2016 Ifugao Archaeology Field School
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APPLICATION IS CLOSED
Application deadline is February 1, 2016 at 5:00pm PST.
Field School Program
The field school has been awarded funding by the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates. Eight (8) undergraduate students (junior- and senior-standing) who are U.S. Citizens or permanent residents will be selected through a competitive process. Selected students will receive stipends that can be used for academic credit fees (academic credits are optional). Roundtrip airfare (LAX-MNL-LAX), field accommodation, meals, and ground travel will be covered by the project. Students are responsible for travel expenses to and from LA prior to the trip to the Philippines.
The Ifugao Archaeological Project is calling for applications to the 2016 Ifugao Archaeology Field School which is tentatively scheduled from June 20-July 24, 2016 in Kiangan, Ifugao. Students participating in the field school will receive 12 quarter credits (equivalent to 8 semester credits – REU participants are responsible for tuition and fees)[1] while actively involved in the investigation of highland responses to Spanish colonialism. This project is sponsored by the Department of Anthropology at UCLA, in collaboration with the National Museum of the Philippines, National Commission on Indigenous Peoples-Ifugao, Archaeological Studies Program-University of the Philippines, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Institute for Field Research, and the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement, Inc. (SITMo).
Students participating in the 8-week field school will learn how to conduct archaeological field research; share the results of their studies by writing research papers and creating and participating in public presentations; and through active involvement in public outreach activities. The field season will be divided into blocks of activities, geared toward achieving the research goals of the project. Activities include participation in surface mapping, archaeological excavations, the initial processing of artifacts, ethnographic interviews, and laboratory analyses. Lectures, discussions, one-on-one meetings, and hands on laboratory training will be held every evening to guide students to complete their research projects.
This field school provides a venue for students to examine anthropological issues that include relationship between agricultural and irrigation systems, pathways to intensification, organizational entailments of irrigation systems and effects of colonialism on local political and economic activities. Such work informs us on the theoretical foundations of studies of agricultural systems and social organization by applying the model of self-organizing systems and provides an historico-ecological approach in the study of emergent complexity. More importantly, the Ifugao Archeological Project (IAP) has actively engaged the community, though the participation of the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement, Inc. (SITMo) and descendant communities. Such continued engagement of stakeholders provides students with the opportunity to experience working side-by-side with community members.
Research Background The Ifugao Rice Terraces are UNESCO World Heritage monuments that attest to the ingenuity and communitarian management of Cordilleran people of Luzon in the Philippines. Once thought to be over 2,000 years old, our recent work has demonstrated that the upland rice field systems in the region were responses to the social and political pressure from intrusive Spanish colonization into the region starting at c. AD 1600. Shortly after the arrival of the Spanish in the northern Philippines, we see the emergence and rapid expansion of wet-rice cultivation in the highlands. The shallow time-depth of the origins of the highland agricultural terraces provides interesting questions for anthropologists, particularly on the impacts of colonialism to populations who did not have direct and/or intense interaction with the colonizing power. This research program aims to provide another dimension in the study of Spanish colonialism, as this is the first intensive research program that looks at Spanish colonialism in Asia. Our work contributes to anthropology and archaeology by investigating the economic and political options available to indigenous peoples impacted by powerful colonial forces. The project emphasizes the observation that indigenous minorities were not passive spectators during the colonization process.
To determine the impacts of Spanish colonialism on Philippine highland populations, the 2015 and 2016 field seasons of the Ifugao Archaeological Project (IAP) focuses on the Old Kiyyangan Village, an abandoned settlement in the town of Kiangan, Ifugao. The IAP’s primary research goals are: 1) to document highland political and economic responses to colonialism by looking at the development and expansion of the Old Kiyyangan Village; 2) to determine subsistence shifts and health and diet by examining botanical, faunal, and human skeletal remains; 3) to investigate the process of increasing social differentiation through the examination of exotic goods; and, 4) to understand how the Philippine highlands resisted Spanish colonialism by exploring settlement patterns in Ifugao.
Visa Requirements
Students need to apply for a Business Visa at the closest Philippine Consulate. Applications may be mailed in. Students admitted to the program will receive a formal acceptance letter from Dr. Acabado detailing activities in the Philippines that will serve as the primary support document for the application. Forms and application information are available here. For more information about visiting the Philippines, please visit the US State Department Travel Advice page.
Instructors and Resource Persons
Stephen Acabado is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UCLA. He directs the Ifugao Archaeological Project and the PI of the NSF-REU Award. His research interests focuses on landscape archaeology, archaeology of agricultural landscapes, colonial archaeology, and conservation of cultural heritage.
Mary Jane Louis Bolunia is the OIC of the Archaeology Division of the National Museum of the Philippines. She has conducted research all over the Philippines, her recent work focused on the on the boat-building and maritime site of Butuan.
Adam Lauer is a biological anthropologist whose work bridges archaeology and biological anthropology. He is interested in health and disease associated with subsistence and economic changes and biological relationships with a focus on skeletal morphology.
John A. Peterson is a landscape archaeologist from the University of Guam. His work has focused on archaeological signatures of climate change, particularly in the Philippines and Micronesia.
Alan Farahani is a paleoethnobotanist who is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA. He received his PhD from UC Berkeley.
Thomas Wake is a zooarchaeologist who has conducted archaeological and zooarchaeological research along the Eastern Pacific Rim. He is the director of the Zooarchaeology Laboratory of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA.
Peter Lape is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Washington. He has taught courses on Southeast Asian archaeology for over ten years. His research focuses on understanding social change in Island Southeast Asia over the last 5,000 years. He is particularly interested in island landscapes and seascapes, cross cultural interactions such as trade and warfare, human-environment interactions and climate change
Grace Barretto-Tesoro (University of the Philippines-Archaeological Studies Program) has more than two decades of teaching archaeology in the Philippines. Her focus on the late colonial architecture of the Philippines and heritage conservation has contributed to the training of younger generation archaeologists in Southeast Asia.
Francisco Datar (Department of Anthropology, University of the Philippines) is a Biological Anthropologist, specializing in human osteology and population genetics. He has more than 30 years of teaching undergraduate students in the Philippines and at SUNY-Buffalo where he received his PhD.
Nam C. Kim (University of Wisconsin) is a Southeast Asian archaeologist whose work focuses on emergent sociopolitical complexity and early forms of urbanism, especially in Vietnam. He is concerned with cultural change through various factors such as human-landscape interaction, exchange networks, leadership strategies, and warfare. A further interest is in the modern uses of the material record in relation to cultural heritage, historiography, and notions of national identity.
Marlon Martin is the Chief Operating Officer of the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement, Inc., the community partner of the IAP. Martin has been active in heritage conservation in Ifugao for the last 10 years.
Application and Registration Completed applications are due February 1, 2016, 5pm PST. Late applications will be not be accepted.
The application portal can be accessed by clicking the button below.
Application deadline is February 1, 2016 at 5:00pm PST.
Field School Program
The field school has been awarded funding by the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates. Eight (8) undergraduate students (junior- and senior-standing) who are U.S. Citizens or permanent residents will be selected through a competitive process. Selected students will receive stipends that can be used for academic credit fees (academic credits are optional). Roundtrip airfare (LAX-MNL-LAX), field accommodation, meals, and ground travel will be covered by the project. Students are responsible for travel expenses to and from LA prior to the trip to the Philippines.
The Ifugao Archaeological Project is calling for applications to the 2016 Ifugao Archaeology Field School which is tentatively scheduled from June 20-July 24, 2016 in Kiangan, Ifugao. Students participating in the field school will receive 12 quarter credits (equivalent to 8 semester credits – REU participants are responsible for tuition and fees)[1] while actively involved in the investigation of highland responses to Spanish colonialism. This project is sponsored by the Department of Anthropology at UCLA, in collaboration with the National Museum of the Philippines, National Commission on Indigenous Peoples-Ifugao, Archaeological Studies Program-University of the Philippines, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Institute for Field Research, and the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement, Inc. (SITMo).
Students participating in the 8-week field school will learn how to conduct archaeological field research; share the results of their studies by writing research papers and creating and participating in public presentations; and through active involvement in public outreach activities. The field season will be divided into blocks of activities, geared toward achieving the research goals of the project. Activities include participation in surface mapping, archaeological excavations, the initial processing of artifacts, ethnographic interviews, and laboratory analyses. Lectures, discussions, one-on-one meetings, and hands on laboratory training will be held every evening to guide students to complete their research projects.
This field school provides a venue for students to examine anthropological issues that include relationship between agricultural and irrigation systems, pathways to intensification, organizational entailments of irrigation systems and effects of colonialism on local political and economic activities. Such work informs us on the theoretical foundations of studies of agricultural systems and social organization by applying the model of self-organizing systems and provides an historico-ecological approach in the study of emergent complexity. More importantly, the Ifugao Archeological Project (IAP) has actively engaged the community, though the participation of the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement, Inc. (SITMo) and descendant communities. Such continued engagement of stakeholders provides students with the opportunity to experience working side-by-side with community members.
Research Background The Ifugao Rice Terraces are UNESCO World Heritage monuments that attest to the ingenuity and communitarian management of Cordilleran people of Luzon in the Philippines. Once thought to be over 2,000 years old, our recent work has demonstrated that the upland rice field systems in the region were responses to the social and political pressure from intrusive Spanish colonization into the region starting at c. AD 1600. Shortly after the arrival of the Spanish in the northern Philippines, we see the emergence and rapid expansion of wet-rice cultivation in the highlands. The shallow time-depth of the origins of the highland agricultural terraces provides interesting questions for anthropologists, particularly on the impacts of colonialism to populations who did not have direct and/or intense interaction with the colonizing power. This research program aims to provide another dimension in the study of Spanish colonialism, as this is the first intensive research program that looks at Spanish colonialism in Asia. Our work contributes to anthropology and archaeology by investigating the economic and political options available to indigenous peoples impacted by powerful colonial forces. The project emphasizes the observation that indigenous minorities were not passive spectators during the colonization process.
To determine the impacts of Spanish colonialism on Philippine highland populations, the 2015 and 2016 field seasons of the Ifugao Archaeological Project (IAP) focuses on the Old Kiyyangan Village, an abandoned settlement in the town of Kiangan, Ifugao. The IAP’s primary research goals are: 1) to document highland political and economic responses to colonialism by looking at the development and expansion of the Old Kiyyangan Village; 2) to determine subsistence shifts and health and diet by examining botanical, faunal, and human skeletal remains; 3) to investigate the process of increasing social differentiation through the examination of exotic goods; and, 4) to understand how the Philippine highlands resisted Spanish colonialism by exploring settlement patterns in Ifugao.
Visa Requirements
Students need to apply for a Business Visa at the closest Philippine Consulate. Applications may be mailed in. Students admitted to the program will receive a formal acceptance letter from Dr. Acabado detailing activities in the Philippines that will serve as the primary support document for the application. Forms and application information are available here. For more information about visiting the Philippines, please visit the US State Department Travel Advice page.
Instructors and Resource Persons
Stephen Acabado is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UCLA. He directs the Ifugao Archaeological Project and the PI of the NSF-REU Award. His research interests focuses on landscape archaeology, archaeology of agricultural landscapes, colonial archaeology, and conservation of cultural heritage.
Mary Jane Louis Bolunia is the OIC of the Archaeology Division of the National Museum of the Philippines. She has conducted research all over the Philippines, her recent work focused on the on the boat-building and maritime site of Butuan.
Adam Lauer is a biological anthropologist whose work bridges archaeology and biological anthropology. He is interested in health and disease associated with subsistence and economic changes and biological relationships with a focus on skeletal morphology.
John A. Peterson is a landscape archaeologist from the University of Guam. His work has focused on archaeological signatures of climate change, particularly in the Philippines and Micronesia.
Alan Farahani is a paleoethnobotanist who is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA. He received his PhD from UC Berkeley.
Thomas Wake is a zooarchaeologist who has conducted archaeological and zooarchaeological research along the Eastern Pacific Rim. He is the director of the Zooarchaeology Laboratory of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA.
Peter Lape is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Washington. He has taught courses on Southeast Asian archaeology for over ten years. His research focuses on understanding social change in Island Southeast Asia over the last 5,000 years. He is particularly interested in island landscapes and seascapes, cross cultural interactions such as trade and warfare, human-environment interactions and climate change
Grace Barretto-Tesoro (University of the Philippines-Archaeological Studies Program) has more than two decades of teaching archaeology in the Philippines. Her focus on the late colonial architecture of the Philippines and heritage conservation has contributed to the training of younger generation archaeologists in Southeast Asia.
Francisco Datar (Department of Anthropology, University of the Philippines) is a Biological Anthropologist, specializing in human osteology and population genetics. He has more than 30 years of teaching undergraduate students in the Philippines and at SUNY-Buffalo where he received his PhD.
Nam C. Kim (University of Wisconsin) is a Southeast Asian archaeologist whose work focuses on emergent sociopolitical complexity and early forms of urbanism, especially in Vietnam. He is concerned with cultural change through various factors such as human-landscape interaction, exchange networks, leadership strategies, and warfare. A further interest is in the modern uses of the material record in relation to cultural heritage, historiography, and notions of national identity.
Marlon Martin is the Chief Operating Officer of the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement, Inc., the community partner of the IAP. Martin has been active in heritage conservation in Ifugao for the last 10 years.
Application and Registration Completed applications are due February 1, 2016, 5pm PST. Late applications will be not be accepted.
The application portal can be accessed by clicking the button below.
