Interested in spending a month on the beach in Peru excavating ancient tombs & households?

• Learn how to do archaeological excavation and lab analysis
  

• Visit world world-famous archaeological sites and learn about the prehistory of Peru
  

• Travel to Cajamarca and tour the Andes Mountains
  

• Earn 6 semester hours of UNC-Chapel Hill credit for Anthropology 453. Apply online
  

• Or take the same program without credit at a reduced price. Non-credit program is offered by MOCHE, Inc. To apply, contact Brian Billman at: billman@savethemoche.org

• UNC students fulfills 4 General Education requirements: (1) Historical Analysis, (2) Beyond the North Atlantic, (3) The World Before 1750, and (4) Experiential Education 
  

• No prerequisites.  Spanish not required.  Non-majors accepted.
  

• The field school is offered by  MOCHE, Inc. and Study Abroad at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. 

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The field school is designed to provide students with training in archaeological excavation and laboratory methods as well as instruction in the prehistory of Peru.  The program begins with workshops on archaeological methods and the prehistory of Peru.  After this, students work five days a week  excavating an ancient fishing village on the beach in Huanchaco, a quiet fishing village and resort located 300 miles north of Lima.  On Saturdays, we tours of archaeological sites, and Sundays are freetime.  At the end of the program, we travel by bus to the highland town of Cajamarca (see Course Schedule).

   
                   1999 Field School at Cerro Oreja                                       2000 Field School at Cerro Oreja

                                                                2006 Field School at El Brujo

Fieldwork involves the excavation of noble and commoner households and tombs at the site of La Poza-Pampa Cruz on the beach in Huanchaco on the north coast of Peru.  The site was a fishing village and dates to the Early Intermediate period (400 BC-AD 700).   .Previous excavations revealed well-preserved household compounds and numerous burials containing Moche fineware and plainware ceramics, stone tools, metal objects, and textiles.

              The beach in Huanchaco near the site of La Poza

Fieldwork and laboratory analysis is conducted five days a week (see  Fieldwork on Project ).  Students work on dig crews consisting of four students and a grad student crew chief.  Each team is assigned a set of rooms which they excavate, map, and record.  Students also wash and analyze artifacts recovered from their excavations and assist in the design and day-to-day management of the computer database for the project.


                      Getting started on Compound 3 at Cerro Leon, 2004

                        Clearing wallfall from Compound 1, Cerro Leon 2004

In addition to gaining hands-on training in excavation techniques, laboratory analysis, and database management, students actively engage in implementing the project research design. Through excavation, analysis, readings, and group discussions, we examine how ethnicity, class, and economic relationships are manifested in household remains.

On every Saturday, Brian Billman conducts tours of local museums and archaeological sites, including Chan Chan, Huaca del Sol and Huaca de la Luna, El Brujo, and Cerro Oreja.  Sundays are unscheduled free time (see Course Schedule).


                Excavators remove masrony wallfall at Compound 1, Cerro Leon 2004

Brian Billman (Associate Professor, UNC-CH), Jesus Briceno (INC Peru), Jennifer Ringberg (PhD candidate UNC-CH), and Jeff Frost (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison).  Collectively we have more than 75 years of archaeological experience in Peru, Costa Rica, Mexico, and the US.

             
               Brian and Sara at Ciudad de Dios, 1998                                Jennifer at Cerro Leon, 2007

   
                           Jesus at Cerro Leon, 2005

The field school is based in Huanchaco, a pleasant fishing village and beach resort just a few miles outside of Trujillo, a large city on the north coast of Peru.  Trujillo and Huanchaco are located 300 miles north of Lima.  Students live in double and triple rooms at the Hostal Huankarute in Huanchaco and will be provided with group meals six days a week.  For free time activities, the beach is located across the street from the hotel, and the Andes Mountains, siteseeing, and shopping are close by.

   
                                            Huanchaco, home of the field school since 1998

The field school is part of the Moche Origins Project directed by Brian Billman, Jesus Briceno, and Jennifer Ringberg.  The project focuses on how highland-coastal relationships, social stratification, and warfare influenced the development of the Southern Moche state.  The project involves households and stratigraphic excavation, analysis of existing collections of human remains, ceramic sourcing, a pedistrian survey of Moche Valley, and environmental reconstruction.  Flourishing during between AD 200 and 800, the Southern Moche state was a highly centralized, hierarchically organized political system in which leaders exercised considerable economic, military, and ideological power.  Leaders of the state directed the construction of some of the largest public monuments in the Americas, led the conquest of neighboring valleys, and organized the production of finely crafted ceramics, textiles, and metal objects.  Although clearly one of the largest and most complex prehistoric political systems to have developed in the Americas, the origins and socioeconomic structure of the Moche state are poorly understood.


                      Surveying the upper Moche Valley, 1991

$3,885* covers fees for 6 semester hours of UNC-Chapel Hill credit.  Includes UNC Study Abroad fees, lodging, three meals a day six days a week, all site and museum entrance fees, health insurance, and transport on all excursions.  Fees also cover a four-day trip to the highland town of Cajamarca.  Cost does not include airfare to Peru, transportation to Trujillo, passport fees, meals on Sundays, laundry service, or personal expenses.

$2,600* without course credit.  Offered through MOCHE, Inc.  Includes lodging, three meals a day six days a week, all site and museum entrance fees, and transport on all excursions.  Fees also cover a four-day trip to the highland town of Cajamarca.  Cost does not include health insurance, airfare to Peru, transportation to Trujillo, passport fees, meals on Sundays, laundry service, or personal expenses.  For more information or an application contact Brian Billman at: billman@savethemoche.org


                Soccer match with the village of Ciudad de Dios, 1999

To receive UNC-Chapel Hill credit for the program, apply online 
To apply to the non-credit program, contact Brian Billman at billman@savethemoche.org
Enrollment is open to students from any college or university.
No prerequisites.  Spanish not required.
Space is limited to 15 students.


          After work at the Bar Recreo in Qurihuac near Cerro Leon

For program details:                                                        For registration and administrative details:

Professor Brian Billman                                                  Rebecca Denton, Advisor
Department of Anthropology                                          Study Abroad
CB#3115, 201b Alumni                                                 FedEx Global Education Center, CB#3130
University of North Carolina                                           University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3115                                         Chapel Hill, NC  27599-3130
(919) 962-9348                                                             (919) 962-7002
bbillman@email.unc.edu                                              http://studyabroad.unc.edu/programs.cfm?pk=1750
billman@savethemoche.org

*The quoted cost is based on prices and exchange rates as of October 2008.  The costs and details of the program itinerary are subject to change.