Category: Postdoc Life

The Semester Starts in Earnest

If you’ve read my post about Archaeology in the Off-season, you know I’ve been busy since I returned from Paris last November. Archaeologists always are. The time when we’re not in the field is when we read the latest scholarship, learn new skills, and write our own books and articles. It’s some of the busiest time we have.

These last two months have been no exception. I’ve been intensely busy settling into my new job as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at Miami University of Ohio.  I’ve also been preparing an application for a Marie Curie fellowship at Cardiff University, and writing a major fellowship application is almost as much work as an article. But I submitted the Marie Curie in mid-September – fingers crossed! – and I’ve found my footing teaching Greek Civilization, Ancient Cities, and Discoveries of Archaeology. I even got word that another of my book reviews is out in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies. It feels like a lot of old projects are wrapping up, and you know what that means:

New projects.

It’s time to dive back into a couple of things I’ve kept on the back burner for too long, as well as decide on new directions for the coming academic year. It’s an exciting prospect, almost heady: I’ve been working on a backlog for so long, I barely remember what it’s like to have a front-log.

I have two main goals for the coming academic year: submit some articles and step up my public outreach. I’ve already started on both. I’ve actually been surprised how easy it is to get back into scholarly writing. It turns out all the thoughts that were kicking around in my head while I was updating my encyclopedia article and finalizing my edited volume just can’t wait to get onto the page.

I’m also really excited to try out new methods for communicating archaeology to the public. I bought some materials from Forestry Suppliers – that mainstay of archaeological equipment – and I’m looking forward to putting them to use. Stay tuned to see where my new photographic scales turn up!

I’ll write more about specific projects as the semester progresses, but for now, a draft of an article is calling.

Onward.

by Categories: Archaeology, Postdoc Life, Public Scholarship, Publishing

Full Circle

When I was little – five? maybe six? – I told my mom I wanted a dead mouse collection. I had found a few around our large back yard (probably the cat’s fault), and they looked so cute and soft and furry, I figured I’d bring them home.

Fortunately, my mom was used to my strange ideas. She stalled for time.

“Where would you keep your collection?”

I said I’d keep the mice in a fish bowl so people could see how cute they were.

“I don’t think they’d stay cute in a fish bowl.”

I offered to throw them out when they weren’t cute anymore, but my poor mom put her foot down.

“Honey, I don’t think dead mice are something people collect.”

When I got my postdoc at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle studying mouse teeth, I sent my mom this photo:

Dead mouse collection 1Hell yeah they are.

My mom swears she doesn’t remember my aborted dead mouse collection, but I do – and props to my mom for constructive handling of my weird childhood enthusiasms. But what occurs to me most when I think about that story is the old plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose: after fourteen years of higher education, I’m pretty much the same person I was when I was six.

I had another full circle moment yesterday. Back when I was fifteen, I attended the National Junior Classical League convention, which was being held at Indiana University Bloomington. While at the convention, I heard about the Lilly Library – IUB’s rare books, manuscripts, and special collections – and I learned that anyone – anyone! – could make an appointment to see the rare books. It blew my teenage mind. I could walk into this library and ask to hold a book that was hundreds of years old – and they would let me.

I put it to the test. Lo and behold, they sat me at a desk, set up props to hold the book, and brought me one of the first folios of Shakespeare, published in 1623. I remember hesitating to touch it, worried it would fragment, worried I would tear it if I turned a page. But the paper felt surprisingly resilient for a book over 350 years old, and I slowly gained confidence. For the next two hours, I sat in the quiet of the library reading Macbeth, my favorite play.

That first folio of Shakespeare was not the first artifact I had ever touched, but reading it in the Lilly Library was one of my first experiences entering the world of artifacts – that place where people valued and studied and worked to understand the past through its material remains. I had wanted to be an archaeologist since I was eight. Being treated like a researcher and trusted with a rare book made me feel like it was possible.

Yesterday, I took the students from my Discoveries of Archaeology course to the Walter Havighurst Special Collections of the King Library at Miami University of Ohio, where I am currently a Visiting Assistant Professor. Guided by Head of Collections William Modrow, my students handled dozens of objects: cuneiform tablets, medieval books of hours, Napoleon’s Description de l’Égypte, and late 19th century stereoscope images of archaeological sites to name a few. Cautious at first, as I had been, by the end of the visit they were picking up volumes and replacing them on their props, turning pages, switching out the stereoscope images, running their fingers over the tiny pressed symbols of the clay tablets. With plenty of time to explore, the students gravitated to what most interested them, and it seemed to be different for everyone.

I have no idea what particular interests drove each of my students, what their own personal curiosities and ideas and hopes might be. And I have no idea what the experience of the special collections will end up meaning to them. It may mean nothing particular, or end up just a curious memory, or be one of those cool ways college was broadening before they settle into something totally unrelated. For most, it probably won’t be formative. But we never know what experiences are going to matter to people. They may not know themselves until it’s twenty-two years later and they’re holding a first folio of Shakespeare.

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by Categories: Archives and Libraries, Museums, Postdoc Life, TeachingTags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

Archaeology in the Off-season

I apologize, readers. It’s been a long time since I posted anything in Errant. Too long. I have no excuse except I’ve been busy.

“Haven’t we all,” you reply.

Touché, touché…

Even if I have no excuse, it’s true that archaeologists do a lot of work in the off-season. The stretches of time between our intensive fieldwork and lab work sessions is when we read articles, write articles, become familiar with the latest techniques, and build new skills. So what did I do that took so much time I couldn’t write?

Well, I learned French. Not enough to spontaneously compose the complete works of Zola (or even read them), but enough to earn a C1 rating on the Test de connaissance du français. Through a combination of the free online resource Duolingo, listening to the Journal en français facile, watching France 24 on YouTube, reading several novels, and watching hours of sitcoms (subtitles off), I immersed myself in French language and grammar for two intense months. Then I traveled to Chicago – the nearest city where the TCF is given – and took my chances. The hard work paid off.

My desire to learn French is mostly personal: the research team I work with at the Museum national d’Histoire naturelle speaks excellent English. Even so, I feel it’s both respectful and useful to speak the language of the country where you’re working, wherever that happens to be. Everything from buying groceries to working with local governments goes more smoothly when you can communicate in people’s preferred language, and the show of good faith goes a long way, especially if you work in an area where there’s a reputation for colonialism left over from archaeology’s Bad Old Days.

But French wasn’t my only project since November. I also finished editing a book. Water and Power in Past Societies is the result of an international conference of invited scholars that I organized when I was the postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology. Editing the volume that resulted from that conference has been a major part of my scholarly life ever since, and this year it finally drew to a close. Immediately after my trip to Chicago, I turned my attention to the line edits and indexing, and the book appeared in print in April. I couldn’t be prouder of the result, or more grateful for the opportunity to work with the inspiring scholars whose research is featured.

Still, editing a book didn’t seem like quite enough, so I wrote reviews of three others. Professional book reviews are an essential part of most peer-reviewed journals, and they help colleagues decide whether particular books will be useful for their research or teaching. Writing reviews is also a good way to get a free copy of a book you want to read, but don’t be fooled – when I divided out the price of the books I reviewed by the number of hours I spent working on each review, my average pay came to about $4 an hour. Two of the reviews are still forthcoming, but you can check out one of them here if you’re curious.

Not everything I worked on since November was a new project. One was an old project that landed back on my desk rather unexpectedly. In 2014, I wrote an article on Nuragic archaeology for the Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, and right around the time I left Paris, I was informed it was time for me to update it. A number of new works had come out in my field since 2014, so updating the article meant catching up on a lot of scholarship I had been neglecting while my attention was focused on Water and Power.

And last but not least, when all the rest was done, I managed to write a 20-page report on the zooarchaeological research I did at Tel Akko in Israel last summer. Working in a new area of the Mediterranean was extremely challenging, but the results were worth the effort. My contribution is only a small part of this ongoing research project, of course – I can’t wait to see what new excavation seasons add to our knowledge of animal economies and environments at this fascinating site.

So that’s pretty much what I did. Of course, all these projects were in addition to my work-for-money jobs, which included teaching archaeology and anthropology at Miami University and working as an Experience Programs Teacher at COSI, Columbus’s wonderfully engaging hands-on science museum. I’m pleased to say that, as the summer draws to a close, I’m looking forward to continuing as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Miami University Classics Department and volunteering a few times a month at COSI.

I’m also looking at clean slate with no outstanding projects or professional obligations. I wonder what I’ll work on next…

by Categories: Archaeology, Postdoc Life, PublishingTags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Micromammals Tell a Mega-Story

Most research in archaeology happens in a lab. Despite the images of sweaty excavators and big hats that come to mind when “archaeology” is mentioned, the bulk of archaeology happens when the digging is done. It’s a truism among project directors that you plan three days in the lab for every one day in the field, but the essential work that goes on behind the scenes is largely invisible to the public.

I’m a zooarchaeologist – an archaeologist who studies animal remains – and I do most of my work in labs. Right now, I’m working at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris, where I study the bones of micromammals like mice and voles. These tiny remains were excavated from Bronze and Iron Age sites on the island of Sardinia (c. 1700-300 BCE), and despite their small size, they help me answer big questions about the cultures I study. Micromammals are sensitive to the environments around them. Different species have particular preferences for habitats and living conditions, which means that identifying the micromammals at a site is a way to reconstruct the site’s environment. And reconstructing the ancient environment is fundamental to understanding everything from past economies to climate change.

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I use a microscope to examine bones for evidence of digestion by predators

A typical day of zooarchaeology includes multiple projects. Today, I’m working on three. I begin the day by tackling a taphonomic analysis of the micromammal remains. Taphonomy is the study of how ancient bones are incorporated into archaeological sites, and it includes everything that happens to the bones after the animals die. You can imagine why taphonomy would be important for interpreting ancient bones. Let’s say, for example, that the ancient environment was swampy, so the local micromammals were adapted to wet terrain. But if there were grasslands nearby, an ancient owl could nest in the swamp but hunt in the grasslands, scattering bones of grassland species around its nest. A case like this will give you a confusing mixture of grassland and wetland species showing up together – so what was the ancient environment really like? A careful taphonomic analysis can sort out which species died at the site and which were brought there by predators, helping differentiate the immediate local conditions from the wider surroundings.

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Special software lets me capture detailed images of the micromammal teeth

After a morning in front of the microscope recording taphonomic clues, I’m ready to move to my second project. This project uses geometric morphometrics – a kind of spatial statistics – to analyze the shape of micromammal teeth. The shape of the teeth shows genetic plasticity, meaning that it changes depending on which groups of micromammals bred with each other. Looking at the shape of ancient teeth is therefore a way of tracing population dynamics, and when the only way new micromammals get to an island is by sneaking onto ships, ancient micromammal interactions become a proxy for ancient human interactions.

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Drawers full of tiny reference skeletons at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle

I spend several hours taking images of the micromammal teeth. When I’ve captured images of all of the teeth, I’ll use specially developed software to compare the teeth with each other and with teeth from archaeological sites around the Mediterranean. Capturing the images takes up the major part of my day, but it’s only the beginning. Outlining each tooth so I can compare their shapes will take days. It’s a slow process, and I’ll work on it a little at a time after I return to the states.

 

 

I have just about an hour left in my day, so I decide to spend it studying. My third, long-term project is to do an environmental reconstruction for my site in Sardinia – Sa Conca Sa Cresia – which I excavated with my colleague Mauro Perra in 2009-2011. Even though we completed the excavations a while ago, I’ve only recently finished sorting the heavy fraction to remove the tiny micromammal bones. To prepare to do a complete environmental study, I first consult The Atlas of European Mammals to see which species are currently known to exist on the island. Then I visit the Muséum’s reference collections to familiarize myself with the characteristics of these species’ bones – and especially their highly diagnostic teeth.

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The number and shape of the cusps make teeth “diagnostic,” meaning they can usually be assigned to a species

By the end of the day, my brain is fried. I cover the microscopes, turn off the lights, and make my way to the metro line 7, then transfer to the 6. I’m in a bit of a daze, but it’s a good kind of exhaustion – similar to how muscles feel after a trip to the gym. It’s an exhaustion that lets me know I deserve to take the night off. And there’s no better place for a night off than Paris. 

 

by Categories: Archaeology, Postdoc Life, Public ScholarshipTags: , , , , , , ,

Leaving

I’m leaving again. My destination this time is Acre, Israel, where I will spend five weeks working as the zooarchaeologist on Penn State’s Tel Akko project.

I’ve learned that eight months is how long it takes me to acclimate to a new place. The first month is for locking down the basics. I figure out where the grocery store is. I get a job if I need one. I find the laundromat. I set up internet. I get a library card. I’m lonely, so I join a club. Or several clubs.

Months two and three are for figuring out logistics and making panicked adjustments. Where’s the doctor’s office? What about the optometrist’s? Can I walk there or should I figure out the bus schedule? I can’t afford half the groceries I’m buying: better figure out what’s actually in my budget.

Months four-through-seven are for fine-tuning. Maybe my job isn’t great. Maybe I’m not as close to some people as I thought I’d be. I find a new job, explore new friendships, try new coffee shops, look for better parks. There are always hiccups and false starts.

By month eight, things have fallen into place. I’ve settled into my job. I know the fastest route from my gym to my workplace. I know the most scenic route, too, for days when I have more time. I have a set of foods that I both enjoy and can afford. I have a favorite restaurant, a coffee shop with that precise, productive blend of ambient noise, a bar with a mean craft cocktail and a good crowd. I’ve made a real friend. If I’m lucky, I’ve made a few.

It takes me eight months to acclimate. That makes month nine the hardest time to leave.

I wasn’t destined to love Corvallis, but I didn’t know that when I decided to move here after Paris. I was excited to spend time with my best friend, and my head was full of visions of Portlandia – I arrived in Corvallis fully prepared to love my left coast, hipster hometown.

I didn’t. Corvallis lacks certain things I’ve discovered are important to my happiness: an art museum, for example. And an airport. Nothing about living in Corvallis has made me feel quite so isolated as being two hours from the nearest real airport. The smallest city is made global by an airport: the entire rest of the world is only as far away as the other side of the security line.

Still, it’s month nine, and I’ve put down enough roots to feel them getting torn up. I have a job I enjoy. I have friends. I have a French conversation group that I meet with when I can and a tenuous-but-growing connection to the university. I’ve started falling into the kind of spontaneous adventures that I love – just last week, a wine tasting with my friend Ana ended with the pair of us serving as social media models for Grochau Cellars.

Month nine is when I start seeing what life would look like if I stayed in a place, and despite being lived in the allergy capital of the US (who knew?), life in Corvallis would have its perks.

But archaeology is an itinerant profession, at least for many of us, and it’s the profession I love despite all the sacrifices it asks for. So I’m leaving again: already missing the friends I’ve made but looking forward to the broad horizon on the other side of security.

by Categories: Postdoc Life, Travel 2 Comments