It saddens me that we have to crowdfund for education in this country, but here we are. I know an incredible young woman who has an opportunity that could change the course of her life. It is not hyperbole to say that the program she has been accepted to could make her career. Hunter is Graduating Cum Laude from PSU, is a 3x President’s List Award winner, 5x Dean’s List Award winner, has received Academic Recognition from SALP (Student Activities and Leadership Programs) for maintaining a high GPA while being a student leader and is an enrolled member of the Lambda Alpha Anthropology Honors Society.

I will let her tell you about herself and the program...

My name is Hunter Kimbrough, and I am graduating this June with a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Portland State University. My studies have been focused on archaeology and cultural anthropology. In this field, it is necessary for budding archaeologists to attend an archaeological field school to get the necessary training to enter the field and gain experience with Archaeology professionals. I have been granted the amazing opportunity to attend the Indigenous Archaeology Field Methods course through the University of Oregon this June! This competitive course will allow me to become fully trained in archaeological excavations, ethnobotany, ground penetrating radar, low-impact field methods just to name a few. I will also be taught how to work with Indigenous communities and descendant worldviews on archaeology projects. The school will work directly with the Amah Mutsun tribe and will center Indigenous perspectives. The school will take place on the Amah Mutsun Land Trust in San Juan Bautista, CA from June 23 to July 18th.

This experience is very important to me as a young woman coming into the field under an administration that seeks to defund these sorts of jobs and sees archaeology as “unimportant.” As an archaeologist, my goal is to work in cultural resource management and work with Indigenous communities to bring their voices and oral histories to the front when it comes to interpretations and decolonizing archaeological methods. I believe that centering Indigenous communities and worldviews in archaeology breaks down the historically racist and exclusive structure that archaeology is built upon and makes the practice more collaborative and leads to better interpretations.

Currently, I have exhausted all funding available to me after four years of school, and I have come to the point where I must humbly turn to my community to ask for help to pay the tuition. My funding goal will cover my tuition fee to attend, which generously includes all my transportation, lodging, food, and dig supplies provided by the University of Oregon.

https://mnch.uoregon.edu/indigenous-archaeology-field-methods-field-school