We Need Your Help!

Today we launch our official fundraising campaign for the 2018 season! As a young project (we are only in our third year) it can be difficult to find a continuous source of funding, especially with so many other interesting projects happening all over the world. The last two years have demonstrated to us that there is a great deal of potential for this site, but we need your help to maximise the work we are able to do!

That’s why we have set up a fundraising campaign through Boise State University’s own crowdfunding platform – PonyUp! We hope that this will give you some confidence that the money you donate will go solely towards the work of this project (note that things like flights, insurance, and any personal costs incurred will NOT be covered by these contributions).

You can find our fundraising page here.

In case you’re new here, let me tell you a little about our work, and why it’s so important, both to us as archaeologists, and to the local community.

Who and what is the Libarna Urban Landscapes Project?

The Libarna Urban Landscapes Project (LULP) is a Boise State History department project that is bringing new technologies to the study of Libarna, a 2000-year-old city in northwest Italy. LULP has 3 main goals: exploration, education, and engagement. This year our team of undergraduate and graduate students are hoping to use Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to investigate the parts of ancient Libarna that are still under the ground.

Exploration: Why is some old city in northwest Italy so important?

• Today, Italy is a country with a lot of regional diversity. Much of this diversity may go all the way back to ancient times. Libarna is going to help us learn about what made the region unique in the Roman period, and understand what makes northwest Italy unique today.
• LULP is using scientific technologies like GPR, electrical resistivity, and a drone, to survey Libarna. The goal is to recover as much information about the subsurface archaeological remains as possible. This will help us fill in the map of Libarna and target areas for future excavation.

Education: How does our archaeological work benefit students?

• While LULP is dedicated to training the next generation of archaeologists, we also train students from many different disciplines. Fieldwork provides all students with a number of transferable skills, such as logistics and project management, IT and geophysical technology experience, creative problem solving, and teamwork skills.
• LULP allows students to participate in cutting edge research. The multidimensional nature of archaeological work allows off-shoot research projects that are perfect for undergraduate and graduate students. These potential projects are in various fields, including business and marketing, education, computer science, and of course, history and archaeology.

Engagement: How does archaeological work foster international relationships for Boise State and Idaho?

• The project provides students and volunteers with a culturally immersive experience. The LULP fosters relationships with the local community through a number of ways, including organised research presentations and demonstrations, patronage of local businesses, and participation in public festivals and events.
• LULP is helping to make Boise State and Libarna international names! Last year LULP appeared in several Italian newspapers, including the national paper La Stampa, no less than seven times (you can see some of these articles on the “Press” page of our website).

What do we hope to achieve this year?

Using different technologies we are able to see archaeological features below the ground without the need to dig. By layering the results of the different techniques, we are able to get the most complete, dynamic map of the ancient city. Our last two seasons in the field have already yielded promising information from two technologies: electrical resistivity and drone survey. Now we want to use the Ground Penetrating Radar to expand our knowledge of the site even more. We know it has real potential: last year we conducted a limited trial run that showed a great deal of promise. You can see what the GPR recovered in the image below – evidence of an ancient house, roads, and other structures.

In fact, we have already been able to add more than 1/4 square mile of information to Libarna’s map. you can see all our contributions highlighted in red below. Imagine how much more of the map we’ll be able to fill in with GPR data this summer!

And that it what we need your contributions for! Renting and running a GPR and all the things that go along with a fieldschool, but in reality, you will be funding a great deal more than just equipment, you’ll be helping the light of ancient Libarna shine once again!