This is pretty much how it is when visiting a CRM excavation with a few minor differences.

There are very few professors running the show. Those that are there are more accurately called “lecturers” and are working a CRM job to supplement their meager income. The rest of the Principal Investigators are generally MAs who figured out that they really didn’t want to have to teach anybody anything.

Most of the workers are college students or recent graduates. They speak English, unless it happens to be Klingon day, but what they say will be so focused around in-jokes and pop culture references that you won’t understand them anyway.

Because a lot of visitors can disrupt the work being conducted, many larger excavations will have an open house day when they’ll give tours and have more time to explain what’s going on. I recommend contacting one of the archaeologists in charge before swinging by. They’ll let you know when a good time to visit is or if there happens to be a scheduled open house day.

Also, referring to the layers of soil as “contexts” sort of threw me for a loop. I ended up having a brief discussion about it on Twitter the other day and will write up something about it for this blog, but that’s best saved for another post.

noellejt:

Can’t really explain why I felt compelled to write this tonight, but I did, so there it is…

So, let’s say you’re a history buff.

And that museums are cool, and all, but you’re more of an outdoorsy person. You like to see the splendor and size and the reality of sites and you get shivers thinking about standing on a path where others have stood, thousands of years before you – of touching the same wall, of looking through the same window. You probably like to touch things, if they don’t seem too fragile. (You probably have a thing for buildings and architecture, too, but you always hated math too much to take that path in school.)

And let’s say that it happens to be June or July (or maybe even August – these are, after all, Field Season) and you happen to be somewhere really old and really, really interesting (like, say, a World Heritage Site).

And, away from the crowds, off to a back side, there seem to be a rather lot of people. Who are rather spread out all around the place – or maybe, actually, sort of in the place. And these people seem to be doing some sort of – are they digging? Squatting and staring at the ground? Shaking things? Holding long sticks up against rocks and taking pictures of each other? Maybe counting pebbles?

You’ve found yourself at an active archaeological excavation.

If you behave yourself, express interest, and flatter an expert or two – you might get to see some really cool stuff.

Read the rest at Matador Travel: So you wanna visit a dig: How to drop in on an archaeological excavation…

(It goes on to give just enough information to enable people to gate-crash excavations…)

So, other archaeologists out there - did I nail it or not? What would you add?