Assistant Sociology and Anthropology professor, Lance Greene, Ph.D, has been giving his anthropology students a hands-on experience in the world of history and archaeology through a collaboration with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Greene's course, Archaeology of Conflict, covers conflict arenas, such as battlefields. Over a year ago Wright State established connections with a program at Wright-Patterson known as the Defense POW MIA Accounting Agency.
This agency works out of two main offices; one in Hawaii, to where the human remains of American soldiers are sent, and the other at Wright Patterson, where they are sent battlefield artifacts.
John Goines, the director of the WPAFB program, comes in throughout the course to give presentations and take students to the base to tour the collections the program has worked to build over the years.
Goines also keeps Greene updated on opportunities for jobs and internships for students.
“The course itself has usually been popular; being able to go to the air force base and see these collections and talk to a specialist has really made the class more interesting,” Greene said.
According to Greene, the artifact collection includes helicopters and airplanes from various wars. Students can also observe ejector seats and cockpits.
“He’s trying to collect every kind of artifact that the air force or the army or any other branch of the US military has used in the past hundred plus years,” said Greene. “So you can really see with your own eyes the way the uniforms and things have changed through time. My students responded really positively to it and I think that’s one of the things they love most about the class.”
Along with this project, there is also a course that is offered in the summer for a field study. The goal is to make students into archaeologists.
The past few summers were spent working in Piqua on a revolutionary battlefield site that was once a Shawnee Village. Students utilized a lab to conduct research and gain field experience.
Greene hopes to deepen relationships between Wright State and WPAFB to do research on artifacts collected.
