Archaeolog

Thomas M. Urban

As non-destructive geophysical methods become an increasingly popular tool for archaeological investigations for reasons of economy and site preservation, educational programs struggle to incorporate these methods into the standard archaeological curriculum. A large part of this struggle stems from the fact that geophysics is an entirely separate discipline that, like most professions, requires years of training and experience to master. What then should the typical archeologist (who cannot necessarily devote years of additional specialized study) know about geophysics? In the interest of addressing this question, the Brown University Environmental Geophysics Group in cooperation with the Artemis A.W. and Martha Sharpe Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, also at Brown, has been working for the past two years to incorporate near surface geophysics into the archaeological curriculum at the university. The developing pedagogical model presented here as a result of this cooperative effort, focuses not on turning budding archaeologists into budding geophysicists, but on training future archaeologist to collaborate more effectively with geophysicists, paving the way for better interdisciplinary research and cultural resource planning. This collaborative teaching effort began with undergraduate students, but is now filtering into the graduate program through a newly developed workshop series.

Image source: The Archaeology of College Hill

The joint endeavor began in 2006, when Professor Susan Alcock, Director of the Joukowsky Institute, invited geophysicists from Brown's Department of Geological Sciences to conduct a non-invasive survey for an undergraduate archaeological field methods course. Dr. Robert Jacob and I conducted the survey early in the fall semester of 2006-07, using two-loop electromagnetic induction and ground penetrating radar methods. We later returned to the field site to conduct a demonstration for the students. Finally, we produced a report that was incorporated into the general site report compiled by the students and course instructors. While we enjoyed the collaboration, and the students seemed interested in our activities, we questioned how much the students actually took away from this type of interaction. Our research group decided that if invited back the following year, an effort would be made to engage students more fully in the process geophysical site assessment.

Proviso: For most archaeolog readers this entry is an example of preaching to the converted. What follows is a response I pinned to a Wall Street Journal article back in April. It is for a different crowd, by which I mean a very general crowd. After being horded by the editorial staff of a couple of newspapers for all of May and part of June it was returned to me with no takers.

It seems the lesson never sinks in, and many mistakes are doomed to be repeated. In the least, without recourse elsewhere, such concerns, even if they are delayed concerns, may be aired here.

A recent sound bite run by the Wall Street Journal (later picked up as a feature story by Yahoo News), entitled “Load up the Pantry” points out that buying in bulk and storing up food makes good financial sense. Given the current rise in food prices the short article suggests that maybe it is time for Americans to start stockpiling food goods. The reasoning goes as follows.

Foodstuffs, readers are reminded, are tied to a global market. If the price of rice inches up in Cairo, Bangkok or Manila, then it will follow suite in Chicago, Boston or Miami. Moreover, high rice prices will spill over into other goods. Cereal, milk, cheese, bananas, ground beef, chicken; the article emphasized how food inflation is higher than the returns on your money market fund. So, why not take this occasion of rising food prices to explore different investment opportunities? Why not indeed?

On the surface “load up the pantry” seems like a sensible recommendation. However, before everyone piles up their grocery carts, buys a new deep freeze for the pantry or crams rice into the hidden recesses of their closets, there is another side of the story which we must consider. As an archaeologist, I would like to share a scenario about the potential consequences of hoarding food during episodes of ‘scarcity.’

The lesson is one offered by archaeology, well to be more precise, garbology.
From 1973 to 2005 William Rathje ran the Garbage Project out of the University of Arizona where he was a Professor of archaeology. The Garbage Project took a very different approach to the study of consumption. Faithful to a maxim of our current era, ‘what we say we do rarely matches up to what we do,’ the project focused on discard patterns in garbage. You claim to drink only 4 beers a week? You laud your efforts at recycling? Well your trash says otherwise.