Eastern Illinois University (EIU): Louvain-la-Neuve - Summer Archeology

Eastern Illinois University, in partnership with the University of Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium, invites applications for the Summer Archaeology program. The Summer Archaeology Program in Belgium offers a unique opportunity, unduplicated by any other program anywhere, for EIU students (including guest students specially enrolled from other institutions) to learn about the principles and practice of archaeology as a “crossroads discipline,” bringing together the perspectives offered by the Humanities with the methods of the Sciences, by working alongside other American and European students on the excavation of a medieval castle in Belgium. Students will learn the basic methods, procedures and skills of medieval field archaeology in the course of a four-week campaign at Walhain Castle, near Louvain-la-Neuve. These involve stratigraphic excavation, field drawing (mapping and section drawing), preparation for on-site photography, artefact recording and treatment, field cataloguing and initial finds processing. Students will learn the contextual parameters of the Walhain project by situating the castle historically in the evolution of the Walloon region of Belgium from Roman through Early Modern times, and situating the research project scientifically in the developing field of medieval archaeology.