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Archaeology on LJ
Finally! I found the LJ archaeologists! :)
Before this gets lost in my squee:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
shovelbums is all about making connections for archaeology work. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
moonshayde? ciaracat? Bueller? ;-) I think there are a couple of people on my f-list to whom this might appeal. Actually, it appeals to ME but I've dropped out of the life of shovelbum and become a far more boring person.
For those who would rather wear their archaeological pride, I foundarch_icons. I will shortly be dithering over which icons to replace. Damn it, LJ, would it be so awful to sell me another 100 icon spots? I'd pay for the pleasure.
ETA: Heh - and if the first picture here on this post doesn't disabuse folks of the notion that archaeology is a glamorous and exciting profession, I don't know what will! Actually, archaeolgy is an exciting profession but there's a lot of muck involved and comfort isn't a priority.
Before this gets lost in my squee:
shovelbums is all about making connections for archaeology work. moonshayde? ciaracat? Bueller? ;-) I think there are a couple of people on my f-list to whom this might appeal. Actually, it appeals to ME but I've dropped out of the life of shovelbum and become a far more boring person.For those who would rather wear their archaeological pride, I found
arch_icons. I will shortly be dithering over which icons to replace. Damn it, LJ, would it be so awful to sell me another 100 icon spots? I'd pay for the pleasure.ETA: Heh - and if the first picture here on this post doesn't disabuse folks of the notion that archaeology is a glamorous and exciting profession, I don't know what will! Actually, archaeolgy is an exciting profession but there's a lot of muck involved and comfort isn't a priority.
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Associate Curator at the Met, you say? Have I mentioned that the Met is my favorite museum to visit? Have I mentioned that I'm planning to install myself there next week when I get to NYC? (Well, AFTER I go to the Brooklyn Museum.) Turkey sounds like a wonderful place to be. I'll probably know nothing about it, but what are his main interests? As a kid, I was a total ancient history geek. My first crush? Apollo. Not the Battlestar Galactica Apollo; the Greek god Apollo. I read Homer for fun. Hell, I practically memorized every book I had on Greek mythology. Edith K. Hamilton and I were like this *does cross-y thing with fingers*.
When I was in school, I was most fascinated by boundaries and how humans adapt to change. In the New World, the end of pleistocene fascinated me. In the larger world, what first drew me into the field was paleoanthropology and primatology. I really wanted to look into the emergence of neadnderthals as well as the places in which neandthals and anatomically modern humans occupied overlapping territories. Also? The Rift Valley and the Afar Region. All wonderfully exciting times/places rife with change -- and the evidence preserved to study.
I never did make it to Africa. I had an offer to work on a dig in Mali but it was the standard offer -- we'll get you here, provide you with a place to pitch your tent, feed you...but we don't have money to pay you. I got the same offer to work on a dig in Mexico where I would have at least gotten to work with human remains. Honestly, I burned out as a student and after seeing how the university I attended treated its anthro grad students, I couldn't muster the enthusiasm for another god knows how many years of penury known as grad school. So, I worked in cultural resources management as a "Trowel for Hire" for a while.
Where I *did* work was mostly in southeast Wyoming (12,000 y.a. to historical), west Texas (prehistoric), and east Texas (some prehistoric but mostly historical) and a tiny bit of Gulf Coast work (shell middens, historical piers). That link I added to my post? The pics of people digging in flooded units and trying to figure out how to water screen clay? The joy of profiling only to realize that your dig was mostly pointless because a huge channel used to run through the site where you've placed the units? OMG - that WAS my life here in SE Texas. Finding broken ceramics and glass is so much more fun when they're invisible bits in the middle of clay clods. Heh.
Here I will shut up. I can go on and on and on about the love/hate relationship I developed with cultural resources management. If anyone really wants to know, I'm more than happy to babble but I doubt most people really, honestly care. :)
Note: tongue is in the cheek
Well, insomuch as I have a passing connection to archaeology, I like Stargate, I adored Classical Studies and analysed both the Odyssey and the Iliad at school (and got an A *glees*), would be an anthropologist if I get another life after this one (currently too busy being an almost-Marine Biologist and Zoologist) ...
*stops to breathe*
...I adore primates (is that a valid link? ooh ooh yeah and see my profile for directions to pictures of mountain gorillas in the wild, baby!), am currently working on a taxonomy poster about enlarging the genus Homo to include Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus (not my idea, mind!), I've been to Ethiopia and travelled the whole length of the Rift Valley - would have gone out into Afar and the Danakil area had it not been for security and time issues, also nearly visited the Leakey love-nest at Olduvai Gorge (but didn't dammit) on the way through...
*takes another gulp of air*
Aaaand, I think that’s about it…
Hell, if you want tenuous, I even grubbed around a shell midden as a child on a trip to Florida (are you allowed to do that?)
As for the uncle - if you are interested his name is Chris(topher) Lightfoot...
All I know is he goes on Turkish digs and marries Turkish women (#2 just left him - oops - and #1 has a daughter - my estranged cousin Sara who has English features but speaks Turkish and confuses people), and comes over for Christmas once in a blue moon. Oh, and he and my mother fight like two cats in a bag.
Unfortunately, due to above reasons, I don't really know him well enough to utilise his interesting career. *woes*
Hmm,,,this has got me thinking tho, maybe him and I would get on famously since we both dislike our common denominator: my mother. Wow, don’t think I’ve ever called her that before…
Argh, I wrote a life story. Dear God I’m sorry...
*runs and hides, but presses ‘post’ anyway cos it took too long to write to delete now, dammit!*
-- psst! You must must must go to Africa! ---
Re: Note: tongue is in the cheek
This advice obviously didn't work all that well because the next time I decided maybe biochemistry wasn't my future, I chose archaeology. :|
am currently working on a taxonomy poster about enlarging the genus Homo to include Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus (not my idea, mind!)
You probably know more on the subject than I do but I spent many years looking at faunal remains and studying bones. From my admittedly limited knowledge of various species's morphology, it makes perfect sense to move both chimp species into the Homo genus. Gotta say, I think gorillas belong there, too. The DNA seems to indicate a close relationship, as well. You have my vote! ;-) Well, unless there's a movement to make us Pan sapiens (which genus has primacy?). I would find it highly amusing to join the satyrs ;-) but it really would screw up my user name here.
I even grubbed around a shell midden as a child on a trip to Florida (are you allowed to do that?)
Sure! It's the theft of cultural resources that makes archaeologists hot under the collar. Just playing around on them, though? No biggie.
Chris(topher) Lightfoot...
You probably get this question all the time but any relation to Gordon Lightfoot?
Argh, I wrote a life story. Dear God I’m sorry...
I'm not! I LIKE comments. I like discussions. I'm all for it. I like having the people on my friends list be exactly that -- friends rather than just user names. :)
-- psst! You must must must go to Africa! ---
True - and I need to do it soon before I get too used to comfort and too set in my ways. I swear I can feel myself fossilizing every year. :|
And now? I'm off to look at pictures of pretty gorillas...
Re: Note: tongue is in the cheek
I LIKE comments. I like discussions.
Comments - yes, who doesn't? - but I'm not convinced you should be putting up with my late-night random waffle (particularly about family: dodgy topic, that). Oops.
Fossilising...but surely that's what all good archaeologists aspire to do. Like: musicians don't die, they just decompose. But different. Not that you are old or anything.
Hope you liked the pictures! I will get round to writing the Rwanda part of my blog one day.
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No, probably a different generation. He is a folk singer of fair prominence. He was better known to my parents' generation but I spent a fair amount of time delving into folk music. :)
Fossilising...but surely that's what all good archaeologists aspire to do
Actually, I aspire to being a freeze-dried Andean mummy. :) I want to leave maximum material to work with and I want a variety of translation dictionaries so I can be my own Rosetta Stone. :) And I want an Acheulean handaxe so that archaeologists can fight for YEARS over the significance and have feuding camps. And lots of people could get their PhDs off the controversy.
Not that you are old or anything.
Ah, I'm getting there. I don't creak yet and my joints all still work but I'm aware of time creep.
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Hee yeah, didn't think of that! I agree gorillas too but the poster had a word/space limit, so I concentrated on . Trying to find a title - first thing to mind was 'Pan or Homo' but needless-to-say that was quickly discounted. Can't have that on the wall in the corridor! ;)
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I don't know -- that would certainly grab attention
TR NY GB!
a complete fruitcakemade of awesome. I guess Vancouver to NY and then on to the UK... it's all in the same direction...Have fun and tell me about it!
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In fact, it would!
I have heard that she is
a complete fruitcakemade of awesomeHee - she is both. I mean that in only a completely positive and loving way, mind you. She is a powerhouse of energy and she seems to hold nothing back. I guarantee that any event at which Teryl appears will be enjoyable. I'm not surprised that she's globe-trotting. I get the impression that she quite enjoys traveling (who wouldn't?) and meeting fans actually energizes her. She's absolutely the best guest I've seen.
I will tell you -- and hope that you'll do the same. :)