At last year's Mission Concepcion field school, (top) CAR Director
Steve Tomka works with students and (bottom) excavators plot a
site.
Archaeology field school teaches educators, students about past
(June 19, 2003)--The University of Texas at San Antonio Center for Archaeological Research (CAR) is conducting a field school June 16-27 at Mission Concepcion to teach area K-12 teachers and students in grades 8-12 about their cultural past.
Teachers will earn continuing education credit for participation and students will have a unique, college-level, learning experience as they uncover historic artifacts.
Under the umbrella of the UTSA Department of Anthropology, the field school is part of the CAR Legacy: Hands on the Past educational outreach program.
The school at Mission Nuestra Senora de la Purisima Concepcion, several miles south of downtown San Antonio, is part of archaeological investigations conducted at the mission since the late 1970s. Through CAR, UTSA has collaborated with the National Park Service since 1981 to bring to life the history of the mission.
"The summer field school provides a wonderful opportunity for students of archaeology to learn basic excavation skills and general field procedures, while becoming familiar with a cross-section of material representative of the enculturation of Native American groups into mission life," said CAR director Steve Tomka.
"The later deposits uncovered at the mission site also allow students to learn about the early 20th-century history of San Antonio."
The investigations, focusing on clarifying the construction details and history of the mission courtyard and granary, are to reveal the number of rooms, their functions and construction history. National Park Service preservation crews will use the information to implement preservation measures to minimize damage to mission structures including frescoes.
Indians of the Pajalat and Pacao groups who were persuaded to live there settled the mission, which was relocated from east Texas in 1731. The mission grew steadily through the 1740s but began declining by the 1760s and was partially secularized in 1794. By 1819 religious services ceased at the church, and the mission was officially secularized in 1824. As the structures physically declined, the outlines of the mission compound were nearly obliterated by the turn of the 20th century.
The San Antonio Missions National Historic Park includes four Spanish frontier missions that were part of a colonization system stretching across the Spanish Southwest in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The 819-acre park established in 1978 contains cultural sites, natural areas and Missions San Jose, San Juan, Espada and Concepcion.
Legacy, a unique teaching program at UTSA for students in grades K-12, uses archaeological and anthropological methods and techniques to promote and demonstrate cultural preservation through public education and outreach. Programs include discussion of the basics of archaeology, prehistoric cultures of Texas, historic San Antonio and the worlds of ancient Mesoamerica and early humans.
For more information or to book a CAR tour or after-school program, contact Donna Edmondson, Legacy program coordinator, at (210) 458-4462.
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UTSA-Air Force biotechnology center to be dedicated Aug. 26Portions of Buena Vista Street Building closing this weekend
UTSA community invited to Week of Welcome activities
Unprotected personal computers put UTSA network at risk
New UTSA Web page: And now for something completely different
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© The University of Texas at San Antonio, 2003