I N THE past two summers archaeological excavations have 

 been carried out at the Horton Site, located in suburban 

 Flossmoor, just south of Chicago. These excavations were 

 part of the Field Museum's Summer Training Program in 

 .Anthropology. This program, which receives its financial 

 support from the National Science Foundation, is directed 

 by Miss Miriam Wood, Chief of the Raymond Foundation. 



Each summer for one week the 25 students of the class 

 have been given the opportunity to learn archaeological 

 theory and field methods by participating in the excava- 

 tions of a local Indian camp site. This week of field work 

 is the climax of a six-week course introducing the students 

 to the field of anthropology. The course is open to all High 

 School Sophomores and Jimiors who live within commuting 

 distance of Field Museum. Selection of the 25 students 

 is based on their academic achievement, recommendations 

 by their teachers, and personal interviews of the highest rat- 

 ing applicants with members of the staff of the Raymond 

 Foundation. Since anthropology is otherwise unavailable 

 in a high school curriculum, this course provides these high- 

 ability secondary school students from the Chicago metro- 

 politan area with an opportimity of receiving an introduc- 

 tion to this field before they enter college. 



Raymond Foundation anthropologists Edith Fleming 

 and Harriet Smith are the instructors for the course. The 

 program is intended to provide a general survey of the field 

 of anthropology, from lectures on Fossil Man, through a 

 series of lectures on the archaeology 

 of the Mediterranean region, Mex- 

 ico, South America, and midwest- 

 ern United States. The students are 

 also given lectures on the peoples of 

 .Africa, North America, China and 



other parts of the world. Research specialists in each of 

 these fields come to the Field Museum to lecture to the 

 students. 



After several weeks of lectures and discussions of the vari- 

 ous aspects of anthropology, ranging from human evolution 

 to the social life of various peoples, the students participate 

 in actual archaeological field research. The intensive train- 

 ing in anthropology in the weeks preceding the excavations 

 helps the students to grasp the relationship between archae- 

 ology and anthropology. They are taught to understand 

 the kinds of questions about culture that the archaeologist 

 tries to answer when he goes into the field to excavate a pre- 

 historic site. An archaeologist does not dig to collect mate- 

 rials primarily for their esthetic value or for display, but to 

 gather information which, when analyzed by the archaeol- 

 ogist with training in the science of culture, provides a re- 

 construction of the life patterns of an extinct people. The 

 students are taught that archaeologists are not the collectors 

 of things, but of information about prehistoric cultures. The 

 pieces of pottery, arrow points and other artifacts which the 

 students excavate are valuable as clues to the behavior of 

 the extinct people. The scientific value of the specimens 

 can only be retained by collecting this information using 

 rigorous excavation methods. Before the students began 

 excavation of the Horton Site they were given lectures on 

 the methods of scientific archaeology so that when they 

 picked up a shovel, they knew how to dig and why. 





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