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Field Schools

As an instructor, I've been committed to providing SFU students with hands-on opportunities to work in the field and in the lab with human remains from archaeological sites. In 2015 and 2016, SFU students travelled to Portugal, during the summer, for a "lab school" at the Municipal Museum of Santarém. At this museum students volunteered their time to assist in the long term curation (cleaning, labelling, cattaloging) of archaeological human remains recovered from sites in the city of Santarém, under my supervision and of the municipal archaeologist - and long time friend - António Matias. More information about Santarém, the bioarchaeology "lab school" and a photo gallery is available.

In the summer of 2018 I offered the first edition of the Portugal Bioarchaeology Field School, which took place in Cacela-Velha located in the Southern Coast of Portugal (Algarve). The field school is part of a larger archaeological project, and the excavation of the site is under the scientific coordination of Dr. Cristina Tété Garcia (DRCAlg/CEAACP), Maria João Valente (UAlg/CEAACP) and myself (SFU). The field schooll is also the result of an international partnership between SFU-Simon Fraser University in Canada, and DRCAlg - Direcção Regional de Cultura do Algarve, UAlg - Universidade do Algarve, CEAACP — Centro de Estudos de Arqueologia, Artes e Ciências do Património, and the Municipality of Vila Real de Santo António in Portugal. More details about Cacela-Velha, the 2018 field school and a photo gallery is available.

The 2020 field school was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2022 field school went back to the Poço Antigo site at Cacela-Velha and the excavations were extended North to the Varzea Norte site.  Previously to the field work, the students spent a week at the Municipal Museum in Santarém and a week at the University of the Algarve in Faro. 

The 2024 field school was entirely lab-based and focused on bioarchaeology and forensics, with lab work returning to the Municipal Museum in Santarém and the University of the Algarve in Faro, for two weeks. One week was spent in Gandra at the Cooperativa de Ensino Superior Politécnico e Universitário, near Porto, Portugal.