The department offers archaeological field schools each year which provide hands-on training in a range of methods for excavating and recording archaeological strata and features, collecting and processing samples, and recovering and identifying artifacts. Field schools might also include training in geophysics, site survey, interpretation, and community collaboration. Participants who successfully complete a field school are eligible for field technician positions in compliance archaeology.
Coan Hall Field School
The Coan Hall site is located on a tributary to the Potomac River on Virginia’s Northern Neck. Our project explores the landscape of an early British colonial plantation through documenting and interpreting cultural and environmental changes, and studying them in the context of broader changes in the region and the wider Atlantic world. John Mottrom, one of the earliest English settlers of the Potomac’s south bank, established a household at Coan Hall sometime before 1644.
Mitrou Archaeological Project
The Mitrou Archaeological Project (MAP) is a cooperative venture between the University of Tennessee and the Greek Archaeological Service. MAP is co-directed by Professor Aleydis Van de Moortel of the Classics Department at the University of Tennessee, and by Eleni Zahou of the 14th Ephoreia of Classical and Prehistorical Antiquities (IDEPKA) at Lamia. Mitrou is a tidal islet in the bay of Atalanti in East Lokris, Greece. For most of the Bronze Age, Mitrou was the largest and most important settlement of East Lokris, and it is in an excellent state of preservation.
The Rural Archaeology of the Loukkos Valley
A joint Moroccan-American (INSAP-University of Tennessee) collaboration, the Gardens of the Hesperides: The Rural Archaeology of the Loukkos Valley comprises a multi-year archaeological project to survey and reconstruct the economic development of the Loukkos river valley, the site of the ancient city of Lixus (near Larache, Morocco)—one of the oldest cities in northwestern Africa, and in classical mythology, one of the purported locations of the Gardens of the Hesperides.