For online students, a Peruvian mountain becomes a classroom

Texas resident Cailtin Dugan has been a Starbucks partner for five years, and in Florida, Jerry Perryman was up most mornings at 3:30 a.m. for his shift as a barista, both studying at Arizona State University through the Starbucks College Achievement Plan. On the West Coast, Harry Purcell from California was unsure college was even in the cards until he discovered ASU's Earned Admission program.

Dugan, Perryman and Purcell balance school and work, but this past summer, all three ASU Online students found themselves on a mountain in Peru, kneeling in the dirt, uncovering artifacts left behind roughly 1,000 years ago.

They were part of the summer 2026 cohort of Arizona State University Peru archaeological field school, the second year of the program and a formal, credit-bearing study abroad experience.

Led by School of Human Evolution and Social Change Associate Professor Donna Nash and School Director and Professor Ryan Williams, the five-week program sent students to excavate sites tied to the Wari Empire on the summit of Cerro Mejia, working alongside Peruvian archaeologists and using tools ranging from traditional excavation trowels to ground-penetrating radar.

For online undergraduate anthropology students in particular, the trip offered something their coursework rarely could: a hands-on, collaborative version of a field they had only studied through a screen.

“As an online student, it was so amazing to finally be around people who had similar interests,” Dugan said. When I went there with other people who were studying anthropology, we had extended conversations about anthropology. It was awesome. It was amazing. I think that alone, getting to be around other students with a similar degree as you, is worth it because it’s very encouraging to be around people who enjoy it too.”

The days were long. Students woke before 6 a.m., rode a bus up the valley listening to Spanish covers of American songs, then climbed to dig sites where they'd remain until early afternoon.

There were two active sectors. Students who worked on ancient agricultural terraces and others who worked in different ruined buildings at the top of the mountain. And for many, learning to dig, carefully moving the dirt away from around artifacts, photographing and properly collecting artifacts was a first-time experience.

“We teach students skills not only in excavation and in documentation, but also in new geophysical techniques,” Nash said. “We have ground-penetrating radar units on the site, and we teach students how to operate ground-penetrating radar and see beneath the soil using this technology.”

Perryman was assigned a feature. He spent the last week of his trip excavating an ash layer covering the corner of a room, where he uncovered diagnostic ceramics, including very rare blackware and a ceramic spindle whorl, before the trip ended.

Nash, who has worked in the same Peruvian valley for more than 30 years, built the program's capstone project, in which each student tries to understand what they’ve uncovered and presents their findings and ideas to the group.

Centered on individual interpretation, Perryman’s hypothesis is that the room was a textile production site. Further excavations are needed to reach a definitive conclusion about what the room was intended for.

“I think that's a big part of archaeology, is understanding how different cultures shape and interact with the environments in which they live,” Perryman said. “How do we uncover these stories that may have been lost? Or how do we learn how people lived in an age before written history? And how do we draw those inferences and respect those cultures and share that knowledge with other people?”

Is it a rock or a bone? Knowledge and discernment of what artifacts were significant and when a rock was just a rock came as the days went by.

But the day does not end on the mountainside.

A stop at the research center lab to organize artifacts and samples before finishing the day with dinner and much-needed rest. On Saturdays, students participate in lab work, visiting a different field site or an excursion.

Purcell, a double-major in anthropology and biological sciences (biomedical sciences) who came to archaeology through an interest in paleopathology, didn't expect the work to feel emotional. Finding part of a bird's talon, still intact after a millennium, was a highlight of the trip.

"It feels like an honor to be able to piece it together," Purcell said. "There's something so beautiful about getting to struggle together through it."

The most rewarding part of Nash’s job is the moment a student uncovers something.

"I’m an excavation addict,” Nash said. “I love the thrill of brushing off something that no one has seen for a thousand years. So for me, to hear the joy of a student discovering something, I love walking around and hearing that sound," she said.

For Williams, the value runs the other direction. Spending five weeks, five days a week, alongside students gives him insight he can't get from a graduate seminar.

“They're thinking about archaeology and how they interpret things and how they take data and be able to create an argument about what something was and how it functioned in the past,” Williams said. "I enjoy getting to know the students we serve so personally, having the experience to know their work capacities, and being able to support them in their careers.”

Among the early mornings and long, hard days, friendships were also formed on that mountain.

"The people you don't know become the best part," Perryman said. “I still meet on Zoom almost every Friday with the friends I made.”

Each student has to do their own final excavation project, create a report and present it to their colleagues and instructors.

“One of the really great things about this program is that students come with us during the summer and you see how they've developed the excavation in their own mind,” Williams said. “They find something they're really interested in, and then they can do independent studies to work on a project with one of us afterward.”

One online student, whose interest in Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) grew during the trip, will take part in an independent study with Williams in the fall, focusing on data processing and analysis. As for Dugan and Perryman, they continue to work on research with Nash this semester.

The program, approved for three years, returns in 2027.

For all three students, who are now weighing graduate programs in archaeology, it marked a turning point: proof that a degree earned largely online could still lead to a mountainside in Peru, trowel in hand, piecing together a lost world.