(Header image: Students at an archaeological dig in Huaca, Colorado, with Professor Ed Swenson. Photo by Prof. Swenson.)
Summer 2025 Evolutionary Anthropology Field School
- Research Excursion Program - Field school - Austria - Professor Bence Viola - More information can be found here
Summer 2025 Social Cultural Research Opportunity
- ANT465H1F - Ethnographic Practicum: Toronto Tours
This course provides students with a partnered field experience by conducting ethnographic research on visitor tours in partner organizations in Toronto with faculty’s supervision. The project will be developed in collaboration with the partner organizations to offer students partnership-based experiential learning opportunities. Students will produce detailed ethnographic descriptions of tourist experiences, analyze how media representations and tourism infrastructure shape diverse visitor experiences, explore how existing infrastructure can be potentially repurposed for a decolonial or inclusive tour, and develop skills to communicate their findings to the broader audience.
Prerequisite: ANT380H1. Students who do not meet the prerequisite are encouraged to contact Prof Shiho Satsuka - s.satsuka@utoronto.ca
In 2025, students will be divided into two teams to conduct participant observation and interviews at the Spadina Museum and Fort York. The focus will be on two key aspects: (1) how these sites reflect the City of Toronto History Museums’ plans to diversify and decolonize heritage stories and (2) how visitors experience these efforts. The class will meet twice a week. The first meeting will be a workshop to prepare and reflect on research activities, while the second meeting will be dedicated entirely to immersive field research at each site. This fieldwork-based course offers students a unique opportunity to explore and contribute to the enriching narratives of Toronto and its history.
Summer 2025 Archaeology Lab Course
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ANT406H1F - Lithics Analysis
Core reduction strategies, replication, experimental archaeology, use-wear, design approaches, ground stone, inferring behaviour from lithic artifacts.
- Prerequisite: ARH100Y1 and ARH205H1 and ARH 312Y1
Lithic analysis is an essential tool for archaeological practice. This is a hands on class, where students will get experience making and using stone tools and carry out analysis of an archaeological assemblage. The final assignment will be to analyse an archaeological assemblage and prepare a report. To allow for the hands on engagement the course structure is centered on weeks three and four which are intensive class meeting, from 1-5 PM each day of the week. Weeks 3 and 4 are the weeks of May 19 and May 26. Weeks 1 and 2 of the course are based on online lectures (asynchronous), reading, and short essay assignments. In Weeks 5 and 6, students will focus on their analysis project with a flexible schedule of access to the lab for data collection.
Summer 2025 Archaeology Field Schools
- ARH306Y1F Archaeological Field Methods
- Research Excursion Program - Field school - Ontario - Professor Charly Bank and Prof Katherine Patton (under ESS) - More information can be found here
ARH306Y1F Archaeological Field Methods
Application Process: Please fill in the following application form
ARH 306Y Application Form - Summer 2025
Please submit the application form to Josie Alaimo at josie.alaimo@utoronto.ca
This course provides training in the methods used in archaeological survey, site mapping and laying out of excavations, use of total stations, theodolites, and GPS, excavation, stratigraphy, square mapping, and stratigraphic recording, along with a sampling of other skills and methods, such as digital field photography, conservation, augering, and remote sensing. The course is designed to be short and intensive, with approximately 15 full days devoted mainly to fieldwork, and a short preparatory period in the first week. Before fieldwork begins, there will be an open-book online test to ensure that students have covered the basics that they will need to prepare themselves for the remainder of the course. The course will include some online lectures to go over information students will need to know to do the fieldwork and to cover topics not emphasized in the text or to add Canadian content. The bulk of the course, however, will be devoted to a variety of field exercises. It is anticipated that this will include survey, topographic mapping, augering, test-pitting, and excavation, screening, drawing, field conservation, field sampling, and photography. The goal is to teach fieldwork skills and knowledge that would be useful on prehistoric and historic sites, and in both academic fieldwork and the heritage industry, and not primarily to recover “real” archaeological data about these sites.
********Please note that these are last year's dates. As soon as the Summer 2025 dates are available, they will be posted here.
Preliminary Schedule Summer 2024
May 6-17 – Asynchronous reading assignment, prep for fieldwork at home
May 21 – Lecture 1 – Introduction, class mechanics, health and safety.
May 22 – Mapping instruction on use of levels and stadia for mapping (garden west of Anthropology building); begin mapping @ LRM (campus).
May 23, 24 – Mapping @ LRM.
May 27 – Lecture 2 – Laying in the grid, excavation and record keeping.
May 29 – Test-pit excavation of the survey zone. Maps Due.
May 30, 31 – Complete the survey, establish the grid, and prepare for excavation
June 3-7 – Excavation
June 10 – Lecture 3 – Stratigraphic profile and Harris Matrix
June 11 – Excavation, complete units
June 12 – Scan of Field Notebooks Due, begin profiles of units
June 13 – Complete profile, Backfill units
June 14 – Backfill, Harris Matrix and Profile Due. End of in-person course requirement.
