional archaeologists from the University of Kentucky returned to Fox Farm in the mid-1980s and undertook limited excavations near the center of the site.

The University of Kentucky conducted an 8-week field school at Fox Farm in 2009, the first time that professional archaeologists had been on the site in 25 years. The 2009 season was devoted to obtaining a sample of material from multiple locations within the site. The 2010 UK field shcool will focus on obtaining larger and unmixed samples of artifacts from the Middle Fort Ancient and Late Fort Ancient portions of the site, and on continuing to define internal site structure and organization.

Students will be exposed to multiple survey and excavation techniques, and we expect to conduct extensive geophysical survey within the site to identify houses, trash pits, and plazas.

Prehistoric

Middle and Late Fort Ancient
AD 1100 to 1650

Rural outer Bluegrass region of northern Kentucky. Rolling hills, with site about 10 miles from Ohio River.

Group transportation will be provided from Lexington (U of Kentucky Archaeological Facility) to the field house each Monday morning, with group return transportation on Friday of each week. Field house is about 0.6 mile walk from site, and field crew will walk to and from site daily. Lunch and field equipment will be transported by vehicle when possible (stream must be forded) and packed in by students if stream is impassable.

Class begins Thursday, 11 June.
Orientation and introduction in first two days (Thursday-Friday), in Lexington.
Beginning 15 June, field school will travel weekly to and from field hous, with work scheduled for 8-hour day. Travel back to Lexington each Friday.
One night per week will be artifact washing, and one other night will be guest lecturers. Occasional field trips to nearby sites will be included.
Field work ends on 30 July 2010 (Friday). Next partial week (2-5 August) will be spent in Lexington (UK Archaeological Facility) in after-action review.

N/A

Dr. A. Gwynn Henderson
(Instructor of Record)

Dr. David Pollack
(Research Coordinator)

Dr. Steven Ahler
(additional contact person)

All can be contacted by phone at
859-257-1944

Guest/specialty instructors (to be announced) on a weekly basis provide additional analytical expertise.

One Graduate Assistant (to be named later)

Site mapping, geophysical survey techniques, excavation skills, soil profile and sediment description, excavation unit and feature excavation and documentation (photography, scale drawing, descriptions), site survey techniques (surface collection and systematic shovel testing).

Yes

Visits to nearby archaeological sites, evening artifact washing sessions, and evening discussions. Occasional outside reading will be assigned.

Weekly guest/visiting instructors will provide informal talks.

No

A. Gwynn Henderson
Univ. of Kentucky Dep. of Anthropology
Kentucky Archaeological Survey
1020A Export Street
Lexington KY 40506

Telephone: 859-257-1944
Fax number: 859-323-1968