One of the biggest takeaways I have from this trip was said by Chef, who said that one of the hardest things an
academic can do is say that they don’t know something. While I’m not yet an academic, I found this idea freeing
and applicable to so many facets of archaeology. I think that as students we feel a lot of pressure to always be
right when they’re collaborating with peers, or presenting their ideas to a Professor, but on this dig it was
relieving to know that being wrong is unavoidable in archaeology, and can at times be helpful too. I think being
wrong in archaeology is important because it can show how creative and open your perspective is to unfamiliar
spaces. My favorite part about working in Unit 3 was the lore and storytelling we would get into everyday, and I
think it helped our group in the long term, because it kept us open to new ideas about the space we were
working in.
My favorite memories from this trip are definitely having lunch with everyone after a long day of digging. There
was a communal feeling of accomplishment among everyone and it was infectious at lunch time, I always
laughed the hardest at lunch.
This trip really helped me to expand my thinking of what I want to study and research when I’m older. Going
into this trip I already knew how much I loved philosophy so as I was on the dig site I realized how I wanted to
interact with the findings from the perspective of a philosopher. I enjoyed learning from the perspectives of
experts in ancient history and have realized the importance of studying different epochs from different academic
perspectives and disciplines.
To all future interns on this dig the only advice I can give you is that taking and dumping a wheelbarrow is the
best thing you can do to boost morale.