WE ARE NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR THE 2012 FIELD SEASON
Project Description
This collaborative project between Western Kentucky University and the National Museum of Mongolia aims to understand the nature of the social and economic organization of Bronze and Iron Age societies of Mongolia through the use of regional survey and settlement archaeology. This year we are moving the project to the Altai region of western Mongolia where we will also be collaborating with the Smithsonian Institution and ETSU who are investigating the region’s rock art and ritual landscape. Located in the grasslands of western Mongolia, the research area is dotted with impressive stone built burial and ritual sites dating to the second and first millennia BCE, and continues to be inhabited by horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who have maintained much of their traditional lifeways. For further details, please download the 'Project Overview' by clicking on the link below.
SESSION DATES:
21 May – 22 June, 2012
PROGRAM FEES: $1250.00
Includes: Transport to and from field, training, and meals in the field.
Not included: International travel, domestic flight, visas, personal insurance. * Participants must bring their own camp gear and supplies.
Note: We are accepting a very limited number of participants this year, so we encourage you to apply early.
The 2012 field season will include regional survey, ethnographic research and excavation of habitation sites. There will also be opportunities to work on the Smithsonian and ETSU’s rock art and deer stone project. Participants will receive training in proper survey methods, ethnographic interviews, and unearthing and documenting materials. Participants will also have the opportunity to work with the artifactual material as well as with the project’s zooarchaeologist, cartographer and lithics specialist.
Jean-Luc Houle (Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology, Western Kentucky University)
Jamsranjav Bayarsaikhan (National Museum of Mongolia)
Lee Broderick (Zooarchaeologist, University of York, UK)
Oula Seitsonen (Cartographer and lithics specialist, University of Helsinki, Finland)
The Team
The project team will consist of our staff, Mongolian students from local universities and the participants accepted in this program.
PREREQUISITE:
Minimum age: 18
Participants need no special training, but should be prepared for physical activity and wilderness camping for extended periods of time. We will live in tents and “gers” (Mongolian traditional tent houses) without electricity and plumbing. Access to water for bathing and drinking will be a river nearby the campsite. The diet will be essentially meat based (lots of sheep!).
The most important things you need for this project are patience, a good sense of humor; and the ability to adapt to radically different cultures and environments.
