Environmental Archaeology Class Updates (Spring 2024)
Spring 2024
Report by Hank Schwabacher (’26) and Elise Krautheimer (’27)
This fall, as part of Professor Brunson’s Environmental Archaeology class, students cleaned and processed two goat skeletons for addition to the Environmental Archaeology Lab’s comparative collections. The goats were procured from the previous year’s Classics Department annual goat roast and frozen for use in this year’s class. Students gained hands-on experience with archaeological cleaning and processing, boiling the skeleton and cleaning it with hand tools. Afterwards, they learned to identify, catalog, label, and store faunal remains, working collaboratively to prepare the skeletons for accession into the lab collections. Students also wrote a standard cataloging and condition report detailing the skeletons’ condition and history.