Process: Opinions on Doing Archaeology @process-arch - Tumblr Blog

Archaeology and Development: Statistics from the Historic Resources Management Branch

Here’s what the industry looks like in Alberta. Does anyone else think “new sites” is a weird metric?

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The Grand Challenge for CRM Archaeology

Earlier this month, Doug started a blog carnival dealing with the Grand Challenges for Archaeology. We discussed it on an episode of the CRM archaeology podcast. For those of you who don’t listen to podcasts, my ideas can be found below. After Doug announced the carnival, I looked over the 25 grand challenges article published in American Antiquity. These are all larger social theory questions…

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digthisfeature

What are the grand challenges for your archaeology?

I haven’t posted on this blog for over a year. This is in large part due to the fact that I started managing several social media pages and writing blog posts for other archaeology blogs. But more on that later, because #blogarch is back, and that means that Dig This Feature is back (for the time being).

This time the blogging carnival is on Grand Challenges in Archaeology, inspired by a wonderful paper that you all should read (or at least skim), with a twist: Doug has asked us to write about the Grand Challenges facing our archaeology. And this is very significant question for me.

I was inspired to write this by a very specific portion of an excellent and very timely blog post that you can read here. It goes something like this: you can still be an archaeologist even if you’re not doing archaeology. For most of us our identities our wrapped up in being an archaeologist. We live it and breathe it long after we hang up our trowels and call it quits for the day. But divorcing our identities from our profession is not only necessary but very healthy, because there may come a day when you leave your job as an archaeologist. And if your identity is wrapped up in your profession then you’re going to have an existential crisis on your hands if and when that day comes.

I recently took a job outside of archaeology. The reasons are much more complicated and numerous than what I tell people at my office when I mention that before this I was getting my masters in archaeology. These reasons include, but are not limited to, the following: I really enjoy the city that I live in, the group of friends that I have, and don’t want want to move again. I don’t have car and can’t shovel bum. Grad school was expensive. Grad school kind of burnt me out. I’m about to get kicked off my parents health insurance. I’m tired of being a broke grad student. I have asthma; it sucks. I’ve gone through recovery for a horrible work related injury that I never want to deal with again. I want to dress up for work. I’d like to be inside when it snows. Labwork kills my soul a little. I actually have other interests besides archaeology that maybe I want to pursue. And the list goes on. It was a tough decision that I agonized over to multiple people.

I love my new job, and I am excited to go to work every day. The information that I get to work with is absolutely fascinating. But getting that job offer was still like a punch in the gut because this job has nothing to do with archaeology, and I have spent the last four years of my life introducing myself as an archaeologist. It’s a hard habit to break.

Enter Chris and his gentle reminder that you can still be an archaeologist even if you’re not doing archaeology. Because what does “doing archaeology” even mean? There are so many ways to “do archaeology”- fieldwork, labwork, museumwork, GIS, writing, presenting, blogging, tweeting, teaching- the list goes on. This one is by no means exhaustive.

So the Grand Challenge for my archaeology is this: untangle my identity from my archaeology. I will never not be an archaeologist. It has irrevocably changed the way that I think and how I view the world. It is a part of me. But it is not all of me. Archaeology does not represent the sum total of who I am. I have other interests, other passions, and other goals. And if I want to take some time to explore those, that’s fine. I can be an archaeologist who only blogs, or only attends conferences, or only does any number of things that don’t require being in the field full-time.

So if you find yourself in the same boat, take a deep breath. Archaeology isn’t going anywhere.

archaeochick

I’m going through a similar identity crisis, which I hope I can one day resolve. Though I only worked three minor CRM projects last year and the majority of my paid time was working as a sales associate at Home Depot, I still consider myself an archaeologist. I constantly look for volunteer opportunities in the Bay Area, consider taking adult education courses that could benefit my career and add to my skill set, and try to attend archaeological society meetings within my region.

It’s hard to pull your self-worth and identity out of a career that you spent nearly a decade preparing for, especially if that career is too crowded with others who made similar choices. I don’t want to always rely on retail work to survive. I don’t want to be the sole caregiver for my elderly grandma or be forced to stay home and help my family not owe the IRS for inheriting an expensive house. Sometimes that title of “Archaeologist” is all I can cling to when times like now are tough.

Thankfully in my case, I met the love of my life last year. My life is turning around for the better as we talk about moving in together, going on vacations in Europe, participating in volunteer excavations, and moving on from my troubles. I hope that having a life with my boyfriend will allow us to jumpstart are separate careers.

jangojips

Many of us are in this boat. Either trying to make ends meet while we wait for (diminishing) opportunities in our discipline, or willfully stepping outside the field for a variety of reasons. Don’t give up and don’t get discouraged. Nothing can take the title of archaeologist away from you. :) We are all scientists, and that doesn’t change if we are not actively getting paid to do science to things.

process-arch

Part of the problem is that we have fairly narrow ideas of what constitutes archaeology as a job. It’s presented to us that we have one of two paths that we can follow (academic or CRM) and that you aren’t an archaeologist if what you’re doing falls outside of these paths. That’s not true at all. What you’re taught at university should be applicable in a wide variety of jobs. Use that archaeological skill set.

Not that even that matters all that much. It’d be much better to find a rewarding job that pays the bills. Don’t limit yourself because of the title.

Learning how we really use our homes so we can use them better

anthrocentric

Why is Anthropology Incomprehensible?

So this is a question for all you Anthropology grad student type people following the blog: Why is Anthropological writing (and writing in the social sciences in general) so difficult to read? In my undergrad, we talked about how Boas and his crew (Benedict, Mead, Kroeber etc) not only wrote more comprehensibly than, say, Anthropology published after 1980 or so, but also about how they often directed their work at a lay audience specifically (Coming of Age in Samoa, The Races of Mankind, etc). We talked about a trend where Anthropology in the beginning of the 20th century was for everyone, but at the end of it the discipline had firmly holed up inside the ivory tower. Am I right that Anthropology is becoming increasingly obtuse? And if so, why is it happening? This is not a rhetorical question: please tell me your thoughts either as an answer or in reblogs, however you feel comfortable. –Peter

Undeveloped Regions

It came out a while ago, but I’m still working my way through the September issue of the SAA Archaeological Record. Two articles in particular have caught my eye as being noteworthy both for my own practice and for comment in general. The first is a reprint of Robert L. Kelly’s Patty Jo Watson Distinguished Lecture that he gave at the American Anthropological Association Meeting in 2013. In it,…

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Accessibility and Existence: Toward an Ethical Consumption of Literature

Somewhere, deep within my archaeologically encultured brain, I firmly believe that archaeological theory is important. We hardly ever discuss it in CRM, but we often enjoy discussing methods and theory shapes those methods. At least, that’s what we’ve been told in our theory courses. It’s been decades since I took that type of course. What developments have been made since that course? Could any…

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#academic literature #grey lit

Notice: Change of Venue

For the past few months, I haven’t blogged much of anything on my Tumblr account. This, despite the fact that I’ve had plenty of ideas for entries. I did manage to create something for the Day of Archaeology and have kept up other archaeologists on Twitter, but Tumblr? It had become a little much of a pain to use, which might be as much Chrome’s fault as it is Tumblr’s. In any case, I decided to…

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#test post

kenyatta

The high cost of overwork.

The story of overwork is literally a story of diminishing returns: keep overworking, and you’ll progressively work more stupidly on tasks that are increasingly meaningless.

This is something business first learned a long time ago. In the 19th century, when organized labor first compelled factory owners to limit workdays to 10 (and then eight) hours, management was surprised to discover that output actually increased – and that expensive mistakes and accidents decreased. This is an experiment that Harvard Business School’s Leslie Perlow and Jessica Porter repeated over a century later with knowledge workers. It still held true. Predictable, required time off (like nights and weekends) actually made teams of consultants more productive.

Now, this is not to say we can never pull a long day. We just can’t do it routinely. Most of the research I’ve seen suggests that people can put in a week or two of 60 hours to resolve a true crisis. But that’s different from chronic overwork.

So why do we keep doing it? Why can’t we put the book down?

It could be ignorance. Maybe most people just don’t know how bad overwork is, objectively speaking.

It could be skepticism. Maybe they’ve seen the research, but just don’t buy it (or choose to act on it).

Or it could be something stronger. Maybe when you combine economic incentives, authority figures, and deep-seated psychological needs, you produce a cocktail that is simply too intoxicating to overcome.

h/t iamdanw

did-you-know

MAY IS LYME DISEASE AWARENESS MONTH

did-you-know

Lyme is widely misunderstood. Spreading awareness is crucial because ANYONE can get it - so be informed and #postitforward.

It could happen to you, your mom, your neighbor, your grandma, your dog, or these people:

Lyme is present in all 50 states and on every continent except Antarctica.

It can cause a variety of symptoms and is often misdiagnosed as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, depression, or “you’re not sick."

Many people who contract Lyme had no idea they were bitten, because some ticks are the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

Veterinarians regularly screen and vaccinate dogs for Lyme, but it is often overlooked by human doctors.

Lyme affects 1.5 times the number of women diagnosed with breast cancer. If you don’t receive immediate treatment, Lyme disease becomes chronic, debilitating, and fatal. If you or someone you know is sick and can’t figure out why, take the time to learn about Lyme disease.

Source

Forget the Beach Boys, Michael Jackson and Madonna. The most important cultural shift in American pop music began with the explosion of rap in the early 1990s.

“With digitization, ‘culture can — and should — be studied scientifically,’ Leroi said. Evolutionary biology, with its focus on diversity, offers a perfect pathway into a quantitative study of the arts, he said.”

Why yes, culture *should* be studied scientifically. What a good idea.

Bill Whittaker has a nice article in the May 2015 issue of MCJA where he looks at trails that had been mapped by the GLO surveys and looks at the ages of nearby Native American sites. Maney is offering free access to their archaeology journals for the next couple of days, so go check it out.

Working on my SAA paper.

sixsidedsailor

Sometimes the difference between broken junk & history is a spec number. #archaeology #work #glassware #historicarchaeology

Archaeological sites are the standard spatial unit used by archaeologists for protection, management, and analysis. As such, the identification and reporting of site boundaries is a common task for archaeologists working in the field. Guidelines and standards for working with these data vary greatly between states and provinces, however, and even between archaeologists. This survey is intended to identify how archaeologists working in Canada and the United States identify, report, and use site boundary data.

If you have worked with site boundaries, whether identifying, recording, or use in analysis within the US or Canada, I’d appreciate it if you’d take my survey. Also, please share it with others.

#Archaeological survey #The other kind of archaeological survey #archaeological sites #archaeology #crmarch

In response to the existential episode of the CRM Archaeology Podcast, Tristan wrote a wonderful blog post about how everyone ought to be an archaeologist. He discusses the destruction of and damage to archaeological materials and how, if archaeology were an everyday thing, people would be more congnisant of their actions on those materials.

I've been thinking about what he wrote and how it applies with my earlier assertion that archaeologists are people who do archaeology. It seems like a lot of what he discusses is a benefit of an increased familiarity with archaeology. For this, I'm not convinced that one has to be an archaeologist to appreciate that familiarity, but one does need to be exposed to the notion that archaeology is everywhere.

Tristan wrote: "[Archaeology] is a passion-fueled chronicling of everything that humanity is."

I'd say that we study stuff over space and time, usually making inferences about people's actions and behaviour from it. Both of our descriptions point out just how broadly archaeological methods can be applied (i.e., everything). These applications can and should be extended beyond the standardized approaches that we tend to use in CRM.

We have a tendancy to operationalize our approaches. For the most part, I think it's a good thing. It allows us to quickly train new hires and turn around reports. The problem is that we tend to blind ourselves to those data that falls outside of our processes. What we do becomes rote.

It doesn't become rote internally, either. We get relegated to a very small subset of topics, particularly by those who would hire us. We find bits of rock and glass. Maybe, just maybe, we work with an intact structure or traditional cultural properties from one particular group of people. The idea that we work with all types of stuff throughout time really never gets through.

While I don't think that everyone has to be a self-described archaeologist, everyone needs to be aware of the potential ubiquity of archaeology. I particularly think that the place to start expanding our archaeological conciousness is within the extant archaeological community.

Jobs! JOBS!! Jobsjobsjobsjobsjobs!

When we were recording a Profiles in CRM episode, I joked with Chris that all we ever seem to talk about when recording the CRM Archaeology Podcast is jobs. We talk about how to get jobs. We talk about how to keep jobs. We talk about how we can make more jobs. We even talk about how (or maybe if) we can make those jobs better paying.

It does happen, but we rarely seem to argue about methods or interpretation. Do we get into screaming matches over appropriate sample fractions? Do we discuss the issues of using culture history in CRM? I’m sure we could, but usually, we’re talking about jobs and our careers in archaeology.

So, the other day, I was listening to an episode of "Adventures in Podcasting"with Richard Rothaus and Bill Caraher. In it, they were talking about their Mancamp project in the Bakken oilfields. Some of the conversations that they had about the market strongly echo the conversations I’ve had with other archaeologists. Oil is a big deal for archaeologists in Alberta. A lot of our work is drive by oil and gas projects. So, while Richard and Bill weren’t talking about archaeology jobs, they were talking about an archaeology project that also informs about potential archaeology jobs.

It’s all about jobs, I guess.

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