Voices of the Society for American Archaeology

By K. Kris Hirst, About.com Guide

Listen to Tony Baker.

My name is Tony Baker, retired petroleum engineer, never made a dime as an archaeologist. The primary thing I like is the networking with my friends, my colleagues. I've been coming to the SAAs I think for 15 years, thereabouts, the first time was Las Vegas whenever that was. And over the years I've met people and just know more and more people so I get to see them. That's the primary thing. The second thing is, I occasionally glean a little bit of knowledge out of a session. But you know, this is the other end of your question: what I don't like about it is there is so much noise. I would say that the signal to noise ratio is pretty low. But when you do find a signal that's good stuff, you can usually find enough signals that it'll last you till next year.