Anthropology 453, Field School in South American Archaeology. 
Earn 6 semester hours of UNC-CH credit by excavating ancient households and touring archaeological sites in Peru.  There are no prerequisites. Spanish is not required.  The field school is offered by  MOCHE, Inc. and Study Abroad at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.   For UNC students, ANTH 453 fulfills four General Education requirements: (1) Historical Analysis, (2) Beyond the North Atlantic, (3) The World Before 1750, and (4) Experiential Education.

The field school is designed to provide students with training in archaeological excavation and laboratory methods and instruction in the prehistory of Peru.  The program involves excavation and laboratory analysis, tours of archaeological sites, talks on the prehistory of Peru, and travel in Peru.  We will live in Huanchaco, a quiet fishing village and beach resort, 300 miles north of Lima north.  The last week of the program, we will 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 elite and commoner dwellings at the sites of Ciudad de Dios or Cerro León in the middle Moche Valley on the north coast of Peru.  Both sites date to the Early Intermediate period (400 BC-AD 700).   Ciudad de Dios consists of a series of massive elite domestic compounds and small commoner dwellings on five narrow ridgetops above the valley floor.  Excavations in the elite compounds in from 1997 to 2000 revealed abundant Moche fineware and plainware ceramics, stone tools, metal objects, and organic refuse.

              The site of Ciudad de Dios at the base of the mountains

In 2008 we will work at Cerro Leon.  Cerro León is located across the valley from Ciudad de Dios on a large hilltop.  Numerous domestic dwellings, including many large elite domestic compounds, are clustered on the steep, upper slopes of the hill, and a fortified refuge is located above the domestic area on the top of the hill roughly 200 m above the valley floor. Pottery from the site indicates that highland immigrants to the middle valley may have occupied Cerro León.

                                                   Cerro Leon

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 Ringber (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 kilometers 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.  The beach is located a few blocks from the hotel, and the Andes mountains and numerous world-renowned archaeological sites are close by for free time activities.

   
                                            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 Rignberg.  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, 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

$3,685* covers instructional costs, UNC Study Abroad fee, room, three meals a day six days a week, all site and museum entrance fees, health insurance, and transport for all excursions and between the lab house and the field site.  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.


                Soccer match with the village of Ciudad de Dios, 1999

Register online at   http://studyabroad.unc.edu/programs.cfm?pk=1750
Enrollment is open to UNC-CH students and students from other colleges and universities.
No prerequisites.  Spanish not required.
Space is limited to 12 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

*The quoted cost is based on prices and exchange rates as of October 2007.  The costs and details of the program itinerary are subject to change.