Program Description:

The excavations at the site of Cabeço de Amoreira offer an exciting opportunity to learn about archaeology and to experience modern Portugal. Amoreira is a Mesolithic site, dating to 6,000 years before present. At that time, the site sat on the banks a wide estuary of the Tagus river, where waterfowl, fish, and shellfish were abundant. Today, it is located in the middle of a vast vineyard, outside the village of Muge, in central Portugal. Only minutes from the city of Santarém, and an hour from cosmopolitan Lisbon, Muge is a wonderful hub from which to explore the Portuguese people, food, sites, language, and entertainment. This program is a joint fieldschool with the Universidade do Algarve, so students have the opportunity to live and work with Portuguese archaeologists and undergraduates.

Students will learn the basics of archaeological fieldwork, including how to identify artifacts, excavate, map, and screen. There will also be lectures three evenings a week about archaeological methods and Portuguese prehistory. We will work Monday through Friday, with a half day on Saturday. Some weekends we will have excursions to sites of interest, while other weekends students will have free to explore Portugal.

Archaeological fieldwork is just that – work! The hours are long and it can be very hot. The work can be physically demanding. Our living conditions are spartan. We live in a house, but share a bathroom and use sleeping bags on mattresses on the floor. In exchange, you'll spend your days outdoors in the beautiful, sunny countryside of central Portugal. You can hold in your hand tools that were made six-thousand years ago. And you'll enjoy the camaraderie of the whole crew, whether professors or students, Portuguese or American. Not everyone loves archaeology, but for those of us who do, fieldwork is the most fun you can possibly have!

Trip Leader Profiles:

Rebecca Dean is an archaeologist who specializes in animal bones and the origins of agriculture. She has worked in New Mexico, Arizona, Jordan, and Israel, in addition to Portugal. Her work in Portugal has been on-going since 2003.

Joseph Beaver is an archaeologist who specializes in stone tools and computer modeling of prehistoric societies. He has worked in Kansas, Oklahoma, Jordan, Montenegro, and Israel. He has worked in Portugal since 2003.

Nuno Bicho is head of the archaeology and cultural patrimony program at the University of the Algarve, our Portuguese partners in this program. He is director of the Muge excavations and has been involved in Portuguese archaeology for the last two decades. He began excavations at Muge in the summer of 2008.