Unearthing History

At the Pethick Site in Schoharie County, students immerse themselves in history through the excavation of artifacts dating back thousands of years. Pethick, now in its 13th season of excavation as an archaeological field school, is a rich and important Native American site and to date has yielded almost 500,000 artifacts and over 1,000 soil features.

The field school is a joint project of the New York State Museum and the University of Albany, and led by UAlbany’s Sean Rafferty, an associate professor of anthropology, project manager Jessica Watson, and New York State Archaeologist Christina Rieth.

Video by Scott Freedman, Office of Marketing and Communications