Did you ever want to be a life-saving firefighter growing up? A skirt-swirling ballerina? An adventurous treasure hunter? For students in the Virginia Archaeology Society, the last dream may actually become a career one day.
"It was a childhood dream to become an archaeologist that I stuck with since I was about 12 years old," third-year College student Hayden Bassett said. "It started out with a passion for history, and archaeology is one of the only ways you can do that for the rest of your life."
The University offers an archaeology interdisciplinary major for students wishing to pursue this path, requiring three core classes and elective exploratory classes for a total of 30 credit hours. Because the field combines the disciplines of history, geography, biology, environmental science, architecture, anthropology and even English - as archeologists do write-ups of their findings - students are given the freedom to pursue a double major or simply take classes in other subjects they are interested in.\nBut in-classroom work can only go so far. The Virginia Archaeology Society, a contracted independent organization, allows for further exploration by providing students with the opportunity to foster relationships with professors outside the classroom, creating a networking system of sorts.
The Nights of Archaeology the society holds once a semester is one way to create this support system, fourth-year College student Katharine Napora said. The Society invites professors to discuss their current research and recent publications, which is followed by a reception during which students - both undergraduate and graduate - may ask questions.
The theme for this semester's event is "Around the World in Archaeology," and professors from the United States, Africa, Middle East and South America will be present for the discussion, fourth-year College student Mahati Gollamudi said.
Another way in which the society strives to connect students and professors is through hosting monthly dinners. The more informal environment allows both parties to discuss research or topics that may not come up in class.
"People interested in archaeology or in the major go to eat on the Corner with professors," Napora said. "By sitting and talking over dinner, you get to know the professors better, and it gives students and faculty another chance to interact."\nApart from establishing relationships on Grounds, the organization also leaves the University behind entirely, focusing on field schools and gaining excavation experiences. Field studies are a significant portion of studying archaeology, given that it is such a hands-on field.
"There is what you learn in class, but there is a distinct and significant amount that you learn in the field," Gollamudi said.
Archaeology students personalize their field studies to suit their own interests. Napora is studying settlement patterns on the western Irish coast; Bassett is studying American historical archaeology in Virginia through the Civil War; and Gollamudi is studying South Asian classic state societies.
"Now archaeology is focusing on the smaller details, not the big ditch finds," Napora said. "I am looking at shells and fish bones [on Achill Island in Ireland] and what kinds of things people were eating, how they were fishing and what kinds of technology they were using."
To diversity their classroom studies even further, the society takes advantage of Virginia's rich history by traveling to sites such as Monticello, Montpelier and Jamestown. Bassett, for example, recently visited Jamestown and applied methods of archaeology to above-ground architecture by using saw marks and nails to date buildings.
In addition to these hands-on methods, the organization also practices experimental archaeology - replicating how research subjects lived.
"We plan on doing flint napping, which is making stone tools like prehistoric peoples might have," Napora said.
Thankfully, today's archaeologists do not have to rely on prehistoric tools when studying a site. For the most part, students use a range of technologies to replicate patterns. Within the last decade, the field has seen an increase in technology use, such as mobile technology and field-specific technological advances, that aid archaeologists in their research.
"Because the iPad has a GPS built into it, you can georeference your historical maps so you can go out into the field and it will show you in your historical map, where you are standing, even if it was drawn 300 years ago," Bassett said.
Technology has become an extremely important facet of the field, as it allows archaeologists to use new tools to look at the past with new perspectives.
"Most people wonder what you can do with an archaeology major," Gollamudi said. "But we get a lot of skills that the average college kid doesn't get. We can map U.Va. using U.S. geological survey mapping [methods] so there is a very physical, outdoorsy component that is really fun and something you might not necessarily pick up in a classroom"
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