Work Text:
Goddess Figurines
(Ian Hodder)
She hitchhiked the last ten miles to Troy. She made fun of tourists.
She spent a week in Ankara, combing through ARIT’s* research library, before heading out for Catal Huyuk. She mentioned how excited she was to another visitor.
“Everyone worships Hodder,” the old guy across the table mumbled, in his British accent. “I studied under Mellaart. Now THAT was a real archaeologist. If he knew what Ian was doing with that site…”
She was disappointed when she got to Catal. She met Hodder. He was nice. But the busload of New Agers looking for Goddess Figurines ruined the moment.
*American Research Institute in Turkey
***
Shovel Bums
(CRM Archaeology)
If you do archaeology north of the border, eight times out of ten you’re called a dig bum. You don’t read about them in your theory classes; they’re the transient laborers. The Field Techs. They’re the Diggers.
Every season, they search for job openings on Shovelbums.org. If they’re lucky, or know someone, they get to work in the Southwest over the winter, then go north for the summer. But that rarely happens; if you land a job out of Tucson or Tempe, you stay.
And there's nothing out there, except some CRM company operating out of their garage.
Move on.
***
Annual Meetings
(Lew Binford)
It was the Friday night at the convention hotel’s bar, at the Society for American Archaeology Annual Meetings.
This year the meetings were being held in New Orleans; as everyone knows, that means there is a high number of paper submissions, but low attendance for the actual papers. Session organizers know that they would be lucky even if the people giving papers showed up. No one expected an audience.
As usual, at meetings, the real discussions went on over alcohol.
“I’ve never met him, but I saw him rip a grad student a new one at the triple-As*.”
*Annual convention of the American Anthropological Association
***
Multi-tools
(Women in Archaeology)
“Women don’t pee in the woods.”
It would have been easy to take the Gerber multi-tool out of her back pocket, slice his heart out, and bury his body in the woods. She had a good, sturdy shovel, and the ability to dig a meter deep hole in less than a half an hour. And the woods where they were surveying was dense enough with brush that she might just get away with it.
Certainly, no one else in the crew – all female – would have cared. In fact, they’d probably help.
Digging very deep holes in forrests was their specialty.
***
Lunch With Indiana Jones
(Harrison Ford)
Our professor used to joke that he knew Indiana Jones, personally.
“Oh yes. We’re really close.”
One day we dropped by at office hours. He hung a sign out on the door.
Office Hours Cancelled.
Having Lunch with Harrison Ford.
I heard a rumor; they really knew one another. They liked the same restaurant.
Years later, I got an invitation to a fundraising reception for the AIA*. Black Tie Event. Harrison Ford was speaking.
Attendance was $500 a plate, but you could sponsor an archaeologist to attend. They’d sit at your table, like centerpieces.
We're all Indiana Jones for hire.
*Archaeological Institute of America
***
The Real Feminist Archaeologist
(My Heroine)
She looked awesome in a black suit, with a blue man-shirt underneath.
She sounded awesome, talking about Queer Theory at the SHAs*, as casually as you’d read the term “tests of significance” in American Antiquity.
None of this “add women and stir” shit that characterized so much of feminst archaeology. Just because you acknowledged that women existed back then – as they do now – didn’t make you a feminist.
Even better – the focus of her paper wasn’t even women. It was gender. And she made it clear that you’d better not make assumptions.
I wanted to run up to kiss her.
*Society for Historical Archaeology's Annual Meetings