Hawai'i Field School

What will you be doing in Hawai'i?

• Living and taking classes in the beautiful towns of Kona and Honoka‘a on the majestic island of Hawai'i 

• Excavating incredible archaeological sites

• Learning about the Kānaka Maoli people via cultural immersion 

• Visiting one of the most beautiful locations in the world

Daily Activities

Days will be spent immersed in the culture of Hawai'i both past and present. To learn about the past the student will learn the basic field techniques of archaeology, including excavation, survey and laboratory analysis. Classwork will cover some archaeology methods and theory, as well as Pacific Islander archaeology and history. 

Students will live in two places on the Big Island of Hawaii. First, we will be staying in coffee plantation country near the town of Holualoa. Next, we'll stay briefly in Kona. Finally, we will spend the end of our trip in Honoka'a another great town on the Hamakua coast. We think it is important to base in a community and meet the people as we begin to understand the local life.  

Field trips for students will be called Faculty Developed Practicals (FDP) designed to foster intercultural knowledge. Students will be required to take part in these trips. For example students will travel to indigenous communities, market towns, ancient archaeological sites and museums. 

We are spending three weeks on Hawai'i conducting archaeological research and studying with indigenous Hawaiian practitioners. Students will be able to earn up to eight units of transferable anthropology credit. Students will also be able to develop and manage their own service leadership projects. Join us as we embark on this once-in-a-lifetime adventure through the history and culture of Hawai'i. 

The Applied Anthropology and Archaeology

We will begin our time in Hawaii with a program at Kaloko Fishpond, which is jointly administered by the National Park Service and native Hawaiian cultural groups. This is a project that practices indigenous archaeology and community based participatory research meaning that we shift the traditional model for research, asking native people who live in Hawaii what they want us and you (the students) to do. If it's helping to map archaeology sites by surveying, then we do it, if it's also  cleaning and rebuilding a royal Hawaiian fishpond, then we do it; if it's organizing an exhibit at the school, then we are working at the school; and if it means spending even more time cleaning and repairing the fishpond, then we'll take care of it!

The philosophy guiding this field school is that anthropological research is best done when the anthropologists are immersed in the culture they're studying. This field school will be done in a pono, or Hawaiian way, meaning we will live and breathe local thinking as we learn about the life and history of these amazing islands.  The team of people from whom you will learn is going to be growing over the next months, but two of our main contributors are Ruth Luka Aloua and No‘eau Peralto, both of whom are expert cultural practitioners who have thought long and hard about the best way to teach about Hawaii and also study her history and people.  We are so excited to be working with them and bringing you along for the ride.

What does this all mean for you, the student? Well, you get to be a part of a program that has over 60 years of field experience working on field projects with over 500 students in Ecuador, Belize, Ireland, California and New Mexico. Come to the islands, earn credits, and help us study the culture and society of Hawaii over time----we can't wait to have you!

Course Descriptions

The field program is broken down into different parts. The field and lab training portions of the program involve all the aspects of archaeology, preparing the student to operate in a field archaeology environment anywhere in the world. Benefiting from the over 50 years combined staff experience in teaching archaeology, each student is instructed in methods of site reconnaissance, surveying, excavation techniques, data recording, photography, and drawing. In the laboratory, students are guided through different aspects of artifact analysis, such as ceramic typology and stone tool production experiments.

A field journal will be covering every day in the field will be handed in by the student to the professors. The journal will cover the research being conducted and critically analyze the experience as it is ongoing. We find it is important for our students to reflect upon the daily rhythm of their lives. We will also require one or two blog posts during the trip.