Archaeology and Historic Preservation: The Dirt on Deerfield

Have you ever wanted to know more about archaeology and its role in historic preservation?  How do museums and property owners take care of their archaeological heritage?  If you own a historic house and find artifacts, what should you do? Explore the answers to these questions, and many more, in this year’s museum course on archaeology.

Historic Deerfield has had a strong connection to archaeological research since the 1970s, and we have had a more than thirty-year collaborative relationship with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts, and were a partial sponsor of the UMass Summer Field School in Archaeology every summer. This class will include lectures and discussions of the archaeological histories of the Connecticut River Valley that we have encountered in Deerfield.  Come and learn how archaeologists attempt to paint a picture of Deerfield’s past by investigating how the landscape and homelots have changed over time. 

Each session will be broken into sections; lectures will be followed by hands-on activities featuring artifacts and materials from sites in Deerfield.