Field School in Mortuary Archaeology
Poland 2025
The Field School in Mortuary Archaeology provides students with instruction in archaeology, mortuary archaeology, and human osteology. Over the course of the field school, you will gain experiential know-how in excavation techniques, documentation of authentic archaeological features and artifacts, and recovery of human skeletal remains from the 11th century cemeteries in rural western Poland, the sites of great importance in the country's history. We offer you an opportunity to get the most of bioarchaeology both in the field and laboratory while immersing yourself in the Polish culture.
This program is an intense but rewarding research-based learning experience providing hands-on training in the evaluation of historical human remains in an archaeological context. Upon completion of this course, you should be able to:
- Excavate human remains while preserving contextual information
- Learn and practice standard archaeological documentation techniques, such as mapping, documenting soil changes, screening soil for small artifacts, and taking elevations of artifacts and skeletons
- Be able to recognize and identify all bones in the human skeleton
- Process and curate artifacts excavated in the field, including human skeletal material, pottery, faunal bone, and additional artifacts
Through osteology instruction, students will learn to:
- Identify human bones and their important features
- Determine orientation and side of human bones
- Discuss the human skeleton utilizing appropriate anatomical terms
- Understand the basic properties and functions of human bone
- Differentiate between human and non-human bone
- Understand basic principles of estimating sex and age-at-death based on gross skeletal features
- Identify taphonomic or pathological abnormalities on the skeleton
The Field School in Mortuary Archaeology is run in cooperation with:
