Calling any Archaeologists! (Or similar!) Check in here!

[GazeboMouse]

Salli - there is nothing,... nothing!! awesome about carrying a mattock and shovel up a welsh mountain (OK... hill!) in the pouring rain day after day and finding nothing!!  I swear that so called hill fort was just a myth

Nothing glamourous about digging up a cow field in 3 weeks of Scottish summer weather (rain!) when the farmer takes a week to cut down the 5ft high Scottish (industrial strength) thistles, and doesn't clear them so you sit on them or stick your hands on them every time you move either!  And the farmer doesn't move the cows, so you try and do resistivity surveys and calves run off with your tape measures! And a sheep falls in your trench and it takes half the wall down with it when being shoved out again! And all that was dug up was hobnails and cobbles!  Not that I'm bitter or twisted about that particular experience...

Great to see such a range of people's interests and experiences on this thread!

[Dyzarktarzk]

*raises claws*

In last semester of Archaeology here.  And suffering with stupid thesis!

What I'm doing?  Lab and taphonomy (and getting in a point of: why did I choose taphonomy...?).

What I'm more interested in:

Archaic and Formative periods in Mesoamerica.
Zooarchaeology (that's really different perspective in America than in Europe).
Historical Archaeology.

Doing:

Working in Formative period taphonomy as my thesis job, and epiclassic ceramics as an alternate job.

[GothMummy]

Gazebo Mouse - your story of your scottish dig sounded so hilariously true and funny that I snorted out loud with laughter! Poor you. All that to cope with and then sleeping in a tent and avoiding the site supervisors who have drunk too much cider Was that a dig near Oban - if so I spent a week surveying there - but forgot that one as it was part of a module - it sounds very familiar!!

Salli - I have no words to describe my loathing of time team!!
Though I suspect most of their digs are actually "rescue" archaeology where the area is going to be a car park or shopping mall and they have a very limited time to survey and excavate the area before its obliterated by concrete.

Dyzark - sounds like you have a strong science base - that sounds interesting. I  have no science abilities at all and Im more of an "oooh look at theis pretty Dark Age brooch" kind of archaeologist   I once signed up for a module called "Through a Glass Darkly" because it had an awesomely cool title only to be really quite bored with a module about roman glass making techniques........

[Dyzarktarzk]

Now I'm stuck with a module on Maya Culture that I didn't want to take (it interests me, but not for credits)...  more because I'm the worst in architecture!  And why Maya Architecture?!  I can't recognize the different architecture styles they used!!  Why Peten, Chenes, Río Bec, Usumacinta, Puuc, etc.?! *wails*  Okay...  need to read about their characteristics *sad sigh*

My thesis director wanted to open one about prehispanic agriculture and paleobotany but the upper-ones didn't pass the module *sigh*.  I really wanted it!!

GothMummy:

Interesting titles make things interesting... until you find the truth behind the name

I wanted to take a module about prehispanic metal production, but only been opened once and when I was in 2nd semester so couldn't enter it -.-

[GothMummy]

Now, to me, Mayan architecture sounds very interesting. i was always quite good at the architecture moduels. How far through your thesis are you Dyzark? How long do you get to write them up?

So wow... we dont have any Eygptologists on the Arena then? That does surpise me.

x

[Corona]

I just applied to work at a rare book and document library, so it's a little too recent for archaeology but this history nerd has lots of respect for those that go way back.

Beldarna: Your thesis sounds super cool! I did mine on cults as well (focusing on Aum Shinrikyo, so way recent.)

[Dyzarktarzk]

Now, to me, Mayan architecture sounds very interesting. i was always quite good at the architecture moduels. How far through your thesis are you Dyzark? How long do you get to write them up?

So wow... we dont have any Eygptologists on the Arena then? That does surpise me.

x

How far...  being 'working' on it since semester 3 (meeting the materials), now in 9th semester.

Planned for it to be 5 chapters long, and stuck on chapter 2 =3  And checking and checking the material and to try to find the MNI of the specimens I'm working with *sigh*

From the moment I'm out of University (this November/December if everything works out) I'll have at most 2 years to finish it.  I'm trying to get it fo April/May next year (2014) *crosses claws*



Indeed, it seems we're lacking Egyptologists at the moment o.o

[GazeboMouse]

I nearly applied for an Egyptology degree on my Uni UCAS form when I was applying for Uni, changed my mind quickly when I thought for a while. Asthmatic so can't do dry desert heat, and scared of mummys and statues of animal headed creatures. So apart from studying scarab beetles, not much point. So all my choices were Archaeology degrees instead!

[GothMummy]

My best friend on my degree was crazy about Eygpt but being a sunlight avoiding goth she couldnt bear hot places so she didnt take an Eygptology  degree! She now has a super-duper impressive museum job so it worked out ok for her

[Dyzarktarzk]

I have lupus and hate the sun...

But still went to practices under the sun in dry and hot places that just...  WATER, PLEASE!!  And the first in rain =3

[ringwraith10]

I studied English and History in Undergrad, and I am pretty much ABT on my Master's in English Literature. I'm thinking of getting another Master's in Archaeology (or in Library Archives -- I have about 7 years of Library experience, so that may make more sense for me). The ancient world has always been a strong interest of mine, and my focus in Literature is generally in pre-Renaissance writing (along with some Renaissance -- Titus Andronicus is my favorite Shakespeare play).

[GothMummy]

Hello Ringwraith.
I had spent a couple of years working in libraries, and actually started an MA in librainship but quickly realised it was not at all the career for me. I actually got quite depressed when I was on my graduate trainee year in an arts library because I hated it so much I actually feel quite bad about that part of my life because it was a mistake that caused inconvieniance for other people......

I would love to do an MA ... but the fees are so expensive now! Even to study part time...... I would have to do it one module at a time over about 6 years to afford it!

[tulagirl]

If I could get a second degree it would be in Anthropology.  Its not exactly the same thing.

[Dyzarktarzk]

Still, archaeology and anthropology are sisters =)  (brothers?  I don't know their 'gender' in English ).



Argh!  Help meeeee!!  Does anyone has a GOOD image/photo/catalogue/whatever with the hand and feet bones of canids??? 

More specific: distinguishing between metatarsals and metacarpals?  The image I have is not clear, it was given/made by a teacher and it's old


I'm really hating bones ;_;

[Moonbreeze]

Oh me! I'm in my MA year right now. I study in Leiden, the Netherlands. Our Faculty of Archeaology is quite big and offers a lot of specializations. I studied Meso-America and the Archaeology of Northwest-Europe before (Iron Age to 1700), but my interest lies with the Middle Ages (and mainly the earliest part with the transition/ continuation from Roman times to the Frankish/ Saxon/ Frisian one). My thesis is going to be about a burial field/ cemetery from this era.

I might do Egyptology next year (it is a seperate study at our uni).

My internships were in the fields (Wales and several parts of the Netherlands. Holland has to be my favourite part because almost everything is waterlogged.... including 'fresh' 1500 year old poo, but hahaha that's my trauma). Also clearing grounds because there still are bombs from WOII isn't ideal.
I also did an internship at the National Museum of Antiquities.

I like to go on holidays to countries with some great archaeology (Norway, Egypt, Greece, Italy have been visited already ).

Unfortunately finding a job in this sector is going to be very difficult