Experience an online archaeological project at Interactive Dig: El Carrizal
November 3, 2009
BY BILL FERRIS
Stuck inside classrooms, a lot of students don’t get to experience the hands-on aspects of history and archaeology. Though driving a mouse isn’t exactly hands-on, by clicking to Interactive Dig: El Carrizal from Archaeology Magazine, students can see photo updates and read first-hand accounts of this in-progress archaeological project.
El Carrizal was a formative settlement (1500 B.C.-A.D. 100) in the south-central part of the Mexican state of Veracruz. Archaeologists at the site post updates as they find artifacts and unearth buildings. Here’s an excerpt:
“During our survey, we detected that all the buildings are quadrangular. We also found a couple of structures that allowed us to compare the construction techniques with the ones found by Cuevas…Generally speaking, we could say that they placed their houses and civic-ceremonial structures in lines oriented West-East…Is the way people arrange their settlements an indicator of social structures and religious conceptions? Or is it a combination of these factors with the regional geographic features?”
You can put these same sorts of questions to your students, challenging them to examine the evidence and form their own interpretations. By seeing professionals in action you can encourage students to think like historians themselves.
Though following the El Carrizal dig online isnt’ the same as performing archaeology first hand, hopefully it will excite your students about history and archeology by at least getting their mouse pointers dirty.
