COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. Anthropology is more than an academic subject for a dozen University of Colorado at Colorado Springs students this summer.
The students are enrolled in field school and will spend a month (June 14-July 16) carefully excavating a prehistoric American Indian community at Jimmy’s Camp Park near Peterson Air Force Base.
The site is believed to have been occupied from approximately 650 A.D. to 1650 A.D. Students have uncovered stone tools and pottery shards, according to William Arbogast, instructor, Anthropology. Radiocarbon dating of recovered artifacts was used to estimate their age.
“The field school allows students the opportunity to apply skills learned in the classroom and to broaden their knowledge of how people lived a thousand years ago,” Arbogast said. “For many students, this experience is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that exists practically in their own backyard.”
To prevent looting, the exact site of the excavation is confidential. Previous excavations in 1998 and 2002 revealed tools and pottery. This year’s field school will focus on expanding the area of investigation and will focus on the lives of the occupants near the end of the site’s use.
The site investigation is supported by a grant from the Colorado State Historical Fund.
CU-Colorado Springs, located on Austin Bluffs Parkway in northeast Colorado Springs, is the fastest growing university in Colorado and one of the fastest growing universities in the nation. The university offers 25 bachelor’s degrees, 17 master’s and two doctoral degrees. The campus enrolls more than 7,600 students annually.
Editor’s note: Tours of the excavation site are available. Reporters will be asked to keep the exact location of the site confidential to protect it from looting.