2025 Summer Session: June 16 - July 11
Field Course Instructors
Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin holds fossil-bearing sediments that date back to a time well before dinosaurs up through the Age of Mammals. Its early Cenozoic strata contain the ancestors of modern mammals – including the first artiodactyls (even-toed ancestors of deer, hippos, etc.), the first perissodactyls (odd-toed ancestors of horses, rhinos, etc.), the first rodents, and – importantly – the first true primates, Adapoidea and Omomyoidea.
Based out of Greybull and Worland, Wyoming, students will learn how to identify fossil localities, map sections, and collect vertebrate fossils from the earliest Eocene beds in the Bighorn Basin in which extinct primates are known, and how to prospect for new fossil-bearing localities. We are excited to offer this opportunity for our students.
Information and links on applications and scholarships below!
Thomas Bown
- Instructor
Geologist and Vertebrate Paleontologist
Kim Nichols
- Associate Teaching Professor
Biological Anthropologist
Financial Aid
Anthropology and Geography Field School Scholarship
The Department of Anthropology and Geography will provide modest financial support for Colorado State University undergraduate and graduate students to support Archaeology, Ethnographic (not currently offered), Land Change Science (Geography), or Paleontology Field School endeavors. Funds shall be used to help cover necessary expenses associated with field school costs including tuition and supplies. Scholarships are made on a competitive basis.
To be eligible for the scholarship, you must:
- be a full-time graduate or undergraduate student enrolled in the College of Liberal Arts,
- have an overall and in major 3.0 GPA,
- be enrolled in one of the department's field school courses (**see more details below)
- complete a 500-word essay describing the chosen program of study, your interest in the specific program, how the completion of the program will further your career goals, and how you expect to be affected by participation in such work.
** To enroll in field school courses, students must apply to an individual field school and then be accepted into the program and course. More information on the field schools are available on our website, including contact information for field school directors.
Field school courses include:
-
- Archaeology Field School: ANTH 260, ANTH 460/660 (summer course)
- Ethnographic Field School for Risk and Disaster: ANTH 442 (NOT CURRENTLY OFFERED)
- Land Change Science Field School: GR 382A (summer course)
- Paleontology Field School: ANTH 470 (summer course)
To apply, click the button below and complete the form and upload your materials. Applications are due April 20 by 11:59 p.m. MST. A committee appointed by the Department of Anthropology and Geography Chair shall select the recipient(s). Applicants will be informed of the selection by April 30.
Read about the 2018 scholarship recipients:
The 2021 Paleontology Field School Rides Again
Read about how the field school has continued to provide valuable field, research and curation experiences through the pandemic.
Out in the Field
Have Questions?
Please contact Professor Kim Nichols at Kimberly.Nichols@colostate.edu for more information.