About

Each summer the SIUC Anthropology Department and Center for Archaeological Investigations (CAI) offer students a unique “experiential learning” opportunity in the form of a six-week long archaeological field school in which students work along experienced professional archaeologists, gaining hands-on training in learning how to excavate and record the remains of Illinois’s rich past. Field schools are a crucial step in training undergraduate archaeology students that help provide them with the skills they need to obtain jobs after graduation or to be admitted into graduate programs. The 2022 field school will be held at three sites—Ft. Kaskaskia, Garrison Hill, and Miller Grove—at which students will investigate French colonial and early American lifeways (Ft. Kaskaskia) and the history of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in Illinois (Garrison Hill). Students also will investigate the lives of freed African-Americans involved in the Underground Railroad at the Miller Grove site who helped runaway slaves on their pathway to freedom by analyzing artifacts recovered from the community and taking one or more field trips to the site. The 2022 field season goals are to better understand the history and use of the French fort before its abandonment, to locate the walls and buildings of the American fort visited by the Lewis and Clark Expedition at Garrison Hill, and to explore and better document the community and lifeways of the Miller Grove community and how they participated in the Underground Railroad.

Our Goal: Helping Students

Our goal is to make the SIUC field school accessible to undergraduates who cannot otherwise afford to take it. Many students who wish to take the field school cannot do so because of the costs involved, which is over $2000 for a six-week course. We need your help in reducing the cost of the field school to financially needy students through donations that will be used to cover their housing costs and other expenses. Our goal is to support up to 10 students through targeted grants of $500 to $1000 each.

Each student who participates in SIU's archaeology field school will experience what life was like for people during the 18th and 19th centuries by excavating and analyzing the material remains those people left behind. This type of experience is invaluable.  Your contribution will help insure we are able to offer this educational experience to a diverse group of students.