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Making their own impromptu totem pole, students on the geography field trip to the American Southwest in May enjoyed putting geography techniques into practice.

Geography Field Trip

As 16 students, faculty and staff from The University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast loaded into two passenger vans, they prepared for the 22-hour drive to the southwestern United States to learn research methods of documenting prehistoric art and understanding Native American culture.

Jerry Coleman, a geography instructor at Southern Miss Gulf Coast, has conducted each annual trip to the Southwest for 15 years. Each group Coleman takes to New Mexico uses Tapia Canyon as a tool for learning how to document the artwork found.

“The reason we work in the same community is that we are trying to develop a methodology for researching petroglyphs and pictographs,” said Coleman. “The technology is only now catching up with what we’ve needed.”

When the group arrived for their first day in New Mexico, they began at Tapia Canyon to research the prehistoric art on the canyon’s walls. The art varied from petroglyphs, carvings in the rock, to pictographs, which are pictures drawn on the wall of the canyon. Each person was placed in a team and given one of three responsibilities for working within the canyon.

The first group to enter the canyon would scout the walls for any artwork and place a flag to notify the following groups of the location. The second group would locate a flag and, using geographic information system technology, chart the location of the artwork geographically. The final group would locate the same flags and photograph the artwork from as many angles as possible.

Sean Dees has been part of the research team in Tapia Canyon for several years and is Coleman’s assistant at the university. “No matter how many times you go, there are always new things to see,” said Dees. “You can always find new things in the canyon depending on the light.”

The students, who received academic credit for the trip, along with faculty and staff are in the Southwest for 12 days, but they do not spend the majority of the trip researching in the canyon.

“The students would like to spend more time in the research canyon, but this narrows their vision of the Southwest,” said Coleman.

The group visited various museums from Albuquerque, N.M., to Durango, Colo., to learn about the different Native American cultures that passed through the region throughout the years. As the vans drove through the San Juan Mountains on the way to Silverton, Colo., the group took a moment to play in the snow. Toward the conclusion of the trip, the group visited the Grand Canyon and Four Corners, the location where the borders of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah converge and the only place in the United States where four states meet in a single location.

Samuel Gill, an English major at Southern Miss, attended the geography trip for the first time this year. Throughout the trip, Gill kept a journal of each day’s events and included quotes from Coleman, his instructor, and the thoughts of his fellow researchers. Upon returning from the trip, Gill’s feelings about the Southwest were almost indescribable.

“This trip was not a one-time thing – it felt like home,” said Gill. “There was an extreme connection while I was there. It was a connection to the land and to the people.”

Sam Gill's Journal Entries and Photos