The Himalayan exploration and archaeological research team : scientific-humanitarian fieldwork in collaboration with the mountain communities of Nepal

The Himalayan Exploration and Archaeological Research Team (HEART) is a joint scientific-humanitarian venture run out of the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. The project operates in collaboration with the NGO Community Action Nepal and seeks to push the frontiers of archaeological knowledge in the Himalayas while integrating the research with initiatives that stimulate local economies. Community Action Nepal (CAN) provides a proven infrastructure to identify known but atrisk heritage for responsive research, while HEART’s objectives to explore, survey, and excavate new archaeology using the latest scientific and technological methods will further extend Nepal’s potential to offer exciting heritage tourism opportunities. While being a landscape survey, and thus collecting multi-period datasets, the HEART project focuses on prehistoric research questions, about which relatively little is understood. The region is particularly important in a prehistoric context because the Himalayas occupy a key nexus in Asia, where multiple processes of animal and plant domestication articulate.