The class is collectively writing an article detailing its findings and hopes to have it published in a scientific journal.

Tuross said that she hoped to offer similar courses in the future.

Despite its intensity—the class studied DNA samples, excavated artifacts and performed four-hour labs every day—the course wasn’t all work.

The students spent their 10 days before the start of fall classes camping out in the forest, but only “if by camping out, you mean living in a mansion and eating delicious food,” said Anne E. Austin ’06.

The students stayed in special cabins put there for researchers.

The time spent in the Forest also fashioned a distinctive class dynamic.

“Because you’re there for 10 days, everyone is focused on that and they didn’t have to worry about anything else,” Makarewicz said, “Everybody was really into it.”

“It was great,” said Karola O. Kirsanow, a member of the class. “I’m a first-year graduate student, and this was basically my introduction to Harvard.”

The class combined undergraduates and graduates, as well as concentrators and non-concentrators.

“I very much liked that there was a mix of majors,” Tuross said, “The historians would ask very different questions from the archaeologists.”

History concentrator Bronwen E. Everill ’05 said this diversity was one of the class’s strong points.

“It’s definitely a class for everybody,” she said.