I wanna go dig shovel tests on Mars or something.  Can I do that?  Can we make that a thing you can get a job doing?  Because that would solve all my problems forever, I think.

1. Operation: Clean Up Horse Poop went pretty well.  Took ALL FRIGGIN' DAY, though, which I hadn't really expected, because we took long breaks.  It was fun; I'm not really complaining, it's just that the lady smokes like a chimney, so it was a bit uncomfortable being in the house with her for lengthy periods with the air suffused with acrid ( Read more... )

Know what grinds my gears?  The lack of open-source availability of archaeological data.  These days, the bulk of archaeological investigation being done is not through universities, but through private-sector subcontractors working for government agencies and construction companies.  They document and dig up archaeological sites, and the data gets ( Read more... )

10-12 hour days on campus, that's what my life is.

Trying to create a spreadsheet of numbers that I can use to generate a topographic map for my assistantship, which is the first step in creating a wiz-bang site map that will allow for some interpretation as to what the prehistoric peoples were doing there way back when.  This data has been sittin' ( Read more... )

My allergy to archaeology has apparently struck again.  I've got some kind of rash on both my arms.  I noticed an irritated, red patch inside my right elbow this afternoon, and now by day's end, the red patch is accompanied by an array of hives all over the underside of both my forearms.  The hives are subdermal at present, just tiny flesh-colored ( Read more... )

Discovery of the Denisovans

Have you heard about the Denisovans?  They're not Cro-Magnons, and they're not Neanderthals.  They are...The Third Species!  Dun-dun-DUN!

Well, perhaps that's being a bit dramatic.  What's true is that scientists found a pinkie bone and a tooth in a Siberian cave.  They were able to get well-preserved mitochondrial and ( Read more... )

Still flush from the news that modern humans are, in fact, partly descended from Neanderthals (SAME SPECIES, W00T!), I've been revisiting some of my favorite topics in paleoarchaeology (ostensibly because I still have that epic Master story to write where the Doctor's nemesis gets stranded in the Paleolithic whilst trying to fix his broke-ass ( Read more... )

I applied for an archeology job at Monticello today.  Monticello, as in Thomas Jefferson's mansion in Virginia.  It's only a temporary position, another phase I survey, but it would be beyond awesome to actually do work someplace with a known potential for Grand Historical Discoveries.  Given the state of the economy right now, I'm sure the ad is ( Read more... )

　I realize I've been liberally peppering my lj with posts about my various archaeology jobs. What can I say? They've been kind of consuming my life lately, what with all the state-hopping, people-meeting and hotel-living. It's a rather itinerant lifestyle to have, and it's played havoc with my free time and hobbies. So since it's kind of the ( Read more... )

So here I was, just back from a whirlwind trip to VA to visit some new friends, chillaxing with some Doctor Who DVDs and still feeling rather woolly-headed from the 9 hours of sleep I've had in the past two days (Virginia was fun), when my phone rings.  It's an unfamiliar number with an unfamiliar area code, so I hesitate, wondering first if it's a ( Read more... )