Archaeologists, I love you and I need your help!!

[j-ogenes]

Dear Archaelogists, anthropologists, those who have taken grad-level arch. classes:
I am writing a novel about a Seventh-Day Adventist family. The daughter becomes interested in archaeology and goes to college and then to grad school in it. I myself know nothing about the natural sciences.
I need to know a couple of theoretical terms used in arch. (I've tried and tried online). I have a passage in which the main character bemoans the fact that some of the students like to throw this jargon around pretentiously--the way and English grad student might refer to "post-structuralism" to sound cool.
I would also like to get a word on what might be on an exam given to freshmen taking an archaeo 101 class--the protagonist is a grad-student instructor. That's essentially it. If you want to do this by PM, that would be more than appeciated.
Mods: don't hurt me if this is on the wrong thread. I apologize in advance.

[Amen-Moses]

Dear Archaelogists, anthropologists, those who have taken grad-level arch. classes:
I am writing a novel about a Seventh-Day Adventist family. The daughter becomes interested in archaeology and goes to college and then to grad school in it. I myself know nothing about the natural sciences.
I need to know a couple of theoretical terms used in arch. (I've tried and tried online). I have a passage in which the main character bemoans the fact that some of the students like to throw this jargon around pretentiously--the way and English grad student might refer to "post-structuralism" to sound cool.
I would also like to get a word on what might be on an exam given to freshmen taking an archaeo 101 class--the protagonist is a grad-student instructor. That's essentially it. If you want to do this by PM, that would be more than appeciated.
Mods: don't hurt me if this is on the wrong thread. I apologize in advance.

You couldn't have tried very hard. ;)

Yopu may find these useful:

http://ant.sagepub.com/cgi/content/short/1/1/73

http://groups.msn.com/NewArchaeology

Amen-Moses

[epepke]

I don't know about archaeology so much, but in the first physical anthropology course I ever took, the final went like this: Each desk had a bone on it. For each bone, we had to say what it was, where it came from, about how old it was, and in a few cases what disease its owner had.

I imagine that one could do a similar thing for archaeology with pottery shards, bone combs, ivory fishhooks, arrowheads, stone tools, etc.

[Amen-Moses]

I imagine that one could do a similar thing for archaeology with pottery shards, bone combs, ivory fishhooks, arrowheads, stone tools, etc.

Archaeology appears to be very hands on and at least for the first year seems to involve a shit load of drawing and digging (oh and walking, lots and lots of walking ;)).

Personally I could only get on a Geology course but we tended to mix quite a lot as virtually everywhere we got to dig a hole we would invariable find some Archaeology that needed to be recorded, comes with the territory here in the UK.

Our Geology exams included bags of rock samples and fossil casts so I can easily imagine Archaeology exams including bags of pottery samples and copies of artifacts allied with photographs of in-situ depositional evidence.

Amen-Moses

[BioBeing]

You may want to take a peak at this thread (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=105405), and maybe some of the reading material suggested in it... a book called the Bluffers Guide to Archeology (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1903096367/internetinfidels) is mentioned, which may be just what you need ;)

This delightful book abounds in ironical insights and wry explanations of archaeological mystique and jargon.

[Clivedurdle]

Zadie Smith's White Teeth novel has a character's mum as a seventh day adventist - no - probably JW!

[j-ogenes]

Thanks everyone who has responded so far--I'm sure others will too! Thanks for that Zadie Smith tip. I'll check into it. There's a novel by--I can never think of his name--something Duncan something--called The Brothers K and there's an SDA stepmom in it--but I really feel she's used as nothing but a whipping post.

[j-ogenes]

By the way, a couple of years ago, for this project, I did read The Idiot's Guide to Ancient Civilizations. I found that that gave me information I needed to discuss the main character reading up on evolution, the arch. field, etc. while in junior high and high school, but nothing in it teaches me enough about the field to discuss a grad student--that's a small part of the book, btw.

[Amen-Moses]

.. but nothing in it teaches me enough about the field to discuss a grad student ..

Pretty much the same but with more alcohol and you can't go far wrong. ;)

Also for grad school you need to shorten all the terminology in the dialogue, i.e "Do we have the Dendro-Chronological Dating results back yet professor?" becomes "Ere, we got the dendro back yet or what? (hic) .. Pass us that bottle guv.".

Amen-Moses

[Heurismus]

Pretty much the same but with more alcohol and you can't go far wrong. ;)

Also for grad school you need to shorten all the terminology in the dialogue, i.e "Do we have the Dendro-Chronological Dating results back yet professor?" becomes "Ere, we got the dendro back yet or what? (hic) .. Pass us that bottle guv.".

Amen-Moses

From a professor of mine to one of my friends as he handed back a book review on dendrochronology and the Irish bog Oak record- 'It appears that you got lost in the trees'. Pete, if you read this, I couldn't help it. :)

[msboyd]

Where is your book set? Archaeology is taught in very different ways in the US and UK (I've got a degree in it from each country), so not only is there a lot of different terminology, the theoretical approaches (even in a 101 level course) are very different.

'The Bluffer's Guide to Archaeology' by Paul Bahn is very entertaining and really very accurate indeed -- it's a good place to start.

'A History of Archaeological Thought' by Bruce Trigger covers a lot of theoretical ground, up until the mid-90s. There are many different flavors to explore -- Marxist, feminist, post-structuralist, the Annales school -- they all get thrown in, depending on who your professor is (and how old he/she is).

Probably the most useful words to throw around are 'Processual' and 'Postprocessual (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-processual_archaeology)' archaeology -- it's a very big deal, and everyone in the field (even in very introductory classes) will get hit with it from the get-go.

Essentially, though, archaeology is about drinking. That's where most of the good work gets done -- at the bar.

[Dark Knight Bob]

If you're looking for answers I would suggest the better way to go about it is to use the internet to find some natural history museum and get the email/telephone number of a professor.

Otherwise you're sources aren't really likely to be reliable.

[msboyd]

If you're looking for answers I would suggest the better way to go about it is to use the internet to find some natural history museum and get the email/telephone number of a professor.

Otherwise you're sources aren't really likely to be reliable.

A natural history museum won't be much help for archaeology -- great for paleontology, but we archaeologists get stuck working for contract archaeology firms or for the government, alas. University jobs are few and far between.

[j-ogenes]

Thanks everyone. I had no idea archaeologists were such big boozers. That may be the most useful tip.

[Celsus]

How about "semiotic archaeology"? Most of the postmodern approaches to anthropology or sociology will equally apply to archaeology (though the postmodernists like Lacan and Foucault who did use the term "archaeology" used it as a metaphor).

Joel