OUR WORK
Project Archaeology
Project Archaeology is a cultural heritage education program that uses archaeological inquiry
to do the following:
Foster understanding of diverse cultures and our common humanity;
Enhance social studies and science education; and
Strengthen citizenship education to help preserve our cultural and archaeological legacy.
The primary beneficiaries of this work are teachers and their students, mainly in upper elementary and middle school grades. Educators also use Project Archaeology materials and methods in nonformal settings, such as museums and visitor centers at heritage sites.
What follows is a brief description of Project Archaeology. For more, see www.projectarchaeology.org.
HISTORY AND ORGANIZATION
Project Archaeology was launched in 1990 in the Utah State Office of USDI-Bureau of Land Management (BLM) as a national stewardship education program. The objective was to address the threats of looting and vandalism of archaeological sites, as well as their being “loved to death” by simply curious visitors unaware of their potential impact.
Over three decades of development and evolution since its founding, Project Archaeology has grown into a national network of dozens of partner organizations and individuals working together to advance the reach of the program across the nation.
The program now operates as a broad partnership of Southern Utah University; the Project Archaeology Leadership Team; the Institute for Heritage Education (IHE); the BLM in western states; and a national network of teachers, nonformal educators, archaeologists, descendant community educators, and state programs. In 2022, IHE began serving as the program’s national nonprofit partner.
Participants and staff at a workshop on Project Archaeology’s Investigating a Roman Villa, photographed in a museum exhibit on the same subject. The curriculum was created in conjunction with the exhibit.
METHODS
Project Archaeology operates nationally as a provider of high-quality, inquiry-based education materials and of professional development for educators that models the use of the materials in the classroom and other venues, such as museums and interpretive centers at heritage sites. Interdisciplinary in nature, archaeology offers an excellent vehicle for seamlessly integrating science, history, geography, math, language arts, and visual arts.
Each umbrella curriculum (e.g., Investigating Shelter and Investigating Rock Art) teaches the basics of historical and scientific inquiry. Supplemental investigations of specific archaeological sites allow students to investigate past cultures using authentic data, including artifacts, maps, and oral histories. The supplements make it possible to customize the larger curricula to states and/or specific localities. Workshops prepare teachers to implement the inquiry-based curricula in their classrooms.
Through archaeological inquiry, students make the connection between protecting the archaeological record and honoring the living descendants of those who left traces of their lives behind. Classroom teachers appreciate the high-quality professional development that Project Archaeology provides and often report that these workshops are the best that they have ever attended.
A rock art supplementary curriculum based on a Tennessee River valley site in Alabama.
Middle school students design a mock exhibit as a final performance of understanding for the Investigating Nutrition curriculum.
Teachers work their way along a cliff base to reach the Painted Bluff pictograph site.
Preparing for a Project Archaeology workshop in Florida.
Flyer for a workshop in Las Vegas, organized by IHE and funded by the Bureau of Land Management’s Nevada State Office.
DESCENDANT COMMUNITIES
Every curriculum and workshop include the voices of descendants of the peoples represented in the archaeological sites under study. Both teachers and students value exposure to these descendants – for example, Tribal elders and educators – and the expanded cultural perspectives they provide.
Because the materials examine specific archaeological and historic sites such as the ancient homes of contemporary tribes or the cabins of enslaved Africans, they provide ways for underserved students to connect with their own history through scientific and historical inquiry. Underserved students can see their ancestors and themselves in these materials.
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Investigating a Plains Tipi
The late Dr. Joe Medicine Crow was a writer, anthropologist, historian, leader of the Apsáalooke (Crow) Tribe, and the last Indigenous war chief of the Great Plains. As a World War II veteran, he served as a U.S. Army scout and received the Bronze Star and the French Légion d'honneur Chevalier medal for his service. In 2009, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
Dr. Medicine Crow contributed substantially to the Plains Tipi curriculum, including an oral history handed down by his ancestors of the migration of his people to the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains in the 17th and 18th centuries.
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Investigating a Tabby Slave Cabin
Mrs. Bartley-Wallace, who introduces the investigation, is a descendant of enslaved people who lived at Kingsley Plantation, Florida, the location of the cabin site featured in the Tabby Cabin curriculum. She learned of this ancestral connection by accident: her cousin had visited the site of the plantation (part of the National Park Service’s Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve) and saw a historic photograph of a woman he thought he recognized from an old family photo.
Mrs. Bartley-Wallace followed up on the discovery and found out that it was their ancestor known as Great Aunt Easter, who had been born into slavery in the 1820s and lived on the plantation. Mrs. Bartley-Wallace was fascinated to learn about her long-ago relative, and believing it was important for her family to learn about their connection to the past, she organized a family reunion at Kingsley Plantation.
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Investigating the Tinsley Historic Farmhouse
A descendant of the Tinsley family, Ms. Thompson introduces the investigation. She grew up hearing stories from her grandmother of her great-great-grandparents’ journey for a better life from Missouri to Montana after the Civil War.
They eventually settled on a homestead in a Rocky Mountain valley, first in a small cabin, then in a larger home built of logs painstakingly cut and hauled from nearby mountains to the site over two years’ time. Their farm there sustained the family for many years.
In the 1980s their log house was moved to the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana and restored to its condition ca. 1890-1910. Now, with recreated period outbuildings and heirloom gardens, groves, and fields, the Tinsley home is part of a period landscape, featured by the museum as its Living History Farm.
RESEARCH BASIS
A formative assessment in 23 upper elementary classrooms across the U.S. and a later study in rural Kentucky found that when Project Archaeology materials and methods are taught with a high degree of fidelity, students gain a greater understanding of scientific inquiry, cultural understanding, and appreciation of our shared archaeological heritage. Many other assessments and professional papers indicate positive impacts, both from Project Archaeology and archaeology education generally.
Stewardship: Before instruction with Project Archaeology materials, most students indicated that they should respect an archaeological site and not disturb it. After instruction students showed significant gains in appropriate and proactive behavior when encountering an archaeological site (Moe 2016).
Scientific and Historical Inquiry: Students learning through archaeological inquiry and archaeological content and processes also found new ways to deepen and broaden their understanding of science and history and the relationship between the two disciplines (Moe 2011).
Cultural Understanding: While learning about the lives of poor, working class people in a racially integrated neighborhood, students noticed the power of studying differences as connective rather than divisive features of community, and identified collective agency as a powerful response to racism (Levstik 2018).
A Project Archaeology-themed Girl Scout camp in Utah.
Similarly, in nonformal learning venues such as Girl Scout camps and archaeology fairs, assessments show that Project Archaeology materials and instruction effectively promote respect for archaeological sites and artifacts; cultural understanding of descendant communities; and personal responsibility for the protection of cultural sites.