Founded in 2018, the Community Heritage Lab (CHL) is a research laboratory and teaching facility devoted to archaeology and heritage studies. It is housed in the historic 19th-Century Larder House at the corner of Alviso and Benton Streets, on the campus of Santa Clara University. The laboratory includes spaces for instruction, scientific analysis, and the temporary storage of archaeological collections under study. More broadly, CHL facilitates dialog, collaboration, and engagement between scholars, heritage professionals, and students on the SCU campus, as well as with a broader community of stakeholders from the surrounding region. To this end, faculty and staff from a wide variety of SCU departments and programs are affiliated with the laboratory. This website serves as an online space to centralize news and information about community heritage and archaeology at Santa Clara -- please explore to find out more about who we are and what we offer.
Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher education in California, with rich heritage found throughout the campus. If you are interested in the history of the school and how archaeology and heritage studies have brought much of this past to light, you can read Mission Santa Clara in a Changing Urban Environment by Lee Panich and Archaeology at Santa Clara de Asís by Russell K. Skowronek and Julie Wizorek.