Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
5 December 2019
12:00
Interview Assessment #3
My interview with Dr. Eiselt was very educational and eye opening for me, as it was my
first in-person interview. Traveling to SMU is about an hour away, but it is a straight shot from
McKinney, so it is conveniently located if I pursue her for a mentorship. With this interview, I
wanted to learn more in-person more about archaeology and how they physically run things at
the university. I am very thankful that she offered to show me around their archives and explain
all of what they did down there. Currently, their collection from 1950 was shut down but was
reopened. Now they spend a lot of their time sorting through the bagged up items and sorting and
properly storing them. A lot of care goes into their maintaining of the specimens, as I learned
that they have to keep the temperature slightly cool and refill the humidifier every couple of
hours.
During the interview I learned that writing and analytical comprehension are the most
important skills an archaeologist can have. The most challenging part of her career is keeping up
with other research, and a lot of her early career was spent as an apprenticeship with tribal
communities. She now helps advocate for tribal communities, as well as spends the majority of
her research there. She shared a story with me about the time where a lawyer hired her to protect
a tribe’s water rights, which her side won, being able to sue for twenty million dollars in damage
to their clay reserves which they use to make pots to sell for money. Lawyers hire archaeologists
to help them with lawsuits over native american lands and to help protect their rights.
I also learned more about the process of researching a dig site. There are lots of ways to
go about it, but typically you come across a subject organically. First, you research a lot of
background information to figure out a problem you can solve. Next, you ask what people know,
what they don’t know, and what they need to know, and center the problem around that. Then,
you go out and survey/excavate depending on the problem and gathering evidence. Finally, a
typical archaeologist would type up and publish their findings. The process typically takes a
professor three years because they spend a lot of time back and forth from teaching to
researching, but a regular archaeologist would typically spend eight months on a project.