A reason to write.

Archaeology is a interesting field. It doesn't properly fit into science, history, social science or forensics, but arguments could be made for many of them to varying degrees. The truth of it is that archaeology in its broadest sense is a method of investigation, specifically oriented at past human activity.

So what is it that an Archaeologists does? do they "dig-up" the past?  Through a myriad of different methods, which I can state with confidence I don't know the number of, Archaeologists look at physical evidence, support it with the written record when possible and other research, when possible, to support an almost certainly unprovable hypothesis about people and events which took place at some location in at some point in the past.

That's what archaeologists do in the field, but not really how they contribute. At the end of the day, writing is how an archaeologists contribute to the academic community and the world at large. This means that any archaeology student who wants to contribute to the archaeological community needs to be able to write, and write clearly, concisely, fluently and honesty.

A professor of mine is fond of saying that archaeology is destruction, and I believe him in many cases. There is no such thing as re-excavating the same holes, what you do is destroy the provenience and orientation of the artifacts as they are removed. You destroy a site in small increments and in it's place you leave a report. That, with the material culture of course, is the legacy of Archaeology. The writing is far more important in most cases however, because in reality though most artifacts don't end up in museums. There are far more tiny sherds of ceramics, stone flakes and rusted unidentifiable pieces of ferrous metal that can't be identified than there are statues, projectile points and vessels.

That means if you want actually want to be a good archaeologist, one that makes contributions to the community your part of - you need to write and write well. A good archaeologist is a good writer and that's why I'm writing this. To practice expressing my thoughts clearly, concisely, fluently and honestly. That is my reason to write.

Spoiled

So I’m on the verge of a lot of transition in my life, I have to look at Grad Schools, I have to decide what it is I want to do for the rest of my life, figure out how to pay for it, apply to these places, convince very intelligent people that I am also intelligent. Add that to my already busy schedule of work, school and army. But this Blog isn’t about my stress or even what decisions I make in the next few months. This is Blog is about the random realizations and the occurrences that stimulate those thoughts, that I find to be of value. I need those thoughts to be able to look back on and remind me why it is I am neck deep in work in every direction and what I can do about it.

So last evening on the last night of my family reunion we all drove up to a place and rented Kayaks, I found the entire experience enjoyable. My Mom and Dad shared a Kayak and they were running into bridges and going off in random directions the whole time arguing about what side they should be paddling until both of them couldn’t stop laughing. My brothers and I trashed talked as we checked out the brackish water canals in the Sound of the Outer Banks. This was the first time I was in Kayak and I really enjoyed turning it sharp, paddling backwards and going as fast as I could manage.

Anyway it was about 8pm when our tour was finishing up and the waters of our inlet were dark, calm and quiet. Our guide told us we could hang out in the bay for a while if we wanted to and I paddled over to where a replica of the boat that the 100 or so colonist of Roanoke crossed the atlantic in. There were spot lights on it, you could see it from across the bay so I took off as fast as I could towards the ship and right before I reached it banked hard and managed to glide right up close to it. I drifted by the big silent ship close enough to reach out and touch its side. What struck me most about it was how quiet and calm the waters were and how tiny the ship really was. The spot lights made me feel completely isolated just me and that quiet ship. The whole thing lasted maybe minute and a half, probably less. I drifted out of the spot lights and again took off as fast as I could back to where they were docking our kayaks. I pulled into the back of landing area where Jake, my brother, was also waiting a little removed from the rest of people pulling ashore.

“what was the ship like up close?” he asked

“It was cool” I said.

“we’re spoiled” he replied.

All I said back was “Yea”

Drifting by that ship in the quiet like I did felt a lot like traveling through time for a few moments. I couldn’t imagine how 100 people could fit on that ship. It was tiny. Here I sat in my tourist kayak after spending near to a week in a big old beach house with a swimming pool and a hot tub, right on the ocean. All those folks who crammed themselves on that ship probably died a few years after they arrived. One guy left and when he came back with supplies everyone had disappeared. They packed themselves like sardines into a tiny boat to cross an ocean so they could make it out there onto a tiny island where they literally where going to hack an existence in a place they couldn’t have had the slightest idea would be like. At least that’s what they died trying to do. It would be like 50 people trying to move to Mars in a Winnebago. That really wasn’t that long ago and they aren’t remembered for having a particularly rough row to hoe, that’s just how things used to go. Suffering is relative.

Grad School, GRE’s, a couple of pounds to loose it’s good to keep things relative, I shouldn’t ever forget how easy I got it.

My job is to study and investigate the past, how could I have forgotten that lesson? I knew it once.