Field school has become a bottleneck for every student who wants to become a professional archaeologist because most of them are not willing to give up their entire lives to travel away from home for 6 weeks just to see if they want to do archaeology. Here’s what we can do about this.
How many African American skeletons are being kept in museums across the United States? How many of these are from persons who sold their bodies to science? How many are from archaeological sites? How many were procured at some distant time in the past when antiquarians, medical schools, and archaeologists […]
Since I’m an assistant professor of anthropology, my social media threads are buzzing with conversation about the new Netflix show “The Chair.” Over the past month my friends and family have been asking me things like; Is “The Chair” really what being a professor is like? Is that how academic […]
Right now, the United States is burning. This is not the first time. It is not the last. In the wake of yet another social maelstrom caused by the Original Sin at the heart of U.S. history, I’ve been getting emails, text messages, and other requests to help archaeologists articulate […]
Transitioning from cultural resource management (CRM) archaeology to academia has not been as easy for me as I’d already spent a decade doing CRM before getting hired by a university. This means I’d already gotten used to the rough and tumble world of contract archaeology—going to the field at the […]
Cultural resource management archaeology did not exist the last time the world suffered a massive pandemic like COVID-19. We don’t know how the industry or its practitioners will react to global shutdown and rapidly-spreading illness, but we know what happened when our ancestors faced similar conditions. The 1918—1919 Influenza Pandemic […]
The San Francisco Bay Area has a unique history based on the role it’s played in shaping the United States. It’s history isn’t always pretty, but it is what makes the Bay Area unique. Echoes of the past are still visible. The landscape was shaped by the fires of Bay […]
After long days conducting archaeological fieldwork, I have taken shelter in a range of different forms of lodging ranging from tents to multi-room suites (FYI: I think tents are great for camping but not for work. Knowing you have to work the next day spoils the novelty of sleeping in […]
The season is upon us. The season for archaeological field schools. In a matter of days, thousands of aspiring archaeologists will find themselves doing REAL archaeology for the first time. The thrill of discovery. Excitement of being in the field. The weary solace in doing a hard day’s labor. These […]
Some cultural resource management archaeologists are homeless. I’ve known this for years. It’s a part of being an archaeologist in the United States we don’t want to talk about. Cultural resource management archaeology is an unconventional career where practitioners can expect to spend extended periods away from home while working. […]
