Methods & Results

Since 2012, faculty and students from HCC have conducted a series of archaeological investigations beneath several properties in Houston's Historic Freedman's Town Historic District in Houston, Texas. The purpose of this excavations has been to both train HCC students on up-to-date archaeological field methods and to learn more about the nature of the community that lived in Freedman's Town between its founding immediately after the Civil War and in succeeding decades.  

For this course, students performed at least 8 hours of field work per week during the Summer 1 semester. They worked in two 4-hour blocks. This has several advantages: 1) it allows students to work in dig teams; 2) it gives students enough time in the field to get a substantial amount of work done during
the day.