For the past 13 years, Mat Saunders, a teacher at Davidson Day, has led full-scale archaeological research projects in Belize, Spain, Portugal, and Greece. Each trip pairs high-achieving pre-collegiate teens with professors from around the globe. Saunders is also the executive director of American Foreign Academic Research, which gets middle and high school students involved in archaeological research.
This past summer, more than 70 students, primarily from Davidson Day, participated in excavations at the Maya city of Cahal Pech in Western Belize; the medieval castle of Zorita de los Canes in Central Spain; Troia in Portugal, the fish manufacturing capital of the Roman Empire; and Mieza in Greece, where Aristotle once taught the young Alexander the Great.
“Our model not only allows our students to have very special and unique opportunities to help write history, but it has also helped drive professional research and site preservation initiatives,” Saunders says.
About 16 to 18 students spend two weeks at each project site, which is staffed with Davidson Day faculty and more than 15 professional archaeologists from government organizations and universities such as Tulane, University of Northern Arizona, and Harvard.
Pictured: This past summer, Davidson Day School senior Connor Horstman washed and organized ceramic remains found in the excavations at Mieza in Greece. Photo by Mat Saunders
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