Curation-Based Field School

Every other summer (in even number years) the Arkansas Archeological Survey hosts a curation-based field school in collaboration with the Institute for Field Research. This 5-week course based in Fayetteville, AR teaches students the basics of archeological curation. The focus of the course is to rehabilitate a collection from its current state to one that is properly physically housed, digitized, inventoried, archived, and ready for long-term storage and future research. Each year a collection is chosen from different regions of Arkansas so that unfinished projects from all areas of the state can be brought up to current curation standards. This also allows us to work with varying descendant communities and archeologists to give students a wide range of experiences and views on archeology and curation methods and ethical standards in both.

During the course, students learn to identify and inventory artifacts from specific time periods in Arkansas history. They learn physical curation standards for artifact storage and get hands-on experience while working to bring the collection up to date using those standards. They also learn about standards for digital and physical records, scan physical records to create digital records, and back up those records appropriately. They also discuss other types of digital records (such as GIS data and photographs) with ARAS staff members who work with those data sets. Students also get a chance to work in the ARAS 3D scanning lab, where they learn to scan and print objects and the ethics and considerations of reproducing artifacts. 

In addition to working in the lab in these capacities, we take field trips each week to other curation and museum facilities around the area to see how other organizations work with artifacts in their care. We also speak with the curators and staff at these locations about the logistics, ethics, and politics of curation and display of artifacts in these different locations.

There is also an overnight fieldtrip to visit either the site from which the collection was excavated or the Tribal Nation headquarters of the descendant community to whom the collection is related. This allows students to speak with the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer or other Tribal Preservation staff about how they handle archeology and collections and their and their Nation’s views.

Registration for this field school is handled through the IFR. The next program will be hosted in the summer of 2026. The course should be available for enrollment towards the end of Fall 2025 – stay tuned for updates!