Nestled within the Carpathian basin you can find Transylvania, a land lush with mountain greenery and active wildlife. While riding the train across their exceptionally green landsape, you may hope to find a few [...]

So you have decided that you want to embark on an exciting new journey and go to a field school - Yay! Field school is a great way to experience new cultures, make lifelong connections, [...]

Want to have a great field school experience? Try out the Monastic Midlands Excavation Field School this summer! Here’s 10 reasons why: Learning environment Unlike most digs, you won’t be working for [...]

So, you just came back home from an amazing experience and now you have to ask yourself the scary question: What’s next?! If possible, try and schedule time for yourself when you get [...]

By Ariel Gilmore This summer, I got to travel to Providencia, Colombia with USC professor Tracie Mayfield. The work of my team is a project of discovery and justice. Archaeology recovers the lost, tangible [...]

By: Adela Elizarrez I participated in the Proyecto Arqueológico Zuleta (PAZ) in Ecuador over the summer which focused on the Zuleta region, located north of the country’s capital of Quito. Zuleta is nestled within [...]

By: Magen Hodapp Characters such as Indiana Jones and Evie Carnahan of the Mummy present the most romanticized versions of archaeologists: people who find complete skeletons, intact mummies, and experience bizarre, cursed scenarios. Many cite [...]

 By: Annmarie Delgado It has been a while, but I have been trying to get acclimated. The first ten days in Karaman, Turkey have been quite the experience. It took eight days to dig [...]

By: Austin Jacques The goddess arrived with a fanfare of brass horns and drums. Her palanquin, held aloft by her devotees and bedecked with ornaments and other ceremonial objects, was carried into the temple courtyard [...]

By: Annmaire Delgado Well, as many of you know I am headed to Konya, Turkey tomorrow to learn how to excavate. The site is fantastic and dates back to 14000 BCE! There has been [...]

By Andrew Califf The site of El Rayo is massive and abounds with artifacts. Renewed excavations at the lakeside site of El Rayo lead to exciting finds, but raised many questions about archaeological context, [...]

By Andrew Califf The sky is blotted out by ominous grey clouds as the removal of the human remains belonging to Individual #4 began. The outer edges of Hurricane Elsa make it a nice, [...]

By Andrew Califf Chortega archeological sites are littered with ceramic sherds, including incised and painted pieces of polychrome pottery and intricate figurines. These ceramic items are ultimately iconic due to how common they were [...]

By Andrew Califf Every pile of dirt poured into the sieve at El Rayo has the potential to change what history books preach. Imported pottery, polychrome pottery associated with incense burners and other pieces [...]

By Andrew Califf The motionless, yet seemingly sentient, stone figure peers through the dangling vines and  swaying leaves to get a glimpse of Lake Nicaragua’s sparkling blue body. There used to be more statues [...]

By Andrew Califf Students clear foliage around exposed burial urns at El Rayo’s Locus 3 to further excavate the cemetery. One of Geoffrey McCafferty’s goals for this field season is finding this cemetery’s [...]

Grid lines being laid out at Locus 3, the cemetery. The cracked urn in the foreground is one of four visible on the surface. These visible artifacts vaguely approximate how large the cemetery [...]

By: Andrew Califf We visited the grand National Palace and Ivonne Miranda Tapia, the director of Nicaragua’s Institute for Culture, gave us a tour. Miranda has tried to drastically improve the government’s approach to  [...]

My name is Kylie Dillinger, and I’m a senior at the University of Denver majoring in Anthropology and minoring in Emergent Digital Practices. I attended an IFR field school in 2018 at the former [...]

From US-CO:Amache: “My favorite artifacts, and the ones that excite me the most, are those that tell a story. One artifact we find are these homemade coal scoops made of [...]

By Gary Chandler, 2019 Field School Student from New Mexico: Puebloan Rebels of The Southwest Have you ever tried putting together a complex jigsaw puzzle?  You eventually find one piece that doesn’t [...]

I’m Julian Gonzalez, a Psychology major and Anthropology minor studying at California State University, Los Angeles. When I expressed to my professor that I was interested in attending a field school, he immediately recommended [...]

Summer is here, and our field season is in full swing! From museum studies to primatology to indigenous archaeology, IFR students are engaged in hands-on research around the world. Check out the following updates [...]

My name is Marisa Saldaña, and I am a senior at the University of La Verne majoring in Communications with an emphasis in Public Affairs and minoring in Anthropology. I have always been interested [...]

By Vanessa Muros, April 2019 [Traducción al español abajo] Last summer, the Corral Redondo Archaeology Project began its first season of a multidisciplinary effort to reexamine the previously excavated site of Corral Redondo, near [...]

The Gallina people inhabited an area of high elevations with inaccessible mesas, razorback ridges, and deep canyons (Photo 1). This rugged landscape was one of the reasons early archaeologists called them “isolated,” “backwards,” or even [...]

By Arabella Newton From the beginning of July until last week we have been living and working in the Rungan Forest, gradually building our understanding of the habitats found there and the animals that [...]

By Dr. Denis Shine & Dr. Stephen Mandal Students are drawn to our Carrick field school for a whole host of reasons – including the opportunity to work within an outdoor museum and live in [...]

From Israel - Tel Abel Beth Maacah: “This bearded male figure head made of faience (a kind of glass derivative), with a decorated headband and distinct coiffure, is being held for [...]

By Dr. Sarah Rowe I’ve been working with community members in Dos Mangas since 2006. The community has steadily built an audience for ecotourism through careful management of their forest resources and investments in [...]

By Camille Burton It’s 6:30am and the rustle of sleepy people and groans next to me confirms it’s time to get a move on to make sure I’m ready to pounce on breakfast before [...]

Students who attend IFR field schools come from all walks of life and have unique reasons for joining a program. Some attend a field school in order to determine if archaeology is a career [...]

In the aftermath of Trumps executive order to separate illegal immigrant children from their parents on the U.S. – Mexico Border, the U.S. government is scrambling to reunite the families. The Wall Street Journal [...]

Sense of Place for the Displaced The Amache field school explores a location where Japanese immigrants to the US and their descendants were incarcerated at a time of international strife. We have primarily approached this [...]

By Dr. Ran Boytner, March 19, 2018 Mav·er·ick (/ˈmav(ə)rik) refers to an unorthodox or independent-minded person. Maverick archaeologist refers to a scholar who is pushing the intellectual envelope of archaeology and changing the way [...]

Every year the IFR offers two SAA Travel Award scholarships, to give undergraduate students the opportunity to attend the most prestigious academic conference for archaeology in North America, the Society for American Archaeology. In addition to [...]

Each year, thousands of archaeologists and students from around the world gather at the most important archaeology conference in the United States-- the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) annual meeting-- to share their most recent [...]

By Dr. Ran Boytner The IFR is proud to become an institutional partner of the new Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis (CfAS). The CfAS is the outcome of a workshop held at the School for [...]

By Dr. Ran Boytner Archaeologists have been enthusiastic early adopters of digital technology. Much of the data presently collected in the field – from Total Station to remote sensing, images and analytical instrument output [...]

By Dr. Emily Lindsey It's getting warmer, so we're looking backwards Global temperatures are predicted to rise by anywhere from 2 to 6 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. As our planet [...]

By Dr. Alec Balasescu, December 17th, 2018 “Rock and Stone: Material Culture and Cultures of Making” is a multidisciplinary field course that aims to study the natural resources of pre-Alpine mountains and its immediate [...]

Melting away the evidence One of the major themes of the Arctic Vikings Field School is to explore the long-term history of climatic change in Greenland and how people in the past adjusted to those [...]

By IFR staff, January 15th, 2018 Is data on a vacation? As of late, climate change has been quite the raging topic among the heated…or rather, burning, polarization occurring in politics. What might be [...]

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that once again, college tuition is increasing (see here). Citing College Board Senior Policy Research Scientist Jennifer Ma, the article states, “The price increases [for 2017] are moderate, but [...]

Jason de Leon, a Founding IFR Board Member, was announced yesterday as a recipient of the 2017 MacArthur Foundation Award. Also known as "genius grants," the awards are given annually to individuals who show exceptional creativity [...]

A typical meal in the sky “Wait, where did you say you’re going after this?!?” asked the baffled man sitting next to me on the plane. At this point in my journey [...]

The backbone of the Institute for Field Research is our accomplished Board of Directors. The IFR board conducts an annual peer-review of every single IFR field school to ensure that the highest quality of research and [...]

Before Aksum there was Mai Adrasha... Mysteries still exist; discoveries are still to be made. In a remote valley in Ethiopia, 45 miles west of Aksum – once the seat of Ethiopian Kings – [...]

Archaeologists typically get their first hands-on research experience through a field school. Field schools, therefore, are crucibles for our profession. Not all field school students eventually become professional archaeologists, but all who participate have formative [...]

The IFR announces its multiple 2017 field school scholarships in seven different categories! We would like to highlight our Opportunity Scholarships, covering the full cost of field school tuition and airfare. Students are [...]