University of Pennsylvania. Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

This project, called the Gorgas Mill Complex Project here because that was the name the project leader, Jeff Kenyon, used (though it was generally known as the Monastery Project), was an excavation carried out during the summer of 1974 at the site of a mill on the Wissahickon creek near Kitchens Lane in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The project was conceived and led by Jeff Kenyon, the director of the education department at the Penn Museum (then called "The University Museum"), as well as a doctoral student in the American Civilization department of the University of Pennsylvania. Kenyon initiated this project not only to excavate the site and find physical evidence to support the information known from historical documents, but also to provide a summer course for high school students that would give them hands-on experience in the field of archaeology. Kenyon had led a similar, though smaller, project in 1972 in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, involving eleven students who worked only on Saturdays.

To facilitate the integration of education and historical archaeology, Kenyon set up two courses, the first from June 17 to July 19, the second from July 22 to August 23, with each course accommodating up to 30 students. The students learned how to dig test trenches, catalogue artifacts, and other rudiments of archaeology, under the close supervision of Kenyon and his staff.

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