Hey folks!

 
Now isn’t that a kick-ass presumptuous subject for an e-mail! ??? (<— Since I am quite NRHP eligible I can use whatever outdated emoji I want ;-) <-- or ascii for that matter!)
 
But like every clickbait worthy POS article online only after you are lured into opening it do you see the full title.
 
"The state of Archaeology, CRM, Architectural History… in the age of Covid, via my incredibly siloed view of the profession(s) through ShovelBums. Plus, the Mark of the Beast bodes a good omen for us!"
 
I put Architectural History in the title only because that always catches peoples eyes and makes them think it must be interesting because none of us really know what they do. I mean we all know the Architectural Historians write prodigiously, they can talk eloquently about a shocking number of subjects beyond their job title, and they always give that *polite* little nod when anyone else tries to identify any type of structure, yet is off by 2-3 years. But they are generally so quiet. They really must be up to something, but I digress. Though do be sure to buy them a drink when prevailing social conditions are suitable. You always want them on your side because they are just so darn useful. 
 
First off, my apologies. I actively thought last year when everything was in the tank that I should be a bit more proactive in engaging the community. Maybe host a periodic virtual Happy Hour just to shoot the shit. But A: My wife moved into my office with me and so the view of skulls and old tomes that look much more scholarly than I am is shit. B: I am just so grossly anti-social and vulgar I would probably offend the other person who showed up. Well, actually, aren't many of us grossly anti-social and vulgar? So it just would have been a bunch of sullen faced old farts in bad lighting with blurry webcams on aging 486 Pentium computers staring at each other grunting periodically, but not that you would know because they would have forgotten to turn on their audio at the right time. 
 
No. Really. No-one needs to see that. As a matter of a fact, I try to avoid drinking on weeknights, but that mental image might convince me otherwise…
 
So back to the point of all this. 
 
Where in the hell are we all right now?
 
I am not sure. 
 
But
 
I do *cautiously* fell optimistic about 2021. 
 
ShovelBums gives me a very very narrow view on the state of things. Why? Because I have always, and I mean always, stated ShovelBums is your tool of last resort. Back in the day (another advantage of being old is being able to say that with some gravitas) when jobs were found by phone calls, a direct result of your own personal network of peers. And as always, companies did - as they should - always give preference to people who had someone to vouch for them personally as their 1st degree of finding qualified people. But as we all know, we have an incredibly small profession, even including the Architectural Historians and the dozen or so qualified geomorphologists. And yet even with people vouching for others some fuckups made it through, hey, we are all human! LOL! So back then, if the personal networks failed to produce enough functional bodies then that is where Fax machines, and literally papers pinned to office bulletin boards came into play. Things are no different today. The fax, phone, and bulletin boards produced the exact same results as modern services do today. 
 
But the field has grown a lot since Jill-Karen, Cory, Pat, Chuck were the ones picking up the phone. It grew a lot because of them and many others utilizing their personal networks. So while our ability to communicate with an ever widening group of professional acquaintances has grown exponentially there is still the reality that we really are a very small niche profession. That is where ShovelBums comes in. It helps connect professionals with jobs and employers with great staff. And if a recipient isn’t the right person for the job, they likely know someone who is. Or to put it another way, staff personal networks are the 1st degree resource. ShovelBums covers degrees 2-6. {Random Factoid about the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. I have a Bacon Number of 4. Me -> I worked with Elizabeth Craig who was taught to ride horses by -> Harrison Ford (tangent, Harrison got the scar on his chin from Elizabeth's horse kicking him, not from a bar fight) -> Ford was in Apocalypse Now with Laurence Fishburne -> Fishburne and Bacon were in Mystic River).
 
While ShovelBums is not the final metric to measure where in the hell we are at any given time. It is, like an out of stratigraphic context potsherd and other midden remnants in a plowed field, an indicator of what might lie beneath. Sometimes, sometimes..., an abundance of detritus on the surface might indicate an information rich feature below. 
 
So from this perspective is the best information I have that I can tell you my thoughts about where we are right now.
 
2020 was shaping up to be one of the best years ever for ShovelBums, the postings in January and February, which are not typically high volume months, were up almost double from what they were in 2019. Now of course there are myriad things that factor into this, and there is no doubt that the ongoing push into Energy was driving a lot of this. So many of these jobs were not for surveying sites like Grasshopper, I can confidently say that. But, there was work, and enough of it employers were using ShovelBums to help them out. 
 
….and then everything went into the shitter. That has been well covered.
 
But surprisingly 2020 wasn’t as stupendously terrible as I was expecting and by fall the postings numbers were actually looking pretty good (Note: In general, don’t look for jobs in December). Now there are a couple of ways to read these numbers though. Were the postings increases simply because it was hard to find staff because those who could stay hunkered down did so? Or was it from increased work opportunities? It is probably somewhere in the middle I would expect. 
 
As for 2021? Well the number of postings has started our strong. Both January and March saw the largest number of postings in several years. And not many of the postings are repostings for the same position (which when that happens is to me is an indicator of the CRM labor force being stretched thin, or maybe nobody wants to work in the northern US or Canada in the winter if they can avoid it).
 
Here is a chart (attached) of the number of postings on ShovelBums over the last few years. It is of course worth noting that all postings carry the same weight. Some posts are for individual full time Principal Investigators, some are cattle calls for dozens of professionals at different levels for numerous projects in multiples areas. And these differences underscore why ShovelBums is not a perfect bellwether for the state of Archaeology, CRM, Architectural History… But it is a metric of some value
 
 
Oh! And about ShovelBums and The Number of the Beast? 
 
The last job post for 2020, was job posting number 
 
#11666
 
How was that for a way to end 2020? LOL! 
 
I can not make this shit up. 
 
In conclusion. I do hope you are all as well as you are able to be during these challenging times. And I do genuinely hope that 2021 provides you the opportunity to find a fantastic job in your career and that companies can find the excellent staff they need to keep on doing their great work!
 
If you are in academia, or know someone teaching an intro class, please be sure to end the semester by suggesting students take the time to join up for ShovelBums so they can painlessly keep abreast of what their career options are in the field, what skills are in demand, and where the work is in high demand.
 
There is info on how to sign up here: http://shovelbums.org/join
 
Best,
 
R. Joe
 
 
 
 
 

 

Folks,

I am very sorry to let you know that the ShovelBums Field School Directory is on an extended temporary hiatus. The tool I was using to post field schools (not jobs, only field schools) is no longer supported and I have not found a suitable replacement. I did hire a contractor to create a product for me, but then they bailed after several months of delays. I will keep you updated on any progress I make.

I am hoping to get the directory back up for 2019. You can browse the last directory here: https://web.archive.org/web/20160612143756/http://shovelbums.net/index.php/view-field-schools

R. Joe

Please check back soon or watch the ShovelBums Mailing list for the announcement.

 

~R. Joe

The Hall Of The Chosen

Have you found a job or field school through ShovelBums? Do you want to have eternal good field and lab karma? Well fret no more my friend! The deal always has been there is never a charge for you to find jobs or field schools on ShovelBums *but* if you have found one (or many) of either and we meet at some point I will never turn down a beer and hearing about your adventures. But the reality is I rarely make it to conferences so you can buy me a beer virtually using this link below. By doing so you too can ensure yourself eternal good karma, always sharp and functioning tools, and so little body order after long sessions in the field and lab that your friends might wonder if the lilacs are in bloom. Experience what your peers below enjoy everyday now!

www.PayPal.me/ShovelBums

Robert B - Morrison, IL 

Kara K - Highland, UT 

Matt S - Kennard, NE 

Yvette O - St, Aiea, HI 

Alexander A - Havertown, PA 

Donald W - Deerfield Beach, FL 

Stephen D - Springfield, MO 

Will B - Chandler, AZ 

Anne H - Grove City, PA 

Russell W - Redmond, WA 

Lesley H - Phoenix, AZ 

Nick R - Phoneix AZ

John K - Elgin, IL 

Kathleen S - New Orleans, LA 

Lisa Kelley - West Des Moines, IA 

Michele W - Ronks, PA 

John B - Lafayette, IN 

Michael P - Los Angeles, CA 

James Moses - Prescott, AZ 

Mandy Ranslow - Windsor Locks, CT

Joanne Minerbi, - Los Angeles, CA

Seabrook Griffin -  Citrus Heights, CA 

Jason F - Vernon Center, NY 

Marsha W - Nashville, TN

Julie S, - Fort St John, British Columbia

Elisa B - Dover, DE 

Charles P - St. Cloud, MN 

David W - Batavia, NY 

Natalie S - Fort Collins, CO

Karen M - Tampa, FL 

Lance M - North Salt Lake, UT

Camille J - Aberdeen, MD

Shawn F - Kailua Kona, HI 

Christopher K - Atlanta, GA 

Tracy E - Anaheim, CA

Heather M - Chapel Hill

Kenneth H - Peotone, IL 

Jay N - Tucson, AZ 

Dana M - Savannah, GA 

Peter K - Dayton, OH 

Ryan G - Logan, UT 

Tim W - Escondido, CA 

Yvette O - HONOLULU, HI 

Richard F - BeaverDam, VA 

Sophia S (and Loonies) - San Antonio, TX

Leslie I - Redlands, CA

 

 

From SMU http://www.smu.edu/News/2015/fred-wendorf-dies-15july2015

If I recall right Fred met Alley Cat (backhoe operator extraordinaire) over in New Mexico on a dig and liked him so much he flew him to Egypt to work on a dig. The man recognized talent for sure!

 

World renowned SMU archaeologist Fred Wendorf has died

July 15, 2015

DALLAS (SMU) – Noted archaeologist Fred Wendorf, credited with contributing more than any other individual to our understanding of early human life in northeast Africa, died in Dallas Wednesday, July 15, following a long illness. He was 90.

Fred Wendorf
Fred Wendorf

Wendorf’s career as a field archaeologist on two continents spanned six decades and left an unsurpassed record of seminal discoveries in both Africa and the American Southwest. Wendorf spent four decades on the faculty of Southern Methodist University, retiring in 2003 as the Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory Emeritus

Wendorf was born on July 31, 1924, in Terrell, Texas, and as a teenager developed a keen interest in archaeology while roaming the fields of Kaufman County in search of Native American artifacts. He began studying anthropology at the University of Arizona in 1942, but suspended his study the following year to report for active duty in World War II. Commissioned as a second lieutenant, he was assigned as a rifle platoon leader with the 86th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division. He was severely wounded while leading his platoon in an assault on the Nazi line in the Apennine Mountains of northern Italy. He was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star medals and spent the next two years recovering in Army hospitals.

Wendorf returned to the University of Arizona to earn his B.A. in anthropology in 1948, followed by a Ph.D. degree from Harvard University in 1953. In the early 1950s, he directed the world’s first pipeline archaeology salvage project during construction of a natural gas pipeline in New Mexico. He also conducted archaeological salvage projects on highways in New Mexico and later contributed wording to federal highway legislation requiring site excavations during construction.

In 1954 Wendorf’s excavation of the so-called “Midland Man” site in the sand hills near Midland, Texas, was his first archaeological milestone, achieved when he was 29 years old. This Late Pleistocene human burial was at the time one of the oldest human remains to be found in the Americas. In the mid 1950s, Wendorf received the first of what would be several dozen National Science Foundation research grants, this initial one for a study of the late glacial archaeology and paleoecology of the High Plains of western Texas and eastern New Mexico. It was an important interdisciplinary scientific project that brought together American and European scientists. 

While working as an archaeologist for the Museum of New Mexico, Wendorf was enlisted in 1956 to locate the long-abandoned pre-Civil War Cantonment Burgwin of the U.S. First Dragoons near Taos. He not only found the buried ruins of the fort, but also supervised its painstaking excavation and reconstruction as an academic campus. He also began excavations at Pot Creek Pueblo, the ancestral home of both Picuris and Taos Pueblos, located near the fort. This activity led to establishment of the Fort Burgwin Research Center, with Wendorf as its director. Also in 1956 he joined the anthropology faculty at Texas Tech University and held the first summer archaeological field school at the fort under the auspices of Texas Tech. In 1958 he returned to Santa Fe as associate director of the Museum of New Mexico.

In 1964 SMU recruited Wendorf to establish its Anthropology Department, now one of the University’s strongest departments, offering degrees from bachelor’s to Ph.D. In addition to his SMU teaching responsibilities, Wendorf continued his activities at the Fort Burgwin Research Center, which merged with SMU in 1968. SMU began acquiring the Fort Burgwin property in 1964 and added facilities to accommodate students for summer classes beginning in 1973. Through the years, SMU has added land and facilities for what has become SMU-in-Taos, today including 423 acres with 33 buildings, nestled in the Carson National Forest of Northern New Mexico. SMU-in-Taos now offers credit courses in the natural and social sciences, humanities, arts and business and an annual archaeology field school. The annual Taos Cultural Institute provides a summer weekend of informal classes for adults taught by SMU faculty members. In 2004 the Fred Wendorf Information Commons, a state-of-the art computer facility and library, was dedicated on the Taos campus in honor of Wendorf.

“Fred Wendorf had a global impact on the field of archaeology and an extraordinary impact on the University where he served for four decades,” said SMU President R. Gerald Turner. “We are indebted to Fred for bringing his expertise to SMU in 1964 to establish the University’s Anthropology Department and for the international significance of his ongoing archaeological research in regions ranging from the American Southwest to northeast Africa. We also are grateful to Fred for his vision and personal involvement in the University’s acquisition of the Fort Burgwin property and the development there of SMU-in-Taos, a unique campus offering students opportunities for study and research enhanced by the region’s distinctive mix of cultures and rich natural resources.”

Beyond his archaeology fieldwork in the American Southwest, Wendorf was involved in the protection of historical shipwrecks. His investigation of a Spanish shipwreck off the coast of Texas ultimately led to the Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987, an important law protecting historical shipwrecks in U.S. waters. Blending public activities with his scientific investigations, Wendorf was a sustained and committed advocate for the preservation of archaeological sites and collections for future generations of scientists and for humanity more generally.

By the time Wendorf joined SMU in 1964, his primary archaeological interest had begun to switch from the American Southwest to northeast Africa. In the early 1960s, archaeological monuments in Lower Nubia were threatened with obliteration from construction of the Aswan High Dam in the Nile River Valley of Egypt. UNESCO launched an international salvage operation in an effort to save the region’s rich archaeological heritage. 

Fred Wendorf at Nabta Playa in Egypt
Fred Wendorf at Nabta Playa in Egypt

In response to the UNESCO appeal, in 1962 Wendorf invited teams of scientists from Great Britain, France, Belgium, Poland and Egypt to participate in the rescue of the Nubian prehistoric monuments that would disappear under the waters of Lake Nasser with the completion of the new dam. This multinational research body became the Combined Prehistoric Expedition, which Wendorf directed until 1999, along with his collaborator Romuald Schild, professor at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology at the Polish Academy of Sciences (whom Wendorf affectionately referred to as his “brother”). The Nubian Campaign made possible the discovery and rescue of hundreds of prehistoric sites along the Nile in the stretch extending on both sides of the river between Tushka in Upper Egypt to the southern end of the Second Cataract in Sudan. The Expedition has continued to carry out researches in Upper and Lower Egypt, the Western Desert of Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and Sinai.

“The Combined Prehistoric Expedition, under Fred Wendorf’s direction, became the most enduring prehistoric expedition in the history of African archaeology, covering in its field work and subsequent publications almost the entire chronological expanse of prehistory from the Early Stone Age to the late predynastic and Bronze Age times,” said Schild. “The work of the Expedition over the past half century has provided comprehension as never before of human settlement, beliefs, social interaction and adaptation to the natural environments along the main Nile Valley, the deserts of eastern Sahara and Sinai, as well as the rift valleys of Ethiopia.”

The Combined Prehistoric Expedition has provided many new insights into early human occupation and behavior along the Nile and in the Desert. Over the years, the Expedition has engaged an international assemblage of archaeologists, geologists, botanists, zoologists and other earth scientists and has resulted in publication of more than 30 books. Wendorf shared his own personal recollections in the book Desert Days: My Life as a Field Archaeologist, published in 2008.

“Fred Wendorf, and his close colleague and collaborator Romuald Schild, stand as giants in their contributions to Northeast African archaeology,” said John Yellen, founder and president of the Paleoanthropology Society and program director for archaeology at the National Science Foundation. “Through his multiple expeditions and fully and carefully presented results, Wendorf has provided a solid foundation from which future generations of archaeologists will work. His contributions and insights also constitute a guiding framework.”  

Wendorf’s fieldwork has resulted in findings that displaced numerous previously held theories. Many Paleolithic sites were discovered and excavated in Nubia, where it was thought no sites existed. Early Saharan pottery was found and dated several thousand years before the oldest pottery in the Nile Valley, previously thought to introduce pottery to the Sahara. Domestic cattle were discovered to be about 2,000 years earlier than the first domestic cattle in Southwest Asia, long thought to be the source of domestic cattle in Africa. Wendorf’s study of unusual megalithic structures at Nabta Playa suggests an emerging social complexity in the Late and Final Neolithic. His excavations at Wadi Kubbaniya clarified the Late Paleolithic cultural sequence in the Nile Valley.

In order to preserve archaeological records for future generations, in 2001 Wendorf donated to the British Museum in London his entire collection of Egyptian and Sudanese artifacts and environmental remains excavated over a period of 40 years. Helping to extend back the story of the beginning of Ancient Egyptian civilization by more than 5,000 years, a selection of these materials is now on permanent display in the newly refurbished gallery of Early Egypt at the British Museum. Amounting to over six million artifacts, the Wendorf Collection is housed in dedicated storage areas within the museum and has been the focus of much study by researchers from all over the world.

Wendorf’s contributions to the understanding of early human life in both the New World and northeastern Africa have been recognized with numerous awards. Foremost among them, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1987. He received a medal in 1974 from the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt. In 1988 he received the Distinguished Service Medal for Conservation Service from the U.S. Department of Interior. In 1996 the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Anthropology presented him with the Lucy Wharton Drexel Medal for Archaeological Achievement, one of the highest honors that can be bestowed upon an anthropologist-archaeologist. In 1997 he received the Egyptian Geological Survey Award for his study of the geology and prehistory of Egypt. SMU conferred an honorary Doctor of Science degree upon Wendorf in 2003, in recognition of his lifetime of scientific achievement in the field of archaeology. In 2012 he was elected as a foreign member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Wendorf is survived by his wife (and co-adventurer) Christy Bednar; sisters Mildred DiMaggio (and her husband Joe) and Mary Ann Stripling (and her husband Ray); daughters Gail Wendorf, Cindy Ruiz (and her husband Albert) and Kelly Wendorf (and her children Dakota and MacKenzie); and sons Carl Wendorf (and his wife Nicole), Michael Wendorf (and his wife Anna and their children Sarah and Laura) and Scott Wendorf (and his wife Andrea and their children Frances, Henry, and Miller).  He is also survived by stepdaughters Kathy Gallagher (and her husband Dan and their children Kai and Torrey) and Heather Nelson (and her husband Andrew and their children Juliet and Santiago), stepson Sean Gallagher (and his wife Susan and their children Molly and Ryan) and numerous other in-laws, nieces, nephews and friends.

The family suggests that those wishing to make donations in Wendorf’s memory may make them to SMU, designated to the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man (ISEM) or the Friends of SMU-in-Taos Fund (P.O. Box 750402, Dallas, TX 75275-0402).  Memorial service plans will be announced at a later date.

I was recently a guest on the Archaeology Podcast Network for a special episode they did on Field Schools in late March and completely forgot to plug it! It is a great episode, #56.1, and you can listen to it here: 

http://shovelbums.net/l/fspodcast

The entire hour long podcast is excellent (as are all that the APN produces), but if you are in a hurry right now there are some nice highlights at:

56:35 - Find the best field school you can

58:30 - Don’t sleep with you professors (and vice-versa)

1:00:20 - Don’t get crazy with your drinking and do NOT car surf. You do NOT want to wake up in a 3rd world hospital (from personal experience).

1:02:10 - Do NOT be a dick. The connections you make and people you meet in field school are still going to be there 40 years from now if you stay in the career.

Also be sure to listen to the much shorter episode 56.1.1. (on the same page as episode 56.1). It is about 7 minutes of outtakes from episode 56.1 that Chris needed to cut to make it a reasonable length. But it has some great bits in, including me discussing Jennifer Palmer of www.archaeologyfieldwork.com superwoman powers.

Folks, 

Final grades are being tallied. This is your last chance to get OUT of a job this summer and instead sell your family on the fact you are expanding your education! 

Seriously. If you can make it work. Go to a field school. It will change your life.

As an added bonus I was recently a guest on the Archaeology Podcast Network for a special they did on Field Schools in late March and completely forgot to plug it! It is a great episode, #56.1, and you can listen to it here: 

http://shovelbums.net/l/fspodcast

The entire podcast is excellent (as are all that the APN produces), but if you are in a hurry right now there are some nice highlights at:

56:35 - Find the best field school you can

58:30 - Don’t sleep with you professors (and vice-versa)

1:00:20 - Don’t get crazy with your drinking and do NOT car surf. You do NOT want to wake up in a 3rd world hospital (from personal experience).

1:02:10 - Do NOT be a dick. The connections you make and people you meet in field school are still going to be there 40 years from now if you stay in the career.

Also be sure to listen to the much shorter episode 56.1.1. (on the same page as episode 56.1). It is about 7 minutes of outtakes from episode 56.1 that Chris needed to cut to make it a reasonable length. But it has some great bits in, including me discussing Jennifer Palmers superwoman powers.

And if you have a field school that is still short on students and is listed in the ShovelBums directory then drop me a note today so I can call attention to it in the final spring issue of the field school edition that will be going out Wednesday.

You can browse the field schools here http://www.ShovelBums.org

Best,

ShovelBums R. Joe

ShovelBums 16th Anniversary

 

ShovelBums just turned 16 Years this week.

16 Years?

 

  • 16 Years?!?!
  • ~6,000 days. 
  • Nearly 17,000 active members.  
  • ~32,000+ positions filled.
  • WTF? Seriously?
  • Tens of thousands of sites located, documented, tested, excavated.
  • So many sites lost to history.
  • Millions of artifacts and features cataloged. 
  • Ungodly numbers of GPS points logged.
  • Kilometers of maps made.
  • Many more Kilometers of TP dropped in the blue lagoons and back filled STP's.
  • A whole hell of a lot of liquor and ice tea (that for you Galen B) consumed.
  • Drones rise in harmony with my beloved Kite Aerial Photography.
  • Kindergartners born then are graduating college and starting their career.
  • Great friends lost to time, space, and becoming what we study.
  • New friends found.
  • First trowels broken or lost after a lifetime of love and respect.
  • First trowels sharpened at field school.
  • Great people leave the profession.
  • New people join the profession.
  • Degrees earned.
  • Tenure for a few.
  • Companies grow
  • Everyone laughing or groaning when someone says "That belongs in a museum!".
  • Sunsets tonight on sites worldwide with people who have used ShovelBums

 

Damn

Damn damn damn.

That is pretty cool.

And here I am, R. Joe, riding on your coattails. 

Because none of this.

I mean NONE of this.

Would happen if it was not for you.

Thank you. Seriously.

You people fucking rock.

 

As always. My sincere thanks to James Colburn who has helped moderate these postings all these years to make sure you only see relevant postings. And to my friends the original Pocket_Gophers at the University of Arkansas who were the first to hear of my crazy idea for an archaeology jobs mailing list, the first to join, and the first to send out the word about ShovelBums to their as yet unnamed "social media" contacts. To my mom, who arguably, coined the term ShovelBums, in a humorous response of what to call my career when I was still on the road. And to my wife Kristy, who supports everything I do with ShovelBums and helped finance it in the early years.

 

If you have ever found a job or field school through ShovelBums and feel like buying me a beer (that was always the deal) you can use the link at http://www.ShovelBums.org

 

Thank you all again. I know it sounds kind of corny. But I mean it. The recognition I get when other arch's meet me when I rarely get to a conference and the positive things they say about ShovelBums makes me aware it has had an impact far beyond any I ever dared imagine. Last year two people completely unconnected to each other within about 20 minutes of each other both called me a folk-hero. I am not sure if that is a step down or up from being called famous (and one time even a god, a title I hang on to simply to annoy close peers who say my head is to big ;-) but since the titles are all unpaid, I'll take what I get and not complain.

I look forward to another year of facilitating your search for crews and jobs. And as always, if you have any suggestions, please do not hesitate to drop me a note.

 

Best,

 

R. Joe

I am putting out the next edition of the ShovelBums Field School Directory tomorrow (Wed, April 15, 2015). If you have already submitted your field school to ShovelBums (or are going to by tonight) and are short on reaching the target number of students you need, or you just want to wave your project flag, and would like your school featured in this edition of the ShovelBums field school newsletter, drop me a note with:

  • The title of your field school
  • How many positions you have left
  • Deadline for application 
  • Any scholarship or tuition subsidies your program offers
  • An introductory gee-whiz paragraph to get the students attention (see example below)
  • Up to two pages of more in-depth text that extolls the virtues of why your program rocks
  • ~1-5 photos

Please send the information in just plain text. I will format it to fit my content. You can contact me using the site contact form here or by emailing me a rjoe @ this sites domain. 

Example introductory paragraph

13th annual Plaquemines Parish Raw Sewage Garbology Field School

Building on Rathje’s monumental work summarized in Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage;  French archaeologist Dr. Ivanna Crepe a’Lotte has opened the backdoor into the heretofore unexplored nether regions of comparative archaeology between self reported consumables and what is actually delivered in the form of raw sewage.  Students will be provided their own lightly used hazmat suits, donated by Ivanna’s colleagues at the University of Fukushima.  Students will have the opportunity to inspect samples and understand the processual aspect of pre-midden formation. Students will also learn how to determine caloric value per-liter of slurry midden fill.  After wet screening all samples students will be taught the fine art of how to distinguish bone from rock, which can seem very similar to the untrained eye! Tent camping on the grounds will be provided for all students. The study area is an easy walk from the base camp and all meals will be served at camp, except lunch, which we will enjoy in the processing room which has a lovely view of project inlet pond with a friendly hairless deer population and a unique population of two headed frogs.  On the last two days of the field school students will enjoy the annual rite of sampling the previous years students samples collected and stored in the affectionately named “Blue Lagoon”.  Students will use their summarized knowledge from the season doing a comparative analysis on self-reported consumables. And one lucky student will find the special “soiled trowel” that is traditionally left in the sample by the preceding years class and be allowed to inscribe their name on it and have their picture taken with it before passing it onto the next years sample after the final nights locally caught Crawfish and Nutria bake-n-boil bonfire feast.

 

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