During Winter Session 2018, I participated in the Archaeology of England Study Abroad trip. This trip was held over the course of ten days. During this time, we visited many archaeological sites from Prehistoric, Roman, and Medieval England near both London and York. Sites that we visited included the British Museum, Museum of London, the Jorvick Museum, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a deserted medieval village, among others. By visiting each of these sites, we were able to better understand and achieve the goal of the course. This goal, in my opinion, was to understand how the three main time periods of English history, the Prehistoric, Roman, and Medieval periods, molded together to create the culture and architecture that England is made up of today. We were aided in achieving this goal by the use of our Moleskin notebooks, which we took with us kept notes in. We used these notebooks to create our reflections and analyses, which we completed every night after dinner. The reflections simply allowed us to gather our thoughts about the day in a way that made sense, and the analyses gave us the opportunity to connect whatever we had learned that day to the course. We had to decide what the events of the day meant archaeologically and what they meant to us. The course was 30% participation, 40% reflection and analysis, and 30% final exam. I felt that this course was very hands-on, and I benefited greatly from this. I honestly think I learned more in these 10 days than I would in a semester-long class.
Since none of this class was online, I do not have any artifacts to include. However, I have many pictures from this trip and will use the one of me and one of my sorority sisters at the Stonehenge site!