Jun 28, 2024
OHIO University Undergraduate Catalog 2023-2024

CARS 4910 - Field Study in Mediterranean Archaeology


This course is designed to give students firsthand experience in an active archaeological excavation of an ancient Mediterranean site. Students learn field techniques and methodologies, including survey, excavation, recording and measurement, plan drawing, onsite ceramic analysis, stratigraphic analysis, among others. Students are required also to connect the excavation activities to the broader context of the site and region through directed readings, onsite lectures by specialists (e.g., zooarchaeologists, paleobotanists, geologists), and to draw this knowledge and experience together in a final paper.

Requisites: Soph or Jr or Sr
Credit Hours: 6
OHIO BRICKS Bridge: Diversity and Practice, Bridge: Learning and Doing
General Education Code (students who entered prior to Fall 2021-22): 3
Repeat/Retake Information: May be retaken two times excluding withdrawals, but only last course taken counts.
Lecture/Lab Hours: 8.0 field experience/internship, 2.0 lecture
Grades: Eligible Grades: A-F,WP,WF,WN,FN,AU,I
Learning Outcomes:
  • Students will be able to demonstrate practical techniques in archaeological excavation, recording, and field analysis of finds.
  • Students will be able to connect the archaeological material from different phases to the chronology of the site as a whole, and to compare material to other sites of the same period or culture.
  • Students will be able to perform regularly, and communicate orally and extemporaneously, basic typological analysis on finds from the given region and period.
  • Students will be able to apply different methods of archaeological recording, including daily maps, level heights, and cataloguing.
  • Students will be able to apply material from one site to evaluate broader regional and chronological questions current in the discipline.
  • Students will be able to connect material in the field to published archaeological reports and to analyze the quality of a given report based on that material.
  • Students will be able to see and make connections across disciplines and perspectives–primarily between archaeology, history, and politics.
  • Students will be able to communicate orally realtime analysis of excavated materials using the objects themselves as an aid in the analysis.
  • Students will be able to demonstrate a developing sense of their strengths and opportunities for growth as a learner.
  • Students will be able to use their experience working in an international context to articulate insights about their own cultural rules and biases.
  • Students will be able to demonstrate an increased understanding of the complexity of elements important to Mediterranean cultures regarding history, values, and beliefs.
  • Students will be able to interpret intercultural experience from their and others’ worldview and to act in a manner that recognizes the feelings of another cultural group.
  • Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of cultural differences in verbal and non-verbal communication and to negotiate a shared understanding based on those differences.
  • Students will be able to ask complex questions of other cultures and to articulate answers to these questions in papers that reflect multiple cultural perspectives.
  • Students will be able to initiate and develop interactions with culturally different others while suspending judgment and valuing their interactions with culturally different others.


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