The six-week class is part of the Fort Vancouver Public Archaeology Field School Author: Devon Haskins Updated: 6:45 PM PDT July 13, 2021 VANCOUVER, Wash. — Archaeology students from Portland State University, Washington State University Vancouver and a handful of other universities are learning hands-on by digging through small sections of Vancouver's waterfront. The students are participating in a six-week class as part of Fort Vancouver's 2021 Public Archaeology Field School. "It's an area that we have not intensively studied," said Doug Wilson, an archaeologist with the National Park Service. "This place is particularly special. It's a place where they had a whole complex of buildings. There were the docks, there was a boatworks, there was a hospital. That hospital was associated with the epidemic of malaria that hit this area in the 1830s."