On Becoming an Archaeologist

Over the course of my career, I have known a few archaeologists-since-birth. Sometimes, it seems, from conception these men and women are driven to excavate, to learn about cultures, to play in the mud, to relive the past. I am not one of them. My childhood was spent in exploration of foreign territory---in the woody ravine behind our house or in any region between two book covers.

Both of these things drove my parents mad. When I graduated high school, I went to college and continued my explorations; I had no clue what I wanted to be when I grew up, if in fact I planned on growing up, and I took the maximum number of classes every term possible (in addition to a part time job) for six years. To the combined distress and amusement of my undergraduate advisors, I took every course that appealed to me: psychology, geology, Cobol, sociology, theater, literature, art history, writing, film, biology, political science, more literature, French, linguistics, speech communications, history, education. I even took one anthropology class--Introduction to Anthropology, you know, "Yanomamo, the Fierce People." Graduated with two full majors and six minors. And not enough of any of them to be employable. Now that drove my parents truly crazy. I took a job as a clerk typist in (where else?) a liberal arts department at a university.

About the time I turned 26 or so, a brochure came in the mail to the department. Join an archaeology dig, it invited. Three weeks, two graduate credits. It was an historic site, in the town where I was living---the home of the first territorial governor of Iowa, in fact. Bring your lunch, the brochure said, sturdy shoes, a hat. Get dirty. I thought, why not? Might be an interesting (and inexpensive) holiday. I had three weeks vacation saved up, so I signed on. It was hot, it was led by a couple of graduate students, I got filthy, it was---fun. And, it turned out, my eclectic background was useful at last. I got to map the top of the cistern (Theatrical Set Design), and some soil profiles (Introduction to Soils). I understood the random stratified sampling method they were using to test the site (Cobol and sociology).

After the field season ended, I went in to the Anthropology Department on campus and I talked to the North Americanist archaeologist there. I said I needed to know if I would be happy in archaeology, and how would I find that out before plunging in head first? He suggested I take Method and Theory of Archaeology. It was a difficult course, it would introduce me to the "hard stuff" of archaeology.

It was a difficult course. But, alas, too late! I was enthralled. Everything I had ever studied was put to use. All of the seemingly random bits of information I had gathered over my exploratory years, turned out to be helpful if not vital to the study of archaeology. Because, archaeology is the study of all things human. Truly, I have come to believe that the stranger the background you have, the more useful you will be to archaeology.