FROM THE CLASSROOM TO THE FIELD: A PEDAGOGICAL STRATEGY FOR DOCUMENTING PLACE

Michael Ashley Lopez and John Ristevski, University of California, Berkeley

This research explores the development of a pedagogical strategy currently being implemented in the Department of Archaeology at the University of California, Berkeley. The strategy is designed to bring to the classroom the cutting-edge technologies that are being applied in the field in archaeological investigation. The series begins with Archaeology 136A/Architecture 139X that outlines a digital documentation strategy for collecting, processing and integrating digital data from a variety of different media into a dataset that holistically describes a site: its natural environment, its architecture and other cultural artifacts. The methodology being taught is one that seeks to document ‘place’ as a foundation for the further investigations in both an Architectural and Archaeological context. The training and preparation the students receive in this ‘pre-school’ becomes invaluable knowledge that they may then take to the field in a variety of field schools that are offered in collaboration with research projects being offered by UC Berkeley faculty. The Archaeology 136b course builds on these field schools by providing the student with an opportunity to work with, analyze and interpret the primary field data they helped create and guiding them to help new students work with and annotate the materials. Through these series of courses we hope to develop a sense of stewardship in the field-school veterans and enthusiasm and purpose in the new students / future field school candidates.