Expert: Ralph Salier - 10/27/2006

Question
well I am currently at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  I am majoring in anthropology with the intent to further my education in archaeology.  I am specifically interested in  Caribbean (Taino) culture.  I would eventually like to be part time in the field and teach at a college level.  My over all goal is to try to bring a museum collection to the new Puerto Rican Museum opening in Chicago in the next few years.  I need some advice on graduate school and also field schools to get the basics of mapping surveying excavation and so on thank you for you help.

Answer
Hi Hector,

I went to Northwestern during the time of Stewart Strever and Drs. Brown and Bykstra.  Be very careful that you do not "niche" yourself to early.  Look at the Caribbean as a whole including the Carib and even costal Central Americans like to Olmec or Toltec.  Understanding of the dispursion of peoples in the Carribean is poorly understood.

Clearly you will need a great deal of field experiance and move up in the ranks  from excavator to supervisor and site director to Lab director and project director.  Missing any one of these steps would be a serious error on your part.  

The University system has several field schools each year working out of Carbondale and other locations.  Take the summer field schools and you'll get credit towards graduation as well as practical field experiance. Then once you have graduated, you can find supervisory roles BEFORE you go on to grad school.  While doing the summer field school, make sure you get to work in the lab as well and take any paleobotany, osteology, comparitive osteology, limnology, geology, malacology and other courses you can. These are all critical in helping you understand both environmental situations of the cultures under study but also the physical conditions of the people and culture.

During the field program, you should learn the mapping, surveying and other basics.  Not all field schools provide such training unless you ask.

As for Universities with Masters programs, None that I know of which specialize in the Carribean unless one of the islands does.  U of Florida may but Iam not aware of any specific programs.  There may be a group of archaeologists who specialize in the region who may publish thier works and from this source find out where they teach and then latch on to that group for further guidance.  

In the mean time, I will do some additional research and provide a follow up.

Follow up__

Journal of Caribbean Archaeology - www.flmnh.ufl.edu/jca/default.htm

www.flmnh.ufl.edu/caribarch

www.museum.archanth.cam.ac.uk/IACA.WWW/iaca.htm

www.kacike.org/cac-ike/archaeology.htm

Here are a number of sources I found on google by putting in "Caribbean Archaeology"  There is tons more too.


Follow up #2

dig it!

This site is dedicated to informing researchers and interested students and volunteers about upcoming or ongoing fieldwork in the Caribbean.
    Archaeology Fieldwork Opportunities in the Caribbean and Central America

    http://www.earthwatch.org/

Historical Archaeology:

   St Kitts Caribbean Archaeology Field School - Bristol University Caribbean historical archaeology field school in St Kitts. Offers training in landscape archaeology and historical archaeology.

   Caribbean archaeology in St Lucia

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