New Haven Students Explore Science of Archaeology

Some 250 seventh graders from Worthington Hooker Middle School and the Troup Magnet Academy of Sciences in New Haven have been learning about archaeology this spring at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center (MPMRC). These students are taking part in an excavation at a seventeenth century site on the reservation and using the museum’s Pequot Village to get a better understanding of what they are discovering in the ground.

The project is part of a three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant that will also involve Native American students from Connecticut this summer as well as from the Navajo Nation during the upcoming school year. The New Haven students return next year as eighth graders to continue their mastery of excavation, artifact conservation and analytical skills. A new group of seventh graders from the two schools will also participate in the program next school year.

“We are exposing these young students in very detailed and practical ways to the science of learning about the past through archaeology,” said Dr. Kevin McBride, director of research at the MPMRC. “Next year, when the Navajo students are working on a similar project under the auspices of the Navajo Nation Museum, those students and their counterparts in Connecticut will be able to communicate and share their findings through a specially designed web site.”

In addition to hands-on field and laboratory work, the project includes classroom sessions on interpreting refuse pits and on the use of natural resources by Native societies prior to European contact.

 “The NSF grant enables us to engage Native American and minority youth in authentic scientific research and foster greater science literacy,” said Theresa H. Bell, MPMRC Executive Director. “Archaeology is one of the tools that Native peoples can use to uncover and understand their past and it is a field that would greatly benefit from a greater diversity among its professional ranks.”

The grant envisions this project to be a model that will be used elsewhere to train other Native American and research center programming staff and to enrich the understanding of the potential of research among tribal nations.