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Matthew Gagarin

Dr. Sunday Eiselt

SMU Associate Professor, Chair of Archaeology and Research Collection

Southern Methodist University

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.

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