While archaeology may seem to deal exclusively with the past, this study of artifacts can have a significant impact on the present. Archaeology can help provide proof of historical events and influence political and social claims. Susannah Wales ’13 is spending the summer working with Assistant Professor of Anthropology Nathan Goodale in British Columbia, Canada.

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Archaeological sites offer a firsthand glimpse into the past. Specifically, working intimately with ancient artifacts allows researchers to piece together historical periods that could otherwise be lost.  Emerson Grant recipient Caroline Morgan ’13 is spending the summer working on- and off-site in Crete with Professor John McEnroe, the John and Anne Fischer Professor in Fine Arts, to uncover a Minoan ruin’s chronological past. Their project is titled “Excavating Minoan Crete: Uncovering Gournia’s Architectural Past.”

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During the summer of 2011, 13 students from Hamilton College and Selkirk College will attend a six-week intensive archaeology field immersion course in the prehistory, history, ethnography and language of the indigenous peoples of the interior Pacific Northwest.

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Assistant Professor of Anthropology Nathan Goodale and Visiting Instructor of Anthropology Alissa Nauman, in partnership with the Slocan Valley Heritage Trail Society, were awarded a Columbia Basin Trust Community Development Program Grant.  The award provides funding for research associated with the Slocan Narrows Archaeological Project which also serves as the Hamilton College archaeology field school in British Columbia, Canada.

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Erica Kowsz, a candidate for May graduation from Hamilton, has been awarded a Fulbright Grant to Vancouver, British Columbia,  Canada. She will spend the 2011-12 academic year conducting fieldwork among the Sinixt First Nation in the Slocan Valley. Kowsz will produce an ethnographic film exploring the connections between indigenous conceptions of past, place and identity and how these understandings relate to archaeology.

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Two groups of local third-grade students recently enjoyed some hands-on science learning with the help of Hamilton’s science faculty. For about 20 years, Professor of Biology Dave Gapp has organized “Science Exploration Days” which bring classes of elementary school students to Hamilton for guided tours and short lessons in various areas of science.

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Professor of Anthropology Charlotte Beck was quoted in the journal Science, in LiveScience, in The Oregonian and in U.S. News & World Report about a study, published in the journal Science on March 4, that raised questions about how prehistoric peoples, upon their arrival from Asia, journeyed south to the Americas. Beck and Professor of Anthropology Tom Jones published a paper in 2010 that concluded that the initial colonization of the intermountain region of the Great Basin was probably by populations from the Pacific coastal area and not, as conventional wisdom holds, from the Great Plains.

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Madeleine Gunter ’11 has had a busy and unconventional summer. An archaeology and geosciences double major, Gunter returned from several weeks on an archaeological field project off Ireland’s western coast, only to begin a micropaleontology project that will become her thesis for geosciences. Gunter is working through the data she collected on the composition of Early Medieval Christian tombstones, and using diatoms to predict Antarctic paleoenvironments. More ...

In June, Madeleine (Maddy) Gunter ’11, Assistant Professor of Anthropology Nathan Goodale, Associate Professor of Geosciences David Bailey and Science Center Administrator Alissa Nauman conducted archaeological and geological field research on Inishark, an island off the west central coast of Ireland. More ...

Erica Kowsz ’11 has been awarded a national Beinecke Scholarship. The Beinecke Scholarship Program was established in 1971 by the board of directors of The Sperry and Hutchinson Company to honor Edwin, Frederick and Walter Beinecke. Each Beinecke scholar receives $4,000 immediately prior to entering graduate school and an additional $30,000 while attending graduate school. In the 2010 competition 83 students were nominated and 20 awards were given. More ...