Archaeology as a practice is a great character building experience. While I excavated at Antiochia ad Cragum, I have been a part of a long hunt for knowledge. This hunt included me digging for about six hours a day, five days a week, not including transportation, meetings with coworkers, and breaks. In addition, I spent two hours cleaning and drawing (a more technical process than it sounds) pottery a day, five days a week. This taught me dedication, and strengthened my work ethic a good deal. My experience in southern Turkey has made me more tolerant of working in the heat and sun, something not to be taken for granted in Minnesota.
I have performed a wide range of tasks while taking part in archaeology, improving my skill set in ways that are not constrained only within the realm of archaeology. For one, I have an enhanced attention to detail. Sifting through so much dirt, I can spot shards of pottery, pieces of bones, and tiny bits of glass. The fragments from ages ago are then carefully placed into small bags which are washed and drawn. Drawing in particular requires a steady hand, and doing it efficiently calls for fast judgement calls drawing from experience about the various shapes and patterns of other shards I’ve seen.
Every discovery at my section makes its way into my site notebook. Every night I sit down with my coworkers and make a report documenting all of our findings. This is a form of data analysis, the numbers of pottery and glass shards, bones, and rocks of various types and sizes in different places, allow us to make theories about our excavation sight. Out of all these findings must come a narrative, which requires good inter-group communication. We encourage each other to elaborate, and challenge each other with possible holes in each others’ theories.
