Dr. Andrew Dufton, Dickinson, Archaeology
Archaeological Methods
Archaeological fieldwork intersects with sustainability in many ways. This includes the environmental impacts of archaeology, such as the (often international) travel of research teams to remote sites and the challenges of conservation of exposed archaeological remains. Archaeological deposits are themselves a finite resource. Archaeologists undertaking fieldwork must assess the merits of their research at the expense of destroying archaeological resources. Archaeological sites are directly impacted by wider environmental concerns, such as the threat of climate change and the loss of archaeological sites due to tourism and urban or agricultural expansion. And yet, despite the obvious relevance of sustainability to field research, standard instruction often fails to provide students with tools to understand the relevance of sustainability to archaeological practice.
I attended Valley and Ridge to better integrate sustainability into a core class, Archaeological Methods (ARCH 290). The primary objective of ARCH 290 is to teach students archaeological skills through hands-on, experiential learning. The pedagogical tools introduced in Valley and Ridge will allow me to introduce additional sustainability elements into class activities. Students will acquire an understanding of the long-term history of Dickinson and surrounding landscape while they develop core, sustainable archaeological competencies.
I reworked an existing assessment that requires students to identify a site on or around campus for archaeological fieldwork, including an explicit discussion of relevant community stakeholders and a proposal for sustainable practices to support for a long-term fieldwork presence. This structured group-work also encourages students to develop their cooperative skills in-line with UNESCO’s focus on collaboration as a key competency in Education for Sustainable Development.
Sustainability, understood in its full sense, is key to the long-term survival of the archaeological field of study. With the tools provided through Valley and Ridge, ARCH 290 will expand from traditional instruction in disciplinary methods to a broader consideration of the issues of sustainability in archaeological fields research and conservation.