Institute 'mentors' archaeological researchers

About five miles north of the IU campus, tucked away among farms, acres of wooded land and winding roads, lies a building, just four years old. Its stone tower rises high above the entrance, and a small stone-encircled ring in which to do experiments sits about 100 yards away. \nWhile the building may be modern, inside, archaeologists at the Stone Age Institute devote their research to a time that is anything but. The Institute is a nonprofit research center dedicated to the history of human technological development and origin. Through archaeological fieldwork, researchers have unearthed stone tools and both human and animal fossils from hundreds of thousands to just over 1 million years ago. \nFour years ago, Kathy Schick and Nicholas Toth, both IU professors of anthropology, began planning for the Institute. Taking advice from Oliver Winery co-owner Bill Oliver, Schick and Toth built from scratch on 30 acres of mostly undeveloped rural land. \n"We wanted to make an architectural statement in stone," Toth said of the building. \nInside and out, the Institute is made up of more than 1 million pounds of stone, some of which is Bloomington limestone. Local architectural firm Kirkwood Design Studio, stone masons from Kentucky and Bloomington and co-directors Schick and Toth all collaborated to create the building that would become one of the world's first centers devoted to Stone Age research.\nThe Institute's two-story library boasts a collection donated from J. Desmond Clark, former professor of anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley. Several tables in the library were made from cherry and oak trees that were destroyed in the 2002 tornado that hit the area, Toth said. Casts of skulls spanning millions of years of human evolution, along with models of animal skulls from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles are displayed over the shelves of books, adding a museum-like element to the spacious room.\n"We decided to make this the centerpiece," Toth said of the library. "It's one of the best libraries for Stone Age research."\nThe Institute employs several IU faculty members and graduate students, most of whom are involved with IU's Center for Research into the Anthropological Foundations of Technology, which researches the origins and development of tool-making and the utilization of tools. \n"A lot of experimental (research) with apes and making tools is done here," said Toth, who co-directs CRAFT with Schick. \nThrough donations and grants, the Institute "mentors" archaeologists, allowing them to visit a field site for a few months out of the year, Schick said. Researchers have visited Algeria, Ethiopia, India and China, among other countries. Institute researcher and IU faculty member Sileshi Semaw recently led a group of researchers in Ethiopia in its finding of a nearly complete human cranium from 200,000 to 500,000 years ago. \nWhen researchers aren't doing field work, their time is typically spent analyzing their findings, applying for grants through IU and writing reports and professional papers at the Institute. Most of their research is then published in scientific journals.\n"To understand and interpret field research, you need experiments," Schick said. "(Researchers) bring their data here to analyze it. Our people don't bring back their findings, they bring back data."\nBut the Institute isn't just a haven for researchers who are finished in the field -- it plays a large role in reaching out to the community. Toth said the Institute frequently plays host to retreats for various University departments and meetings for Monroe County Community School Corp. board and administrative members. Faculty members from the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation at both IU and IU-Purdue University Indianapolis have also used the Institute for events. \n"It's a great place to have a conference -- a very good way to build relations between researchers," Toth said.