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Study Abroad Students Head To Armenia For Archaeological Dig

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  • Study Abroad Students Head To Armenia For Archaeological Dig

    STUDY ABROAD STUDENTS HEAD TO ARMENIA FOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG
    by Michael Kirk

    UConn Advance
    http://www.advance.uconn.edu/2009/090504/0 9050410.htm
    May 1 2009

    Seven UConn undergraduates will accompany anthropology professor
    Daniel Adler on a Study Abroad program to Armenia this summer to
    participate in archeological excavations at three Stone Age sites.

    The trip is sponsored by UConn's Armenian Studies Program, and by a
    partnership between UConn and Yerevan State University in Armenia. The
    students, selected through a competitive process, will be in Armenia
    for the month of June. They will work at the archaeological sites
    under the direction of Adler and three anthropology graduate students.

    For two years, Adler has been conducting research at several sites in
    Armenia that he estimates are between 25,000 and 200,000 years old. In
    time, he expects the sites to provide significant new information on
    Neanderthal evolution and behavior. To date, the sites have yielded
    stone tools and animal bones.

    "This is a great opportunity for undergraduates who are interested
    in the field, providing them with very valuable field experience,"
    Adler says.

    "It will also help create stronger ties between UConn and Yerevan
    State University, as well as highlighting the important work of our
    Armenian Studies Program."

    Five of the students are juniors and two are sophomores. Four are
    anthropology majors, and the other three are majoring in history,
    journalism with anthropology as a minor, and nutritional sciences.

    Adler notes that the research is physically taxing work.

    "They are going to be working in a somewhat rugged, rural area several
    miles outside Yerevan, and they will be living in close quarters with
    one another," he says.

    Junior Maria Darr, the journalism major minoring in anthropology, says,
    "I have aspirations to become an archaeologist, and this seemed like
    an opportunity I did not want to pass up. I always knew I wanted to
    study abroad during my years at UConn, and when I saw this option,
    it combined everything I wanted in a Study Abroad program."

    One student for whom the trip has special significance is sophomore
    Danice Tatosian, the nutritional sciences major, who is of Armenian
    origin.

    "Spending a month experiencing the culture of a foreign country, while
    working on an extraordinary archaeological site, is a once-in-a-life
    time opportunity," says Tatosian.

    "When I first read about this trip my heart must have momentarily
    stopped, and I knew this was something I had to work for."

    Tatosian says she applied because it is an opportunity to do something
    she had always dreamed of doing: working on an archaeological site,
    "sifting through and studying materials that haven't been touched in
    thousands of years" in a place she says she regards as home.

    The students will earn six honors credits for their work.
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