The Appstate-Università di Padua Bioarchaeological Field School aims to teach students human osteology, bioarchaeological field methods, and the contextualized analysis of archaeological human remains in an Italian context. Dr. Gwen Robbins Schug will teach two courses, ANT 3300 Human Osteology and ANT 4330 Bioarchaeology, focused on the identification and analysis of human skeletal remains. The first two weeks are spent in the lab. Using documented historical, pathological, and asylum collections at the Università di Padua, students will learn human skeletal anatomy, variation, and techniques for estimating sex and age in Human Osteology. The Bioarchaeology course will focus on developing research questions using pathological and archaeological specimens to gain broader understanding of social and historical forces in the Middle Ages through the Early Renaissance in the Veneto region of Italy. The third week will be led by archaeologists from the Università di Padua and will take place at a monastery in Trento, Italy. This portion of the course will involve learning methods for tomb excavation and recording. Outside of formal lab and field instruction, field trips will be focused on gaining a better understanding of the historical and social context in which our subjects lived: crime and punishment in Europe in the Middle Ages, the origins and medicalization of insanity, the stigmatization of disease and confinement of sufferers, and monastic life in Northern Italy from the 13th to the 18th century.

Applications are now being accepted until February 1, 2019; consideration will be given to students in the order in which they apply. You must have permission to apply so please contact Dr. Gwen Robbins Schug if you are interested (Robbinsgm@appstate.edu).

In addition to lab and field work on human remains, we will visit museums and cultural sites, including

Venice in the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance:

• Doge’s Palace, dungeons, Bridge of Sighs

• Torcello Island

• San Servolo Insane Asylum Museum

• Lazaretto Nuovo (quarantine islands for sufferers of the Black Death and Leprosy)

• Il Redentore (festival to celebrate the end of the Black Death in the fourteenth century)

Padua and Veneto in the Early Renaissance:

• Padua Museum of the History of Medicine, Pathology, and Vesalius’s Anatomical Theater

• Padua Archaeological Museum

• Giotto Paintings in the Scrovegni Chapel

• Relics of St. Anthony in St. Anthony’s Cathedral

• Archaeological Museum of Bologna

• Villa Pisani

This program is intended to help students build competency in osteology and bsic knowledge of the field of Bioarchaeology but it is also intended to build skills in the process of scientific inquiry, research, publication and research presentations; critical and creative thinking skills; openness and self-awareness through cross-cultural interaction and competency; greater understanding of historical forces and human diversity through time.

Applications are now being accepted; consideration will be given to students in the order in which they apply. Please contact Dr. Gwen Robbins Schug for permission to apply (Robbinsgm@appstate.edu).

For questions, please contact:

Dr. Gwen Robbins Schug

Robbinsgm@appstate.edu

336-207-2744