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Many individuals practicing field-based research are subjected to sexual harassment and assault. This fact holds true for people engaged in archaeological field research and may be true for students who are just learning field methods while enrolled in an archaeological field school. We review some of our current research on the means of reducing and preventing sexual harassment and assault at archaeological field schools, as well as ways to create safer, more inclusive learning spaces. Additionally, we suggest that for the discipline to advance field school teaching and learning, we, as field directors, must situate ourselves as active and advocacy anthropologists: an approach that puts our students as a central focus when developing field-based pedagogy. As the authors of this work, we review our identities and positionality in conducting this research and in making meaning from the data we have collected. 

Las investigaciones indican que el acoso y la agresión sexual, ocurren comúnmente durante la investigación de campo arqueológica y los estudiantes, aprendices y profesionales que están iniciando su carrera, están sujetos con mayor frecuencia a comportamientos de acoso en comparación con los científicos que van por la mitad de su carrea y los de alto nivel. Específicamente para la educación arqueológica, el requisito educativo de pregrado de una escuela de campo coloca a los estudiantes y aprendices en situaciones donde históricamente el acoso no ha sido controlado. Presentamos los resultados de un análisis de contenido sistemático del plan de estudio de 24 escuelas de campo. Revisamos estos documentos prestando atención a cómo las políticas, los procedimientos y el lenguaje de las escuelas de campo, pueden afectar las percepciones de los estudiantes sobre los comportamientos esperados, la logística, los medios de denuncia y las políticas declaradas en torno al acoso y la agresión sexual. La codificación de documentos se llevó a cabo utilizando un esquema de codificación deductiva, para identificar prácticas que deberían conducir a un entorno de aprendizaje de campo seguro y de apoyo. Nuestro esquema de codificación resultó en 11 códigos primarios que resumimos en tres temas principales: (1) organización de la escuela de campo y comportamiento esperado de los estudiantes, (2) logística del curso, y (3) políticas declaradas en torno al acoso y la agresión sexual. Basado en estos temas, proporcionamos varias recomendaciones para modificar los programas y las prácticas de las escuelas de campo, para asi crear una escuela de campo que brinde oportunidades seguras para que los estudiantes puedan aprender. 

Participation in an archaeological field school is the entry point to a professional career in the discipline. Despite the importance of field schools, few scholars have investigated achieved student-learning outcomes or lasting impacts on students from participation in archaeological field research. We report on the educational design, learning objectives, and results of three years of formative and summative assessments for an interdisciplinary, archaeology and ecology research program for undergraduate students. Our learning objectives include promoting scientific literacy and communication, critical thinking and STEM skills, and capacities in archaeological and ecological interdisciplinarity. Using developed rubrics that account for both critical thinking and STEM understanding, self-administered competency surveys, and program-developed items, we found significant gains in nearly all learning objectives. Students demonstrated growth in program specific content, perceived abilities in their scientific and discipline specific skills, critical thinking skills, and scientific communication skills. These educational outcomes and assessment tools have implications for how we design and evaluate field learning in archaeology and may be applied to field school instruction. 

Dada la naturaleza jerárquica y la estructura de las escuelas de campo, los estudiantes matriculados son particularmente susceptibles al acoso y la agresión. En 2018, las Academias Nacionales de Ciencias, Ingeniería y Medicina (NASEM, por sus siglas en inglés) publico recomendaciones para ayudar a prevenir el acoso sexual y el asalto de mujeres en la academia. Aunque estas recomendaciones son específicas para la educación superior y exclusivas para las mujeres, algunas pueden modificarse y aplicarse al contexto de las escuelas de campo arqueológico. Revisamos las recomendaciones de NASEM con especial atención a las aplicables al entorno de las escuelas de campo y brindamos sugerencias para hacer que las escuelas de campo sean entornos de aprendizaje mas seguros e inclusivos para todos los estudiantes. Aunque presentamos recomendaciones para prácticas que se pueden implementar en las escuelas de campo, se necesita investigación adicional para comprender como ocurre el acoso sexual en las escuelas de campo y como la implementación de estas recomendaciones puede hacer que el aprendizaje sea mas seguro para todos los estudiantes. 

Circular shell rings along the South Atlantic Coast of North America are the remnants of some of the earliest villages that emerged during the Late Archaic (5000–3000 BP). Many of these villages, however, were abandoned during the Terminal Late Archaic (ca 3800–3000 BP). We combine Bayesian chronological modeling with mollusk shell geochemistry and oyster paleobiology to understand the nature and timing of environmental change associated with the emergence and abandonment of circular shell ring villages on Sapelo Island, Georgia. Our Bayesian models indicate that Native Americans occupied the three Sapelo shell rings at varying times with some generational overlap. By the end of the complex’s occupation, only Ring III was occupied before abandonment ca. 3845 BP. Ring III also consists of statistically smaller oysters harvested from less saline estuaries compared to earlier occupations. Integrating shell biochemical and paleobiological data with recent tree ring analyses shows a clear pattern of environmental fluctuations throughout the period in which the rings were occupied. We argue that as the environment became unstable around 4300 BP, aggregation at villages provided a way to effectively manage fisheries that are highly sensitive to environmental change. However, with the eventual collapse of oyster fisheries and subsequent rebound in environmental conditions ca. post-3800 BP, people dispersed from shell rings, and shifted to non-marine subsistence economies and other types of settlements. This study provides the most comprehensive evidence for correlations between large-scale environmental change and societal transformations on the Georgia coast during the Late Archaic period.