Academic
Classes and Activities
The
field school is seven weeks in length. Classes and activities are divided
into segments so that students experience a greater range of the disciplines
that support paleoanthropology.
First
Days: The first few days are spent at a guest house in Addis Ababa with days in the National Museum of Ethiopia working on fossils. Following this, students
and all their belongings leave on the twelve hour journey to the small village of Elowaha, approximately 40 kilometers from the field
site. The following day we drive to Hadar and set up camp.
Small
groups of students rotate through classes from each of the faculty members.
The first few days in the field are spent learning basic geology and visiting many of the hominin sites. The order of Modules does not matter after that initial survey. All students will do a research project in the last week.
Module 1: Sedimentary Geology and Geochronology of Hadar, Ethiopia
Module 2: Paleontology and Context of Australopithecus and Early Homo at Hadar
Module
3: Australopithecus and Early Homo at Hadar: morphology and systematics
Module 4: Field Methods in Oldowan Archaeology
Module 5: Research Project. Each student, in conjunction
with faculty create and implement a research project that is presented
to the field school population at the end of the season. These projects
are wide-ranging and include working on hominin variation through paleoecological
analysis.
Students
have examinations at the end of each module (except 5), and are graded
on final research projects. Each module counts for 3 credits and will
be given in the areas of physical anthropology, geology and archaeology.
Other
Information:The Hadar locality is a remote area of the Afar regional
State, Ethiopia. The nearest village in which to purchase a coke, for
example, is 40 km away. The nearest town in which to purchase more than
that is about 90 km away. Therefore, activities unrelated to interacting
with the local Afar people and paleoanthropology will be limited. However,
we will visit the world famous Bati market in the highlands and have
field trips outside of the site to look at regional geological phenomena.
Please
keep in mind that the work is fun but hard, and the temperatures often
exceed 115 F.
All photographs by Benjamin Reed Photography
