Where in the World are the Archaeology Students?
by Ariel Gilmore
From discovering sacred pre-classical sites of the Mediterranean, to sifting through the ancient trash pits of the Maya people, and journeying across the Caribbean sea to uncover tales of swashbuckling buccaneers and a great “period of abandonment”, three USC archaeology students embarked on a journey of a lifetime through various field school opportunities across the globe. This summer’s journeys of Rylan, Maria, and Ariel show how life in archaeology can be even more exciting than the movies!
Rising USC senior Rylan Giorgetta’s College Year in Athens field school took him to uninhabited Greek islands!
“This summer, I spent a month excavating on deserted Greek Cycladic islands. Each morning we followed in the footsteps of USC students from 20 years ago and excavated a pre-Classical sanctuary dedicated to Apollo and Artemis on Antiparos at the site known as Despotiko. I quickly became an expert user of shovels, pickaxes, and drawing triangles. Thousands of pottery sherds litter the ground, attesting to centuries of pilgrim visits and offerings at this sacred site.
For two weeks, I excavated a building complex on Tsimintiri, a tiny island between Antiparos and Despotiko. It bears this name, meaning “cemetery” in English, because of graves found on the island. As the first group to excavate the site properly, we discovered its layout, the parts of the complex, and by using multiple complete pieces of pottery dating from the Archaic period back to the Early Bronze Age, we gave shape to its history and age.
The most exciting find of the season…well, honestly, I can’t tell you yet, but soon this will be published.
I spent the last week on Paros, working in the archaeological museum. Each day, I handled fragments of ancient tableware, washing pottery sherds with toothbrushes, identifying them, and cataloging them for records. I also learned to draw some of the special finds. These are skills I can contribute to my next field experience. Also, I expanded my ability to keep careful records, draw real objects, and work hard in close quarters with a diverse group of people I’ve never met before.
It was exciting to live and work in the very place where these people lived and worshiped their gods, in a modern culture still shaped by the classical past, isolated on a small island, and surrounded by such a beautiful marine environment. All these experiences have enhanced my studies as a whole. This excavation was physically demanding and tremendously rewarding. The theories and methods that I studied in USC classes gained real meaning. I now feel confident in saying “I am an archaeologist!”.
– Rylan Giorgetta
If studying the classics in the Mediterranean isn’t your thing, rising Junior Maria Carolina Zensen Simoes, recounts her experience of studying Maya people in the English-speaking Mesoamerican country, Belize, during the USC “Problems without Passports” course led by Dr. Eric Heller at the site of La Milpa North, in Northwestern Belize.
“The first lesson I learned at the Archaeology Field School of Blue Creek is that the trash of Maya people is our treasure. Seven lucky USC students worked under the guidance of USC professor Eric Heller, on a dig in a post-Classic Maya site in Blue Creek, Belize. I arrived with Indiana Jones in the back of my mind, and this experience delivered!
We hack our way with machetes into the jungle. Every day, I find 1000-year-old artifacts that help us piece together ancient Maya life, politics, and beliefs. Daily life in the camp is just as interesting. We get to hang out with graduate students and researchers in archaeology and anthropology from the University of Texas and Santa Monica. We are served homemade local dishes and, between work sessions, we chill in comfortable hammocks.
But don’t be deceived! Life in the jungle has surprises, including wolf spiders and howler monkeys that swing from high branches into camp, screeching like sirens. With all that I’ve learned and knowing that my work contributes to new knowledge, this field school in Belize has been a treasure…with a little bit of trash.”
– Maria Carolina Zensen Simoes.
Finally, Rising Junior Ariel Gilmore recounts her experience on a Caribbean island during the Colombia: Providence Island field school which is supported through the Institute of Field Research.
“This summer, I got to travel to Providencia, Colombia with USC professor Tracie Mayfield. The work of my team is a project of discovery and justice. Archaeology recovers the lost, tangible remains of a continuous history of island life for the native Raizal people who live there today. This field school gives this Indigenous group information about their past. Islanders here speak English–brought by Puritans and pirates starting 400 years ago–and also Spanish, the language of the conquistadors and the present-day Republic of Colombia, which claims the island.
I worked shoulder to shoulder with island residents, faculty from US universities, and students from six different states. My favorite days were spent discovering material traces of enslaved people who had fled to freedom on the island – they lived in hidden maroon camps – and sites that still produce traces – but not treasure – from the days when pirates were privateering on this remote island.
I was living out an archaeological dream!
Equally exciting was the time spent interviewing and getting to know members of the local community whose culture we encountered in the local Creole language, foods, traditions, names, and hopes for the future. My typical fieldwork day started with a home-cooked breakfast made by Enilda, the owner of the posada–or inn– that we called home. We rode to field sites in open-air vehicles called “mules” on this island, which means souped-up golf carts with off-road tires. Daily, I gazed out over the seven brilliant hues of Caribbean blue and green on my way to work, truly a view you can’t get anywhere else. After about five hours of work, our second home-cooked meal of the day was followed by a lab session that expanded my archaeology skills exponentially. I can identify ancient pottery and china, glass bottles for medicine and liquor, and I’m a capable artifact photographer ready to contribute to other research projects. Each precious find tells part of a story of life on this Caribbean island, then and now, because the past is making possibilities for people today, in the present.
Another connection to the local community members occurred after lab work when we got to hear talks and stories of islanders’ childhoods, traditional ecological knowledge, and indigenous science, which they call “Bush Medicine”. Providencia Island is the only place you can learn about this! Free time allowed me opportunities to sample street food with people I met or to catch a live music performance on the beach.
Every part of the research in this field school emphasized community engagement, including our archaeological work. This enriched my overall experience because I came to understand that artifacts connect in visceral, tangible ways to people and their lived experiences, then and now. Archaeology came alive to me as an interdisciplinary field that enhances people’s sense of belonging and identity, so things are never just things, rather they are pieces of the community that still lives on this island, a living thriving and real connection to the global flows of dreams achieved and dashed, of enslavement, of nations that powered their way through communities and cultures to create trade which made and lost fortunes, which transformed governance, and left us the world we live in today.”
– Ariel Gilmore
If you want to hear more about these experiences of a lifetime, come to an archaeology event, such as What I Did Last Summer, on September 5th
For more information on travel for research and field school courses, please contact the USC archaeology program at archaeology@usc.edu