When people ask what I do, and I reply “I’m an archaeologist”, the reaction is generally one of surprise and interest, and occasionally one of disbelief. I’m not wearing a hat. There are no boulders chasing after me. And I don’t have leather patches on my jacket. OK, so I’ve got long hair, but we’ll ignore that for now (trust me, there are a lot of stereotypical remarks about an archaeologist’s appearance).
At last year’s Mac Expo in London, I was wearing a name badge which contained the name of my employers (hint: it contains the word “Archaeology”), giving the game away about what I do for a living.
A man came up to me whilst I was browsing a stand, and he asked if he could shake my hand. In apprehensive disbelief, I shook his hand. I think my reaction was simple: “Err, of course. Why?”, whilst looking rather puzzled. He replied that he’s watched archaeology on TV and read books about it for years, and always wanted to meet a real archaeologist. We chatted for a bit, and he was doubly amazed that I was an archaeologist who specialised in compter applications. The concept that archaeologists gathered an awful lot of data just hadn’t occurred, and that we might need computers to quantify, query and interpret, and disseminate that information.
Archaeology is pointless if we don’t publish what we find.
I encountered a lot of people at the Expo who asked me about my profession, and all of them were amazed that archaeology uses a lot of modern technology to help us in just about every stage of our work. The same reactions were found at the PodcastconUK conference in September 2005.
A recent discussion with friends about the awareness of technology use in archaeology reminded me of my meetings at Mac Expo and PodcastconUK, so I thought I’d list some of the things we do in the world of archaeological computing. These are basic introductions, a paragraph or two long, as each topic could be a book in its own right.
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David J. Knight 4:10 pm on 14 March, 2006 Permalink
Yes, it is interesting the various stereotypes about archaeologists. Back in 1982 I certainly had my own idea of what an archaeologist looked like, usually muddy, sun-scorched and knowledgable. Ah, the days before hi-visual clothing, hard-hats and protective footwear! In those days it was shaved head, shorts and very worn Brogues!
It’s completely understandable and good that we all have hi-vi and hard-hats and steel-toed boots now, but I’m convinced that the general public is even less aware of our presence now. In any city you walk by a building site and it takes some awareness to recognize that those people in hard-hats over there are actually dealing with archaeology while those other people over there are actually pouring concrete. I wonder if this development in what we wear has increased our status among city councils but lowered it in the eyes of the general public?
teflonjedi 3:15 am on 16 May, 2006 Permalink
That’s better than the reaction I get, sometimes, when I’m introduced as a physicist…sigh…