Our Story

Vision & Mission

The Anthropocene Research Center provides affordable archaeology field school training to aspiring professional archaeologists from across the world. We provide programs that are academically excellent with strong emphasis on skills needed for Cultural Resource Management career.

Our goal is to make field school as affordable as possible. We keep costs low by minimizing overhead and providing most of student’s tuition to fund projects that have strong commitment to teaching through research. All of our program and reviewed annually by a third party, independent organization (Center for Field Sciences) that includes both peer and student input. So students will have relevant information to make the best possible choice for their training, reviews are published and available to the public at no cost. Excellent in both research and teaching is our central, guiding principle.

The ARC Story

Although geologists officially rejected the idea that we are now in the Anthropocene Era, humans have become a tremendous force that is changing the world to our needs and desires. From a minor organism in the middle of the food chain 6 million years ago, humans are now the apex predator of the animal kingdom. How we get here is a story worth exploring and understanding. If we know of all the decisions human made along our evolutionary road – the good, the bad and the ugly – we will hopefully be able to make better decisions about the future. The Anthropocene Research Center (ARC) is dedicated to investigating and training students so they may address such important questions.

The ARC was born in 2025, out of the split of the Center for Field Sciences into two independent entities – one that run field schools (ARC), the other to provide independent, transparent and publicly available evaluations of field school without any financial or other interest in the outcome (Center for Field Sciences). That decision allowed ARC to be a completely independent management organizer of archaeology field school and work hard to have the best evaluations and programs in the sector.

To provide students with access to comprehensive training in archaeology, ARC is offering programs in a broad range of archaeological activity: From traditional excavation and survey activity, to lab work in conservation, analytics and heritage management – including museum work. We are committed to train students in the many existing and emerging specializations within the discipline at both the macro and micro levels.

To improve affordability, ARC students earn academic credits units for field school participation. Students can transfer the credits to their home institution, accelerating graduation time and reducing overall cost of tuition in their home college or university. For almost all students, the cost of a field school is less than the cost of equivalent credit units at their matriculating institution, making an ARC program cost little to no additional investment in the student education.

Leading this initiative is Ran Boytner (PhD), who managed hundreds of archaeology programs first at UCLA (2008-2010), then creating the Institute for Field Research (2010-2020) and then – in the post Covid year – establishing the Center for Field Sciences (2021-present). Ran Boytner is currently the Executive Director and CEO of the ARC.