REU Site: The Lower Cacaulapa Valley Project, NW Honduras: A Program for Undergraduate Research in Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology

Kenyon College, Gambier OH

Investigators

Abstract

This award provides funds for an REU Site in archaeology and cultural anthropology at the Lower Cacaulapa Project in NW Honduras. Eight undergraduate students will conduct independent field research. Participants will take a common core of seminars that introduce them to archaeological and ethnographic methods and theory and sensitize them to the political, cultural, and economic context in which they will live and work. Student investigations will include explorations of modern and ancient cultural processes and behavioral patterns. This course of study is founded on the directors' considerable experience in collaborating with and teaching undergraduates within field settings in the past, most particularly on NSF REU Site projects that they directed in the Naco vally, Honduras in 1988, 1990, 1992, 1995, and 1996, and in the lower Cacaulapa valley during 2000 and 2002. This award contributes to the Foundation's continuing efforts to attract talented students into careers in science through active undergraduate research experiences.