Program Duration
Summer: Month of June (four weeks)
Program Description
This four week program offers students the opportunity to participate in a paleoanthropology fieldschool at the famous fossil human locality of Swartkrans, South Africa. Swartkrans, a cave site approximately twenty miles from Johannesburg—the largest and most populous city in South Africa—is recognized as one of the world’s most important archaeological and fossil localities for the study of human evolution. The site’s geological deposits span millions of years and sample several important events in human evolution. The oldest finds at the site date between 1.8 and 1.0 million years old—a time period during which our immediate ancestor, Homo erectus, shared the landscape with the extinct ape-man species Australopithecus robustus. In addition to fossils of these species, Swartkrans also preserves an abundant archaeological record of their behavior in the form of stone and bone tools, as well as butchered animal bones. Most spectacularly, the site contains evidence of the earliest known use of fire by human ancestors, dated to about 1.0 million years old. More recent deposits at the site, dated about 110,000 years old, yield fossil and archaeological evidence of the earliest members of our own species, Homo sapiens.
Fieldschool participants will learn about these fascinating ancestors through a hands-on course that includes instruction in archaeological survey, site mapping, excavation, recording, artifact and fossil analysis (human and animal), and laboratory techniques. Fieldwork will be supplemented with occasional lectures, workshops and fossil locality tours with internationally recognized paleoanthropologists working at nearby sites. The last week of the fieldschool will include an African safari through environments similar to those in which the Swartkrans early humans evolved, where participants will study wild animals and ecological dynamics to gain a deeper appreciation of the world in which our ancestors inhabited.
The program is directed by Dr. Travis Pickering, Associate Professor of Anthropology at UW-Madison. Over his ten years of working in South Africa, Professor Pickering has cultivated strong relationships with researchers in the area ensuring that students on this program will see
original fossils and artifacts and receive site tours from the primary researchers in the field. Thus, the Swartkrans fieldschool experience is a very comprehensive one that expands beyond the bounds of simply excavating for four weeks at one site.
Academics
Upon arrival, participants will head directly to the Swartkrans camp to get oriented to the program. At camp, students will attend lectures and seminars on relevant topics including faunal analysis, taphonomy, hominid fossils, and stone tools conducted by leading researchers in the field. Participants will also participate in excavation research under the guidance of the Resident Director and project staff. Extensive training will be provided in paleoanthropological excavation and laboratory analyses of fossils and stone tools. During the program, the group will
take fieldtrips to the local sites of Kromdraai, Drimolen and Sterkfontein. The final five days of the program will include a tour of Mapungubwe National Park, an environment similar to that in which the Swartkrans hominids evolved. Here, students will receive instruction on the ecology and how it helps researchers to reconstruct the lifeways of early humans. During this tour, participants will also visit the famous Iron Age locality of Mapungubwe, as well as the Pleistocene site of Makapansgat.
Upon successful completion of the program, students earn six Anthro 454 - Study Abroad: Topics in Biological Anthropology credits. Grades will be based on fieldwork, field notes, and a final term paper on a topic covered in laboratory and/or field instruction.
Housing
During the program, students will be housed in a permanent structure campsite at the Swartkrans fieldschool, which is located within the gated confines of an animal reserve. The tented camp includes indoor plumbing, heaters, and hot water. Meals will be provided by a caterer on-site, with participants packing their own lunches daily. The camp contains a central lodge for lectures and communal meals. There is a pay phone at the camp, and the Resident Director will have a telephone for emergency purposes at all times. Krugersdorp, a town about five miles from the camp, has stores for groceries, personal items, and a clinic.
Excursions and Activities
Swartkrans is one of the most important sites in the whole of paleoanthropology and is in very close proximity to other well-known localities like Sterkfontein, Kromdraai, Drimolen and Makapansgat. This proximity allows students the experience of visiting these other sites that they have studied in class.