2006-2007 - The Field Museum

information on the rise of civilization in a poorly known area of China. Equally significant, this program is
building local scientific capacity through a strong commitment to training of local graduate students and
colleagues from several areas of China. The collections and data gathered by the survey will facilitate
advanced study by Shandong University colleagues and students, forming the basis for theses and
dissertations, and thereby laying a foundation for the next generation of research in the Rizhao area of
southeastern Shandong. Curator Chap Kusimba of Anthropology has led an archaeology field training
school in Kenya for several seasons, and was recently awarded a grant from the National Science
Foundation “Research Experience for Undergraduates” program for a project focusing on food
production, pottery and metals on Mount Elgon, Kenya. Likewise, Associate Curator Ryan Williams
initiated an archaeological field school in Southern Peru in 2006 in conjunction with the University of
Illinois at Chicago. The Contisuyo Archaeological Field School, sponsored by The Field Museum and the
Contisuyo Museum in Peru, trained three undergraduates in archaeological field methods last year, and
up to 12 students from Chicago area universities will participate in the future. Similarly, Associate Curator
Antonio Curet’s work in southern Puerto Rico regularly includes training of both American and Puerto
Rican undergraduate and graduate interns and volunteer students.
The broad, concerted attention by Museum curators to training enhances the expertise of overseas
colleagues and students, as well as broadening the experiences of our Chicago-based students. But the
enrichment of the fieldwork experience also comes full circle to connect with the general public and K–12
school audiences, thanks to expeditions@fieldmuseum. This web-based outreach program
(http://www.fieldmuseum.org/expeditions/) allows visitors virtual access to field trips with Field Museum
scientists, highlighted by daily e-mails from field sites, interactive maps, photo galleries, and video. The
Negaunee Foundation has supported the program from its inception in 2002. Since then expeditions has
provided first-hand looks at deep-sea dives in the Pacific, fossil digs in Wyoming, archeology excavations
in China, Chicago’s peregrine falcon population, and more. Registered “subscribers” number over 2,400,
and include people in all 50 states as well as the UK, Australia, Japan, Canada, and, among the
program’s most ardent fans, a large girls’ school in Ghana. Individual visitors to the site average over
2,500 monthly, with an average of 28,909 page views per month. The Field’s primary distance learning
program, expeditions has been a singular and growing success. Within the Museum, an additional gift
from Bob and Charlene Shaw funded the installation of an expeditions kiosk, located on the second floor
balcony in the public Museum, that highlights the program for on-site visitors.
As might be gathered from the preceding paragraphs, grants from federal agencies and
foundations make much of our research and concomitant training possible. Museum scientists
racked up $4.7 million in new support in 2006, making a total of nearly $17 million in active grants. A few
of the notable awards were:
• An award of $406,912 to Brown Postdoctoral Fellow Carl W. Dick (Zoology/Insects & Mammals)
from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a project entitled “Digitization, Conversion, and
Accessibility of The Field Museum's Bat Fly Collection.” The Field Museum’s Insect Collection is
the 5 th largest in North America, and our holdings of ectoparasitic bat flies are the largest and
best documented in the world; computerizing this data-rich collection will enhance the collection
quality and utility for research and education.
• A three-year SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) grant to
Associate Curator Ryan Williams (Anthropology) in the amount of $182,000 (Canadian) for Urban
Archaeology at Tiwanaku; Ryan is also a co-PI on an NSF grant for “Interregional Trade and the
Development of Archaic States,” which will support the survey of a little-known region between
the well-documented colony of the ancient Tiwanaku state in Moquegua, Peru and its capital in
the Titicaca Basin of Bolivia. The research will focus on how ancient states maintained trade
routes with far-flung outposts in the period between 500 and 1000 AD when these polities first
emerged.
• An NSF Planetary Biodiversity Inventory (PBI) grant ($62,000 subcontract) to Associate Curator
Petra Sierwald (Zoology/Insects) to complete a worldwide inventory of the spider family
Oonopidae (tiny, fierce hunters that inhabit forest leaf litter). The project involves four institutions
and 26 collaborators; at the Field, Petra will supervise a massive sorting effort of the extensive
7