A great question comes today from Faithful Reader Theresa B, who writes, "I'm an archaeology student. After taking some classes I realize how much I do not know about the field and want to learn more. I have asked my professors about reading lists but was wondering if you had any suggestions."
When I started archaeology as a grad student, I had no archaeology background and only one anthro course to my name. I don't recommend this to anyone, and I still can't believe my department took me on, even on probation, but nevertheless, I was in the same situation as you are, maybe a little worse.
Here's what I did to remedy the situation. I went to the periodicals room at my university library: if you are lucky, there will be comfy reading chairs, but even if you're not lucky, there will be tables and chairs to sit at and while away a few hours. I made a list of all the archaeology journals that the library subscribed to, and then just started reading the most current issue, one after another. That gave me an idea of what people were interested in, and if something piqued my curiosity, I could go back into the stacks and find back issues to track it out.
Today, many libraries only subscribe to electronic versions of the journals, but you should still be able to access the latest issue of all the archaeology journals that they subscribe to.
I can't tell you how much hanging around the journal stacks helped me, both to understand all the things that archaeology encompasses and to get the background I so woefully lacked. It really served me well, and I still go back and visit the current issues stacks four times a year, just to keep up with changes in the profession.
Periodicals Room, Framingham State College. Photo by Barbara L. Slavin
Comments
There are also a good many ejournals to browse online, today. There’s a good listing (over 2,000) here: http://www.jurn.org/directory/ and a search engine too.
Thanks for the tip about JURN! Very few journals, however, are open source (as yet), even on your list, and in my opinion, just reading abstracts is not adequate to get a grasp of the field. Plus (old fogey alert), I think sometimes electronics gets in the way of reading (says the woman who mostly writes to be read online).
I still think going to a periodicals room and concentrating on whatever journals are there to be read, and reading the complete articles plus references, is the best way to get immersed in the field. Since the process involves reading many different authors you get a wide variety of viewpoints, covering many different areas of interest. Might even be a good way to find your own area of concentration.
I forgot to say that, eventually, I started keeping track of everything I read; my database of journal articles (now 25 years old, mind you) has over 10,000 entries in it.
Kris
About your database–I’m done with the dissertation, and want to consolidate a bunch of small bibliographic databases into a single one–what software are you using for yours? Do you like it ?
I am totally committed to ProCite.
http://www.procite.com/
It has a very easy search engine (type the term in the space and it will look everywhere for it), and it has American Antiquity output file (among lots of others, like SHA and AJPA and AmerAnth in addition to APA and CMOS), which is really great for building bibliographies. It seems like I’ve used it a time or two to implant citations and build a ref cited file while I was working on a paper, but I remember thinking it was kind of a fussy way to do it.
Procite is a bit pricey unless you’re affiliated with a university and can buy it through the bookstore. But, I’ve got 10,340 refs in mine and it has never choked on me once, in, geeze, probably 12 or 13 years I’ve had it. I upgraded once; I can’t remember if it was free upgrade, I don’t think so. But it’s really rock solid.
It seems to me that I pulled the original DB into Procite out of an excel file, maybe? exported as comma delimited text. Might have been MS Word. It wasn’t exactly a smooth transition, I vaguely recall, but I think that was because I was somewhat whimsical about the original excel file format.
TMI? Ah, well. I really like it.
Kris
One good way to get a handle on some portions on the discipline is to read books written by professionals for the general public. Today we have an excellent group of such authors, including, among others Brian Fagan, Stephen Mithen, and Paul G. Bahn, The novelists Rob Swigart and Jean Auel do a very good, at least in my estimation. But I certainly concur with Kris: READ, READ, READ! And pester your professors. They are absolute suckers for anyone interested in what they are interested in. Or at least they should be.
I’m an archeology wannabe. I know enough that if I find something, I will contact a professional. I have banged my head up against computers since 1969, though. I get asked about internet searches a lot. I have a standard answer, “Take an introduction to library science class and quit Googling.” I am amazed at the number of graduate students I meet who have no idea what the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature is. Google it and see what you are missing. Just ask a librarian how to look up information in a library, and, after the shock wears off, they will be happy to show you how to use such tools as the Reader’s Guide. It will expose you to resources your library might not carry. Perhaps you can request the library get a trial subscription. I like your idea of reading the hardcopy. My research depends on the serendipity of finding books and articles in the vicinity of the one I am looking for. Computers can’t provide that. Most libraries have an embarrassment of riches in the form of online resources, and librarians will be happy to show how to use them, too. If you do much research, it may be worth it for you to take a class a semester just so you can continue to use those resources which are stupid expensive. I like your use of boutique software for your database, though, in a pinch, spreadsheet software can be had for free online and is adequate. Remember those book reports that caused such gnashing of teeth during your school days? Do yourself a favor and resurrect that old skill to summarize the books and articles in your database. After 10,000 entries, there is no way you are going to remember what’s in that article. That database is not enough, though, because computers are such a powerful research tool. You need to learn to exploit the power of your web browser Links feature in your Favorites folder – or whatever your browser calls it. You need to create folders for specific topics and sites. Next, when you Google, don’t Google for “prehistory, carter county, Missouri”. Google for databases. “Archeology databases” will yield “National Archeological Database” provided as a service of your National Park Service. This is a part of what is referred to as the Invisible Web. It is not open to the webcrawlers search engines like Google use to build their databases, so it is “invisible” to them. They can’t get passed the front door, but you can. Now, plug Missouri and Carter into the powerful search feature. You get a list of articles, including the name of the article, the author and the location of the report. We choose “1981 Intensive Survey of Archaeological, Historic, and Historic Architectural Resources”, by Larry Grantham. It is located at the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Jefferson City, Missouri. I go to their site and search for the article and get 24 pages on “Prehistoric Native American occupations in southwestern Missouri rock shelters” circa 12,000 years ago. I’ve got my information for now, plus, I save the web sites to the appropriately names folders in Links, and in the future I know exactly where to go for similar information. Don’t Google for information. Go directly to the source. Be well.