Classics Chair Awarded $500K NSF Grant with CNSM colleagues
Image
Classics chair and professor Paul Scotton is part of an interdisciplinary CSULB team that was recently awarded a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Scotton, along with professor Lora Stevens-Landon and post-doctoral researcher AJ White, both from the Earth Science department in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, will use the funds to create and lead programs designed to increase archaeological training opportunities for students from low-income backgrounds
The project brings together the humanities and hard sciences, giving student experiences that combine fieldwork with laboratory analyses. Participants will engage in hands-on excavation, non-destructive geophysical imaging, and data analysis while conducting fieldwork in Lechaion, an ancient site in Greece, which was an important harbor and commercial hub for nearly 2,000 years starting in the Bronze Age. Scotton, an expert in ancient architecture, is director of the Lechaion Harbor and Settlement Land Project.
“When people think about archaeology, they think about excavating buildings, which is definitely what Paul is doing. What we’re doing is a bit different,” said Landon. “We’re basically digging in the mud and looking for these things that are more invisible that indicate that people were there, how many people were there, potentially how they were using the space.”
Image
Scotton, who started at CSULB in 2005, said that the work at Lechaion will extend long past the grant and jokes that his grandchildren might make discoveries at the same site, “Our grant is three years, but what we’re doing here is decades in the making.”
Image
