I guess you could say I was rather fed up with the tedious meticulous gathering of data for what seemed like no other purpose than to satisfy a complete nerdy curiosity or fascination... like building model trains for example... and not discovering something revealing and poignant about human beings... I felt like archaeologists must be a bunch of nerdy lunatics with a horrid fascination for digging through ancient ancestral rubbish piles...
But then my lecturer answered me and set me quiet for a time. She explained that a few scratches on flake scars can be the vital few clues we have to piece together how these people lived and survived. The amount of flake scars can tell you if this was a large community or a lone hunter gatherer passing by. Other pieces of information from cores, the number of flakes and rock materials can tell you if they had vast trade networks in this region or were isolated. Assemblages from refuse tell us what their diet consisted of: basically we can build a vast picture of how these people lived out of the smallest pieces of stone tools. After excavating other sites we can build an even broader picture and discover who traded with who, how extensive it was, and answer behavioural questions such as why it was done. Mapping and filling in the occupation of human beings and pollen, sea and ice core tests along with again their rubbish (seasonal fruits, seeds, game, whether it has lessened in the region or risen can tell us what the climate was like and enable us to map climate change throughout history...from climate to subsistence to art to social, economic, political and behaviour patterns such as sex, to the history of cult and religious doctrines to drug use, love, fear, duty and morality, we can trace and map with fool proof physical data...who we are. I was then comforted. Hehe.. she said that roughly and I have elaborated, and finally it shut me up. haha. But the point is I was faltering about the use of archaeology in the present and finally found the significance of it and was happy to move along. Question everything as they say.
Labouring in the Fields and Out
Meanwhile the digging and outdoors I found suited me rather well, even though I was exhausted and kept wondering how the archaeologists maintained such good backs and weren't toppled over like old crones from the labour. I kept asking them if yoga would do the trick and they laughed and said 'more like practice - but yoga would help too.' I heard a few disturbing stories of archaeologists on the dark side, or rather arch firm directors exploiting freshman archaeologists. The illegal black market trade is another worry, but hopefully I won't be near that sort of thing. In any case it's good to know what firm to apply to and what pay rates are prescribed by law to the profession.
It was a good experience and I plan on doing a few weeks at a time this year as time and circumstance is finally on my side. In the meantime I've scored a rather casual gig at the Chinese museum in Melbourne, teaching kids all about Chinese culture and history, in Australia and mainland China. It's a welcome gig, as I get to meet museum curators and learn a little about the museum trade.
Maya Hieroglyphs and Professors
School is going well and I'm doing a course I just scraped by to get in: Mayan Hieroglyphs. It's offered every two years, but I missed the first year and now am doing a reading course for 3rd year in it. It's tough...apparently, and I have to work my butt off. It's run by a wonderful character who is forever besieged by technology. He refuses to call a usb stick by its name and calls it 'stick thingy' and the projector 'point thingy' and once told us a story about setting fire alarms off by accidentally placing his hand on a touch screen in a Washington D.C university which was apparently armed to the teeth with security. Last week he exclaimed 'Soft what? copy? what's that? Hard copy? (when told the difference) what a stupid name for it! Paper isn't hard!' We find him hilarious. When it comes to the Mesoamerican cultures and Mayan hieroglyphs, of which he has studied since the 70's, the man's a guru. He has slept amongst Mayan ruins in a hammock and catalogued, analysed and drawn them for years. I feel pretty privileged to be accepted into his class and to be able to learn to read that ancient language. I'm quite lucky as this is the only university that offers such a wide area of expertise in I dare say Australia.
At this point in time I'm getting rather interested in Marine Archaeology, Mesoamerica and the Middle East. I wouldn't mind doing a few digs in China and near by Cambodia too. Are there any digs in Antarctica? The world I hope at the beginning of my career and end of the studies, will be my oyster.
Keep yourselves well.
'Till next time ;)
Sureyya.
More of Sureyya's Journey
- Part 1: A Career Change to Archaeology
- Part 2: Career Research in Archaeology
- Part 3: A Bump in the Road
- Part 4: Sometimes Life Intervenes
- Part 5: Being a Freshman
- Part 6: Part-Time Student / Part-Time Job
- Part 7: Full Time Student
- Part 7b: First Excavations
- You are Here:Part 7c: A Bunch of Nerdy Lunatics
- Part 8: Sureyya the Shovel Bum
- Part 9: Sureyya in the Field
