Join a continuing and exciting project in the Czech Republic that covers the origins of the Czech people, culture, and state from 4000 BC to the post-Soviet Block era. Students participate in ongoing archaeological excavations exploring the Hana Valley, complete with 2 30+ acre hill forts and 9 smaller hillforts, most with Neolithic as well as sites with Bronze Age, Celtic, Medieval, and Early Modern components. The sites are located in a broad picturesque valley in the eastern Czech Republic (Moravia), just 3 hours east of Prague and a similar distance north of Vienna. Students also travel and explore the modern Czech world with its dynamic economic growth and westernization. Optional field trips include visits to Dolni Vestonice (the famous Upper Paleolithic site), the Austrian Museum of Natural History and Man in Asparn (with its on-going experimental archaeology programs), and explorations of the outstanding museum at, and the Medieval city of, Olomouc (20 km from our headquarters).
This year we have been invited to help excavate a substantial Neolithic occupation site near our base in Premyslovice. The site covers a substantial hilltop near the rear of the valley and has yet to be systematically explored. Preliminary testing at the site has indicated TRB I and II components with a high likelihood that both earlier EpiLengyel and later Bronze Age components may also exist on the hilltop and hillside. Not insignificantly the site lies about 2 km SW of the one of the main, large, walled sites (Rmiz) and just slightly further form three known burial complexes. We will be working in the same units as our Czech colleagues as we explore these important discoveries.
Principal Investigator CARPRO.....................Dr. Maximillian Ott Baldia, SMU
Co-Principal Investigator, Czech Host and Director of Moravian Archaeology......Dr. Miroslav Smid, Director, Moravian Cultural Resource Management Office, Prostejov
Field School Director....... Dr. John P. Staeck, College of DuPage
Geoarchaeologist and Soil Chemist.......................Mr. Douglas Frink, Founder and President of Archaeological Consulting Team
Skeletal Pathology and Demography................... Mr. Michael Dietz, U. of Missouri, Columbia
Textiles ......... Ms. Christel Baldia, Ohio State University
For an application please write, call, or email:
Dr. John P. Staeck
Director, Czech-American Archaeological Field School
College of DuPage
425 Fawell Blvd,
Glen Ellyn, IL., 60187-6599
(630)-942-2022