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LiveJournal for Archaeology.
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| Wednesday, August 4th, 2004 |
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I have a BA in Anthropology from Portland State University in Oregon (USA) and will soon have my MA in Archaeology from the University of Liverpool in England. I have mostly focused my work on Classical Archaeology and CRM (I couldn't decide between one or the other, so I just studied both...). If I decide against doing a PhD and return State-side, I will probably look for a job in a CRM firm or something. I have been browsing job listings (mostly on the SAA site, I am a member), but most of what I have come across requires multiple years of experience before they will even look at your CV. I have field school experience, but it is not to the tune of 2-4 years by any means. I know, I know, get to the point.. My questions are, to those of you who are professionals in the field, what do you have to do to get the job so you can get the experience? Are there jobs out there that won't demand that much experience? Should I just stick it out and get my PhD (ie., will the $$ spent benefit my career, or should I just start fighting for a job and worry about the PhD part later)? Thanks for your input, questions, comments, suggestions, critisism.. |
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| Tuesday, August 3rd, 2004 |
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What's wrong with this picture? No, it's not the lovely corrugated shovel with a small dent in it. There's no paperwork wrong. The spodic layer's just about normal. We're not allowed to drink on the site, hence the lack of Jack. No, the problem is, we got out to the site on Wednesday morning, and discovered that someone had stolen the tarp which we sifted backfill onto. Not only that, but this mystery thief also stole the backfill. This particular STP exists half on a trail. There were three other open pits nearby. There were other tarps easier to steal. Now, mind you, I've seen people steal stuff before. A disappearing tarp doesn't surprise me too much. But we looked around for 15cm of backfill from a (50cm)^2 pit... we looked in roughly a 50m radius. So who the hell steals archaeological backfill? It's backfill, for Christ's sake. It's not like you're going to find a fluted point in there! |
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| Saturday, July 31st, 2004 |
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First off, I'd like to apologize for my previous entry today, which was off-topic. It was a fluke in my lj client, and I've deleted it. Second, what it was supposed to say, which apparently got overwritten, was: Does anyone know if survey by examination of tree throw is an established technique? |
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Ok, so at my college, they axed all the archaeology courses due to budget cuts, which means I'm taking an independent study in archaeology. I got to pick what I wanted to research, and since I'm facinated by burial, the course ended up being called "Archaeology of Death". I can write on any aspect, ranging from burial positions to pathology. I have no idea what to do!!! Anyone have any suggestions? Here are the books I have so far for research: The Archaeology of Death and Burial Written in Bones Earthly Remains The Archaeology of Human Remains Mummies, Disease & Ancient Cultures That last one is not going to be as much help unless I do something on disease or mummification. Also, does anyone know of any other books that might be of some help? |
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| Friday, July 30th, 2004 |
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Hello! My name is Melinda and am currently a new member. Last semester I took an Archaeology course. We were locatd at the Carmel Mission in Carmel, CA. My professor, Dr. Ruben Mendoza, had a theory that Father Junipero Serra had a wine cellar where a garden grew. After digging about 3-4 levels we found a wall foundation. Unfortunately, the site was right next to the Church and us students were too loud. So now the students aren't allowed to dig at the garden site. So for next semester they will be at San Juan Baptista Mission. I have always been interested in history and after taking the Archaeology course I am fascinated with it. I am not sure if it is the right career for me, though. However, I feel it's a great way to spend an afternoon. And more than likely I'll make a habit of volunteering my time at local digs. :) |
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Hey everyone, I'm trying to do a research paper on the end of the Mycenaean civilization around 1250 BCE--and while I know there are some studies out with theories for why, for some reason I can't seem to find them! I'm becoming limited to books that talk about their history and then say at the end 'and they vanished which was sad'. Does anyone know of any particular books/articles/authors who discuss this in any detail? Any and all help will be greatly appreciated! |
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| I am in Austin Texas right now and in a couple of days I will be driving to Denver Colorodo where I will be making my home. I am not familiar with Texas or any of the area I will be driving through. I will leave Austin and drive through Amarillo Texas to get to Denver. I was hoping someone could tell me about archaeological interests on the way and in particular if there is any good flint knapping materials I can seek out on the way. Any help is appreciated to make the drive more fun, Thanks! | ||||
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hello all my name is kelly and im new to this community and i was pleased to find out about it and read all about people that love archaeology as much as i do ..ok now for my problem.. i am about to be a high school senior and i am set on pursuing my dreams of being an archaeologist and possibly an egyptologist..my first concern is if i wanted to pursue egyptology would i first get my undergraduate/bachelors in archaeology and then get my graduate or fast track Phd in egyptology? im not sure and second of all i will be going off to college next year and ive been intensely searching schools that have archaeology majors.. ..i live in san antonio, texas and am just wondering if anyone knows of any good colleges that offer archaeology as a major? (any down south) im sure i would have to go to brown or univ. of memphis to get my Phd in egyptology but im not sure.. can someone please help me figure this out.. thanks so much PLEASE COMMENT..bye |
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| Thursday, July 29th, 2004 |
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Field Museum online expedition still in progress describes discovery of 'Beer of Kings' http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_relea |
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| Wednesday, July 28th, 2004 |
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So I have this cute story. I'm a junior in college and have not been on a dig yet for complications and such. So i found this dig I wanted to attend, but I might not be able to because of more complications. So I'm at home visiting my parents, who have a 12 year old dog, and I have a 7 month old puppy. I let them both outside for the day and I hung out, later I went outside to find them both in a really big hole with lots of plastic pieces all around. I walked closer to examine the damange, and it turns out that my dogs had found my old sandbox and were digging, pretty deep and had found all my broken shovels and hoes and other sandtoys that had been burried for a little bit. Somehow my mom thinks it's hilarious that I cannot find a dig and my dogs have.... |
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| Monday, July 26th, 2004 |
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Ancient Indian site found near Ohio River Associated Press July 26, 2004 CLARKSVILLE, Ind. -- Archaeologists have found the remains of an ancient American Indian settlement along the Ohio River shoreline near where a road collapsed this winter. The Army Corps of Engineers plans a full excavation of the site, believed to be 700 to 900 years old. Similar artifacts from the same Mississippian period have turned up in recent years at a park in Louisville, Ky., at Shippingport Island in the Ohio River and near the Caesars Indiana riverboat casino southwest of Louisville. Keith Keeney, a staff archaeologist with the Army Corps of Engineers, said the Clarksville site could prove to be one of a handful of locations to yield clues about how the Mississippians lived, and ultimately died, in the Falls of the Ohio area. "Normally you do not see this kind of concentrated habitation in one location," said Keeney, who specializes in the period. "It's probably the remnants of a village." Workers so far have found about two dozen artifacts, from pottery shards to stone tools, at the site. Keeney said a full excavation by a private contractor might uncover hundreds of items, such as stone hammers, scrapers and copper decorations. Anne Bader, president of the Falls of the Ohio Archaeological Society, said work would likely reveal a connection between what appears to be a village in Clarksville and the artifacts found at Shippingport Island starting in late 2002. If that's the case, she said, it will add to a growing body of evidence that a sort of regional settlement existed in the Louisville area, not unlike that of the Angel Mounds State Historic Site near Evansville. According to Keeney and others, the road collapse in January uncovered many artifacts just below the earth's surface along the entire 250-foot stretch of eroded riverbank. Keeney said most of the land was federal property, belonging to the Falls of the Ohio National Wildlife Conservation Area. Corps officials said they did not expect the excavation to cause a major delay to the shoreline repairs. A contract is expected to be signed in August as part of a roughly $1 million stabilization effort. Plans call for a 14-foot trench in the bottom of the Ohio River, which would be filled with limestone boulders. The collapsed shoreline is slated to become part of the Ohio River Greenway, a planned seven-mile recreation corridor linking Jeffersonville, Clarksville and New Albany. Rick Jones, Indiana's state archaeologist, said the erosion was unfortunate but perhaps also historical. "It's in some ways serendipitous," he said, "because there is some exposure of artifacts from a culture that we don't know much about." http://www.indystar.com/articles/2/1654 |
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| Sunday, July 25th, 2004 |
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| For anyone interested and will be in the area over the next two weeks there is an archaeological excavation being conducted at the Grand Pre National Historic site in Grand Pre, Nova Scotia, right outside of Wolfville. it is also the start of the Acadian World Congress. Im working this year onsite and we are looking for the Acadian Church that stood there prior to the deportation. | ||||||
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| Saturday, July 24th, 2004 |
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I'm putting together a packet of archaeology info for an incoming freshman to college. She wants to do archaeology and focus on egypt. Does anyone have any good articles or anything I can put in there or tell her to read? Thanks, JENN |
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| Friday, July 23rd, 2004 |
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| Has anyone heard anything about the large Viking discovery that was made in Ireland? | ||||
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The khazakh's arghaeologists have found the Karabalgasun Mausoleum in North of Khazakhstan. The search of this mausoleum had been led since the 70th. More on Russian http://www.CentrAsia.Ru/newsA.php4?st=1 |
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| Sunday, July 18th, 2004 |
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| Some of you may be interested in a rather detailed entry I made in my journal about how I came to study archaeology, how I secured work in the field, and why I ultimately moved on to other things. The entry can be found here. | ||||||||||
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| Saturday, July 17th, 2004 |
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I was asked to give a rather spur-of-the-moment talk on archaeology to the students enrolled in summer school yesterday (ages six through thirteen). They've been studying archaeology, heavily supplemented with a hands-on trunk of goodies that I lent them from the NPS visitor center, and I guess my name kept coming up because I used to be an archaeologist, so the kids wanted me to visit. They had plenty of questions from what they'd been studying, so there was plenty to discuss, even though I was given no topic and had no idea what, if anything, to prepare. At one point I was asked to speak about some of the excavations on which I've worked, and I began by telling them about my very first dig - a protohistoric Cherokee site in the mountains of South Carolina on the Chatooga River. I described a large plaza that we'd excavated that summer and discussed artifact distribution for the site - how the center of the plaza was fairly clean, but how along its edges we discovered bits of broken kaolin pipe, stray glass beads they'd received in trade from the Europeans, etc. I explained how that artifact distribution was probably quite similar to how things might look if someone were to excavate their school gymnasium five hundred years from now - how the gym floor would probably be clean, but that the edges of the room would contain broken pens or random coins dropped out of people's pockets as they sat in the bleachers, swept to the edge of the room during cleaning. This gave one of the teachers a fantastic idea - they were renovating part of the high school, and had pulled the base boards off of a series of lockers. Many objects from 'long ago' were hidden underneath, and so we went on an impromptu archaeological 'dig.' Each child got an unlined piece of paper and was assigned a locker. They had to draw a map of their observations prior to removing any artifacts, then show their map to an adult. If the map was complete, they were given a pair of rubber gloves to go remove the artifacts and examine them in better detail. At the end of the session, they were asked to choose the most important artifacts from their unit of the site, which will lead quite nicely into their discussion scheduled for Monday, on the difference between scientific observation verses inference. There were indeed many fun treasures. Photos of their aunts and uncles, many with notes written on the back. Tardy slips with excuses on them for people we all know (it's a very small town). It made for a fun and, I think, very educational activity. I came back to the office with a smile on my face. I like days like that. NB: I'm using an icon of me pretending to drink from a jug I found near an old still not because I discussed this with school children, but because it's the only archaeologically-related icon in my arsenal. The photo was taken during a site inventory of Crumb Gulch in Alaska's Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in 2000, the last time I worked for pay as an archaeologist. |
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| Friday, July 16th, 2004 |
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I have just found out that the archaeology GCSE is about to get cancelled by AXA, along with 10 other subjects including Greek, Latin and classics at both GCSE and AS level. Although all the other courses are run by other examination boards GCSE Archaeology is not and the other classics exam does not cater as well for the local non fee paying schools. I am very depressed. |
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| Wednesday, July 14th, 2004 |
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http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/07/12/sc |
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Some of you probably already know about this site, but I've only just discovered it today, and wanted to share it with others. =) It's called the Theban Mapping Project, and it has great info on the Theban Necropolis and the Valley of the Kings. It has a pretty nifty interactive atlas too. =) http://www.thebanmappingproject.com :) |
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LiveJournal for Archaeology.
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curious.
Enjoying Sunday morning.