A Workshop for Developing Advanced GPS, GIS and Geophysical Skills Through Plantation Archeology
June 18-30 2007
Natchitoches, Louisiana
Our ability to locate buried features without digging has grown steadily, but so has the technological learning curve.
This workshop will bring you up to date on GIS, GPS, and geophysical prospection skills (radar, thermal imaging, gradiometry, and conductivity/resistivity).
You will learn how to effectively use these technologies to accomplish your goals in the field and office.
GPS, GIS, and Geophysics Workshop
(Trimble Products and ArcGIS 9.2)
June 18-23, 2007
Ground Truthing Workshop
June 25-30, 2007
Expert instructors will guide you in an intensive learning experience that integrates concepts, data collection, and analysis, all within the context of a grant-driven research project in plantation archeology. Learn by doing!
Beginning at the modern labs and facilities of the National Center, your learning experience will be enhanced by use of the discipline’s latest technology and equipment. You will refine your skills by collecting and interpreting data from the enigmatic and intriguing Whittington site (16NA241), the c. 1786-1820 plantation of Marie-Therese Coincoin, a free woman of African descent considered the matriarch of Louisiana’s Cane River Creoles.
For further information, contact David W. Morgan online or at (318) 356-7444.
Expert Instructors
 Steven L. De Vore (M.A. Iowa State) is an archeologist with the National Park Service’s Midwest Archeological Center.
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 Deidre McCarthy (M.A. Delaware) works at the National Park Service’s Cultural Resources GIS Facility.
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 Tommy I. Hailey (Ph.D. Texas A&M) is an assistant professor at Northwestern State University of Louisiana.
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 Kevin C. MacDonald (Ph.D. Cambridge) is Senior Lecturer in African Archeology at University College London.
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 Bryan S. Haley (M.A. University of Mississippi) is the coordinator of remote sensing research at UM’s Center for Archaeological Research.
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 David W. Morgan (Ph.D. Tulane) is Chief of Archeology and Collections at NCPTT.
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- An Integrative Framework: Advanced GPS/GIS Skills.
At the outset, participants learn advanced GPS concepts and gather data at the Whittington site using Trimble Pathfinder Pro XH and Geoexplorer GeoXT instruments. Participants then learn how to fuse together GPS and geophysical data into a powerful interpretive tool using the latest version of ArcGIS (9.2). This is hands-on learning at its best!
- Scanning the Land: Skills Training in GPR, Gradiometry, and Other Geophysical Techniques.
Armed with GPS data and a GIS database, De Vore, Haley, and Hailey introduce geophysical prospection and the Powered Parachute as unique ways of surveying the land. Participants collect radar, gradiometric, conductivity, and other data, which they process daily and georeference using GIS. Students use these data, along with thermal and aerial data, to pose hypotheses about the layout of structures and features at the site. NCPTT challenges traditional pedagogy by making the participants active, engaged research partners!
- Moving the Earth: Ground Truthing and Hypothesis Testing.
In the second week participants and instructors join Morgan and as they direct an international archeological team at the plantation. The U.S. N.E.H. and the U.K. AHRC are funding research on creolization and the African Diaspora experience. The overlap of the workshop with a robust set of genealogical, excavation, archival, and ethnographic data provides an unparalleled educational opportunity. Participants and instructors swap computers for trowels in order to better learn what below the ground has structured the electronic data gathered the previous week.
- Distance Learning:Online Reports Once You’re Home.
Afterwards, NCPTT will post excavation and remote sensing data on the Internet. Excavation by the archeological team will continue for an additional three weeks, and the results—and how they match the geophysics—will be posted online, so participants can continue their learning experience. Go to our website to see last year’s results.