"Everything is Fine and No one's Freaking Out"

I recently started working for an archaeological company and i realized something: archaeologists are fucking weird. And that weirdness comes out when you're stuck with the same 10 people 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. So this will be a place to document...

[shit-archaeologists-say]

As a highschool student I'm quite concerned for my future and was hoping to get into archaeology. Would you recommend it as a profession or is it something you regret?(if u are an archaeologist)

Oh boy that’s a hard question, but I’ll do my best. 

First, as a disclaimer: I’m not currently working as an archaeologist. Post-grad degree, my need for a steady income and health benefits is currently outweighing my want to get an archaeology job.  

Second, it’s something you really have to want. I’m sure most archaeologists would agree. Archaeology isn’t one of those careers that you go into thinking “well, it’s not my favorite, but it’ll do.” Tbh it can suck sometimes. You’re never gonna get rich, you’ll probably have to work in shitty, hot, boring, wet, potentially explosive conditions before you get to do anything cool. You’re not going to be finding elaborate golden artifacts every other day and making history changing discoveries. Unless you go into something really specialized, you’re probably going to mostly be on your hands and knees, in a pit digging for long periods of time and, if you’re lucky, spend some time in a lab processing your finds (many of which will be rocks)

Now, this isn’t meant to discourage you. Personally, I love it. I like the outdoors, I like the physicality of it all (though, therein lies my current issue, but that’s a story for a different day). I love the potential to learn new things that could change details of history while you watch (not big changes, mind you, but things like “oh this wasn’t just a shitty little village, it was a hub of administration”). I love even finding weird looking historical shit and going …..um what the hell? and then through some research (and wild guessing) figuring out exactly what it was used for. I love the research and the camaraderie of the people I’ve worked with (cuz hey, archaeologists are weird to outsiders but if you’re one of us, we’re pretty fucking cool).

In conclusion, I don’t regret going into archaeology (other than when I look at my student loan statements cuz yikes). I don’t know if I’d ever be able to find another course of study that satisfies all my niche interests and is in an environment I enjoy (miss me with that 9-5 office job honey). 

So it’s really up to you. If it sounds like something you’d enjoy, give it a go! Especially since you’re only in high school you have TONS of time to try things out. If you think archaeology sounds interesting but you don’t want to lock into it yet, see if theres an open short course or a field school near you. Do some research and figure out what areas you might want to study and figure out where/when/how much it’ll cost to find a professor who focuses on that too. 

In general, just explore everything you can. Even if you really like archaeology, maybe spend some time in chemistry or anatomy classes which will help you specialize down the road. Take some history classes from a wide range of times and places. Just explore a bit and try to stress too abstractly about The Future. Everything you do is going to change it and there’s 1,000,000 ways to get to your end goals. 

Hope that helps a bit

[shit-archaeologists-say]

Hello, I have found your blog and it has made my day. I love the field I have chosen to work in (and dig my own grave, all professional like), but to see someone point out just how WHAKY it is? Joy. Total joy. Because, Story time! My group at one point developed a religion and it has since found to have counter religions. We all had heat stroke, the bird is a God, the Mattock is Lord over the opposing beliefs, and the magnetometer has become a Saint. looking at this blog makes me feel normal.

Let me first apologize that this blog has made you feel normal. Clearly one of us is doing something wrong. 

But yeah lbr our field is hella weird and I feel like my crew probably did some weird shit like forming a religion based around our gear and suggested sacrificing a tech to make the archaeology gods bless our site to be less shitty

[narrativerehearsal]

An old university friend shared an article about making cuneiform tablet gingerbread and my first thought was ‘oh my god, are archaeologists incapable of normal baking?’. Closely followed by ‘….I want to make that.’

Doing real well at not being a stereotypical archaeologist.

[archaeoloony]

Oh look, another item for the list of things I did not know I needed in my life!

[ganymedecatamitus]

Drop the recipe OP

[narrativerehearsal]

I can’t find the original link but I did find these.

[wtfzeus]

😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

[catchymemes]

I only drink free-range, organic water

[erotetica]

Not to be dramatic but how fucking dare this have no sound

[allofmystudentsrunaway]

Things i have actually said to students/volunteers on excavation.

[archaeoloony]

Student: What’s this?

Me: it’s a rock, well done.

============================================

me:you are all my children now..

Student: even Malcolm, he’s sixty?

Me: did i stutter? i love my wrinkly bald son.

==============================================

Volunteer: What’s this?

Me:it’s a rock, sandstone probably

Volunteer: is it important?

Me: no it’s a rock

==============================================

Me:Do not fall down the well.

Me:if you do fall down the well, don’t die.

Me: if you die, i’ll kill ya. i do not like extra paperwork.

==============================================

Student: how do you cope with on site stress?

Me:alcohol, nicotine and arboreal violence..

Student: wht?

Me: i beat up trees.

==============================================

Me: why is there a rock in your finds tray?

Volunteer:it’s a pretty rock

=============================================

Me: *while plotting with my boss* MUMMY AND DADDY ARE TALKING!

Me: this is why we can’t have nice things people!

==============================================

Me: If you need me I’ll be hiding..

Student: where?

Me:that’s the whole point.

=============================================

Me:bear in mind if you die on site your corpse will be stuffed and mounted on the spoil heap as a warning to others.

Students: *look at the spoil heap*

Me: don’t worry nobody has died..yet.

===========================================

Student: i’m sorry, i can no longer work with *insert name here*

Me: did you shag?

student: how the fuck did you know..?

==========================================

Volunteer: what are you hoping to find?

Me: my will to live.

=========================================

Student:what’s this

Me:its bone *licks bone* see if it sticks to your tongue its bone.

Student:..

Me: oh yeah don’t do that.

=======================================

*after a very long open day*

Tourist:so who lived here?

Me: dead people.

=======================================

*after another long open day at a different site*

Tourist: so how does geophysics work

Me:magic

======================================

tourist: so what do you teach the students?

Me: excavation techniques..and the importance of cynicism and beer in archaeological contexts.

=======================================

*too a particularly horny and yet weirdly romantically successful male student*

Me: you shag anyone else, i’m going to have you neutered.

=======================================================

newbie digger: whats this?

Me: the solid mineral material forming part of the surface of the earth and other similar planets, exposed on the surface or underlying the soil.

Me: its a rock, another one, well done.

======================================================

Student:what was that noise!?

Me:don’t worry it’s just the finds officer, it helps to think of him as five gibbons in a simon suit.

Student:..wht/..

Me: hush that’s the noise he makes when someone has stolen all the sharpies. if we stand very still he may pass us by…he can smell fear you know

=======================================================

student: have you dug up many skeletons?

Me: yes loads

Student:i don’t think i could do that.

Me: *stares at roman cemetery around us* were you at the site briefing..

Student: yeah they said inhumations..it’s burials i can’t deal with..

Me:…ok…and you have graduated from university right?

Student:yes i got a first.

Me:…

========================================================

Volunteer: i found this weird thing, it’s probably another rock

Me: oh that is a lovely bit of mid 20th century..Asbestos sheeting

Volunteer: what does that mean?

Me: we run away..quite quickly..while trying not to breath

=======================================================

Volunteer:I’ve watched every episode of time team..i know what i am doing

Me: that’s a rock, these are in fact all rocks.

[archaeologysucks]

This shovel probe was a bit gravelly.

[glumshoe]

Whenever I talk to kids about archaeology, I ask if they know of any fictional archaeologists from movies or TV. Some of them know Indiana Jones, but I like to mention Ariel from The Little Mermaid because she’s actually seen, like… studying artifacts to learn about the people who made them rather than just. Uh. Acquiring them from other people. She also seems to do a damn fine job of conserving them.

[cydril]

Thats not archaeology its anthropology.

[glumshoe]

She studies and conserves physical artifacts left behind by humans she cannot observe or speak to in order to learn about them. That is archaeology. Only after she is able to observe and interact with them does it stop being archaeology.

[thestrugglingarchaeologist]

SO THAT’S WHERE I GOT IT FROM 

[fillianore-moved]

so metropolitan museum of art has a register of books they’ve published that are out of print and that you can download for free! they’re mostly books on art, archeology, architecture, fashion and history and i just think that’s super useful and interesting so i wanted to share! you can find all of the books available here!

[archaeologysucks]

Field Kitten - Day 10

Flake found some more cozy places to nap today. She climbed all the way up me and got into my hood by herself.

We saw one of her siblings today. Apparently it got too close to the humans for mom’s comfort, so she picked it up by the scruff and took off with it.

I’m starting to think Flake is older than I previously thought. Eye color changing from blue to adult color is something that usually happens at about 7 weeks, and it’s been almost a week since her eyes were noticeably blue. She’s just small for her age, but she’s catching up rapidly!

[shit-archaeologists-say]

Hi, can you tell Flake I love her? (Also I really want an archaeology kitten now)

[archaeologysucks]

things I have seen adult, professional archaeologists do, on the clock

Eat a worm.

Chant “EAT IT! EAT IT! EAT IT!”

Launch water balloons across the site at the portable toilet when someone was using it.

Back the work vehicle up against the door of the portable toilet to trap someone inside.

“Gently” tap the crew vehicle in front of them with the bumper of their vehicle.

Discreetly vomit in the bushes due to hangover.

Intentionally run over roadkill while laughing maniacally.

“Moon” the work camera.

Topless Day

Throw a co-worker into the bog of water-screening run-off sludge.

Flint-knap right next to a test unit.

Chase one another around with a dildo they found (and then bag it as an “artifact” and send it back to the lab).

Draw a smiley face on their hardhat in their own blood.

Write off a shovel probe because there was a horse standing on the spot that wouldn’t move.

Yell out, “I peed on a snake! :D”

Have a shovel fight.

[tattooed-alchemist]

I can’t help but imagine some hapless screenwriter who has been slogging along and hates their script, and reads this, and suddenly trashes the old script and starts working on an archaeology rom-com because what they just read was the written version of an epic trailer for just such a film.

[archaeologysucks]

Yes. Good. Go do it.

For the record, I’ve heard second-hand stories about archaeologists doing many much worse and/or more disgusting things than this, and I’ve seen them do way worse things off the clock.

These kinds of shenanigans tend to be symptomatic of larger crews and longer projects. The more archaeologists you put together in one place for the greater span of time, the worse their behavior gets. We are a bad influence on each other.

[shit-archaeologists-say]

Can confirm about the “long periods of time” bit. When I started my job everyone was relatively professional, but there was jokes and stuff. 

6 months in to the year and a half project things started to devolve and we’re saying shit like “can we not talk about cannibalism again” and “stop changing the desktops backgrounds to weird Nicolas Cage photoshops”

[archaeologysucks]

regarding your post about dumb junk that archaeologists do, my arch professor would tell us the craziest stories about his digs at maya pyramids. one dude climbed up a smaller pyramid during a storm and "beseeched the rain gods" and was struck by lightning (for the second time). another time they encountered africanized killer bees and half of the team made a mad dash to a nearby pyramid and the others went to the truck, and my prof jumped over a guy who tripped in his escape attempt.

Wild!

I’ve also seen archaeologists jump on an iced-over pond to test how thick the ice was, work through the tail end of a hurricane, and poke an extremely venomous snake with a stick. It’s a wonder most of us survive, and I definitely wouldn’t recommend reproducing with us.

[unclefather]

[basketballhoopshowerhead]

(Chanting) ancient cheese with a deadly disease ancient cheese with a deadly disease ancient c

[sci-the-superb]

CAN WE STILL EAT THE FUCKING BOG BUTTER?

[silverseapunk]

my hot take on this tag yourself meme: history edition

[shit-archaeologists-say]

Are you creamy enough to be creamware??

K1, yelling at artifacts as she slowly descends into madness

[archaeologysucks]

*Sees post “How important is context in archaeology?” * – Me sitting alone in my apartment: PROVENIENCE, PEOPLE, PROVENIENCE!!!!

tbh, I kind of hate the word “provenience”. “Provenance” is a perfectly fine word, and can be modified with terms such as “original” or “in situ”, without having to invent a whole new word that essentially means the same thing.

[kaijutegu]

…oh my god there’s two words I never realised there were two words

When I was in undergrad, my archaeology profs called it provenience. In grad school, my archaeology core teacher kept saying provenance and I always thought I’d just learned it wrong and that when I said provenience everyone was just too nice to correct my pronunciation.

But no. There’s two words and somehow I managed to go ten goddamn years without learning this fact.

[chill-byers]

I always thought “provenience” was just a mispronunciation of “provenance”. 

Considering etymology sources that say it is an alteration of provenance, I wonder if it started out that way. 

[archaeologysucks]

You have both totally validated my desire to boot this word into the sun. It is confusing and unnecessary. At least, it is if you happen to believe that the purpose of language is to convey meaning clearly, and to facilitate communication and understanding.

[xwingace]

I’m not an archeologist, but to me ‘context’ and ‘provenance’ cover two slightly different meanings (context being a bit more – physical, material and provenance being more documentation based)

But ‘provenience’ isn’t a word to me – and when I just looked it up, the meaning seems to exactly cover 'provenance’ rather than covering 'context’. At least being a specific usage in archeology as a synonym of 'context’ would take some workload off that poor, overloaded word. As a synonym of 'provenance’, it looks more like a misspelling.

[archaeologysucks]

That sounds entirely reasonable to me. “Archaeological context/provenance” or “stratigraphic context/provenance” seem like they would cover it, without the added confusion of a whole new word that is so easy to get mixed up with provenance, and is so inadequately and infrequently explained within the discipline that many people apparently do not even realize that provenance and provenience mean two (slightly) different things.

For those of you who are not up on provenance vs. provenience (lucky you):

provenance

Place or source of origin. Many supermarkets display the provenance of their food products.

(archaeology) The place and time of origin of some artifact or other object. This spear is of Viking provenance.

(arts) The history of ownership of a work of art The picture is of royal provenance.

provenience 

(archaeology) Source; origin.

Usage notes:

The term provenience in archaeology/archeology has largely replaced provenance because provenience is restricted to in situ location at the date of archaeological discovery rather than the “origin-to-present” chain of custody details of proper provenance as is customarily used by historians, museums, and commercial entities.

Clear as mud?

[shit-archaeologists-say]

If I can get my professor to soil himself, it's been a successful day.

K1, to a fellow grad student

[shit-archaeologists-say]

I found this blog at 1am and this is the happiest I've been in months

Glad we could provide you some joy with our nonsense <3