Field Experience
2025 Archaeological Field School - Bender Homestead
University of Kansas | Department of Anthropology
ANTH 419 Training in Archaeological Field Work.
NO COST! TUITION REIMBURSED!
Course Catalog Description: Undergraduate and graduate students are taught techniques of archaeological field work, including survey and excavation, as well as laboratory procedures, including artifact classification and curation.
3-credit hours
Apply using this application form by March 1st, 2025.
Instructors: Drs. Lauren Norman and Blair Schneider
Description: Join Drs. Norman and Schneider and other students to investigate the history of Kansas through the lens of the Bender Homestead. The Bender family arrived in Kansas in 1870, settling into the southeast corner of Kansas just after the forcible removal of the Osage Nation. Along with typical homesteading practices, they also engaged in robbery and murder, eventually being found out. Although there has been much written about this sensational story, this project is the first to investigate the homestead using archaeological science.
Learn the basic skills of archaeological survey, field work, and cataloguing while investigating an intriguing mystery at the frontier in Kansas history.
Schedule: May 19-June 6, 2025
- Field days: May 19 - 30, 2025
- Wrap up virtually: June 2 - 6, 2025 (no class, work on notes, meet with instructors virtually).
Location: Bender Historic Homestead near Independence, KS
Logistics: No cost! All tuition to be reimbursed through scholarships after field season!
Costs included are:
- Lodging at hotel in Independence, KS (includes hot breakfast).
- Transportation to and from (hotel to site and back).
- Field work equipment, including notebooks, tools, and gear.
- First aid and emergency supplies for field.
Bob Miller, landowner of the Bender homestead, has generously donated to the KU Archaeology Field School to alleviate most of the costs for students participating in the 2025 field season at the Bloody Bender homestead. Miller’s generous donation provides funding for all subsistence and field work costs, valued at $,1250 per participant.
Additionally, students will also be eligible to apply for a scholarship to cover tuition and KU fees. Applications for this scholarship are due prior to the field school, with scholarships awarded after the field school to reimburse tuition and fees costs.
Skills Learned:
Pedestrian survey, geophysical survey, mapping (hand and GPS), shovel testing, setting grids, excavation (shovel skimming and trowel), screening, recording (notes, artifacts, stratigraphy changes), stratigraphic profiling, plan view mapping, field note taking, photography skills, field cataloguing and recording, collaborative investigation, teamwork, communication with the media, community-engaged research methods, and much more!
Questions? Contact Dr. Lauren Norman (lauren_norman@ku.edu) or Dr. Blair Schneider (blair.schneider@ku.edu).
Summer 2025
University of Kansas | Department of Anthropology
ANTH 497/889 Field Experience | KU Archaeological Field School
Hell Gap National Historic Landmark Paleoindian Site Complex
Students are able to attend both Drs. Lauren Norman's and Carlton Shield Chief Gover's fieldschools. There is a bit of overlap in dates but arrangements are can be made for students that want to participate in both opportunities.
6-credit hours | NO Course Fee!
Contact Dr. Carlton Shield Chief Gover for more details and application materials.
Priority Deadline: February 1st
Rolling Deadline: Until filled.
Course Catlog Description: A supervised field or laboratory-based experience in the United States or abroad. Students may receive this credit for an independent or collaborative research project or in conjunction with field school participation.
Schedule: May 27-June 29, 2025
- Field days: May 27 – June 5; June 8 – June 17; June 20 – June 29 2025
Location: Hell Gap National Historic Landmark Paleoindian Site Complex
Instructors: Drs. Carlton Shield Chief Gover and Mackenzie Cory
Descriptions: We invite undergraduate and graduate students to join the KU and Wichita State University (WSU) Archaeological Field School at Hell Gap National Historic Landmark, a site with thousands of years of history as a hunting camp used by multiple Indigenous Nations. This immersive program seeks to honor and collaborate with Indigenous perspectives, ensuring the past is studies with respect and shared understanding.
This Archaeological Field School is designed to teach students the skillset that many CRM firms need. Students can expect to spend a lot of time on foot doing pedestrian surveys, recording features using digital and physical techniques, and compiling the results of their work into a site report. A maximum of 15 students will be selected to participate in the class.
Students will actively participate in the team investigating the greater landscape surrounding Hell Gap using a multipronged approach. The team will question the temporal and geographic extent of occupations at the site, how these data inform broader understandings of Indigenous lifeways within the local area, and how the total landscape of Hell Gap is unique in its ability to describe the diversity of human experience from the late Pleistocene through the historic era. The 2024 field season’s investigations will primarily be dedicated to surveying and recording archaeological features outside the site’s primary research areas.
We will spend over a month at the Hell Gap National Historic Landmark, about 20 minutes northeast of Guernsey, Wyoming. The site will serve as our home and workspace for the course. Students can expect to camp on the property with access to a shared field house for cooking and eating our meals.
Learn the basic skills of archaeological survey, fieldwork, feature mapping, and cataloging while surveying one of the only protected Archaeological Preserves in the Country.
Costs included are:
- Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner
- Facilities Costs
- First aid and emergency supplies for field
- Transportation for Field Trips
- Transportation to Site upon request and availability
- Tents and camping equipment upon request and availability
Skills Learned: Pedestrian survey, geophysical survey, mapping (hand and GPS), shovel testing, setting grids, excavation (shovel skimming and trowel), screening, recording (notes, artifacts, stratigraphy changes), stratigraphic profiling, plan view mapping, field note taking, photography skills, field cataloging and recording, collaborative investigation, teamwork, community-engaged research methods, and much more!
