So wait, what happened?
Journal Entry: Mon Jun 16, 2008, 7:50 AM
- Listening to: You
- Reading: You
- Watching: You
- Playing: You
- Eating: You
- Drinking: You
Well, the two weeks I had wasn't a vacation; it was a crash course in field school hosted by the University of Mississippi and the Belize Institute of Archeology. It was a lot of work that mostly involved digging and exploring in sun scorching humid days from 7am to 5pm. Heat stroke, venomous animals, malaria, diseases and difficult terrain were all real hazards on the job. Before I left, one student became ill, one sprained an ankle, and another nearly collapsed from the heat. I made out just fine and worst I had was a bit of light sunburn on my neck.
The work it self was alright. Learning how to excavate is not the hard; just go down a level (which may be 10 or 20 CM) and collect and artifact and record any structures found. Recording is perhaps the most involved skill in archeology and the staff made sure we learned it well. Before you dig, the unit you are working on must be surveyed, measured, and holes must be plotted on the surface. During the excavation, one must collect the artifacts found and fill out a detailed card about each artifact type found in the level. You also have to sift through any dirt excavated and record what the unit looks like by a written description, taking a photograph and plotting out all the features by drawing. Artifacts must also be washed and cataloged later on in the day. When you peeled back enough layers and you think you have collected enough data from the unit, you cover it all back up with the dirt you sifted from it. (kind funny, eh? ) That was pretty much the story everyday. If you were not excavating, you were washing and cataloging artifacts or walking though Belize's humid and rough terrain to find more mounds to excavate for next year.
The field school also had lectures every Thursday and/or Friday night, which were typically one or two hours long. There was also a nice thick fact-like book and papers we had read every night.
Sounds like a lot, but I also found it fun and exciting to make new discoveries. Yet it was not with out my fare share of criticism...
While the program it self stayed on the path of teaching people how to recover and record items of the past, teaching us the context of the artifacts was touched on only lightly. Indeed, sharing information was not discussed at all. How are we supposed to look at the site as a whole when communication is not given it's time? Hell when I try talking to the students to learn about their ideas of what excavated most rarely got any farther then "What did you find?" There was also NO talk of how publishing one's findings is a very important and mostly neglected part of archeology. Publishing one's findings is one of the biggest problems in archeology today. Many archaeologist simple "don't have the time" (which is BS) or are in a state of fear for having their theories proven wrong or become the subject criticism.(which is known as being exceptionally harsh in the field.)
Also off the field, the school was much like a high school; which plenty of petty drama and alcohol fueled mistakes. Even most of the project's staff seemed to have weak self control of the students. Hell, before I left one of the female staff members slept with one of the students after an energized night at a local club. I can understand kicking back a few drinks to unwind after a day of recording and hard work, but sometimes it became quite excessive.
Aside from that, it was really quite fun. I never visited another country before, and the people who lived there were mostly friendly and nice to talk to. I still learned a lot of archeology and I got to experience a county I never even heard of until a few months ago!
If you want to know anything more specific, feel free to ask!
