This field school is an integral part of the major research project, the Monastic Midlands Project. It takes a holistic landscape scale approach to community based archaeological research, assessing several monasteries in the midlands region of Ireland and studying the landscape, earthworks, buildings, folklore, spirituality, artefacts and the buried human remains of these spectacular sites. The project seeks to understand the cultural heritage of the region by understanding how people lived, shaped their environment, built structures, and memorialized the dead. 

This project directly contributes to the objectives of local host communities and teaches students to look at archaeological sites in a regional landscape setting, teaching a wide range of skills that are directly applicable to future careers in Cultural Resource Management (CRM).

Among the techniques introduced at this school are: excavation skills, survey, landscape assessment, architectural recording, small scale excavation and post-excavation. Students will learn the typical progression of archaeological research from learning to read the physical landscape, to non-invasive survey techniques, to excavation and laboratory protocols (focusing on artefact curation and remedial conservation).

Please note that while this program will introduce students to these various techniques, the degree to which each is used will be dependent on the needs of the sites investigated. Our winter season is NOT an excavation program, however archaeological excavation skills and the single context recording system are taught in a controlled mock excavation facility.