Foundation for Polish History and Culture

Giecz Field School

By Natascha Storms, Elk Grove CA, USA

I had no idea what to expect from my summer. From my past experiences I've learned that it is best to not expect anything, you are never disappointed and the culture shock is less. What I ended up having was one of the best summers of my life.

It started with a need for change. I needed to get out of my box, my little life. I needed something new and a new start. My BA was finished; in fact I had been out longer than I had been in. I wanted to go back to school, but I needed more practical experience before I reentered the Ivory Tower. The idea of archeology field school had crossed my mind. I started researching schools online and the idea solidified. I finally found a school in Poland that specialized in human Osteology, my foremost interest.

Months of preparation finally led to my arrival in Giecz, Poland. The site amazed me. It was an early Christian cemetery over a pre-Christian layer. I had absolutely no experience in archeology and could barely remember my theory class. We all dug, shifted, sweated, mapped, took elevations, carried and sorted a bit out in that field. Not everyone could be in the field; there was other work to do. While some were in the field, others were inside washing; then sorting human, non-human, pottery and other; and labeling. When we finally reached the cemetery level people would stay in to assist our site osteologist in processing the skeletons, discovering the age, sex, stature of the individual along with any pathologies. It was like a dream come true.

We lived in an old pastor's house, next to a 17th century church and the foundations of an older church, inside a medieval fortress. Inside a medieval fortress! It was so cool. I couldn't believe it. Everyday we walked fifteen minutes to and from meals (this was helpful for the huge meals that we ate needed some time to settle). On our way back we would climb the grassy ring that was all that is left of the eroded fortress walls. Can anything be cooler than living in a medieval fortress?

More amazing was discovering the other people that were there as students, supervisors, and teachers. Normally when I mention to people my interest in human skeletons they give me a „but you look like such a nice normal girl” look. Here at the field school I met a bunch of other women and men who had the same „strange” interest. Most of the other students were folks from the US, but there were a few Canadians. In addition, we hosted a couple of British SOCRATES participants and of course lived with a whole crew of Polish students. The result was a very international mix.

The students also came from all different levels of education, everything from sophomores in college to graduate students and of course me, the lost little wanderer. We would talk about different programs. I learned about career options, training, practical applications for my newly acquired skills. They also talked to me about graduate programs, which people liked, and which had disgruntled students. This part of my education as valuable to me as the field experience.

I gained so much in the month that I spent in Poland. It was everything I hoped it would be a more. I will never forget the site I worked on or the people that I met there. It was my first archeological experience and one I'll never forget.