The sun is not up, but the day is about to start. With a sudden flurry of zips, groggy archaeology students pull themselves out of their sleeping bags, then shuffle into the kitchen for breakfast. They eat quickly. The students have been working the sites for three weeks, meticulously scraping back the hard packed dirt, deposited by hundreds of years of wind and rain. They dig toward the room's floor, saving almost everything as they go.
Archaeological research is a time consuming, labor intensive process.
It is a process that many archaeology professors, like ASU's Margaret Nelson and Michelle Hegmon, expedite by offering a field school. In exchange for college credit and hands-on experience, the researchers can get archaeology students to help dig at the sites. ASU field school students will live and work at the camp for five weeks during the summer. Although they have dealt with water shortages, brushfires, and persistent little gnats, most come away with a rich experience that they could never get in the classroom. Fast forward to 10 a.m.