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FLORIDA IMPRINTS
ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY
I M P R I N T S
Uncovering Lost Civilizations
AT LEFT: Students conducting field work TOP: Manteno face artifact BOTTOM, LEFT: Student relaxing in hammock BOTTOM, RIGHT: View of nearby coastline
Journeying through time, cultural anthropology students uncover
lost civilizations through the FAU Ecuador Field Programs in
Archaeology and Ethnology. For those interested in contemporary
community studies, the ethnology curriculum of the program
also has much to offer.
This international field study summer program, one of the few of
its kind granted national U.S. accreditation, is made available to
students from FAU and around the world by the Dorothy F. Schmidt
College of Arts and Letters’ Department of Anthropology. Coastal
Ecuador’s southern province of Manabi, an area overlooked by many
researchers, serves as the focal point for the FAU field study. Home
base is a small fishing village ideally located to allow students and
faculty to travel to nearby excavation sites in Salango, Rio Chico
and El Pital.
“Since 1997 we have been scientifically studying this area and
have had great success,” says Dr. Michael Harris, associate professor
and department chair. “FAU’s Ecuador Field School, one of the
only such programs set in South America, sees an enrollment of
approximately 15 to 25 students each summer. Half of the group
is comprised of FAU students, while others come from such institutions
as the University of Chicago, New York University, Wellesley
College, The University of Texas and the University of California.
There is also student representation from Great Britain, New Zealand,
the Netherlands and South America.”
Students learn how to observe their surroundings, record their findings
and apply anthropological methodology and theory as they dig
out and examine artifacts and ancient structures, and draw conclusions
about the way past cultures lived and present societies function.
“Our work has resulted in unearthing important habitation and
ceremonial sites including the remains of a stone settlement and ancient
shell processing building in El Pital,” says Valentina Martinez,
Harris’ academic colleague at FAU and partner in marriage. “Our
discoveries serve as significant proof of a once technologically
complex and well-organized urban center where people made use of
natural resources. One student discovered a subspecies of the
Capuchin monkey. By venturing into this previously unexplored
Amazon-like region, FAU has advanced as an institution committed
to the study of complex human cultures.”
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