Training in Excavation Work

compulsory

ARCHAEOLOGY

1st cycle

The aim of the field training is to prepare students for an unassisted organisation of fieldwork and archaeological investigation, after graduation.

The compulsory training excavation enables students to learn how to perform and manage excavations being an indispensable element of a professional training. Students attend research and rescue excavations (prior to construction works) carried out by various tutors. A wide range of excavated sites (architecture, earthworks, levelled sites) from different periods provide students with various methodological issues and a range of excavation techniques. Additionally, students may attend excavations carried out by cooperating archaeological institutions (museums, Polish Academy of Science) having an opportunity to learn more about methods and techniques applied by different archaeological centres in Poland as well as abroad.

Barker P. 1979. Techniques of Archaeological Excavation. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd.

Harris E. C. 1989. Principles of Archaeological Stratigraphy. London: Academic Press.

Kajzer L. 1984. Wstęp do badań archeologiczno-architektonicznych. Łódź: Uniwersytet Łódzki.

Kobyliński Z. (red.) 1999. Metodyka ratowniczych badań archeologicznych. Warszawa: Stowarzyszenie Naukowe Archeologów Polskich.

Renfrew C., Bahn P. 2008. Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice. London: Thames & Hudson.

Różycki A. 1981. Podstawy topografii. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego.

The aim of the field training is to prepare students for an unassisted organisation of fieldwork and archaeological investigation, after graduation. Consequently, students are introduced to subsequent stages of excavation – starting with exploration of layers and features, through documentation, up to preliminary analyses. The training programme is designed to meet this aim and thus students are gradually taught new skills in accordance with their current knowledge and individual predispositions. The detailed training programme is constructed by tutors with regard to these general objectives as well as specific character of an excavated site.

As a result of the course students gain basic skills inevitable for a professional organisation and documentation of excavations. Students learn to identify aims and objectives of a research project which provides framework for particular excavations and are able to present a range of activities that take place during fieldworks, as well as a number of various methods and techniques. Students also learn some basic skills in archival research in order to obtain detailed knowledge about research history of an excavated site.

At a practical level, students gain skills in exploration of archaeological features, measurement using a variety of devices (leveller, theodolite, total station), identification, description and interpretation of layers and features, documentation (drawings, photographs), sampling and storing of data for specialist analyses, artefact inventory (cleaning, labelling, assessment, description and classification, drawing) and other works, according to the specific character of an excavated site. An excavation report (which is an obligatory part of a training and comprises a considerable part of a final mark) introduces to a systematic documentation of undertaken activities and works at a site, as well as prepares students for administrative demands of reporting excavations to appropriate heritage services.

The compulsory training excavation enables students to develop personal and teamwork skills, responsibility for a given task and teaches how to evaluate the performance and management of the excavation.

Excavation report written by student legibly that should follow the scheme accepted by fieldwork supervisor and student evaluation form provided by field project director.